Paper Bag Seagulls – Chris Quigle

Clothes plastered to my limbs

Paper bag seagulls

Paper bag seagulls
scrawl across the
dying day
Slivers of disappointed rain
hang within the air
Darkness slowly suffocates
as chill wraps his arms around
my broken shoulders
Crested puddles
seek refuge in my shoes
Clothes plastered to my limbs trying
to keep warm
As the new born night
steals the light of passing cars and lamps
breathing in the antidote
of mixed rain and sprayed wind
that cures the poisoned day.

Chris Quigle

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Entangled – Jacinta Noel

The path crossed with thorns among bushes

My name is Jacinta Noel, a student originally from West London but currently studying Law at the University of Exeter. My story is not unlike many others you may have heard in relation to their poetry journey, but I started to write down and express my feelings and thoughts as a way of self-expression, and as a reaction to things occurring around me, to not only deal with that but also to be able to reflect and look back on my journey and be able to develop as a young individual.

Entangled

Wrapped up in wires,

The source? (untraceable).

She searched for the beginning,

Longed to see where it started –

Where it begun.

But still nothing but a hint;

A mere nudge in the direction.

The path crossed with thorns among bushes.

She gives in –

Unwilling.

The prize not worth the pain,

But stuck confused with a longing for purpose (acceptance).

Wrapped up in self-gratification.

Alas.

Jacinta Noel, University of Exeter

The Window Seat – Karen Middleton

Looking like a modern-day snow white

My name is Karen Middleton I am a performance poet from the North east I have 6 poetry books published. I also love writing short stories I look forward to seeing the results.

The Window Seat

Ticking, all the right boxes,

Flicking, through the pages,

Auditioning,

For the role of book worm,

On a mission,

Turning pages,

Seeking reason, reading from centre stages.

Potentially, reading on the window seat

Now she is residing, hiding,

Wrapped up finding her purpose,

Waiting until motivation peaks

This month, this moment, this week.

Remembering incentives,

The source, the provocation, the basis,

Stopping, selecting, marking pages

Keeping places, with bookmark, an indication.

To mark her place

To locate in case inspiration breaks

Another brainwave,

Another creative creating, another creation,

Looking like a modern-day snow white

A basket of clothes at her feet

Did she carry on writing

Or did she fold the clothes

Well ,you’re listing to a poem.

Karen Middleton, North East England

What Memory Tastes Like – Sasha Saben Callaghan

we drank sweet, black coffee, flavoured with orange peel

Sasha Saben Callaghan is a writer and digital artist. She was a winner of the 2016 ‘A Public Space’ Emerging Writer Fellowship and the 2019 Pen to Paper Awards. Her poetry, short stories and illustrations have been published in a wide range of magazines and journals.

Sasha’s lived experience of disability and impairment is a major influence on her work.

What Memory Tastes Like

Yes, I know what memory tastes like.

It’s a triple espresso from Las Violetas,

a coffee house in downtown Buenos Aires,

with terrazzo floors and marbled Corinthian columns.

Now, when the smell of arabica or dark cerrada

hangs between flurries of snow in the wintery air

I go sailing away, down the Rio Grande

Due southerly, from Colorado to the Gulf of Cazones

to dance the tango in some basement jazz bar.

Mocha means riding a sleek, black horse across Patagonia.

cantering over the pampas in distant Tierra del Fuego,

where two great oceans collide.

Blue Haitian reminds me of watching from the veranda

of an estancia near del Santiago Estero,

as a charm of humming birds, tiny living jewels,

darted between barberry thorns, frangipani flowers.

Blue throated goldentails. Collared Incas. Sparkling violetears.

On the first night climbing the Andes,

we drank sweet, black coffee, flavoured with orange peel.

Star anise melya, poured straight over ice,

like the heat and the breeze in the mountains.

Sasha Saben Callaghan

Till The Streetlights Come On – Kit Duddy

just as Didi passed to Pele

My Name is Mr Kit Duddy I am 72 yrs of age
a former housing officer and retailer retired.

I live in East Kilbride Scotland, married
with two children and six grandchildren.

My hobby is writing poetry and I have
a poetry page on facebook/ kitspoems.
I hope you enjoy this poem which was
inspired by a painting by Danny Abrahams,
shown by Cheshire Galleries on facebook
of young boys playing football in the
street as the streetlights came on.

Till the Streetlights
Come on

And we played the game
while the ball was there,
and our mothers were
sleeping in their chair.

Yesterday’s soiled, were on
the washing line, bairns in
their pram and dinner on the
mind.

Seated there to even a seam,
caught by exhaustion and love’s
young dream. Mills and Boon was
never quite what it seemed.

As the score climbed higher and
disputes were shed, united had
won but not time for bed, so best
out of twenty five instead.

Yet the smirr of rain that wet their
heads, never seems to dull the side
who’d led, and as mother scrambled
out to save her line, street lights were
out so all was fine.

Then the flicker of yellow crossed
the glass just as Didi passed to Pele
who scored the last.

Match ball was presented, the
owner took it home,
and more than the scoreline that
night had grown.

Kit Duddy
kitspoems.
Inspired by
The artist
Danny Abrahams
Cheshire Art Galle
Thank you for reading.

Kit Duddy

Sarah Elizabeth Jones – John Gallas

Sarah Jones is knitting the sea

John Gallas : NZ poet living in Markfield, Leics. Published by Carcanet Press. Orkney St Magnus Festival Poet, translator and librettist.

Sarah Elizabeth Jones

Sarah Elizabeth Jones d. April 23rd 1960 aged 90

(Master Mariner Jones drowned 1907 aged 44)

Aberdyfi Graveyard Memorial

Sarah Jones is knitting the sea.

It purls

down

from her

house on the hill

like Golden Syrup

over the lych-gate

and the road,

the marram-dunes

and the salty

fifteenth

green.

O Captain Jones,

collect thy bones,

climb out of the sea

and climb the woolly hill to me.

I have been alone for fifty years,

and I am sick of tears.

Only the needles’ click clack click,

my teapot, and your walking-stick.

John Gallas, Markfield

Stir – Lisa Franklin

Everything changed with a phone call

Lisa Franklin is a poet and theatre maker based in the Midlands. Her work typically explores the relationship between nature & the digital and attempts to challenge the role of audience.

She is one half of theatre company; Gertrude & one piece of poetical music troupe; The Mechanicals. She is currently on tour with ‘The Righteous Jazz’ – a piece of theatre studying the life and works of poet Philip Larkin.

Stir

Always moving

House

To house

To house, to house, to house

To house

House

Everything changed with a phone call

Sent to Coventry

A trip to the hospital

Not moving

I couldn’t leave

And now,

I don’t want to

House to house to house to house

Home

Lisa Franklin

Pump – Steve Singleton

Two days in, confined to my room

Pump

Tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a,

tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a.

The never-ending soundtrack, to my days

and nights.

Before, tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a.

I was free to roam unrestricted, unchecked, unrestrained.

But the more I hear,

tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a.

The more poison enters my system,

the more my world contracts.

First, confined to the ward,

tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a,

A Prisoner in every room

each shackled to the wall.

Caged with their own fear and pain, unwilling to share,

anxiety etched on their faces.

Dead, flat eyes stare into their personal oblivion,

but not mine.

Tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a,

I wake to the noise, but

as the ward awakens it slips to the back ground,

lurking unnoticed, overpowered by routine,

medic’s in and out,

trollies, squeaky shoes, conversation in hushed tones,

the hospital revving to reach a crescendo of noise.

Tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a,

Poison, overwhelming my defences, it betters me physically,

it rips out my humour, my bravado

but not my determination.

I cling to ’this is temporary, it will pass’.

Two days in, confined to my room,

food I cannot face.

Tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a.

Three days in, all I can do is close my eyes, to hope in sleep

I reach a state, where waves of nausea

will not find me.

All to soon I visit Mr Armitage and Mr Shanks

who have seen it all before.

The day wains

tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a,

roars back.

Silence trying to creep through the hospital,

never quite snuffs out the sound.

Tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a.

Day five, the small hours, its contents discharged

the last bag hangs empty from my skinny friend.

The pump silenced, the rhythm stops.

No more,

tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a.

A few short hours, unmolested sleep follow.

Discharged home, a pale shadow who looks like me.

Empty, retched and exhausted, but

still standing,

unbowed,

still fighting.

Steve Singleton, North West London

The balance of our relationship – Kevan Taplin

I fell even lower

The balance of our relationship

In the beginning we hung like a Calder mobile

In perfect balance,moving slowly

Then shapes began to drop from your side

NO.

First the red triangle of passion fell, I plunged.

NO.

Now lower, trying not to see the imbalance

One more shape dropped from your side,

I fell even lower.

NO.

Finally the circle of trust fell.

The concept of balance was lost forever.

NO.

I plunge towards the toxic mercury fountain of bitterness

beneath me.

The balance gone forever…

Kevan Taplin

It is Spring – Melanie MacLennan

I will spoon-feed you peaches

I’m a 19 year old Literature student from the Highlands trying to fall back in love with writing and words.

It is Spring

If there is still a life

to be grasped at,

then Spring will

bring it to back

to you.

–

If there is still

a ragged breath somewhere

inside of that

chest,

then I will nurse

it quietly into a song.

–

I will tuck you in

and I will water you.

I will spoon-feed you peaches

and love

and open up the windows

again.

I will change the sheets.

I will keep you safe

until your suffering

falls asleep.

I will bring flowers

to the grave of

the person

that you were,

before you were

somebody that is really,

really

sick.

–

It is Spring and I

know that you think

that you’re dying.

–

It is Spring and

the April light is still madly

in love with your

delicate hairless

head, your

veins still

furiously alive beneath

tender skin pumping

drugs that will

break you before

they will build you.

Your sticky honey

hands still clenching mine;

your child. I am your child.

Your child.

–

On the worst days,

I will bring you entire

gardens of growth.

I will show you how

the earth unwraps itself

every single year to reveal

fresh layers of hope.

–

Listen, I know.

I know that you want

to die with dignity,

that you

want to write the profound

letters and sink

softly into the sky.

–

There’s no dignity

in digging yourself

an early grave.

There’s no dignity

in leaving me behind.

–

It is Spring and I

know that you think

that you’re dying.

–

But the birds fly quietly

through the clean blue air.

–

They come back home

again and weep

with joy and relief for

their matted wings,

and all of the

different places that there are

in the world.

–

And you watch them

up there,

in their small arrow formation,

from the dirty old window

beside sick bowls

and needles

and you laugh with amazement.

You laugh because you’re

still alive to see the

birds coming home.

–

It is Spring

and the grass has

never been this long.

The bees never so excited.

The sky’s bursting

and the plants are

singing, loud

and gentle.

–

It is Spring.

–

It is Spring,

and you still have

so much

growing to do.

By Melanie Maclennan