A fist lost – Gareth Culshaw

 

The pitch was always poor in under 14s 

footie. At the start of the season the council

would send men out. Paint the lines,

mow the turf, align the goalposts.

 

I always played better when he came

standing there with his accent.

My first goal scored, smiles all round.

Jogging back, raised fist to you

 

yours pumped in the air. We got on 

back then before the stubbornness set, 

distance in years between us showed.

 

That break in the relationship a hole 

in my memory, will never be filled.

 

 

Gareth lives in Wales. He has his first collection out now by FutureCycle called The Miner. He hopes one day to achieve something special with the pen.

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October 11, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: accent, break, childhood, creative, creativity, distance, football, Gareth Culshaw, goal, memory, past, pitch, poem, Poetry, relationship, season, smiles, sport, stubbornness, Wales, writing, years, youth Leave a comment

Competition – Louise Wilford

 

I won a competition. Yes, I did. My fingers

drew a poetic Fall, all red and gold decay.

I know the debt I owe – Keats’ ode still lingers –

but my creation was, in its own way,

worth fifty quid.

 

Chaotic interlinkage. Velcro hooks of words,

confusing as a froth of wasps stuck in a honey pot.

Some end up barbed wire bundles, spikily absurd,

or limp on, split and wounded. I’d be the first to spot

my writing sucks.

 

Yet sometimes words escape, their goal the blooded page,

and go home, battle-weary, on figurative legs;

they mesh like lovers meeting, no griping war to wage,

and fit like Lego bricks or halves of Easter eggs,

a greater whole.

 

 

Yorkshirewoman Louise Wilford is an English teacher and examiner. She has had around 50 poems and short stories published in magazines including Popshot, Pushing Out The Boat and Agenda, and has won or been shortlisted for several competitions. She is currently writing a children’s fantasy novel.

October 1, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: autumn, colours, competition, creation, creative, creativity, decay, fall, goal, home, Keats, Louise Wilford, nature, page, poem, Poetry, season, UK, wasps, whole, words, writing, Yorkshire Leave a comment

Wings – Arlene Antoinette

 

Driving home from the rehab center,

my mind filled with thoughts of my

father who was recuperating from a heart

attack, I watched as a buzzard attempted

to land atop a streetlight post. Oddly, his feet

missed the perch, I ducked while driving

afraid he would fall, splat, onto the roof of

my car. Of course, that result never occurred

to the winged creature who flapped his wings

a total of three times and landed steadily on

the post which was the goal from the beginning.

I laughed at myself, not believing how foolish

I had been to think the vulture could be grounded

so easily.

 

 

Arlene Antoinette is a poet of West Indian birth, who has given her heart to Brooklyn, New York where she spent her formative years. Her work has been published in Foxglove Journal, Little Rose Magazine, Tuck Magazine, I am not a silent poet, The Open Mouse, Neologism Poetry Journal, 50-Word Stories, A Story In 100 Words, The Ginger Collect, The Feminine Collective, Boston Accent Lit, Amaryllis, Your Daily Poem, Sick Lit Magazine, Postcard Shorts and Girlsense and Nonsense.

June 25, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: attempt, bird, buzzard, creative, creativity, creature, fall, family, fear, flight, goal, grounded, land, NY, perch, poem, Poetry, post, recuperation, US, vulture, wings, writing Leave a comment