Sunday Review

For us, the week began on Tuesday and we published Ruby by Luigi Pagano, a look at the Berlusconi trial and the dancer, Karima El-Mahroug – Ruby Heartstealer. The story was about Ruby who staged a protest outside a court in Italy to deny having paid for sex with Berlusconi. The poem is filled with mixed imagery of a shining jewel and fallen power, and the final line sums it up: ‘The jewel in his crown brought him down.’

On Wednesday we had Shinjini Bhattacharjee’s ICU. It was about a man who admitted to torturing a prostitute in Seattle. The poem was met with favourable and positive reactions at Poetry24 and a favourite of mine. The final two lines were notably memorable: ‘Your vastness shrunk to the size / Of my eyeballs?’

The editors at Poetry24 have been extremely busy and so Thursday was missed, however we published Alcohol is to be Restricted on Friday. Carolyn Cornthwaite’s poem was about Asda welfare cards given to the poor. It was a satirical look at the economy and the status of the poor in the country. ‘Apples and cheery smiles won’t fix our economy.’ Says it all, really.

We decided to publish two poems on Saturday due to the news story of Margaret Thatcher’s death. We had Strike Against the Miners by Andrew John, a poem that seems to remember the pain felt in the country in the 70s. And remembers that ‘She did that.’ And respectively we had Weather Change by Martin Marriott. The poem sounds like a school yard chant with the repetition of ‘Margaret Thatcher’ and expresses how even villains die because of nature.

Hope you all have a good week and are beginning to enjoy the Spring weather.

Michael.

ICU

You towered over me, oh dear sky,
Thinking that you have finally succeeded
In keeping me beneath you, suffocating me with your sun,
And clouds and moon and stars,
Slowly lulling me to celebrate
A false reality uncontrolled by me.

But look at me now as I look at you,
Staring right into your immense void,
Can't you see, right here, right now,
Your vastness shrunk to the size
Of my eyeballs?

© Shinjini Bhattacharjee

Man admits to torturing Seattle prostitute

Shinjini describes herself as a 23 year old jabberwocky who loves to explore the poems garbed in emotions of varied hues every moment of her life composes.