Submissions by The_Silly_Sibyl
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction I appreciate all kinds of poetry. I think any form can have value if it's used well, though I hate the notion that poems are just outpourings of emotion. Even free verse needs a craftsman's eye.
DARK POEM
Published
28th Jun 2020 7:51pm
28th Jun 2020 7:51pm
The British Sense of Crime
Once at a family barbecue -
in my brother’s back garden, it was,
back when he lived just down the road -
the conversation turned
to a terrible murder in the news.
A man had killed his girlfriend’s granddaughter.
Strangled her. She’d turned him down, it appeared,
and so to keep the secret of
his paedophilic bent
he ended everything she was.
Poor girl was only 12.
You’d think her mother, finding out,
would be in pain enough,
yet gossipmongers came about
and chucked up all that British stuff:
“Why was the...
in my brother’s back garden, it was,
back when he lived just down the road -
the conversation turned
to a terrible murder in the news.
A man had killed his girlfriend’s granddaughter.
Strangled her. She’d turned him down, it appeared,
and so to keep the secret of
his paedophilic bent
he ended everything she was.
Poor girl was only 12.
You’d think her mother, finding out,
would be in pain enough,
yet gossipmongers came about
and chucked up all that British stuff:
“Why was the...
#grief
#violence
#shame
#apathy
#fear
33 reads
1 Comment
ANGER POEM
Published
26th Jun 2020 6:54pm
26th Jun 2020 6:54pm
Reading the Paper in 2020
#anger
#hate
#frustration
45 reads
5 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
23rd Jun 2020 7:54pm
23rd Jun 2020 7:54pm
Summer Evening, an Essex poem
the constant chirruping
as tired sun relaxes on
the stalks of heather pushing up
between rusted oddments
this is the summer-baked south east
in all its lack of cogent form
it’s in the train station
where someone’s placed a mattress and
littered beer cans and bags around
the detritus that follows everyone
even the homeless
hopeless
drunk
I write the same poem
always and time again
(don’t think I don’t know that)
but only because
I look at witch country
and can’t fathom ...
as tired sun relaxes on
the stalks of heather pushing up
between rusted oddments
this is the summer-baked south east
in all its lack of cogent form
it’s in the train station
where someone’s placed a mattress and
littered beer cans and bags around
the detritus that follows everyone
even the homeless
hopeless
drunk
I write the same poem
always and time again
(don’t think I don’t know that)
but only because
I look at witch country
and can’t fathom ...
#utopia
#heaven
#hell
42 reads
2 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
22nd Jun 2020 11:06pm
22nd Jun 2020 11:06pm
Clamshells, or Screening Room Z: Ode to Junk
for David Macleod, who gave me the idea
“... about two dozen movies a year feature a mad killer going berserk ... Some have a little more plot, some have a little less. It doesn't matter.” - Roger Ebert
The shelves of my ideal Blockbuster store
are colourful with clamshells painted to
entice the buyer, unwary and gore
loving, hoping to get his fill of grue.
What nuclear holocaust
of taste
and talent
and simple cohesion
is our hero to find
in those haunted clamshells!
Those cases holding black boxes
of...
“... about two dozen movies a year feature a mad killer going berserk ... Some have a little more plot, some have a little less. It doesn't matter.” - Roger Ebert
The shelves of my ideal Blockbuster store
are colourful with clamshells painted to
entice the buyer, unwary and gore
loving, hoping to get his fill of grue.
What nuclear holocaust
of taste
and talent
and simple cohesion
is our hero to find
in those haunted clamshells!
Those cases holding black boxes
of...
#PopCulture
52 reads
3 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
17th Jun 2020 9:09pm
17th Jun 2020 9:09pm
Dahl and Me
for Ahavati, who suggested the subject
"The stories are brilliant and the imagination is fabulous. Unfortunately, there is, in all of them, an underlying streak of cruelty and macabre unpleasantness, and a curiously adolescent emphasis on sex." - Noel Coward
The more I learn how terrible you were
throughout your long career
my fascination grows.
Maybe that's a privilege of race
and sex and class.
I can't say I'd have stood by you
when dropping anti-Jewish filth,
or any of the other crass remarks
that got you banned from your...
"The stories are brilliant and the imagination is fabulous. Unfortunately, there is, in all of them, an underlying streak of cruelty and macabre unpleasantness, and a curiously adolescent emphasis on sex." - Noel Coward
The more I learn how terrible you were
throughout your long career
my fascination grows.
Maybe that's a privilege of race
and sex and class.
I can't say I'd have stood by you
when dropping anti-Jewish filth,
or any of the other crass remarks
that got you banned from your...
#childhood
43 reads
2 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
16th Jun 2020 9:08am
16th Jun 2020 9:08am
To Lady Asquith
In the corner of the churchyard nearest to the house, directly beneath a darkly presiding yew tree, was a worn, flat stone. Here nothing implored the passing tribute of a sigh. There was only the bare inscription:
Here
And beneath in different lettering the words:
God grante that she lye stille.“ - Lady Cynthia Asquith, 'God Grante That She Lye Stille'
I chanced across you in a book of ghost
fiction selected by Roald Dahl.
He talked of meeting you when you
were of advancing years
and confined largely to your bed.
He also...
Here
And beneath in different lettering the words:
God grante that she lye stille.“ - Lady Cynthia Asquith, 'God Grante That She Lye Stille'
I chanced across you in a book of ghost
fiction selected by Roald Dahl.
He talked of meeting you when you
were of advancing years
and confined largely to your bed.
He also...
#birth
#marriage
#death
#LifeCycle
#aging
45 reads
6 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
15th Jun 2020 1:42am
15th Jun 2020 1:42am
Ghost Story
Memory infects the trees.
God’s mortar stains and what was once
pleasantly green, Jerusalem
in patchwork fields, becomes a yard
of ghosts hidden behind each oak
or thistle, rock or chalk.
Haunted England bows to you and yours,
created as it is by human eyes and hands.
The world is our design, and if the cries
of owls fetch forth an impression
of life pulled in to outer time,
those phantoms may as well be.
Fear and need make of our deaths a crime,
so shades are seen from land to naked lee.
God’s mortar stains and what was once
pleasantly green, Jerusalem
in patchwork fields, becomes a yard
of ghosts hidden behind each oak
or thistle, rock or chalk.
Haunted England bows to you and yours,
created as it is by human eyes and hands.
The world is our design, and if the cries
of owls fetch forth an impression
of life pulled in to outer time,
those phantoms may as well be.
Fear and need make of our deaths a crime,
so shades are seen from land to naked lee.
#atheism
#religion
#spiritual
#mythology
#pagan
56 reads
4 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
14th Jun 2020 7:33pm
14th Jun 2020 7:33pm
Sermon on the Destruction of Images
first written and shared in 2015
"... for five hundred years, during which religion was in a more prosperous condition, and a purer doctrine flourished, Christian churches were completely free from visible representations" - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
From Eve in vines about her legs
Like fetters forged in Paradise,
To saintly men in grief reposed,
We see the brass bull teem with lice.
The Christ Himself a sack of rice,
Held in his mother's drooping arms,
Will grease your eyes in Roman homes.
God is...
"... for five hundred years, during which religion was in a more prosperous condition, and a purer doctrine flourished, Christian churches were completely free from visible representations" - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
From Eve in vines about her legs
Like fetters forged in Paradise,
To saintly men in grief reposed,
We see the brass bull teem with lice.
The Christ Himself a sack of rice,
Held in his mother's drooping arms,
Will grease your eyes in Roman homes.
God is...
#religion
#spiritual
41 reads
4 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
8th Jun 2020 11:05pm
8th Jun 2020 11:05pm
Colston’s Fate
Today I learnt of Edward Colston’s fate,
the statue posed with hand on chin
and one knee bent, as if the old man
holding dear
the city his philanthropy
benefitted long ago,
knew his seat in history
would always be a golden throne.
He’s now been toppled in protest
of what brought in and broke his bread:
the legions of the stolen dead,
traded like meat, and salt, and lead.
The apologists, of course,
came out in flippancy,
arguing that ages pass
and make of crimes a frippery.
Why should we judge our...
the statue posed with hand on chin
and one knee bent, as if the old man
holding dear
the city his philanthropy
benefitted long ago,
knew his seat in history
would always be a golden throne.
He’s now been toppled in protest
of what brought in and broke his bread:
the legions of the stolen dead,
traded like meat, and salt, and lead.
The apologists, of course,
came out in flippancy,
arguing that ages pass
and make of crimes a frippery.
Why should we judge our...
#racism
96 reads
5 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
4th Jun 2020 7:26pm
4th Jun 2020 7:26pm
Burke and Blades in: A Painful Rebirth
Inspector Blades surveyed the tea room. Detective Burke, meanwhile, surveyed the cat-heads and follow-me-lads of a tea girl, Shilly, named no doubt for her failure of decision. 'Well, erm, it's like this, Mr Burke... or is it? Oh dear, I wish I knew...' At least she wasn't hysterical, Burke thought. Goodness, he and Blades were shallying worse than Shilly. 'That's all well and good, Miss' he said, 'but I ain't asking much now, am I? All I want to know is, did you see the professor 'aving a collie shangles with the meater or not?'
'Well, yes, I did. He called 'im a mutton...
'Well, yes, I did. He called 'im a mutton...
#funny
60 reads
1 Comment
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
4th Jun 2020 1:02am
4th Jun 2020 1:02am
Time Travel in the Victorian Age
The two detectives put off their delicate duty with what can only be described as a vulgar bashfulness. They perched on Lady Beckinsall's chaise longue like shaggy dogs confused by their sudden allowance on the furniture. The Lady herself was paused in her afternoon tea, with bated cup, and growing impatient. Sensing this, the more working-class of the two detectives, Burke, decided to exploit his social privilege by coming straight to the point. 'Well, ma'am, it's like this, you see... your fella, the good Lord Beckinsall, is currently, ahem, at 'er Majesty's pleasure after being caught -...
#funny
76 reads
6 Comments
DARK POEM
Published
2nd Jun 2020 3:29pm
2nd Jun 2020 3:29pm
Fragment Based on a News Story
A young Israeli found a pocket-sized tablet
depicting the torture by a Canaanite guard
of his captive, a chap with hands tied
behind his back, naked and frail as earliest man.
In the desert, near the Gaza strip,
this little tableaux and monument of Pain,
that oldest and most feared of Gods,
was plucked by child's hands
like the current generation's inheritance
of what's been passed on
since we first saw ourselves
and consciousness was born.
Source of picture: "EMIL ALADJEM/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES", published at...
depicting the torture by a Canaanite guard
of his captive, a chap with hands tied
behind his back, naked and frail as earliest man.
In the desert, near the Gaza strip,
this little tableaux and monument of Pain,
that oldest and most feared of Gods,
was plucked by child's hands
like the current generation's inheritance
of what's been passed on
since we first saw ourselves
and consciousness was born.
Source of picture: "EMIL ALADJEM/ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES", published at...
#humankind
65 reads
3 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by The_Silly_Sibyl
