Kay Medway

@kaymedway

I’m a library assistant and poet with work published in The Dirigible Balloon, Disabled Tales, Dreambeast Poems, and featured on Brian Moses’s blog. My poems are forthcoming in Scaryness Express.

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Kay Medway@kaymedway· 27d

I am inspired by @mirandakeeling.com to stop and notice all the interactions and lovely things that are happening if you pay attention to them.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· 28d

#charityshopfinds

Kay Medway@kaymedway· 28d

#Poem #Poetry

When the caretaker
Mr Cook’s cat from his car
cartooned into Caterpillar-class classrooms,
it curved across corridor corners,
cut the canteen cupboard’s cakes
and citrus cartons and cherryade cups,
and couldn’t convince Class 3C
to clean its crayoned cat-colour circles
from carpets.

It couldn’t control its chuckles
and chancing,
changing clocks,
collecting clips
and clicking castanets,
clipping chants,
closing colleges,
calling other cats closer
to children’s class
like cats clearly in collaborations of colours
on covers of classics.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· 29d

#Poem #Poetry Before it was Circus designer clothes shop it was linens and net curtains, towels and pillows of white.

Before it was Circus designer clothes shop
it was linens and net curtains,
towels and pillows of white.

When it became designer high end fashion labels
the manager stood beside customers
by floor length mirrors
trying sunglasses from cabinets.
You know they are the ones for you,
I know they are the ones for you,
she told them
as they did what my Nan called
ummed and ahhed.

I chose white and black Miss Sixty boxing boots,
dresses of white with pearly flower centres,
tight blue and red stripes
influenced by celebrities
and music videos.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· 29d

#Poem #Poetry #SmallPoemSunday @tomsnarsky.bsky.social I remember the HMV music store as a teen, see myself in denim standing with singles in hand of Precious, Rewind, Destiny’s Child’s debut album, clattering jewel coloured CD cases in the section labelled A’s for Aaliyah’s red album.

I remember the HMV music store as a teen,
see myself in denim standing with singles in hand
of Precious, Rewind, Destiny’s Child’s debut album,
clattering jewel coloured CD cases in the section labelled A’s
for Aaliyah’s red album.

Jennie’s work experience was ten shop doors down
in red Virgin Megastore,
where you could have your photo taken with Ashley and Pudsey
from Britain’s Got Talent for one day only,
me only slightly older in white and blue paisley,
an unsmiling poorly that is now healed.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· 29d

#Poem #Poetry

In Trafalgar Square,
I say I’ve spotted someone famous:
the actor who plays EastEnders’ Dr Truman,
crossing the road.

Then, in a shawl,
with her basket held in front,
a flower seller gives a burgundy rose generously,
far from a landmark fountain,
then reminds me it’s five pounds, please.

She mimes an eating‑food action with her hands,
to show it’s her work, not a gift.

What more could we want,
when we have Trafalgar and its theatres.

Mum chooses to travel by tube
to Harrods next.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 18

#Poem #Poetry #Dreams

Everyone I know is almost in what is memorisable
of the last of this dream.
And I dream of my sister
and realise in dreams at least
she left a shoe box,
green buckets of trainers and boots,
and I sleep a little longer and sounder through a 6 am morning.

In dreams, just before I wake,
an opticians waiting room
where I do not need to be
is where I want to wait,
inspecting green glass bottle gifts
of sparkles from a colleague.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 16

#Poem #Poetry

Theodore, two, tells the tall older eleven‑year‑old boys, one of them a twin, all his cousins,“Take that off, " about the bouncy ball on a spiral cord they clip to their T‑shirts, after he notices his blue ball is already over the neighbours’ fence.
I tell his great‑grandma till she laughs.
I’ll tell more, his mum and dad if they’ll like to listen too to the sounds above the birthday reunion barbeque.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 15

#Poem #Poetry The prompt was to write about something I had worried about needlessly, or far too much.

My first after‑poem borrowed only what the poet‑teacher

had taught as an exercise in her book:

how you see other people’s feelings,

and what images you can give their happiness

or their loneliness qualities.

Because I was still re‑remembering the powers of punctuation,

I borrowed from the example poem

its placements of full stops, colons, commas, questions,

blanking out the words on his theme of sadness

with permission to fill the blanks

with happiness words. They fitted so perfectly,

as if a pianist could play them

without friction.

When my poem was about to be published in the anthology,

I fretted that it was too late to add

an after‑attribution. It was not.

And now mine is praised by an Irish teaching organisation

as a scaffold for others to write their poems too.

The editor wrote that happiness

is reading a poem written by me.

It was my work.

…………………… your …………………… is a ……………………………… shop.

……………………, ……………………… and ………………………, like a …………………… new box of

………………… pencils …………………… on …………………… or ……………………’s …………: how

………………… you …………………… only one ………………………, from the ………… shelves

………………… with ……………………… jewels and ……………………, ……………………… dreams and

……………………………, when you …………………… your every …………………… as you ……………………

…………………‑…………………?

by Kay Medway

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 14

I found the Kerry Hardie writing exercise on Kate Clanchy’s wonderful Substack. I took God with me to the airport. I said, Look, there is Rita, Eni, Terry, Richard waiting as I arrive with a lemon bear and a balloon from them for me, all of them giving thumbs up to my chaperones. #Poem #Poetry

I Took God With Me

By Kay Medway, after “Sheep Fair Day” by Kerry Hardie

I took God with me to the airport.
I said, Look,
there is Rita, Eni, Terry, Richard
waiting as I arrive with a lemon bear
and a balloon from them for me,
all of them giving thumbs up
to my chaperones.

There are my thoughts,
the red haired air hostess
reminded me of Ruby Wax.
In the seat beside me a fellow
passenger played an invisible
oboe or sometimes flute,
Richard's invitation for me to Toronto
that I've flew made me happiest
I've been as a teen.

And then I showed God
what will always and long after
make me smile always.
It is my auntie, in the Canadian mall,
saying she wasn’t paying four dollars
for our silliness
in that Purikura booth,
when we weren’t being serious,
but here is those Born 2 Shop stickers of me
pressed onto every postcard,
stamped and sent
to America,
back to the UK,
and still some left for me
as a souvenir.

And here is how we said hello
to a breakfast show anchor
auntie Rita recognised from TV
in a music shop at the counter,
but we didn’t ask for a photo.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 14

It’s my second #poem inspired by the same Kate Clanchy How to Grow Your Own Poem exercise. Sometimes your happiness is a restaurant summer chair, Wicker and weaved, revealing like a wild meadow scene of orange by mauves through a trellis on an otherwise stone though with cottage windows wall.

Sometimes your happiness is a
Sometimes your happiness is a restaurant summer chair,
Wicker and weaved,
revealing like a wild meadow scene
of orange by mauves
through a trellis
on an otherwise stone though with cottage windows wall.

How will we move on
when it's as sought
as a shaded spot,
as a light‑hearted throne.

Other times, it's a relaxation
of a playlist of ocean waves
you identify only
as storm in motion.

But yesterday it's a lipstick
in a brassy case
found where you thought it might be
even after you thought it lost
for retouching sheen,
a hint of smiles.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 12

#Poem #Poetry #SmallPoemSunday

Reversible Rose

My sister’s graduation photo,
the photographer, a lady,
even adjusted my necklace in time
until the clasp of its dainty chain
was where it should be.

I stood at the back, central,
second tallest after my sister
in her heeled sandals,
the background deliberate,
a plain clear bookless blue.

My sister wore a rose gold reversible
cubic zirconia and gold rose,
my gift to her that summer,
its sparkled side
like a piercing
on an almost invisible thread.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 12

Describe someone only through the way they speak to service workers. #Poem #Poetry #Prompt

“And this lovely lady,
she used to work in Debenhams before;
that was my favourite shop,” my mum said to me,
friendly in front of her.
She voices that she recognises the server at the till,
now in Superdrug,
and it feels like a small reunion.

And this lovely lady
stickers the sandwiches
in Boots
at the same
and certain time
each day.

They know me by my first name in TK Maxx.
Mum says they know I like a bargain.

This lady beside me on the coach
is someone I am lucky to sit with,
because I know her from the charity shop
where she volunteers.

“I will not be a minute.
I am on my own.
I will clear the table soon.”

“You are like a little Cinderella
with your chores,”
my mum says to the waitress.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 12

brian-moses.blogspot.com/2026/01/neve... #Poem #Poetry

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 11

#Poem #Poetry #Flash

When the mystery shopper hands you a linen long white loose dress
for trying on, you tell her, talk her through how you are helping her
as you ensure the biggest fitting room cubicle is hers
for her double buggy of twins to sit just outside its beige curtain.

Many wear it with a statement belt. Search the wall of belts on rails.
I come back with one, discs of brown leather and silver detailing, that suits.

She will write to the head office how she bought that belt too,
that the one who was nice had brown blonde curly wavy long hair.
It was me.

How she worked out who the manager was without speaking to her,
Karina moving barriers and ropes that were guiding January sale queues.

My colleague Emma made me realise when she said she was saddened
they had not extended me a well done for what I had achieved at sixteen
as a temp.

Kay Medway@kaymedway· Jul 10

#PoemsAbout #PowerCut #Poem #Poetry #WritingWorkshop #Prompt I was inspired by a Georgia Conlon workshop in her recent 365‑day poetry writing challenge, especially by the poem “Power Failure” by Andrew Forster. Thank you, @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk.