by Geraldine Monk

The growing movement swelled to a
roaring yell as women worked as
tireless campaigners. Home Guard
sugar–quitters spitting out sweet–maimed
bloodstained cubes of bondage and
luxury bonbons. Outraged flyers.

For all that the dawn of universal
abolition was delayed an entire day as so
many men objected to the very presence of
women in attendance let alone the perishing
thought of letting them speak.

An irony that would not have been
lost on five times ‘owned’ and
poignantly named Mary Prince a slave
no stranger to the whims of one–way
no conferring
enforced
self–appointed
puff–up entitlement. Amen.

by Geraldine Monk

materials and styles may differ.
vibrant yarns of cotton. silk. wool. spliced
metallic threads. spangles. woven love. sequins.
braids. dreams. beads. mirrors. sewn–in souls.
shimmers. floral sweeps. geometric laughter.
suns. stars. fruit. embedded hope. pimento.
blossom. remembrance. ram’s horns. tulips.
birds. singalongs. swinging lion tails.

we left you high and dry
your tiny taste to moisten
your sip of self snatched
from your lips blotted
views threw shrouds
black and blue around your
bruised minds. bodies. education.
health. sufficiency. singing. participation in life.

the bright materials of
Afghan women around the
world sway and rally with
passion to say:
‘Do Not Touch My Clothes’
as everyday grows more forlorn
across the country pomegranates
rot and drop from weeping hems
into gagging mouths of gutters.

by Geraldine Monk

Five decades ago I lent my
copy of Nadezhda Mandlestam’s
eponymous book detailing poets
lives lived under Stalin. Fittingly
I never saw it again. It disappeared.

Of late it’s been in my thoughts
and yet I recall virtually
nothing of it but the ghosts of
screams corkscrewing through the
Lubyanka house of tortured truth.

Oh and the little grubby nugget of how
government thugs would come and
batter down your door in the middle of
nothing in particular even though your
door wasn’t locked and all they had to do was —
knock.

by Roxie Powell

This is what whips you back,
yes, it was always there, a
light twink of loss, sometimes
a stoppage, a blunt reminder
the pain is still there, not lifted
by some magical illusion. You
realize that you are back, that
you never left, as if in truth this
“now” was the forever of life.
And, it is better this way, even
with the pain.