Watching the ‘Strictly’ Results Show on a Sunday night
 
Knowing what we know about the pain of the world,
who wins and who loses might feel like a betrayal.

Oh walk with me up the slippery lane
when the frost has turned to ice.

Wear a coat, you’ll pass through light rain at the wood-edge
under Helmeth. Sing loudly, so the snakes can hear you.

Nature Is Healing

It constructs membranes
between its most powerful organs,
filters pathogens hidden in boats.

When I read my poem about stretch marks

you said it was a funny thing
to write about. I felt a flare,
low down, an orange hazed ember
you’d have to blow into life.

. . . On the edge
of sleep it comes snuffling
through leaf litter and we forget
bed; the cold prickling
our bones.

Monks spend days shaping mandalas
with coloured sand in intricate lines
as an offering, then blow them away.

Wait, I’m talking.
It’s my turn.
Be patient.
It takes me a while.
I have to work it out.

Your focused eyes on a box of plantain.
Deep concentration making them filled
more brown than white.
A different mouth asks if they sell iru.

-Rhian Parker

My cockatiel, Pippin, has learned to listen
for that particular resigned sigh of the bus
as it passes the living room window
and shrieks whenever he hears it.

-Madailín Burnhope

you wanna know if it screams like a man or a girl?
i want to rip a throat out
teeth bared
growling
guttural
it builds in the back of my throat
i scream like an animal
sick of losing siblings

-mithago