Briege Duffaud

2020

Right from the start the TV news
resembled Sci-fi books I used to read
by torchlight under blankets
breathless at events unthinkable
in my feather-pillowed wool-warmed Convent world.
The Kraken rose from suntan-friendly waves,
Martians blow-torched London.
That was fiction.

Truth then was our First Communion quiz:
Who made the world? God made the world
for His own glory, Man’s use and benefit.

It came with warnings though: The fire next time.
We thought that was a metaphor,
forgetting how he drowned the whole place once
in a vengeful tantrum, with far less cause
than Man’s misuse of His creation.
That was fiction, maybe.

Truth now seemed a while
to be that kangaroo poised like the last dinosaur
against red sky, black bones of houses.

We thought: the future?
Till green leaves began to sprout
from torched trees and ashy earth
like the olive twig an optimistic dove
gifted to Noah.
Then someone ate a pangolin
or dropped a test-tube in a lab, whatever ….
Can fiction better that?

Briege Duffaud is Northern Irish but most of her adult life has been spent in England and France. She has worked as a freelance journalist before publishing two novels and a short story collection. She has been writing poetry since 2016. She lives in South-West London.

Bibhu Padhi

A Picture of Late Winter

Clouds move towards
the west in a flight
towards rest and sleep.

Somewhere, a prayer
issues from a deserted voice.

All of those who have
forgotten their sleep

in course of centuries,
over vast continents
of dreams, are awake

to listen to the night sounds,
feel an old wound perspiring
in spite of blessings and winter.

Birds re-locate their homes
even as we spell their names.

Bibhu Padhi is an Indian poet and writer. He writes in English and Oriya languages. He is also a literary critic and translator. He has written several books. Padhi joined Ravenshaw College’s (now Ravneshaw University and where he was educated) Department of English in 1974 and was teaching there until 1981 and later from 1985 to 1992. He was also Counsellor for Odisha branch of the Open University (IGNOU). He has 11 volumes of poems written in English.

Marc Woodward

Daffodils

There were guards on the bridge spanning the Oder,
Slubice, the other East Germany.
They smiled at my mother and called to her
to have a cigarette, pass a little time.
She laughed, gently declined and we walked on
along the bank to where the daffodils grew wild.
My mother let go of my hand so she could pick
and I could run. As I ran I would bless
the swaying daffodil blooms with my small palms.
I’ve never felt so free again.
Back on the bridge
a guard whistled. Beside us the steady river
wound away my mother’s cares.
Now every Spring
I come to England to work in the fields
picking daffodils. I wear gloves and mostly
don’t recall how those bobbing yellow heads
brushed my hands.
Mostly I just bend and pick,
determined and quick, moving from row to row.
But sometimes I drink and think then of that border town
and the Oder, quietly unwinding, grey and slow,
the whistling guard and the small daffodils of home.

Marc Woodward is a poet and musician living in the English West Country – an environment much in evidence in his writing. He has been widely published in journals and anthologies. Recent collections include A Fright of Jays (Maquette Press 2015), and Hide Songs (Green Bottle Press 2018). He was recently awarded a writing residency at The Wellstone Center in The Redwoods, Santa Cruz, CA., and his poem ‘Luigi’s Calendar’ was shortlisted for the 2018 Bridport Prize.