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...

22/01/2024

"life isn’t as whimsical as it’s supposed to be in fairy tales,
we are the jokers, the tricksters, we’re Puck’s little helpers,
and when death comes to claim life,
he finds us unprepared, and we do nothing,
but stay silent and mourn"

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is 'Midwinter Daydream' by Mileva Anastasiadou.

https://poemalone.blogspot.com/2024/01/mileva-anastasiadou-midwinter-daydream.html

There is light my love, but also, there is darkness here, sometimes. And sometimes the light is blinding, and when it fades out, the dark is...

21/01/2024

Here's our seventh instalment of our sporadic poetry challenge series: we send out a one-word prompt to participating poets, they reply back with a brand new poem, we collate and have it online, available to download in a free digital chapbook, all within 24 hours!

'War' is a simple word, but it delivers much. One can't help, upon saying it out loud, to associate it with so many recent images of the onslaughts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, delivered daily to our news channels. Even with war so present in our current lives, the word can still also conjure up images from history: holocausts, trenches, dog fights in the air and more, as well as personal conflicts and our own daily battles. The iconography of war, no matter where we are in the world, is indelibly printed on our consciousnesses.

Our cover image is taken from the London Blitz during the Second World War. But it could easily be a street in modern day Gaza City, in Chernihiv, in Kyiv, in Al-Hudaydah. While reading the responses that our participating poets have offered, let us take a moment to consider the civilians of war, the ones whose words will not be heard today.

https://rancididols.weebly.com/war-chapbook-challenge.html

20/01/2024

"Somnolent, in the heat and rhythmic tick of the wall clock, it seems hours
before I am invited to cross the stream between waiting room
and Triage."

We know no one enjoys waiting around in hospitals, so today's poem from Ray Givans really resonated with us...

https://poemalone.blogspot.com/2024/01/ray-givans-casualty.html

Somnolent, in the heat and rhythmic tick of the wall clock, it seems hours before I am invited to cross the stream between waiting room and ...

19/01/2024

"Riding in a car a week later, I’m prodded awake
from a heat-and-humidity nap. “Look!” A turbaned
shoeless man, clothes tattered, grey, sits alongside
of the road next to his grey elephant, both sleeping."

Today on the Poem Alone blog, Diana Rosen takes us on a trip to the Himalayas...

i. Mist covered trees: otherworldly, mysterious then clear bright sunshine exposes lush greenery tea bushes dotted by pluckers in colourful ...

19/01/2024

"The desert heat and the moon and Brother Sleep,
those three know how I toss and even my little toe
wishes you were here right now."

It was a busy day at RIP Mansions yesterday, so apologies, we didn't get to post our poem for Wednesday, the excellent '3 am' by Silke Feltz!

The desert heat and the moon and Brother Sleep, those three know how I toss and even my little toe wishes you were here right now. You’re ...

17/01/2024

"Soon all the guitars will be out of tune and
They'll be no one left to tune 'em
The cool refreshing water will run hot"

Today's poem on our Poem Alone blog is 'If left to my own devices' by Lou Raio.

https://poemalone.blogspot.com/2024/01/lou-raio-if-left-to-my-own-devices.html

What we need cannot be bought and We couldn't afford it any how And more likely It's fleeing from us faster It's running out and running...