I Wish This Phone Had a Better Camera

I need to show you these sunsets/
feisty last breaths/coral on flamingo/blood
yellow carcass/tiny theatre/blazing deaths/o soothing
apocalypse, haul my agitations on your olden back/blue borne/ shallow
purple/day vanquished/deft dip/off-black relief/pledged resurrection/
o so… very… pretty

Helen Anderson writes poetry and prose in a small town on the North Yorkshire coast. Her debut poetry pamphlet ‘Sagrada Familia’ was published by Nine Pens Press in 2022. www.facebook.com/helenvictoriaanderson

Written by Candlelight in March  

When the light returns

I will remind the garden.

Along with the robins

who have cast off

their Christmas card coyness

to mate.

They’ll say and I’ll agree

that every worm-blind soul

must immerse themselves

in soil.

Embrace a pot plant

as worthy as an acre

pausing only for birdsong –

any bird

or in their absence

a child.

Sue Johns originates from Cornwall where she started performing as a punk poet, in the 1980’s. Publications include Hush (Morgan’s Eye Press, 2011) , Rented, Poems on Prostitution and Dependency (Palewell Press, 2018) and Track Record  (Dempsey & Windle, 2021). She was highly commended in the Prole pamphlet and the Amnesty International competition. She has an MA (distinction) in Writing Poetry from Newcastle University/ The Poetry School.

Her work has appeared in anthologies such as can You Hear the People Sing (Palewell Press, 2020), Alter Egos (Bad Betty, 2019) Welling Up (Palewell Press, 2019) and Time for Song, Contemporary Cornish Poetry ( Morgan’s Eye Press, 2009), Ver Prize anthology, 2022 and magazines including Poetry News, The Morning Star, Southbank Poetry, Dreich, The Atlanta Review, Prole, The Alchemy Spoon, Brittle Star, The Big Issue, London Grip, Dream Catcher, Black Iris, Tears in the Fence, Orbis, Magma, Obsessed by Pipework and Culture Matters

https://www.suejohns.co.uk

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