Time tracked strangely through those days, fear
shape-shifting seconds into years,
marking months with tallies of tears.

Clutching still, they held their hope tight
and sleepless through the dark, dragged nights
waited dumbly for each dawn’s light.

Those were the days they felt faith rock
and turned the locks against the knock
and listened to the ticking clock.

Still the dread slid under the door,
soaked their skin through every pore
and sweated at their very core.

Until at last the final knock
heralds the springing of their lock
On hope; their child’s gone. Stop the clock.

© Rachel North

Levi Bellfield found guilty of abducting and killing teenager
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Rachel is a trainee poet and failed domestic goddess. The latter is entirely due to the fact that her favourite pastime is sitting in the sunshine reading a good book.

The photograph depicts a man at war.
You will have seen him many times before,
the still, stunned face of shock and awe,
his gaunt and gallowed gaze, full of dread,
replaying the howling horrors in his head.

His boneless body rests against the rocks,
the while his mind makes memories to mock
the dazzled, dream-filled boy, the cost
of whose survival has climbed so high
he thinks, one day of this despair he’ll die.

The photograph depicts the hell of war.
You will have seen it many times before
and gazed with eyes of shock and awe;
and wondered at the man who caught his look
and used his grief, to bring us all to book.

© Rachel North
Memorial Day tributes as US suffers its 1,500th casualty in Afghanistan
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Rachel is a Nurse, who has a passion for writing creatively.

Set fire to the earth, make molten rocks blaze,
bring forth the ravaging winds and torrents
Of rain, let the twisters lacerate, rend
the world in deadly destruction and raze
the buildings to the ground . Let all men gaze
upon this savage loss, make madness bend
their minds, claw their eyes and tear their hair, send
them to despair. This is the end of days.

The world should share the pain that’s made day night,
that’s lit a fire of grief that sears his soul
and blackens all the colours in his sight.
Let all the world beware, his father lied,
took oath, and made his spirit black as coal,
He said he’d live, but now his father’s died.

© Rachel North


Tom Daley's father Rob dies after five-year battle with cancer
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Rachel is a Nurse, who has a passion for writing creatively. She is a featured poet at Poetry24.

Listen, although your ears are stopped for good.

Look, and see my love, although your eyes are blind.

Feel the cup of my hand, your cradle,

although no touch will fire your frozen skin.



I‘ve held you deep within my body’s beat,

felt flying flutter and drum of dancing feet

tattoo new rhythms, and sing new

songs; your precious heart the score before me.



Now love’s labour’s done.

Brought forth with no anticipation,

hope killed;

life stilled.



Spooling out across the years your colours slide.

From needles stripped, the pattern, sly, derides.

Unstitched the fabric of our lives

and tore the stuff to shreds before our eyes.



Look back; I see your shadow flying forwards,

not futureless but written through each story;

a single, perfect, shining thread

tacks tight the tattered tissues of our hearts.

© Rachel North

UK stillbirth rates among highest of rich nations
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Rachel is a Nurse and has only just started to write creatively.  This story particularly touched her because she has nursed women who have endured stillbirth.