AVAST
Their barque was launched in a swamp
with fiddlers & wine in real bottles.
Potted politicians & public barflies paraded
down that street leading to the bones of a jetty.
The crew was long dead, bled into
the scrimshaw of atrocity but still...
They tried for pirate
ended up minor demons.
Could only set sail when the winds kicked up
their minds literally blown, out to the coast.
Every captain should have their lover
to share each other’s holes, buried treasure
was always about flesh.
STILL, LIFE
Floods
random
or not.
Then a ruthless dry
with its banjo & scythe.
The infection of morning
as professionals drive in
to read strangers’ minds. Counselling.
Tim reckons let’s be real
feelings are weeds
most are judiciously plucked or wither
before their bitter fruits can ripen.
We collectively have many
reasons to be cheerful. But.
So. We made this world in our image,
shepherds of discord.
The time of our lives
the tire of our lives —
my garden is so cluttered with dieback
it mistakes this for purpose.
Argotist Online Poetry is the successor to the poetry section of the now no longer existing The Argotist Online. Send submissions to argotistonline@gmail.com. Closing date for Submissions is 1 April 2025.
Poems by Norman Jope
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THE STUDIO The vista which then opened was one I never could’ve anticipated in the Nineties—the PAFA campus was set as a series of jeweled b...
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EQUATIONS #25 When I converse with N on the phone, in about my thirteenth year, our heads open up together, and we create an imaginative lan...
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EQUATIONS #26 Audrey, as a tangent to N, took the idea, not of broadcasting gossip but of sharing and disseminating literature, as a fait ac...