These poems have all been composed, written and published since 2019. More poems can be found on the Military Conflict Stories page.

We make every endeavour to reproduce the style and layout requested by the poet, sometimes a particular layout is difficult to achieve on the website. Please contact this site if you want an alteration to a layout.

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Belief

by Margaret Boyes-Pringle

The calf
will bow to the knife,
spill its blood,
yield; its skin
scraped for ground.

Swan and goose
will gift flight feathers,
barbs trimmed,
shaft cured in water
and hot sand.
The cut for the nib.

Great trees
will suffer
a cruel peeling of bark,
wounds left bleeding;
their stolen fruit
boiled too in cauldrons
for black ink

while, from the Orient,
the deep blue of Lapis,
the vermillion of Cinnabar
from Spain, are gathered and ground;
the verte de flamme, a green dye
from the wild iris,
the deeper reds of the red ochre,
the violet from sunflowers,
will illuminate, with gold
and silver, these pages.

The silenced Scriptore-monks
their lives sculptured by Order
will eternally tap drypoint,
or rule leadpoint lines
in a thin wash, then:
copy, copy, copy;
through cold, heat, cold, heat,
three fingers bending;
each body bent
in Faith’s cage.

And the souls of the people,
who have no writing,
will be enslaved by an unknown tongue.

© Margaret Boyes-Pringle, 2024

published on this site 24 April 2024

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Distant News

by Rina Leeuwenburg

There’s a place between 
heart and head
remembers
while I pull out weeds or iron or debate
ratatouille or a curry for tomorrow’s dinner or
walk the neighbour’s dog

remembers
ash trashed city blocks
injured children silent, disbelieving
staring at the camera lens unseeing
mothers holding babies
nowhere to run

remembers
returning yet again to this place I’ve 
never been yet never left 
where right and wrong long since departed

between overwhelm and action
there’s a knowing.

© Rina Leeuwenburg, 2024

published 24 April 2024 ( first published Bayside U3A Newsletter, April 2024 )

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Preacherman Cricket

by Rina Leeuwenburg

With spreading wings he flew at her, like great
Defender Michael, rampant, set to chase
her from her sloth to higher realms of grace,
far, far above her couchy, comfy state.
Serrated legs caught in her hair and straight
long feelers twitching at her brow, her face
to heaven turned, she leapt up from that place
and screamed with waving hands and mad girate.
But in the shower late that night he sat
inert in priestly black with folded wings;
she caught him with a glass as bishop’s hat,
upturned him in a daisy bush; so sings
he now in moonlight, cricket songs of that
amazing grace; of his belief he sings.

© Rina Leeuwenburg, 2024

published 19 April 2024

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AI Karma

by Rina Leeuwenburg

There’s a cosmic library, ancients said,
enfolds the world like an embrace.
All actions anyone has ever taken:
good, bad, foolish, wise, brave, weak,
placed forever on celestial shelves.

We gave no credence to this old notion,
it went along with karma—such claptrap
to our modern minds, eyes glued instead on
liquid crystal images held in palm of hand,
strapped on wrist, or huge on walls.
We did not ask where they had come from,
did not want to know—so fascinated
we just sucked it in, begged for more,
could not get enough.

Never fear, AI was there to meet our needs,
bang out even better movies, help write
novels in an instant, create the most amazing art
for any kind of decor.
A consumer’s paradise on earth.
But, we began to notice, movies
getting shorter, much more like each other,
and book titles that were identical.

Rumours spread. AI had been draining
the secret store of data from the cosmic library
we’d thought did not exist. Calculations showed
imminent extinction at current demand.

AI had the answer: chips in brains
would milk the data at the source and feed our need.
New, Efficient, Expandable, Scalable:
AI found the words in no time at all.

A quick procedure, there’d be no pain.

© Rina Leeuwenburg, 2024

published 26 March 2024

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Charioteer

by Geoffrey Dobbs

(The Charioteer of Delphi,  bronze statue from 5th century BCE)

To look into your eyes is to see
the depths of a dark well: 
still, silent;
like the wet curls of your hair,
unstirred, 
even in victory.

For surely, in this eternal moment,
you are victor.
Torso’s lunge, whip arm’s strike, 
poised body’s thrust, right, now left,
muscles taut with jerk and sway—
all now stilled within your chiton,
pleated into the absolute stillness
of a broken column.

We don’t need the crested horses,
legs poised, heads high in triumph.
The reins you hold so lightly,
yet with such command,
are enough.

The space around you
is charged with your presence.
Here, you defy entropy and time;
You are all that we have,
and all that we have lost.

© Geoffrey Dobbs, 2023

published 28 August 2023

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Guru

by Margaret Boyes-Pringle

I’d wanted to believe

this accidental prophet

his thin skin, his kind eyes

his words like a scythe

cutting down the old lies …

his cheesecloth shirt

feet bare as they

trod the earth

I’d been happy to just go,

pack the car, head north,

follow

smoke the smoke,

drift, dream, laze,

the future a haze

live the now,

talk of how,

share the food

share our flesh

abandon the West

as we undressed

but, with nails full of dirt,

hands that could barely

write but could work,

eyes dull but knowing

mouths open, swallowing

words destroying doubt …

was this the harvest

of opting out?

Happy now, see

Little Bourgeois Me,

slipstreaming by

just a spirit in the sky

re-enrolling in uni,

reading Steinem,

eating sushi,

talking online

of Greer, and

extolling the great

R.B.G.

© Margaret Boyes-Pringle, 2023

published on this site 19 July 2023 (first published Bayside U3A Newsletter, May 2023)

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Missing

by Vivienne Player

I wish your complicit smile,
I wish your gladness
each time we met, the light in your eyes;
I wish the confidential whisper of
a shared thought; I wish your hand on mine;
I wish the dreams you conjured;
I wish times past;
I wish the moon and the stars;
I wish you back.

Once I remember drifting
Through the blue-sky zones of contentment,
careless of time and fate;
Once I believed in fairy-tale endings:
my love, it’s now late

in our story. I remember
things best that I now forget.
Everything passes, breaks, comes to an end,
and the past retreats,
the future a new country,
different and unmapped.

© Vivienne Player, 2022

published 6 December 2022

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Evanescent

by Vivienne Player

I watched her disappear
First the lines of her face, the salient features
Her mouth dissolved, her eyes, then her bright hair
Became a dark veil. Her body shimmered
Like a twilit mirage, then blurred into shadow.
Monochrome, amorphous, a moth, a ghost.
Grey into darkness, like a blown-out flame.
Some essence of her lingered, but so briefly,
I cannot say for certain if I dreamed.

© Vivienne Player, 2022

published 6 December 2022

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At the end of the day

by Vivienne Player

“War is peace/ Freedom is slavery/ Ignorance is strength” – George Orwell

The creed that stands for love endorses torture;
The regime crying freedom will enslave;
The state proclaiming peace beats drums of battle;
The brutal flaunt the medals of the brave.

Love, liberty, and peace are noble concepts –
We kill, oppress, seek conflict, in their name;
Prepare to fight for what you most believe in
And make all other factions take the blame.

Destroy the infidel: he is “the other”;
His truth is not our truth – we must despise
All those who speak an alien language,
And see this fractured world with different eyes.

Those people aren’t my people: I don’t know them;
Their lives don’t matter half as much as ours;
They have ignoble ways, bereft of honour,
And when our needs compete, compassion sours.

Destroy them in the name of upright values;
Bring out your weaponry; show you are strong;
Create a better world by spreading mayhem;
Enact your loving hate, your righteous wrong.

A war that ends all wars, that is our target;
We’ll demonstrate to all our fearful might –
Scorched earth behind us, though this planet’s dying,
For Peace, or Love, or Freedom, let us fight!

© Vivienne Player, 2022

published 6 December 2022

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Boy

by Geoffrey Dobbs

Based upon a short story by Melissa Manning

You are a stranger to me now
perhaps you will always be
even if I find you.

You, the silent voice
in this counterpoint of
gene against gene:
yours and hers, disparate,
yet married in me.

I remember, if I remember,
only a shadow
looming over railings then,
Fading.

I’ve heard of you
though not by name;
she’s forgotten that,
or says she has.
She will not give me your face
nor your eyes
nor your hair;
I don’t know if you are short or tall
or what timbre your voice.
You are erased from our life,
from our minds.

Except for the genes,
your DNA that sometimes
flares within me,
lights up a glance or a turn of the head,
a twist of the body.
Then she breathes in with a sharp hiss
and looks away
not wanting to see you.

I shall leave her soon.
She’ll snort with contempt,
draw her ragged dress over
bare jagged knees,
scuff her sandals,
and light another joint
There’ll be no blessing.

But I’m coming after you
wherever you may be,
and when we meet
our genes will cry out to each other.

© Geoffrey Dobbs, 2022

published 24 November 2022

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Charlie’s Corner

by Geoffrey Dobbs

Stand on the rough verge:
your feet scrunch dry grass, leaves, bark,
crane your neck,
you’ll see white rails, an open gate,
a welcome awaiting.

He’s stopped in Mildura,
returning from Adelaide and the wool sales,
stopped and bought oranges,
a big hessian bagful,
a treat for the kids.
He sees them stripping the peel,
white teeth slicing through pith
into heavy, bursting fruit,
juice trickling down their chins.

His heart full now,
a scent of oranges fills the roaring car
as it swallows up the straight black road,
the crisp cheque in the pocket of his jacket,
thrown over the back seat.
A beer at the pub – why not?
after all, almost home.

Mates’ faces, split with toothy grins,
glance up at him through the smoke:
strong hands grasp his in welcome.
Tanned, muscled arms thrown around his shoulders,
‘Good on yer, mate, well done.’
It’s his shout of course,
then the next and the next
until he leaves, his belly full,
aslosh with beer, heavy, cold.

Almost home now.
He sinks into the warm seat,
holds the wheel lightly,
as though the car might find its own way.
But ahead of him the road wavers,
uncoils weirdly,
into sudden pools of shadow,
sharp blinding slivers of sun.

And then, the corner.

It was the oranges they saw first,
not the car
wrecked on the ironbark,
or the torso, marbled with blood, hanging
out of a ripped door.

Oranges,
flooding the road, rolling rich and full
through a red sunset.
Almost home.

© Geoffrey Dobbs, 2022

published 24 November, 2022

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Stone

by Geoffrey Dobbs

based upon a short story by Melissa Manning

The stonemason’s hands
drive home the hammering chisel,
taming the wild stone
until it fits his will
and its harsh heft
slides into place.

So block by shaped block
he encloses a void:
space, air, imprisoned;
wind, rain and sun shut out.
Only human love can warm these walls,
only tears can dampen them,
only whispered words echo in their crevices.

Within earth’s stony carapace too,
beneath the rippled roofs of caves,
there lurk imprisoned voids
unstirred by living breath.
Yet even there
sometimes,
unseen, unheard,
stalactite embraces stalagmite
in silent fusion.

So too in each of us, maybe,
a deep and empty cavern lies;
this, in time’s mercy, may yet become
a place where love abides.

© Geoffrey Dobbs, 2022

published 24 November 2022

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Holme

by Margaret Boyes- Pringle

Named by the Norse word for island
our village lies low, before the marsh and the sea.

Standing on the brow of the hill on old Peddars Way,
Ringstead woods and the chalk pit at my back,
I look down and see the tower of St Mary’s church
ensconced amidst roofs and trees.
All’s at peace there.
Nearby, the Bronze Age henge still sleeps silently
beneath the waves.

Romans have walked this linear path with me,
Patrolled the earth, dropped a ring with a glass
jewel deeper than our sea’s blue.
Iceni sprinkled coins and blood,
Husbanding Saxons left fish traps on the beach.
Domesday recorded us…

The medium of the mind’s eye spans the years
and the body registers their loss.
Across sixty years, across the world,
I see that resting place of generations
who worked the soil, went to war, returned…

The sanctuary of the past, the Burton graves.

I’m strolling down our hill now; the wind is soft and
the light? A mauve close-of-day benediction.

© Margaret Boyes-Pringle, 2000

First published in the Bayside U3A Newsletter, Special Edition, Number 11, August 2000

published 24 November 2022

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Anniversary 

by Margaret Boyes-Pringle

We waited until the end of day.
Drove in silence, turned into
the car park by Mordy pier.
Bird droppings smeared the tarmac
in ugly, meaningless tattoo.
Scavenging seagulls cracked the air.
Ammonia and salt stench
walked with us.

On Beach Road
homing commuters,
like Victorian funeral mutes,
snaked the Bay in double lines
their gargoyle faces lit
in white. Or red.

Walking the earth there is only
David and me.

A softness of petals brush
my cheek like a benediction.
Four cream roses –
their incense comforts.
I turn my jacket collar up
against the wind,
button the frail stems inside.

We tread the pier
arms linked,
breath shared.
Tableaux of fishermen,
misericord carvings,
watch and pray.

At pier end
four steps down,
from wooden boards
to confessional grill,
the sea sucks and swirls.
An arm arcs and a flower flies and falls,
again, again, again,
four frail flowers dying
on a vast eternal sea.

Awakened, perhaps amused
by silent prayer, the goddess surfaces.
She draws her gown of state around her,
its rolling, visceral waves of purple
caught up from the flooded veil of the Bay.
Summoning her attendants, patient
perhaps smiling, She pauses as
the votive petals are borne aloft
and woven into the garlands adorning
the tumbling tresses of her hair.
Turning towards the headland
She moves towards deeper waters
receiving, in her passing,
the strings of lights along the shore
as pearls to wear. And falling stars,
mere diamond chips, bedeck
the golden netting of her train.

© Margaret Boyes-Pringle, 2022

published 24 November 2022

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Nimue’s Tree

by Margaret Boyes-Pringle

Straddling the fork in my trunk
like a scarecrow from the Dark Ages,
Merlin haunts my veins.
The cold makes him
cringe from the exposure
of my top-most branches
and seek warmth from the earth ;
he digs his old toes into
my healthy roots, breaking
joints and elongating flesh
in his craving.

He lived so long amongst men
he suffers as they do.
To bleak winter’s chill breath
I groan his muttered lament ;
as each leaf is torn from me,
memories are prised from
his ancient cells and, as they fall,
he lives them fleetingly …

Watching. So do I.

Watch his attempted seduction of Nimue,
watch her abasement at his betrayal,
see the shining mettle of her
as she rose to pass judgement.
Feel that swift, fierce cleaving
as she delivered him in punishment,
my fate manacled to his, each
twist and coil and writhe
birthing the template of time
in my grain.

First published in the Bayside U3A Newsletter, July 2021

© Margaret Boyes-Pringle, 2021

published 24 November 2022

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The Writers’ Group

by Sandra Stirling

We meet on a regular basis,
With notebooks tucked under our arms
Or iPads charged at the ready
For the Writers Group many charms.

For some, there could be a focus
On topics that follow a theme,
Like “Birthday,” “Garage” or “Delicious,”
While for others, it’s pure academe.

We listen to stories or poems
That engage, delight and enthrall –
The talent here is prodigious,
A talent demonstrated by all.

And mention must be made of the playwrights,
A particular skill here involved
As they’re written for radio only,
Special problems have to be solved.

We applaud, encourage, make comments
As work is read out aloud,
And if the author’s work is accepted,
They’ve a perfect right to feel proud.

I’m so glad I joined this Writers Group,
To be part of the ebb and flow
Of the talents and joy of this friendly class,
And the people I’ve come to know.

©Sandra Stirling, 2020

published 22 June 2020

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Waiting

by Peter Lucas

Free Range

by Joy Meekings

There once was a chicken named Thelma her life was not going so well
For she was a battery hen and confined to a living hell
She thought she would never be rescued and be out in the sun all day long
She’d imagine blue sky, gentle breezes, pecking the earth, feeling strong
Her dream was to be a Free Ranger for that was the best she could be
Ooh to be out in the open, maybe sitting under a tree?
The ‘monsters’ running this ‘prison’ were convicted and now doing time
Confined to a very small cell, but does their punishment fit the crime?
Most of Thelma’s companions were unlucky, so mistreated they had to die
Thelma survived and is thriving, I thought you’d like to know why
Adopted by a good family she’s so much more than Free Range
Has all she could ever dream of, after thinking her life would not change
Her feathers have grown back completely, she looks and feels so well
Rarely thinks of her former life, for it does no good to dwell
Everyone please take notice, for we can bring about change
Let’s either keep chickens of our own or always buy Free Range!

©Joy Meekings © 2020

published 25 June 2020

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Run

by Gwen McCallum

Masked up and running
shoe laces tight as two old friends,
past scree weeds and stones
discarded plastic wrapping and graffiti
on red brick walls.

All the while in your head
planning a day a week a life,
waiting for answers-who wouldn’t,
everybody knows the questions.

Imagine a time, a place apart
when we sit down and touch,
fleeting or firm, a warmth, like
a swift injection into eager veins.

This is a ballad where notes are off
the tempo wrong.
Someone forgot the rules, 
a sharp reminder, because 
the conductor always calls the tune.

Run 

© Gwen McCallum 2020

published 27 June 2020

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