Christmas at the Poundland Plaza
Under a concrete sky heavy with snow
a zig-zag disabled access path
leads from the car park to the mall
across the Poundland Plaza.
Hot air escaping through the sliding doors
spirals a drift of balance statements
and receipts from winking cash machines.
Here, for Christmas, stands a sculpture─
The Angel of Peace ─a winged torso
buzzed into sandstone by electric saws,
and in the gathering dark, a few small birds
are settling for the night among the fragile
branches of two stunted birches
garlanded with trembling violet icicles.
Lindy Barbour lives in rural Lanarkshire and is a psychotherapist and university teacher. Her current interests are history, fairy tales and intergenerational trauma. Twitter: @ampherlaw1 Instagram: barbourlindy
A Drug Dealer sells to a Minor in Morrisons to the theme tune from ‘The Snowman’
My eyes are wet, even before Freddy enters the café.
They’re playing The Snowman theme.
Highland flings and melted friends. Heart-wrenching.
Now it’s ‘The Snowman’ theme and Freddy.
Freddy used to have extra reading with me when I came to help out at St. Stephen’s.
Freddy has been thrown out of school.
Freddy is the same age as my son.
Freddy and an older guy with a tattooed dog stare at each other across the table.
Everything is wrong.
‘Children gaze, open-mouthed. Taken by surprise’.
Something hidden is passed across the table.
Freddy doesn’t look like Freddy.
Piss holes in the proverbial.
He’s smiling, but he isn’t.
I fix my judgment eyes on them.
Not Freddy so much.
Not really.
But that gobby man he’s with who less than ten minutes ago
was giving out about the Government.
Those savage heartless bastards took away my home!
We’re walking…in the….
Freddy spots me and pockets something quickly.
The dealer continues moaning about Tories stealing his money.
Look at him.
Hypocrite.
And look at me.
An hour ago in the church.
Singing carols. Praying.
Michelle Diaz has been published by numerous journals and online publications, e.g Under the Radar, Poetry Wales, Lighthouse and Live Canon.Her debut pamphlet The Dancing Boy was published by Against the Grain Poetry Press in 2019. She is currently working on her first full collection.
Sleeping Arrangements
Here they are! Spilling off Mega-buses and jammed trains,
back for the vac, bags crammed with unwrapped gifts,
heartache, and hangovers; shrinking to squeeze into spaces
they left as teenagers (those awkward conversations with new ‘friends’
abandoned like slut’s wool under college beds, ‘cos Christmas
is ‘family time,’ and England expects) – and underneath the arches
there’s newspaper duvets and a cardboard mattress,
a cup of Sally Army soup, and non-stop
Christmas bloody jingles from the Seven to Eleven store,
and, circling the city streets in the very last taxi,
a woman in labour, with a stunned husband,
and one of them at least is wondering
where they might lay their heads that night,
and whether their journey was really necessary?
Hannah Stone has published four volumes of poetry, including Swn y Morloi, the inaugural volume for Maytree Press, who are published her latest book Reflections: a poet-theologian in Lockdown Leeds in March 2021. She edits Dream Catcher journal, collaborates with other poets, musicians and artists and facilitates various poetry events in Leeds.