Category Archives: Poetry

National Poetry Day – Refuge

National Poetry Day took place on Thursday 5 October 2023, and this year’s theme was Refuge. The Heartlines Writers marked the day with a collection of poems exploring various approaches to the theme of refuge. Refuge can mean many things. … Continue reading

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BLACKBERRIES

To walk that road again – a lane? Passed stubbled fields. Kildarra up to Nolan’s farm. Pick purple blackberries on the way. A small child’s handful. Turn left at milk churns waiting by wild fushias live with bees. We squeeze … Continue reading

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AEGEAN ODYSSEY

Someday I will go on a journey to the mythical isle of Ithaca, across Homer’s wine-dark sea. I will be seduced by the singing of the Sirens, sailing close to the rocks and finding the key to the realm of … Continue reading

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A PASSAGE TO INDIA…

“A PASSAGE TO INDIA…” …or some other far-flung destination is what my disillusioned spirit craves. To escape the humdrum of the quotidian, the stress of everyday monotony is, I believe, the duty – nay, the imperative – of the questing … Continue reading

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THE NEW HOUSEKEEPER

it will not stay as it was left, the boogie-woogie of books – jazzing up the room – will fall like a ton of fiction there will be no tambourines, no clinking of love triangles, the muse will not slip … Continue reading

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THE QUIRKY COAT

It was grey flannel, plain and droopy, with drawstrings and a large untidy hood, not some zany creation sporting pistachio pockets and baroque buttons, but an everywoman’s coat that somehow caught the attention of young up-to-no-gooders, who screamed like high … Continue reading

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Blue Electra

Out of the blue, she came with her silver wings, slicing through the unspun drifts of cloud, to rise higher than any bird was made to fly defying men, defying women’s place, defying gravity she flies, alone, across the wild … Continue reading

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The Call

I saw her again today, out there, scanning the horizon, her wild song calling them in. She was Kali, Ishtar, Isis and Athena, She was Gaia, Venus, the snake goddess, Minerva she knew why caged birds sang and now she … Continue reading

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Woman

By the time I was born She’d already lived through two World Wars And had false teeth and grey hair I saw her often and ate a mountain of her blackcurrant jelly and coconut pyramids But it took many years … Continue reading

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CHOCOLATE CAKE and ATOM BOMBS (or Less Bombs, More Cake)

Theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer diagnosed with tuberculosis Moves to the high desert country of New Mexico to recuperate. Two months before the US enters World War II Franklin D Roosevelt approves the development of the atom bomb And is of … Continue reading

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