Hello, the week seems to have ended with a lot of snow, I hope it's not affected our readers too much. This week we began with The Season Ends by Amy Barry. It was a very sad and moving poem and quite powerful about a fifteen year old girl who had committed suicide after being tormented in school over sex rumours. It was a complicated story of sadness and cruelty and I'm reminded of the final, short stanza: 'Her body / found hanging / from the maple tree, / in winter.'

Suicide was a recurring theme as another story popped up, this time in the military as combat lessens. Show Me Something I've Seen Before by David Mellor was published on Tuesday. It shows us a kind of torment with being in the military and not fighting, which seems to create a psychological torment and shows someone to wishing to see their normal life, 'Something I've seen before, me and Steve growing up in the candy store.'

Fellow Poetry24 editor, Abigail Wyatt was published on Wednesday with Proper Love. It's a thought-provoking poem about the 56 year old British woman who was sentenced to death in Bali for cocaine smuggling. The poem questions the way we judge and the decisions we make. The ideas of right and wrong and crime and punishment.

Royal Pardon on Thursday, written by Philip Challinor, was a satirical approach to the tabloid stories about Prince Harry. It references the naive and immature actions Prince Harry did in the past and the negative press he gained from it, but then the change in opinion about him, to forgive him, when he joined the army, 'Go to Asia and blow up sufficient wogs.' I suppose this wasn't about Harry and what he's done in his life, but about the silly, fickle tabloid journalists who really only write about their own agendas.

Clare Kirwan returned to Poetry24 on Friday when we published The Moses of Elephants. This was about the baby elephant that died in the BBC show Africa and David Attenborough defended it, saying it was a natural tragedy. The poem is filled with religious imagery and almost sanctifies the elephant in question, showing that the elephant's death was indeed natural and, in a sense, beautiful, and there was never any need to complain about it.

Finally, we published Prisoner at Home by Katie Beviss to end the week. The news story was about Palestinians who threatened to sue Israel over settlements. The poem is very powerful and interesting from the first line: 'The man at no.3 has been taken prisoner.' I particularly liked the use of Hebrew '"מתים המהלכים"' to read 'The Walking Dead.'

Remember to keep submitting to us at poetry24@hotmail.com and tell your friends about us. You can like us on Facebook on our Poetry24 page.

Hope you've all had a good week and have better one to follow.

Michael.

with much trumpeting, called together families
of pachyderms: We’re going on a journey.
Beyond the burning bush and luscious forest,
the memory of trees, the bones of loved ones
is another place and I will lead you.

Now we live on salt and thorn, the taste
of sorrow, the promised land a mirage, metaphor.
Awaking to another blasted dawn; the first born
dead, a plague of promises. We will be
carrion, old elephants whisper like law.

Thirsty and yearning for an end to adventure,
there’s nothing in this wilderness but suffering.
Sunbright bones identify our path;
we aim for Eden, with our ears for sails,
across a sea of sand, scratching for sustenance.

From hidden ducts behind our eyes, elephants weeping,
a slow procession, lacking even music. This silence,
the buckling of knees, our young ones cargoes
lost upon the way, all bones and sagging grey:
such sadness can never be forgotten.

The Moses of elephants found an idea of God
and followed without knowing. Faith! He said,
which made it sound important, solid, real.
I believe and you are coming with me.
Parts the sea of doubt with broken tusk.

©  Clare Kirwan

Producer defends a natural tragedy

Clare Kirwan is a Merseyside poet and short fiction writer and hopes to bring out her  first collection this year. By day she works in a library - like Batgirl. http://brokenbiro.blogspot.co.uk/ Twitter: @ClareKirwan

Copy writers test fancy names

for the unrest: ‘recreational rioting’?

Newspapers plump for ‘scum’;

PR officers of politicians,

police forces, earnest agencies

spin webs to make point-scoring capital.



The uninsured Asian shopkeeper's

still shell-shocked in the shell of his shop;

the hoody has new trainers but his mum’s

too scared to ask him where he got them;

a dad catches sight of his pride and joy

on cctv and has to make a choice.



Chain store fatcats offset the damages

with more staff cuts, and won’t lose any sleep;

Police officers who held back after all

the complaints, now vilified for holding back,

not holding back the mob; some stoic Sikhs

take up cricket bats ready to defend



families above shops, nerves tuned

for smash of glass or curl of smoke;

insurers calculate the costs to spread

to everyone: the flat-dwellers who fled

with nothing but their lives; the family firm

a smouldering crime scene.



Sharing camera footage of him

and his mates and what they did,

damning, laughed over; Twitter alive

with the chirpings of disturbed birds

in their silver cages and their nests of rags;

police drafted in and dying for a tussle;



the brush and bucket brigade

blitz the streets in brittle war spirit,

and the same questions bubble up

at office water coolers, in government

departments, supermarkets, on phones

and forums and behind closed doors:



What happened? And why?

Are you alright? Were you insured?

Where can we go? How can we protect?

What should we do? Who did this? When

and where will they strike again?

Where were you last night?

© Clare Kirwan

Liverpool and Wirral riots see 50 people arrested

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Clare Kirwan occasionally wears a hooded top but has never broken any windows she didn't own. She performs poetry around Merseyside and blogs as Broken Biro.

Clare says: There are so many articles on this, but I chose one local to me - I wonder how many more disturbances there have been away from city centres and not reported nationally?

We’re thrilled, elated, quite bewitched
That Will and Kate are getting hitched.
There hasn’t been a Royal bash
Since that funeral (post-crash).
Now out across the royal domain
The Union Jack shall fly again!
Across the land are bands of Nanas
Knitting flags and painting banners.

Cometh the day, cometh the man:
The good, the great, the also-ran:
The organ swells, with trumpets blaring
Bloody Hell! What’s Beatrice wearing?
How’s she going to find a hubby
Channelling a Tellytubby?
Every balustrade is burnished
Here’s the queen with David Furnish,

And David Cameron showing that
His wife cannot afford a hat.
The gathered crowd all strain their necks
To sneer and bitch at Posh and Becks.
But nothing’s shabby, nothing sinister
In the Abbey of Westminister
Where trees are in the congregation
(To give Prince Charles some conversation).

And every rank of royal vermin
Spank themselves with whips of ermine
Then gird their loins, and tighten trusses
To board the sordid minibuses.
Wave a flag and find a hankie!
Here’s Queenie tucked up with a blankie
And if she nods off, quite serene,
It’s Philip’s job to poke the Queen.

The BBC shows maps as graphic:
Weren’t they lucky with the traffic?
When in the Mall the multitude
Of unwashed plebs is in the mood.
Watching Bishops march in rows
(not diagonally as we’d supposed).
Then after singing and ‘I do’s’
It’s time for canapés and booze!

‘All back to ours!’ cries Mum, her Highness,
‘Put away all thoughts of shyness
To the balcony, migrate
A million subjects at the gate!’
Camilla does a baby dangle
As, photographed from every angle,
It’s: ‘Touch my sword’ and ‘Touch my lily’
‘Kiss me Kate! Yes, kiss me Willy!’

© Clare Kirwan
Royal Wedding Guests in Pictures
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Clare Kirwan is a serious poet who also sometimes writes silly stuff... or vice versa. She blogs as Broken Biro in a silly and serious way. www.clarekirwan.co.uk

It was the hottest ever April.
After that winter we threw off our clothes
at the first sign of sunshine, ran to the coast
(after we’d hosed down our azaleas).

If this is climate change, I’ll keep it!
Laughed the blonde with skin
the colour of smoked salmon.
Her child, plastered in factor 30
almost scurvy-fied through lack of sun.

We dripped away the old raised-eyebrow reliables:
There’ll be a hosepipe ban before you know it!
...bound to rain on the coming parade!

A continent away, it hadn’t rained for years.
Crops failed and children gnawed
the bones of their own mouths. What then?
Those who could walk, fled north – wouldn’t you,
your withered rags of family in tow?

The beach looked smaller that year
– the sea edged closer. Even as reservoirs
emptied their favours across profligate nations,
subtle changes meddled with the settings.

Remember then? Remember when
we had fresh running water every day,
before Africa became a desert
and all the borders closed? Remember when
we hosed down the azaleas?

© Clare Kirwan

Britain heading for warmest Easter weekend on record

Food crisis looms in Horn of Africa

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Clare Kirwan used to work for an environmental charity but gave up because no-one seemed to care. She still cares a bit, but blogs as Broken Biro about other stuff. www.clarekirwan.co.uk

If you can say nothing, say nothing.
If you must talk of change, change is always good.
Cutbacks, downsizing, downgrading,
rationalisation, tightening...
everything is only getting smaller, not going away.

When you talk of redundancies,
beware of ‘putting out to grass’
– or severance: a serious word bringing to mind
wealthy uncles striking names from wills –
say ‘letting people go’ instead as though
they clamoured at the very gates of freedom.

Do not refer to ‘scrap heaps’
or, indeed, to age. Call older workers
‘longer-standing staff’
not ‘past their best before’, ‘used up’, ‘worn out’
which smacks of wrinkled aunts hogging the fire,
sucking the life out of a Werthers Original
with yellow teeth. Do not acknowledge
time you kindly set aside for jobsearch
is as redundant as they are.

Smile, when you say anything. Remember tears
have no truck in the modern workplace.
Lift the ends of sentences to stress
the merits of ‘work/life balance’
(once the work’s removed).
Speak of their liberated future days
with a hint of envy in your voice.

And those remaining few?
Remind them daily how lucky they are -
The Chosen - when issues arise
around the increased workload,
spinning plates now crashing to the floor,
the longer hours, wage freeze, et cetera
– how very, very lucky they are.

© Clare Kirwan


2 March - Best Practice in Local Government HR
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Clare blogs as brokenbiro and is one of the founding editors of this site. The only way to stop her posting her own poems is by submitting YOURS! www.clarekirwan.co.uk

Suppose they gave a speech and no-one clapped
or thought that we should go and ‘make a stand’
in foreign lands - those places on a map
with borders shifting in the bloodied sand?

No longer having privates to parade
suppose those uniforms just gathered dust
in warehouses, with rows of hand grenades
(all out of date) and rifles gone to rust.?

Suppose the tanks had all been turned instead
to ploughshares, and those trigger finger skills
were used in fixing cars and baking bread,
constructing Lego, tapping at cashpoint tills?

Suppose those soldiers destined to expire
lived on unharmed and lovely, played unbruised
still with their limbs intact, and friendly fire
was just another name for barbecues?

Suppose bored surgeons took up tapestry
on silent nights in trauma wards, now bare,
instead of knitting skin and artery
and mopping up the bloody carnage there?

Suppose the Major Generals were diffused
made safe, and left to graze on their estates
and jingoistic marching bands reused
for floral dances at bright summer fetes?

Suppose these sorry telegrams decayed
in stationery cupboards, yellow-brown
and all the debts had long since been repaid
and grave-diggers laid off all over town?

© Clare Kirwan

UK to make 11,000 of its armed forces redundant

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Clare Kirwan is a member of Liverpool's Dead Good Poets Society and blogs as Broken Biro

They break news down
to a few column inches
instantly forgettable,
a late night sound-bite
that tweet, tweet, tweets
like birdsong tinnitus.

Exhausted adjectives,
old chestnut clichés
lined up on the page
like the usual suspects
(different words suspicious
as abandoned packages).

And whether it's editors
squeezing the heart out of
a story to make it fit
or the white noise of
too many words filling
vacant space, it's far too easy

just to turn the page.
We need a hook to hang
the horror on, attach
the facts. A net to catch
the moment in. To ask
the question doorstep reporters
never ask themselves:
How does it feel?


© Clare Kirwan

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Clare Kirwan is part of Liverpool's Dead Good Poets Society and blogs as Broken Biro