The actors can’t remember their linesso, their hands are grippedon The Right Rant Rag Mail, or The Dark Deluded Mirror. or The Troubling Timeswith their lines tucked inside centre pagesso they can read their cover-up script. They walk the boards in every scenewith their characters tabloid-nose downand sell tickets to audiences who are keento see …
Author Archives: aprettykettleofpoetry
Digital Breakdown
Can’t remember which password.Don’t remember what to click.Can’t remember why this doesn’t work when it should.Don’t remember what option to pick. Can’t remember how to read.Don’t remember what to say.Can’t remember that stuff about “hand” and “feed.”Don’t know what else to do but turn it off and prey. Can’t remember what’s beeping in my head.Don’t …
Imaginary World (2024)
Up in the menu is poems written this year. Some have been published in the course of the year, others haven’t, but I have put them into a new collection or, as I like to think of them, a new album. A double album in this case! Nearly all poems have brand new collages to …
Garden Maze
More & more in a muddleSomewhere in the middleYou turn in on yourselfwhere’s there’s no-one else. You don’t know where to look.Autumn leaves left underfoot& a green-finch on the pathyou remember seeing in the past. A snail-shell weighing you down;All your possessions lost & found.Slow-worms & slugs that go on slow.Blackbirds & thrushes lying low. …
Dickensian Kenneth
Dickensian Kenneth as is his ilkIn pyjama regalia picks up the milk.Slippers quick-march hup hup one twoBack at the double to Breakfast HQ. Where in her eggcup marmalade empireTea toasted soldier paraphernalia,Victoriana’s rule of thumb clear;He’s under hers “Yes love, no dear”. ‘X’ marks the spot on his Union Jack botWhere the canvassing Conservative candidate …
A pie eye for a pie eye
Drunk on revengeSee them square up to each other.The same old scraps.The same old bother. They hold their minute of silencewhile bad-mouthing and incapable of keeping silent.One day, both sides might come to their sensesas amateur giant-killing peacemakers beat professional war mongers in a cup tie upset that sends dailies into delirious cup fever excitement. …
giving the ‘v’ sign is half the battle
life is hardlike a wari’m no bardthat’s for sure bombs and bulletstears and tormentblood and blitzis what I meant every dayturning to nightcome what maybefore the fight fearing a lossyou pray for victorybut who gives a tossdown on one knee?
Tricks of the Mind
Plate-spinners spin tales.Jugglers juggle coincidence destinies.Acrobats do tumbles and cartwheelswhile banging against skull cavities. What people said and what they didgets distorted in a hall of mirrorsas escapologist brain cellsvanish and disappear. Trapeze artists in high-low mood swings.Clowns doing slap stick comedy routines.Dwarves playing pranks round and round in ringsas magicians cast spells to magic …
add another death of a loved one to the toll
like a piece of you has gonegone into another life cut short and wrongi’m standing mime-drumming on my balconyand the next day is as tomorrow as far as I can see football is the theme tonighta match between my heart and souleverything I love is out of sightand trying to understand is the goal
Cats’n’Dogs
Teatime rain brewing in teapot clouds,powers-that-be dunk their big biscuits in their big cup.A pretty kettle of fish and bones boiling in up-the-revolution kitchens with rights overlooked and doffed hats centuries kow-towed:something’s getting somewhere like a cat from a kitten or a dog from a pup. Legendary ties get consigned to history,to be dug up …
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 