Rancid Idols Productions

03/02/2024

"You have to go through:
the tall grass, the mud,
the river, the forest,
the snowstorm.

The children clap and sing,
untroubled by the truth."

Today on Poem Alone, Jacqueline Jules is going on a Bear Hunt...

Children clap and sing, excited by a bear hunt. Listen to them chant: Can’t go over it! Can’t go under it! Can’t go around! You have to go t...

02/02/2024

"Alternating between forefingers, he picks out boogers
which he proceeds to wipe on the sidewalk.

The expression on his face is almost or****ic. His eyes
are half closed and his lips seem to be offering gentle kisses
to some imaginary goddess."

Pleasure comes from strange places on today's Poem Alone, with Jeffrey Zable's On New Montgomery Street.

I stop to watch this homeless guy lying down with his back against a garbage can on the sidewalk of one of the busiest areas in downtown S...

01/02/2024

"I think of her every time I dust mop,
the last chore she could do."

A simple but moving poem from Barry Basden on today's Poem Alone.

I think of her every time I dust mop, the last chore she could do. She no longer made coffee or ran the dishwasher, but she could still dust...

31/01/2024

"there are rules about me -
lines and brushstrokes
colour, canvas, vision.
but the only lines I think
about are the canvas edges,
the space between me and
those who come to see"

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is Leaving a Kiss by Christopher Woods.

A woman who says she was so overcome with passion for a valuable painting on display in France has been charged with criminal damage after k...

30/01/2024

"I tend to take time writing a poem. A first draft, some initial revisions and then coming back over a period of time, reviewing and editing. I think my record from first mark on paper to completed poem is 30 years. So the concept of writing a poem from a single word prompt and being published all within 24 hours was a particular challenge for me."

Mark Roberts, one of our poets who recently participated in our latest 24-hour Chapbook Challenge, has written about his experiences of taking part and responding to our prompt. Read how he got on over on his blog, Printed Shadows.

WAR: 24-Hour Chapbook Challenge VII, edited by Colin Dardis, Rancid Idols Productions, Northern Ireland I tend to take time writing a poem. A first draft, some initial revisions and then coming bac…

30/01/2024

"The richest men alive have collaborated,
even though it went against their instincts,
to retain a small army of specially trained
technical engineers assigned to completely
redesign the common sewing needle."

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is M.J. Arcangelini's Privilege

The richest men alive have collaborated, even though it went against their instincts, to retain a small army of specially trained technical ...

29/01/2024

"The narcissist was lonely in the rain.

The shopping cart lady lived nowhere but also inside the loop of memory.

On the Pacific rim in drizzle I bought mochi ice cream and Kim Chee."

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is
Miriam Sagan's Honolulu Fracture.

https://poemalone.blogspot.com/2024/01/miriam-sagan-honolulu-fracture.html

27/01/2024

"I am no longer startled by my irrelevance to the economy.
I can assemble IKEA furniture, manipulate words, slice
salami, calculate volume in terms of books, chain saw
trees, fabricate shelving, repair PVC, curse in three languages,
prepare quiche from scratch and compose poetry (sometimes
simultaneously), to mention just a few skills, and all with great
humility"

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is Robert Okaji's I’ll Have the Body Sandwich, and Hold the “Me,” Please.

The story of my life, as they say. Being that fleshy lump held between cold steel and granite, blue flame and skillet, or that subject of in...

26/01/2024

"This grunt and moan countryman,
sour-faced wouldn't be told, knew all about here,
every dip and bend; but not that another, like him,
was on that same road that day"

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is Mock Sonnet 17 by Sam Smith.

This know-all, kill-all countryman, mud-spattered dog and gun, drove one-armed with his belly in his lap, the pick-up cutting corners and re...

25/01/2024

"These are not things that fold
under the insistence of grief.
They merely proceed
to punctuate time and matter."

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is Tangles of Loss by Marianne Brems.

https://poemalone.blogspot.com/2024/01/marianne-brems-tangles-of-loss.html

She clears away crumbs, brings in the mail, moves the hose around the yard. These are not things that fold under the insistence of grief. Th...

24/01/2024

"In degraded circuits
abandoned temples had fallen to ruin
like ancient shopping malls. In the husk

of a Starbucks I found a congregation
of obsoletes, masked faces hard as life."

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is 'Departure' by Patrick Chapman.

Atonal city petered out, a dying machine dismantled on the Hudson, its heartbeat a pocket of corrupted arias. Towers grew glass coral, their...

23/01/2024

"Remembering is a bad idea.
Every time you do
you remember a little less
and a little wrong."

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is Jim Murdoch's Endothermic Entropy.

https://poemalone.blogspot.com/2024/01/jim-murdoch-endothermic-entropy.html

Endothermic processes embrace the paradox of entropy's dance, as the absorption of warmth unravels order, giving birth to the beautiful chao...