The Maritime Museum, Hull By Maolsheachlann O' Ceallaigh

The recorded cry of some dead whale resounds Over and over again. Rusted harpoons Hang from the walls. On winter afternoons Descendants of past sailors make the rounds And mouth the names: Diana, Truelove, Swan. Just syllables now. But children must have thrilled To hear them, once. They gave renown. They killed; But even the echo of their glory's gone. These streets still pay their homage to the sea; Pubs named for admirals, the Harbour Deck Of a supermarket. Flotsam in time's wreck. No-one tells tales of the Swan triumphantly Returned from Arctic ices. Old, revered, The Humber crawls, still dreaming of the days It held the city's anxious, longing gaze; Like a mother no longer needed, no longer feared.

Copyright ©  Maolsheachlann O' Ceallaigh 2006

Poetry - THE PRICE WE PAY By Del Abe Jones.

	...We're going to stay the course, of course!... That's what our Pres has always said We're three years into this crazy War With nearly twenty-four hundred Dead. Seventeen thousand wounded folks At least, that's the official count With estimates of forty-some thousand    Read more...

Poetry - We Are All Cartoons Now By Joe Hakim

Setting up a trap the immaculate disappointment capped off with regret, things we could have changed or done    Read more...

Poetry - Saint Patrick's Day By Del Abe Jones.

	The Patron Saint of Ireland Died in the Fifth Century On the seventeenth of March Is that anniversary. That day is during Lent When the Irish celebrate With dance and drink and feast    Read more...

Poetry - I Remember It Well By Jon Stewart

	I met her in Retro No, it was in Mint I said I was loaded You said you were skint! Ah yeah...I remember it well. Said she was from Bransholme Read more...

Poetry - Politics On The Dance-floor By Patrick Henry
	Cuba's dangerous crocodile-shape looms long and slim As a laid girl, a good cigar, or Castro's red regime. A pianist plays Blues out of his back-street door: An instrument from Chicago that'll send no more; Nor glitzy Cadillac cabs that take you for a ride For five bucks anywhere and girls Read more...

Poetry - A Popular Theme By Jane Foster

	For Michael Cassar 1979 - 2000 A popular theme - the good die young, With lips unparted, praise unsung, The ode, the book, the song, the rhyme, The tale of the young man cut down in his prime, The turn of the screw, the whizz of the wheel, The young man dead on a fiver deal. Read more...

Poetry - Picking Up Sluts In Retro By Joe Hakim

Me and me mates were in Retro last night and we met these tarts and we fucked 'em    Read more...

Poetry - Snowball By Jane Foster

	One winter's night, we found a snowball Nestling in someone's front garden. A foot high it was. We decided To steal it, and began to push. It didn't occur to us that it would gather snow, And grow, and prove insurmountable. Read more...

Poetry - Song of Hopeless Love By Maurice Fairfield
	I've got a girl who's mighty sweet Fellows fall down at her feet Still she treats me like a skunk She only loves me when she's drunk. When I call her on the phone (This girl I'd love to call my own) April August June October Read more...

Poetry - All The King's Men By John Winn

It's up to you the public don't decide I'm ready when you're ready and that's no lie I'm waiting for this fairy tale to break Once upon a time has never been so late It's a story worth 6 pence Not really 8 or 10    Read more...

Poetry - Chasing The Current By Stacie Brady

I'm longing for nothing, nobody, nowhere They're probably waiting but I couldn't care There's nothing exciting to brighten my days I guess I'm just set in my old empty ways I'm hoping for hopes of something to do I'm dreaming of dreams that will never come true I guess I'm just lost in a place that I know Read more...

Poetry - Latenight stanzas of Doggerel By Chu Nin

There where two taxi driver types Sandpaper cheeks they bore Stood akimbo unto a sooty subway staircase There walked past a whore Twas their sister they swore She span in the dark drippingness    Read more...

Poetry - Two Coppers In A Subaru By Joe Hakim

Two coppers in a Subaru looking like Shaggy and Scooby-do in the Mystery-Machine. Winding down the window, one of them asks: 'Where you goin' son,    Read more...

Poetry - Sappho, Sophocles, Virgil By Lucy Arnold
	Sit and wonder Men all concerned Not with practicality but bestiality and the little sighs the little sigh of "I, I don't know"    Read more...

Poetry - Talking In Circles By Joe Hakim

The broken spill that came out of you could be viewed as a substitute for the things that we never ended up    Read more...

Poetry - Ego Inoculation No 1 By Joe Hakim

Strip the year away and throw it on the shit heap of memory, take a step back from the cult of your own personality. Look at you now - see how your ego has grown,    Read more...

Poetry - Them And Us By Del Abe Jones.

	Now they want to Google us Where will all this snooping end? Remember stories of Big Brother? Well, he's lurking 'round the bend. They tap our phones when they want Though they could work within the law    Read more...

Poetry - Rosa Lee Parks By Patrick Henry
	Rosa Lee Parks, calm Rosa Lee, Cotton seamstress of Montgomery, Caught the wrong bus at the right time to be Driven into race history. Mr White Guy craved her bus seat place, But she sat tight on her black ass. Read more...

Poetry - Chavalanche by Lee Cassanell

	R'Kid and me went round for tea At Nannas house She don't get out Except to bet on horses Me Grandad smokes a thousand cigs And sucks the juice from filter tips He's eighty nine    Read more...

Poetry - Someone Else's Songs By Michelle Dee
	The kids are all popping pills, turning mountains in to mole hills. For a while they smile, high on a trip through the night keep going until light. Sucking up coke with a blood stained note. So... Read more...

Poetry - Hulling It By Nicholas Long

	I love Hull, one letter from Hell. Hell-hole Hull, the bottom of the boat, arse- end of England. When you visit, you scrape the bottom. I love saying the word Hull. Out loud. It has as much resonance as a tin bath. Not barth, the southern way. It makes me smile to say its name. Read more...

Poetry - Just One More Coalminers Daughter By Del Abe Jones.

	Another Coalminer's Daughter (and Son) Has Heart and Soul beneath the Ground With Tears and Hopes and Prayers That their lost Daddies will be Found. Hoping for some great Miracle Not only Found, but Safe and Well    Read more...