Welcome to Issue #1 of Picaroon Poetry! This issue comes with a strong CN / TW for: sexual abuse / rape (‘Fallon’; ‘[Jennifer Walks the River]’), alcoholism (‘My Mothe…
Journeying
Journeying.
We talked into the early hours
and as it often does time lapsed
and at times like this and these
with such warriors of the first degree
words, rhymes and craft merge
and in the darkness we looked out
on that familiar ancient town
and knew it’s other name Caer Eden
and I told you of the Gododdin
and of Caertreth and of the fallen.
From a height on the Royal Mile
you told me that you’d watched
my eyes and you’d began to realise
that I didn’t blink and I’ve thought
about that since and found
that I blinked whenever I thought
about it and when I considered you.
We sat in the old café drinking tea
such a sad demise for a braachi
the coffee baristas from Baardi
has gone and what has been left
an exhibit polished and shined
just like your words of Caroline
that sing song way you have
of bending the blue note
the way of poets and players
of the blues and duende too.
I followed Garcia Lorca
in New Jersey and understood
the horror of Rahway
but that was then and this is now.
and I am proud to know you.
. light rain .
some thing is changing here, so slight it can hardly be noticed. yet it has been. a feeling, came with the light rain . the quietness all things are changing, by now we shall …
Source: . light rain .
. light rain .
Reblogged on WordPress.com
Source: . light rain .
#christine (2) by Sonja Benskin Mesher
regarding labelling. we are not what people think of us, it goes deeper than that, we are not the words people say, it goes deeper than that. we are not made by our history, it is something,…
heaven in hope street by reuben woolley
i saw you through machine guns john was beauty in half faces & come to me now.we’ll run in all directions not patrolling a front now.let them explode in peace tell me our secret names in …
PUBLISHED on Ink, Sweat & Tears , The Poetry and Prose Webzine…
D O O R S of P E R C E P T I O N Am pleased to share that…
Source: PUBLISHED on Ink, Sweat & Tears , The Poetry and Prose Webzine…
Judgement by Tom Higgins
They’re privatising virtue, that’s what they’re doing now, they’re putting a price on love and the Hippocratic vow. They have no skills or love, they merely have a hold on p…
Source: Judgement by Tom Higgins
Figuring it out at 6 + 5 (Exploitation by numbers)
When I was 6 there were 10. (Translation when I was 6 years old there were 10 pits in our valley)
Now that I am 6 + 5 there are none. (Translation now that I am 65 there are none)
I say there were 10 but some relics still remained
Let’s say 4 but there may have been more
But now I am 6 + 5 there is none.
When I was 10 + 5 there were 31 (Translation when I was 15 there were 31 men killed in the Cambrian disaster)
a class room emptied and the children
of fathers dead underground gone.
A year later and the children were gone too
and an empty classroom except for 1 or 2.
Then they were gone.
When I was 10 + 6 there were 144 (Translation when I was 16 years old 116 children and 28 adults were killed in Aberfan)
then they were gone.
When I was 10 + 6 I was nearly gone
Almost drowned by my own body.
When I was 10 + 9 I was gone to another place
away from here where I could breathe.
When I was 3 + 2 I returned and there were 2 (Translation only 2 mines in the valley)
But now there are none.
When I was 3 + 5 – 1 came back again (Translation when I was 35 the Tower colliery was re-opened)
But now that 1 has gone too
And now there are none again.
Before I was born 0 there were 75 (Translation there were 75 pits in the Rhondda Valley)
Now there are none 0.
We were brought here because
of what we could take out for them.
And when that was gone we were left.
We took out what was here for others to sell
to build their big houses and then
they were gone and all that is left of them
is their collection of pictures from France
and the sprawl of the tips and heaps of course.
So we were left bye bye pictures
for us to look at and feel better,
feel inspired and aspire to better things.
But for so long we paid to get in and feel
grateful for being helped to feel better. Bye Bye.
Rivers ran black and skies spat black too
Trees died or were cut to prop up the earth.
Exploitation and devastation of an ecosystem.
Exploitation and the human wreckage left.
Thank you for leaving us so much. Bye Bye.
1801 – 542 (Translation population of the Rhondda Valley)
1861 – 3035 (Translation ditto)
1901 – 113735 (Translation ditto)
1911 – 162729 (Translation ditto)
164356 casualty of miners. (Translation this does not include non-mining casualties like infant mortality etc)
I don’t like looking back to 0 zero
I don’t like looking forward to 0 zero
I look at what’s in between
But mostly now when I am 6 + 5
Its what’s left to do that matters to me
And now what’s left? We are left. Right?
Voting for War by Rob Cullen
So they’ve voted for our safety and to go to war and the dead are walking the land once more and the dead are standing again at the door standing there, looking, waiting once more they were the one…
Source: Voting for War by Rob Cullen