Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
I write poetry on a range of subjects and in a range of styles. My privacy is extremely important to me, though I hope that you enjoy my work and that I enjoy yours.
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
Today 3:21pm
Today 3:21pm
A Sin
Said an actor to a bishop:
‘Is gay sex a sin?’
‘Only if you do it well’
Said the latter on sticking it in.
‘Is gay sex a sin?’
‘Only if you do it well’
Said the latter on sticking it in.
#funny
27 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
4th Feb 2023 6:05am
4th Feb 2023 6:05am
A 05:00 AM Bleeding
I don’t look back with fondness at
my age of innocence, the early 2000s,
the years of wars for oil and reality TV.
The birth and ominous teethings
of social media. The feelings
that should come when called,
when calling childhood to mind,
have left me cold and far behind.
What I recall are petty grievances
(or so they seem when stacked against
a life of thirst and hunger and illness).
The many times that I was beaten up,
by other kids, an older sibling and
my mother once, when I was barely out
of romper suits. My...
my age of innocence, the early 2000s,
the years of wars for oil and reality TV.
The birth and ominous teethings
of social media. The feelings
that should come when called,
when calling childhood to mind,
have left me cold and far behind.
What I recall are petty grievances
(or so they seem when stacked against
a life of thirst and hunger and illness).
The many times that I was beaten up,
by other kids, an older sibling and
my mother once, when I was barely out
of romper suits. My...
#childhood
#abuse
#memories #nostalgia
#memories #nostalgia
39 reads
2 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
31st Jan 2023 10:56pm
31st Jan 2023 10:56pm
Joy Exhibition
#teens
#music
#despair #culture
#despair #culture
59 reads
1 Comment
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
28th Jan 2023 3:40pm
28th Jan 2023 3:40pm
Old Ephemera
Not had much time for science, politics,
or any of the things I’ve benefitted from
as a young citizen of this last hundred years.
I’ve read my Dawkins, though, and pricked my ears
politely to the lectures of the older set,
who’ve said how privileged I am to not
be North Korean or just otherwise deprived
of God’s great gift: democracy.
It's really rather flawed of me
to not wade in and fight for that which fought for me
(it’s always, in confessionals, the poet’s “me me me”)
but all I've ever liked or felt enthusiastic for
is...
or any of the things I’ve benefitted from
as a young citizen of this last hundred years.
I’ve read my Dawkins, though, and pricked my ears
politely to the lectures of the older set,
who’ve said how privileged I am to not
be North Korean or just otherwise deprived
of God’s great gift: democracy.
It's really rather flawed of me
to not wade in and fight for that which fought for me
(it’s always, in confessionals, the poet’s “me me me”)
but all I've ever liked or felt enthusiastic for
is...
#dreams
#memories
#myself #art
#myself #art
51 reads
3 Comments
UPBEAT INSPIRATIONAL POEM
Published
24th Jan 2023 2:31pm
24th Jan 2023 2:31pm
Whorehouse Music
Forgive me if I tend to romanticise the past... - Radio Days
For me, jazz is like a siren’s
tones, floating from the rock
of all things past much like the wrens
in migration, the Spanish stock
once flown from Scandinavia.
Mermaids and birds and sea and sky…
the music makes me think
of what is picturesque and gay. A shy
and sedentary lad, a stink
of melancholia pervading time and place.
That’s me until Bechet, Ella, and anyone
more black and old and talented than I
emerges from the rock. The wintry bone ...
For me, jazz is like a siren’s
tones, floating from the rock
of all things past much like the wrens
in migration, the Spanish stock
once flown from Scandinavia.
Mermaids and birds and sea and sky…
the music makes me think
of what is picturesque and gay. A shy
and sedentary lad, a stink
of melancholia pervading time and place.
That’s me until Bechet, Ella, and anyone
more black and old and talented than I
emerges from the rock. The wintry bone ...
#music
#historical
#nostalgia #culture
#nostalgia #culture
50 reads
6 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
24th Jan 2023 1:06am
24th Jan 2023 1:06am
cement
it’s hard to feel that you’ve been loved
when your most lasting memories
are of the insults more
than being told that you were loved
to kids a word can leave an impact like
a fingerprint in wet cement
and your mind’s filled with fingerprints…
long since hardened
so that the grooves remain
and so become
characteristics of the whole
a voice telling you
you’re stupid
fat
useless
stays with you and informs
all that you are
when your most lasting memories
are of the insults more
than being told that you were loved
to kids a word can leave an impact like
a fingerprint in wet cement
and your mind’s filled with fingerprints…
long since hardened
so that the grooves remain
and so become
characteristics of the whole
a voice telling you
you’re stupid
fat
useless
stays with you and informs
all that you are
#childhood
#abuse
#bullying #suffering
#bullying #suffering
75 reads
4 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
23rd Jan 2023 4:02pm
23rd Jan 2023 4:02pm
Paperwork
I sometimes envision
a far-flung, post-apocalyptic world
where piles and piles of documents
fill up the valleys and shores
like whales beached and rotting
the wind singing
among the leaves
of carbon white and printed forms
telling Mrs Taylor that
her benefit’s been stopped
because her husband’s got a job
or advising a chemist that
a new lot of cream cannot be sold
as prostate cancer cures
it's all online, of course,
these days, but give us information and
we’ll find a way to pile it ...
a far-flung, post-apocalyptic world
where piles and piles of documents
fill up the valleys and shores
like whales beached and rotting
the wind singing
among the leaves
of carbon white and printed forms
telling Mrs Taylor that
her benefit’s been stopped
because her husband’s got a job
or advising a chemist that
a new lot of cream cannot be sold
as prostate cancer cures
it's all online, of course,
these days, but give us information and
we’ll find a way to pile it ...
#war
#apocalypse
#aliens #boredom
#aliens #boredom
45 reads
2 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
21st Jan 2023 7:30pm
21st Jan 2023 7:30pm
Trusting Thomas
The God of your verses is one you can hear,
walking through the Welsh country
of thatch and chimney pots and gorse.
He’s invisible, as eternal as whatever is,
as lonely as the flea-ridden horse
being pet by a group of brothers
while dad fixes the car on the hard shoulder,
one hot summer day some twenty years ago.
Even through the haze of what you always loathed:
refrigerators, washers, tech - your voice
and God stand strange and utterly alone by choice.
If reading is to find a mind more original
than yours, you were as much a prophet...
walking through the Welsh country
of thatch and chimney pots and gorse.
He’s invisible, as eternal as whatever is,
as lonely as the flea-ridden horse
being pet by a group of brothers
while dad fixes the car on the hard shoulder,
one hot summer day some twenty years ago.
Even through the haze of what you always loathed:
refrigerators, washers, tech - your voice
and God stand strange and utterly alone by choice.
If reading is to find a mind more original
than yours, you were as much a prophet...
#religion
#Christian
#LifeAsAWriter #WritingPoetry
#LifeAsAWriter #WritingPoetry
45 reads
3 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
20th Jan 2023 1:23am
20th Jan 2023 1:23am
A Woman in London
The winter’s music’s captured in
the grey but calming light, a London bus
the touch of rouge. Among the thin
and whey-faced crowd a fuss
of skirts and clack of heels comes out,
discreetly pays and takes a seat.
She catches eyes and keeps them in
her new Dalmatian coat. The year is 1928.
Her hair is piled high and blonde, a grin
just like a slapper’s past and fate:
rebellious, regardless of all modesty,
attracting male lust and feminine envy.
You’ll never know what I’m risking,
she thinks, just walking down the...
the grey but calming light, a London bus
the touch of rouge. Among the thin
and whey-faced crowd a fuss
of skirts and clack of heels comes out,
discreetly pays and takes a seat.
She catches eyes and keeps them in
her new Dalmatian coat. The year is 1928.
Her hair is piled high and blonde, a grin
just like a slapper’s past and fate:
rebellious, regardless of all modesty,
attracting male lust and feminine envy.
You’ll never know what I’m risking,
she thinks, just walking down the...
#LGBT
#LifeStruggles
#historical #transgender
#historical #transgender
80 reads
4 Comments
SELF POEM
Published
18th Jan 2023 11:54pm
18th Jan 2023 11:54pm
Gas Fire
Leaf-green and rather sleek, I thought,
at fourteen or fifteen, the internet
my bookseller. I've lost it now,
that old collected works,
as evergreen as Christian hymns.
He taught me, I suppose, that loneliness
is like a house, untenanted in spite
of what’s been bought and set out new
for laughter, years, and food, and love.
The silence like a single glove.
The line remembered most, back then,
was this: The gas-fire breathes.
Last verse of Best Society. Before my time,
the gas fire. Yet I could see and feel
its...
at fourteen or fifteen, the internet
my bookseller. I've lost it now,
that old collected works,
as evergreen as Christian hymns.
He taught me, I suppose, that loneliness
is like a house, untenanted in spite
of what’s been bought and set out new
for laughter, years, and food, and love.
The silence like a single glove.
The line remembered most, back then,
was this: The gas-fire breathes.
Last verse of Best Society. Before my time,
the gas fire. Yet I could see and feel
its...
#loneliness
#childhood
#MyInspiration #WritingPoetry
#MyInspiration #WritingPoetry
49 reads
5 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
18th Jan 2023 00:10am
18th Jan 2023 00:10am
Tenderness
The soul of torture is male. - comment on an exhibit card at The Museum of Criminology and Torture, San Gimignano, Italy
The warded instruments of pain
set out among the tourists like
sweet creatures of the foliage…
You wonder why I’ve brought you here,
not knowing that my heart is like a fridge
with nightmares kept in plastic wrap.
‘It’s history’ I say, and so you file it away
as just another bloke-y quirk,
like dads with books on imperial wars.
I watch you stare and grimace at
a chair studded with nails and
a slanted...
The warded instruments of pain
set out among the tourists like
sweet creatures of the foliage…
You wonder why I’ve brought you here,
not knowing that my heart is like a fridge
with nightmares kept in plastic wrap.
‘It’s history’ I say, and so you file it away
as just another bloke-y quirk,
like dads with books on imperial wars.
I watch you stare and grimace at
a chair studded with nails and
a slanted...
#corruption
#evil
#HumanRights #horror
#HumanRights #horror
75 reads
3 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
11th Jan 2023 3:48pm
11th Jan 2023 3:48pm
Boys’ Own Harsh Reality
Peg-legged and bred with gallantry,
or just in-bred with dysentery,
I know that deep within this heart
a pirate’s life is not for me,
the timbers too shivered. So art
and all its lies are what
my land-lubbed loins be-crave,
me ‘earties foul and true.
I couldn’t rape and pillage or
give one old nag for glue.
And yet I yearn for hairy-arsed seamen
when I read Louis-Stevenson.
A flaw of sex and sense of truth, perhaps.
Just set me down by Brighton, chaps.
or just in-bred with dysentery,
I know that deep within this heart
a pirate’s life is not for me,
the timbers too shivered. So art
and all its lies are what
my land-lubbed loins be-crave,
me ‘earties foul and true.
I couldn’t rape and pillage or
give one old nag for glue.
And yet I yearn for hairy-arsed seamen
when I read Louis-Stevenson.
A flaw of sex and sense of truth, perhaps.
Just set me down by Brighton, chaps.
#dreams
#books
#funny #travel
#funny #travel
63 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Casted_Runes (Mr Karswell)
