Tag Archives: Life

expiration date (copeland can’t cope)

the oncologist called
said the tumour was benign
i returned to my laptop
an open tab beckoned me to proceed
looks like i’ll be transitioning
from mortal fear back to dull career then
but, damn, even if the tumour’s benign
why should i continue this drawn out
malignant metastasizing existence?
so i click ‘yes’ and proceed
to my merciful mail order death
by stoning and virus coroning
they ask for the expiry date and cvv
i type six six six and laugh

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

regret

heed the silence that follows
truer than any promise made
the sound and fury of a hidden life
you cannot dream this into submission

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

saoirse

at the beginning of time there was a girl
in a melamine bowl
she had no family, no friends
and was on the dole
she was sat there in a corn flake swirl
a milky, sugared doll
her belongings were mere odds and ends
oh, what a poor little soul!

her name was saoirse
though people hardly remembered
yearning between dearth and plenty
buried under stone in the garden of rasure

at noonday’s predoom was a woman cold
in a gumball machine
for the merriment of boozers
in a stinky shebeen
she would shiver nude and candy bold
a pert and tart cuisine
a laughing stock even for losers
oh, buy her a tall glass of poteen!

her name was saoirse
though people hardly remembered
yearning between dearth and plenty
buried under stone in the garden of rasure

at the end of all things there was a crone
in a bottle discarded
fighting her battles all over again
in weakness, unguarded
she inhaled a black wind through her bones
and all she’d once regarded
her last sigh was for the land of cockaigne
where life is ample tabled and lardered

her name was saoirse
though people hardly remembered
yearning between dearth and plenty
buried under stone in the garden of rasure

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

GUEST POST // A Birthday Poem by B K Rollason

There comes a time
for taking stock
of what one’s had
and what one’s got,

of where one’s going
and where one’s been,
of what one’s heard
and what one’s seen.

You know the games,
you’ve learnt the rules,
you can tell the wisemen
from the fools,

you’ve learned that all’s
not as it seems,
that life is both
reality and dreams,

and like the tides
that ebb and flow,
life’s sometimes fast
and oft’ times slow.

To survive the storm
a tree must bend,
and a new day starts
where this one ends.

by B K ROLLASON
© All rights reserved 1982

the blacklight gaze

maybe i am nothing
or maybe i did happen once
but history was never my story
and paradise always belonged to you
maybe if i denied my need
maybe if i’ve not said too much
i might finally find my field of reeds
to walk in, perchance to breathe

fain don’t you light a candle for me
for tomorrow’s breeze would see me gone
so scorn me not for a child
i intend to bleed from open hands

maybe i am grateful
or maybe i’ll be the final smile
frozen between provident lines
where i’m never right and you’re never wrong
maybe i haven’t bled enough
maybe if i defied the need
in an ultraviolet field of reeds
to haze in, ergo to breathe

fain don’t you light a candle for me
for tomorrow’s breeze would see me gone
so scorn me not for a child
i intend to bleed over scorched sands

maybe my blood was fire
maybe i am guttering now
bleeding out blackened fields of need
to lay in, forgo to breathe
so maybe i am something
maybe i’ll not betide even once
everyone’s busy living and dying
least of all me

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020