i ring their bell ends
it’s what i was made for
nothing in my head but head
making a dull sound
making the right sound
since when did we become so familiar?
i’m just an udder with dicks
expressing the milk of human kindness
but to them it’s only wankery
making a dull sound
making the wrong sound
since when did i earn such contempt?
by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
I remember the history of my first scar,
You don’t forget bullying and barbed wire
Chased by a group of Catholic and non Catholic boys,
There was little difference between bullies in those days,
They all ran fast in the thrill of the hunt
Cornered at the base of a once insurmountable chain mail fence
Fear can make a young boy do extraordinary things
Climbing the 12 feet and flipping over the top
Barbed wire hung rusty on the other side of the fence
Careless workmanship an age old story
I remember the feeling as barb caught skin and
Still visualise the trail of bright red running down my leg
The run home was fast and bloody, my grey sock turning red
I tried to sneak in quietly through the back door
But an ever vigilant mother could not be outsmarted
I’m sure I lied, never telling her that I was being chased
Life was easier to live if the bullies felt you never told
Bullying is like racism, it’s not in your genes, it’s learned
What I want to know is what were the teachers teaching
Nothing good comes with a serving of barbed wire
by TONY MUTTON
© All rights reserved 2021
needle always points
this way, not the other way
life, straight and simple
tapping glass facade
with a time-worn forefinger
for something has changed
north has gone astray
besotted with fragrant air
cherry blossom front
thread follows needle
pilgrims wander to the east
archipelago
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021
i’m sorry i shouted at you
i had no right (you told me darkly)
i sailed my disgrace through the reef of shame
but hadn’t we kissed at the blushing jetty?
was that just another tidal skeeting?
another day with nothing inside
yet hope still dabbed behind each ear
i’ve seen mermaids depart for other shores before
speaking wakes of dismantled devotion
i hope we prove to be the exception
once more in our summer of discontent
again we list sadly into fall apart
to become a sail’s wintry afterthought
but didn’t our lungs evolve for screaming
for when choppy waters beset us?
by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021
the cereal killer died as he’d lived
slaying bowls at a time with cold precision
of course, it wasn’t his decision
it was an early childhood trauma
(as is usual with these kinds of people)
he’d build mounds of corn flakes like a steeple
’til mother beat him for playing with his food
so he grew to hate milk and processed grain
carried all his life this exquisite pain
he thus learned to be an agronomist
well actually, he poisoned the earth
from corner to corner, along its girth
and he tied the cows’ tails in bundles
so they mooed and lost their milk
then life from that point went smooth as silk
until one fateful day in vietnam
he thought he saw a bowl floating in the cream storage vat
but it was his boss’s wife in an oriental rice hat
having a soak, if you please, to nourish her skin
not realising this, he moved in for the kill…
then her voice sounded, agonised and shrill
then the boss busted into the barn with a big gun
boom! boom! then blood flowed like red cordial through a sieve
that stupid cereal killer died as he’d lived
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021
unbolt me 