Puška* - John Buchanan

They stand in front of me
wide hollow eyes search my soul.
Grubby faces, ragged clothes, empty eyes.
Itchy fingers point,
the word "puška" comes again.
In my hands it's a tool of the trade;
yet their young eyes have seen,
their young ears have heard
and their, so very young lives, have lost.
"Puška"
I reached into my pocket
pulled out marbles and squatted.
There in the dust we played.
That day I lost a few marbles,
learned the word "puška"
and the hollow eyes still haunt me.

John Buchanan

* Puška = Rifle

Precious One - Diane Scantlebury

You’ve come and gone
My precious one,
This isle was never big enough
To hold your interest for long,
Before the lure of the mainland
Drew you back
To its excitement and sparkle,
Leaving me behind
With a mother’s sadness,
The nest emptied
For a second time,

Off again on another adventure,
With hopes high
And your two dear cats in tow,
The unknown beckoning you
Enticing your restless spirit,
Like the summer
You’ve come and gone,
Stay safe in your new life
My precious one.

Diane Scantlebury

Vote Vote Vote – Oscar Milde

We voted half the last lot out
and voted all the new lot in.
We thought that when we’d had our shout
there’d be an end to lies and spin
but here we are and nothing’s changed:
someone who votes must be deranged.

It’s one thing voting on the phone
for Strictly dancers week by week
or jungle celebs, who just moan
because we know they’re past their peak.
Those are honest competitions.
What fool would vote for politicians?

Their manifestos, every time,
are works of fiction woven through
with fancy promises, sublime,
where not a single word is true
and yet we trust them, offer votes
instead of fingers round their throats.

So what’s the plan, a coup d’etat?
Cheer a dictator and his crew?
You might as well elect a cat
or move away to Timbuktu.
There’s always leaders and the led
but true democracy is dead.

Injustice is a fact of life
as much as inequality.
It’s them and us. In peace or strife
there’s no escape from polity
or politicians, sad to say,
until they carry you away.

Oscar Milde

Immortality Is Overrated - Lyndon Queripel

I tried to write a poem
About how I'd like to be remembered
Well, believe me I tried
But all I could think of was
I'd like to be remembered as
The man who never died
But then again you see
Who would remember me
If I just lived on
And you and everyone
That I know
Were all gone ?

Lyndon Queripel

Hanois - Vic Gamble

The shadow & sink of night
fills the water’s simpering.
Murkish, musty clouds
edge,shove and elbow by the heights
of Hanois,
as she fingers accusation
to the muddled moods of elements.

The sun is ginger
when it finally hits this fusion
and softens there
naive in  warm illusion.

The petal & smoke of sunset
is clearing from the battlefield
whilst white eyes stalk the waves;
it is either madness of foam,
or the underbelly of mirrored stars,
(but the dance is elfish anyway.)

Nowhere is breath breathing
and Hanois grows rigid
with the fear of loneliness,
a crazy monolith to the
wild, still movements
of space and air and water.

The last long shadow
thrown out like the cat
is caught in the wink
of its own blink
and sinks,
conquered then
in the toll of the fold of a
murmur.

Vic Gamble