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They deemed us empty vessels to be filled with formulas to memorise and dates. We kids thought school was just time to be killed until we’d spill out through the ornate gates. A motley bunch, those schoolmasters of old: the idols, the degenerates, the mad: we learned that we must do as we were told or get struck by a well-aimed blackboard-pad. Four years at prep, then four years in long pants,…

The Earth’s a pot of water on the range, and nothing happens for a billion years; then as the water heats, things start to change and movement – formless, unaware – appears. Next the first tiny bubbles start to form, brains self-assembling, they form, collapse, form and collapse in water barely warm, minds that start yearning for some Great Perhaps. They grow, they start to rise, still fade away…

Dzit count as a productive day if all I wrotes a sonnet? Whyz anyone complaining ‘Hey, youshd put more polish on it!’ So frinstance it may be you’ve heard that I’m known as a cheater for shortning the occazhnal word for thstrengthning of the metre. ***** First published in Allegro. “seated man sharpening quill pen” is marked with CC0 1.0.

‘Musk is known by its smell, not the shopkeeper’s words’ ‘As smooth as a sheet and as sweet as a sweet; nutritious, delicious, delightful and sprightful and dreamy as silk; as fat as a sausage in sassafras, creamy as milk; a Quazi of Fishes, a Mogul of Dishes; capricious, lubricious, the Sultan of Mambo, the Queen of the Deep; scrumptious with camel’s milk, aubergines, pickles and beans; with…

I. In centuries past, women seldom moved fast, preferring to spend hours on end staring at pools, stretching on stools, or sitting on swings. Now and then, they had flings and were equally stirred by a man or large bird. If they did need to race – to hunt deer or outpace vicious hordes – they took care that their clothing and hair would cover, at best, one perky breast. II. For generations,…

Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is crafted entirely from the syllable “shi,” distinguished only by tonal variation, yet it still conveys a complete and coherent story in Chinese. The poem was originally written by Hu Mingfu (胡明复) and published by linguist Yuen Ren Chao in Volume 11 of The Chinese Students’s Monthly in 1916.[2][3] It was then refined by Yuen Ren Chao in the 1930s for…

When hitchhiking, inevitably taskedwith answers to ‘Where from?’ and ‘Origin?’I lie to simplify the tales I’d spin if my odd background really were unmasked. (The childhood travels, seas in which I’ve basked; prep school: Jamaica. Teen years schooling in a former English palace, slept where Queen Victoria stayed…) because then I’d be asked: ‘Why hitchhike? Spoiled kid! Don’t lie! Get…

The lies I tell you, little ones, I hope may be be forgiven: Of course there is a Santa, hon, Yes, Tiger’s up in heaven. When lies forsake you, as they must, And leave you lost, alone, Will you forgive the broken trust? Perhaps when you are grown, And try to shield your children from The darkness and the cold, You’ll find that you are telling them The lies your mother told. ***** Marion Shore…

One limped a little, and another had a stammer, one was cross-eyed, swarthy, and employed atrocious grammar; so we beat them with a pipe, and then a club, and then a plier, bending them like pretzels after binding them with wire, sending trite condolences with tappings of a hammer. One was far too clever, another drolly thick, one was hyper, one disfigured by a nervous tic; so we beat them with a…

Seurat completely placed his trust in pointillism, never fussed with other styles, for they’d have just been pointless. ***** For me this falls right on the border of the category I call ‘Unforgettable Nonsense’ verse – typically short, with puns or other jokes… But this isn’t strictly speaking nonsense… Yet the use of rhyme and rhythm with the wordplay makes it super easy to memorise, which is…

The greatest courage is not needed for war, but for ordinary people growing old. Like soldiers, the aged are never very far from death: many are called, all are chosen. A soldier faces danger then retreats, but for the old, going back is not possible; they may hunger for youth but pray for the luck of a quick death. When one by one the body’s systems fail, they must be brave and face annihilation…

It is not a forest, more a sun- dappled woodland near the Pont du Gard, the river fol-de-rolling merrily. Here, where they’ve been told the wild things are, a family, a mother and her young, step through wild garlic till they come upon a small ménage of wild boars, sangliers: a mother and her young, a glade away. Their shadows lengthened by the dappling sun, each gives way to the other and trots…

to the vet with our decrepit cat: snaggle-toothed, arthritic, ectoparasitic. His kick-ass piebald coat is now a mat for fleas to wipe their feet on. His legs are lame. His dignity is flat. He used to know his name was Tipperary. Today it could be Tom or even Jerry. Enough. He’s had enough. And that is that. ***** Joe Crocker writes: “Tipper” was my youngest daughter’s cat. He had white socks…

So there you are, clambering amongst the topmost golden apples when – ker-boom! A storm! an avalanche! comes hurtling through, ripping round the orchard-side. And you?  Down that ladder smartish. Catch your breath. Shelter in the shed, whose wobbly walls squeal with lightning-snaps , whose old roof pings and rattles in the hail. And then? Then things go back to normal. Rosy sky. The…

Fado (Portuguese): fate, and also a Portuguese style of music forsolo singer and guitar, usually expressing saudade, or longing.Most of us long for something—love or wine or one more hour before we say goodbye— or feel an ache that we can’t quite define, the pulsing of our blood a silent sigh. In Portugal, we see the shiny thrones of kings who yearned for women and for land; we taste the port and…

Bad stuff happens. Some survive but it’s a risky business being alive. Good stuff happens too – though don’t count on it lasting long. It won’t. ***** Tom Vaughan writes: “Stuff Happens was of course part of a remark by US Secretary of Defense/Defence Donald Rumsfeld in 2003 in response to widespread looting in Baghdad following the US/US military ‘intervention’. Although I wrote the poem on…

That first sound splintering the listening dark, letting the light slip in between the notes — a blackbird, surely, surer now, his spark picked up by robins. Liquid tuning floats through unseen branches, marking territories of nests and mating, brings the grudging air its first flushed streak of colour. In the trees a strengthening music, patterned like a prayer. ***** D.A. Prince writes: “By a…