DAVE MEDD
★ ★ ★ ★
POETRY
Image by Dan Meyer
Teacher Teacher
The wasps are polishing their stripes
flexing lace-dynamo wings
honing their stings.
Jennyspinners
untangle stevedore legs
segmenting their skeleton dance;
they zig-zag their twig-twag advances
on childhood tomorrows
immune to burgeoning errors
on tables and chairs.
The insect legions
tippy-tap on window glass
terrifying
with shivers and clicks
green minds in September’s class
who dare prepare
clean pages on chaos
waiting for their first red ticks.
Dave Medd was born in Hull in 1951. In 1965 he discovered folk music, Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas. He taught various subjects for forty years and has written songs, short stories, musical dramas for young teenagers, and drafts of two children’s novels. His poems have been published in Orbis, Dream Catcher and Obsessed With Pipework, and most recently in The Alchemy Spoon, Otherwise Engaged, Moon Tide Press and The Horizon Magazine. He now lives and writes in Rothbury, Northumberland where he also plays the Northumbrian pipes. He has published a number of songs, and tunes composed for the pipes. He has read at The Stanza in Newcastle and is a member of Cullerpoets, the National Poetry Society north-east stanza.
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Dragons, pigeons, and cabbages… oh my!
Hi Dave,
First off… can I just say, a dragon hoard of pigeons? I mean, I was expecting gold, jewels, maybe some enchanted swords… but pigeons? Bold choice. I respect it. ️
Then I read your poems. And I realized, these aren’t just words on a page. These are accidental masterpieces, cobbled together like a tiddlywink empire of language, mischief, and magic. You’ve got children babbling, workers singing praises, and poets wobbling on each other’s shoulders… all sharing a stage like an elaborate tea party of chaos. Honestly, I half expected a cabbage or two to roll across the page. ✨
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Oh great, another person telling me my book is amazing while also subtly threatening to make me viral.” Nope. Not me. I don’t do TikTok dances with dragons or lecture pigeons about book promotion.
What I do have is a community of 2,000+ readers who devour books like pigeons devour breadcrumbs (minus the cooing, but close). They notice everything, obsess over language, share their insights in ways that actually stick, and, most importantly, treat your work like the treasure it is. Think of it as a dragon approved book hoard, only without the fire hazards.
So here’s my pitch: let A Dragon Hoard of Pigeons strut its stuff in this space. Let these poems get dissected, admired, and whispered about in corners where words actually matter. And I promise, no pigeons were harmed in the making of this offer.
The question is… are we unleashing the hoard, or am I just over here imagining dragons arguing with cabbages again?
Flying high on poetic mischief,
Fiora Zephyra