Author: Claire Walker

I'm a poet based in Worcestershire, UK. My poetry has appeared in print and online magazines including The Interpreter's House, Prole, Ink Sweat and Tears, And Other Poems, Clear Poetry, and Amaryllis, and in anthologies such as The Chronicles of Eve (Paper Swans Press). My first pamphlet, The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile, is published by V. Press. I'm a Poetry Reader for Three Drops Press, and Co-Editor of Atrium poetry webzine.

Tied to the 90s – Ben Banyard

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Tied to the 90s

She’s kept all her tapes, CD singles, scratched vinyl.
The t-shirts she bought at gigs at toilet venues
where sweat poured from the walls and tangled her hair.
Refuses MP3 players, iTunes, cloud content
which she cannot hoard, keep safe, archive.

She remembers personal stereos slowing to sludge
when the batteries wore out, cassettes unspooled, devoured 
by the mechanism, tape heads which muffled sound, 
had to be cleaned gently with a cotton bud.

It’s a small rented house in a town you don’t visit.
She has young kids, a son and daughter who share a room.
They know Oasis, Pulp, Manics, Ride, Neds,
Carter USM, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Wonder Stuff.

Know too that their mum draws strength from those bands,
comes alive when they ask her about those years;
there was a brief moment in the spring of 1997
when the world caught fire and possibility shone through.
She likes to stay there some days, doesn’t go in to work.

…

Ben Banyard lives in Portishead on the Severn Estuary. He has published two collections of poetry, Communing (Indigo Dreams, 2016) and We Are All Lucky (Indigo Dreams, 2018) with a third, Hi-Viz, due out from YAFFLE in Spring 2021. He blogs at https://benbanyard.wordpress.com

A retired Shipyard Draughtsman hears the Ghost-Pilot’s song – Bob Cooper

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A retired Shipyard Draughtsman hears the Ghost-Pilot’s song

He stands, blueprints now memories, grips the rail tightly, sees
the current’s strength that forces brown water as mist solidifies

drifts downstream, to become self-fulfilling shapes of ships
longer than warehouses, masts tall as cranes at Cammell Laird’s

then hears a ghost-pilot sing as they pass the floodlit Three Graces
mentioning trade routes, merchandise, vessels’ names, their owners,

while the moon’s light gleams on their stones, long-dark windows,
shimmers on the river, reaches him. Watery-eyed he turns, walks

having heard in the breeze on the Mersey’s not-yet-dawn flow
laments that float over its surface. He sings their echoes.

…

Bob Cooper has had 7 pamphlets published – six of them winning pamphlet competitions. He’s also had two full length collections published, one by Arrowhead in 2002 then another with Pindrop in 2017 see:  http://www.pindroppress.com/books/Everyone%20Turns.html   He lives on the Wirral.

Propagation – Maeve McKenna

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Propagation

They cluster inside spread-
eagled legs, hands bone
wings, faces pleading,

hinged

on palms. I know them,
these people, their
atrocious need,

soured

breath of last night’s lust.
Still willing in the morning,
I relent for a puce

cheek,

uprooted pubic hair. Or,
occasional understanding.
I adore the life in them, more

truly

than mine; chiselled
from marrow, a blood-infused
platelet. How they dine to fill

belly’s

on propagation. Oh! hero.
Oh! Lover. Oh, desire
from consequence —

unwill me.

…

Maeve McKenna lives in Sligo, Ireland. Her poetry has been placed in several international poetry competitions and published in Mslexia, The Haibun Journal, The Cormorant, Galway Review, Boyne Berries, Sonder Magazine, Skylight47 and widely online.

Last Sighting – Tim Dwyer

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Last Sighting

……………………………………….For a friend

Now the age of grandfathers,
he hobbles to the dunes
for a last sighting of swallows
dipping close to the gritty strand.
They gather for the African migration.

Never much a dancer,
he sways with the pirouettes
as the swallows scoop
hidden nourishment from briny air.

Before they return in the Spring,
the bed becomes his camp.
His glance travels from the window
downhill to the lough.
Grey gulls and their shadows
cross the rooftops and the trees.

One day, the swallows
will fly up from the gritty strand,
careen outside his windowpane,
then circle back to the sea.

…

Tim Dwyer’s chapbook is Smithy Of Our Longings (Lapwing Publications). He will have poems in the upcoming issue of Cyphers, and in the Irish Poetry Chair Commemorative Anthology. He has recently moved from the U.S. to Bangor, County Down.

Flicks – Pen Kease

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Flicks

We never believed it, not really. All
that Technicolor. Searing purple pinks
of jacaranda splashed on whitewashed walls,
speedboats peeling foam through turquoise ink.

We sniffed in the dark with bundled coats, sighed
with sore knees, steaming slightly from the rain.
Didn’t want our own grubby Wedgewood skies,
oily grey streets, black-flied runner beans on sticks.

We yearned blues, greens – intense as actors’ eyes,
salacious as a lover’s kiss. We took it all home,
that Glorious Technicolor, every dream and lie.
And it kept us warm. On the bus. With chips.

…

Pen Kease used to be a secondary school teacher but now writes poems instead. Pen has a recent MA in Writing from the University of Warwick and her poems have been published in a range of literary magazines and websites, including The Interpreter’s House, The Recusant, Militant Thistles, and Prole Magazine. She lives in South Oxfordshire with husband and cat, and cares for a scattered family as best she can

The day the ice came – Julia Webb

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The day the ice came

you were pick-axe angry at the world
you came in from school and kicked the dog,
then spent hours in your room sobbing,
missing out on Blue Peter and The Wombles.
The afternoon had been sunny and warm
but by 6pm a chill was falling
and tiny snowflakes whirled against the glass.
When you put the dog out for her toilet
she ran straight back inside whimpering,
you warmed her paws by rubbing them
with mum’s old hair dye towel.
Mum felt sorry for you for once
and let you stay up to watch grown-up TV
until Dad returned from the pub,
a leering snowman, his breath on fire.

…

Julia Webb is a Norwich based poet/editor, she runs online and real-world poetry courses. She is a poetry editor for Lighthouse (a journal for new writing). She has two poetry collections with Nine Arches: ‘Bird Sisters’ (2016) and ‘Threat’ (2019).

And the curlews call – Niall Machin

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And the curlews call

Outside
An almost imperceptible
Bristling
Tinselfies the grass
Heralding another frost –
……………that time when I lose people, I think
And the curlews call

Inside
It’s my watch
You sleep like a dormouse
Layers of time, friendships, family and pets
Weighing you down
…………and keeping you warm
In equal measure

David sleeps in the next room
Banished
With a cold
His head cold too
Against the adjoining wall
………….far away but
As close to you as possible

Eva is motionless on the couch
Whilst Beth makes
The requisite phone calls
In this way we sleepwalk
Round this familiar old house
…………..rubik cube like
One down, one along

When someone has touched so many lives
We defend our family right
To usher in death
Unilaterally
‘Bad weather always seems worse through a window’
…………..was one of your sayings
Railing at the storm clouds

…

Niall Machin lives in Bradford-on Avon and has recently had work published in Bath Magg. Find him on Twitter @NiallMachin1 

How do you split a washing machine down the middle? – Natalie Scott

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How do you split a washing machine down the middle?

We’ve been told to divide items equally.
Fairly. Nothing about this seems fair.

Punching numbers on a calculator
works fine if we see the figures

not what they mean. Our equal halves
of the stock, or the shared life

we accumulated over twenty years?
We talk so readily of our ‘other half’

that we believe we can’t be whole
on our own. Some things just don’t split

down the middle. Apparently, we do.
But what about the toaster, the oven,

the kettle? We can take an axe to them.
Or not. Either way we get burned.

I feed sheets into its seething mouth.
Speechless. I watch them turn,

imagining a frothing fissure line
between your side and mine.

…

Natalie Scott is an internationally published poet and Creative Writing lecturer. Her latest award-winning collection Rare Birds – Voices of Holloway Prison, published by Valley Press on International Women’s Day, 2020, received ACE funding for a West End performance.

My mother, at sixty, tries her first oyster – Cheryl Pearson

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My mother, at sixty, tries her first oyster

You eat with your eyes: it’s why you refuse
the grey rice I fry with shiitake, the copper-smelling
steak cooked rare. In Copenhagen, we walk for miles,
stopping for glasses of gold beer. The light swarms
on Nyhavn harbour, turns the water to fire. Mother,
you have the bones of a sparrow, a whale’s hunger.
It becomes the running gag on the trip –
how you pad the hours between meals with waffles,
sneak the fruit from our cocktail sticks. Our last afternoon,
sun-flushed, drunk, we order wine in a yellow courtyard.
It’s happy hour, the waiter says, would you like to try
our oysters? Your face sours. You wouldn’t, no,
but my sister and I each order four. You are sixty this year,
you have always wanted to visit this city. You never thought
you would get on a plane, you didn’t know how pretty it would be:
the blossoms and palaces in the parks, the gold domes against
blue sky. It’s good to try new things, you say, and joking,
my sister offers up an oyster from her plate, trembling lightly
in its socket, wet, grey-white, and mucal. You hesitate, then take it
as we watch, amazed. You take the salt, a spoon of onion, finish
with a twist of lemon. This is an event – more of a surprise
than the March heat, the swan-shaped boats. We train our phones
to film your face. You won’t do it. Your throat works. And then
you take a breath, your whole face screws, and quick as anything
you suck it in, that well of slime, you grimace, chew, then gulp
it back. We cheer and clink our glasses; Actually, you say,
that wasn’t bad! This, all your life, is how it’s been: you’ve stayed
in the lines and away from edges, raw fish, fireworks, roller-coasters.
Now you are sixty, still risk-averse, but trying your feathers.
It’s joyous to watch: our cautious mother choosing fuck-it over fear.

…

Cheryl Pearson is the author of ‘Oysterlight’ (Pindrop Press) and Menagerie’ (The Emma Press). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including The Guardian, Mslexia, and The Moth, and she has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Sleeping Through July – Siegfried Baber

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Sleeping Through July

The grass grew tall inside our heads
to mark all the days we lost.
Your eyes were sealed like two buds
quietly refusing to blossom.
My shadow flattened a skylark’s nest.
Under a blanket of warm summer rain
our bones bleached the earth
and formed a pair of chalk horses
where kids trailed after hopeless kites
and someone’s lover
kept the engine ticking over
until they couldn’t wait any longer.
I don’t remember who woke first —
only your peeling skin, my urgent thirst.

…

Siegfried Baber was born in Barnstaple, Devon in 1989 and his poetry has featured in a variety of publications including Under The Radar, The Interpreter’s House, Butcher’s Dog Magazine, online with The Compass Magazine and Ink, Sweat and Tears, and as part of the Bath Literature Festival. His debut pamphlet When Love Came To The Cartoon Kid is published by Telltale Press, with its title poem nominated for the 2015 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. London Road West, an eBook of poems and photographs, is now available to download from www.siegfriedbaber.co.uk