I’ve been seeking something in Cornwall
I’ve been searching for it in Wales
I’ve been studying the latest guide books
And listening to the Ancient Tales
I look deep into the eyes of the people I pass
But none of this gets me too far
I’m in a battered place called Britain
And I’m looking for who we are.

We’re the bastard sons and daughters
Of the Romans and the Celts
Our potential’s the tip of the iceberg
But it’s one that slowly melts
If all that was then and this is now
I gotta work it out if I can
’cause I’m bruised and I’m bloody and British
And I wanna know who I am

You won’t find answers in our hearts anymore
They’re as con-fused as our heads
You won’t find nothing out from the words we say
’cause they aren’t quite what we said
You won’t find it in Jubilee, authority
Or in shared conscience anymore
We’re nasty, brutish and short of ideas
And can’t remember what we’re here for

Identity is what you want it to be
You can make it whatever it fits
Call us English, Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh
Call us Limeys, Poms or Brits
If you think that will help explain to yourself
Who we are beneath these scars
Then you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din
In working out who we are

Good people are all around us
I keep telling that to one and all
But The Moral Majority gets bigger
And they haven’t any morals at all
Too many turn into dyslexics by choice
To read the Letter of the Law
We’re a busted flush called Britain
And we don’t know what we’re standing for

Let’s talk about the Union Jack, Jack
Talk about St. George’s Cross
If it wasn’t such a drag we’d rally round the flag
And show everybody who’s boss
Boss of quite what, we’re not sure anymore
There’s been a change to our regime
But we’re British right through to our misplaced hearts
Trying to figure out what that means

©John Lindley 2022

Born in Stockport and now living in Congleton, Cheshire, John Lindley’s poetry has appeared widely in magazines as well as being broadcast on radio. John was Cheshire Poet Laureate in 2004 and Manchester Cathedral Poet of the Year 2010.

John’s website.

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Jewels of unhappening
My solemn thoughts to unbind me
What is timeless may stand still
Creation’s bemused space
The nightspring of desire
May collide in one union platform
May lyricism found peace in
The softness in the unchanging innocence
May the lamp burn forever
Furthermore pain more destruction
I have come in full circle
What lies beyond thoughts
Mundane responsibilities everyday living
Little wonders joy sorrows
My aching cup of imagination
It’s half brimmed in full measure
In places my eyes seek
What comes in surface stays for two
Three days
But ideas are my life force
It pours in rain soaked abundance
The cup is endless
Beyond.

Harvesting Your Soul

To win the greatest prize, one must first find,
The light in life, near streams where meadows grow,
And where the trees rise above the clouds,
Towards paradise for renewed life.

Stay away from those who speak with thorns,
The spikes of hate, always shed innocent blood.
Becoming the enemy of companions of faith,
Those who cherish bonds are the advocates of joy.

Open your mind and reveal your heart,
Within your soul lies the seeds for growth,
Nurture and encourage your fruit to bloom,
When harvested the doors of paradise unfold.

Light

Is light a blinding sight?
Should all run and hide,
Staring into the light,
As the light stares back,
Deeply into one’s soul.

I hope one can find hope,
Surrounded by rich rays,
A safe embrace of faith,
Relieving the sombre torments,
That life always forms.

Sorrows Inside

The sorrows of this world disappear,
As the clouds in the sky fade away,
Releasing the weight inside,
A burden that sustains all of life.

Behind the veil, there is light,
Sorrows to never again cause harm,
Never to materialise and acquire time,
Beyond this world awaits infinite life.

Mohammed is a writer from Manchester. He explores a wide range of topics in his poetry, expressing and experimenting with different styles. He endeavours to raise awareness for important issues in society and wildlife awareness. By using his unique perception to share different perspectives. His work can be found on LinkedIn and Instagram. 

Always There

Love is a lasting word
even when it is temporary.
Oh, that feeling. What was it?
A spring fever?
A sweet delusion?
Yes, we both enjoyed
the rubbing of parts,
a blessed friction,
and all the skin
we touched,
and the flowers
given and received.

It was all so nice,
even the agony
and the lies.
I’ll never forget you.
Maybe you will never
forget me.
Old faces worn
like thumbtacks
pressed into our eyes.

A Sense Of Rank

My ancient peasant blood
trembles at the thought
of greatness,
so I avoid it
in others
and in my self.

Who needs a halo
and epaulets?
I am general of the armies
of dust balls
racing across the floor.

Dimensions

The multiverse I heard
will be going out of fashion.
Unfortunate. It explains
so much,
such as why it seems
we are together
and so far apart,
and why the wind
blows so hard,
but cannot turn
a pinwheel
held in your hand.

Family Album

All the lies and all the dead
now forgotten
along with their crimes.
Oh ho, you there.
Step this way please.
By order of so and so
you are cut out
of the picture.

Gasping for Air

I don’t know
the colour of my lungs,
and do not want you
to check.

Peace be with you brother.
Let me breathe as I am,
one quarter lung or less
of freedom and forgiveness.

Hard Time For The Circus Clown

I have run out of paint
to cover my face.
No powder, No nose
round and red enough.

I shall sit here
in puffy clothes
smiling at the strangers
who look my way
and pass by

in search of
a more entertaining
prisoner
along death row.

Joseph Farley is former editor of Axe Factory, Poetry Chain Letter, Implosion, Paper Airplane and other zines.  He has had over 1300 poems and 130 short stories published so far during his 40 plus year writing career. His fiction books include two story collections  Farts and Daydreams (Dumpster Fire) and For the Birds (Cynic), and a novel Labor Day (Peasantry Press). He has also penned nine chapbooks and books of poetry. His work has appeared recently in Schlock, Horror Sleaze Trash,  Home Planet News Online. Corvus Review, Ygdrasil, Eunoia Review, US 1 Worksheets, Oddball, Alien Buddha Zine and other places.

Grey and green

Pure grey, impure white
Paleness is everywhere
Towers with considerable height
Blocking the view
Of the ancient black and blue.

The murmur of the crowd
Busy narrow road
But the sight, the hearing craves for
The swish, the tweets, the rainbow.

Fresh soothing stream
The crystal glowing current
Can never be like
The hurrid rushing flow
Of shineless fluid
From a metal pipe.

Infinite majestic waters
Waves hitting shores
The calming whoosh
A gentle breeze
Cannot be found in a tub
Full of stillness and soap.

Fields of colour
Green, red, blue
Dance on the gentle melody
Of the breeze that blew
Need to be seen
By the eyes that had only in memory
Plastic, paper, artificial beam.

The horizon is near
The white walls embrace me here
Where’s the far line
The mesmerising colours, the twilight.

I long for the alteration
The variety of scene
Of one horizon
Day and night, seen.

What has been forever in sight
We thrive to see on websites
Go and feed the soul, the hearing, the seeing
For in nature all to the soul is healing.

Dripping emotions

It is not as easy as it seems
To pour the heart
On a white sheet,
To select the proper amount
Of something inconcrete,
Of drops, of adequate sense
To bleed ink and make them see
What resides behind these beats.

Broken blanket

Gentle steps indoors,
Heartwarming voice echoes,
In memory.
Frozen under this cold blanket
I remember that cozy one
Broken blanket?
How to get that heavy one I had?
About thousands of kilometres back?
It held your worries, your heart
On me you laid a blanket
You laid a palm
So cozy, so warm
So so far.

Raghda Mouazen is an English literature graduate from Tishreen University in Syria. She works as an English teacher and enjoys painting, writing, and language learning. She speaks Arabic, English, German, Turkish, French, and a little Japanese. Her poetry appeared on various websites online including Synchronized Chaos Magazine, and Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine. 

Stick Figures Increase Cautious Limbs

Debate a rag
into a frayed jacket,
            boundless shade
            structured around a colleague.
                     Yet grin.

Misses function until a baron avoids
bleeding that bestows a process beneath a pulp,
                             shoes CRATER earth
                             ,     from chaos Meek neck.

Pedaling mysterious takedowns in a pot
delivered as a battered orange motion
processing an ignored hive:
                          Pockets Swell,
                          express floundering
                          rough draft translation.

     chemical leather strap. Last bit
                                             of a crumb,
                                forthwith blemish
                                of limitations – – –
                menacing forlorn vistas, vibes,
                                                      instantaneous verge.

Tug & tackle & twilight
                             white noise.

Vague Threatening Ideologies

not a tongue animating stick
but the present tense sneezing
of a formaldehyde trapdoor
cinching ventriloquist dummy
less than
          OR equal TO
a fetus protected
                      more than
                      an idea
     , as if communion wafers
       were nourishment, tho
the insteps perform
matter of fact hexes
                              UNTIL
               all abandoned possibilities
               become the summation
               of     a
                           Nation.

 Made to Fail

faster strutting
                   cipher,
          analysis
glowing
              disembodied.

     eagle birthing

                       one
                          by
                            one
a murder of crows.

               all worth
         monumental
                       chicanery
of a liver,
            plush.


                 imaginary
                 centre,
       symbolic genealogy.

regulatory effects,
           this last
           of luxurious empires:

all that crumbles
and fades and
burns
        from resisted
        needs.

warbly ounce of rosary

portray miniscule trouser snippets
cough   cough   cough   cough   cough
        machine          HITS     sound    FiLe
                      escape:
    ‘harder than a neon empire sweatsuit’
& cylinder EXITS bellow cruising chop
                                               , whoosh
                                                      WHOOSH ,,
                         whiffing weapons of
           MaSs        discontent     – – –   ‘shower & join us
                                                            on the boot farm’ – – –
bona fide fourth trench of the industrial circus
window shipping vampiric snapping flask
                   ]whosoever blanched meeting martini shades[ ,,,
    AdDeD       bUrSt     of    yearly    stipend.

circumstantial assertions avoid

heretics assent outlining caricatures
lack distinguished section V further addressed
disease of profound anemic limping
all due wounded apprehension species

                     glow certain forms
                     common integral list
                     proper pooling arguments

of each
     of giving
          of ultimatum lungs

                               provided oxygen hampers
                               an end a functional virtue
                               wither substance however
                               such skills lacking weapon
                               existence assigned wholly

            destroy communal controversy
            the hollowed void of partial citations
            resisting the logic of common sense

Joshua Martin is a Philadelphia based writer and filmmaker, who currently works in a library. He is member of C22, an experimental writing collective. He is the author of the books automatic message (Free Lines Press), combustible panoramic twists (Trainwreck Press), Pointillistic Venetian Blinds (Alien Buddha Press) and Vagabond fragments of a hole (Schism Neuronics). He has had numerous pieces published in various journals including Otoliths, Version (9), Don’t Submit!, BlazeVOX, RASPUTIN, Ink Pantry, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and experiential-experimental-literature. You can find links to his published work here.

You can find more of Joshua’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Accident Prevention

A man was eating breakfast at a restaurant
and was subjected to a conversation
from a neighbouring table

The server came over to tell him
the restrooms were out of order
The man suggested the server
also tell the neighbouring table,
because the four of them were full of shit

The man left before he found out
if he had successfully prevented
any accidents

A New World Record

Scene: A grave that people are constantly passing by, stopping for a few seconds with their backs to the audience.

Announcer (in excited sports-announcer voice):

This is a day of great pride for our city; the Guinness people are here to confirm the record. Today there have been many tens of thousands of people passing by the grave of (Audience can fill in for themselves the name of the person to be so honoured).

And the Guinness people have confirmed it: the new world record for the largest outdoor urinal!

Letter to a Medical Billing Company

(Sometime in autumn. The MAN receives a bill from his wife’s doctor at the nursing home for her services back in January. The bill threatens him with collection if he doesn’t promptly pay. The MAN consults his records and sees that bills from this doctor both before and after January have been paid, and sits down to write a letter to be sent with the bill in lieu of payment.)

I dislike receiving threatening letters,
especially when the threats are due to your incompetence
Bills both before and after January have been paid,
so obviously someone in the office
knows how to bill the insurance properly
I suggest you find out who that person is
and give this bill to that person
so you can be paid
Under no circumstances
are you to contact me about it ever again

(The MAN never heard from the billing company again, and his wife switched doctors, though the switch had to do with the doctor’s medical competence, not her administrative competence.)

Michael Ceraolo is a 64-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet who has had two full-length books (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press) published, and has two more in the publication pipeline.

Yet another Gun Death

Turning on the morning news
Drinking my coffee
Seeing the news
About the latest school killing

This time in Texas
An 18- year old high school student
Bought two assault weapons

Shot his grandmother
Then went to an elementary school
Killing 18 children and two teachers.

Why he did this carnage
Remains a mystery
He was shot dead.

Why congress does nothing,
The State of Texas does nothing,
Is not a mystery.

The NRA and their minions
Continue to claim
The answer is more guns
For everyone

If only the other teachers
And students were armed
Perhaps only a few children
Would have been slaughtered.

Politicians offer useless thoughts
And prayers
But doing anything meaningful
Just can’t be bothered.

The dead don’t care about their prayers
And their useless thoughts
They remain dead.

And soon all too soon
We will watch the news
Of yet another gun massacre.

Things My Parents Taught Me

My parents taught me
A lot about life
They were unique
With their take on life.

My mother was born
Into a Southern Baptist faith
One of ten children

Part of the lost tribe
Of the Cherokee Indians
My father grew up
On a Farm
Became an atheist.

They could not agree
On religion
Said we would have to figure
That on our own,

But they had a Buddhist
View that the thing to do
Was to do the right thing

But we had to figure
Out that on our own.

My mother had a lot
Of sayings

Like Don’t trust experts
What is a PhD
Bullshit piled high and deep

All politicians are lying
When their teeth are moving

There is nothing worst
In this world
Than a reformed drunk

And despite their fiery
Love-hate relationship
They did love each other
And that showed.

In the end
We become our father
And mother

Just the way
The world is
It seems

Encountering Aliens

While walking on a moonlit path
Through the forest trail
Sam Adams looked up
At the stars and planets
And the full moon.

He was a detective,
Checking out a mysterious box,
Found in the woods

He had his pet wolf
With him
That he had won
As a tip
In a poker game
In the underground casino.

He came upon the box
There was a flash of light,
Relishing the chance,

To embellish a story
Fit for eternity,
Of how he had found,

The enemy aliens
And destroyed them

Before they could invade
The earth.

The crowd at the bar
were busy drinking that night
rushing about drinking

When the aliens came
To order a drink.

Howling at the New Moon Trijan Refrain

The lunatic light of the full moon
Lit up the night sky,
Turning the night into noon.
Making us feel quite high

The drinkers keep drinking in the bar,
Drinking all night until the mar.
Just howling
Just howling
The drinkers keep
Soon the night becomes quite bizarre.
Scent of bad craziness in the air.

The lunatic light of the full moon
Making the drinkers fly.
Soon they are ready to swoon.
Some want to die
Others want to fight and spar.
Some star at the dog star.
Want to drink more
Want to drink more

The lunatic light of the full moon
The drinkers ask why.
Naked dancing to the mad tune,
With a look very wry,
They howled at the moon.
They howled at the moon.

Encountering The Storm God

Sam Adams
Was walking in the woods
When he encountered
A furious thunderstorm.

Lightning lit up the sky
Revealing an abandoned cabin
Sam Adams ran to the cabin.

Sought shelter there
From the storm
That continued to howl
Outside the door.

He made a fire
Got out some food
And prepared to spend
The night.

Around midnight
The owner of the cabin
An old mountain man
Appeared.

He was angry at Sam
But declared that Sam
Could spend the night
Provided he could outdrink
The old man.

If he lost the bet
The old man
Would have to kill him
For the crime of trespassing.

Sam accepted the challenge
Around dawn, he got up
With a pounding hangover,
And went out the door.

The old man came at him
Shot him dead
And disappeared
Into the storm clouds.

John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and former Foreign Service officer having served 27 years with the U.S. State Department serving in over ten countries including Korea, Thailand, India, Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Spain. He has travelled to over 50 countries, and 49 out of 50 states. He speaks Korean, Thai, Spanish and studied Chinese, Hindi and Arabic.

You can find more of Jake’s work here on Ink Pantry.

I’m a sandcastle on the shore,
 watching idly by;
  not testing the waters
   – too afraid to make waves

I also ride out waves
 all day,
  with the tides
   rushing in,
    then out

But wait,
 aren’t I, too, a wave;
  formed from the flowing energy
   within this moon’s waters,
  climbing to the peak
   of this slippery cliff,
  and crashing down
   into energy forming,
    just to flow
     from the same water
      again and again?

From Katy, Texas, Abi (27) has been avidly writing poetry since her early 20s and looks forward to where it’ll take her. When she isn’t scribbling away, she can usually be found in her art studio, sculpting. Mental health is a common theme in Abi’s poetry, as her own has inspired much of her writing.