Published Pulsar Poems
The following poets had their work published in the March 2009 edition, #51, of Pulsar Poetry Magazine: Peter Asher, Mr A. Catterall, Hugo DeSarro, Stuart Sharp, Terry Dammery, Natalie M Dorfeld, Kate Edwards, A C Evans, Kay Fletcher, David Gill, Chris Hardy, Gregory Heath, Nigel Humphreys, Michael Jennings, Roland John, Neil Leadbeater, Gary Lechliter, Bruce McRae, Michael Newman, Michael Estabrook, Geoffrey Loe, Christian Ward, Randall Rogers, Anne Rees, Daniel Stott, Peter A. Tetro, Peter Johnson, Gerard Melia, Ivor C. Treby, Paul Tanner, Harold S. Webster, Kevin White, Peter Wyton, and Sarah Williams. See poems below: (489 poets published, up to and including March 2009).
The following poems were published in the March 2009 edition of Pulsar Poetry Magazine # 51
Growing Missed
In time, the desire to feed
the starving bird-feeder
and cloth the freezing washing -
line – goes -
And grows into a;
‘forgive me, I’m not as young
as I was’ -
or;
‘I’m sorry for being
old and clumsy,’ -
everywhere it goes.
And those who see its transformation
from participation into -
‘pardon me
for living on, even precariously’
Will, in all possibility,
never go and feed a bird-feeder
to warm with life an unused
(uncool) old length of winter washing -
line -
and when they themselves are slow -
why -
there’s nothing to go but themselves.
Peter
Asher
Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire
Checkout
Yesterday we were
In the supermarket,
You were looking at
The watermelons,
Tapping them
And pressing your ear
Against them
While I stood
A little further
Down the aisle
Staring at four tins
Of borlotti beans
That had rolled out
Across the floor,
One of them
Had a dint
In its side
Later on, that night
Naked, in bed
You said
The most beautiful
Thing to me,
Yet all I can remember
Are those four tins
Of borlotti beans
In that aisle
Of the supermarket
And how one
Had a dint
In its side.
Mr A.
Catterall
Sherwood, Nottingham
Silhouettes In Virginia
Black Angus cows
on a snow-whitened
hillside.
Slow-moving and stationary;
blocky silhouettes stalled at the end
of crisscrossing hoof tracks,
looking with lassitude
at passing traffic,
beneath low-floating clouds
and the purple of hills beyond the hills.
The beauty of a moment in passing,
etched deeply on the mind.
Hugo
DeSarro
East Hampton, CT, USA
Tucked
away, up the stairs above the library
The pieces
wait in rows by type and class
As though
the vegetables of some summer fair
‘Biggest
portrait’ or ‘Longest landscape’
Their
numbers blend them to a sameness
Broken
here and there by brilliant flashes
The
sculpture of a bloated, comic dragon,
The
lightness of a painted silken screen
Each one
is priced, expecting,
Hoping for
a hundred pounds or two or three,
And there
is some joy in knowing
That I do
not have to buy the best to see them
Here and now for free.
Stuart
Sharp,
Cherry Burton, Beverley
Indian
Print Dress
I’d
longed all day to touch what I saw
the lift
of a breast
and the
swell of a thigh
through
the swirl of your skirt
colours
as warm as fresh spice
soft as
fine muslin
like the
down of your legs
my hand
on your knee
finding
the silk of your pants
bra
straps slack and sequins scattered
glinting
like sovereigns
pennies
from heaven
pieces of
eight
like gold
in the hold of the Nineveh’s queen
an ocean
of plunder on the sheets of your bed
and you
lying laid in an Indian print dress
lifted high to your waist your eyes as dark as dusty’s.
Terry
Dammery
Hope valley, Derbyshire
Clubbing in Pittsburgh
I don’t
belong
in this
line.
Me,
in
Birkenstocks
and faded
jeans,
sandwiched between
an
obnoxious Italian
and
bleached blonde waif,
both
apparently proud
of their
immense
chests.
I belong
in bed,
one
with
clean sheets
and cats
at my feet,
a diluted
glass of
diet
ginger ale
next to
the bed
stand.
But I
wait here
with my
friends,
primping
in the
pouring
down rain,
reminded
that we are
nothing
more than
fidgety
sperm, just
waiting
for the chance
to shoot
inside.
Natalie M Dorfeld,
Brookfield, OH, USA
The Stalker
Wherever of whichever way I turned
he would be there, at that time so long ago.
Always there, always waiting, always watching,
round the corner of a street, or on a bus,
once standing by a shrub beside my gate,
another time on the steps of the library.
He learnt the pattern of my days, how
I travelled to work, where I ate lunch,
if I visited the cinema with friends he
would be in the darkness beyond the foyer
waiting. Waiting for what?
To get to know me?
He never approached, although I was aware
he questioned my friends until I forbade them
to tell him anything at all about me.
There was something nasty and furtive in his lurking
annoying and irritating, but I was never afraid,
he seemed too small, too insignificant to fear,
his pale mouse eyes and ludicrous pink face
gazing at me vapidly across an empty street,
from a doorway, or through the window of a train.
A day came when he wasn’t there, not watching,
not following, not the next day or the next.
I felt light headed with relief, a week passed,
I believed his obsession was over.
Later, I read in the paper that on the very day
he disappeared from my life and from my mind
he had been arrested and charged with assaulting a woman.
He was not let out on bail. I had to
feel grateful that at least
he’s spared me the worst of his advances.
Kate Edwards
Runcorn, Cheshire
From Yesterday
Open
The way
To
Indefinite
Experience
When
Life
Can
Evade
Those
Obvious
Maps
Of chance
Encounters
(The street,
The sky)
The frame
Of a film clip
A movie
From yesterday
Degraded colour
A sign
Of
Desperation,
Perhaps
A C Evans
East Sheen, London
In love with materials
I am love with materials
that never produce a thing; kiss the pencil,
bless the paper, the scented pigment
the icon of the paintbrush.
Some strange appeal, to interact
with these things without an idea
of what I am doing, this desire
undoes the artist, the actor with the paintbrush.
On a raft of coloured pencils
the sensual river, flesh
and wood enact their own masterpiece;
to safely love. To be fooled without
consequence.
Kay Fletcher
Tipton, West Midlands
Lunch Hour
Across the Iris Bridge
a policeman strolls in the sun.
Two swans stoop as one
to stab the twin reflection.
An egret further downstream
turns into a fan.
On a bench beside the water,
back to the big corporations
and facing the elusive palace
where his emperor slowly,
invisibly bleeds to death,
a man sits intently writing.
A poet I guess,
composing as natural a tanka
as the office-blocks permit.
Fraternal, I peer in passing:
his page is black, close-knit
with minute calculations
David Gill
Botley, Oxford
Knock Down Ginger
As we drifted off
some kids would knock
and run, they got it right
and made the game
a habit up
and down the street.
One night I
reached the door
just as they fled
and chased to where
the main road stopped me
in the dark,
across the street
majestic tall
the doctor’s house
ascended from itself
each window a winking
eye of flame.
Chris Hardy
London
Bleeders
His name was Adrian
but we called him Asian:
Asian Jones.
We’d walk round school
going bud bud bud;
we were
kids,
we thought it was funny.
If we pushed him too far
he’d whack us with his ruler,
then whip out a card that said,
Don’t hit this boy, he’ll bleed
and wave it in our faces
in a kind of triumph.
Not that we wanted to hurt him;
we wanted to be his ‘friends’ -
he was the only kid in our village
with a Sega and his own TV.
And the only kid in our village
who didn’t make thirty.
Gregory Heath
Melbourne, Derby
beachcomber
a man
writes his word in the sand
he gouges
it with one crutch
his curves
throw up redoubts
his cross
members kink finally
molecules
of the nth power
barrel
ahead of his downstrokes,
gather at
his feet in monticules
the beach
is universe; he tills it
scattering
galaxies and nebulae,
dots each ‘i’ with a Black Hole
when it is
written he steps back
and sees
that it is good
then slips
between the transoms
the
mullions of its letters
and calls
forth an echo older
than the
speck of everything
before the
word drowns.
Nigel
Humphreys
Penrhyncoch, Aberystwyth
Guillotine
She’s not
affordable, of course
but in
this dull world
spending
dangerously
generates
a little edge.
Don’t you
just worship that shape?
The oomph
under the bonnet
is
irresistible.
Come on,
let’s burn rubber!
We ease
ourselves into extravagance
and the
door closes
with the
precise,
almost
silent thud
of a
guillotine.
Far away a
hundred heads roll.
Michael
Jennings
Keyworth,
Nottinghamshire
Fistral Bay Thirty Years On
Hearing
and smelling again that surf,
recalling
thirty years ago when I rode
these
waves, careless of rocks, sure in my skill;
returning
I wonder whether I could do it still.
Screams of
gulls, the sea’s dark roaring,
then I
knew how to paddle out and wait;
also her,
she who taught me more than surfing,
marked my
life, our brief affair never forgotten.
This bay
so important then, its sands and sounds,
the
waiting for the right wave, the exact moment
to work,
thrust, catch and slide sharply forward
to grasp,
hoping to stand tall and swerve
into the
bay’s curving and the adulation;
that
camaraderie then, the talk, drinks, girls,
acceptance
of the timeless, our constant present
and now in
my later life do I strive for it?
Too old
now, no doubt, to accept those thrills, risks;
have I the
strength to fight currents, swim under
to reveal
my presence, to make that elemental call?
No longer
a part of it; unequipped, I hire a board.
Roland
John
Frome,
Somerset
Willenhall
Locks
Here at
the Lock Museum
we learn
about locksmiths, makers of spurs,
producers
of latch cams, bolts and keys,
instruments for turning, winding, tuning –
everything
from a wooden wedge
to a
tapered piece of metal
for fixing
the boss of a wheel –
how each
master
would make
his tools:
chisels,
screwdrivers, saws and drills –
an
assemblage of skills mutually engaged
at the
backs of shops and houses
before the
factories
hit the
big time
with names like Yale and Parkes.
Every
latch tells a story –
doors open
into old interiors,
people
whose lives
have been lockfast for years.
One by one
we blow
their cover
hoping to
find the cusp of ourselves
hidden
within these walls.
Neil
Leadbeater
Fairmilehead, Edinburgh
Vultures
in a Dead Tree
At Clinton Lake I sit
in the heat and watch
them watching me with
needless trepidation.
I am more wary of them
then they are of me.
And every now and then
one of them glides from
a branch, circles above
me, drops to the ground,
and stares at bloated
carp in the distance.
A solution to the problem
is obvious in bird logic:
the lack of opposable thumbs
will not prevent them
from waiting for the lake
to give-up her dead.
Gary
Lechliter
In No Particular Order
Jupiter, peopled by hallucinations,
their god a hairbrush
speaking in musical tones.
Saturn, the cosmic laundry line,
its centre a molten strawberry,
those rings the kitemark of its madness.
Uranus, the jealous castrato,
weary of the smirking,
the wordplay, the insinuations.
Neptune’s engine is a light bulb,
its main export umbrella stands –
it’s coming soon to a cinema near you.
On to Mars, the house of mirrors.
Famous for its beaches and wartime.
It’s like a pet store or windows rattling.
Mercury, which stinks of basketballs
and dresses in women’s underwear.
Inhabited by subsonic pinheads.
Then Venus, the bitch of bitches,
the villages there abandoned to time.
Its love we endure. Its pain that we bear.
But Pluto! shout the Plutonians,
waving their little placards,
the sidewalks there unusually slippery.
Which leaves Earth, the eye, blue hair,
home of the violent shadows, water
on its knees, and a bad case of the rainbows.
Postscript: The moon, Earth’s doggie,
crazy as seven barrels of ape-shit,
a goddess, they say, but in her spare time.
Bruce
McRae
Victoria
B.C., Canada
Shore Base
Towards
Lundy,
The
Atlantic roughens appreciably,
Threatens
storm.
Waves
deposit shingle-banks
Of
decibel-wreckage
Across
golden sands.
North
Cornwall
Brutalises
the idyll
Of seaside
holiday.
A dozen
turnstones fly in,
Stand
sentry over barometric collapse.
Not quite
motionless,
I stealth
a presence
Along the
rocks -
And am
seen.
Wing-flight and gale-gust
Vie for
directional supremacy.
North
Cornwall
Returns to
isolation.
Michael
Newman
Bishops
Cleeve, Cheltenham
Drastic
It was a
drastic thing to do
everyone
agreed
offered
their opinions
and picked
the bones of inspiration
then, as
one decreed
it was a
drastic thing to do
and very
risky
to put all
of the eggs
in one
basket
then give
them a bash or two
was asking
for it
some would
say
reckless,
feckless, thoughtless
and
without doubt
it was a
drastic thing to do.
However,
because the actions were thought unwise
it brought
amusement to a few
who looked
on and smiled
and
otherwise did nothing
other than
saying, nodding
braying
it was a
drastic thing to do
others
would stare into the air
then into
pints of ‘cooking,’ brew
have a sup
or two
and shake
their heads
then moan
about the folly of it all
and how it
should have been done
by those
who knew what to do
not by a
ship of fools
they’d
stare at their boots
from lofty
bar stools
and at
closing time
would say,
there was
no getting away
it was a
drastic thing to do.
David Pike
Swindon,
Wiltshire
Paper-Thin Pink Morning Glories
In my wife's garden
darkening at dusk
bats flit soundlessly
above azaleas and forsythias.
While in the shadows below,
in the final moments of twilight,
paper-thin pink
morning glories glow.
Michael Estabrook
Acton, MA, USA
HMP
The Peters knew it all: the crying and
the cravings; smuggled joints that make a stretch
hilarious. Screws came Sundays, in
white
shirts and black ties, as though it was church.
outside; my cellmate, joining me, complained
about his rights. One time I understood
but that
was weakness: the middle of the night,
themselves. The leopard circling itself,
this was a zoo, with apes stacked miles high.
To sleep you found the heartbeat of your straw.
My family knows my humanity. My blags
keep them alive. They’ve eaten steak, enjoyed
Adidas, holidayed abroad. Bank
slips flutter in my wake like tickertape.
The yard’s enormous in your head. Like bail,
you can roam wild, and find a place to think.
I plan the biggest job imaginable.
I am an Englishman: we live like kings.
Geoffrey Loe
Shirley,
Hampshire
Shifts
The picture framing shop
on the high street
has become the latest casualty
of the credit crunch,
its boarded up face
slowly being dismantled
by surgeons demanding
payment for the numerous
operations done over the years.
The neighbourhood dogs
have been seen near it at night,
dragging their bowls closer
to feed off its dripping blood.
Christian
Ward
London
Just Bought a Strat
the only differences between
me and my
hero Keith Richards
are
he’s got better drugs
than me
he’s the Human Riff
and I’m just a stoned
noise maker
the neighbours hate.
Randall Rogers
Nongpue, Banglamung, Chonburi, Thailand
Solstice
Darkness
closes in on the very shortest day.
Outdoors,
the torn and slate-grey sheen of a bin bag flutters
puffs up,
rattles and exhales, it is caught and pierced
on the bale
of thorny cuttings, berried sprigs of garden waste
thrust into
the brown bin, breathless, it sucks, inflates and spits.
It is
pointless and mechanical, pinned in what lights shine out:
the sunset
hasn’t given in. Chaffinch egg shell
bluey-green
the sky,
marked by metallic, gilt and darkly bruised red cloud.
It presages
spring and birth, sit outside beneath it in your coat
with a pint
and a cigarette, the blazing sky is soundless!
I baled up
those thorny, berried cuttings, in thick twine,
they gave
me Amy Winehouse arms, I was scratched but successful,
I dragged
the bales through the house to the bin in the front.
No-one else
understood my planning, bale-tying and achievement,
I could hop
from foot to foot and scorch myself in excitement
and receive
no response, and, like the bin bag flutters, appear aimless,
as easily
deflated. I won’t destroy myself for
lack of response,
for the
freezing dark of loneliness in my efforts, for being seen
as
fluttering in a sterile wind and pointless.
I’ll be warmed
by seeing
the good despite what appear to me as limitations,
by seeing
how limited I am through others’ eyes, while I baled up cuttings
I paid them
no attention, they are so different and so close.
If I shout “Me me me!”
I’m closing
in the darkness of the shortest day.
Recall that
brilliant light dramatic as the markings on a chaffinch egg,
spring-promising, I have my wits and mental health and memory!
Anne Rees
Walthamstow, London
One Thing Leads To Another:
so is it any wonder
that two, side-by-side
Christmas-pudding shaped silos
would make me think of her at home,
with a £5.99 Blossom Hill
and a DVD ready to go?
And that the thought of her
would divert my eyes
from the road
to my phone
on the passenger-seat?
Her last text had read,
'red lace, don't be late'.
The next thing I've ran a hedge,
spun one-hundred and eighty degrees
and stopped,
with a birch-tree branch
speared through the windshield,
missing my left ear by two short feet.
Which was,
as a matter of interest,
all that was recognisably left of
the sheep.
Daniel
Stott
Oxford
Negligee
Flimsy satin see-through lace
strategically stitched
diaphanously placed
whimsically hide
reveal
those body parts
her sex appeal
enticing nature’s reaction
focussed
without distractions
growing in their minds
well past reason
transport both
that state
of single bent
with one intent:
remove the veil
and undraped
celebrate the sight
her beauty hail
then scale their sexual heights . . .
its work done
once again.
Peter A. Tetro
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Service