- Review
- Earthlight by Jim Bennett - a Jubilee/ Olympic Torch special
- Sky-diving granny by Anthony Baverstock - with video
Review
We started the week with a rousing 'Vox Populi': Stuff the Olympics/ and screw the Jubilee! said Abigail Wyatt and David Rowland.
With something as appalling as the massacre of so many children in Houla, it's so hard to get the tone right in a poetic response. We struggled with several submissions relating to this - some too graphic or too simple - and chose Spring in Syria by Wendy Nicholson for it's unsettling use of the child-like sing-song limerick form.
From the death of many children, to the unsolved murder of another - Kushal Poddar's haunting Thirty Years Vintage touches on the solving of a notorious 'cold case' in New York where memories celebrate with salt and wound. Other kinds of criminal activity in the Vatican inspired Lavinia Kumar's The Butler/Priest Did It
After all this, we were glad of some Stress Relief from Vala Hafstad. I wanted to put a picture of a puppy at the top, but that would have given away the punchline! (Then again, I'd put a picture of a puppy on anything!)Have a great - stress-free - week!
Clare (and Martin)
Earthlight
I stayed up late to see
Earthlight laminate the moon
create a ghost grey orb
with a silvered edge
it is something you seldom see
a bit like a Queens Jubilee
or the Olympic Torch passing
but unlike those
it was worth the effort
© Jim Bennett
Moon's 'Dark Side' Visible Due To Earthshine
Wirral welcome for Olympic Flame
Jim Bennett lives near Liverpool in the UK and is the author of 67 books, he has won many awards for his writing and performance and is managing editor of www.poetrykit.org.
Skydive goes horribly wrong
An octogenarian granny,
With fortune quite simply uncanny,
Flew out of the blue
with a hullabaloo,
But still managed to fall on her f...eet!
© Anthony Baverstock
Gran's near-death skydiving video goes viral
Click below for the video - things start going wrong 2mins in
