Picaroon - Issue #5 - November 2016
Welcome to Issue #5 of Picaroon Poetry, or as I've been affectionately (and unofficially!) calling it, 'the sex and death issue'. It's an unquestionably autumnal/wintry collection of poems for our last outing of 2016, bleak and unflinching in places (though there are some wry, hopeful, and funny moments as well). Still, as long as these things are being written down, everything keeps moving forward. Includes poems by Ava C. Cipri, Ojo Taiye, James H Duncan, Charlotte Ansell, Monika Kostera, Zoë Sîobhan Howarth-Lowe, Jackie Biggs, Lesley Quayle, Amy Kinsman, Derek Coyle, Cheryl Pearson, Bethany W Pope, Nenad Trajkovic, Jane R Rogers, David Susswein, Emma Lee, Jo Burns, Brett Evans, John D. Robinson, Shauna Robertson, Bobby Steve Baker, Holly Day, Courtney LeBlanc, Jessica Mookherjee, Paul Brookes, Pat Edwards, John Grey and Steven Bruce.
Welcome to Issue #5 of Picaroon Poetry, or as I've been affectionately (and unofficially!) calling it, 'the sex and death issue'. It's an unquestionably autumnal/wintry collection of poems for our last outing of 2016, bleak and unflinching in places (though there are some wry, hopeful, and funny moments as well). Still, as long as these things are being written down, everything keeps moving forward.
Includes poems by Ava C. Cipri, Ojo Taiye, James H Duncan, Charlotte Ansell, Monika Kostera, Zoë Sîobhan Howarth-Lowe, Jackie Biggs, Lesley Quayle, Amy Kinsman, Derek Coyle, Cheryl Pearson, Bethany W Pope, Nenad Trajkovic, Jane R Rogers, David Susswein, Emma Lee, Jo Burns, Brett Evans, John D. Robinson, Shauna Robertson, Bobby Steve Baker, Holly Day, Courtney LeBlanc, Jessica Mookherjee, Paul Brookes, Pat Edwards, John Grey and Steven Bruce.
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Memories of a Soldier’s Dying<br />
David Susswein<br />
i. the ancient stares at the young<br />
Did I zip my pocket,<br />
forget my thermoflask,<br />
close the front door,<br />
turn off the gas burner,<br />
open the loft window,<br />
kiss my grand-niece<br />
good-night when I looked in,<br />
Tuck the duvet close to her chin.<br />
Did I wish this was not Friday<br />
did I wish I was someone else’s son<br />
did I wish I had never asked<br />
the question every bright-eyed boy<br />
asks his father: ‘what did you do in…’<br />
well, tsk tsk this is just another birthday,<br />
just another birthday of sorts…<br />
A birthday for beautiful death.<br />
ii.<br />
the wife stares at her wardrobe<br />
I got the clothes back<br />
they sent them in the post.<br />
wrapped with strings and brown paper<br />
the clothes smelt acrid, sulphurous.<br />
the left breast had been eaten by hungry<br />
moths in transit, the crotch gobbled at<br />
till it had quite completely torn:<br />
the moth had even seemed to leave<br />
brown stains, dozens of streaks and spots
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