Thank you to all seventeen poets who entered this week in response to the delightful photograph by Kate Blair. Mushrooms were explored from pretty much every angle and we had thought provoking, humorous and nostalgic poems.
Every one had merit and I enjoyed reading them all however I am offering you just ten here to vote on.
If your poem is not here please don’t be too disappointed. There will be lots more opportunities to submit work to Poetry Space.
It is very pleasing to see poets new to Poetry Space coming on board each week – though I am asking you to judge anonymously. Names will appear after the voting.
Photograph by Kate Blair
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Poem 1
Out of Darkness
Pretty umbrellas
or sustenance through war.
I am in Sarajevo
a tourist
in the rain-
late afternoon coffee shops
shuffle language and laughter
I cannot write
about the mortar and bullet
scars on the buildings
across the street.
On my iPad I read
the siege lasted
one thousand four hundred
and twenty five days
that mushrooms helped
starving families and soldiers
survive-
pretty umbrellas in the rain.
Eileen Carney Hulme
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Poem 2
Sipping Dreams
Sipping dreams
Off fairy lashes
Spicy nibbles
Soft soft lips
Quenches all
My lonely thirst
Of days when I
Was fairy queen
With blossom peaks
And fragrance wild.
You can live
For just today
And never want for more.
Oh let me drink
Of that rare wonder
And hear the sound
Of another
Thunder
Anita Pinto
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Poem 3
We are the unwanted,
like
useless breasts,
symbols of motherhood
searching for succour
flaunting and teasing,
the sightless
eyes of the
childless,
gazing skywards.
the smell
of decay
of hopes and dreams
dying with the stench
of old age
but searching
the fields and the woods
in the dark places
we will appear
again
and
again.
and again.
Angie Butler
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Poem 4
Exhibit
Running from the exhibition hall , limping and running never a good look
in a fat man
For Gods sake she’d had all day why now ?
So at five twenty five she had needed a pee.
Then as soon as she disappeared
Out of the murk of a wet Cardiff night
Emerged a red bus with “Car Parks 4-20 ” emblazoned on the front
in Neon Gold light .
All day long they had looked at “craft”
At pretty buttons and bows
At rags of material
At brushes and pens
Blocks to print with
And stardust to sprinkle with
The only bit he had really enjoyed was the pie hall
Chicken and cheese
Cinnamon buns to follow
Now that is what he calls craft
They left late and had to rush for the last shuttle bus
Now at last out she comes
And he is running
And as he heads toward the outer red door she calls to him
“Is there mushroom?”
William Jones
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Poem 5
Mushroom Magic
I let you see
cap, stem, gills.
But not my best trick.
Behind a curtain of leaves
I’m dealing with decay,
decomposing debris,
conjuring carbon into oak woods.
Sarah Lewis
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Poem 6
Gospel Music
Out of nowhere, the choir appears
in the woods like fruitflies on a compote.
And we hear them sing of the storm in the valley,
sing Halleluja when mama’s gone—
as I sit me down and cry.
They sing of heaviness on their shoulders,
sway, bend, arc, and wave toward the treetops,
as if something’s up there that can help.
It’s the wind, breezes that’ll carry them along
when they come to their final Amen.
Come walk with us, they sing,
as they move on to sow themselves
in another leafy-rich and perfect place.
Anne Harding Woodworth
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Poem 7
Triggers
waiting in a dark place
for that first shudder
of sunlight
like waiting
for the warmth
of a shoulder to lean on
in the night
living with
the woody smell
from underground spaces
like the breath of after-sex
poised for the thrust
into clear daylight
like the unexpected joy
of foot on naked foot
struggling into fairy rings
in the dampness of morning
like the memory
of squelching boot on moss
as we trample the forest floor
sketch book in hand
Moira Andrew
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Poem 8
Woodland walks. . .
when you could walk,
were wonderful.
In love, hand in hand,
youth on our side.
Then came the children
and galumphing dogs
followed by middle-age
and time to ourselves again.
But we weren’t ready
for the catastrophe
of a wheelchair
and pain in your life.
Our walks became shorter.
You couldn’t bear the stones
beneath your wheels,
I couldn’t push you over
the roots of trees.
So we said goodbye
to woodland walks
and made do with our garden.
But it wasn’t the same.
Di Coffey
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Resurrection
It isn’t spring;
no April showers
when toadstools
quicken the earth,
nudge soil, rise,
and are upstanding
like someone sleepy
arriving at a window.
It would be so cool
to rest beneath
their cryptic umbrellas
and wait in their wise ways,
wait for spores,
filed in pale gills,
to fall. It is damp, late.
It’s autumn.
Mary Maher
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Poem 10
Bracken
I’m brought back to the bank of an ox-bow lake
and doesn’t Bracken, that incessant
land dwelling lichen,
always fill the valley with cumin?
Pushed over the mist and moor.
Heavy in the nose,
bullying the air.
Bracken fronds the pasture, clinging
to the hill-side and rocks,
rough, above, under,
and
maybe adders shudder there.
Christy Hall
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