• Archive of all Poetry Space showcases
A varied selection of poems for this June Showcase; some exploring the beauty of this world and others its darkness and chaos. if you would like to submit for the next edition in September please send in to susan@poetryspace.co.uk and mark your e-mail SHOWCASE. Please send by 10th August.
Photograph by Chris Sims
Sometime
Sometime
I’ll drive to a town
with no centre, no sign
where years ago we knew the skyline
(I’ll turn up and so will you, at the same time).
We’ll find the lane without a map
everything will be behind our backs
like outlaws, we’ll cover our tracks
to the house, like a standing stone
on the sand.
There we’ll lie without compromise
over a sea we’ll open our eyes
hold salt lips to sea light
our tongues will taste
without the lies.
We will unsee the tarnished teeth
nicotine feet, mortal eye
there will be no desire for the next life
we’ll wake up to breakfast
and take our time
convinced by courage
at the last view
we’ll find we’re immaterial
and you’ll love me and I’ll love you
from every single angle.
George Hopewell
The Last Day Out
(A visit to Howletts Wild Animal Park -Kent)
A sleepy day in my memory
The day we met baby Osh
He was small
Though 3ft tall
The first African bull elephant born in Britain,
On the 24th May 1994
Two elephants in the picture
One tall and proud, with raised trunk
Showing off her newborn.
The other seeking shelter,
Standing wobbly,
Unsure what to do with the long nose
down to his toes,
that might be an extra foot
He stands underneath her protective bulk
And I recall how I too,
Once sought the protection of a parent.
He loved animals, my Dad
Hated exploitation, hunting, cruelty
And so we shared this incredible day
in June 1994,
saying hello to Osh
I recall his child like joy
His smile as Osh woodled his trunk in the sand
And struggled to stand
And got help from his Mum
I recall his smile
As we lingered a while
Before going to see the Gorillas.
Weeks went by, then
On 5th July
A police car outside the house
Dad sitting comfortably in a chair,
Not actually there
Never to stand up again.
This postcard means a lot to me
It encapsulates
The last day out,
I ever had,
with my Dad.
And Osh,
Well, last I knew,
No longer small,
Now 12 feet tall
He is living happily in sunny California.
Oh, and he likes pumpkins
Cathryn M. Spiller
Constance
I love you, all wrinkled and crotchety
With your beautiful eyes
Full of laughter and surprises
And your fixed ideas
And Contention
And tellings off
You go determinedly
to Fosse’s house
Your mother visited,
“Nothing could please her!
Her! Her! Her!”
You say, with your face
Crumpled
In crosspatch devilment
I love you
Cross and grumpy,
Smiling and knowing
Was there a piano in your past?
Someone was playing,
Tunes dimly remembered,
Tinkling in the background
The fire glimmering
How distant?
Long ago
In charge you were awesome!
You knew what you wanted,
What was right.
No stranger to hard work.
Clean you wanted it.
Just so you wanted it.
“Nothing between her ears that one!”
I could sit and listen,
and smile and love
You took me to places.
I took you to the garden at Dunwood,
Ah Dunwood!
Tea at three,
Supper at half past four
Not cheese again!
Always cheese it seemed
And they never knew you!
Though you took them to task
Constantly.
I remember the things we loved:
The sound of the fountain,
The beautiful trees,
The rabbits, animals,
Stories,
Each other,
Irises, Rhododendrons,
How I used to take your hand.
You are behind the face.
You are deep and vulnerable.
Not old, difficult,
Unintelligible,
Foolish.
But beautiful, dignified,
Amazingly self-sufficient,
Self-contained, resilient,
Defiant,
Inscrutable,
Indefatigable,
Invincible,
Inviolate,
And such is our parting.
Cathryn M. Spiller
A Thief in his Prayer
Leave the field to flourish
by its own self
so we can all eat from it
without warfare that stings
rules that bite
and fences policing unwholesome handshakes.
And therefore,
on this land beneath our feet,
we possess with no goodbye dreams.
a thief’s prayer~
witness food already made
in a powerless shade of disunity,
but the gods shall swallow their wrath
in the Karma of life
and make love lead again.
Michael Kwake Kesse Somuah
We are all a part of something wonderful that is the world
and when the wind is still and clouds rest in the sky,
still, we hear voices other than our own.
When ice grips the ground and birds cease to sing, still, they peck at the glass door,
bright-eyed, begging for crumbs, asking us to break the ice.
Then the water sizzles and gasps, glad to breathe again,
and swirls, thankful to be free, at the slightest touch of a hand.
Then the sun beams. It cannot be seen, but we know from the light and its changing colours
that the air is warming, kissing awake the princess in the ice.
Even the trees, though they seem to sleep, speak, sustain one another
beneath the frozen bed of earth, as root systems intertwine.
We know, from the emptiness we feel when the land is cleared of them,
that the trees’ murmurings merge with our own.
Clouds cover us and darkness will come, one day for the last time.
I accept this, thankful to have been
a part of something wonderful that is the world ...
M. Anne Alexander
Bluebottle
That evening you kept us from loving
by revving your engine
scrambling all over the air
ricocheting round the lampshade’s
wall of death.
I’ll crack your carapace
you boy racer
glue you to the wallpaper
with your own turbocharged
entrails.
In the morning you’re waiting by the window
engine cold.
We outstare one another
my tai chi palm closes
on your fuel tank
a perfect petrol blue.
Your eyes crystallise me
in a thousand wing mirrors.
PAX.
No more wheelies, no more fight.
I open the window
police you out.
George Hopewell
A Doll
This doll didn’t do anything bad.
Her torn out eye is replaced with a button,
her ear cut, and her mouth
stitched up with a shoemaker’s needle,
her ripped off arm, tossed for the cat to play with,
a hole made between her legs,
so she can give birth to more of her kind.
With her neck tied round with a pink bow,
she is fussed over, rocked in the cradle,
spoon-fed until the food
falls down her chin and stains her dress
with something resembling soup or sperm.
Blotches appear on the doll’s body,
her little owner doesn’t know why –
am I not taking a good care of you?!
you ungrateful thing!
At night the doll opens her eye,
unties the knot on her neck,
rips off the other ear and stuffs it
between her legs
to fill the emptiness.
Creeping close to those who brought her here
she lies in the bed between them.
Hanna Komar
Died of wounds
Funny, no-one talked about him.
Not much anyway, his nephew says,
They say he shot down a Zeppelin
but we don’t know if this is true.
He shows me the sepia photograph
of a soldier, young, a little stern,
none too sure of himself, but clutching
his newly acquired officer’s baton.
Three years in France, years of shells
and mud and fear, until the message,
‘Regret to inform you, Lt. H Leater
died of wounds on 22 nd March 1918’,
six months before the guns fell silent,
only 25 years old. The King signed
the letter of condolence – not by hand,
of course. So many deaths, too many
to sign his name in ink time after time.
Moira Andrew
Yew
Your roots entwine
greatly revered
bodies buried
close to your trunk,
skeletons now,
drawn into your hollow trunk
till their spirits soared
into the air
to take pride of place
in the heavens,
forever.
Only, you’ve been around
long enough to know
that it’s not so.
Other bodies,
less revered,
are left to rot.
Have they no place in the scheme
of things to come?
How can the chaos we’re in resolve
until kinder values are evolved
than these?
M. Anne Alexander
Everything is Beautiful
Everything is beautiful
when you are around
I can feel my fotststeps
Back on stony ground
And when the stars come out
To light up the sky
I’m happy that you are about
Don’t ever say Goodbye
Keith Woodehouse
