Great Collection of Poems

What will we do when the flags come down
and the fuss is all over and done;
when the tears of pride have all been shed
and the last of the medals have been won;
and, when the cameras cease to roll
and the crowds all go home to their beds,
and the field of dreams gleams gold no more
and doubt creeps into our heads,
I wonder what will distract us then
from the very fine mess we’re in
since we’ve had the bloody Jubilee
and they can’t pull that stunt again;
and we’ve had the Royal Wedding, too,
and now it’s Team GB.
What next, I wonder: could it be
a right royal pregnancy?

© Abigail Wyatt

Britain goes gold crazy

Abigail is one of the three founding members of the Red River Poets. The latter will be appearing at the Heartlands Project in Cornwall, 29th September, as part of 100 Thousand Poets for Change. 

In the time it takes

to skim a ten line poem

he springs from the blocks

as his legs and arms shove

his heartbeat ahead

of all the singletted others

until beyond the tape

he raises one finger,

but it was in this time

what we read in replays

is what his rhythm made.

© Bob Cooper

Usain Bolt sets Olympic record in 100

Bob Cooper won 5 pamphlet Competitions between 1994 and 2000. He’s just won another and a Pamphlet will be published by Ward Wood later this year. His last full length collection is still available here.

Kofi Annan stepped into blood on streets,
slipped and slithered between army and rookie
fighters.  He held his head high inside a secure
circle of nations shooting spitballs across crushed
bones, empty i.v. lines, children’s bodies in linen,
all paraded on TV screens in spotless offices
where men rested, in fresh shirts, on soft chairs,
and moved chess pieces, snacked on fresh fruit.
But Kofi Annan did not rest, he flew to Moscow,
to Damascus, courted the Arab League, NATO,
sent in a team of blue helmeted observers, talked
nonstop with suits, heads in sand, minds blocked.
He gave his all as he passed by bronzed thrones,
silver dress swords, but only he was worthy of gold.

© Lavinia Kumar

Syria crisis: Annan's exit marks end of diplomatic track

Lavinia Kumar lives in New Jersey. Her poetry has appeared in several publications, in the US and UK. She writes a blog for her brother’s seniorsmagazine.org, based in Portsmouth, NH.

As expected, we've had a couple of Olympic poems this week - beginning with Steve Regan's blistering attack on The Evil Games with its 'tarnished gold', 'rancid anthems' and 'being about /winning instead of the /important stuff of life, /which is mainly about losing.' Even Vala Hafstad's series of limericks The Animals' Olympics Report hinted at darker truths about marketing and one-up-manship.

For all our heroic aspirations, how sad it is, says Abigail Wyatt in Dark Days: a Reflection on Our Time, 'when the tribe no longer will carry its sick / but leaves them by the wayside to die' - a poignant poem inspired by a threat to disability and sickness benefits which has gone under-reported in the UK due to Olympic fever.

If this sounded like The Door to Hell - it isn't, that's in Turmenistan according to Craig Guthrie. But sometimes hell is a closed door, like those described by the ex-prisoners Lavina Kumar writes about so movingly in Just draw the sun on the wall.

What will we think looking back on all this? Noel Loftus has some ideas on that in Vision Twenty Twenty. But then hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it?

We're very low on submissions at the moment, and we're happy to have more Olympic Games!

Have a good week
Clare (& Martin)

The games have begun in the city.
The fight for the medals ain´t pretty.
We heard there were spies
With government ties
Who helped win the gold ­– it’s a pity.

The humans hold games in the city.
We´re watching the races with pity.
We run faster than most.
Yet, we don’t even boast.
We cheetahs are humble and pretty.

The swimmers look slow and amusing.
They think they are flying and cruising.
Without flippers or tail,
Not a chance they’ll prevail.
To dolphins and whales they’d be losing.

We chimps don’t throw javelins ever,
But we are amazingly clever,
For a spear we can throw
With the ease of a pro –
A gold-winning, special endeavor.

It’s hard to watch men when they’re leaping.
Compared to us champions, they’re creeping.
Competition is steep
When we bush babies leap.
If matched against us, they’d be weeping.

We’re watching the games in the city.
The marketing race isn’t pretty.
It’s a fight, we are told,
For the market share gold,
Controlled by the planning committee.

As humans play games in the city,
We watch them with ever more pity,
As their national pride
Makes their champions collide.
Signed,
     Animal Expert Committee.

© Vala  Hafstad

Vala lives in Minnesota.  She enjoys writing humorous poems.

Animal Olympians: Nature's track and field stars
Long Before London Games, James Bond Tactics

jeered the prison guard, after our inmate
strike of twenty-two days for more sunlight.
Released after twelve, eighteen, twenty, thirty
years we stayed up all night to see sunrise,
and colors – red shirts, skirts, flowers, green hills,
trees, the beach, and blue sky, bicycles, sea.

Touch had changed.  Smooth faces were wrinkled,
a child left at two had his own of five,
and we could turn a handle, touch a door,
open it, shake hands with friends, a stranger,
feel grass or sand under our feet.  But
if your touch woke us up we’d surely scream.

News had changed.  We became human beings.
But we felt like strangers at home, with friends –
except from prison.  We were not heroes.
TVs had remotes, shops self-moving doors.
We had to learn to choose shoes, our own clothes,
how to spend money, and fight the bad dreams.

There were no masks in prison, though we find
them outside.  We could not lie to roommates
so we shared thoughts – we read books, learned to think,
learned to read faces, words.  And to see
liars in many of the world leaders.
So we still resist now that we’ve been freed.

© Lavinia Kumar

Beyond the Walls

Lavinia Kumar lives in New Jersey. Her poetry has appeared in several publications, in the US and UK. She writes a blog for her brother’s seniorsmagazine.org, based in Portsmouth, NH. 

These days the mornings grow darker and darker,
and I fear they’re growing harder too,
though the sun may sometimes consent to shine
and the small birds sing Te Deums in the trees;
still, the gathering clouds are deeper than doubt,
and the shadows cast are chillier and longer;
while the earth grumbles and stirs awake
as though some sleeping Titan quakes.

Perhaps I am old and disposed to sadness
since old age is the season for weeping;
a butterfly but crosses my path
and my heart will break in my boots;
but I think instead it is something else,
something like a loss of fellow feeling
when the tribe no longer will carry its sick
but leaves them by the wayside to die.

© Abigail Wyatt

Disability tests 'sending sick and disabled back to work'

Abigail is one of the three founding members of the Red River Poets. The latter will be appearing at the Heartlands Project in Cornwall, 29th September, as part of 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

Where borders are straight
Imagined by kings
Eretz elders dictate
Levant youth take to slings
Too many seduced
Some take the stage
Range now reduced
Some will engage

Many horrors were preached
By cloth left immune
‘Til Aswan was breached
Then Zion’s balloon 
Boundaries burned
Re-invented again
Crusader returned
Purred kosher hymn

© Noel Loftus

Syria gears up for Aleppo assault

Noel Loftus is a fellow member of ward9writers from Mayo in the west of Ireland. In his forties, he is married, with two children, and currently works as a buyer for a safety supplies company.