She Will Always Win - Laura Cheshire
Burnt Side of the Toast - Alannah Foley
Cambrai - Geoff Birchall
Fleeting Shadow - Dylan McCabe
He Would Have Her Company - Lewis Humphries
And when she falls, she cast aside her humanity.
Letting go my hand, she rejoices
In the wind in her hair,
Stinging her eyes,
Tearing at her clothes.
And she falls,
Looking death in the eyes and laughing,
Knowing that being alive
Is all about fear, she
Can't be scared.
As the pavement opens its concrete arms,
Welcoming her into its dead embrace
With its echoing cold
She is free.
Self discovery.
In the midst of the whirlwind, her wings open.
Feathers scatter.
the snap and strain of sinew in the stream of nature.
She will always win.
She's flying,
And the fall was about the finding.
She is found.
© Laura Cheshire
Eyes first meet
Finally! The perfect match
Honeymoon period dawns
We're breakfasting together
Two souls so in love - mind wanders, and
Toast burns under the grill
Nothing must rock the boat of true love …
And the toast is turned over
Butter the good side
And sweeten with extra jam
No one will notice
The years pass
Eyes rarely meet now
Honeymoon has set
Long vanished below the horizon
We're breakfasting together
Two souls so separate - mind wanders, and
Toast burns under the grill
Turn it over
And burn the other side
Butter blackens when applied
Jam thrown on sparingly, unevenly
No one will notice, now.
© Alannah Foley
It appealed to our sense of duty; patriotic death has a stark beauty.
If we'd a choice now, we'd not be here, the glamour's faded, now only fear.
Average men have no use for war, just poppy food on a foreign shore?
Yet here we are knee deep in mud, freezing cold, still in life's new bud.
Standing, numb in the early light, the true reality starts to bite.
Cheeks puff out to blow the whistle, send us up to meet our missile!
Maybe, no Germans left alive; we've pounded them since before five.
Eight short rungs to negotiate, metric lead will decide my fate.
I'm as ready as I'll ever be, the reaping wave, might just pass me.
The whistle barely makes a sound; our artillery has it all but drowned.
Comrades' faces instantly, grey; will we see the dawn of another day?
No one speaks, nor contacts eyes, a rolling murmur of resolved sighs!
Clear the ladders as fast as you can, leave a path for the next 'eager man'.
A scything blade of red-hot lead cuts through our advance of walking dead.
Sergeant dons his earth overcoat; he'll never blow another note.
Their entrenched lines hold the high ground; they're scoring almost every round.
Companions trodden in the dirt, gone beyond feeling any hurt.
“This way lads, that gun post's been hit, let's get there before they fix it!”
Shorten that stretch of no-man's-land; keep those wire cutters in your hand.
The engulfing noise abruptly ceased, the sense of fear swiftly decreased.
Surreal clouds float gently by and distant bagpipes nullify.
Suddenly everything is black; my granddad's come to take me back.
© Geoff Birchall
In an unfamiliar meld,
of rigid steel and red bricked mould,
she kindles to the portents of summer.
Whilst he sits upright on the bedclothes,
hastily buttoning his pleated shirt
and cobalt, bootlegged jeans.
She feels in vain for the mellow
plume of melting prints, as bowed fingers
trace the contour of her cheekbone. They
coax her head in sideways motion, where
she observes his movements by the
inflections of gilding light.
Fleet shadow, in rearward tilt,
steals through a tapering space, an
arm outstretched in blithe, parting gesture. A
limp sheaf of paper wealth, tossed from his palm
as though torn paper scraps, strews the
surface of his bedside table.
As prompt footfall treads its patter,
a spill of contemplation seeps by
word amongst the bleed of his benevolence.
“Save me from tomorrow,” reels their whisper,
through the remnants of hollow consort, and
the silt of a gin sodden tea cup.
© Dylan McCabe
He could be considered a bachelor,
to all intents if not purposes, his
leisure worn amongst the bindings of affluence.
During the merited indolence of Sunday,
he observes the flair of Catalan
footballers, through a superfluous guise
of conceited posture.
Whilst their artistry spills against a lush
green stage, a surge of Holst's melodies course
throughout the seep of immoderation.
And between the arbitrary swills of liquid
console, he will turn to proffer discourse,
to a nebulous void where he would have
her company.
Still each threaded pass, or meld of harmonies
brings a semblance of distraction,
acknowledged by the tilting of the brim.
Every salutation draws him closer
to the attainment of others, his reflections
of her stifled by the surfeits of
infectious thrill.
Until a shrill rupture of whistle
blowing culls the steep of dexterity, where
remnant sounds wallow in its sudden dearth.
His mouth runs arid, spared from the bleed
of a burgundy soak, and he is listless
to the hollowed resonance of
opulence.
Far pitched as the shade of a lapsing sun,
her name is tossed between the threadbare zephyrs,
that taunt his candour through the absent retort.
Until sleep imparts its respite, and passive
drift into the inventions of reverie,
that portend the murmur of her kindly
intonation.
© Lewis Humphries
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