cumdump
it’s not the filling
that bothers you – the strummed
note that causes
an avalanche – it’s what’s left
over, pond scum
blanching the skin, the word
cumdump’s plosive p ruining the
spondee’s even humdrum
appeal, to become
a broken seal, caulkless
and leaking towards the floor,
beginning to congeal
Dish Haiku
luppy-charvering
the fortuni nishta –
you leak a low screech
lelling his aris
schumping your actual munge
spitting out starters
cleaning the kitchen
letting in its nanti sheesh
I could cark it here
at this carnish ken
jarrying your flowery
I spread your scotches
don’t be strange, you sigh
I troll in your nishta smoke
till we’re made to order
Translation of Polari words:
aris – arse / cark it – to die / carnish ken – eating house / cleaning the kitchen – anilingus / dish – 1. anus. 2. an attractive man / don’t be strange – don’t hold back / flowery – lodgings, accommodation, prison cell / fortuni – gorgeous / jarry – to eat, to fellate / lelling – taking / letting – dwelling, living, sitting / luppy-charvering – finger-fucking (luppers – fingers; charvering – fucking) / munge – darkness / nanti sheesh – simplicity (literally ‘not elaborately ornamented’) / nishta – nothing / nishta smoke – wilderness / order – 1. to orgasm, 2. to leave or go. /schumping – to drink / scotches – legs /screech – cry, shout / starters – lubricant used to facilitate anal sex /troll – come, go, move, wander / your actual – (intensifying phrase)
Mark Ward is the author of the chapbooks, Circumference (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and Carcass (Seven Kitchens Press, 2020), Hike (Bear Creek Press, 2022), the online Choose Your Own Adventure sonnet, Faultlines (Voidspace, 2022) and a full-length collection, Nightlight (Salmon Poetry, 2023). His poems have been featured in The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, Boyne Berries, Skylight47, The Honest Ulsterman, Assaracus, Tincture, Cordite, Softblow and many more, as well as anthologies, the most recent of which is Queering the Green: Post-2000 Queer Irish Poetry. He was Highly Commended in the 2019 Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award and in 2020 he was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Prize and selected for Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series. In 2021, he was awarded a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. He has recorded poems for RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena and The Poetry Programme, Lyric FM’s Poetry File and the podcast Words Lightly Spoken. He is the founding editor of Impossible Archetype, an international journal of LGBTQ+ poetry, now in its sixth year.
