Public Transport

Traffic stacked back up the hill;

the flash photography of sun

on rain- glossed pavements.

I am travelling incognito,

reading a book I have re-titled

‘Do Not Disturb’.

Still a voice drags me off the page,

out of Carver’s ‘Afghanistan’,

it’s demanding

‘Which stop is it for the bus station?

I’ve got to get to Nottingham

or some place miles from here!’

I force myself to answer

‘I think it’s the one after next’,

and then, because I feel I have to,

 ‘my sister lives near there’,

but he’s screaming ‘I’m leaving before I kill her

or she kills me!’

Beyond the mirrored windscreens

starving Gothic arches roar

above the Portakabins

On College Green

A camera crew is waiting

For news to happen

While the bus trundles

inexorably

towards our stops.

© Deborah Harvey

From Collage: The Best of Poetry Space 2010 and one of the runners up in Poetry Space Competition 2010, judged by Philip Lyons

G.B

I saw George Best

on a bench today
he was leaning forward
legs crossed
all angles, elbows and joints
smoking
spittle grey beard
straggle haired
I stopped the car
and shouted :
"George"
he nodded knocking accidental ash from ciggy
"were has the magic gone?"
he looked up
dropped the dog end
it fell in a floating spiral
with one touch of his knee
one twist of his hip
the Strettford End rose
the gasp before...
toe to ball
past man after stock still man
looped the ball over Wilson
as the match was lit
pandemonium ensued.
Sparks hit the floor
George said :
"Andy were's yours?"
I flickered through the reel
trawled the back catalogue
looked at my disshevelled hair
my bruised arms
and said:
"George, I never found it"

Andy Scotson

Today's offering is from regular Poetry Space supporter Andy Scotson. I thought it would entertain...

Bumble-bee

The wind is at my window

as a bee comes storming in –

big burly bumbler banging

at blurred glass and stained timber.

He hurls himself around

buzzing like a pylon in a thunderstorm.

He spurns my hat

doffed to guide him out.

He zooms like a space-ship

on edge to be off to the stars.

As his fury grows, I shrink.

His roaring envelops me.

If this were the war

he would be a bomber

broody with high explosive

over crystal city.

But he’s found the gap and is away

helter-skelter over the brambles

out of my muddle into the storm.

I draw the curtains across the wind.

© Martin Bates

This one comes from Green Spaces: poems from Poetry Space Competition 2011 and was highly commended by judge Rose Flint. The remit for the competition was for poets to write on green themes, green spaces that had personal or wider meaning.

This is well worth a read and is available from the online shop

Shoes

I do not possess lots of shoes,
my last pair sufficed all my needs
for several years,
just those, and Wellingtons mean there is
little chance for anybody else,
even if they want to be,
in my shoes.

Once when officially sized,
I went home with leather uppers and
a compass in the sole,
safe in the knowledge that I would always
be able to find my way home,
except I couldn’t,
in my shoes.
My brother’s shoes would fit,
they always did at some point in
my development,
by then I would ensure that the soles
were split or puncture them,
so I didn’t have to,
wear his shoes.
Once a dear friend of mine,
who had been drinking
beyond control,
got up semi conscious and put
on his wife’s stilettos by mistake,
he fell down the stairs,
in her shoes
I’ve met people occasionally,
and thought how wonderful their
life must be,
seeing only the façade that they wish to reveal
that can be misleading,
and I’d think I’d like to be,
in their shoes.
Shoes are a funny thing,
that we may want to wear someone else’s
or they yours,
until we walk behind our first impressions
and find we don’t exactly fit,
how we thought,
into their shoes.

© Simon Bridges

This poem was published in the Poetry Space Showcase in August 2010.
Simon later went on to publish a book Sepia and Silence (Matador) and you can buy it through the Poetry Space online shop.

I am a beautiful woman, walking

        along a river, along a beach, over a bridge,

my feet crunching on stones and sand, making

gentle thuds as they connect with the earth.

I am a beautiful woman, walking.

I choose to survive,

I am honouring my ancestors:

the beautiful women who walk with me.

I think of warrior women, walking

I think of wise women, walking

I think of strong women, walking.

For years I have not known who I am.

Now, I find answers in the arc of a duck’s wing as it

takes flight,  in a seagull’s throat as it chokes out its cry,

in the sunshine on my back, the glass-glitter of water.

I find answers in the rhythm of walking:

along a river, along a beach, over a bridge.

I am the past and the present and the future.

I am a beautiful woman walking, honouring

my ancestors, myself, my children, the future

warrior women, listening to the sound of the sea

and the timeless rhythm of feet.

© Louisa Adjoa Parker 

The above poem was published on the Poetry Space website in November 2009 when I was still publishing monthly selections of poems and before Poetry Space became a company. This was to happen in February 2010. I was very pleased though that even at this stage Poetry Space was attracting a high standard of submission. This exceptional one by Louisa Adjoa Parker later found its ways into Collage, the best of Poetry Space 2010 which included all the poems from our first year alongside the winning and highly commended poems from Poetry Space Competition 2010, judged by Philip Lyons.

Tree on the Drostdy Lawns

Perhaps you will cast down only

whatever it is you want to,

whatever it is you need to cast down:

moths and manna, coins, rain and silver goblets,

your roots aching with that elemental

longing of a child’s outstretched arms,

pulling in, holding on, needing.

Perhaps your sky is hot, or misted cool,

or only really there when the weather

moves, when you too are cast down beneath it,

clouded in leaves, twigs, branches, birds.

Perhaps my roots and yours, my gifts

and yours, my span and yours are one;

perhaps, after all, we’re the same.

© Harry Owen

Highly commended in Poetry Space Competition 2011

From Green Spaces anthology published by Poetry Space Ltd, 2011

The anthology contains the winning and commended poems from Poetry Space Competition 2011, chosen by Rose Flint.

The Kindness of Strangers

I

Pete cuts my bread roll

butters it, and

spreads the marmalade.

I expect you’re not supposed to do this, I say.

No, but... I think

If it was me

I would want someone to do it for me.

My eyes fill,

tears run down my face,

and drip onto my plate.

Pete looks so anxious - that I lie

 I’m fine, I say

It’s just the pain in my arm.

He moves on to the next bed.

I cried - because

this man I do not know

was kind to me.

II

My Weetabix comes in a plastic bowl,

the yellow wrapper bright and shiny.

Brenda unwraps it for me.

I went to town on Friday, she confides,

and bought some new boots.

Milk is sloshed onto the Weetabix

islands marooned in a white sea.

They’re brown suede

and have lovely stitching ‘round the top.

I nod

Got them cheap I did ‘cos they were last year’s style,

they couldn’t sell them - too tight they were on people’s calves.

I’ve got lovely slim calves, she says

raising the hem of her uniform to show me.

They’ve got furry lining

so I won’t have to wear tights with them.

I start spooning my cereal - now sloppy

in its white disposable bowl.

Tea or coffee? Brenda asks me

wielding the giant teapot over the cups

Tea, I say.

Half price they were, she continues, a real bargain.

She looks pleased.

Brenda stirs my tea for me,

and places it in reach

You’re trouble you are, she says - and winks.

She moves her trolley on to the next bed

Tea or coffee?

© Sylvia Perry

From A Kindness, published by Poetry Space Ltd in 2013

Footnote: The ward domestics – “Pete” and “Brenda”