Sun factor fifty sits idly on the glass shelf with the ‘deet’.

Pure aloe gel is starting to turn in the fridge, a faded sticker highlights the clearly stated ‘use by’ date of January.

Wax strips with complimentary dry body oil stay sealed in the wicker basket.

Lying idly on the new coffee-table, stacked high; Winter- sun brochures gleaned from the holiday expo.

This year differs for, the calendar will

change.

Auld Lang Syne moves from December to March.

Winter sun skis to April fools.

The campaign, led by tour operators, beauticians and taxi operators; gains

momentum.

Political big wigs worry about job losses in the leisure sector, value of Sterling against the Euro and psychological counselling costs for stressed executives.

Recessionary times take a cold grip. Travel agents cut credit facilities to banking staff following the announcement that their New Year bonus won’t clear until April.

Moleskin one page a day diaries go to reprint.

© Maire Ryan, January, 2013

Sir Mervyn slams Goldman tax move

Maire Ryan McSherry started writing in 2011. She writes mainly prose poetry and short stories. Maire lives in Wexford in South East Ireland, works full time in the financial services sector and is a mum to two boys. 

I shall never get you to entirely understand

the distance so far between us.

A great, grand Liberal stood atop the head of a man

with no ears, mouth, or eyes.

An evil Want of post-war Britain ended

with Beveridge. But they make us want once again.

The small eyes, gap-toothed grin beneath balding head,

laughs without shame or remorse.

Please take it from us, take it all,

take our money, take our lives.

Cupped hands to a bowl

at the knee of the millionaire government.

But still you shall give and you shall take away.

If no money now lands in our hands, perhaps it

belongs to the men in Parliament. Taking and smiling.

It seems we shall want once again.

© Michael Holloway, 2013

 Benefits: taking money from the poor.

Michael was born in Liverpool in 1985. He completed his Masters in 2012. As well as poetry, he writes short stories and hopes to get his first novel published soon. His blog is http://thehyperkarma.blogspot.co.uk/

The pound’s dropping

And in Syria   they’re dropping like flies

But there’s nothing to gain

Just humanity

And a couple of kids

Trapped together

Melted in two

But they’re foreign blood

And you hate your next door neighbour

And you’re pissed off with your friend

And you can’t remember your credit card number

No time to look at the screen

It’s digital

Coloured glass

The pain lives on

While you sip a foreign glass

Copyright©David  R Mellor 2012

Syria unrest has killed 60,000, says UN

David was born in Liverpool in 1964. He left school with nothing, rummaged around various dead end jobs, then back to college and uni. In his 20s he first discovered poetry, starting writing and performing and has done so ever since. I has lived on the Wirral for the past 8 years.

Shrewd intentions
Covered under
A Foggy blanket and mist
To cross the border
And stab brothers in the back
Chopping off heads
Looting things
Is shameful!

Borrowing
A glass of bravery
A bowl of humanity
A small plate full of honesty
And less self-righteousness
Would have been better!

 © Aparna Pathak 2013

Pakistan Army breaches LOC in Kashmir.

 Aparna Pathak is from India. She is Graduate in English (Honours) and Post Graduate in Public Relations. She is a blogger and her work is already being published in various anthologies and magazines all over the world.

Here in Cornwall, so far as the weather is concerned, we have had a dismal beginning to 2013. For much of the time a heavy grey mist has engulfed the beauty of our landscape and, in the intervening periods, we have been treated to - yes, you've guessed it - yet more heavy rain. Because of this, like Jessica Traynor in Nollaig Na mBan, I too could wish for 'a day disrobed' that looks beyond 'January's darkness/to search for the horizon's light'. Equally, I could wish for 'a little more promised each day'. On Tuesday, however, far from the promise of light, David Mellor's  It's Breaking News reminded us of the media's appetite for tragedy and of the fact that, all too often, the perpetrators of the most terrible violence are 'rewarded' by a perverse kind of celebrity while 'those who have gone / have no name'. Here at Poetry 24,  we ended the year sadly in the shadow of the Sandy Hook shootings and, with the greatest respect to the poets who wrote so powerfully in response to that tragedy, we hope and pray that this year no such poems will be penned.

On Wednesday, Philip Johnson's Fantuckinfastic Ideas gave us a sharp-tongued and insightful response to the recent proposal  that we should legislate against high levels of fat, sugar and salt, particularly in those products targeted at younger people. Then, on Thursday, our own Hamish Mack gave us Australia Ablaze, a delightfully spare and understated piece that ironically reassures us that we 'can / maintain our / lifestyles' but quietly asserting that we may 'make our children pay'. Then, on Friday, it was me again with 'A Dream of Retirement'. (I make no apologies for having a bit of a rant. There is, in my opinion, not enough of public ranting going on at the moment.)

Moving swiftly on, however, we arrive at Saturday and James Bessant's 'Food for Thought'. This was a piece that posed important questions about prevailing attitudes towards food and about the way in which western society both produces and markets it. Thank you, James, for ending the week on a note that may be uncomfortable for many of us. It is fitting that we should remember that, as we in the west hit our January diets, there are those, far too many, who may starve.

That said, I wish all our readers well. Please, if you will, spread the word. In order to continue this important work, we need your submissions. Remember: Poetry 24, where news is the muse.

2bn tonnes of food waste

Would be deemed in bad taste

If it ever got as far

As reaching our plates.

Those unharvested crops

Not good enough for the shops

Could still make their way

To hungrier States.

We're too picky to eat

The wings or thigh meat

Forgone taste and smell

For those sell by dates.

We should eat what we grow

We should reap what we sow

Encourage action now, not leave it

To the fates.

© James Bessant 2013

 Almost half the world's food thrown away, report finds.

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

(or The Lament of the Ageing Worker)

We must work on, workers not shirkers,

though we have laboured all our lives;

and now, when our bodies fail us us and pain us,

they make us more trouble than we're worth;

and, because our wits bend, nimble and quick,

to the root and sum of the of the past,

we offend as much by what we know

as the burden of the cost of what we eat.

They say we must stand on our two feet

and not only work but be glad;

we must teach our brittle and aching bones

how work will keep us warm and make us free;

and we must not look for peace and rest

for, in truth, we now outlast our proper use;

and, since, for us, there is no work, though we

may either freeze or sicken, we must die.


© Abigail Wyatt, 2012

And they laughed as they did it
Poorest households hardest hit

Abigail Wyatt was once a teacher but cannot live on her pension. She now works part-time in a cafe, cares for her elderly mother, watches the death throes of western capitalism, and writes whenever she can.