Cherry of London
And if I could put myself back
into that long, dark hall of coats,
my hands reaching up to stroke
the untouchable suede
while you laboured in the kitchen,
sloshing clothes in and out of the tub,
washing the pans, the windows, the floor,
cold and pale as soap,
if I were back there now
listening for the door, knowing how
your spine would curve into low flat notes
drawn from a cello,
your voice seep away through cracks
in overheard mornings,
knowing that your eyes would unfix
and soften that windswept crabapple
heart,
and that, one day,
your beautiful untouchable suede,
blazoned Cherry of London,
would be hanging, still perfect, in my own
junkshop house, unblemished by rain
or breath, or fingers,
if I could be that child again
and know you now,
what would I say?
Jane Lovell has been widely published in journals and anthologies. She won the Flambard Prize in 2015. Publications include One Tree by Night River Wood, Metastatic from Against the Grain Poetry Press, and Forbidden, a limited edition portfolio from Coast to Coast to Coast.
A pint at the shifting sky
On cold October evenings
I look for the girls who sit on the wall
of the George the Sixth
bottles of cider to their lips
two cans of orange spray paint
burning a hole in the carrier bag at their feet
THE CLASH DAVID BOWIE NEW BOOTS AND PANTIES!!
graffitied in fiery letters
over the underpass walls
but they’ve gone and the stars are fallen
smashed to a rubble of glass underfoot
and I’d go for a pint but the king’s lost his head
and the sign on the forecourt says
it’s now called the shifting sky
Deborah Harvey’s poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies, and broadcast on Radio 4’s Poetry Please. Her fourth poetry collection, ‘The Shadow Factory’, will be published by Indigo Dreams in 2019. Deborah is co-director of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy.
I’m Not Changing my Name
because it is me
my baggage, foibles, self
because I love the misspellings
because I will be “ambitious”,
“pert” and “forward”.
because my life began at birth
because I am not first a wife.
Maggie Mackay is a jazz and whisky loving MA graduate from Manchester Metropolitan University. One of her poems is included in the award-winning #MeToo anthology while others have been nominated for The Forward Prize, Best Single Poem and for the Pushcart Prize.Her pamphlet The Heart of the Run is published by Picaroon Poetry.
(Previously published on https://celebratingchange.blog/2017/10/16/im-not-changing-my-name-by-maggie-mckay/)