Boxed Dusk – Jenny Moroney

 

A beginning of an evening was grasped by the room

whose sparse light seeped in from a solitary window.

Lain on the bed, a pencilled in person noted the square

of sunset with its pastel pinks, blues and greens

layered over a charcoal city skyline.

 

Moving their hand against the square

so the light was sieved through their skin like dust,

they noted how this beginning of an evening

could be anything from a painting

to a life.

 

 

IMG_8563Jenny Moroney lives in South-East London. She studied English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and has been published online and in print.

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Breathless – Bojana Stojcic

 

A storm was raging

that afternoon.

He stopped

to breathe with me.

 

It’s starting

to thunder.

I’m learning

to breathe on my own.

 

 

Pic...Bojana Stojcic is a teacher from Serbia, living in Germany. Her poems and flash pieces have been published or are forthcoming in Rust + Moth, Anti-Heroin Chic, Down in the Dirt, Mojave Heart Review, Dodging the Rain, The Opiate, The Stray Branch, Tuck magazine, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Nightingale & Sparrow and Visual Verse. She blogs regularly at Coffee and Confessions to Go.

Death in Spring – Ben Banyard

 

She took her last breath as we put the clocks on.

Lambs, daffodils, Easter eggs, cheerful optimism,

but a funeral to attend and relatives to console.

 

We’ll Google the church’s car park,

agree to work around that afternoon with bosses and clients.

Follow the coffin in, glance at riotous banks of grape hyacinth.

 

There will be hymns.

All Things Bright and Beautiful no doubt,

The Old Rugged Cross, perhaps.

Choke back a lump in the throat at the eulogies,

smile with damp eyes at anecdotes.

 

What will move us most are the details of her youth,

how she played nicely with her sister sometimes,

what her parents did for a living;

Spring details, when her life was beginning.

 

 

ImageBen Banyard lives in Portishead, near Bristol, UK. He’s the author of a pamphlet, Communing (Indigo Dreams, 2016) and a full collection, We Are All Lucky (Indigo Dreams, 2018). He blogs and posts mixtapes at https://benbanyard.wordpress.com.

Freshers – Ben Banyard

 

Dotted about, they cling to one another

like survivors from a shipwreck,

shiny and new as the morning.

 

Shaky from first attempts at ironing

their independence is eggshell frail.

 

Early evenings, watch them snake

the pavements on route-march pub crawls,

terrified of that one indiscretion

which earns them a nickname or

tattoos a campus anecdote.

 

Studies will prove peripheral

for three or four years of this cakewalk.

They choke back their homesickness,

fledge into themselves day by day.

 

 

ImageBen Banyard lives in Portishead, near Bristol, UK. He’s the author of a pamphlet, Communing (Indigo Dreams, 2016) and a full collection, We Are All Lucky (Indigo Dreams, 2018). He blogs and posts mixtapes at https://benbanyard.wordpress.com.

New Beginnings – Rachel Bower

 

We are starting again

this wrinkly belly and me

learning how to walk again

and even how to talk

to strangers without

the shield of peach cheeks

and little legs.

 

We are tottering through the retail park

off kilter

but determined to find a latte

and drink it hot this time,

just this time,

even if the milk floods our shirt

even though we’re waddling a bit,

still bruised from birth

and we think of him safe

and scan the tarmac again

without anchor.

 

Our balance is off.

You shrivel in my hollow

as I try to unfurl

and wonder how to tilt on my feet.

 

Only eighteen minutes left

’til we see his starfish hands.

 

We wobble together and smile.

 

Rachel Bower photoRachel Bower is a poet and research fellow at the University of Leeds. Her pamphlet, Moon Milk, will be published with Valley Press in May 2018. She is currently co-editing an anthology with Helen Mort entitled Verse Matters, which is out with Valley Press in November 2017. Her book, Epistolarity and World Literature, 1980-2010 will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in August 2017. Rachel’s poems have been published by Stand Magazine, BBC Radio, Now Then Magazine, Valley Press, Three Drops Press, The Stare’s Nest, Pankhearst and others, and she has had poems shortlisted for several prizes, including The London Magazine Poetry Prize and the Plough Prize 2016. She is also the founder of Verse Matters, a feminist arts collective in Sheffield.

Door – Krishna Sharma

 

The word of a lover.

It is the word of a hinge

That creaks to the sound

Of its own turning.

Hoarse and coarse.

It loves only to lie.

Lie and smile.

 

But, what is a door?

The secluded path

To the past?

A Jetstream of memories…

For me, it’s the way

That leads to a new beginning.

A new face. A new time.

A new lie? A new smile?

 

 

image1Krishna Sharma is a teenage poet, whose works have appeared in publications such as ‘Hebe’ and ‘BUSTA RHYME: North West Voices. He was a commended winner in the 2017 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. Apart from reading whatever he can get his hands on, Krishna volunteers at his local library, swims, plays tennis and sometimes over-watches his favourite television shows. He hopes to study English at degree level.

Spring – Amira Benning-Prince, age 10

 

I wake up in the morning,

And shout happily to my mum,

“It’s the beginning of Spring,

And flowers have sprung.”

 

“The busy bees will buzz loudly,

The yellow sun will shine bright,

The blossoming trees will dance softly,

While young birds take their first flight.”

 

Then I look out the window,

There’s animals waking up sleepily,

They’ve obviously been hibernating,

For six months they slept deeply.

 

Things change a lot in Spring.

Out comes the flowers and shining sun,

Out from their slumber comes the animals,

Next comes Summer, the most fun!

 

I am Amira and I love creative writing and film making. I have recently started writing poetry and like to write about different things. My favourite author is JK Rowling and I adore Emma Watson. I like to read novels and am currently reading Charles Dickens’ books.

Exam conditions – Katie Lewington

 

I can’t believe I have to give myself permission

these stapled sheets are winding me up no end

pen tapping as if the feet of Astaire

I pick it up and put it down

an effortless weight

too many ghosts are swirling around the ticking of the clock

sighs

and scratching nibs

stillness

lessons learnt –

the power of three, commas and paragraphs

bulging thoughts unable to word

throbbing heat beneath the skin

less resistance

put more work in

then able

to put it all behind me

and begin.

 

kl-picKatie Lewington is a UK-based writer and has been drafting, editing and rewriting her bio since she started submitting to literary magazines and journals two years ago. It isn’t as if she doesn’t know who she is, she just isn’t sure what is relevant. Her creative writing can be read at https://katiecreativewriterblog.wordpress.com. She can be contacted through Twitter @idontwearahat.