Gary Allen

The letter.

And soon the trees will be bare again
and someone will bring a letter –
for that was when a letter was important
not just a buzz in your pocket
or a badly digitised classical tune

and you could see the letter coming from some distance
off
leaving you time to imagine or fret

so, what was in the letter?
I don’t know, but it could be a summons or a confession
or a relative who is already dead
a gesture of love or ending
stretched between opening and reading

if your world should suddenly collapse between finger 
and thumb
there would be an eternity

and the footsore messenger on the causeway
and the rain breaking open the sky
and the sad trees beginning to sway and moan
postmarked Amsterdam or Berlin.

Gary Allen was born in Ballymena, Co.Antrim. He was born into a large working-class family, received a basic education in primary and secondary schools, before going to college, where he studied mechanical engineering. Many of his poems are written about Europe, focusing on the poor, the misaligned, the victims (usually women) in society, often charged with a sexual connotation. Other poems use metaphors for ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland, the cruelty, viciousness, randomness of two opposed positions that destroy the lives and the society around them, making him one of the most important and distinctive poets in Ireland of his generation.

Jacob Lotinga

From‘An Algarve Sketchbook’

East Asian Thought by a Portuguese Pool

Deckchairs – an impeccable retort,
neatly arrayed beside a shimmering pool,
to all that’s gloomiest in Buddhist thought:
no suffering today! That blissful cool
will make you feel that you can levitate,
while shifting shapes of light and shadow play,
and sun’s caress and blanket’s warmth await:
this is decidedly a Daoist day.

Why be ashamed? Draw sweetness from each ray:
you’re destined, with sun-worshippers, to strive
without striving; call it wu wei
or what you will. It’s good to be alive,
with hardly a wisp of white in the boundless dome,
and eyes half-blinded, as when you emerged from the womb.

 

To Palms on the Seafront

Palm trees on parade
like giant elongated pineapples
prodding the sky from a white, cobbled pavement,
I’ve seen you wave
ingenious deep-green fronds like paper cuttings
freshly completed –
show them off to teacher!

Cheerleaders
dancing defiant in drizzle,
come back with me and cheer my spirits there.

Could you adjust to the dreary country I’m from –
lift our morale and solve our political problems?
Could you forget the breakers, the boardwalk, the gulls,
the chatter in Portuguese, the promise of warmth?

Palm trees – pineapples, cheerleaders –
I’m not sure I could bear to chop you down,
remove you from the habitat you know.
Logistically, it would be difficult:
strapping you on to the roof of the shuttle bus
and then the plane: “We’re having some turbulence
from palm trees…”

I’ll have to leave you behind,
but shake once more: I’ll carry you in my mind.

 

The Workaholic on Holiday

…is not very good at relaxing.
Gazing out at the waves is too taxing!
So she thinks up some task
and thus fashion a mask
for compulsive behaviour. No basking,

no pottering poolside – not she!
And no dipping of toes in the sea.
If such things are done,
they must not be for fun
but conducted most seriously.

Jacob grew up in Nottingham-shire, studied Modern Languages at university, and has lived for extended periods in South Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, and Italy. Jacob is currently based in Sheffield, UK.

Virginia Betts

An Afternoon Walk.

It is after midday,
And, filled with wine and warm food,
We flatten the wet grass
With clumsy trudge.

Leaves reveal the sun’s prismatic flashes,
Intermittent arrows that offer
Blind comfort.

The damp air smells of twilight,
Though the day’s hardly done.
And each stone, weather-worn,
Deflects a close inspection,
In shades of shadowy blue.

We tiptoe around the grassy mounds,
I, imagining the shivering rows, turning,
Where we step,
Disturbed.

We hold hands, but I am
Not there.
I think I hear ancient hymns drift and catch
On the breeze,
And whispered voices slip from slumber,
Diffuse across time, without words.

All that remains is a feeling.
The chipped and crumbling stone fragments;
My thoughts dissemble into shards
On the grass.

And I am in this earth –
This soft, brown, enveloping ground,
Absorbed,
Where no light or sound
Can reach me.

This strange, bleak and hollow silence,
Surrounds me fold on fold,
Where no bird sings,
And stories never told
Fight to surface.

I hear the distant mower drone,
And lamb bleats murmur,
While high above, an engine of the past
Hums peacefully across the sky,
The thin smoke trail connecting you, and I

To be wrapped within this silent world;
To cease to be;
Where all deeds die,
And somehow slip away

In time, we are all just stories;
Our vain attempts to make our mark,
Melt like sandstone in rain;
Like chalk into dust.

Our names carved in art
Fail to be indelible,
And who knows
Who lies here?

Our fingers find their meeting point.
I think this moment should be suspended.
For jealous Time trivialises the relentless
Crawl upon the wheel,
And shatters us,
Scattering our thoughts to be blown to the wind.

Virginia graduated from Essex University with a degree in Literature, and later gained a postgraduate degree in teaching English. She taught for 15 years, then set up her tuition business, Results Tutoring, where she indulges her passion for literary analysis whilst
helping her students to achieve their potential. The written word creates a visceral sensation in Virginia; poetry is her preferred method of emotional expression. Her other obsessions are
swimming and violin playing.