https://poetryozreview.blogspot.com/2020/12/newspaper-poems.html

The man stood on the podium
Whence all but he had fled
A poet in the room cried out,
‘You’re white! You’re old! Drop dead!’

https://soundcloud.com/poetry-mama-lou-steer/demon-duck-of-doom

Europe’s finest can be found here on the weekends,

Trying hard to be cool and fit into the local scene,

Weekend warriors hoping to make it in the big city,

Luck may find them the partner of their dreams.

After a long hot lazy day spent on the sandy beach,

It’s time to clean up and hit the city at night,

With sand and sea salt still gritting between teeth,

A few long ice cool beers will go down just right.

By nine pm the clubs and pubs are really…

The transparent tube lies on the floor from the oxygen bottle to his nose,

His lungs are in deep decay, asbestos slowly killing them every day,

Years of cutting asbestos sheets sucking down a lung full with every breath,

He spits up pieces of bloodstained lung as a searing pain rips across his chest.

How he used to laugh at the younger guys, when he saw them using a mask,

They called them soft girlie boys, but they are the ones that will laugh the last,

The…

Mr. Rabbit he was out of luck, he tried and tried but could find no work

Feeling sad he starts to weep, he has no money, no place to sleep

Just then the clever fox passed by and said Mr. Rabbit why do you cry?

Come stay with me and pay no rent, for I heard you say, your monies spent

My house is warm and buried from the sun, and far away from the farmer’s gun

There are vegetables for you to eat; as well I know that you do not eat meat

I will give you sweets for…

Let’s go back to the late seventies; I had been contemplating it for quite some time,

In the spring of nineteen seventy eight, change was in the air and it was time for mine,

It was not the ridicule that worried me; it was more the longer lasting effects,

My friends would take the piss anyway but if it all went wrong I was totally bollixed.

One Friday evening after work I called into Anna’s to make an appointment,

Next week at the same time she would make sure that I…

Time itself has come to an end, as she lies all alone in the hospital bed,

How can anyone else begin to understand the numb feeling inside her head?

It feels like her soul has been ripped out and her fragile body thorn apart,

Absolute devastation as an icy grip tightens around her poor broken heart.

Nature has turned its back on her, after it had sent her on her happy way,

With the promise of great expectations for the little miracle they had made,

Why are some…

Blue denim was the order of the day, both to wear or as a new cool deodorant,

We were seventeen and ready for anything, and every new girlfriend was heaven sent,

Wrangler jeans and jackets kept us comfortably in fashion and always ready to go,

Trench coats kept the alcohol hidden, whenever we travelled out of town to a disco.

Pints of beer and the odd half one filled us with confidence and false courage,

As we boxed well above our weight on occasion, we always stood…

A bed came through the front bedroom window on a fine sunny afternoon,

With the promise that she would follow it, if his supper was not ready soon,

Another match made in heaven and all good things comes to he who waits,

She watches him devour his supper and afterwards washes up his plate.

To say they have a few problems would be the understatement of the year,

But home is where the heart is even if it means the odd belt around the ears,

These…

Easy

The carpet pile between her toes is a real turn on, as she walks to the bedroom door,

A damp towel wrapped around her size ten, only seems to excite her even more,

This affair is only about one month old, and the touch of his hand sets her on fire,

It’s not love but God it feels so good, just his look fills her with a burning desire.

Handsome but not drop dead gorgeous, he is packed and stacked in all the right places,

When he runs his hand up…

He lives all alone in a one bed roomed flat, high up, on the housing estate,

With all the lights turned off, he sits naked in his favorite chair and waits,

The factory job he holds down by day, just about drives him around the bend,

“Oh’ but now as the darkness falls down, his misery will soon come to an end.

The powerful telescope is discretely hidden; his little secret cannot be discovered,

Now as the excitement begins to build, he dares…

The Nordic takes off running down the trail, we have got to make it to the Holy well,

Before the swirling fog kills everything, can we make it only time will tell,

He jumps the small river without stopping, then pulls his hood up over his head,

Some tentacles of fog reach the stone arch, as he pushes thru the closer it gets.

Pulling vapours behind him we just make it, once the door shuts the vapours disappear,

Lying there panting and out of breath,…

What in God’s name will the neighbours say the mother said as tears begin to fall?

Her son and his girlfriend sit side by side, only the son speaks she says nothing at all,

Now his father speaks for the first time, his blood is boiling and he begins to shout,

Fuck the neighbours and all belonging to them; it’s not as if they are not going to find out.

Maybe we should put it in the weekly bulletin, so they can all read about it after Mass,

Anyway if…

Are you with me or against me, those were the last words that I heard,

Before the fists and boots start flying, this is definitely no place for cowards,

Thomastown 1977 it all started out fine, as we meet up for drinks in the salmon pool,

She was a stunner and she fancied me, it was the end of my first month in my new school.

I had hitchhiked over earlier that night, meeting up with new friends on my own,

Breaking the ice is the hardest thing to do,…

http://rochfordstreetreview.com/2015/08/25/sara-khamkoed-on-anxiety-and-creativity-at-the-byron-bay-writers-festival-with-mia-freedman-andrew-knight-and-ramona-koval/

Follow me down into the light, I can hear them laughing and being loud,

These are my friends and I love them, we all know each other inside out,

No thoughts of grandeur amongst us, each one has blue denim in their veins,

For five years we even bought our clothes together so we all looked the same.

Our world was all about what comes next, anything to stop from getting board,

Daring each other to do something mad, if you refused you were branded a…

Latest from Rochford Street Review: Collaboration: Ian Gibbins reviews ‘construct a world’ by Francesca Sasnaitis & Alex R Chapman

http://rochfordstreetreview.com/2015/07/13/collaboration-ian-gibbins-reviews-construct-a-world-by-francesca-sasnaitis-alex-r-chapman/

ABUSE

A seven year old watches form the couch,…

He can see him inside his glass of beer,

Jumping summer salts and laughing,

From here on in anything can happen,

The joker has him and nothing can stop him.

Sometimes he can go for weeks on end,

And behave just like everyone else,

Then out of the blue he can appear from nowhere,

And drag him down into the depths.

One drink from the glass with the laughing dancer,

And nothing on earth can stop this…