Monthly Archives: September 2020

This poem by our member Marjory Caine was selected for and published in our Folio #72, in 2018.

Fieldfare in a Winter Orchard

Do you not know the beauty of your flight
as you wheel and spin in winter skies
fleeing from the danger of my sight?

Your underwings flash white runes that are bright
while your raucous chacker chack chack recedes
with the patterned memory of your sudden flight.

As viking raiders from northern fjords you alight
on scavenged apples of fermented waste,
yet flee as one from danger before my sight.

Your beserkers mingle with others in flight:
green woodpeckers, starlings, wood pigeons
who do not know the beauty of being your satellites.

I remain clay-bound below winter light.
Shards of grass break, leave imprints of me alone;
while you fly along invisible paths from sight.

I strive this season to follow the transient rites
that herald a nomadic existence outside my life -
do you not know the beauty of your flight,
as you flee from the unknown danger of my plight?

This poem, by our member Sonia Lawrence, was included in our 2019 publication, Folio#73.

Porcelain Bowl

Sitting in my kitchen
I see these things:
the kettle, silent, waiting to be boiled;
the radio that daily tells me news;
a jar of teaspoons just where I need them;
a deep blue eye warding off evil
my Kurdish friend gave me
when we first moved in;
an apron hanging on a hook;
a tea towel slung on a rail;
a timer to tell when the cake is cooked;
the pure white bowl, now filled with lemons,
I bought my daughter 
four decades ago when she left home.
She is still very fond of strawberry trifle.

Graham is a psychotherapist, poet and translator, and a member of the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society. His collection Meeting My Inners was published by Pindrop Press. This poem featured in our 2019 anthology, Folio #73.

How Schrödinger Came Up With His Cat

I am more and more convinced
Schrödinger came up with his cat
from watching real cats -
the ones whose wave functions collapsed!

My cat waits by the door.
I open it to let him out.
It is cold outside.
He hesitates and does not move.

I tell him to make his mind up,
then shut the door.
It's not just cats who don't like cold!
Surely, he wants to stay in the house.

A few moments later the door is opened.
Now he goes out.
The wave function on this decision collapsed.
Two minutes later, he is squawking back.

Our September meeting on Zoom will take place at 8.00 pm on September 22nd, which is the 4th. week of the month, and not on 15th. We are welcoming Jonathan Edwards and hope you will join us to give him an appreciative, if virtual, audience.

Jonathan Edwards was born and grew up in south Wales. He has an MA in Writing from the University of Warwick and currently works as an English teacher. He won the Terry Hetherington Award in 2010, was awarded a Literature Wales new writer’s bursary in 2011, and in 2012 won prizes in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition and the Basil Bunting Award. His poems have appeared in many magazines including The Poetry Review, The North, Poetry Wales and New Welsh Review. His first collection My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014) was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2014 and was the Winner of  the Costa Poetry Prize 2014.

There will be an Open Mic at the beginning of the meeting, so let’s hear what you’ve been writing too!

This poem by Society member Veronica Beedham was published in the Society’s Folio #73. Veronica’s Overton Prize winning pamphlet A Sense of Place is available from Loughborough University

Fly

It balances finely
on the fine edge
of the page,

its legs thinner
than print,
than ink.

Combs microscopic
dust from its eyes,
from tiny, hinged wings.

Its luminous body
is a finical artwork
in aquamarine,

studded with darkness,
almost Elizabethan.
Its antennae,

wind-sensing,
will keep it poised,
airborne in the space

just above this poem.