We shine in shadow, share whip and top,
skip until our shoes scuff.

Soles worn thin, we save sixpence for Jesus
who suffers children,

bleeds and rises.

Skin to skin, we taste the outline
of difference in darkness.

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A Walk in the Woods


No muezzin, legs wrapped around high branches,
calls the faithful to prayer in these deep woods.
From these green minarets woodpeckers tap
secret codes best understood by grubs and beetles.

No rosary slips through frantic fingers
or incense burns ears, tongue and soul.
Within forests, huckleberries are plucked
uncounted, pitch assaults our nostrils.

No teffilin binds my faith through generations
to Abraham and Moses. My feet are bound
in boots too tight for the steep trail ahead,
too loose for inevitable descents beyond.

Here amidst bushes scarlet enough to sear,
and trees of cathedral size and Buddha width,
my reservoir of faith may prove as shallow
as the springs that slack our mounting thirst

or full as the lake locals call bottomless.
Astride nurse logs, the words of believers
will be my shawl, those of poets the staff
to step a safe path to remote summit gates.

Before the climb, let us dine on apples and cheese -
and in the fading light consider future dreams.

© Gary Blankenship

(A Walk in the Woods : Editor's Choice of Bob Cooper, '.Each time I read this poem I'm amazed - not just by discovering the significances of details but also by the way it quietly evokes a reverent appreciation of the natural world. It's a poem to read quietly, and it creates its own quietness. There's an almost liturgical progression and, at the end, I can taste the apple, the cheese! ')

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Thine Eye

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam
...quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare.
(St Augustine)

And now, at close of night the lesson's run
its course, and through the drizzled windows come
the hopeful, hopeless beams of sun to stun
their glassy skins to stillness. Now as numb
as death, I wipe away the wet, then thumb
a shadow over pages I think I read,
before their tiny griefs are overcome
by this caustic light, and ponder on the dread
ancient symbols summon in my head.
When the runes were cut, blasphemies were muttered;
when doused with your blood, you provoked the sleeping dead,
summoned the djinni - and I, swiftly guttered
out - out.
Morning is such ruthless white,
I cannot see the point in having sight.

© Nigel Holt

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A game I play with myself

I am a person of significance.

Look—people bow as I pass.

My face shivers the glass.

I am a person of no significance.

Transparent. See?

The mirror’s gaze blanks me.

I am no-one.

I am words as they fall.

I am nothing at all.

© Helena Nelson

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© Sandy McKinney

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The seasons' course seems strange to me,
more strange than I remember;
wild flowers bloom unseasonably:
primroses in November.

The young pretend to blame us all.
Well, youth's a great dissembler:
May was forever, I recall,
and there was no November.

These days I'll take what nature sends
to hoard for dour December:
a glow of warmth as autumn ends;
primroses in November.

© David Anthony

(Warming: Editor's Choice of Clive Simpson, 'Like all the best poems, it bears repeated reading as its

layers slowly reveal themselves. The sonics in it - the repeated "m"s and "b"s sounds - fitted the quiet, contemplative, slightly wistful tone perfectly.' )

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Lighthouse

The lighthouse is stubborn; stands smooth
amid jagged rocks. Waves sacrifice themselves
at its feet, spray a million deaths, atomized.

She hugs a hundredth of the circumference, presses
her face to the coldness of the cylinder. Tongue
finds a crack, explores a mix of salt and calcium.
Inside, she ascends the staircase, feels it throb
to the beat of the sea, a live vein.

The illumination is warm, she revels in its revelations;
she wants to swallow the light and glow all night.

© Seshadri Veeraraghavan

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(1)

That was a good reading.
I like your work.
Could we get a drink,
by ourselves somewhere,
discuss mine?

(2)

This house is wonderful,
so many places to choose.
Serve me first
on the island bench
in the kitchen.
Eat me.

(3)

I know it's midnight, but,
do you always
come to your door naked?
Shut up.
I want to make you come at your door,
naked.

(4)

...
...
...
mmm.

(5)

Do you ever write
about the ocean?

(6)

This
is
the last
time.

I am
done

with

fucking

poetry.

© Frank Faust

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burqas are powerful garments,
they turn women into ghosts,
bulky spectres gliding past
the main street ruins
of grief-stricken cities.

they are going nowhere,
their steps transient imprints
in the sad soil of afghanistan,
barely lasting long enough
for taliban foes to follow them

across shut-down markets, to doorsteps
of dying friends, the street vendor
selling bread as hard as bullets.
some slip away into suffocating
cellars beneath war debris

to meet their shrouded sisters.
every sick woman they help,
every lesson they teach,
every execution they tape,
every pair of lips they paint

is an act of courage performed
on the edge of a grave already
dug, already used behind a fence
of barbed wire, shed burqas
caught flapping in the wind.

© michaela a. gabriel

All That Jazz

Bones tap up stairs
down again into one
room out of another
They play the jazz
echoes of Coltrane Miles
Davis T Monk chiefly Sun Ra

She balleted in the womb
Music made her old soul unwind
She refused to be born
stood up tall to look through
her mother’s eyes
hung onto the c(h)ord

for dear life
mantled herself tightly
The doctor plucked her out
She did not cry
but stared startled
heard jazz in her head

A jazz singer she
scatted smoke in Chicago bars
birthed tunes
that loom in candle
lit shadow played on
public radio

Bones sing through jazzed night

© Ryfkah

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© Suzanne Delaney

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Re-defining Clay

He sat outside, and watched through thick glass walls
another England, Far East Heritage Crafts,
with bowls too small for porridge, from Japan.
Three women in kimonos bowed and served.

He checked the list, knew none of the potters' names
ending in O, or smashed with Ks like dropped
crockery. He whistled at the prices like
autumn sucking its teeth. He knew the gaps
between then and now, old cafés that paid cash
for his milk, and this new gallery, steel and glass.

He'd stop, for old times sake, on the way back
from the Job Centre ('Nothing yet') and check his list:
Rat poison (question mark), whiskey (half, cheap),
matches (not safety), paraffin- each item priced.
An early draft with spaces for small change
he scribbled in after market, finishing his flask.

He'd spent a lifetime redefining clay;
a rim's curl like the East edge of the world
glazed by a downpour, patterning a field with plough.
He'd seen these shades in skies, thumbed textures when

an autumn frayed to drought. With delicate hands
these visitors lifted pots like weighing light:
bought stoneware, crisp and dry as indoor air,
printed with ordinary barley heads or rush stalks.

Here none of the shops which played sleep walking music
sold what he needed, loose tea, baked beans (small).
He'd logged his ledgers with bullocks auctioned off,
the closing farms, fields edging into red
of skies at morning out of the children's rhyme.
He'd go after his list: marmalade, a cartridge.

© Martyn Halsall

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My cousins have a strong religious streak-
teetotal Bible belters. I don't like
those Jesus freaks: the worst one's Pastor Mike.
To my surprise I heard from him last week.
He wrote, "You've met my helper Pete, I think:
I used to take him with me when I went
to spread the Word. The man was heaven-sent
to demonstrate the ill effects of drink.
He'd drool beside me in the Gospel Hall
and urinate, then fall about the stage;
or, turning to my flock in drunken rage,
he'd stagger forth and vilify them all.
He's passed away, the poor pathetic slob:
so how about it - would you like the job?"

.© David Anthony

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