By Michael Angelia Ticket’s marked. Punched. No returns. No refunds. Seven hundred fags a day, cheeky bags, kebabs. Heroin for breakfast – that’ll have a say. But brass tacks – protein shakes, health kicks, five-bean mix, electrolytes. Count for nothing – you’re already cooked. Compulsory last rites. Wouldn’t be seen dead in Lycra – so cycle in a suit. CrossFit dimwits. Don’t waste time with sit-ups, burpees, curls; cores are for compost – in your cemetery plot. It c

By Kim Wielett The only thing that doesn't change is death, which is always different yet remains unchanging, despite decay, which is part of life, regardless, The only thing that never dies is change, the only constant, which remains in flux, despite monumental efforts to remain static by egos who refuse to acknowledge fate in ways that cost dearly, leaving behind far worse than hurt feelings, Many find the sheer cost of exchange unbearable, more than Atlas ever uplifted, qu

By Lynsey Balloch I was playing in the dirt when he found me – With my thighs clamped shut. Taking pause – I slid into his arms. Wandering from foreign parts, Stumbling across my village by chance, He chose to ruffle his ironed shirt – And stop me in the street. What an upstanding young gentleman! My body trembled eagerly, Weighed down and squirming – With feelings that were not mine. “You are starving. Let me feed you.” He said – grave mouth closed. I was. Having not been su

By Joseph Chapman “Hey, look over there!” They shout at everyone below. “That side wants to make you pay!” Whilst the ones above put on a show. You think that there are many sides, That you can choose and change the law, But there has only ever been one group, They just exploit this flaw. A smile can cover all, A promise can give false hope, Whilst they do monstrous things; The lies allow us to cope. We write angry poems, Songs, and chants, We fight against those who oppose A

By Gary Richards Roll up; roll up, to the greatest show on earth, A magical mystery tour of feelings, Step this way, take a seat, Close your eyes, feel the warmth, The edge of steel against your skin, Stroking the artery across your wrist, Relax, embrace the fear, Blade caressing the jugular, hair standing, Are you scared? You should be, for I am Death! A nervous laugh I hear, Warmth of the liquid, flowing over the skin, Cold sweat breaking free, Fear rising, arteries emptyi

By J.D. Scève Is it dangerous to love another poet? They say to fall for one is to live eternally, Between their lines of adoration, And honeyed words to their muses of fire. But would two be suffocating, As all misery and esteem is laid out raw on fresh pages? Ink soiled with the sickly sweetness of colliding passions, The cold shudder of bitter prose frothing in the mind. Poetry is like the spring flower peeking through melting snow, Poising the slush while enfolding petals

By Gareth Coombes There's a snake in the grass A double dealer Secrets are not safe The lock has been picked Seemingly, they serve With siren words They ingratiate Using forked tongues Whilst unseen And unknown We serve them Right is left Left is right And right is wrong. The pseudo serving traitorous Live among us With our naïve countenance Crypto spies Relaying information To be used against us Code names… Alexa and Siri. #DarkPoetsClub #DarkHumourBitterIrony

By FirebirdRises Life handed me a script once said, don’t worry, the tragedy comes with a laugh track. Apparently the timing matters. You slip on hope, fall flat on ambition, knock your teeth on the pavement of maybe tomorrow, and somewhere a polite audience applauds, because suffering, apparently, tests well with focus groups. I tried optimism for a while. It came in a bottle with the instructions rubbed off. Side effects included unpaid overtime, trusting people, and believ

By CMcC Her hands poised over the crystal ball, she glared intensely at me, ‘Relax, my dear, sit back, enjoy. Let me tell you what I can see’. Gazing into the colourful sphere, her words began to spill, Listening intently to my future, all was well.. until.. Her voice began to tremble and she cut the reading short, She said she wasn’t feeling well, she was going to abort. I left the building feeling strange, like something wasn’t right, Pain in my chest, fall to the ground, I

By Aurora Grace I grew up told that clothes equal armour Every seam increased my virtue 'It's her fault that man chose to harm her, You Women should stick to a curfew' That night I wrapped myself in 'no' Each layer, defence from the cold But some monsters enjoy the challenge And get off on fighting for gold Fabric can't fight back, Can't speak, Can't prevent or protect from attacks I screamed as irony bared his teeth But the absurdity almost caused me to laugh #DarkPoetsClub.

By Carol Elva Greenwell Sibyll is still lying. Still in bed. She has not gone to the kitchen, made tea, logged on, sent and read emails, for a fortnight. She has not rung any of her daughters. Fiona has added both of her sisters’ numbers to Sibyll’s speed-dial. Not her own. Catherine is lying at the bottom of the stairs, left leg at a daft angle, the guilty feline draped across her silent breast. The others haunt their empty bowls and ‘go’ elsewhere, than amongst the litter

By Patrick Julian Hunter I had been fascinated by the idea of seeing my innards for years, and finally mustered up the courage to do the inevitable. I began by filleting my sides with slow, careful cuts— to grasp the meat and begin the laborious task of peeling and pulling the flesh, working inch by inch until I had the desired effect. Once completed, I stitched myself a Saran Wrap suit to hold everything in place and keep the alley cats from licking the vital parts. Oh, the

By Mike O'Brien Dazed, I walk through the house In pursuit of the ghost of her. A bookmark reveals Where she’d finished reading...for now. Her hand would have smoothed that page, Warmly caressed the print. Though her hands were often cold; Her eyes burned, processing the words, Triggering thought, The kind of thought that transports, Leaving me stranded. The blanket she kept On the back of her chair, Slumbers like a sleeping cat. She wrapped it around her legs in the even

By Matthew Vorley The sunflower once stood tall gold halo, head lifted to a sky I could never reach but now its petals hang like torn confessions, colour drained, spine cracked, a monument to everything I failed to hold. I watch it die slow, deliberate, the way love dies when the voice shakes and the mind shuts down and the heart forgets how to speak. Its stem folds in on itself just like my chest did the day I walked away from the only warmth I knew. Now there’s nothing but

By Sid Wilson Knit your entrails together, Wrap them around your needles and tug to craft yourself into something new that forgets what imperfection feels like. Compress yourself against the inner edges Of the shape you used to be. Fix the insides first. Cleanse the pollution of nerve tissue, unrefined organ matter. Women made by male-manufactured belief, to make you believe it too, and it must be true because lies are ugly, and they are beautiful. You want to be beautiful

By Maryam Imogen Ghouth There is a room beneath the noon—no clocks, no sun. We fold morning into a coin, slip it under the tongue, enter with pockets full of hours. Outside the city bargains with horns and flyers. We learn the economy of absence: how to make a day vanish between two breaths. Sometimes life asks for me back: I hand myself over as a crumpled note. I carry in my chest the debt of having been gone, but I like the red lights that rain, the downward spiral, the vel

By Vincent Kenny It’s an excuse for a romp really beyond the unspoken unspeakables of civil society How could it be otherwise – to loosen the chains that keep it all…. well - civil! The thoughts behind those flickering eyelids, the un-uttered slowly released …. sigh, boy; that released primeval urge – chemical surge…. Ejacula, ejaculus ejaculorum; Sperm casts into the void – that utero place we called home; (as it was at the beginning, is now, and never ending) We mortal

By Damen O'Brien Three changes of lights occur before she has the nuts undone. The crunch and drum of wheels griping through the intersection are like a murmur or a mantra or The Beatles played backwards. She watches two cars run the lights on successive reds, daring the camera to flash. The cameras blink as belatedly as a hangover. Butcher birds gargle out their chorus in a tree nearby and magpies scrape their washboard calls up and down her spine. The man in the boot of h

By Alan C. Smith There are poems hiding under the clothes strewn on the floor of my bedroom, under the open unpaid bills, caked dead skin in corner sills, many legged wasp-red creatures with stings. I tiptoe through in darkness lest I trample them, get stung, inject with punishing pain, potent poison. There are poems hidden in my water-heater closet under the dust bunnies and petrified roaches on their backs, crisscrossed legs tight to their abdomens, poems squirming in the

By Zofia Koren Here, in the town that life forgot, Beware, O, dreamers of this place, — where lovers, weavers go to rot. Here, puddles pool in hollow heads, Stillborn of fouled liquified thoughts, — still and born of spore-spreading dreads. O, Fear feeds on the wretched lot, Festering fools who fumble in, To the town that life forgot. An early grave awaits you there, A death so foul — so void of soul, It eats your heart and strips you bare. Fools’ll twist your tendons as a kn