Like School

Like School

The cool still rule.
He's queer-bashed on Canal St again
but these gay men can't see
a bleeding nose eclipsed
by their rising Bacardi Breezers.

Don't Bank Love

Don’t Bank Love

Our love
in shoe boxes under the bed,
in brown, big envelopes
stuffed,
loaded
under the arm chair.

Banks give plastic.
Don’t see or feel.
Accept transaction
without question.

Our home
takes love with one sugar.
Stuffed
loaded
sprawls through woodchip.

Performance Poetry: Free Verse Lives!

Whack!

Bam!!

Performance Poetry slams... are dead.

Brown bread. Burnt.

Fallen, jam side down,

hit ground,

K.O.

Time out.

Clear the ring away

because poets will not fight today.

Won't judge. Won't jeer. Make this clear.

Speak quiet enough for everybody to hear.

Slams are dead.

R.I.P.

Now, feel free to fancify your verse

where crowds won't curse or prey you are worse

than their own stanza.

Where hands are applauding. Not marauding.

Mouths cheering. Never sneering.

'Well, his rhymes OK but that metaphors weak.

He does go on abit. Hey! I wannna speak!

Make my mates all rate him low.'

There's no bitterness like show bitterness,

no bitterness i know.

Ding! Dong! The slams are dead!

There's no place like this home!

Our house crushed flat that wicked deed.

No more yellow bricking it before you stand to read.

Just sun gold ink on paper skies

and thoughts, coloured outside the lines.

Beer soaked wisdom. External rhyme.

Share lyrics and laughs.

Write shields, not swords

because friendship is cut by scoring boards.

Competing is unavoidable, in work or family.

Let poetry be a sanctuary.

A cloak to curb a hurricane,

though it only has one thread.

Make this known wherever we tread.

Free verse lives!

Slams... are dead.