Writing: Formal poetry
Villanelles, sonnets, haiku, limericks and more … Not all Janine’s poems follow strict forms, but these ones do …
Haiku: Savings Bank
Trickle-Down Economics
Give handouts to the City not the town Award the top the most, the bottom least and in the end, the wealth will trickle down So feed the finest to the howling hound The sparrow pecks the droppings of the … Read more
Villanelle: A Step or Two
Autumn falls and storm clouds brew The post each day brings season’s chill The queue moves on a step or two The last demand is overdue It stands unopened on the sill As autumn falls and storm clouds brew They … Read more
End of the Line
Walk down locked and empty streets alone, arrive for start of shift, it’s bear-the-brunt time to serve some others’ families not your own Going from the home front to the frontline Frozen pay, now tiny, ice-cold ‘offers’, red-bordered bills alert … Read more
Clerihew: Andrew Haines
Clerihew: Jeremy Westlake
Clerihew: Grant Shapps
Fallen Idol
after Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley I met a bruised and smiling activist, elated, vindicated in their deed, who’d tossed into the harbour’s swell at Bristol the form of Portland stone to fishes feed Of one whose eight-foot statue’d … Read more
Us and Them
A golden shovel based on the final stanza of The Mask of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley. They hold us down but still we rise, deference dies, we bite them down to size. Like Jayaben roars, we are the lions, … Read more