June 2011

Wolverhampton Station
three teenaged girls
bare-shouldered and bare-armed
huddle beneath the station roof
like ducklings beneath the river bank
watching raindrop static in the water

a tattooed man
his arms a map of his soul
chases a bouncing dog  and is
devoured by the open carriage door
before the train slithers down the track

a chinese boy
tries repeatedly to ask
the unresponsive station guard
the way to platform three but he
is grey and graveyard-statue silent

an elderly woman
with chin-high buttoned coat
pulls bulging shopping-trolley luggage
as a child pulls a wooden train
as if she has mistaken here for Tesco

a wire-spectacled man
with food stains on his jacket
and shirt tails bidding for freedom
follows crazy-paving paths
that no one else but he can see

and I for my part
look to station board and track
in Wimbledon spectator motions
both inform me of the self-same truth
my train it seems is still delayed

Bob Hale, Coseley

March 2011

Quarry
Frozen paw prints join fashion trainer tracks,
partially covered by a mulch of leaves
cast aside by winter,
an artist bored with browns.

Leaving behind busy roads
still whooshing and roaring,
to feel the air biting my townie lungs
and stinging my vision.

Deep-ridged bark snuggles beneath ivy,
hart’s tongue bobbing at me, lush and slippery,
as I peer around ash, hazel, and dogwood
to see a lime-kiln chimney standing proud,
almost a poor man’s folly now.

Among ivory bricks
splashed with rust
are remnants of the human race,
ghost-like and depicted in metal.

The mist in the valley is icy blue,
and in places winter hardens well-trodden footpaths,
yet the catkins grow fat,
ready to dance into spring.

Steel
The truck’s out of control,
slipping sideways down the hill
towards iced-topped gates,
side bouncing off snow-filled trees,
factory dust mixing with crystal ice flakes
covering pavements and gutters
with metallic grey.

Brakes groan, skid, and smoke
as the driver stops his twenty-ton lorry.
Slurry, slush, and rock salt
lie beneath his wheels
and, off the clock, factory men wait for steel,
cold hands in pockets,
respect in every nod of their heads,
and a mug of tea for the driver.

Weighed down by stillages,
the forklifts’ bounce over
mounds of grit and impacted ice.
Wedges of ridged snow fall
from the defrosting factory roof.

Silvia Juliet Millward, Willenhall

still life
it’s spring in your nan’s front room
floral curtains with budding pinks and yellows
a hyacinth from Tesco on the sideboard
next to pictures of the grandkids
it’s spring all year round
green grass carpet planted with a pouffe centrepiece
the roses on her slippers blending into bouquet armchairs
thick brown tights edge the beds
her legs, from under blossomed skirt
peek, slight as fledglings

Meave Haughey, Smethwick

Spring
It’s arrived,
finally it’s here.
The season’s sprung
with the lustre of magnolia.
Stellata shines through the evening gloom,
lighting the room
where I sit and stare,
at the chair;
where you sat,
until this day last year.

Roger Noons, Dudley
Note: I always think it’s doubly sad when tragedy occurs on a memorable day, e.g. when a loved one dies on Christmas Day. But there are events as well as dates that make something memorable, or in a sense, unforgettable. The flowers of the Magnolia stellata in our back garden seem to burst forth on the same date in the middle of March each year. For me it’s the herald of spring.

January 2011

Bryn Offa
The wind is a scream and the numbed finger points.
“Look!” says a small boy, and the exclamation,
bruised from over-use and the wild weather,
echoes round the rock face of his mind.

“That’s where Grandad bought it. Paid the price.”
And on a bare ledge, brambled and alone,
the bleached bones pull themselves together
in a self-embracing rattle and somehow we know
words won’t do; the poetry here is unconventional;
no word entirely suitable to voice the harshness of this face,
no note the violence of the score.

The ancestral march of boots in unison; grandads, fathers
sons and brothers, tread to the tick of eternity’s clock.
A dapple of sunlight, a banter of jokes, a spit of obscenity,
crunching of boots. The crannied face is blushed
with blood of men and boys and, stupidly, we grope
and grovel in the dust of centuries half-expecting answers
to creep up on us from behind, while overhead
a wild symphony of sea-shelled beginnings and fossilised fish
washes over the cracks and crevasses in life’s stone book.

Geoff Williams, Pant

October 2010

Forever Green
You change your clothes with the seasons
flamboyant in the latest shades and tones.
You mock me in my jaded green –
plain Jane is my nickname.

So flaunt your fire agates
your ambers and rubies too.
Make the most of your hour of glory,
because I’ve got news for you!

In weeks your golden apparel
will be, as the emperor’s new clothes,
lying in tatters around you –
pride comes before a fall!

When, naked, you face the winter
I’ll still be cloaked in green:
emerald is never out of season.

Nicky Hetherington Abermule

July 2010

On the land
On each new day a brand-new leaf unfolds,
presents us with a clean page, a fresh start.
Our grandfathers worked hard with scythe and blade,
tamed wild land with horse and plough and cart.

To accommodate their oversized machines
our fathers wrenched the hedges from the fields.
With herbicides and pesticides and more
they straight-jacketed nature to raise yields.

I see them planting new hedges today,
and dandelions push up amongst the hay,
Is this the start of a new stewardship,
‘Sustainability’ on every lip?

Nicky Hetherington
Abermule