• Archive of all Poetry Space showcases
Editor: Susan Jane Sims
September seems to be a time for reflection and I have chosen poems that feel appropriate for this time of year. I have included a recent one of my own based on a theme I set my online poetry group – missing pieces. The photograph was taken by Chris Sims, during one of our walks at Charmouth.
Summers remembered
When we were young
summers were long and hot
and yellow.
We cycled for miles, far
down country lanes, our
skirts flying.
We explored high-hedged
lanes, followed signposts to
unfamiliar places.
We investigated an abandoned
cottage, I remember, pushing open
its half-open door.
We wiped down dusty windows,
picked wildflowers for its
kitchen table.
We lay, Maeve and I, in feathered
grasses, looked up at the sky
and talked …. –
how we talked, of non-existent
boyfriends, the whys & hows
of love-making,
wondering what kissing
was like, how naked bodies
fitted together.
In those days, summers were
always hot, long and light
and yellow.
Moira Andrew
Woodland Fairies
after William Blake,
Tate Britain exhibition
There’s not much magic
in your life outside this hall.
Free your spirits, join
those pictured on the wall!
They cast their arms to the wind
in giddy abandon, fine
in their flowing white robes
of diaphanous design.
Puck, ever mischievous,
charms the king and queen
who stroll in wooded glade
gilded by starlit sheen.
Lightly touching the ground
the fairies might dance to the sky,
enchanting the watching gods
should they wish to try.
Sue Wallace Shaddad
Dreaming of Befana
I’d pick you up lift you up and hold you there
tight if I still had my arms
or my eyes. But in my dreams
we soar
side-by-side
(on matching broomsticks) just six feet over
an ocean not even on the map
yet Greek-island blue
deep, fathomless
and as wide
need
as we’d ever
and together we’ll never
get tired of flying
Roy Duffield
Shadow puppets
Trees jive
in the bitter wind
shadow puppets
strings lost in the gloom
performing
a macabre dance
as night falls.
Widow women
sob, tears teetering
on their cheeks
like snow-pearls
as they trudge towards
the winter woods,
scissors in hand.
The mad music
is too much to bear
and they remember
when jazz was king,
when they danced with
their men until dawn
reddened the sky.
In full black skirts
they twist and whirl
beneath the trees
snapping at shadows
to bring puppets
to their knees, dead
men from their graves.
Moira Andrew
Madeley Atlas
Under the bed in lost darkness
was an atlas, ideas of our world,
sounds that once were, shapes familiar.
Countries lined up, argued, competed
winds surged, seas roared, sun fixed.
No one saw or heard this lost world.
No one heard the daily stories,
saw proud emblems, faded coast.
Centuries pass, edges crinkle.
Wars clashed and exploded,
kings and queens were crowned,
adored, hated, some beheaded.
Small people worked hard, tilled,
planted, spun wool, baked bread,
till the tractor and the factory came.
The atlas lived her secrets, her plans
her dreams, in hope, in years,
lately lost in dark oblivion.
Judy Dinnen
Sky
In the time of day when the sun
grows tired and seeks shelter in darkness, comes a single moment, framed through windowpanes of glass,
like a glossy, pristine postcard
One dusk, the orange sky is streaked with brushes of champagne and gold tasting of passionfruit and victory,
as if immortalized by caresses of
an artist’s hand
The next, storm grey stains the horizon, purpling and spreading like
bruises from a warrior’s fist,
Sharp slices from sharper knuckles
The day after melts turquoise into feathery shades of tangerine, reminiscent of childhood
Sweet ice cream that drips nostalgia,
Coloured swirls on disks of candy
Each moment is short, meandering away In the span of a life time, compressed
to an hour
Every day brings something new
Pain, happiness, heartbreak, joy
The only constant
is that the sun will rise and fall again
Claire Zhu
Virus and after
Boots slide on sticking mud. The ground that’s green
In summer, as if vaccinated, good
And firm to lie on, play on, now is soft
And only Covid safe for dogs and boots.
For weeks to come the cold knows where I’ve been;
It waits, as claggy as a viral load;
Ready for me whenever I am daft
Enough to walk. My unmasked dog sniffs roots
And snuffles in the grass. What’s not much seen
These days leaves traces in the sucking mud,
Tracks in the absent grass. What comes after?
Immune summer? Post-viral? The first fruits?
Michael Docker
Missing Piece
Grief is a whole new language. You say, he died, she died,
my beloved died, my darling died to perfect strangers.
And you detain that person for as long as they will listen.
Yesterday, last week, last year, five years ago
are places you want to be because that is when you were a mother,
a son, a daughter, a brother, a husband, a wife, a lover.
Tomorrow, next week, next year are places you can’t visit
because they add a day, a week, a year to the length of time
between you and that smile, or that laugh
or the way they used to brush your hair or tease you
out of your mood. You get older and you keep blowing out candles
and in every church of any faith you light one
even though you’ve stopped believing or have never believed
in anything beyond this life. The games you played together
have a missing piece. Him, her, them, rolling the dice.
Susan Jane Sims
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