Poetry Breakfast

The Broken State of Things
by Michael Ashley

Met a scruffy bloke today
in Bar38 on New Briggate
told me he was a Marxist

“I didn’t know they still existed”

I told him with the third gulp
of my pint rolling down my throat

“Oh yes, there’s a new movement,
haven’t you seen the tents outside St Paul’s?”

he said with all the confidence of a capitalist

“thought they were just a bunch of hippies
pissed off cos they don’t earn 6 figures
& drive a Ferrari”

I replied with all the confidence of a piss-head

at this he stood up, with a look in his eyes
like he would either cry or punch me

walked to the bar
slapped his Amex on the counter
paid and left

“fucking wannabes”
I shouted to Jack sat in the corner

“ack, nothing in this world works anymore”

he said with all the confidence of a man
who has seen the coin spin, and land flat
in the gutter of century No.21

Michael Ashley, is a 30 year old from the county of West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, most of the time he is either working the 9 ‘til 5 or walking his dogs, but in between this [and the rest of the menial tasks that come along with life] he writes a little poetry.

At His Wake
by Michael Ashley

you muffled it
not so much a laugh
more a murmur
best you could muster
given the setting-
an old man’s pub
The Oak [decayed]
where every seat
has a name
a face
neither written or etched
unspoken
but known
by every patron

and at the bar end
beside the widow
red-eyed
agitated in her clothes
an empty seat
a tankard full of warming ale
a cold flat cap
lies still.

I survey the room
the gentle funeral hum
weighing up
how appropriate
another joke would be.

Michael Ashley, is a 30 year old from the county of West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, most of the time he is either working the 9 ‘til 5 or walking his dogs, but in between this [and the rest of the menial tasks that come along with life] he writes a little poetry.

Children
by Michael Ashley

I watch as they play
with a matchbox car,
in their eyes the carpet
is the lushest meadow,
their limbs are mountains,
and the light-bulb above
is a swinging moon.

Looking past them
out through the window
over the lights of the city,
I smile — content
in the knowledge
this bastard world
is yet to molest them.

Michael Ashley, is a 30 year old from the county of West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, most of the time he is either working the 9 ‘til 5 or walking his dogs, but in between this [and the rest of the menial tasks that come along with life] he writes a little poetry.