OS6 June-Sept 2024

Alphabetical list of poets

This lists the writers selected for publication, each linked to their text, audio, and biography.
Writers published here can record audio of their entry by clicking on this link.
Introduction for writers during the submission window

Annie Ellis, Bridgette James, Christine Griffin, David Ashbee, Dauda Zai, David Birch, Derek Healy, Edward Alport, Emma Lee, Gerald Seniuk, Helen Angell, John Poolman, Jonathan Chibuike Ukah, Kate Copeland, Kim Crowder, Maggie Mackay, Michael Parsons, Paul Thwaites, Rodger Holden, Rodney Wood, Ronald van Rees, Rosie Arcane, Sandra Howell, Tracee Findlater, Trisha Broomfield, Wendy Webb, Yvonne Crossley

 indicates one audio of a poem. 

David Birch

Son et Lumiere

Gusty and percussive last
night
the sound of scouring surf in the trees
above a bass-line of shaking windows
fighting the reedy top-notes
of the wind-whistles.

Maroon smears into violet tonight
on a watercolour wash of fading green
above a pitch-black barn and line of trees:
the silent spectators
of Aurora’s colour-wheel.

Monochrome

Let’s play
guess the colour
of the snooker ball,
and tell the football teams apart.

Let’s dance
to our portable dansette,
to the hiss and crackle
with monophonic twisting
to make the needle jump.

Let’s listen
in black and white,
while we wait
for the valves to warm
dodge the static
nudge the dial
on the sonic road
from Athlone to Hilversum
(via Luxembourg of course).

David Birch worked in education and lives in Devon. His poems, several of which have been published in Wildfire Words, often explore the relationship of people and their landscape.

Bridgette James

Hypnic jerk

Eyes shut, Trancelike, with hypnic jerks,
I plunge into a luminous abyss of water
swallowing its gin and tonic.

I am floating on psychedelic waves.
You appear — a Freudian optical illusion.
Translucent, we merge into each other.

Together like paired clam shells
we are submerged by iridescent bubbles.
We cuddle dolphins, sink to the seabed

to lay egg-babies in multicoloured corals
scatter pearl beads in memory of the embryo I lost
wish our foetuses luck growing into mermaids

or merman. Or unconditioned — both. Wish fulfilment.
We are liberated aquatic nocturnal creatures
picking flowers, yellow-horned poppies, bending seaweed

to make necklaces we adorn to celebrate that the world
is my oyster –- Utopia. But unreachable, the sea-horizon
stretches far beyond the neural path, out of my line of vision,

and the anaesthesia of sleep wears off. That bloody alarm.
I stir, stumble out — a drunk somnambulist.
Your bedspace is bare. Your memory

wrapped up in duvet covers tossed in an octagonal shape –
replicating your octopus groin tattoo
with enough tentacles for a blanket hug.

You exist in two hemispheres, solid matter –
my Ex, in a starfish-framed photo on my bedside locker,
in my subconscious — the amorous spirit in my dreams.

Why you never see seagulls acknowledging signs or placards

Literally next to where humans erected notices saying, Don’t feed the seagulls,
you read about the epic defiance of one snooping down and snatching
a woman’s sandwich in Aberdeen. Gulls’ behavioural response
to signs is almost identical to that of the human species.

First, humans block roads holding up placards with Just Stop Oil
because Britain is going down a slippery slope then you read
a news feature that fracking will start near rocks close to the sites
of the largest archaeological excavations that evidenced mankind
has always possessed the tenacity to survive shipwrecks.

The fifteen-year-old protester’s cumbersome Use renewable Energy sign
because humanity’s sustenance depends on the installation of smart meters
was only going to contradict the national campaign for discounted energy bills
running in England the same month.

A diesel vehicle crashed in the zone with the low-emission sign
to demonstrate the right to do otherwise is ingrained into the hu man-psyche,
and even those blocking the motorway to reduce fossil fuel usage
can film themselves on smartphones containing conflict minerals
like tantalum then recharge their devices with electricity.

When a sensational story ran about roads barricaded in a climate protest
campaigning for more organic produce to be grown through ecological farming,
primroses, daffodils and lavender fields, replaced by multi-coloured
Save the Climate signs, on the location a critically-acclaimed documentary
was filmed about onshore oil fields. Humans questioned if stampeding carriageways “Rescinds people’s Aristotelian right of free will and choice.”

The hypothesis seagulls swoop to protest against humans hasn’t been proven.
They aren’t contesting against signs by authorities in seaside towns
for humans to stop Littering because it Encourages Seagulls Food theft.
Perhaps gulls innately know the dilemma of tussling between moral responsibilities
and the fundamental right for living organisms to do as they choose.

Chicken V Whale menopause

The cetologist made a rare positive argument for menopause.
“Longevity and other health perks are enjoyed by menopausal whales.”
A total solar eclipse temporarily obscuring sun rays on oceans
inhabited by blue whales, doesn’t affect their luminous glow.

The chicken vet’s letter read, warning, you are a seven-year-old fowl,
 a cantankerous Hera crowned Hypnos’s insomniac queen.
Insatiable hormones once hungry for intercourse have died.

Your older shrivelled-up cervix will recoil from Eros’s touch.
It belongs to an infertile hen-goddess who hatches expired eggs,
a boxed relic labelled with the caution: no longer spring chicken.
The rooster on the dating site marvelled at how semi-naked selfies
disguise the slowing of the body clock in henopause.
He said, “You hide time strikes from Cronos’ hands well
beneath your feathers. You’re really fit for forty nine.

Bridgette James was a Metropolitan Police Special Constable. Her work has appeared in Dreich, Fib Review, Gutter and Wildfire Words. Her Poem “African Mimos” was longlisted for the 2022 Aurora National Prize for Writing. She has appeared in various Sierra Leonean anthologies. What the Seashell said to Me, a 2023 collection, edited by Bridgette, is now in the National Poetry Library. @beespoems.

Ronald van Rees

Lodged There Waiting

A tawny owl seen in a chestnut tree,
I listened to the wind moaning one night,
The creature’s inward mystery, in such eyes so round,
Breaking the scope of so much darkness, many grimmer aspects
The night lets us entertain, or all those thoughts
Of youth, when I seemed keen for less surrender to a lot
That left me angry in the eyes of others,
It hooting again to look upon a world not of its choosing.

A quickly shifting breeze then settled, and the flickering lights
Of houses in the distance seemed to make a truce with time,
All passing dreamily, the sullen glance I had received
From someone else no longer leaving mealy.

It perched, this splendid creature, on a branch high overhead,
While in the shrubbery those rodents ran
From what had left them drowsy to much more that might provide
Some small morsel to chew on easily.

The owl just waited, biding its time, peering into the gloom,
And at me too, I suspect, waiting for a little sign
To let it spread its wings in search of sustenance once more,
Even if I saw no evidence of this.

There it stood, just waiting, waiting patiently, an eye
Turned towards me, divining things that may
Have left it quizzical; and still those rodents scurried off
Beyond the leafy litter under those trees.

Ronald van Rees is a European national. He has lived in various countries, gone to art school, and graduated with a university degree in art history. The majority of his time has been spent in the UK, the Netherlands and France. Just You Wait, a novella, will be published by Running Wild Press in May 2025. Site: https://ronald-van-rees.com/en/home

Yvonne Crossley

Pandiculation

First the torso then the toes,
next the fingers and finally the nose –
which wrinkles laughter lines
and stifles a yawn as wide as
the Manx sea.
It’s more than just stretching –
this automatic reboot of the senses;
it’s a biofeedback reset of the mind
and body after sleep. A functional
flexing of tension and release.

Cat’s face smiles as he readies his
arching tongue and needle point teeth.
His paws, his claws are fully unsheathed,
sharpening instincts for nightly forays.
The sphinx poser blinks, fully aware now
that I am yawning too and sleepily
readying myself for bed.

Yvonne Crossley is inspired by natural history, a sense of place, self-reflection and the wonder of words. An OU diploma in Creative writing and literature in 2008 led to her joining a Scottish Borders writing group and expanding her love of poetry. Published in anthologies, Eildon Tree Magazine, her recent work appears in e-zines: Wildfire Words, Poetry Archive Now! 2023, Leaf Journal 2,3 and selected for issue 4, Salisbury Fringe 2023, Cranborne Chase ‘Cherish poetry’ winner 2023.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

In Those Days

In those days,
My mother baptised me
With drops of holy water,
Saying they were drops of the sea,
pieces of the universe.

I gazed at the sea,
From the second floor of our house,
It shimmered, glittered in blue,
With an open mouth,
Yawning, hungry, pleading.

Every night my mother went to the sea
Where the fishermen hung their fish
On long fishnets with their right hands,
Their left palms lay open like the sky,
Their lips asking, pleading.

My mother returned with crabs,
Tossed them at me;
I chased them down, trapped them under my feet;
I cuddled and held them to my chest;
kindred of the sea.

I was born in the sea,
Where the water mingled with the sky,
Where the sun shouted down at the wind,
Where the wind whipped up a shout
Against the braying moon.

And that’s how the sea was my refuge,
My birthplace, my home,
Where my umbilical cords lie breathing,
Waiting, asking for my return,
Trying to get answers to its yearning.

That is where my heart pumps blood,
My place of sacredness, my sanctuary,
From there, life and death flow,
The stream of life, the string to eternity,
My fountain, my only refuge.

But I have stood on this bridge too long,
Now is the time to cross over,
To where I belong, where I froze my body,
Waiting for my return, my reunion,
Where my things belong forever.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah is a Pushcart-nominated poet living in the United Kingdom. His poems have been featured in Unleash Lit, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Atticus Review, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets and elsewhere. He won the Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest in 2022 and the Alexander Pope Poetry Award in 2023. His first poetry collection, Blame the Gods, published by Kingsman Quarterly in 2023 was a finalist at the Black Diaspora Poetry Award in 2023. He was the Editor’s Choice Prize Winner of Unleash Lit in 2024. He was shortlisted for the Minds Shine Bright Poetry Prize 2024

Kate Copeland

Tidemark

Water powers out the window,
towards my Greek-blue garden set
somehow forgotten. The desert figs wait
fearful of a twilight night.
Let us not reject a falling out,
let us leave the water
to its scandalous turn. A flood
of murder thoughts
deep down my hemispheres.
It is all I have, for you.
For now. Nothing real, nothing
much me. The heart confronts
sometimes morning, conscience will buy
no ice cream or salt butter.
I found tidemarks on the bay sill,
a see-through dimness alternating
with moving life.
Cold-feet query: what might be a right time
to stop bolting, moving earth
and heaven — and say hello?

Kate Copeland’s love for languages led her to teaching, her love for art & water to poetry. Find her pieces @The Ekphrastic Review, WildfireWords, Gleam, First Lit.Review-East, a.o. Her Insta reads: https://www.instagram.com/kate.copeland.poems/ 
Kate is curator-editor for The Ekphrastic Review, and runs linguistic-poetry workshops for TER & International Women’s Writing Guild. She was born @harbour city, and adores housesitting @the world.

Maggie Mackay

The Reader

Every room housed at least one bookcase
mahogany framed, glass doors, a brass key
If one fell over it’d  break your spine with theirs.
Everyman, Victor Gollancz, Faber & Faber,
second hand mostly, signatures and festive dates
in eccentric wild handwriting, dated too.

Each belonged in my childhood home
like ghosts claiming space, plucked from high shelves
in dark, musty scented corridors of grottos
on George IV Bridge, after coffee
and a sugar crunch doughnut
in the Science Museum on Chambers Street
where golden fish swam in a marble pond.

Many he smuggled home in brown paper bags;
never could return for Saturday lunch
without a book. Dad feasted on word-nectar.
When he reached the dizzy heights
of a James Thin credit card, that thrill.

It was his space travel. Through the Depression,
Spanish Civil War, World War, Cold War,
Bertrand Russell, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell.
He read for generations of  Hyslops and Mackays
who came before him and knew only a Bible
and, if they were lucky, a book as a Sunday School prize.

The Godly Witches’ Creed : Give No Ground to the Male Gaze

When I come home to my childhood, I come home to an open heart. The door opens onto welcoming currents of air. Mum is a gust rooted in faith, Dad a gentle zephyr whisper, swirls of words on endless pages. My brother, an obscure shadow of a storm, secret and uncommunicated. A misunderstood force, alone, thoughtful. I walk into a landscape of solid stone. Plates always groan of home baking and tables with pots of tea. We might be a diverse foursome – Leo and  Sagittarius. Mum, the Gemini, has the magic touch with the witchery trick of balancing fiery elements against the cool. When she was widowed, serpent men came out of shadows to bother her. A woman alone. Surely, a strange thing, asking to be trapped, scorned, patronised. But she managed her money, holding a house together, raising a student son. Facing grief privately, facing forward, she grabbed life. She was proud that her life did not revolve around her children. Some did not know she had children. When she died, folk said she was a good woman. Yet, so weirdly Christian and independent and a worrier. Spells. Her life was good, replete of spells. Falling from the stars, falling on her feet.

Maggie Mackay’s poem ‘How to Distil a Guid Scotch Malt’ is in the Poetry Archive’s WordView permanent collection. Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2020: How to Distill a Guid Scotch Malt – Poetry Archive Her second collection The Babel of Human Travel (Impspired.com  ) was published in 2022. She reviews poetry collections at https://thefridaypoem.com and chills out with her beautiful greyhound.

Wendy Webb

18 Anthems — Rougegorge the Phone

[Ways to name a bird]

I
Erithacus rubecula mists through glass
as we ignore each other: privacy of feeders

II
Sound urgent bleeps aid mobile conversation:
Poppy alarms at sight of moving flower

III
Necessary food, brain numb to process
ingredients – red – in pugnacious flight to sizzle-sing in wok

IV
Wearing glasses in Cambodia was dangerous: hairdresser
shocked. Rougegorge perched on branch, gossip warms like heated rollers

V
Kitchen equipment piled on floor, no gin, nor Rosie bright-eyed landlady.
Goodbye, cocktail bar

VI
Cards on string, glowing red as tinsel, snow and Grandparents
feasting. Bury a frozen Passeriformes, no imprints

VII
Chores never dun Muscicapidae: dug for worm-flight,
man indoors digs woman

VIII
Feathers on lawn prickle like whiskers, berry-ruddock,
wood pigeon dematerialised

IX
Grey features wrinkle experience, like phone ringing
urgent ripe strawberry: timeless feathercraft not dusting

X
Biking to Greene Dragon, breathless Scarlett for lunch/beer garden
banter with bar-woman: entrepreneur, like Boudicca

XI
Petroicidae, some say, like angels’ feathers
breezed in passing of ghost-print green

XII
Silence of distance traffic at home with sirens of the city
crushed onto dull tarmac as beak-pert robinet lands on fence

XIII
Angels leave leather, Swarfiga and mean-looking heron gulls,
flame shook foil with blackcurrant eyes watch stillness of budding blooms

XIV
C-PAP in SCBU: bleeps of busyness
leaves Ruber Autumn like Spring sunshine

XV
Plant nothing slow-growing beyond lifetime of five bold robins,
because birdsong’s unpredictable

XVI
Conservatively speaking, Turdus migratorius flits from view to view, claiming
territory, as phone call clashes words and experience between friends

XVII
Post fails to arrive, stamped with flycatcher display:
fanciful as legal stamps, fines, and dishonest postmasters

XVIII
Theme tune’s robin anthem across screened cafe,
burying hope – not nightmare – in concrete.

Constanza and Galanthophiles in the Garden

[Constanza/Connie Marcum Wong, Hawaii, new form, variation by Vincent Johnson, Montpelier]

Raw garden themes will now replay,
dark shades of seasons palely quake,
reviving breaths of Springtime ache.

All year in bloom-fade’s fine display

reflects progression – nature’s lake –
a work of art’s disturbed mistake.

Grey teardrops fall, as pearls convey
pure beauty’s storm, paused still to break
Galanthophiles’ eye candy wake.

Dark beastly Winter slunk away,
fuelled Paradise indoors as fake,
disturbing vision haunts remake.

Brave beachwear in the shops downplay
the joy of milkshakes/eating cake.
Blood flushed through veins is what’s at stake!

Flirty sunshine courts pale dismay:
annoying ringbacks friends may make
fleece Peace same as a neutered drake.

            Raw garden themes will now replay
            all year in bloom-fade’s fine display.
            Grey teardrops fall, as pearls convey
            dark beastly Winter slunk away.
            Brave beachwear in the shops downplay:
            flirty sunshine courts pale dismay.

Double-Decker Journey to Nowhere

The day promised nothing: heatwave post-storm
as she walked over river bridge, through village,
round corner to the other bus. Comfortably seated,
window view and no impediments, cruising stop-start
into town, internal parts vomited onto pavement, to shop.
A confusion of passenger/driver exchange,
loud laughter at beginning of shift. Started, stopped,
Old Father Time pushed disabled buggy,
returned to seat and patently waited.
Hearing impaired, at the back,  she worried at delay:
commotion of support at front, young woman (mobile to ear).
Injured? Wrong vehicle? Interchange of imponderables?
Light mist of hope vanquished, auto-started,
auto-stopped. A contrition of remainers pausing.
Passengers passed-on a polygamy of breakdowns.
‘Depot sending someone… it started first time.’
Daytrip to delightful town – Aladdin’s cave
of quaint charity shops – shelved.
Current city’s labyrinth of discovery disenchanting.
Crossed over, walked along to the Castle, timelagged.
Electronic timetable, twin vehicle vanished.
Despair stumbled to another route, driver parked up
as truant bus rumbled and shook ahead.
Quick change; possibly.
Errant bus dematerialised… somewhere.
She walked slowly through village, over river bridge,
back home where the garden failed to wait.
She drank in birdsong, fussed by skittish wind,
absorbed pear tree whiteness of blossom:
nowhere was already there.

Wendy Webb loves nature, wildlife, symmetry and form and the creative spark. Published in Reach, Sarasvati, Quantum Leap, Crystal, The Journal, The Frogmore Papers, Dreich, Leicester Literary Journal, Seventh Quarry, Acumen; online in Littoral, Lothlorien, Autumn Voices, Wildfire Words, Atlantean; broadcast Poetry Place. Books: Love’s Floreloquence, and Landscapes (with David Norris-Kay).
Her book Love’s Floreloquence is available on Amazon.co.uk

Christine Griffin

Steeplejack

Leather-clad against the rough brick,
he’s floating high on his cradle,
driving the iron dogs home.

From his eyrie he can count four score chimneys
soaring through the thickened air,
belching sulphurous ochre smoke.
Olive-drab hills hunch in the distance,
while far below soot-blackened factories
stud the ravaged valley.

No cathedrals here, no gothic splendour
of turreted towers, serene cloisters.
No fine-spired churches, medieval lanes.
His cloisters are the cramped ranks
of terraced houses, flagged
with meanly-strung washing,
his bells the factory’s whistle,
the rhythmic clank of cotton mills.

Halfway to the sky
he watches rain clouds gather,
thrills to the unearthly call of a curlew
echoing over the moors.

Christine Griffin writes poetry and short fiction and is widely published both nationally and internationally. Publications this year include poetry in Writing Magazine and Poetry Super Highway and a short story in Writing Magazine. Christine is poetry runner-up in the Gloucestershire Writers’ network competition 2024.                     

Derek Healy

The Volunteer

Gauchely he comes downstairs, new grown whiskers
wispy on his cheeks, blue eyes moist and pale,
an ill-slung sword scoring the wallpaper
every second step of its wavering trail.
Hearing the footfall, arm through arm they stare,
remembering his boyhood, a pistol aimed
blood-thirstily, sliding the banister
and out the door, each summer long the same:
the hemlock, for all its polishing, bears
still the gouges his toys and buckles made –
that wildness, crammed in half a dozen years
of heroes charging towards cannonades.
Now paper flowers, so carelessly cut through,
must, untouched, remain their reminders too.

Derek Healy was born and grew up in Cheltenham, but now lives across the Vale in Great Malvern.  His third collection (Uncharted, Graffiti Books 2022) explores the unknowability of our futures – personal, societal and global. Derek has been published in many journals, here and in the USA.  He has read on several occasions at the Cheltenham Poetry and Cheltenham Literature festivals. www.derekhealypoetry.co.uk

Dauda Zai

Walking libraries

All these uncelebrated stories tumbling off the train
a catalogue of chronicles heading home again
books flying off the shelves in all directions
paragraphs of possibilities in chapters of recollections…

Him ear glued to the phone, purposeful and persistent
cutting off the old lady with his important speed

her towing behind her a reluctant rat-cum-bathmat dog
almost tripping up the cyclist with its scatterbrained lead

she with wrenched-loose hair and lycra-tight legs
sliding her clumsy back wheel out of the way

of the elderly gentleman rhythmic with his stick
his snappy cravat and buttonhole bouquet.

Him on the phone just back from a big meeting
far too busy to hear the sweet blackbird sing

her towing the rat-mat off to see her grandson
playing for the secondary school on the wing

she with loose hair just back from the Cotswolds
cycling to see her family – likes to keep in touch

he with the rhythmic stick back from a survivor’s re-union
one of those so few to whom so many owe so much.

Him on the phone raising a frustrated voice
each shout making his stomach-ulcer flare

her towing the rat-mat with those varicose veins
and that cirri-stratus cloudy cataract stare

she with loose hair pushing herself ever harder
determined to live for ever or at least another day

he with the rhythmic stick relentlessly stoic
snapping jokes with the Grim Reaper on the way.

Each one courageously writing another new chapter
of a story that will someday certainly end
hardly ever shared and never ever published
known only very vaguely to their intimate friends.

Each page as it passes fades like a fallen flower
shredded by a careless wind, smudged by a heartless rain
him, her, she, he for a moment united on this branch line
then lost like last year’s leaves in a winter hurricane.

Dauda Zai, to pay the rent, controls mountain gardens; to feed himself he grows food; to heal himself he plays 20 different musical instruments; to stretch himself he climbs mountains; to prepare himself he writes poems on death and translates moonlit owl-song into French. It is a way of life!

Edward Alport

The Creek

Who comes here?
Who comes to the creek, and its stinking mud?
Where the curlews weep for their lost lovers,
and the sea sucks at the salt grass,
flipping empty crabs and plastic clamshells.

Spread your arms wide.
spread your arms for the roads of Utah,
A thousand miles of sand and empty blacktop.
There’s not a place to find more desolate
than the creek, with the stinking crabs and the sucking mud,
where sea thistles stab at the scales of plastic fish
and the curlews grieve for their lost lovers.

There is no shade,
no tree, no rest for the wandering eye,
no paths, just thorns for the wandering feet
but there’s a warmer welcome in the Nullarbor
than the creek, where the mud churns the creeping crabs’ legs
and sea thistle spinifex scrawls eulogies to dead fish,
where plastic pickets the limits of the last tide
and curlews mourn for their lost lovers.

The locked-in ice
and the vampire vastness of the deep white South
sucking the life from all but the penguins that huddle
in absurd bird islands of unlikely cosiness and stench.
Well, the creek offers stench, but there’s nowhere cosy
in the seethe of the spiny sea and the obscene gestures
of spiteful crab legs. Where spikes of plastic shards impale
the gills of the rotting fishnecks and their thick lips mumble
the eulogies to half remembered membranes of thistle leaves.
Where weasels’ eyes blink in the shells of molluscs
and curlews keen the names of their lost lovers.

Edward Alport is a retired teacher and proud Essex Boy. Currently a poet and gardener, he has had poetry etc. published in various webzines and magazines and performed on BBC Radio and Edinburgh Fringe. He sometimes posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse.

Helen Angell

Earth Sign

Each Christmas, my uncle reminds me
he wants to be buried not cremated

because there’s nothing fresher than earth
and also so none of him will be lost

on the wind above Toby Rock or lodged
in the bottom of a plastic urn, thrown out

with the weekly rubbish. But in an ideal world,
he says, he would just walk quietly into the woods,

curl up in the undergrowth beneath the shrubs
let the earth take him back inside its warm winter coat.

Helen Angell writes poetry and non-fiction often inspired by our everyday experiences with one another and the urban landscape around us. Her work has featured in a number of publications and exhibitions including collaborations with visual artists.

John Poolman

Standing at the shoreline on the First of June

This month, the tide will turn.
Watch for it, wait for it.
From Solstice Day, incoming light recedes,
Drawing us back into the growing darkness.
Safety’s in lengthening shadows, longer nights,
The tang of autumn.
As July is dawning,
We’ll know the year has finished half its journey
And feel ourselves being carried gently
On to the far shores of December.

Overlooking

A model village,
Church, pub, shops and houses
Lies spread out here,
Seen from my study window.
Beyond all that,
The farm house and farm yard.
With sheds and silos
Tractors and their trailers
Cattle and sheep, half glimpsed
But mostly guessed at.
Then, further still,
The hills beyond the village
Safely enclose the living and the dead.

John Poolman is a priest of the Church in Wales, retired from parochial ministry but involved in helping prepare those in training for future ministries. His background is in the agricultural industry and he is among the first generation of his family not to have been a farm worker.

Trisha Broomfield

Pantry

Bramble jam, its surface moulded blue,
links sticky rings with sulphurous Piccalilli,
scalloped paper spread on solid shelves
takes it all in its faded stride.
Cheese, cracked like heels, misses being peeled,
dry Coleman’s mustard rusts in its tin
mourns the loss of silver pots and spoons.
Caster sugar sifts, self raising drifts near baking powder
all long for scones.
Worcestershire sauce waits for a whiff of Welsh Rarebit
Gripe Water abandoned by its side.
Saxa salt solidifies near Sarsons’ vinegar
both visualising fish, chips and batter bits.
A knife for cutting bread lies on a hollowed board, bored
baked beans by Crosse and Blackwell feel ignored,
beneath their tins a pink hot water bottle rots
Stone’s Green Ginger Wine pines for its hey day
dreams of becoming the drink of today,
condensed milk craves Del Monte peaches
Long Life Milk finally dies.
Stoppers from Dandelion and Burdock line up
waiting to return to their brown bottles.
The smell is empty biscuit tins and Flash washed tiles
raisins like mouse droppings litter the floor
and on a hook behind the door,
its blue ties tired and frayed,
a paisley pinny droops, limply
stained with Cherryade.

Trisha Broomfield has three poetry pamphlets published by Dempsey and Windle and has contributed to many anthologies. Her poems are mostly memories of life ‘back in the day.’ They combine humour and pathos. Her next collection, My Acrostic Mother, is due out soon.
Her poems have been featured on BBC Upload and Poetry Worth Hearing podcast
Instagram @magentapink22
Facebook: Trisha Broomfield Poetry

Yvonne Crossley

Pandiculation

First the torso then the toes,
next the fingers and finally the nose –
which wrinkles laughter lines
and stifles a yawn as wide as
the Manx sea.
It’s more than just stretching –
this automatic reboot of the senses;
it’s a biofeedback reset of the mind
and body after sleep. A functional
flexing of tension and release.

Cat’s face smiles as he readies his
arching tongue and needle point teeth.
His paws, his claws are fully unsheathed,
sharpening instincts for nightly forays.
The sphinx poser blinks, fully aware now
that I am yawning too and sleepily
readying myself for bed.

Yvonne Crossley is inspired by natural history, a sense of place, self-reflection and the wonder of words. An OU diploma in Creative writing and literature in 2008 led to her joining a Scottish Borders writing group and expanding her love of poetry. Published in anthologies, Eildon Tree Magazine, her recent work appears in e-zines: Wildfire Words, Poetry Archive Now! 2023, Leaf Journal 2,3 and selected for issue 4, Salisbury Fringe 2023, Cranborne Chase ‘Cherish poetry’ winner 2023.

Annie Ellis

Winter Jack

No-one saw him coming.

White fell on a dark night, under winter stars.
Icicles hung from his tattered cloak
plants frosted in his wake.

His breath blew crystals across glass
they turned, flowed in a ballet
as frost reflected a hidden world.

Ice ferns bent their heads in moonlight
their silver tendrils curled lifelike
on the clear canvas.

Etched in ice he had painted nature
from a prism palette.

As he left
only the silent crunch of his feet on ice.

Annie Ellis‘s biography is here

Emma Lee

Cleaning the Shoe Cupboard

She pokes the vacuum over the threadbare carpet in the porch. The outer door still locked.

Her shoes sit on the bottom shelf: a smart pair for work, immaculate low heels for evenings out, sneakers for dashing round the supermarket.

The next shelf, her husband’s. The leather loosened with wear, the heels sloped more on the inside, a broken lace not replaced.

Next to them is her son’s first pair, navy, soft but supportive. The pair she never got round to throwing away. His walking boots slouch as if finding the change from worn every day to left behind too much.

She brushes the dust from the gap where his favoured hi-tops sit during his all-too-brief visits.

With the vacuum she shuffles her shoes along. There’s space.

Emma Lee’s publications include The Significance of a Dress (Arachne, 2020) and Ghosts in the Desert (IDP, 2015). She co-edited Over Land, Over Sea, (Five Leaves, 2015), reviews for magazines and blogs at https://emmalee1.wordpress.com

Gerald Seniuk

Joy Fell Softly In

Joy fell softly in. That’s not
what I expected of joy.

What I expected was
struggles, straining,
and then a surge at the end
when joy would be won,
as happened that dawn when,
canoeing on the lake, the mist
covered me in gold
and my soul sang.

I thought I had found joy then.
But that prize was ephemeral.
Like the mist, it passed,
and could not be called back.

Joy cannot be called in that way.
It is the one that calls.

Years later, as I sat under the apple tree,
joy called to me from a silent stillness.
My soul did not sing.

Instead, the first thought I had
was of you, JB, my friend,
moving toward the end,
one day at a time,
with a smile, a steady eye,
a witty humor, an agile mind,
a serene wisdom, and
a kindly gaze at life.

That is what joy is like,
being in your company,
sitting under the apple tree.

Gerald Seniuk is retired, Canadian, and resides in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Kim Crowder

Cirrus

You’ll never hear the click of their huge feathered
heels, never quite catch them full sight at the zenith 
when daylight hours reach full stretch
and atmosphere pressures rise to dizzying heights –
those immense mythical sky-mares, ethereal equines,
kelpies maybe who’ve relinquished the rivers.

Crossing aerial country they go barrelling by like
the kind who’ll buck and plunge to unseat you then
defy and refuse to be caught. Running in herds on
air-headed instinct they soar clear of the highest
hilltop’s bar  – lashing mile-long white tails
whisking the yolk of the sun in a speedwell sky.

Kim Crowder’s writing has been published by numerous poetry magazines and on blogs and projects focused on human-animal relations, climate change and medical humanities. Based in rural Scotland, she is a current member of the Edwin Morgan Trust’s Clydebuilt 16 poetry scheme. She holds a PhD in Visual Anthropology (Goldsmiths, 2012). http://www.livesinnature.co.uk

Paul Thwaites

Cuckmere Haven

Whisper wind and shingle days,
When footfall chatters to the waking sea,
Round breeze tipped headland, sung,
And seagull winged the heart to wheel,
On downland merry.

Again go down,
By sheep’s blare warned,
From craggy foreheads saltwhite
In the Channel and endless roll and slap,
Hushed in the churned gravel,
Making its little, tittle–tattle rumours,
Over the land, white as swans.

To sea path wound,
Snake skeined light, its daft meander
Found pancake flat in the rolled tides,
Sought peace from twist and drama,
In slow grist shingle of release.

Here is air come,
And freedom’s banks,
Thrift down and thistle wind,
To spell this name,
Silver as mercury
On the chalk high headland’s brow,
And wrack road stranded.

Could I be now,
Stripped easy from this dream,
In watered years,
Fleet to the Seven Sistered stroll,
High on the breath on Cuckmere Haven?
Or stand be singing the spindrift praises,
Of all these holy breakers,
And the shingled days.

On Marram Hill

Now in hourglass time my dust is running,
Sand out on Marram Hill and far the scuds,
Sail the seagull balanced sky ~
Impartial sun,
Buckthorn berry burns to holes,
The red end of its love,
Cries careless as breeze stirred hair,
These breezy and sandcastled days,
That flip and fly.
Here, now I stand in a sifting,
Watch the breakered start of curls,
High swift murmurings,
Loom grass fine in its whiskers,
Threatening the air.
What, here, shall pass,
What dune blown, fine boned skimmings,
After the bleach and scour?
Toe tied time in these feet shifting,
Abdicates the day, its vast horizon,
Skirt on the pendulous sun,
Threshed after the marram,
Scourged spine of evening,
Red demise,
Gathered silks of sedimentary eyes.
Here now, on Marram Hill,
In turnstoned strand,
Of the spindrift dreamed
And jetsamed days,
Attentive to sun I stand,
The eyes of time appraise,
Until the bulb is filled and still,
And cuts no sand on Marram Hilll.

Paul Thwaites has been writing poetry and prose pieces since childhood. He had a collection of work published alongside imagery by Graham Ibbeson, the sculptor, titled High Noon to Midnight and was asked to read his poem “NHS” at the unveiling of the COVID Memorial Sculpture in Barnsley.
Paul recently finished a novel The Habit and The Hood, and is seeking publication. He also enjoys writing short stories and articles.

Rodger Holden

Independence Day

Dad sits one end of the settee,
opposite him, Mum,
both pinioned to button-back,
resolute squatters in their own home.
Like the shipping forecast, they give
constant updates on their splintered aches
and pains, the lop-sidedness of holding tight,
the hope of complete recovery.

All of us are transfixed
by the revolving door of carers,
social workers, nurses, visiting doctors,
hospitals and surgeries, pharmacies
neighbours, sons, and daughter,
the cleaner, the gardener, the handyman,
the weekly delivery of pills,
the visits from Forget-Me-Not U.K –
each day they fight to hold onto their independence
for one more day.

My Alter Ego and I meet aged Sixty

My alter ego strides into my local café, dilly-dandy.
Well, hello, he smiles, and takes a seat
right opposite. We could be nervous, first time,
but of course we aren’t. He’s bald like me,
and tussled by sixty years of life.

We order from the greasy grail –
bacon, eggs, chips, the full Monty galore,
a mug of tea, a bit of a treat because
it spreads middle-aged waists
and clogs our valves.
He slips a ring-binder across the table,
and lowers his voice, this is your life,
plus or minus a fact or two;
loving parents, wife and children,
darkish clouds, mostly passing,
turning pages with photos, of the child
in lederhosen, the teenage totem-pole,
more recently, comfy jowls; reading
scrawled invisible notes that are always private.
He casts an eye in camera,
loves the café’s station-steam smell of coffee,
and promises to write a poem about our brief encounter
in thirty-five mil, and give it a happy ending.
We drink tea from murky rims and chat about flux,
a book or two – we both like Raymond Antrobus –
and circle our plates like Rodeos.

I think he’s a jolly nice chap (of course)
and when it’s time to go, we agree to meet,
and not leave it sixty years again.

Rodger Holden‘s poetry focuses on small interactions based on his own personal experiences. Before retiring, he worked in the Charity Sector. He writes “I like the Wildfire format as I believe that poetry is as much about performance as the written word on the page.“

Sandra Howell

Shorts

Today
I decided to zip off my trousers to knee length shorts
sun protection spray on everything exposed
except my fear of…
still getting used to
my skin grafts and scars
still dressing and undressing as fast as I can
out of sight out of mind?
still moisturising body and legs
hurdling hope repeating I am made of shooting stars and
smears of sadness, humming happiness with artichokes of anxiety
still trying not to compare with the me before the RTC
to cope with the reality of pain and limited mobility
Short in stature but not confidence
you think?
years of tears and fears fall short
strengthening
Today
I decided to zip off my fear of exposure
sun protection spray on everything

Sandra Howell’s poems, widely published since she began writing poetry in 2020, were shortlisted for the Lascaux Prize in 2022. Since January 2023 she has performed and featured at poetry open mic events across London, including the Southbank Centre. Her poetry was displayed in art shows at the City Lit in 2023 and the West Reservoir Centre in November 2023 and February 2024.
Instagram @SandraHowellPoetry

Tracee Findlater

Waking
after Tua Forsström

The fire slackens and the rosy ashes trace their line
from the wild meadow to my yarn-pillows. You say that February
will come soon and the leaves remind us of something we will later forget
without question. We walk with saddled hearts and it must be raining where you are
because your breath is hot as you try to say my name again. There’s a wrinkle
above your left eye that I didn’t notice until tonight but I can’t seem to tell you
in time. The North Star is turning black, void black as the horizon recedes,
breaking our Byzantine hearts. Awake is another word that means deserted,
lost in the noise of the universe. I rested late and I did not hear my name.

Tracee Findlater writes poetry influenced by the natural world combined with imagery from dreams and memory. Her work has appeared in publications including Cape Magazine, Black Bough Poetry and Wildfire Words. Her first pamphlet, Broken Passages, was independently published in 2023. Stone Trees, a poetry and image collaboration with artist Fliss Cary, was published in 2024. Website: traceefindlater.wordpress.com.

David Ashbee

Autumn Equinox

When the sun shrinks from us
we reset time to what it was
before the razzmatazz began,
sleep an extra hour, as for
a battle or exam.

Tomorrow the shop manager
will lift down boxes labelled
“Ladies gloves and mufflers,”
stuff collection crates
with floral print frocks,
shivery bikinis, ridiculous chiffon.

Now is the season to front up,
shield ourselves with scarves and overcoats,
crank up the duvet tog,
time to own up
to who we really are,
things of skin and bone
that bulk and fatten.

The carnival is over.
Here comes lumberjack weather,
and we hope it’s just okay.

She …

has tattooed memories from everywhere she’s been:
the beacon where light blinded on white stone;
dark hole in a playing field where her children came to snuffle;
the garden shortcut she always dared at 3 a.m
until a Jack Russell, let out for a leg-cock,
woke the suburbs with its yelps;
lane between cottages where a late carouser’s shadow
made her rush and thrust her snout beneath a gate
which tipped up off its hinges.
All these places etched in her DNA
with Badgeworth, Brockworth, Hinton Badger.

David Ashbee is one of Gloucestershire’s longest established poets. This year he was privileged to be invited to adjudicate the GWN competition and was delighted to find how many of the blind-shortlisted poets were known to him personally.
His first collection came from Enitharmon in 1989, his latest from Dempsey and Windle in 2020.

Michael Parsons

Haytor Rock

We’re standing on Haytor Rock.
It’s imposing – they say you can see the sea
from this lichen covered granite,
and perhaps you can,
but not on this cold and cloudy day.
We say a few well-intentioned words,
fumbling towards dignity,
before opening the caskets and
casting them out into the wind.
Irreverently blown back,
we’re left dusting them off
our clothes and the rock at our feet.
At the moment of departure,
at the beginning of a new chapter,
they cling to us like
children on the first day of school,
needing support from those without words.


The Question

This is how it was supposed to be.
I’m holding your hand –
still in love with you –
as you slip peacefully,
knowing I’m here for you at the end.

But you complicate it!
I somehow knew you would.

Will you be able to find me?
I’ll find you, I say.
Will you still recognise me?
Of course, I’ll recognise you.

Then beyond all reason –
my tear-stained reason –
I whisper, Will you wait for me?
But it’s too late, and I’m left
with the question, hanging in the air –
a collapsing balloon.

Should have been smarter

Naturally, things were different then.
We used words like ‘pullover’ and ‘thruppence’.
We watched a coloured telly – the only one on the street –
and drove a pale-yellow car we were proud of.

Our football team was ‘The Gulls’.
It cost less than a pound to get into the match,
but we generally got our money’s worth,
even if United seemed pushing for demotion.

Going to see our team play,
we walked the mile or so past cars lining streets –
Vauxhall, Ford, Morris, Austin, flash Rover and Datsun.
Loud animated men, uninhibited in the crowd.

They shouted words I hadn’t heard before,
but I could glean their rough-hewn meaning well enough.
Irresistible lobby forging its way towards the ground,
chanting ‘Robin Stubbs’ familiarly before a ball was kicked.

I’d never seen my father like he was that day –
doling out jargon I’d never heard, grinning, already shrill,
like a boy scurrying noisily from school at term’s end.
He said he’d take me; he didn’t say he’d pay.

I should have known. I should have been smarter.
Struggling with my shameful surprise getting to the barrier,
being asked for money from my empty pockets.
Looking at him, I could see that game was ruined.

Michael Parsons is a published poet, having come to writing poetry later in life. He enjoys the discipline. He is fascinated by words, imagery and the universal sense that personal writing may prompt. He worked in publishing for nearly ten years after an academic career.

Rodney Wood

Dance of the Single Veil

Once more, we’re at the mercy of the sea,
rain hammering down like a boxer’s fist,
waves bucking with the stubbornness of a toddler
mid-tantrum. The ship groans and lurches,
a reluctant beast beneath a grumpy sky.

But then, as if the world tilts on its axis,
we drift into Milford Sound—a pocket of stillness
among cliffs and mist. Water slides down stone faces
like honey from a tilted jar, deliberate and slow,
the weight of it savouring each slicked rock.
Passengers flit about like startled birds,
anxious they might miss this brief unveiling.

Our ship, as elegant as a ballerina,
pirouettes in the still water. The waterfall
drapes itself in a rainbow tutu,
twirling gently in the breeze,
showing off like a child who’s just learned to dance.
Faces brighten with wonder as cameras blink,
trying to catch this rare moment of calm.

As we slip away from Milford Sound,
the sea gathers itself into a rough anthem,
and I hold onto the brief flare of that rainbow,
a wild splash of colour against the grey,
a flicker of grace in the mouth of the storm,
a reminder of the world’s hard edges,
softened, just for a moment, into light.

Biyela Lodge, Mfulawozi Wilderness, South Africa

Mark halts the jeep beside
the remains of a buffalo, a deadly giant,
that once roamed these plains with swagger and purpose
is now a buffet for the local scavenger community.

Vultures wheel overhead in a grim, slow dance,
while hyenas skulk nearby,
their cackles echoing like a raucous, drunken mob
waiting for last orders.

Mark scans the scene with a wry smile.
“Looks like this old boy couldn’t keep pace
with the herd,” he says, his tone a blend
of sympathy, respect and dry humour.

“He settled by the river, grazing on golden grass
and taking the occasional mud bath.”
It’s as if he’s describing a banker’s life in Spain,
minus the golf carts and endless parties.

“He probably had a few good years,”
Mark adds, leaning back in his seat,
“chased lions away, maybe even found
a bit of love under the acacia trees.”

As the jeep lurches away, the skull fades
into the sun-scorched earth,
slowly merging with the soil,
becoming a quiet, natural part of the landscape.

Rodney Wood worked in London and Guildford. His poems have appeared recently in The High Window, The Journal, London Grip and Magma (where he was Selected Poet in the deaf issue). His debut pamphlet, Dante Called You Beatrice, appeared in 2017. He is MC of the monthly open mic nights in Woking.

Rosie Arcane

What Remains of You

Your cold dead hand never squeezed mine back.
For some reason I thought it would,
that you were only pretending to be gone.
It would’ve been your best prank yet.
So I squeezed again and again, as if my very presence
could somehow resurrect you.
I knew you weren’t coming back,
but there was a sliver of hope. A what if?

I waited for your eyes to ping open sparkling
with passion and mischief again.
But they didn’t.
I looked for your lips to curl into a sly grin,
and I’d tell you that you were busted
and your laughter would resonate through the house.
But it didn’t.
I rested my head on your chest, holding my own breath
so I could hear yours.
But I couldn’t.
I prayed for it to be a mistake.
But it wasn’t.

Where do I fit in now?
What is my role, my purpose, if not daughter?
Who will tell me awful jokes and stories
of adventure and folly and mishaps?
Your love was a certainty.
So how do I know now if I’m really loved?
I can’t measure love without the scales
that always kept my life so well balanced.

Essence

A crack in my chest reveals a shattered heart, bruised ego and insecure dreams.
Circling this, green hued blood, envious and outcast,
awkwardly shuffling through transparent veins.
Lungs choke and squeal like balloons, let go before they’re complete.
Behind the eye sockets, a tissue paper brain.
Easily torn and rustling, never at rest.
Never happy with its shape.
My stomach is a vacant, echoing chamber of neglect,
crying out for company.
Among this fleshy, frenzied mess are loaded bones,
rattling with passion.
All just components in the anatomical framework.
Bits holding together other bits.

Diagnosis

We’re a queasy convulsing mess.
When harmony is mandatory, never up for debate,
the unsaid will fester,
becoming more than a disease of flesh and blood.

Nothing is ever repaired without pain.
So it’s time to open ourselves up and cut out the dysfunction.
Flush out the decay to let the raw flesh breathe.
Finally find the patience to let it heal.

Rosie Arcane is from Edinburgh, Scotland and writes poetry and short stories in her spare time. Her work has been published in the anthologies Dangerous Waters: Deadly Women of the Sea by Brigids Gate Press, Christmas Bizarre (Vol. 1, 2021) and Spider (Vol. 7, 2024) by The Anansi Archive. She has also featured in Writers’ Forum, The 81 Words Flash Fiction Anthology and was shortlisted in the Raven Short Story Contest 2021.

Open Submissions 6 introduction

As usual, we are looking for writing on your own choice of theme that grabs our attention, pulls our heart strings, leaves us open-mouthed or holding our breath, makes us think, make us laugh or cry, and/or is strikingly original. In short, poems or flash-fiction that excite us enough to share them with wildfire words readers.

During this submission window, each writer may make one submission as a single file containing a maximum of 3 items — poems and/or flashes. Each item can be in any form, but no longer than 80 lines or 300 words, including title, stanza breaks, dedication or footnotes.
You are also invited to supply a biography of yourself in no more than 60 words, If any of your work is published, your writing “bio” will be, too.

We encourage you to make an audio recording of each item on your phone or computer and submit it with your text or on its own without your text. Publishing audio is our speciality, because it amplifies the strength and meaning of your writing. If you prefer to join one of our online recording sessions, click on this link.

Submitted writing must be your own original work, in English, and unpublished in print or online, including your own website. Where an original writer teams up with a translator into English, we will consider publishing the work, provided biographies of both writer and translator are provided.

If your work is published in wildfire words ezine, it will be on a non-exclusive basis for at least one year. The copyright remains yours for all poems, flash, bios, and audio recordings you submit for publication.

How we decide which poems to publish

Our decisions on whether to publish an item are not anonymous. We see the writer’s bio with the poetry or flash. Published authors have generally set a quality benchmark which we can use to gauge their new work. The work of writers with little published work is assessed on quality and potential. In such cases, we may contact the writer to suggest some tweaks that would make us keen to share the work on Wildfire Words.

We do not charge for submissions — or for feedback, if we choose to offer it on work not accepted on first review. Our publishing service is non-profit-making, created with a love of sharing creative writing and social and personal growth it produces. Donations to support Wildfire Words’ sustainability are welcome, but voluntary. A donation does not affect whether we publish a submission.

We aim to include writers worldwide. We respect all people and their well-being, beliefs, individuality, and free speech, and expect the same from writers. We’ll publish any work that adds fresh creative spice to this feature. We’ll evaluate your jewel, whether it’s a cut and polished dazzler or a rough stone with interesting lustre.

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