Poetry.

A Valentine’s Day Poem by Rizwan Akhtar

The Train ever since that day a memory keeps shivering on a white table sheet with a stain of a cup’s bottom discovered a small wish silence swallowed I nabbed your hands like a desperate commuter though the last train is totally empty symptoms pointed paradoxes kept for the rest of the journey a dream […]

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Home Grown In Glasgow – a poem for International Women’s Day by Ruby McCann

Home Grown In Glasgow I am woman  a sister of Glasgow a pale skinned, freckled-faced Scot a she-child fae the sou’ side a native Glaswegian Mither Glasgow shaped me   I am a child of many born into this city I am Pict, I am Celt I am Irish, Scottish, and Glaswegian a city born, […]

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Poetry for Valentine’s Day by Finola Scott

long-distance love through    dark      your voice slips trouble-thick with exams rent       partner too far away in miles      and years to kiss      to make better too far in years  and miles I spin a bright cat’s cradle of words      to hold you      soothe you but       […]

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a serenade for Lahore’s Rain – Rizwan Akhtar

a whirling leaf…mingled with the human leaf storm, dragged along by its impetuous force [Leaf Storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez] what rain did to the city you did to me made me run for trees uncovered I dripped instead of words your love wet and watery turned into a lonely puddle pattered rippled bore splashes […]

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Book launch: Like A Tree Walking by Vahni Capildeo

1 December, 2021 at 7 p.m. By Carcanet Press Online event celebrating the launch of Like a Tree, Walking by Vahni Capildeo, the 2021 Poetry Book Society Winter Choice. Hosting the reading will be fellow Carcanet poet Padraig Regan, joining Vahni to discuss the new book. The event will feature readings and discussion, and audience […]

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Ghazal: Soul’s Food – Rizwan Akhtar

Ghazal: Soul’s Food In love fever/separation kills. Finding her/would ease the burning. Ibn Arabi   The last Apostle said about his first spouse “Khadijah is my soul’s food” this could be a word a Lover cares to say to his Beloved for soul’s food.   Those who are distracted by ways of the world need […]

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Glesga Banter: Celebration of Weegie Culture

Thursday, 25 February, 2021 at 6 p.m. Online Event by Bhasha Glasgow Language Festival and Thriving Places Govanhill Free Sign up for event An hour of wee stories, poetry, and song Hosted by Marion Nisbet a community councillor in Govanhill, an antiracist, antipoverty feminist who enjoys growing food, community and resistance. Marion will be joined by her […]

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Believe in Scotland Virtual Burns Supper

Saturday, 23 January, 2021 6.30 p..m. – 7 p.m. Start £15 – Buy tickets The Believe in Scotland Virtual Burns Supper will take place on Saturday, January 23. All proceeds will be spent on campaigning for Scottish independence – a stellar line up to entertain and enlighten you, ranging from the best Burns and folk […]

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This is not the time to be the bad Angel by Jim Byrne

This is not a poem – it is just some Sunday ruminations that might become a song lyric. This is not the time to be the bad Angel this is not the time to be the bad Angel to break the rules to celebrate the dark side of life to cut off the kind and […]

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Poetry by Hafsah Bashir

Hafsah Bashir – Author, Poet and Social Counsellor Rain in NewYork  It rains in NewYork  and all I crave is the scent of soil I hold the dirt and smell fruit and fortune rich and fertile it is corporeal in texture earthly in odor doesn’t smell like soil ships me aback to the dirt, I […]

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Conal Doherty – Vision and Peace Be Me

Peace be me A minute after midnight, from another world I woke The door slammed hard behind me  And the earth below me shook I saw the little boy… that night, drop a pebble in the molten light The earth below rippled hot and slow lit the world with bitter glow My eyes adjusted to […]

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Kayus Bankole & Kei Miller: Edinburgh Book Festival

Kayus Bankole & Kei Miller: Outriders Africa from East to West  Mon 31 Aug, 2020 11:30 – 12:30 The New York Times Main Theatre Online  Free, online As part of the Book Festival’s Outriders programme exploring the shifting landscapes of contemporary Africa, hear from award-winning writer Kei Miller, whose barnstorming latest poetry collection, In Nearby Bushes, was tipped […]

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Ghazal: the phone – poem by Rizwan Akhtar

Ghazal: the phone –for Tammara Claire Pacing up and down you looked so calm holding the phone Aren’t we connected? So, why this fuss about the phone? Eunuchs inside harems giggle running errands for lovers Now they text and delete; amor changed with the phone my ghazals are messages wrapped in all kinds of rhymes […]

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In Times of Self-Isolation poem by Rizwan Akhtar

In Times of self-Isolation   I have just discovered that there is a world outside still a touch away from us we used to be so familiar   coming each  morning the sun bloats carelessly even shadows of all possible sizes remain alone   no one comes out to sue time for being too slow […]

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Corona Virus Stew – poem by Leela Soma

FiveRings at English Wikipedia / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0) Recipe May 2020  Ingredients: Shopping list flour, toilet rolls, food, food, Stock pile, no space, greed, look after number 1 Stay home, save lives, save the NHS Watch TV, social distance at 2 metres, daily update Ventilators, nightingale hospital, PPE Care home deaths, scientists graphs, flatten the […]

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Poetry by Jim Doolan

O to see again Across the fields and meadows, I cast a cautious eye, Perchance to catch a fleeting glimpse Of fairies, O so shy. For many years I’ve watched forlorn, To catch a further view Of what I saw one Summer’s morn Upon the sun-kissed dew.   Their wings were as gossamer, Their form […]

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National Poetry Day 2019 – Glasgow Poets

Basia Palka I am beginning to doubt the existence of Human beings, for they seem to me Not altogether there, whereas for angels I can safely say that they are either there Or not there Everyday angels Walk Byres Road With Wings Folded up Angels have no need of lips For they kiss with their […]

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Poetry: Lahore, I am coming by Rizwan Akhtar

Rizwan Akhtar works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. He completed his PhD in postcolonial literature from the University of Essex. His poetry has been published in the the UK and countries throughout the world including:   Canada, India, New Zealand and U.S.A. Poems from Rizwan Akhtar’s first collection ‘Lahore, […]

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The Last Leaf – a poem for Autumn by Catriona Malan

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Leela Soma: ‘Vermillion’ a poem for Autumn

‘Autumn’ in the broadest sense. It is how Indian widows had to undergo a ritual  in olden days to give up all their ornaments, even the red dot on their forehead wear only white. Life stopped if their husbands passed away. Vermillion Leaves fall down, blown away in the autumnal blitz Gold strewn paths crunch and crackle underfoot A […]

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Silence a poem inspired by snow by Leela Soma

Silence   And still it snows Gently fall the snowflakes Stars of  crystalline perfection Earth yielding to soft abundance Enveloped in a cocooning white silence Leela Soma, March, 2018

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Valentine Haiku by Leela Soma

Haiku The gurgling feadan beside us We watch the landskein paint the sky Last kiss shared, she left. Leela Soma, Glasgow Writer

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Glasgow West End: Poetry and Writing

Bohemian Chemistry by Stephen Watt Saxophone jazz swanks out from the Oran Mor barwhere toy school kids on tightrope wallstry not to fall; plucking air guitars.The instrument does not seem to matter. Streetlights spark bonfires in dying, west end heavens –a half crescent moon is fish-hooked on university buildings,brimming with assiduous students’ laughter. Traffic cones […]

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Out of Sight by Ciara MacLaverty: a poem about love.

Out of Sight The best thing You do for me is to let me be as I am (better than  I do for myself, I add) and when necessary you meet my what if it doesn’ts with a what if it does… You teach me more than you know- though I don’t always tell you […]

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Two Cities – a poem by Leela Soma

Buffalo NY and Glasgow, so much in common.  Tartan & Turmeric Two cities The two could be twinned, history so familiar Niagara River, and Erie Canal made this city As grain silos rose up in the sky, men worked hard To get the grain ashore, milled and built steel. The city of light, the Niagara […]

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Spoken Word Events in Glasgow

Listings Courtesy of Stephen Watt ••  Information will be updated once venues start to reopen again re pandemic. Last Monday At Rio Cafe Rio, Hyndland Street, Partick – held on the final Monday each month (c/o Robin Cairns) 27 Hyndland Street, Glasgow, G11 5QF. 0141 334 9909 Seeds Of Thought CCA, Sauchiehall Street – held […]

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Poetry by Stephen Watt

Stephen Watt is a poet and performer from Glasgow. Stephen’s debut collection of poetry “Spit” was published by Bonacia in 2012. His poetry has been described as ‘kitchen sink film noir’ (which he admits he hasn’t a clue what it means either), punk, gothic, surrealist, and, on occasion, fantastical. Buy Spit Online Stephen will be […]

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Things I`ve Learned In France, Stuart Paterson

There are no taxis in Fontainebleau You gather a group of pals for a good night out in a local, buzzing tourist hotspot. Some pizza cooked in front you by a handlebar-moustachioed Italian lunatic, followed by a couple of top gigs (Cyrille Aimee & Les Doigts de l’Homme, since you asked) at a beautiful old […]

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Ayah a poem by Leela Soma

Ayah My child eye watches,Ayah’s Rangoli patterns bright, on the newly washed verandaThe dots threaded together like pearls of life’s experienceCultural traditions handed down in perfect symmetryThe opalescent sky shimmers anewA visual joy starts the day. My child ear hears,Her quiet, broken piece by pieceThe coffee machine, grinds beans, the aroma rich.Golden sun beats down noon […]

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Stuart Paterson, blogging from Grez sur Loing: Science fiction poetry

Techni-quarks – what are they? Where did they come from? Where are they going? Do they even exist? Is the God Particle aware of them? The answers to all of these questions can be found below by my guest blogger Techni-Quark Googolplex 23b56x000. Unfortunately, since it`s a techni-quark, which can exist at any given point […]

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