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Gabriel Dec 2019
Why latch on a lover
who couldn't even shed a tear for you?

Does your pillow know
How you cried for her in a bar
Only to go home
with a drowning heart

For you held the beer bottle
More than her hand
You chugged it down
Hoping it will be emptier
Than you ever can
Steve Page Dec 2019
Pub poetry is a form of performance poetry consisting of the shouted word which has developed in UK urban pubs, dating back to the 1940s and 50s. Words are typically yelled over ambient haphazard rhythms which are not especially chosen for the piece of poetry, rather the poetry is performed over the generic sound of empty bottles and part filled glasses and live samples of patron conversation that will be familiar to those frequenting hostelries around the UK.

Sometimes the audience will employ call and response devices to distract the poet, such as calls of "W##k-er!', with the traditional response of "F##k-You!" before the pub poet continues with his yelled out verse, often read from the beer stained back of an overdue envelope.

The pub poet usually appears on a chair or table, surrounded by immediate family or work mates cheering him on.

Invariably inebriated, the pub poet may not appear to make any sense to the uninitiated - but once you too have availed yourself of your 4th or 5th pint, the words become clearer and easier to appreciate.

No musicality is built into pub poems and pub poets generally perform without backing music, delivering chanted speech with pronounced modulation, broken-rhythmic accentuation and dramatic, though random, stylization of gestures, often resulting in the pub poet losing balance and sustaining a head injury thereby losing consciousness and bringing the evening's entertainment to a premature, but often welcome, end.

It is often noted that many pub poets are remarkably shy and retiring when sober.
Based on 'dub poet' wiki entry.  I simply took another look through a different lens.
Jeff Lewis Sep 2019
Ordering a drink.
      I really need that empty glass.  

The lights are slow.   The pace
                        is dim.    The room
         has a sense of non about it.
A piano man plays
                    tuneless  songs.        
Dancers…
                               …don’t.
                    
                   And couples    stare    
            slowly
     past each other.
I kept trying to tag a positive end on this poem, and every time I did it told me to F' off and get back to work
James Rowley Jul 2019
Visiting once more brought the smells all back,
Stout, mixed with cigar smoke, maybe.
I guess it still lingers; Damp had crept  into the only wall left
Burrowing its way in, nesting in the crevices.
It must have been 6, maybe 7 years to the day
When I got a beer from Seamus at the bar
And watched Jack, Billy and Sean down Guinness
With all the finesse of  blind dogs.
What dogs they were though, the furious three;
Piercingly loud they screeched
At every dart that narrowly escaped the clutches of the bulls eye
And nestled itself in the matted padding of the run-down walls.
Even on its last legs, Carlton Vale still kicked with its escaping life;
Now it is clear that desire to fight
Went away the moment the bulldozer touched that first wall, and
All that is left is Billy’s lucky dart
Defending its resting place in the centre of my memories.
Feedback would be appreciated :)
neth jones Jul 2019


Been drinkin’ The Devil

but ****** run dry

I’ve drunk to his memory

and thirst after his family


I attended the funeral

pretended to cry

approached the open bar

and began to pry my luck

Bartender was most generous

Said he once was the Devils’ mascot

he poured me something unfamiliar

I awoke

scratching the inside of the casket


                         - i think I’m gonna be sick
Spelling has been corrected and minor alterations made, where the obvious intent and what was written deviated.
Madison Greene Jul 2019
He smelled like a bar I was too young to get into and marlboro lights
just for a while, I wanted to live something new
to wake up to pancakes in the morning and kisses on the cheek
instead of with my heart broken from the night before and a sinking feeling in my stomach
I hated you for the things you chose over me and the love you never gave
I hated you because a daughter should never have to beg her father for a relationship
newpoetica Jun 2019
it's four in the morning,
and the man you left is sitting on the barstool still in mourning.
he's trying to understand how you feel,
but it's really difficult to do since when  it comes to shots he's had his fill.
he wonders what he did wrong in the your relationship that from his perspective is "ours,"
and what you don't see as you walk away is that he feels remorse so he'll continue this cycle for hours.
some fun wordplay and rhyming :)
Mystic Ink Plus Jun 2019
Prescribed drugs
Sipped with liquor

A lethal cocktail
Genre: Clinical
Theme: A taste of life
Jenna Apr 2019
People walk all about
Humming a soundless tune of self-doubt
The drinks keep coming
Steeped in endless fuming

Friends joke around
A truth sealed and bound
Hiding behind a deadpan
Sustaining the image of an American man

‘More!’, everyone shouts
Raising their cups forgetting their spouse
Sitting here with a straight face
Wanting to forget my workplace
This is based off Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West. Please give me lots of feedback even if you have not read the book. Thank! :)
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