• Archive of all Poetry Space showcases

 

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Guest Editor – Kevin Eagles

Poems by  Lizzie Ballagher ,Mike Lee ,Pauline Harrowell ,Rachel Thompson ,David Subacchi ,Moira Andrew ,Michael Docker ,Duncan Darby ,Carolyn O’Connell and Sharmi Dev Gupta

Photographs by Stefania Orizio, Jonas Wolf, Billy Morris and Eleanor Leonne Bennett

Editor’s Notes

There was a very wide range of interesting poems from many countries which is a wonderful
response and just illustrates the reach that Poetry Space has. It was a challenge to down-select to ten and I spent many days re-reading poems to final choose my ten.The chosen poems are a mixture of the hope that Spring brings, it’s ‘newness’ as a season and it’s reflective qualities as a season once we head out of the somberness of Winter.
For me, “The Cry of Birds: For Rosie” is a beautiful poem encapsulating the moment a baby has experienced a new feeling and that feeling being shared with their mother.  “Childhood Drive-thru” reminds me so much of my childhood and it captures that joy and spirit of childhood adventure. “ATLAS” is a moving account of aging and a lost soul trying to find what he has lost and there is a rhythm to the poem that helps its flow. Other poems of note were “Feeding Time” which evokes seasonal imagery, “All the lonely women” for its truth and statements about the tenacity of women, “Pin” for its ability to connect with an object as an artefact of life and “The Ordinary Girl” for its constant message of hope and not giving up. On that note to all the entrants and to all poets everywhere, never give up, keep writing and keep sharing, for the world is a better place with your poems in them.

 

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Copyright of all poems and photographs remains with the poets and photographers. Please do not reproduce without permission.

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The Cry of Birds: For Rosie

I pause for a moment

Weary and still

In the first spring rain

That falls uncertainly on my hair.

The splash and spit and drip

Are all I hear

On this country grey March morning

That hangs thin mist in my eyes.

The child in my arms wakes

From uterine dreams; her eyes

Wondering and still seek mine to explain

The sweet, the shrill, the shriek:

The cry of birds in the rain.

Hush! Never before has my summer-born child

Heard birds sing

In spring rain.

Lizzie Ballagher (UK)

 

 

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Childhood Drive-thru

Leaving the motorway, I take the high-road, head for the hills

and those recollected secret places of my rough-and-tumble

youth where I: pause awhile, wade through autumn-purple,

listen to the heath hum hymns in honor of the sun,

fun-watch yellow-thorn play Judas with rookie

hunter-gatherers scavenging ink-black, mouth-black

berries from a sword-and-dagger bramble-jungle

and revisit childhood-scenes performed in the uncertain

shadows of stubborn rock when sudden squalls

would cut short our games. For here, or hereabouts,

I cycled away my free-range years, followed the same

mileposts to dead-end hamlets; whose one-way signs

still point back towards the present.

On this drive-thru-pilgrimage my mist-wash-wipers:

clear the view ahead, absolve all borrowed guilt,

baptise lost innocence, catechise self-centred youth,

ready the ever-restless moorland-spirits to receive

my fire-dust and appease the granite gods.

Mike Lee (UK)

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Atlas

All day long, every day, Jean-Baptiste walks

in old work boots and sailors’ trousers,

seven creases for seven seas

and the rootless seafaring life he loved.

Young, he stood straight as a tree,

his restless mind a beacon shining from the branches.

The restlessness became a storm

which uprooted the tree.

They gave him asylum, a way to still the storm.

Quiet years followed quiet years,

until tired of the docile lure of the pharmacy

he found his remedy on the road.

There is a well-trod pathway

between head and feet;

Walking expunges demons, it seems.

The rhythm of his feet brings solace;

though, once upright, he is bent double

under the burden of lost years.

Pauline Harrowwell (UK)

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Feeding Time

Anger at workmates

Impatience and strife

An argument over tidying

With the man in my life

Whatever has riled me over the hours

Lifts and fades as I come to the field.

The sheep hear me coming

Start bleating with glee,

For its feed time and stroke time

Before home to my tea.

They stand ready at the gate

And paw at the ground

As I measure out ewe crunch

And start moving round

The feed troughs made

Of guttering and planks.

I scatter the nuts,

They shift in their ranks.

I open the gate

And they come running through

To get to the best bits

Before others do.

Then new grass beckons

A nibble at that

Before back to the biscuits

And then a good scratch.

I rub at the fleece

Between their  front legs.

The head goes down and

Calm fills their eyes.

We stand together

Just being.

Peace flows between us.

Time seems to stand still

And the stress of the day is forgotten.

I sink my fingers

Into the wool

And massage the rump as they wait.

They like it, this jewel time

Not for the food but

For connection it brings

Between shepherd and ewe.

Rachel Thompson (UK)

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ALWAYS

When our eyes meet we smile

I take you in my arms

Feel your warmth

Smell your eagerness

We are one blood

You sit in my lap

We say nothing

Smiles are enough

There are generations

Standing all around us

The future is yours

For now the closeness

What need is there

For idle chatter

I will always

Be with you.

David Subacchi  (Wales, UK)

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All the lonely women

They wake up within half an hour

of one another, open their curtains,

pink floral, blue, pale cream.  They

shower, turn on the radio for company,

sit down to their various breakfasts.

They find things to do, hoover,

write shopping lists, hang washing

on the line.  They linger over their

make-up, moisturise like mad, try a new

eye-liner, a different shade of lipstick.

They practise their own distractions,

some opt for shopping, Italian classes,

art workshops, poetry.  It’s a way

of filling the empty hours of solitude –

men have a nasty habit of dying early.

Sometimes one or other of the women

meets another man and there’s excited talk

of wedding hats.  But, sure as eggs, these

same men die or find lithe young girls –

and their legacy?  All those lonely women.

Moira Andrew (UK)

 

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Milk Tooth

Egg from the bird skull

Laid on your small head’s nest

Pure and smooth and eye white –

A vast treasure in smallness; all of you.

Slowly I turn it over, sense its raw

Perfection like a universe containing

Everything you are petrified a millisecond

After its own big bang, press the form

Into my thumb’s nest-flesh.

More slowly its sharp dent fades,

Like you going from me.

Gravity at work, and other forces

Which will make you later, and –

I see a fleck on the half-formed root –

The last force in this first blood.

Michael Docker (UK)

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Pachelbel’s Canon

It’s a journey while you’re standing still

You’ll remember everything now

Each note will have a familiar ring

But like a dream that’s forgot, it’s gone

So it fires you through a life that wasn’t

But one you knew that was

and that’s what makes you cry

Duncan Darby (Wales, UK)

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Pin

It is a pin, an old fashioned hat pin

found snuggled within old jewellery

ready to be taken to a charity shop.

The long steel spike blooms a rust

of disuse, the top no precious jewel.

It has a silent history – look close

marble has been carved to cushion petals

clasped in a smooth cup, thistle or flower:

olive, jade, lime, emerald, khaki flecks

of fields, woods, leaves, lakes swirl

in a mist of rock less than an inch.

I knew it first pinned into black

the silent signal in a mourning bonnet

of an antique aunt bent with years,

a silver cane propelled her to rooms

clad with velvet, damask drapes

whiskered faces beamed from frames

on tea served neatly in Belleek

With no maker’s mark to date and price

or tradition whispered by woman to girl

it rests within her rose strewed cup

evoking secrets of a vanished past.

Carolyn O’Connell (UK)

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The Ordinary Girl

They call her the ordinary girl, her work, her looks, her clothes seem fine.
She talks plain and confines her pain to herself, because she is the ordinary girl
But she dares to dream, dreams to fly, to break free and walk out of the chains of her dry
life.She has no lover, yet love shines in her eyes, as her hands pricked by the
thorns of the roses she buys. But they aren’t for her, nor for her love,
but for the masters who rule her world.She walks in the woods, she searches for
light.The light that will give a new meaning
to her life, purpose to warm her heart through the
night.But they laugh at her quest, they call it a farce.
They say it is madness, she is the ordinary girl.
She walks back home whence they call her back, inside her heart the desire for another
quest, a longing for another day outside the walls.
She must not lose hope, there is no ordinary girl.

Sharmi Dev Gupta (India)

 

 

 

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My name is Kevin Eagles and I am a Technology Consultant working in the Telecoms sector.
As well as a love of technology I have always been enthralled by language and especially poetry.
The skill of a poet to capture moments and replay them back using specific words and form has
always captivated me.My favourite poets are W. B. Yeats, Edward Thomas and the Persian poet Hafez but I enjoy reading any poetry which is why I jumped at the chance to be the judge for the Poetry Space 2015 Spring Showcase.I have written poetry myself and would love to share my work with you all at: http://www.ubiquinet.org/poetry/poems.pdf If ever you want to talk about poetry, please drop me a line.

 

 

 

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