I have now deleted from my life,
An army man and an army wife,
Though it sliced me like the knife,
I saw no option.

I questioned not the courage there,
Nor intent to prove a care,
Nor the man of action rare,
But blind obedience.

If I am a parcel of vain strivings tied,
It is a horse’s conscience you provide,
So friendship for truth’s sake has died,
And suffered greatly.

It was the praise of Harry’s sin,
Applauded seven seconds in,
His ominous and passing grin,
Precisely seven seconds in,
That ominous and passing grin,
Which tipped me over.

I've not the time to argue, or,
The energy to make case for,
The pulling from all foreign war,
While ignorance of this magnitude reigns.

© Craig Guthrie

Prince Harry in Afghanistan

Craig Guthrie is from Wirral, UK. You can read more of his work on his blog, Satan is Biting My Ankle

Time and tide wait
For no man they say
But here the tide swallows
The whole of the bay.

Where once we called home
The ocean laps high
We swam and we paddled
And we waved it goodbye.

But the waves kept on coming
And still they rise now
Oh to stem back the waters
I wish I knew how.

I'll wait for that message
A voice in the dark
To tell me that it's time
To begin on my ark.

© James Bessant

Sea Change: the Bay of Bengal's vanishing islands

James lives in London, and has been writing stories and poems for some years. His blog can be found at jamesbessant.blogspot.co.uk

Here at Poetry 24 the week didn't start until Tuesday. I am not sure quite what happened there but, generally, it has been that sort of week. Since my new laptop gave up the ghost very early on Monday morning I have been in a state of solemn and desperate mourning. Yes, I know I still have my iPad but it really isn't the same.

For one thing, I have had to rely on Hamish and Michael to keep the poems coming. (Without a laptop the necessary formatting just cannot be done.) For another, the trauma associated with the loss has impacted on my own writing. I have produced one poem and half a short story. It really isn't enough.

Thankfully, our contributors have done rather better. Maeve Heneghan opened on a powerful note with her spare and uncompromising 'Justice and the Beast', a poem which we were pleased to see elicited much comment. Our thanks go to all those who took the time to register their support for justice for women. Regular readers will know that it is a cause close to my heart.

Equally powerful and also much appreciated both by readers and fellow contributors was Philip Johnson's  'eve of holocaust memorial day' with its haunting image of the man 'wearing striped pyjamas'.  In the words of our own  David Subbacchi, it was both 'concise' and 'mysterious'.

Thursday and Friday brought us back to the story with which we started the week and it is clear that there are issues here that resonate for many of our readers. First, Amy Barry communicated to us something of the anguish that must have been felt by Fiona Doyle as, in the wake of her father's trial, she found herself obliged to continue 'Her Life Sentence'. As someone who, in her early teens had taste this kind of 'justice', what I found most powerful about this poem was its commanding physicality, most particularly the poet's representation of an anger too extreme to be expressed: 'Hot blood rages through her veins and 'she wants to thump her fists/ against his chest,/ his face.'

Then, on Friday, Caroline Hurley also had her say reminding us of some of the wider issues: for example, how 'Austerity cuts keep the people lean' and also 'the prisons full'. 'Perversities' also reminds that, even in incarcerated in our prisons, we are far from being 'in it together' as she points a telling finger at the 'fallen fat-cats in their first class cells.'

Saturday, though, struck a different note - and the pun is entirely and unashamedly intended - with Steve Pottinger's  tribute to the courage and generosity of spirit of rock musician Wilko Johnson who has recently received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. 'The day we elected...'  has something to say to us all so I would like to close this week's review by quoting  the WJ's 'simple words': 'I don't wanna be greedy.' Well said, Mr Johnson. It would be a better world if we could all say the same.

Abigail Wyatt

... Wilko Johnson president
the sun shone.
Which was a start.
He walked into Parliament with a heart
full of honest intentions
and a Telecaster in his arms
and we were one nation under a groove
under a riff. A distinctive, choppy, furious,
down-and-dirty-and-your-momma-wouldn’t-like-it riff.

The day we elected Wilko Johnson president
the Commons rocked out in a way
it hadn’t since Pitt the Younger’s solo
on a harpsichord he’d smuggled into the chamber
during the Poor Law debate
stilled the shouting
knocked the discord dead
and became the stuff of legend.
But now we had amplification
and a lot more soul.

The day we elected Wilko Johnson president
we ditched the old national anthem
for the new. Some bloke from Canvey Island saying
Well, shit happens
80 000 people roared along at Wembley
the 5 Live commentator was still chuckling
when San Marino scored their second
England lost 3-1. No-one cared.

The day we elected Wilko Johnson president
the sun shone.
Or it may have rained.
I don’t know, I was drunk for a week
singing our three-word anthem
with friends, strangers, countrymen
watching borders become meaningless
wealth become worthless
his simple words
I don’t wanna be greedy
echoing through my mind
like a Telecaster, riffing on sustain.

© Steve Pottinger

This poem was inspired by Wilko Johnson's comment - on receiving the news he has terminal cancer - that he'd had a good life, and didn't want to be greedy.
http://stevepottinger.co.uk
twitter: @oneangrypoet

Postponing years of a life already diabolically infringed upon
By the imposition of a father’s lust on her defenceless young flesh,
She appeals over the family head: social justice is once more transgressed.

Austerity cuts keep the people lean, in line, and the prisons full;
Over-crowded, violent and drug-soaked, save for the sexual offenders,
Cossetted, apart, in clover, and for the fallen fat-cats in their first-class cells.

Restorative measures, worthwhile for inducing wrongdoers to understand and
Endure consequences of their crimes, are back-burnered; their cathartic truths
Faithfully practised only by conscientious objectors and by common criminals inside.

© Caroline Hurley

Man who raped daughter  for 10 years released on bail

Why our jails fail

Caroline's poems have previously appeared in Poetry24. Some were also published in the e-magazine, The Electric Acorn. Besides poetry, she's written a novel, short stories, and both a stage and screenplay. Clebran.org featured a chapter from her novel and some flash fiction. Her current project is young adult fiction.