Students, all women in our freshest years,

we settled on landings with mugs of tea,

never thought to lock our doors,

and, late into the night as Sweet Baby James

floated up the stairwell, we gossiped, fell out,

time -shared bedrooms for lover trysts.

Then she disappeared,

that girl of the fiery perm and Scouser sound.

We wondered in the silence.

Her space filled over

like a river after extreme rainfall.

I imagined her walking back after drinks at the Union,

in her silk halter neck and corduroy flares,

humming Joni Mitchell in her head,

caught in a clutch, dragged into a flowerbed,

calling for her Mum.

We stopped walking alone.

We avoided the garden. Then we forgot.

..

Maggie Mackay is a brave-hearted Scot and a final year MA Poetry student at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has work in various print and online publications, including A New Manchester Alphabet

What is this lonely life where

things come at you from all sides?

Children killed in a bomber’s wake

families keen & weep,

homes full of heartbreak.

Only the night before, I was standing

on a bridge over the canal, just another

one of nature’s daughters; streetlamps

reflected in long halos in the dark night

held in the dark water.

An alone moment after social nibbles

in a local pub, after a celebration of words,

poetry, humanity.  This morning, I’m alone

and I hear all the news all over the net:

ice cracks a lake open, winds

creak in the star reaching pines,

a deep silence of solidarity.

..

Bethany Rivers (M.A.)
Debut pamphlet due out 22nd July, OFF THE WALL from Indigo Dreams Publishing http://www.indigodreams.co.uk/bethany-rivers/4592595600

The children go to bed each night

afraid for morning to come

tomorrow might be the day

when they’re thrown out

left to die on the streets

The children wake early each morning

afraid there won’t be enough

food in the house

not enough money

to buy milk and bread

The children fall ill from school

where they’re told everyday

they’re no good, they’re lazy,

they’re only good as sweepers

for other people’s shit

The children are dying

ignorant of arts, sciences,

history, philosophy, self-esteem,

but we can’t prosecute the parent –

we voted them in

Syria within me

I feel your desolate desecration

Thousands of crumbling empty houses

Palestine within me

I feel your  Land robbed  Olive trees poisoned

Crimes against The Wall

Europe within me

Every flag of every nation

Only the wind carries freedom

Blood battles within me

Of the generations to come

Scars and fences needing to be undone

Russian pogroms within me

In the bones of my Great Grandmother

Wounds of  dislocation

The thirst within me

Fountain of my heart still learning

To make itself heard

..

Bethany Rivers (M.A.)
Debut pamphlet due out 22nd July, OFF THE WALL from Indigo Dreams Publishing http://www.indigodreams.co.uk/bethany-rivers/4592595600

Once the meadows shone with colour
strings of white, blue, red &yellow,
left to flower, seed, spread, only plucked
by children’s hands . But now they quiver
on the verge, while fenced, the meadow
sprayed and mowed is bare of blossom.

While in the gardens flowers bloom
tended by the caring hands that
work and watch their efforts prosper
encouraged by passion for a flower.

Yet each season thwarts their efforts
rain falls in places far too heavy
whilst others gasp for water as streams
vanish through ever drying winters.

Hidden in the land the rigs plunder
oil and gas to feed our need,
while out at sea the remnants of our
throw away economy are ingested
by the fish we eat, and the coral’s colours
fades to deathly grey as temperatures
rises ice melts the poles. The bear
and penguin search for safe routes.

Even the jungles screech in…