Denise Bennett

Quaker Meeting

The door to the garden is open
a blackbird breaks the silence –

and we listen to his ministry
clear notes from the chimney stack.

Someone speaks about the sadness
of women soldiers drawn to war –

how they will carry guns, be trained
in combat to kill –

and still the blackbird trills his song
his curtain calling aria.

It’s not about feminism or equal rights –
its about nurture …

Gathered in stillness, our thoughts turn
to women who will learn to murder.

Denise Bennett has an MA in creative writing and runs poetry workshops in
community settings. Her poems have been widely published. She has two full length collections, Planting the Snow Queen and Parachute Silk by Oversteps Books and a forthcoming collection, Water Chits by Indigo Dreams.

Ren Chun Ho

fall sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
No thanks, in fact you don’t resemble
the sweating city under sun’s ray,
or swollen song of birds ensemble,

nor too the resting mist on wet cocoons,
or comfort from the silky beach sand
rolling from tightly curtained bedrooms
through my silent and awaiting hand.

I will admit I wonder whether we
pace the exhibits of a cold museum
or whether the already burning sea
must rest longer on healing alluvium –

So, I compare you to the day I remember.
In touch, inside the first rain of October.

Ren Chun Ho has published a collection of poetry, Shrines and Streetlights, with Ethos Books, and his work has been collected in the anthology A Luxury We Cannot Afford. He is a third-year politics and sociology student at the University of Cambridge, where he won the Brewer-Hall Poetry Prize 2017, and founded the Cambridge University Poetry and Prose Society.

Ken Taylor

New Beginnings

She was at a crossroad.
He was driving in unfamiliar territory.
Their eyes met
Brown and blue, blue and brown.

The moment passed in an instant.
He was still driving, but had met a guide,
She was still sitting, yet no longer alone.

Distance grew, yet time stood still.
Time passed, yet no distance grew.
Earth and sky, sky and earth.

She was in unfamiliar territory.
He was at a crossroads ..

When Ken Taylor was ten years old he
had a teacher with a love of stories and
verse whose enthusiasm was infectious:
she submitted one of his very first poems
to a BBC radio programme, where it was
read out for its descriptive portrayal of
nature. Some four decades later, detailed
observation and special experiences remain
the warp and weft into which he
embroiders his playful love of words.

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