In My Sister’s Arms
When she boarded the ship off the coast of Libya,
waters were calm and skies flat blue.
She stayed afloat with refugees for days,
sharing rice and beans, stories
of their left-behinds, never to be seen again
abodes. And as they winched down
in smaller boats headed for Italy or Greece,
these brief friends would call up to her on deck,
wave for an iPhone shot, a huddle
of lean, smiling youths, full of hope.
A few of them she said, proposed.
And I could see that, in their eyes,
a longing for the comforts of a home.
One night the medics called all ship’s visitors
from their bunks to help with casualties.
My sister, confused and dull with sleep,
sat hard upon the sodden deck, held out her arms,
propped up an eight-months pregnant teen,
who had ingested gasoline-laced water.
They sat, two girls not so many years apart,
their tangled hair and faces close,
light and shadows reflecting on their hands,
and here this strong girl gasped and thrashed for hours,
while doctors raced to save the choking crowd,
to clear the fumes, the oils, the many watered lungs,
and here this young girl and her unborn child,
went still, quite still
Marie-Louise Eyres received her MFA from MMU in 2020 after a multiple brain tumour diagnosis in 2018. Her work can be found in recent editions of Shearsman, Acumen, Agenda, Poetry Magazine, Portland Review, Stand, and the anthologies for the Bridport, Bedford, Live Canon and Ginkgo AONB prizes. She has six pamphlets with the following small presses; Maverick Duck, Ghost City, Alien Buddha & Finishing Line. Originally from London she lives in California with her family
Note: This poems was long listed in the National Poetry Competition in 2020
Postcard to a war zone
In late February
war returned, and
lay itself down between us.
Even at this distance
the singed edged flakes
of cinder dust
dropped. Covering
our uncovered heads in grief.
They had told us it was gone from here.
Cathy Symes is a poet and writer living in Nottingham.
What my grandfather said when I asked if he believed in monsters
Y’know, I asked my big brother the same question when my grandma’s ghost stories got in my head,
the rest of the week he tormented me – jumping from behind things, roaring and chasing.
It was never teeth or biting when he caught me, just my giggles of despair, and an onslaught of tickling.
Even if there was a hungry thing in the closet, I felt safe knowing my big brother would protect me.
If I had nightmares then the monster stalking was totally different to the one’s that now torture,
that squat in my head – awake or in bed – that I can never forget, not like your scary movies.
‘Cause when monsters came, it wasn’t night, it was broad daylight – kicking up a brazen cloud,
that dust storm was our only warning, our little valley was a cloven hoof-print of what was coming.
They didn’t come screaming, nor supernatural; but humanoid, organised, mechanized, methodical.
It was over just like that, the first blow they landed stole our voice, our ability to think, our head;
snuffed out our brightest candles – our poets/teachers/scientists/leaders/fighters/elders.
Without our head all we could do was twitch, marched off with no idea of where we’re being led.
My mother begged one monster – where were we being taken? His answer galloped on laughter –
To nowhere, to nothing.
We got more than nothing, nowhere was oblivion, they found over a million ways to send my kin there –
cast out, raped, erased everyone I knew – my father, mother, grandma, my big brother too.
Some call this a tall tale, deny it even happened, even if our near annihilation was the blueprint
for even more infamous systematic killing, the architect of it would name us inspiration.
A clever man would need to invent a sharp word to name this scale of murder inflicted on one people,
when free world politicians wield that word – it blunts as they bang it noisily on their shield,
chanting never again, again and again, but each repeat sounds more like not them, not then.
I tell you, despite everything I witnessed there are powers that insist in war our fate was just,
no acquiesce despite all my attempts, humour me like a child crying at the bogeyman,
this legacy is mine and yours, it’s not imagination,
no question if I believe in monsters, Child,
I have seen them.
Joseph Nutman finds his poetic voice in the tension between nature, psyche, and society. He lives in Hertfordshire and does the majority of his writing outside not far from where John Clare scrounged a pint on his infamous walk home. He is on instagram @joseph_nutman
Note: In tribute to the victims of the Armenian Genocide. An extermination that claimed millions of lives and made many refugees, and – to this day – is not formally or officially acknowledged by the government of the United Kingdom.