Pannus – Robert Smith

That could not pass as do the shadows

I’d like to enter a poem for the Voices competition. My name is Robert Smith and I’m deeply inspired by nature and romantic poetry. I’m currently a neuroscience student and I’m particularly interested in how the wiring and biology of our brains can convert so beautifully, if sometimes inadvertently, into verse.

Pannus

And so my soul sat

Beneath the branches

Of some old oak tree.

–

Crisp, erratic beats broke

Softly

Above me,

As black and gold light fell

Like an unbounded aerial locomotive

Across the wood that stood

In front of me

Turbulent and free.

–

I quite contented to

Spend the life there,

Near narrow brooks

By occluded orchards.

–

There was song to the wind

And sight to the sunset.

All whilst my company cackled

From height and sward.

–

Yet with darkness came distension.

The stars cast a shadow

Over my heart

That could not pass as do the shadows

Of the light.

–

My heart, my soul could be as one

If only thought could fly and wind could speak

So that my heart would move its shadow

With the changing of the air.

And then I might sit happily,

Beneath this olden oak

For evermore.

–

Yet like a stream my heart did flow

In relentless fashion.

Far away from here,

To prison.

For a man does know

That his strength has purpose.

A purpose that cannot be excised

Or sculpted, or moved.

A purpose that holds

All fate together.

A purpose beyond one’s own soul,

Beyond desire

Beyond life itself.

To fight, to serve

To endure.

Robert Smith

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Marked Manipulated Memory – Leanna Wood

Confirming the neglect to the hidden song

My name is Leanna Wood, Iv’e just turned 18 and am currently studying for my A levels at a local sixth form. I enjoy writing poetry and short stories in my spare time, but have only recently thought about entering writing competitions. I love writing poems which have an emotive effect on the reader, as I am fascinated by how words can have such an influence on people’s emotions and imaginations.

Marked Manipulated Memory

I wonder if you will ever understand

How your manipulation managed to fly

Like the way you swung your hand

Yet blind and deaf to my cry.

Maybe it was me. Me who conceptualized – that you did no wrong

But wait – your prescribed discredit and damage to I

Confirming the neglect to the hidden song

All of you, it, life- all a lie

The ache and agony and anguish, still you somehow shaped it as not wrong

Oblivious to the smothering red

The warnings were not yet enough

Until the final chapter of guilt read

“Even those who realise it is abuse

MAY soon be freed- but still bruised…”

Leanna Wood

All Men Are Created Equal – Donna Godsman

I live from day to day, too often they are the same

I am 47 years old and currently work as a taxi driver. My youngest child has recently left home to go to university so I have time to spare and have decided to act upon my love for books and try my hand at writing. Two weeks ago I started a part time college course on literature and I love it so far

All men are created equal

Yes I am homeless

I have no shelter from the wind or the robber or the judging eyes

I live from day to day, too often they are the same

I worry, I wander, I shiver, I sit

Some people give me nervous smiles, loose change

Some even ask my name

Their lives are ordinary, as mine was

Before it went to shit.

–

Stop a minute! You with the judging eyes and leather briefcase and authentic tan

Do you really think you are a better man

Than me? There but for the grace of whatever, wherever,

Could it all fall flat? Like it did to me

Stop a minute! Look! Are we so unalike?

I too am a man, and a good man at that!

Donna Godsman

Happy Ending – Marta Ruf

There was no story of the girl that met a boy

My name is Marta Ruf and I’m a 19 years old student from Poland. I’m currently studying first year Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Glasgow.

Happy Ending

He wanted to scream;

his pale lips sewed shut

when he whispered the prayers to the God

he rejected;

–

He wanted to beg on his knees,

blood staining the floor

with the ugly memories of the sins

that he never committed;

–

He wanted to take the loaded gun

and point it towards his brain, wishing

that the dirty hole inside his skull

will make up for all the flowers

he took from her garden this summer.

–

He took her hand and kissed away

promises, leaving them in the morning

in the pile of the crumbled clothes;

he had never seen how many of them mixed gently

with shredded parts of her crumbled heart.

–

There was no story of the girl that met a boy,

no golden days and heated nights;

there was no happy ending;

–

He felt the cold metal tightening around his neck, bones

cracking like a broken match when she looked at him

with the eyes similar

to the morning sky;

he never cared to see the deep blue hiding

underneath the lashes until he made them crush,

like a broken sky,

spilling the rain on the saint’s cheeks.

–

‘Please’, he cried, his voice breaking; hot blood

boiling underneath his skin with the weight of all lies

that he fed her on the dinner dates;

the bitter memories of the heavy cross

on which she laid when he left her house,

still made his skin crawl

like the poisonous snakes.

–

His kind that finally betrayed him.

–

‘No’, she answered gently, kissing him

with the promises that he never kept; feeding him

with the truth that he never granted.

Her voice

was the story of the boy that met the girl,

of the golden days and heated nights.

Of the happy ending that he will never know.

Marta Ruf

Computer Love – Maximus Kromholc

With selfies immaculate

I’m Maximus Kromholc, 19 years of age and currently studying film at Queen Mary University of London, I am however originally from Bedford. I wrote poetry as often as I can and me and my co-workers have even set up a poetry group chat where each week someone sends in a theme and we have to respond within the week with our poem. I read as often as possible with my favourite writer being Haruki Murakami and my favourite poet being Walt Whitman. I tend to write poetry about the modern world for the most part, enjoying fleshing out the complexities and surrealism that is imbedded into our current world. The following poem is inspired by a dream and follows a narrator that has found a deep love and obsession with a girl through social media. It is an evocation of a modern love poem and how we perceive modern romance in the age of the internet. It also explores the current distortion found within the youth of today between lust and love especially as influencers and such become integral parts of society but also with an undertone of overt and demanding masculinity. This poem tackles these themes as well as many others. Thank you for taking your time to read it and I hope you enjoy.

Computer Love.

Self inflicting pain,

With access to you,

The unobtainable.

Only in in anonymity,

With impure posted pictures,

Can i ever see that incomparable beauty.

Yet still the desire,

Incessant as true love

Fuels the loneliness forever.

–

You look so heavenly,

With selfies immaculate,

Teasing,

Touching,

Torturing,

My innermost lust.

Though in person, you I’ve never seen,

Just as real to me as a dream,

I already love you too much.

–

Beauty never comes so true,

Lips parted inviting,

Fringe cut cutely,

Black blonde hair intwined,

body carved of an angel,

Deepest hazel eyes,

Looking straight into my soul,

bringing anguish to my heart,

and tears to my eyes.

All for a chance with you,

Just a couple moments bliss,

I would do most anything.

–

You’re as strange as i too,

This I can tell,

You play the saxophone,

So wonderfully so,

I could swear it’s charlie parker.

Yet this fact I can only guess,

As you seem to bless

All else with your magic touch.

With the pop culture you post,

I see your tastes align with mine,

To an eerily perfect degree.

–

One of these days I shall meet you,

I shall touch you,

I shall hold your sweet hand.

Free from ambigious lust

And free from everlasting wanting,

With unattainable delights,

Jealousy constantly abound,

At the thought of any other,

Anyone it may be,

gazing upon my fantasy in the flesh,

That can hold you tight,

That can look into your sweet eyes,

That can admire your perfect nude body,

If only for the night,

or any eternal second at all.

I know this could never be me,

And that thought destroys me more each day.

By Maximus Kromholc.

Writing on the Edge of the Kitchen Table – Amy B. Moreno

Migrated do-to lists with chastened ‘shoulds’

Amy B. Moreno currently lives in Edinburgh with her young family. An experienced translator and interpreter, she’s now trying her hand at writing her own words rather than someone else’s. She enjoys wild swimming, and cosying up with a good book (preferably in that order).

Writing on the Edge of the Kitchen Table
Amy B. Moreno

Someone once told me that mothers
Of young children (the Keepers of Others),
Write on the edges of kitchen tables
And kept occupied, but otherwise able
I push an empty-tanked car to the next frontier.
During this period of enjambment in my career
I mill out daily product reviews,
Shuffling priorities for minimal revenue,
Rejected notes from the country of motherhood,
Migrated do-to lists with chastened ‘shoulds’.
And a laptop moored in play-dough and crumbs,
Or tapping out plot memos with bedtime thumbs,
Guilty translations and proof reading,
At the margins of “Mummy, play more” pleading,
On receipts; a balanced assonance scribble,
Blotted by demanding baby dribble,
On the borders of highchairs and nappy changes,
‘Peace and quiet’ workplace strangers,
No room of my own with territorial workmates,
Sharing my bed, annexing my headspace,
I can make room on the desk still covered in laundry,
Finding space in my mind; a more challenging quandary.

Amy B. Moreno

Unguided – Ian Huckson

I am waiting with the damp-feathered birds

Ian has had poems published in magazines – ‘The Dawntreader’, ‘Sarasvati’, ‘Poetry Space’.
A gardener, living in Cumbria, now semi-retired he has of late, at last, found time to write more poetry and is keen and excited to contribute to this purposeful Voices project.

Unguided

Another bout of soft September showers merge under
a cloud-roof smudge, sky and earth seamed together
at the (only) near horizon, I can’t see any further.

The summer annealed fells now concealed beyond
these sheep-stripped fields, the splashing stream
and the yellowing leaves of mist-dripping ash trees.

I am waiting with the damp-feathered birds
(the moulting old, the young) through autumn days
when the intrepid go unguided, and the courageous stay.

Today, more than ever, I’m unsure if I am to stay again
or am I yet to prepare to leave, when will I know more
of what life still requires of me? I can’t see any further.

Ian Huckson

Yesterday’s Donuts – Sasha Newbury

a town where empty souls roam the streets

My name is Sasha, I’m a 25 y/o Copywriter living in London. By day I work in Advertising by night (and usually lunchtimes too) I find myself lamenting through poetry. It keeps me sane. It keeps me happy.

Yesterday’s Donuts.

So far south

it feels like the end of the world,

discarded ideals and beer-battered aspirations

litter the shore line.

Yesterday’s donuts sunbathe with

tomorrow’s comedown – still warm and wet from penetration

and washed away with Glen’s

–

so far east

the sun barely reaches.

A town filled with aged people

haunted by ever-present problems

that linger at every shop door.

You shall not pass

without the guilt of privilege

weighing – gently ebbing

–

so far detached,

this isn’t home anymore.

Not even the ghost of puberty past

or rosy mist of reminiscence

can fool me now

–

-but I’m tethered anyway,

–

to a town where yesterday’s newspaper

gets printed with regret

and fingered with greasy intent –

where the self-perpetuating cycle starts at 15

with a broken condom

on a dusty sofa

at a shit party

with your brother’s friend Dean –

a town where empty souls roam the streets

at the ripe age of 23.

–

They’re starved of purpose –

and dehydrated by the sea

Sasha Newbury

Salty Tea – Jessica Levett

I make friends with the dolphins and the leggy octopus

Salty Tea

I am a monster,

I have eyes but I don’t see what you see,

I see things from beneath the sea,

Drowning bodies and shipwrecked tea.

–

I live my life,

Jumping from crate to crate,

But as the waves push back I’m merely jumping in the same space.

–

With nobody around me,

I’m the only one of my race.

–

I make friends with the dolphins and the leggy octopus.

But I couldn’t swim nor hide as well as they could.

–

I have two arms and two legs,

With some sort of a body and face.

When I look down at the water,

All I see is a trace.

–

So empty,

So plain,

The artist gave up again.

I don’t even know my real name.

–

You see I’m lonely out at sea,

but at least I have my saltwater tea.

By Jessica Levett

Age: 18

Two Photographs – Sue Byrne

The photos surfaced today

Sue became interested in writing poetry in 2016, after her husband died of cancer. She joined the local Maggie’s creative writing group. In 2018 she became joint Writer in Residence and she has had some success with her poetry. She has had poems selected for “Our Beating Heart” (erbacce-press); an insect anthology (Emma Press); “Missing Pieces” (Maggies’anthology); “Write like a Girl” anthology (a project about 5 women writers in Nottingham).

She has joined several other writing groups and she has extended her knowledge of poetic forms. She enjoys sharing poems and writing with other like-minded people.

Two Photographs

Both taken by the other

on Sheringham beach one October.

I’m sitting on the sea-wall

overlooking a grey-blue scape.

You’re on a boulder

surrounded by the shingle-shore.

–

I’m wearing my pumpkin coloured jeans.

You’re wearing black. No change there then.

Behind me, wooden groynes gradually

disappear into the sea.

Behind you, a glimpse of infinity.

We share the sound of the waves.

–

Six years have gone by.

The photos surfaced today.

We were looking at different futures,

faces hiding the pain and fear

that was to come.

And we didn’t speak of it.

Susan Byrne, 14th October 2018