Publication is complete from the free submission window which closed on 28 February 2026
Authors published
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Anna Marie Kinkead, Ansuya Patel
, Antje Bothin, Charles Ambrose, Christine Griffin, Clive Donovan, David Ashbee, David Birch, Di Hills, Emeline Winston, Geoff Edwards, Gerald Seniuk, Gillie Robic, Graham Smith, Hilary Smith, Howard Timms, Jan Peters, Jeff Skinner, Joan Dance, Jonathan Chibuike Ukah, Katharine Cossham, Louise Boddy, Oliver White, Philip Rösel Baker , Ping Yi, Rodger Holden, Simon Tindale, Sue Gerrard, Tony Bradley, Trisha Broomfield, Wendy Webb, Yvonne Crossley
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Feature editor: Katherine Parsons Audio editor: Howard Timms
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David Birch
Sea Glass
Your glamour is filigree-thin
precisely twisted silver thread
beaten strips of gold
a flat shimmer on a bony wrist
side-eyed glances in mirrors.
My glamour has its roots in magic and spells
In the mystery of discarded shards
left to chance and the churning tides
and the abrasion of sand in the longshore drift
to create this pale-frosted fragment
and the remains of an ancient date
proud beneath the gentle brush of my thumb.
glamour: 1720, Scottish, “magic, enchantment” (especially in the phrase “to cast the glamor”)
Mondrian
You dropped an ’a’ from your name to sound less Dutch
shook off the grip of Calvin and the damp canal-side house
moved on from lonely trees in rain-soaked landscapes
to embrace abstraction in yellow, blue and red
trapped by black bars
banned from blending
by unforgiving right-angles and verticals.
Then the colours shifted to the edges
on the run from constriction
and empty space.
You sailed to Manhattan when Paris fell
drawn by the spell of bebop and boogie-woogie
and your canvas surged with syncopated rhythms
as colours scattered
danced to different rules
and a different beat.
Colours of Revolt
They wore sea-green ribbons
and sprigs of rosemary for remembrance
when they fought for the right for all men to vote.
Three hundred locked in Burford Church
and three shot dead on Cromwell’s word.
They wore red caps of liberty
when they gathered in their Sunday best
at St Peter’s Field for liberty and fraternity
and their right to vote. Eighteen slaughtered
when the troops moved in at Peterloo.
They wore purple, white and green
when they chained themselves to railings
and bombed the coronation chair:
purple for loyalty, white for dignity
and green for everlasting hope.
They wore flags of red and white
when they marched on hotels.
Some got their paint mixed up
and daubed a Danish flag on a roundabout
instead of a St George’s cross.
David Birch worked in education and lives in Devon. His poetry frequently explores the relation of people to their landscape, environment and past. Several of his recent poems are published in Wildfire Words and two are included in an anthology celebrating 100 years since the publication of The Great Gatsby, ‘Beautiful Little Fools’. Follow @davidbirch.bsky.social
David Ashbee
My life in ashtrays
Age 10
No one smoked in my childhood home
but I bought with precious coins
on a cubs’ outing.
an ashtray;
on its rim
a white swan in a round slot
like a peg on a cribbage board.
Age 20
House cleared, all swans flown but me,
my life in a satchell
in someone else’s attic,
with 3 acquired pub ashtrays.
Age 50
Another house gone, ashtrays unnoted
in the audit of effects
and I am free
to roam the streets of Lisbon
for exotic cheap cigars.
God knows why
I still keep their empty cartons,
lime green, claret, midnight blue
in a damp drawer in my shed.
Age 80
I lead you through my house
remind you of those heady nights we shared
lost odours
of whisky and cigars.
Not many of us left, you say,
pulling out some baccy
and heading for the door.
Interview
I’m expecting a teenage girl
who lent a hand when a horse
bolted. I shall ask her about it.
Her name is Imogen.
it says so on this form
in looping unjoined writing.
The first box I must tick
is how she greets me,
does she smile ?
I want to tell her
the only Imogen I’ve known
is Shakespeare’s
but that might freeze her.
My role today
is to reassure.
My brown suede jacket
is one I’ve kept for best
and serious occasions,
few and far between
since I retired
from this very place.
I explore an inside pocket
discover a theatre ticket
from 18 years ago
when, it shocks me to realise,
Imogen was not
even a twinkle.
We are a dozen,
spread throughout
the wide bright hall –
The young man at the table on my left
has a can of
… Protein Water ?
Even at my age
there’s something new every day.
It’s as if I’m back at school.
Stilled
Skipping the few steps to the shed,
I gripped the black bucket
with its gleaming Cyclops eye
and swung it skywards above the fence.
A polished chute of water
flung itself headlong to the grass
like a flanker’s diving try.
Resetting the bucket on its two bricks
I straightened up to view the mottling day.
And the world stilled.
I noticed
droplets
poised below the overhang,
a ragged label flaking among stones,
then,
strung between wall and shed
a silver web
quivering
At its core, striped like a snailshell,
perched the weaver,
her knees drawn up, body hunched
like a tiger poised to spring.
It seemed her eyes were shifting, flicking,
as if I were a giant fly
dark against the clouds
as she unrolled her mesh to net me.
I went to nudge her with a fingernail,
set her scuttling round her maze,
watch her leap from wire to wire
in sticky ridge-soled boots
hands reaching out
like a fast-frame rockclimber.
But I stayed my hand,
left her to her day,
turned and strolled away,
hazed in the spell she had spun me.
David Ashbee was raised and lives in Gloucestershire and was one of Enitharmon’s first new poets with Perpetual Waterfalls in 1989. Loss Adjuster followed from Bluechrome in 2008, and a big collection Poems from the Mindshop from Dempsey and Windle in 2021. A founder member since 1990 of The Cherington Poets, and a regular attender at Cheltenham Poetry Society Writing Group, he has often performed his work at festivals and was a judge for the 2024 GWN competition. He walks many miles as a Cotswold Voluntary Warden and edits a magazine for the Cotswold Vale Talking Newspaper.
His poems and photos can be seen at: luckycherryphotosandpoems.wordpress.com
Graham Smith
Void
(Meknes, Morocco)
Walk the labyrinthian alleys of the medina,
past jewellers, tailors and carpet sellers;
open that door; climb stairs – steep, dark and
long – to a flat roof, a world above a world,
where cats patrol and laundry flaps, and now
awash with evening light, as a livid sun
drops like a penny into a cosmic slot machine.
Soon loudspeakers click from minarets
across the city. First one muezzin, then another,
launch their evening call to prayer, erupting
like volcanoes everywhere into the sky,
powerful, awesome, with an air raid siren’s
threat. Then one by one like angry gods
soon bored they disappear, until a last one
drifts eerily away. Empty silence follows.
Nothing seems to have an edge – the everyday
has been swept away. Dark nothingness –
the real maybe – confronts. The city melts
into the night. A stork arrows past a minaret,
a streak of phosphorescent white against
an ink blue sky, like a troubled soul departing.
Plastic Chairs
They look cheap and nasty
outside a cottage
overlooking the sea.
But now as light drains
from distant hills, earth smells
rich and birdsong flickers to a close
they’re transformed from plastic
into solid sculpted shapes –
like earth mothers
courtesy of Henry Moore
or ancient ritual figures from the past
scouring the horizon for truth
and meaning –
though they look smug
as if they believe
they possess it already –
but wind could
soon scatter that illusion
and dawn
will wash it away.
Are You Aligned?
She stands bent over a stick
beside a busy road, dazzling
in flamingo pink, stockinged feet
in wellington boots, cardigan
askew upon her shoulders
then sets off determined toward
a wayside cross the other side.
There she quells irreverent
weeds with her stick, as if hacking
a path back into her past.
But the tide has gone out on
the sea of faith and these
crosses have lost their power
to bless, console, and threaten
others with hell. But hidden
power remains – beautiful,
embedded in time, made of
wood, stone, iron, they ask still
how we relate to the whole –
an, All, that may reject us soon.
So imagine these crosses
shorn of dogma, re-energised,
symbols now of our fragile
home, across France asking:
Are you aligned to the Universe?
Graham Smith lives in Edinburgh and started writing poetry when he retired.
Charles Ambrose
Under Rocks
Under these rocks
The sea has scattered
small lives.
Hunting amongst the
Perpetual grey
was like some deep dream;
Our sky seemed no ceiling.
And crossing them
I was under those same stones
that I had listened to
as a child.
Letting Go
I am watching the leaves fall one by one from the chestnut tree across the road.
They have been turning from green to yellow and from yellow to brown and now they are letting go;
being released, their purpose fulfilled.
For the time being I remain one of the yellow ones, clinging on,
not yet brown, though aware of my destiny and conscious of its inevitability.
The Diamond Maker
(After H G Wells)
When I was young, my dreams seemed too difficult to understand,
now they declare themselves emphatically.
Last night in my sleep, I met an old man who had developed a method for creating diamonds
from the detritus and suffering that surrounded him.
His device sent the precious stones directly into the next world,
the drawback was that he could not cross the threshold to retrieve them.
Just before I surfaced he called out to me in frustration:
“Why is it that my dreams are so much easier to understand now that I am older?”
Charles Ambrose is the pen name of the visual artist, writer, diarist, and art historian Chris Meigh-Andrews. He was born in Essex, England and lived in Montreal, Canada from 1957-1975. He studied photography, film, and fine art and has worked as a photographer, film animator and video editor. Since Meigh-Andrews began working with video in a fine art context in 1977, he has exhibited his single screen and video installations widely both within the UK and internationally. During the 1990’s, he developed a distinctive body of installation work combining video and sound with renewable energy systems.
Emeline Winston
The Parting
Two nights on from the rose moon
I’m hiding in the woods near Bucha
where the tree’s clawed barks,
like sharpened leads, pierce the sky.
Gloved bones pull at the back of my coat,
boots are trampling on my shadow. I turn,
to find a chaos of ancestral ghosts who
found refuge in the woods of Katowice,
hid amongst the pines of Lvov, or were
lined up in clearings of the Wienerwald.
Faceless Magritte-like figures,
made visible only by their clothing,
are pulsed forwards by swathes
of other ancestral voices
who snake back into the distance
disappearing down to feed the soil,
the soil, which holds today’s sign entitled:
Seven Enchanting Ideas for your Day in the Woods
A glove points to direct my eye towards a
streak of light which cuts down through the trees,
suggesting a path out of this wood’s swaddled refuge,
enticing me towards escape,
though offering no security from torment:
is the parting my exposure or are the trees the trap?
I smash open the emergency exit box
of this nightmare, tip out of bed to avoid sleep’s
lure back into their grasp, and draw a parting
in the curtains to seek night’s dark spaces.
This opening invites a fluorescent laser beam
of moonlight into my bedroom. I turn,
to find its illuminated shard branding my bed.
Keeping the curtains open in place to save night’s
spirited beam, I climb back into bed and watch.
I watch the white line cut across my sheet, I watch
the sheet over my body, it’s bewitching rise and fall,
and I decide to grant permission to this sword of light
to stay with me while I sleep, to bless my body,
and trust that it won’t cut me in half.
New Year’s Revolution
What are my hopes and prayers for this year –
only one – is there any way to put a stop to the fear?
This acrid sweat and sting of cortisol fear
lived and mirrored by attacker and defender.
When the clock strikes midnight across the world
could the tanks turn into pumpkins, and drones into birds?
Birds which could squawk off on alternate thermals,
to alter the arch and yawn of those dirty rocket bombs.
Aching hearts blown apart onto the concrete rubble,
the overarching terror of the still-alive. Sole survivors
of whole family huddles, nowhere safe to survive,
no one to hug or cry with, no buildings left to call home.
Aching hearts and trapped screams of the hostage families,
unable to rescue, trying to break free from their stone confines,
stuck, desperate to do, to act, to move, to run towards,
to hug and to whisper to “It’s okay, now you’re home”.
Is it not easy to create change or simply not to do?
Is it not possible to
just stop it, stop it, stop it?
To the hands igniting rockets: lay your hands back down
just stop it, stop it, stop it.
To the fingers which press confirm aerial bomb: lay your hands back down
just stop it stop it stop it
and learn to sit still,
like Buddha.
Revolutions of Intransigence
Do you know the one about the Irish man, the Muslim and the Jew?
Sitting on a bench in Jerusalem’s Old Quarter,
after morning prayers in each of their holiest shrines,
the Irish Man said “For God’s teeth, can’t you lay down your guns?”
the Muslim said “Bismillah, they need to stop the drones and the bombs.”
The Jew said “Baruch Hashem, they need to return our hostages and stop the rockets”.
And the Irish Man said: “For God’s teeth, can’t you lay down your guns?”
Though in their soul, they thought they might have heard a punch line
circling on the desert wind. They look into each other’s eyes when
they realise what they had heard swept up on the wind’s broom,
directed through hairy ears into their hardened hearts. Could it have been
“I forgive you”, “I forgive you”, “I forgive you”.
Emeline Winston is a producer of exhibitions in museums. Poetry came into her life unexpectedly. In 2019, she was invited to what she thought was a poetry reading, but was shocked to discover a poetry-writing group. It brought joy — and consolation through covid online meetings that went on for two years. Emeline continued to write and recently started to share her work.
Howard Timms
Gilded Ozymandias
After Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias”
MY name is Donald Trump, twice King of kings
LOOK ON MY WORDS, YOU POWERLESS, and despair
Free speech is MY desire above all else
So I can cancel anyone who disagrees.
When voters said, Apprentice-like, You’re Fired.
I wrote ELECTION STOLEN, had no proof
so sent a “love-in” violent mob who failed
to stop Congress from vote certification.
Seeking now a Peace Prize, I pretend I’ve earned it.
I started world trade wars by taxing my voters
Threatened and used weapons from the sea and air.
I drop cluster bombs of promises and threats
enrich MY friends and family with crypto
covet other lands to grab some oily riches.
Haiku
Trump flies to UK
Robbie Williams’ words seem apt
The ego has landed
Howard Timms is publisher of Wildfire-Words. More
Tony Bradley
Sabbath Days
Early
morning. Senses, alert to scenes
where fen-kissed meadows merge
with woodland ride.
Listen.
Unseen,
eternal sprite,
wisp of misty fenlands.
Bittern. Ethereal booms beckon
the day.
Sun-tinged
reeds and green sedge sound to the mad
Mad-Hatter’s Tea Party #
chatter of one.
Warbler.
She comes.
Tiny, feisty,
torrent of hyperbole,
over-puffed explosion of joy.
The wren.
Hark. There!
The high-pitched, whistly-rich, wispy
song of flame-bonneted
flame-bold goldcrest.
She glimpses
Raven,
surreptitious
hoarder of stolen caches,
observed by furtive ravens’ eyes,
scheming.
Daylight
dims. Evening
blackbird psalms cooler air,
and such days become Sabbath days.
Night falls.
The nightjar stirs.
Tony Bradley hails from Derbyshire, but has lived in Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire for the last thirty-five years. A retired teacher, Tony has been a poetry enthusiast for well over fifty years. Tony has had several poems published by Wildfire Words, and one poem in the Black Eyes Publishing UK anthology, “The Rise of the Badger and The Great Shrubbery”.
Ansuya Patel
England 1975
Your sharp tongue church bells ring loud
on Sundays. I bow to the biting wind
of winter, pass ghostly trees like
walking through one of Lowry’s paintings.
England, you were once a name on a stamp,
now I heel-toe over your body, leaving
imprints on snow. England — how it lands
like a thump in my heart, a stone silencing
me. A gold steeple glimmers above
chimney tops, a dagger in my chest. Maybe
this new God, Christ, is smiling over
its people. I switch language, family,
school. I push the door into a lesson
in my mother tongue — Gujarati. My fingers
numb, reach for the three skinny bars
glowing on the gas fire. Six brown faces
look up. Soon the cold will settle in my bones
like this new life. They huddle over
books. I grip my pen, let it curl around shapes
of names, begging the clock to strike
end of class. To walk through
white flickering flakes, feel the stony
concrete under my feet, humming the hymn
of a new God.
Lilith Does Not Leave Quietly
She bursts like a pomegranate in noon heat,
crimson seeds scatter the path,
vines claw at her feet,
snakes crawl around her ankles.
She once dressed in lotus leaves and jasmine
black hair braided soft as moss,
eyes lowered, obedient rose petals.
Adam loved her that way.
Now she wears a grey flax smock,
hair lit up like a flame,
tawny skin touched by sun,
her teeth tear the flesh of a ripe fig.
He follows her towards the gate.
How will you survive?
Her fingers turn, twist,
tug the lock, the iron mouth clenched like
Adam’s fist, her body leans into
the lattice gate, it shudders, splits
along the spine, snaps free
for all the women who follow.
Cypresses like cathedral columns look down,
knee high grasses lick her bare calves,
trumpets of foxglove rise in bruised purples,
freckled throats open, small unafraid mouths.
A wild mare appears, she grips its mane,
lets it carry her. I would rather be
storm than soil under you, she calls.
Stop, wait for me, a woman shouts.
Hanging Up a Painting
Select a place where the light
holds the image,
hammer in two strong nails
eye level,
altering history.
Stand back and measure,
squint,
sooth grief,
memory,
thank pain.
Levitate the frame to time.
See how the picture hangs
like the day,
soft pink blossom,
waft of cool air,
children laughing.
Careful not to nudge too far
from your finger.
Step away, look
right before your eyes.
Ansuya Patel was a joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize (2024) and the author of a debut collection Wolves At My Door published by Indigo Dreams Publishing in 2025. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bridport, Alpine and Aurora prizes and highly commended by Erbacce. Her poems have appeared in Allegro, Artemisia arts, Crowstep, Gypsophila, Ink Sweat and Tears, Kensington Poetry Trail, Rattle, Renard and elsewhere. Ansuya writes with lyric intensity, emotional edge, and a fearless curiosity.
https://indigodreamspublishing.com/ansuya-patel
To Ravenscraig’s amazing future
I never saw the steel plant and things as I came here when everything was long gone. In 2017, I first heard of it, the name Ravenscraig. I pondered, where is this?
I was a Northlander volunteer when the British Transplant Games came to North Lanarkshire. Memories from volunteering now come to mind. What a fantastic time it was. Ravenscraig was the place to go for the closing ceremony in the big hall. It was great.
In 2021, Ravenscraig got involved with people’s health in the dark times of uncertainty and fear. And then it became a regional sports facility again. In 2024, I enjoyed walking around all the paths, marvelled at the lovely area outside. I never knew it existed. May Ravenscraig, in the years to come, prosper and flourish and be there for all to enjoy.
Antje Bothin has a passion for writing and her poems have been published in international anthologies, e-zines, poetry magazines and journals. Originally from Germany, she has an academic background, lives in Scotland and volunteers as a health walk leader in the community. She authored a novel about a treasure hunt in Iceland – ‘Annika and the Treasure of Iceland’. When not being creative, she can be found in nature and drinking tea.
https://antjebothin.wordpress.com/publications/
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Di Hills
Lines that matter less
She has lines around her heart,
pretty, a valentine love heart
coupled with marble smooth plastic,
rouged finger tips like charms
adorn the ends with toy beads,
a clasp fits cosily over the pendant,
a great box not of gold or ivory
but hardware powered in space
data shards to prove she breathes,
pulses, sleeps in perfect rhythm
a necklace to bleep and whine
should she be harmed by traitorous flutters
or her heart squeezed to death
A tragedy that lines of technical wonder
do not recognise,
her heart splintered
by sorrow when he returns again
and again to defend
the remnants of the land
which gave them their hearts.
No one must be someone
He was no one,
he had a name he’d forgotten,
he thought he was old, but sometimes young,
born in a country that no longer exists,
lived in a country which left him out.
He slept in a hut in a hidden wood,
picked apples, cherries, plums,
mowed, weeded, dug,
got scraps of paper money he spent,
ate hedgerow berries, mushrooms from the earth.
He had no phone, no bills, papers,
no watch, no doctor, no passes,
he was friends with three magpies,
two crows, and a neighbouring deer.
knew when the sun will shine, the rain pour.
He gazed long at the stars, moon,
light strings of planes across the sky,
lacy firs that grew high and toppled down,
knew wandering sheep, the lame horse
he led to safety every night.
Human beings terrified him so he kept away
until one night they found him
in his hut in the hidden wood,
they’d knifed his naked body,
jeered he shouldn’t be here,
in their proud, old country.
He lay unmourned on the heavy earth,
until the lame horse neighed loud
no one
once someone.
This is who I am
I am a listener to pools of grief,
rivers of anger, waves of terror,
I cannot calm or heal or cure,
I cannot solve the unsolvable,
I am a voice in your void of lost hope,
I am here to listen to you
but I do not always hear.
I am a worker in a fine town,
wealth flows in silk carpets, marble floors
for the few puffed up by banks, law:
for the many on its infinite margins
slaves to brittle bricks on waste land,
I am the till woman, who wraps
their bleak buys in the charity shop.
I am a grandmother once a mother,
I am wallpaper I show respect,
do not tell nor judge nor censor:
I am a gift giving saint for modern times,
a bystander to family conflict,
a background to life events,
until their lives explode into atoms.
I am a walker, my stick pierces lanes
tarred with memories of youth
in search of buzz cities, screen romance:
I write poems in my head
about popping primroses, perky snowdrops,
dinosaur trees, crammed hedgerows,
I lock them in tight.
I am a part time lover of you,
repairer of my broken house,
finder of the glasses I use to see,
player of lost airs, Swedish dance tunes,
my personal valley or mountain
from which I descend or climb up
dependent on who I am today.
Di Hills is a latecomer to poetry and has been published in various local journals. She enjoys performing at Open Mics, these have become very popular over the last year and is good so see so many various contributors, I am no good at IT- hence the need to send 1 poem I’ve recorded over separately.
Geoff Edwards
Silent Noise
Alas! Chestnut tree once good luck friend
I brood for the foretelling break of winters dark
by yesterday’s candelabra lamps of flower.
Yearn for proclamations of coming autumn
whispered with pelting balls of spikey green.
Never again springtime plumule
no autumn squirrels stowing trove
no longer cheer from summer robin
nevermore, leaves in winter parchment roll.
Oh! earth trembled when battle won
surrounding roar of splintered scream
triumphant cheer of chainsaw glee
as branches bowed in silence bleak
Tomb silent cry encircles
at bygone battle of broken sticks.
What has gained who has lost
where’s the ledger of the cost
Now the wind unspoken
from babbling brook in the boughs.
Lonely now – soft pine whispers
lonely lately – aspen quaking
lonely soundless – guardian yew
Hear the past – in silent wind
a faded future – in sun unhindered
mourn the lonely – in forest hollow
or will drilled conkers change tomorrow
** conkers are the seeds of the horse chestnut tree
said to bring good luck if carried in your pocket
also used in a children’s school yard game.
Geoff Edwards
is a retired electrician living in Oxfordshire. Born in the US state of Wyoming, Geoff came to England in 2003. He has two poems selected for publication in Wheelsong Anthology 3 (Wheelsong books) All the anthology’s proceeds go to “Save the Children”.
Gerald Seniuk
Unknown
The river stopped its flow,
stagnating strangely, while
the highwater mark dropped
well below its all-time low.
The sky dimmed as in a mist,
a squall, a film in the eye. No
one knows why. All clarity
denied, all targets missed.
The unknown was, is, the
worst, dullness persists, and
what was best is now forgotten,
lost, left rotten in the field.
There’s hope, of course, as
there always is. The unknown
can be sketched a hundred ways.
The known is one, unchanged.
And so, through the clouded
sky, eye, and mind we look
for signs that the river rose and
flowed again. But that’s a lie.
It cannot be denied. There is a
change. But if we just survive
and stall for time, who knows,
the worm may turn again.
Gerald Seniuk is retired, a Canadian, and resides in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Gillie Robic
Sacred Space
She moves her life into a vacant church,
most of the pews gone to be garden benches
inviting anyone to sit a while, remember –
but they can’t, there’s nothing left,
no echo of hymns, rhythm of plainsong,
psalms, candle flicker or prayer. Yet
there’s something, maybe an insect’s hum.
She makes her bed where the altar used to be,
no sacrifice upon its absence.
She lies looking at the vaulted ceiling.
held up by cunning stone corbels
too crucial to remove and sell.
Mullioned dust of sunlight stretches
from rose window to mosaic floor,
stretches air to infinity inside the marble shell.
Dome, apse, bell tower, buttress,
become the Master’s hands lifting the weight,
moulding an eternity of space.
She sees it through closed eyelids
curved over the opening and opening.
Galaxies form, unlimited by wall or roof.
She floats in particles of stars,
cosmic debris helixes her body.
She opens her eyes, unbars the great doors.
Space streams into the world.
A plate of pilchards and a crow
A plate of pilchards and a crow
regard each other on the sill,
they glimmer sadly in the glow
of future pleasures unfulfilled.
The pilchards time is in the past
now they lie oozing on a plate,
the old crow’s beady eye is cast
upon them and their sorry fate,
for oh how sad their silent splay
stretched side by side and skin to skin,
when only briny yesterday
they swam from freedom into tin.
Crow cocks his head and taps the pane
that separates all life and death,
attempts to reach them are in vain.
He shrugs and flaps towards the heath.
Outliers
Young foxes are beautiful,
stretch their muscles, heedlessly
tumble through summer growth,
breaking stems, crushing flowers,
cut-throat screaming, mauling birds and frogs.
Short-sighted they only melt away
if something moves they don’t understand
is part of the garden’s compass.
Spider’s webs in undusted corners
advance to catch light I’m settled into
or I walk through their invisibility
as they gooseflesh arms, face, hair.
Their abseiling spinners maybe wonder
if they can Gulliver me with silken bonds
I can easily break, until they learn to hate
enough, mutate to ropes that bind and burn.
I’ve never been much interested in flags,
they mostly reduce colour to geometries,
but some intrude, rudely wave and prod
the air with angry angles, try to change it,
claim it, wrench it into thick ugliness,
stench of breath from dogs of war.
Even angels are dazed by smoke and mirrors;
earthbound and broken, they limp across the tarpits,
trailing sparks too dim to signal the end of the world.
Gillie Robic was born in India and lives in London. She is poet, voice artist and puppeteer in film, theatre and television. Widely published in magazines and anthologies, Gillie has 3 collections published by Live Canon: Swimming Through Marble, Lightfalls, and I think I could be wrong, plus a pamphlet: Open Skies in aid of Ukraine. In 2025 Clayhanger Press published Visiting Hours, a pamphlet of her poetry with doodles by husband Michel, inspired by his stay in hospital.
Yvonne Crossley
As we are nowe so shall yee be
Read the brass-scratched score,
then touch the faces of this old family
Mother, father
Sisters, brothers
Kneeling in graceful piety
seeking eternity
six sons and eight daughters, the final tally
Mother, father
Sisters, brothers
Erected in 1607, a reminder to the frailty
of all things. Their names etched evermore
in this world or the next… wherever that may be
Mother, Father
Sisters, brothers
Rooted to tomb stone, a family tree
Elizabethan gowns respecting a bible floor
hands clasped in prayer,
trusting lives to a timeless faith
Beholde yee
Mother, father
Sisters and brothers
As we are nowe so shall yee be.
Heale Garden Symphony
sakura banquet
you created a folk song
fit to trumpet spring
magnolia cups
spread their waxy petals
in vanilla tones
april winds blow
butterflies and blossom snow
over jade-green rills
I wait here pining
to reach the tea house island
and drink it all in
Yvonne Crossley is inspired by the magic of words, local places, nature. Her recent writing appears in Daily Haiku Journals, Littoral Press, Wildfire Words. Words in the Landscape She had a winning poem with Chase & Chalke Sense of Place Competition 2023.
Simon Tindale
Literally
waking up with it
being excited by it
messing around with it
putting it away
letting it lie
getting it out again
polishing it
honing it
crafting it
hating it
lengthening it
editing it
liking it
performing it
redrafting it
workshopping it
proofreading it
dedicating it
photocopying it
shelving it
abandoning it
waking up with it
being excited about it
messing around with it
messing more with it
messing too much with it
messing it up.
The Last Train To Ravenscar
There was a town
That never was
It never was
Because the town
That never was
Got lost and then
It never was
Because the town
That never was
Lost every pound
It ever cost
Because the town
That never was
Was ill conceived.
A Trip To Hitsville
Baby there ain’t no town
Makes a sound like Motown
If I need to go town
See the greatest show town
Hear the sweetest flow town
Shooby-do-woh-woh-town
Bass gives me the low town
Beat will tap my toe town
Rock me to and fro town
Groove me fast or slow town
Baby there ain’t no town
Moves me quite like Motown
Simon Tindale was born in Sunderland, wrote songs in South London and found poetry in West Yorkshire. He is currently editing his first full collection.
Philip Rösel Baker
Paris-Dakar SE4
When you’re half-way down Shardeloes Road
on foot, with New Cross well behind you, your way feels already
somehow lost, a grudging journey, more of a trudge
than a walk. The trees thin out – solitary signposts,
pointing to nowhere, mournful victims of concrete drought
and on both sides the houses nudge each other,
turn their backs, by common consent, as if resenting your presence,
as if to forestall any knock on the door – you, a stranger
asking directions. And why would you need them? The street
leads on. And on and on. Follow the dusty footprints of those
who passed this way in their thousands before you, ears enclosed
in Bluetooth saucers, pilgrims in search of enlightenment,
their sense of hearing detached from the visual
in the hope of achieving a perceptual plane beyond normal sight,
where the sky would give way to Sahara nights
of stars and ecstatic Touareg singing.
Only to wake, draw aside the veil, to find themselves back
on Shardeloes Road, in some race, forever beginning,
with no destination or winning post, where fellow-competitors
pass like ghosts – insubstantial, sullen pawns,
rather than contestants. The road widens to an empty yawn,
leaving you heavy-heeled, slack-jawed, picking
your way through orange peel, broken glass
and a scrappy pile of builder’s sand,
a surplus dune, abandoned.
The cars that pass you, on the other hand,
from opposite ends, step on the gas – intent
as Paris-Dakar contenders, focused as if their lives depended
on beating the oncoming driver
to the speed hump arriving on the crown of the road.
Cars parked with few gaps down either side
become walls in a narrow rock-lined gorge, where they dare
each other to be the first driver to cross the square,
the dark stamp ramped on the tarmac.
Single-minded, determined – to be the one to hold their nerve,
to not give way, to swerve into the other’s path,
as if risking al-Masir collision, rather than risk
the other’s derision by bottling at the last moment.
As if this lunacy would take them up
and over the dune, windscreen shattered, knuckles white
on the steering wheel, paintwork battered, nerves
– supposed to be nerves of steel – scattered across the desert,
sliding, twanging to a screeching halt in a curtain of sand
and scuffed up salt at the foot of a sudden orange tree.
Offhand afterwards, even blasé, in the bar
of the staging post oasis.
Ends
Shardeloes Road, SE4
At the New Cross end, the Goldsmiths end,
three art students struggle to shift
a large unwieldy plywood shape. Awkward to lift,
geometrically odd – impossible to tell which side is the top.
Scrapes over grating, bits splinter off.
It won’t quite fit on their improvised trolley,
won’t quite behave and the castors keep jamming
in the cracks between paving stones.
Bastard! says one and they laugh
helplessly.
At the Brockley end is the timber yard,
where the blokes are always pre-occupied
with something that takes them inside – out the back,
so you have to hang around among racks of cut wood,
while the table-saw whines
and the sunshine reveals motes of pine hanging motionless.
Also waiting.
What’s keeping him? Is he having a sleep?
Eventually he emerges with a Sorry mate, voice deep
with sincerity. Now what can I do you for?
smiling to re-set reciprocity, dispel any brooding animosity,
that may have been caused by the slow viscocity
of time seeping painfully by.
Taking your money is an act of generosity,
a confidential wink reinforcing
the personal nature of the exchange and, of course,
he always prints you a trade receipt,
even when you only bought one sheet of plywood,
a bag of nails or one length of beading.
Printed on paper the size of a broadsheet,
he folds it discrete, like,
and presents it with all the confident bonhomie
of satisfaction guaranteed.
Except when they’re ‘avin a break in the sun,
reading the paper of the same name,
or sitting on the saw-dusty step taking aim
at the gatepost with empty beer cans
or improvising outlandish designs
in the dust with their index finger.
Then, they don’t give a damn
for your money.
Pentimento
For a rescued Iroko table.
Like an over-dressed corpse on display, I thought. Were psalms sung
soft for the dear departed, when the wood was embalmed
beneath tinted varnish? Did anyone grieve when successive coats
congealed, concealing the wood‘s true colour? Their polish
served only to fasten new chains on a soul that, I hoped, still dreamt
in the grain, dreamt in vain of Houdini, or perhaps of Lazarus.
Hand sanding draws the first scent of real wood. The table exhales
a naked spirit, pent up so long in the red Iroko, so suddenly woken
from incarceration, that it shivers in the blue late February air,
rushing for cover in the mist of my breath, worried to death by its own
break for freedom. More wraith-like figures crawl from the wood.
Red, angry scents, scornful of humans. Vengeful. Up to no good.
I focus my mind on the task, while they dance around me,
grotesquely masked, jeering faces, sneering, leering close
to mine, filling the space above the surface with incense of outrage
for years of imprisonment. While they cavort, new contours appear
as my fingers explore through very fine sandpaper, fingers – purblind,
seeing through touch, sensing the patient slowly reviving.
As they see more true pigments revealed, the dancers
subside, hypnotised by the russets and reds, that stretch and breathe,
sketching themselves down the length of the table, orange streaks
bleeding like new skin receding when a dressing comes off.
After years of neglect, the cells are not ready, shrinking, unsteady
without layers above. A hand withdrawn from a glove in the frost.
An Iroko pentimento? A kind way to phrase what the wood has suffered.
This was more than a change of heart or eye in the painter,
more than a cardsharp‘s shift of position – this was base disregard,
like abuse, by a crafty lecherous mortician. Now, the vile varnish removed,
the original grain begins to show through, hundreds of sap-rise
songs of belief, the tree‘s joys and griefs, drawn in rings at leaf-fall.
As the grain emerges, the Italian root of the word shows through
in my mind – pentirsi: to repent. In spite of the contempt and hurt
it’s suffered, the Iroko’s spirit still waits, attentive. Secure in itself,
the heartwood, unharmed. I apply the first slow drops of oil – as if
with balsam, aromatic resin, I’m asking forgiveness, for what we humans
have misunderstood. Giving life back to consenting wood.
Our first meal at the table – hot red pepper soup – a spicy potful
we froze last year in October, stored, and then forgot. Thawed now,
we savour the taste of autumn revived – it tastes sharp, alive, in focus.
And by the door, the first yellow crocus.
Philip Rösel Baker is an Anglo-German poet living on the East Anglia coast. His work has been published in the US and Ireland, as well as in the UK. He has won the George Crabbe poetry prize and, last year, the Shelley Memorial prize. He reads and performs his work regularly at the Soapbox sessions at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich. His first collection, Supernova, will be published later this year by Cinnamon Press, Paris-Dakar SE4
Katharine Cossham
The Writers Workshop
we perch in an apple tree cradled by its boughs
hope for wisdom from our vantage point
a fresh green perspective
from this tree house Wendy house palace of tall tales
up on a mezzanine
tucked between a two storey book shop and a pair of bars
from which disco tunes blare and waft
into our snug kitchen of a space within Orchard Square
once upon a time trees must have stood here
now an urban quad of buildings
old meets new cafes stores
and this
in we squash
together at a stout pine table
on a mish mash of seats
a Welsh dresser stands guard groans with tomes of inspiration
yet we give that to each other sustenance from our presence
as we cook up our stories let our poems percolate
tip tap tip tap fingers on keys
fly across QUERTY boards race to catch our blossoming thoughts
low mutter seeps from headphones brief sniff ring clonks wood
tap tap tap from above us
strikes of makers
jewellers wield their tools
fashion more concrete items than we can sat as one this Tuesday morning
our write in not a lock in no booze the odd coffee or herbal tea
time to work to make each other work
body doubling seven of us bodies and busy minds
all resolved to keep our heads down pen to paper pedal to the metal
bees to pollen
we draw on the heritage of this steel city
once alive with little mesters
casting beating polishing cutlery knives tools
even weapons for the whole world
we craft worlds inside our heads set them out on screens on paper
in this workshop where words unfold unfurl and ripen
in fine company
these apples that sustain us will one day land
pasty spell
at a coastal bakery dropped in the lakes
we spot pasties but buy cakes
one iced carrot
one apple scone
tea pours from a pot and
we drink in the sky
cradle white mugs
above the half pint house
low sun laces round red acer leaves
kisses our skin
next morning we’re back tuck up and pack two Cornish parcels
fresh companions for our Cumbrian hike
warm and full of promise
like the baby twins we used to wear
we trudge along
pasty
he starts to say and worries about his dad
we smile at the comfort they hold
edible teddies
later we eat the pasties
every bite a feast
they fuel us all the wet way back
where we slip into snoozes
worries eaten away
locker room unspoken
I do not say could you make some room for me
or move your bottles of orange drink
no comment on your landgrab
though you’ve gone for the entire tiny tiled island
a stout tank takes centre stage
you stake your claim
sports bag split wide contents spilt
commandeering neutral territory
I defend my corner stand my ground
a quiet knife sheathed within an invisible case
hidden pride gleams inside
protect myself layer by layer
tight smooth bearskin clad
swaddled warrior half defeated
my armour allows no chinks
though it silently clinks
as I climb the hill home
Katharine Cossham worked in education and therapy and now focuses on writing and art. Her poetry is published online by Manic World Magazine and Wildfire Words. Shortly, her work will appear in an anthology, Ey Up by Written Off Publishing. GeoStories, an app, features a recording of her pandemic experience. She lives in Sheffield, first arriving to study English Literature at the university thirty five years ago, where she met her husband. They have three young adult children together.
Joan Dance
Cowboys
Begin with
the stranger rolling into town
rustlers riding to hide out in the canyon
the bartender sensing trouble as the batwing hinges creak
extras sweating in their wool and leather
the dog barking at the distant gun shot
the deputy releasing his Colt from the holster
at that precise moment in time
Now see
the way she sashays past him in her satins
cowboys dressed like fringed hippies
tipping Stetsons at ma’ams with impossible hairdos
the stillness of the plains framed on the screen
a lone eagle or more probably a vulture
how the horses are spooked
the townsfolk the law-abiding folk the church folk
grouping and muttering
And then
will the horses bolt from the blazing stable
do we know if any died in the making of this film
will a hairdo run off with a Stetson
when the showdown starts will the bad guys get it
and who will be the last one standing
can the outlaws outrun the lawmen
all of them in pursuit of frontier justice
in their different ways
Name placer
Tupperware tapper
Hoover hoverer
Dust botherer
Radio Fourer
Coral lipsticker
Collar patter
High beam chandelier
Full cream carpetier
Antique mahoganier
No veneer here
Satsuma segmenter
Apple peel spiraller
Size eight waister
Jaunty striped topper
Ship shape shopper
Brush and dustpan nan
Homemade marzipan nan
Spic and span as best as one can nan
Cross stitch sampler
Napkin ringer
Notelet thanker
Washer upper
Cupboard clearer
Document shredder
Crosser outer
Smile fixer
Tongue holder
Truth sitter
Night waker
Pill taker
Sleep stalker
Onward pusher
Steep path walker
Steep path walker
Steep path walker
Embroidered lady
Flying in the breeze
her crinoline frills lift up.
Ribbons slip from her hat,
slither across the cloth.
The needle and thread
might or might not
fill her trug with blooms,
squeeze her into dancing shoes
give her a maypole, a motto,
a path of shells through a cottage garden.
Lugging a bouquet,
her shepherdess crook at a back breaking angle,
the lady aches.
Slipping into waltzes
bunions and yearning twist her face
deep in the tilt of her bonnet.
I trudge through the needlework afternoon
with the embroidered lady,
longing to tear my eyes from the traced outline
that tethers me embroiled.
I dream of frayed edges, slipped stitches.
The lady holds out her arms
with unfinished little lily doll hands
grasping for petticoats, bluebirds, lupins, lambs.
Joan Dance has worked in a variety of settings including street markets, event sites, offices, cinemas, farms and advertising studios. She splits her time between London and Devon. Her poems have appeared in Dreich magazine and Pulsebeat Poetry Journal.
Jan Peters
Balagan
Junk-room depository for
Persian genius:
Makeshift upper-floor,
Bala-khaneh,
Attic ransacked by
Seljuk, Timur, or
Golden Horde – for
Prestige speech, for
Thought cachet.
Conveyed to
Kyiv and Medieval Muscovy as
Cluttered litter-chattel,
Bordel, or moveable booth at
Circus and market, it
Shifts there from
Ramshackle cubicle into
Metaphorical disorder;
Settles into Slavic and
Yiddish as pandemonium,
Bedlam, fiasco –
Balagan.
Dirty, dismal
Chazer Shtal* of
Despot, pogrom, commissar –
Blight-pest, death-squad
Einsatzgruppe –
Babi Yar.
Dirt and disarray of
Hekdesh –
Sacred space lent to
Pilgrim, pauper or wayfarer,
Left in distress at their
Departure.
Whither the Balagan?
That
Slapdash,
Vagabond stage play; that
Puppet-show, freakshow
Wagon-cage.
Fairground Diabolade§,
Unruly tabernacle –
Chaos churned amid
Muffled
Sootfalls on the
Sabbath.
*Pigsty (Yiddish)
§Invented term: corruption of Diaboliad,
Short story by Mikhail Bulgakov (1924)
Born under Saturn
Partly inspired by Francisco Goya’s “Black Paintings”
Bulge-eye,
Mouth-gape
Puncture of
Gloom.
Pallid-cadaver
Whites and
Livid blood gouts
Constellate the
Chiaroscuro as an
Ogre gluts on
Unsexed mortals.
Age eats youth,
Wrath drubs sense,
Revolution feasts on its own
Offspring.
Embittered at the world,
He fears madness:
Firsthand panic,
Unmediated terror
Seeping into painting, into
Works hermetic and intimate.
Alchemical lead of the
Brooding recluse
Born under Saturn:
Transmuting craft into
Sombre providence,
Recasting vision as
Melancholic calling.
Black-box opacity of
Soul-kindle
Discipline.
Black-cube matrix of
Time, shadow and
Stricture.
Slow, anchoring
Orbit of the
Cold, dry
Black Sun.
Jan Peters is a Gen-X, neurodivergent author, coach and lecturer, born and raised in East Anglia, currently boltholed in Germany.
https://bsky.app/profile/janpsolivagant.bsky.social
Hilary Smith
Put out to pasture
I could smell it as soon as I woke up. Faint but distinct. Sweet like honey with a hint of faded roses and damp leaves. Not to everyone’s taste, but top of my list. I recognised it straight away of course, but it’s been a while and I’m not as sharp as I was. Back in the day, I was the sought-after expert in my field. The top dog, you might say. Not that it was easy. The training was brutal. And it was hard to stay focused. We didn’t all make it. Many of my mates couldn’t handle it or got hopelessly distracted. Not me. I’ve got a nose for it, I guess. I’m retired now, but I miss the adventure, the thrill of the scent, and the satisfaction of the find. Which is why this morning was such a delightful surprise.
I ran outside, and within seconds had the direction. Heading for the neighbour’s fence, I knew my prize was close. I leapt at the barrier, but it was too high. I ran up and down, trying to find a way in, but could get no nearer. The tantalizing, fruity undertones were driving me crazy. I pressed my snout hard up against the wood and sniffed like I was born for it. Too late. Another, younger, fitter cadaver dog had beaten me to it. He sat proudly looking up at his handler, as the sublime smell of a rotting corpse drifted on the breeze.
Three down
‘He’s in the lounge,’ Anne-Marie trilled over her shoulder as she led us down the corridor.
‘He can’t wait to see you.’ I thought it was unlikely.
‘Look who’s here,’ she announced.
My brother’s white face and faded cerulean eyes swivelled towards us. ‘Have you got my puzzle book?’ he demanded.
I ignored the belligerent welcome and squatted down beside his chair. Happy Christmas, Paul, I said. My husband hovered but was primed. He pulled out a wrapped present and handed it over. Paul tore off the paper like a three-year-old and gave a satisfied nod at the Christmas bumper edition of The Puzzler. He set too straight away, head down, lips moving as he read the clues.
Waving his biro above the page, he frowned, then shaped letters into the spaces, pressing hard. He was too absorbed to notice his other gifts, so we unwrapped them for him. We brandished them in front of him. A new dressing gown, slippers, novelty socks, A tin of Quality Street, a framed photo of his nephew’s, hoping for a response.
He ignored it all, lost in a world of black and white squares where everything had an answer. And then…
‘Overspent,’ he muttered.
‘Sorry?’ I asked.
My chest fluttered. Could my disordered schizophrenic brother be thanking us for our generosity in his haphazard, unconventional way? Had his medicated brain somehow registered gratitude, empathy even? ‘Overspent,’ he repeated. ‘Forked out too much.’
Tears pricked my eyes. My lips quivered. ‘Oh Paul,’ I whispered.
I reached out to stroke his arm, but he pointed to the book in his lap. Three down. ‘Too many forks,’ he said.
A bit of company
When Helen’s dad had moved to Pembrokeshire, she’d only thought of how the children would enjoy the beaches in the school holidays. She hadn’t thought ahead to him becoming elderly, and what a hell of a drive it was from Edgbaston.
The rain reflected her mood. What was a fine mist when she left home was now a full torrent. Wouldn’t send a dog out on a night like this, she could hear her dad saying, and her eyes welled up. In her rush to get off the phone, she’d worked out enough to realise that the stroke had turned dad’s voice into an incomprehensible babble. By the time she got there, It might have silenced him forever.
‘Less haste, more speed. His voice in her head made her resist the urge to press down hard on the accelerator. She was now driving slow enough to make out someone on the side of the road. Normally she wouldn’t stop for a hitchhiker. Dad would say, never trust a stranger. But the bedraggled girl looked pitiful and Helen could do with a bit of company.
The girl’s clothes were soaked and the windows soon steamed up. Helen leaned forward, wiping vigorously with a cloth, but she felt lighter listening to the girl chatter away. By Strensham’s services, the rain was down to a drizzle and the girl said she’d be able to get a lift into Bristol from there. The last Helen saw of her, she was striding towards the lorry park, waving hello to a truck driver. Helen filled up with petrol and went to pay. She rummaged in her bag and her pockets, but her purse was gone. Hot tears sprung into her eyes.
‘A fool and his money are soon parted’ came to mind.
Hilary Smith writes and performs short stories and creative nonfiction, often inspired by childhood memories and family anecdotes. Her work has been published in Ruler’s Wit, Friends on the Shelf and The Bristol School of Writing. She has performed her stories throughout the South West of England at literary festivals and on BBC Radio. Her writing is dedicated to her late mum Rita who was a prolific but unpublished author.
Louise Boddy
To Do
My to-do list looks different these days.
No longer hastily scribbled notes of things to chase,
no columns of musts and maybes,
no flower doodles unfurling in the corners.
Now, it’s
how to breathe.
how to be.
Focus is evasive.
My mind drifts like smoke
unanchored, shapeless,
always curling back towards you.
I catch myself staring through the window,
eyes scanning the road for a shape that will never appear.
Some part of me still expects your return
the sound of your footsteps,
the door swinging open,
your voice breaking the hush.
I aimlessly scroll through photos of you,
wandering tortuously through your social media pages,
searching for something I missed.
Caffeine no longer stirs the fog.
Exhaustion has settled in my bones for the long haul.
I try to find enthusiasm,
but nothing seems important anymore.
Emails, errands, appointments
they all dissolve into static.
The world hums on, indifferent,
while I stand half-present in its noise.
Still, I’ve grown skilled at the art of pretending.
Laughing and speaking and smiling at the right cues.
Fake it ‘til you make it, they say.
But if you look closely,
you’ll see it.
How the light doesn’t reach my eyes anymore.
The dark crescents beneath them deepen daily,
small trophies of sleepless nights.
Grief has carved lines no cream can soften,
etching your absence into my skin.
If I Could Have One More Day
If I could have one more day with you,
I’d pick you up in my car,
and we’d drive nowhere and everywhere
chasing sunlight down winding lanes,
the roof down, the wind wild with laughter.
Your mane of hair would dance behind you,
free as the life that once burned so bright.
We’d sing loudly to old songs on the radio,
giggling until our ribs ached,
the world melting into that golden moment
where nothing hurts, and nothing ends.
If I could have one more day with you,
I’d pull you into a bear hug so fierce
the stars themselves would pause to watch.
I’d breathe you in
and hold you as though time
could be stalled by love alone.
Your soft skin against mine,
your heartbeat a fragile drum.
If I could have one more day with you,
I’d dance with you in the kitchen,
barefoot on the cool tiles.
Albie would circle us, tail wagging madly,
joining our little dance-off
our own Strictly Come Dancing,
judged only by joy itself.
We’d twirl until laughter folded us into its arms.
If I could have one more day with you,
I’d sit quietly, just to hear you talk,
your voice, the soft music of home.
I’d listen to your hopes for the future,
your weekend stories, your half-told dreams.
I’d let the sound of your piano
spill into every corner of the house,
each note a thread stitching the air
with what once was,
and what I still ache for.
And when the sun slipped away again,
I’d plead for one more borrowed day, with you, my child.
Louise Boddy began writing poetry on the day her 27 year old daughter died from SUDEP, sudden unexpected death in epilepsy. Since that moment she has felt utterly compelled to write. It is a means of survival and of continuing connection with her daughter. Louise writes to tell the truth as she is living it — brutal, bewildering and relentless.
Instagram: @amotherbereft
Ping Yi
Ensemble
Car doors slamming as kids rock up
to audition for a charity musical,
lugging their cellos and pipas,
drums and ’zhengs over
slick floor slabs;
the stones remembering
a thousand roars in assent,
under a bronze sky.
Parents harass Security for air-con;
never mind who pays weekend cooling.
Tendrils of relief creep into the hall,
vents rattling in the draught;
the wind carrying
the song of a tongue
old as starlight.
Judges grind on, act after act, set after set –
still no script but no one needs to know.
The countdown looms, a banshee
a wraith, hourglass draining;
the sands swaying
the bitterest heart,
fallen embers astir.
They’re so young, this year’s seedlings!
How they drilled by moonlight
and day, trilling through thunder
and rain, drought and despair.
Shoots of talent
growing;
tree Olea enduring
by the theatre, flowers
dancing outside time.
Delos, Greece, 2010.
Ping Yi writes poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction. His work has appeared in Wildfire Words, Orbis (nominated for Forward Prize), Litro, The Stony Thursday Book, London Grip, Meniscus, La Piccioletta Barca, Harbor Review, Vita Poetica and Eclectica, and is forthcoming in The High Window, The Bournemouth Writing Prize Anthology and The Bangalore Review. Ping Yi lives in Singapore with his spouse and their son.
Roger Holden
Last Song of the Kaua’i O’o Bird, 1987
Through my headsets
at the British Library
I hear the Kaua’i O’o bird cast
his song towards her.
Against the click and whirr
of insects, he calls and waits,
calls and waits, but she doesn’t answer.
This is the last time,
before he also turns to ghost,
his song saved to tape in a box
now lost to life,
joins all the others
in rows and rows,
on long shelves in a warehouse.
Rodger Holden is retired and enjoys writing poetry on whatever interests him in the moment.
Sue Gerrard
I Found Myself
I found myself at the ferry’s end
balanced on the corner of Hoy.
Blue sea shivered between land and land
as strangers waited to go home.
I stood outside the world of cars
And vans and closed my mind to talk
of tomorrow, while yesterday’s thoughts
flew with the wind. As grey day slipped away
I slipped away from the modern world
to find a place of peace
and calming thoughts which cannot be bought
but travel from the gentle touch of nature
given without cost or charge.
Sue Gerrard‘s 25 published books include 11 poetry collections, 2 ghost novellas, and a collection of ghost stories. Her 9 local history books, some published by Amberley, include Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives, Grumps at Christmas and St. Helens in Fifty Buildings (2025). She was twice awarded ‘Robert Lord Writing Residency’ in Dunedin, New Zealand in 2019. Pear Trees Press, New Zealand, then published Poems for the Cottage. Her journalistic work was recently featured in an exhibition at the World of Glass. suegerrard.com
Trisha Broomfield
Counting Kittens
The man from the Pru sips Maxwell House
feigns nonchalance while the cat has kittens
underneath the table by his feet
she’s made her nest, he’s intruding
he’s given up alluding to the fact
that six units of alcohol a night
is not going to help my contributions
and a solution, bar a downright lie
would be to reduce my Pils by half
abstain for a day or more
he casts surreptitious looks at his socks
Trisha Broomfield has three pamphlets published by Dempsey and Windle and contributed to many anthologies. Her latest book, My Acrostic Mother, illustrated by Heather Moulson, is available to order online and at bookstores. All four pamphlets will be soon be available at the Surrey Poet Laureateship Library.
Trisha is poet for the monthly Cranleigh Magazine, the annual Caistorian and one third of the Booming Lovelies poetry trio.
You can hear her poems at Poetry Worth Hearing and BBC Upload. Instagram: @magentapink22 @boominglovelies
Wendy Webb
Mam Read No Grimm Tales at Bedtime
Dad drew deeply on his fag
and told Builders Brew yarns later.
Dorothy never mentioned yellow bricks
on the road to Sheffield and baby Windrush
Dad strained tea slowly through his moustache.
Mum flagged down Northern panda
…daughter lost on London’s paved gold.
Tea leaves strained false reading.
Too late to ask, what shade of turquoise
for blue, green, black stories?
Silence far too grim.
London in the Limelight
back from London. Greenwich
feel like a little boat on the Thames
I was in the running packed out, with friends and actors
performed, my own work, that’s a first
who won the prize? someone else
came in second, shortlist maybe
upriver in a strong current
one of those moments actors, names, faces
rocked by excitement and embarrassment
best friend gave me a bouquet of flowers
photo taken, stage in the background. a moment – to shine
passed under the Thames… long tunnel from south to north
as crowds flowed over/under Waterloo/London/Tower/Southwark Bridge…
back to Liverpool Street and home
finally
that time on the sweeping staircase, posing for a photograph
DSJT standing tall, smiling, when he was, you know, alive
all there, full, and Pam… shaking hands for a photograph
afterwards, people milling with friends
she stood there… alone in a crowd
I wanted to say, Hi, but she was a name from the telly…
don’t know if anyone else… Wish I’d spoken
remember the Superprize… all in the running…
the lady that won, she gushed and gushed
prize money, ohhh… for clothes and handbags…
we giggled
little boats capsizing in a word storm at sea
they changed the rules next year
I think she’s a name now. Can’t remember which one
in my mind’s eye, the river flows on by…
Wendy Webb (she/her), North Midlands, UK, prolific poet, published with Reach, Quantum Leap, Crystal, Frogmore Papers, Acumen, Wildfire Words, Littoral Magazine, Lothlorien, Atlantean, Poetry Wivenhoe, Drawn to the Light (Ireland), Seagulls (Canada), Poem Alone, Poetry Breakfast, Poetry Super Highway, Masticadores Canada, and Poetry Place (radio). Shortlisted in Writing Magazine’s Free Verse competition (2025/03).
https://www.facebook.com/wmwordsworth/
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah
Whenever You Are with Me
It was not my mood to let you leave;
but letting go was what the time brought,
what you wanted me to do if I loved you.
Since then, I feel that the world has robbed me,
of the clothes of winter over my body.
I didn’t bargain it out of this life
to feel like this each time you are with me,
one with a hunchback, a heartburn,
one with the epileptic disease of the heart,
whose body is on constant fire,
like a pyre, a pillar of smoke full of embers,
the spark that will burn down
whatever it comes into contact with,
as though I stand on a breaking point.
It’s not the rubric of loss that I feel,
but the anxiety of a body unalloyed to loneliness.
There’s nothing this heart has not seen,
flowers growing faster than others,
sheep linking limbs and legs with another,
leopards chasing after another leopard,
horses mating with horses in the bushes,
and what else is desire meant to curate?
Even this deep hole yearning for a closure,
has met its match in your bosom,
a place where all desires reach fulfilment
as well as those that have no names.
Guess how my aura spreads like the sky;
how the scent of my happiness freezes the air;
see how your presence flows through me
like the Thames through the breadth of London.
I have weighed you in the scale of my heart,
to know how much I lost since you left,
now I know that I have broken down
after I weighed less than a token.
Whenever you return, I will weigh myself again,
and I know that a mountain will weigh less
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah’s debut Chapbook, A is for Anfang, was published by The Island of Wak-Wak (2025). His awards include Poem of the Month at The Literary Shark Poetry Contest 2025, the Editor’s Choice Award in Poetry at Unleash Creatives, 2024, Alexander Pope Poetry Award at The Pierian, 2025, Vivian Shipley Poetry Award at the Connecticut Poetry Contest 2025, and Third Place Winner at the Hemlock Journal Poetry Contest 2025. His poems have appeared in Atticus Review, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Journal of Undiscovered Poets, TAB, and The Journal of Poetry and Poetics.
Christine Griffin
Watching the Rugby with my Neighbour
He brings beers to my house,
wearing his Cherry and White kit,
now drooping on his hollowed-out frame
like badly hung washing.
He’s brought the picture with him
me and the lads at Kingsholm
The lads stand, legs like tree trunks,
arms folded across barrel chests.
That’s me there. Captain I was.
See Bulldog at the back, he’s dead now
and old Chalky’s on the way out too.
Happy days they was.
Twenty minutes in, he’s downed a beer
cursed the ref, urged the Gloucester lads
to tear ‘is legs off
I wait for the moment
I know will happen.
He slumps in the chair
staring into the middle distance,
the TV forgotten,
his hands clutching
a rugby-ball-shaped space.
I pour another beer,
pass the pork scratchings,
mute the sound.
remind me, I say, about that time when…
Christine Griffin writes poetry and short fiction and is widely published in Acumen, Wildfire Words, The Dawntreader, Graffiti Magazine and Poetry Super Highway amongst others. Her work has been showcased in both the Cheltenham Literature Festival and the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. In 2025 she was Highly Commended in the Laurie Lee Prize for Writing for her short group of poems on the theme of ‘Journeys’
Clive Donovan
Street Shrieks
The infant struggles in its too-hot suit.
It doesn’t want to leave the shop it just left,
doesn’t want to step up street, sit in carriage, eat,
doesn’t want to use its feet, kicks welly off, mother flaps
with parcels, bags and pushchair; kid shrieking, then collision
with a curb-parked Toyota which smartly starts
an automatic mantra of pointless S.O.S.
Astounded Sally drops her own noise, redundant, out-shrieked,
and street resumes its routine flow, as does the driver,
relaxing, with a Starbucks cappuccino, oblivious
to the tantrum of her husband’s distressed car.
Sally, calmed with dolly now, whisked away by mum.
Train Moves
The waiting train at the station begins to recede
and that illusion so familiar,
of gliding tableaux on parade,
which never fails to work, kicks in
and I am jerked to motion, yet my teacup’s undisturbed…
sensational, this feeling of a surge, sliding sure,
with accelerating certain strength;
my eyes receptive, almost tranced, with this glissando,
emboldened to gaze and relish the peep show game
of other eyes in carriages left behind.
And yet it is they, of course, whose bodies are moving on,
the last coach whooshing by with marvellous pomp of maroon,
and I find myself, becalmed, fooled again,
rooted at the buffet bar in a static still-life scene,
lounging in my plastic chair like a royal personage.
And repeatedly is shown this curious pantomime,
with my idle speculation of this bust display,
full of unknown histories and human purposes,
unravelling on view like dioramic strips of film,
as my tearoom and the whole of platform four is yanked away.
Clive Donovan has three poetry collections, The Taste of Glass (Cinnamon Press 2021]), Wound Up With Love (Lapwing 2022) and Movement of People (Dempsey&Windle 2024) and is published in a wide variety of magazines including Acumen, Crannog, Pennine Platform, Popshot, Prole and Stand. He lives in Totnes, Devon, UK. Clive was a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominee for 2022’s best individual poems. facebook.com/clive.donovan.7
Jeff Skinner
Zones
The Buddha’s out of time –
night and day he sits there
everything and nothing on his mind
while you enjoy a late breakfast.
I’m looking at them now the photos
you sent me of the temple at Chiang Rai.
It’s still yesterday in LA: your sister
takes an Uber to her downtown hotel –
finds the sky above the freeway, silver blue.
The Hollywood sign, Laurel Canyon,
a floating market in Bangkok – how far
you have travelled from waking terrors.
Pictures, new words, keep mine at bay,
the restless hours before dawn.
Jeff Skinner‘s poems are widely published, most recently in The Aftershock Review, The Alchemy Spoon, Black Nore Review. His pamphlet, Us, is shortlisted for the Live Canon pamphlet prize. A former foodbank and Oxfam bookshop volunteer, in July 2023 he was diagnosed with a neuro-degenerative condition. He listens to a lot of music, watches football, reads, writes.
Oliver White
Your immense wisdom
Voiced by Ruthie Moriarty
your immense wisdom came
wave upon wave
pulsing through me
smashing through barriers
tearing up rhythms of waves forced upon me
forcing me to realise
to them I do not belong
unblocking night dreams
haunted for years
now from my depths
shines my light
Oliver White is the pen name of Alan Sanson. Two years ago, Alan started to receive poems from his lighter self. He and Inara Bell have self-published on Lulu.com and have published movies with audios on YouTube. Our thanks to Ruthie Moriarty whose voice brings this and our other poems to life.
Introduction for Open Submissions 9
In this free submission window, 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 prose. Each item can be in any form, but no longer than 50 lines or 300 words, including title, stanza breaks, dedication or footnotes. For all submissions to Wildfire Words, we choose only content that follows our inclusivity policy of respect for all writers, regardless of their background, beliefs, ethnicity, identity.
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