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Best Poems Written by Janine Lever

Below are the all-time best Janine Lever poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Janine Lever Poem

It's a Mad World- In a Lancashire Accent

IT’S A MAD WORLD In a Lancashire Accent.

I went to the Confectioners today, there was a long queue outside, a metre apart, and it had started to rain.
The assistant behind the counter had shiny eyebrows, they were that shiny they looked like plastic leeches and her false eyelashes were that thick it looked like she’d cut them off a fringed velour settee from the 80’s, or a brocade, tasselled curtain pane.
When it was my turn, I stood on the black social distancing tape, and said, “Please may I have a sausage roll”
She said, “What sort?”
I said, “One with sausage in it.”
She gave me a fixed steel-blue look and said, “What type?”
The muscles never moved around her eyes and her face was like an old fur animal draped round the shoulders of a wealthy woman from the 30’s, a dead glazed -eyed shoulder-stole.
I said, “A rolled one.”
She glared and the ‘Party Passion’ shade red lips tightened, as she said,
“Large or small ?”
I smiled weakly and said, “A large sausage roll. Thank you.”
She went down the counter and with white plastic tongues, she picked up the sausage roll with one hand and placed it into a paper bag in the other, then swizzed it round twice as she made her way back up. Then she plonked it on the counter and said, touching her hair-do,
”That’s 75p!”
I had a pound coin in my hand ready and I reached out from the social distancing line at my feet, just enough, for my arm to reach the counter.
She looked at it and said, “Card only!” and then she plonked a card machine on the top.
I tried to reach over again whilst with the other hand I fumbled in my bag and on retrieving the pound, desperately tried to find my card and having loosed it from the disinfected plastic wallet, I held it over the tech goblin, it beeped twice and stopped.
She said, “Goodbye.”
I said, “I forgot. I need a bag.” I sounded lame.
She pursed, her now even more red ‘Party Passion’ shade of lips and in one movement, she swung on her heel, to the rear shelf, whipped off a plastic bag and said, “That’s 5p!”
I said, “Oh?” and fumbled for my card wallet again.
She plonked the Tech Goblin on the top once more, her chin now taking on a kind of pointed, jutting- out shape.
The card beeped and I thought this is slightly insane.
I said,“I can’t open it.” The bag was stuck together.
She rolled her eyes and I think she spoke silently to God and then she snatched another plastic bag off the shelf and rubbed it and like Ali Baba’s Cave Door, it opened weightless as a flimsiest feather.
Then she shoved the sausage roll in it, put it back on the counter and said, loudly, “Goodbye!”

I said, “I haven’t finished yet. I’d like a cake.”
Her chin became a dagger, the lips screwed up, the cheeks sucked in and through clenched teeth she said,
“What sort!”
I said, “An elephant’s foot.”
She blinked quite a few times, the leeches dropped down, her body stretched and there seemed to be a-rising of her chest and of her gut.
Then she said, “What’s that?” The wheedling sound of a patronising cut.
I said,
“It’s a cake. A cake made out of choux pastry, circular almost, cut in half with fresh cream inside and chocolate or coffee icing or caramel icing on the top. It looks like an Elephants foot. That’s why it’s called an Elephants foot.”
She said, in a sort of mock-squirming way,
“Do you mean an Éclair?
The beginnings of a twist to the side of her mouth and her head took on a type of sway.

I said,
“No, an Éclair is the shape of a sausage roll.”
She opened her eyes very wide now, the nostrils were flaring, the plastic leeches rising up, then they came down again in a deep menacing togetherness- type fall.
She said,
“We don’t sell Elephants Feet!”
I said, “Okay, I‘ll have an Éclair then.”
She said, “What sort?”
I said, “One with choux pastry, fresh cream in the middle and chocolate icing on the top….shaped like a sausage roll, but, sweet.”
By this time, I could see her teeth, set together and her eyes wide with the false eyelashes touching the leech- shaped shiny eyebrows.
She said, “Large or small!”
I said, very weakly, “Large.”
Her heels clacked hard on the floor as she stomped down the counter, retrieved an Éclair with the same tongues, deposited it into a paper bag in her other hand, twisted the corners and plonked it on the counter.
“That’s 90p!”
I fumbled again for my plastic wallet in the disinfected plastic bag, in my handbag, then card ready and keeping my feet on the social distancing line, I held it over the Tech Goblin and once more its digital blind eyes see.
It beeped. Then I said, sheepishly,
“I need another bag, the cream will get warm on top of the sausage roll.”
She reeled around, ripped a plastic bag off the back shelf, rubbed it vigorously until it opened, and pushed the paper bag inside it, heaved a sigh and shouted,
“IS THAT ALL?”
I smiled at her and said, “Thank you.”

Details | Janine Lever Poem

'jack the Daw' In Lancashire Dialect

'JACK the DAW' (In Lancashire Dialect)

Struttin’ and Puffin’ his big chest out,
The streets all clear, when he’s about.
Inside all’doors, waitin’  for’ thump
Families quake and animals jump!

Mam goes to’ door, money in hand
Shakin’ as she stares at his black neck band,
She dares’nt look in his blue black eyes
They say there’s murder an’ spent-up lies.

We just hear his voice, raucous and loud
“Your rent, your rent!” he shouts out proud
An’ all the street kids play
An’ all the street kids say,
Jack the Daw walks down the street
Jack the Daw with his great big feet
Jack the Daw, if he looks your way
Run away, run away, run away, run away!

Details | Janine Lever Poem

Oceans

OCEANS
When lips share a romantic kiss,
Can it be, in that intimate exchange
One bears a mist
And another holds no such cover?
Is this a truth?
One heart remains the same
And one becomes a lover?
Or, in that truth does truth-some lie?
One has to play and one must fly?

Do these polars make the bind?
Of seconds, moments of lives, in kind?
And knowing truth is a fleeting thing
When change and circumstance is king,
It fluctuates, in method, like the sea,
And truthful lips lie, somewhere,
In the waves that be.

21st April 2021

Details | Janine Lever Poem

The Lancashire Lad 1914-18 War

THE LANCASHIRE LAD 1914-18

Hello Mother, a nurse is writing this for me,
I’ve lost my arm and a bit of my leg you see,
But I’m up on crutches and hobbling about,
So this afternoon, they’re shipping me out!
Please tell Maud next door ‘bout Tommy and Joe and the butcher’s lad Jack,
I’m very sorry but they’re not coming back;

Tommy died at my feet choking in trench, amongst all’ rats,  an the stench,
And me an Joe went over the top, they told us to run an we hadn’t to stop, 
When a bullet blew up his face, I didn’t stop mother, I still had to race;
Young Jack were frightened an shaking, an he wouldn’t go,
So a bloke told him to shoot off his toe
But the officer heard him when he let out a loud screaming moan
An they took him away mother, an they shot him at dawn.

 I’m on the ship now mother, I can see the white cliffs of Dover
 Eeeh, but I’m glad it’s all over.
 Ay, this ship’s silent mother, it’s as quiet as the grave,
We’re all just looking at England, knowing we’ve been saved,

And now, I’m standing an looking at that green painted, cracked door 
An  I’m staring, trying to knock but it opens and there you are mother,  
With your best paisley-pinny, over your frock.
An your cheeks have lines like trenches, that I’ve never seen before,
 An your eyes are wet for every year and more
An my dads behind you with a big wet grin,
And then mother, my bloody wonderful mother grabbed me by shoulders and said,
Where av you bin, get in!”

Details | Janine Lever Poem

Autumn Gold In Somerset Dialect

Dozy with Cider
The tavern was quiet but for old farmer John,
when the Kings rider strode in demanding a bed,
He ordered his ale and sat next to the old sage,
“Where be all the villagers?” he said.

Farmer John took a sip from his tankard and smiled,
“What brings you to our village, good sire?”
The rider frowned, then with his head tucked down,
His eyebrows rose higher and higher!

“This village gives birth to babes every year
They, being born all on the same day!
And ‘tis known all about, folk here are healthy and strong
And everyone happy and gay!”

The old man grinned, wily,
“Aye sire, ‘tis true. Now, you fill my tankard to its peak,
Many a slip, twixt cup and lip
an’ i will give you the answers you seek.”


“On this day sire, when the season’s mists do rise
to the warmth of the September sun,
The young lads an’ lasses stand ready, in Jackson’s field,
their race of the day has begun.

They run to the orchard, climbing ladders high,
pickin’ apples to throw in to their sack.
Their young knees bending with the weight
of the fruit hanging, from their back.

When they’ve finished their task and the cart is full,
the sun is low in the sky,
An’ the Taverner welcomes ‘em with bread an’ cheese,
 an’ their spirits are soaring high!

An’ they drink the fruits of their labour with glee,
then hand in hand, sleep they, in the hedgerows you see!
Every babe born the following year, 
is born a healthy, happy mite,

For under those hedgerows, were created love, an’ a natural joy, 
A Royal beginning, for girl an’ boy!
An’ the heart of this ritual, if the truth be told,
Is the liquid you drink now sire, our Autumn Gold!"

Details | Janine Lever Poem

Hardy's Cat

Hardy’s Cat
The night was cold, in Dorchester,
Fog threw his cloak around		
The old-town’s streets, stood, grave-still,
The living, made, no sound.	
As the church-clock struck its midnight hour
The towns folk, were all a-bed,
Counting the twelve strokes with a shiver,
T’was the time that raised, the dead.

The curse of Hardy’s cat was now awakened
That writhing, blackest thing
That ate the heart of a man whose pen
Could mark the very day of spring!
He whose words brought pain and promise
Whose poetry made the hare-bells sing.

You see, now He  in death,was laid out on a table,
Requested by his loving wife
To find the cause, of a death that came so quickly
So he was opened, by the surgeon’s knife.

But alas! The maid called out the doctor,
And for a moment, he left, the chest open wide,
And a large, black cat sitting, watching
Jumped  and stretched his paw inside.

The heart of Hardy was quickly eaten,
By a cat with now, bloody paws and head,
Who then suffered all the surgeons hatred
And was strangled, till he too, was dead!
 
Then, the cat was sent to Hardy’s widow,
With a note, to say where lay his heart,
And the thing was buried in the graveyard
Along with a human, body part!

And so, this night is cold in Dorchester
 Fog, lays its murderous mat,
 And the towns folk listen, to the screams and wailing,
Of a very, very, greedy cat!

Details | Janine Lever Poem

Road To the Social Era

The detour of a certain age
Is quashed in tides of fire

And forever is the youth gone pass
As on the strains of lyre.

Make no whisper none is heard
Amongst the thread-like silk

For sweet is yon meadow-lace 
And forever, is the milk.

Best Poems Written by Janine Lever

Woman In Chains

The Last Train To Auschwitz

The Day At the Well

It's a Mad World- In a Lancashire Accent

'jack the Daw' In Lancashire Dialect

Oceans

The Lancashire Lad 1914-18 War

Autumn Gold In Somerset Dialect

Hardy's Cat

Road To the Social Era