Puritanism

Hi everyone! Puritanism was submitted as part of aAh Mag’s August and September theme: FREEDOM. Access the link below to read my poem on their website. aAh! is Manchester Metropolitan University’s official student magazine; they’re really good guys, so please support them as much as you can! Creative Submission: ‘Puritanism’ by Thomas Gallimore Barker If

We were just following orders

We were just following orders. For you it is a feeble excuse. But, then again, you are not the ones with chains around your ankles, and rags your only possession in this world—you have made sure of that. We had no choice. We had to do what we had to. Not for fear of Caesar’s

The Legend of the White Whale: Unabridged

Eons ago, long before tides moved and moons shadowed everyone with their gloom, She Who Invites stirred the primeval ocean and birthed four sons. Free on the high seas they were bejewelled islands, a jaded necklace glimmering on the world’s breast. Floating far away from desert sands and dry land, caught like gulls in the

The Legend of the White Whale: Finale!

Brushes went up her spine, jellied heart from a beating rush. What hope did she have, against a creature lighter than sand? Still she threw iron bolts, which flew mighty high! One. Two. Three. All passed through the skeleton-whale. Twelve. Eighteen. Nineteen spears tipped with steel didn’t leave a mark! Now, dear children, it was

The Legend of the White Whale: Part Three (penultimate)

White skinned Chizue did not sleep, toiled under every flicker of light. From her lover’s hut, she crafted with calloused hands a hunting boat. Dark as the night, it reeked of fresh death, tarnishing slender sides the unholy varnish made everyone sick, leaving Red Eyed Chizue immune. Alone she went. A death dirge bade farewell,

My Waste Land

Conceived during my studies, My Waste Land is a creative response to T.S Eliot’s The Wasteland—A poem that I discovered at the same time. My Waste Land was mothballed at this time, but despite its underdeveloped nature, I felt attached to the poem. There was a latent power within the poem that magnetised me to

Iron Henry

Hi all! I’m once again delighted to tell you all about my latest collaboration with aAh! Magazine, Manchester Metropolitan University’s official arts and culture student magazine. The latest poem is ‘Iron Henry’, a From the Archive poem that was redrafted to perfection with the wonderful assistance of the magazine’s Creative Editors. Iron Henry remodels the

Gone

While hosting a Writing Workshop for Man Met’s Poetry Society, I got participants to take a book from their childhood, and transform it into a poem. Though it was not an original activity (in fact, remaking texts into something new formed an entire module in my studies), I added a little flair to the exercise.

The Friendly Stranger

Dawn light dances through the cyan night, twinkling bright as if cradled in the olive branches, whose trunks warp as they are blown left-to-right, like they are dancing underneath the candlelight, they turn white, shaped like seams across the Mount of Olives— slowly, softly refracting the light that’s burning from a distant lantern’s relives. A

London Bridge

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many—buckling until it cracked. ‘London Bridge is falling down, falling down, London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.’ I had not thought death had undone so many. It collapsed with weighty sighs, exhaled. Down it went, from King William Street to Saint Mary Woolnoth, cracking a dead