Mask and Flag

Seated on a sleek black horse
beneath the almond tree
you smile at the camera, though now
you are masked and carry a flag.
Above the head of an octogenarian
you raise your blade and then again
above the physician, the archivist,
the scholar, the peacemaker;
Black knight, you’ve cut the strings
of the poet’s voice, you’ve marked his words
yet more have come to mark your cruel crusade.

ref. Syrian poet Ibrahim Kashoush

Carole Bromley is the new Featured Writer and I feel very privileged to show her work on this site.  I met Carole on 52, the poetry site that was run by Jo Bell and who gave us a prompt for each week of the year. In the end it lasted for a 15 months and Carole must have written a poem almost every day as well as being an indefatigable commenter and liker. She always made you feel supported.   So I feel as if I ‘know’ her a bit even though we have never met.  But you can see that she is rather eminent from her biography…. published four times by Smith/Doorstep and a serial winner of competitions.  Her light touch is deceptive: the natural ease is always finely judged.

Whatever Carole touches seems to turn into poetry. Words are breath to her,  always beautifully crafted and often very unsettling.

There are plenty of great accolades that sing her praises far better than I…

Ship Gate from Chester City Walls

The hole in the Wall was not cast aside
but borne, piece by piece, to the Park,
a stone’s throw away, and re-assembled
as breath held across a path.

Its grainy sandstone frame, braced
against weight of sky, rainbows
an open space that lacks the gate
to separate ship from city.

Scabbed over with slabs, the Wall
is unsettled as all torn places
when mended. Gaps, transplanted
to discreet glades, lace through lives.

They seep memories, mapped by scars,
wince under strangers’ stumblings,
are anointed by their listenings. Spaces
honoured, enfleshed alike by sun and rain.

When I was updating magazines for my list (here), I added The Poetry Bus at the request of a reader. I wanted to know more about this magazine so asked editors, Peadar and Collette O’Donoghue to fill me in.

Can you tell me how and when The Poetry Bus emerged?

Hello, thank you so much for inviting us here to the poetry shed!
Back in the late 90s I (Peadar)was a compulsive blogger and the seed of PB was a one-off exercise among bloggers to write something at the same moment in time across the world to see if there was any, however ethereal ,connection in our poems, to see if we simultaneously tapped into some kind of zeitgeist. We didn’t, but it was fun and people really responded and enjoyed it, and enjoyed reading other people’s poems, so I decided to set a weekly writing task every…

Fighting for Dust

They reduced to rubble
stones that survived shifts
of empires to create a digital image,
afford children front seats in stadiums
to watch public executions
uploaded to glorify themselves, and
wait to copulate with comrades’ widows.

All whilst professing to follow a man
who preached restraint and respect,
even for the stones they reduce to dust
for they were his heritage
abandoned by people who never knew
his teaching, died centuries before
he emerged from his mother.

When they have achieved a desert
of bones, nothing will remain
but uploaded images –
the gods they created –
and devoured.

As we arrived he welcomed us
offering orange juice and dates
to refresh us after the journey
and every time we passed
would ensure we had all
we needed. We would walk on
a harbour, lined with fishing boats,
and sit in cafes drinking coffee
as the heat rose and sand crept
in on the wind.  We’d swim in the pool
and at night walk in the square
where fountains danced to changing colours.
A boy sold me a pedant, an old man
offered carpets.

Two girls sat with us on a bus
and we chatted over coffee,
one wanted to be a doctor, the other
dreamed of going to Oxford.
The driver guided us round Carthage
knew the history of every stone.
We chatted to a couple from Bagdad
outside the mosque, swapped stories.

We would walk round the garden
to the sound of music wafting from the piano

CHAIR

I still see you sitting on the old chair now you’ve gone;
your back supported by pillows that remain in place,
your brown hair was falling over your shoulders as
the sun sets behind you. Curved arms embraced
you in a cane cuddle sweeping down the legs.

I recall those long gone days before you painted it
to match your pale pink room when you were a girl.
The cane had shone with planes of polish spread
by generations of women; a wicker diamond woven
into its back was patterned blue, red and green.

Looking now, I want to restore it, return it
to how I remember when you were a baby,
so it will glow again as the evening sun glances
with a kiss through the window replaying the day
you sat there reading, the child inside you – growing.

I knock softly, listening for you voice,
you…