Siddiq Islam – The Poor Print

Cryptic Crossword

by Siddiq Islam ACROSS 3 Dodgy cat simp affects me (7) 7 Somehow turn coo into fried bread for soup (7) 8 Act differently under X-ray scan (3) 9 Clumsy detective derives coulomb (7) 12 Oscar Brown wearing beret reflects upon divine literature (5) 13 Am going for cheese that’s oozing without ease (6) 16 […]

Poetry

University Bed

by Siddiq Islam,(1:48 am) Slumped on the hard edge of a long day,My tired arms spindle like crusty crab’s legs.My brain has dried out by now of things to say,Poking around at what’s left of the dregs. Tried eating, the heating, unplugging the buzzes,Tried not to feel through the weak mattress the springs,And I tried […]

Creative Writing, Prose

The Lie-in, the Witch and the War Drone

by Siddiq Islam (3am, Sunday, 5 February 2023) Dear little Peter, he sleeps where he chooses. He picks out a spot that he likes, never loses, and that’s where he lies down, and that’s where he snoozes. This evening, our dear little Peter, it seems, invites to his home but the girl of his dreams! […]

Creative Writing, Poetry, Prose

Lapworth Megaloceros

by Siddiq Islam Lapworth. Megaloceros. Hanging on the wall like a giant freak.There’s something intense about all this debris,The coloured rocks and the dead fish in the cupboards. I’d hate to end up like them some day. Dusty. Preserved.Maybe I’d enjoy the attention,The little kids’ fingerprints on my glass,The bright museum lights washing over me. […]

Culture, Prose, Reviews

‘Dead Man’s Suitcase’: A Review

by Siddiq Islam ‘What?! … like … Jesus!’ ‘Yes, exactly like Jesus!’ It’s wonderful to see Oxford’s theatre scene thriving again post-COVID. Opportunities to see fantastic productions like this were not regularly available a year ago. Dead Man’s Suitcase posits the following question – is it possible for your life to have a reset button? […]

Poetry

So Mad Was I

by Siddiq Islam I’d heard of His trials and temptations before, butHe didn’t just leave them out, peppered around.He crammed my tongue full with them, muzzled my jaws shutAnd tilted my head back to make them go down.So mad was I. This was the God I had followed,Lifting my tongue up to check that I’d […]

Comment, Prose

A Word from the Editors

by Siddiq Islam The brain is a mysterious thing. Its complexities are so far beyond our understanding. We cannot say much about why we think the way we do, why we construct certain schemas, why Beary McBearface can have such wild dreams as the one he relates in his answer to ‘Dear Beary’ question 2. […]

Poetry

On Second Thoughts,

by Siddiq Islam that thing I had planned to dowas probably not that great of an ideaanyways. Silly concoctions of the mindbreak away,biscuit crumbs soakingin the Earl Grey of common sense. ‘Swap unrealitiesfor sturdy, long-term investments,’ they tell me.‘Just like crypto!’On second thoughts, maybe not … And on third thoughts, swim in it.Drown and laugh […]

Poetry

Burying Things

‘He plunges a fist / Of lupin bulb into the soil’s dark skin…’

Song

It’s Not Too Hard

by Siddiq Islam Editor’s note: You can listen to Siddiq’s song reposted on The Poor Print’s SoundCloud page, or by following this link. [Chorus]It’s not too hardIt isn’t difficult to figure out what you’re thinkingI can tell from your arms and your hips and the rate of your blinkingThe twitch in your fingertips and all […]

Poetry

We’ll Have a Love Like

by Siddiq Islam we’ll have a love likeslow indie moviestwo stubborn youths withno cares or duties we’llkiss on the street andlaugh on the bus they’llnot say a word they’llnot bother us we’llsteal mother’s blankets gobeneath them in the library we’llpretend we’re working hard but we’re justgiggling under quietlyyou’ll bake me bowls of pasta andi’ll write […]

Poetry

People Have Always

by Siddiq Islam People have always sun-swum in the summer,And bathed in broad buttercups under blue skies.People have always been meadow-grass thumbers,And combed with fresh fingers the fields where they lie. Oh, let me go back to those mild, milky meadows,Where life flows with ease, undisrupted and mellow.I’d stretch like a starfish, alone there for […]

Poetry

These Are the Things that I Tend to Remember

by Siddiq Islam These are the things that I tend to remember.A soft, supple night with a close, quiet air.A little prince clutched by the light’s final ember.The warm, thick-skinned fingers that comb through his hair.He’s safe from all harm. With her lips she dismissesAll nightmares and vampires with silk forehead kisses,Between which she whispers […]

Poetry

She Was the Blossom

by Siddiq Islam She was the blossom.Her pink, silken smile.And her peach-coloured joy.And her soft, petal style. She was the leavesAnd I couldn’t quite catch her.She dropped in the breezeAnd I just stood and watched her. She was the flowersI mushed in the mud.Her sap ran like tears.And she was the buds. And she was […]

Poetry

Scared of Beans

by Siddiq Islam Crouched we areAround sturdy pub woodGloved fingers hugging mugsAnd our laughter steaming up the winter eveningWhen on the ebbing end of a wild winding dialogue of sports and plays and eggs with facesYuv turns to us and tells us he knows how Pythagoras died. The people of Greece angered by the weirdo […]

Prose

Cute Ideas to Spend Valentine’s Day (In Silence)

by Siddiq Islam The most romantic day of the year has come around again. It’s time to grab a partner and try something new. Here are some romantic ideas for you to spend your Valentine’s with your special one in utter silence. Cute Ideas to Spend Valentine’s Day (In Silence)Silent discoSilent filmSilent barbecueStudy session in […]

Poetry

White Text

by Siddiq Islam

Poetry

a dog named joy

by Siddiq Islam i found a dog, a dog named joy, and she wasthe ugliest misrablest creature i’d ever seenher smiles fell limp like wonky rusty seesaws i told her, ‘all my happy poems are gloomy’i do not think she quite knew what i mean:nought but a wonky smile did seep back to me if […]

Poetry

Growing Sleepy

by Siddiq Islam Dare I recline?I grow much too sleepyAnd human designIs too weak to keep meFrom downwardly driftingTo dreams buried deep,The loads of life liftingIn velvety sleep. Dare I lie down?My dark eyes are sinkingAnd temptations drownAll weaker-willed thinking.Succumbing to slumber,My soft, calm mistake.I must not plunge under.I must stay awake.

Poetry

The King of Applause

by Siddiq Islam The King needs to hear the extent of his power,So crams to the corners his grand vestibuleWith columns of courtiers, whom every sixth hour,He orders applause from to honour his rule. But crowds often tend to start clapping in tandem,Which lessens the roar of a self-crafted fandom.The cheers must sound full, and […]

Poetry

F***ing Magic

by Siddiq Islam The whole wide world and all its space,With every land and ocean each,And in between, the brazen beach,The forests green in all their grace,The open fields and hilltops high,And miles and miles of boundless sky. Is this some twisted sorcerer’s scoff,Or are you just here to piss me off?All that space, the […]

Poetry

good to be back

by Siddiq Islam turn off the george and there he is,that clumsy git with his smiling gob,and i can’t help mirror my smile to his, the satellite arms of that doughnut duffer,come on mate, don’t be a knob,i bury my hug in his pembroke puffer, and a textless, snapless, three-month vacmelts away. a two-tick job.and […]

Poetry

Worms

by Siddiq Islam Caught on the end of the fisherman’s line,Wriggling and tensing and flailing around,Pecked at and flaked by the sharp sharks who dine,Shredding away in the hunting ground, Drying in the sun on the grey, gravel road,Washed from the earth in the heavy storm’s rains,Hearing Death’s calls as the strict heat unloads,Awaiting relief […]

Poetry

Kheturus’ Orchards

by Siddiq Islam Each Sunday, in the heat of August,Baba lets me off the farm,So up the hill I disappear.The parching sunbeams keep me calmAnd make the town below look gorgeous. We meet outside Kheturus’ orchards,Climb the wall and ramble through.Everything’s so real, so clear,On August Sundays, there with you.We lock our arms and wander […]

Poetry

Restriction

by Siddiq Islam Inside the trunk of every tree,Within each rock and each closed shell,Behind the foreheads that I see,Are chambers where I cannot dwell. No skyward path can I sustain,– but neither can I breach the floor.I’m grounded to this surface plane.I’m bounded in by Nature’s law, And in the homestead, bounded still.Built walls, […]

Poetry

President of the Month

by Siddiq Islam Apparently, I was insensitive.The people shout – they wholly disapprove!A head cannot be representativeOf body parts that will not with it move, And I have been decapitated hence.Detached, disclaimed, denounced, denied and shut.I quit my quarters, only stares to senseUpon the head which has become the butt.

Poetry

The Butterflies

by Siddiq Islam Close your tired eyes.Listen to the butterfliesTantrumming about. Their great cymbal wingsCrash upon your worryings.Time to let them out. Unscrew your top and see them flitter,Seething, teeming, hateful, bitter.They flounce and fluctuate. But now inhale and watch them pale.They start to fret, and flare and flail.And when you let your held breath […]

Poetry

Your Virus

by Siddiq Islam all packaged inlike loo rolls on shop shelvesawaiting the death tollsto die out themselvesrunning the streetsis a wild bloodhound viciousto whom human neverdid taste more delicious all packaged inand all packaged outamazon cannotdeliver me nowfrom thirsty impatiencefrom growingly direand blatant desire– i am so desirous all packaged inand too long without youin […]

Poetry

To Lie in the Dirt and To Slowly Decay

by Siddiq Islam To lie in the dirt and to slowly decay!A prospect more noble than all other things.The righteous career of corroding away,A subject of earthworms, the Underground Kings. I see your grand temples, with such great potentialTo topple and crumble to dust when they fall,But hanker for something more experiential –I too should […]

Poetry

An Invitation to Abandon

by Siddiq Islam I Upon my door a little knock.I hardly even hear it, yetSome people whom I’ve barely metAre asking if I’ll join their flock,Accompany their mutual travelsTo where their night unwinds and ravels. But each new tale and anecdoteReminds me of the soft deceaseOf memories I must release,And each fresh lady I devoteSacred […]

Comment, Poetry, Prose

Pondering an Ending Spring

by ‘Siddiq Islam’ Maybe the golden peal of summer flowers,The friends of God and earth, are formed to fall,A fire in some great coming spring of snow. Your dream was but a passionate loneliness,Broken as the sweet noon of morning light.Your fate is closed in a wrathThat flowers upon the fervour of the night. Transcending […]

Poetry

Identity Thief

by Siddiq Islam No, officer, I can’t relateTheir stature or their height or weightOr sex or skin or what they woreOr what they used to break the door,But they must have found it satisfyingTo watch their rod or crowbar pryingInto refuge from the winter,To watch the midnight door frame splinter.Through the halls and to my […]

Poetry

My Absent Fingers

by Siddiq Islam The numb, stale air and the spiders’ feet,Cannot disrupt this human flour,This dead snow, this organic sleetThat softens the shelves where it starts to flower,And my absent fingers cannot sweepThe dust from where the spiders sleep, Nor the dust off the troops who, without bookend,Are made to kneel, by weight shoved down.Their […]