WHERE TO GO
The cause
Before
The pause,
Hands out
Steering
Ino sepia,
Red flags, white flags,
Survivors flagging
Down fleers,
One flag-waver lures
Adherents
Builds barricades,
Millions march,
The defensive
Inflict
Defensive wounds,
No-one is in charge but
We all know what’s
Going on,
Where are the Informed,
We even know where to go,
Yes,
We know [where this is going]
A STORIED TALE
Triumphal
Apocryphal
Stories of exactitude
Rewritten
Hidden
Sold and stolen
Planted in minds
Recirculated
Folklore and fable
Rubbished, banished
Resurfaced, Reinvented
Rhetoric
Believably
Revolutionary
Unctuous and unbidden
Manifesto
Inherited
Installed
Institutionalised
Statute by decree
Patriotic
Inspiring, rousing
Fought for,
Died for.
This blog is the successor to the poetry section of the now no longer existing The Argotist Online. Send submissions to argotistonline@gmail.com. Due to the large number of submissions, only those accepted can be replied to.
Poem by Stephen Bett
Novel Lines 101: 101 alphabetical poems, each riffing on the opening line of a postmodern novel or metafiction. Antonio Lobo Antunes, Act o...
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A NOTE ON THE MANDRAKE The irregular black bands down its side allow a small force to over- come a larger one. Otherwise it is blue, & d...
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SEA, ME, & LIBERACE A school of Patagonian toothfish have given me a candelabra for my saint’s name day. I’ve placed it on the grand pia...
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BROADCAST NOISE Not shot full of skittering beasts said someone — or was it beats? Or was it the Titanic that really sank or some similar si...