Itchy Hare - Liz Waugh
Epithany - Grapefruit Grumbles
Grapefruit came late to me, but once tasted became an essential eye-opener. Its astringency ameliorated by a spoonful of sugar, I eagerly anticipated the burst of juice on my palate, pepping me up for the day to come. Loosening the segments with a knife and watching the sugar dissolve, I was almost salivating. A breakfast minus grapefruit was a dismal affair.
Occasionally I’d dress it up a bit for a fancy dessert, following a recipe in a favourite cookbook. After the segments were loosened and the sugar crystals had melted into the juice, a liberal dose of sweet sherry added a heady aroma. The masterpiece was placed under a hot grill until it bubbled. The warm, now brownish, fruit slid down easily.
A habit so ingrained that I thought I could never break it finally died the death when my doctor and I decided that a daily statin would introduce me to the world of pills. Three weeks into this regime, I was reminded that grapefruit, in all its forms, was now a forbidden fruit. Something to do with it also having the power to reduce cholesterol, presumably in an unquantifiable way. I toyed briefly with the notion that I might eschew the tablets and eat mountains of grapefruit.
Ten years on, my eyes still sometimes stray to the piles of yellow globes stacked invitingly on the supermarket shelves. I imagine the explosion of sharp sweetness on the roof of my mouth and the slow trickle of phlegm-busting nectar down my throat. Somehow a daily orange still doesn’t quite cut it….
LInda Powell
Sound Prompt
The Significance of Sound and Fury
(written 07.02.94)
Archangel Hooranan removed his halo and wing-pack.
He could breathe and move with ease now that he was back
in Heavenmosphere. “You must see this” he urged the Others
as he switched on the Aardscreen, “they’re talking, Brothers,
about Church. It’s a televid called ‘Kilroy’ watched by their citizens
in which everyone talks and nobody listens”
“My Church is my place of work where I go each day,
and pray
that I won’t be found out…”
“My Church lies
between the thighs
of the pursuit of constant pleasure”
“My Church lies…”
“My Church is my business, where I am God,
worshipped and feared in equal measure…”
“My Church is my business…”
“My Church is the place where I was baptised, was married,
from which the mortal man is buried…”
“My Church stole my mind…”
“My Church is the street, a street which encircles the world…”
“My Church is my wheelchair from which I scream at my Maker
my anger and frustration,
disguised as supplication…”
“My Church is not represented here…”
“My Church is a Synagogue …”
“…a Mosque…”
“…a Temple…”
“My Church is the
High Church…”
“My Church is better than your church;
yours is a really poor church…”
As Hooranan slid the volume down and turned to the Others,
Gabriel smiled and said “Brothers,
remember that despair is not permitted here.
The situation is not as futile as may first appear.
For these beings the solution is clear;
they simply must improve their ability to hear.”
Peter Kelly
Peter Kelly
Whispering Prompt
A Greek Holiday
The cool sea air talks
It's whispering myths of Greece
Legends never die
Daniel Gillespie
Seascape
A pair of squalling gannets scuff the beach.
The sun, a pale balloon is out of reach
and the summer child who had it tight
walks with his mother in the dimming light
towards the safe sea wall.
….and beyond the long horizon –
men, massing with their guns.
Fathers, husbands, boyfriends, lovers -
other mother’s sons.
A turn-tail tide runs out and drops her shawl
of froth and weed. A milk-eyed mackerel
lost from a fisher’s evening haul
lolls like a lazy bather in a pool
under the safe sea-wall -
….and beyond the long horizon –
men, massing with their guns.
Fathers, husbands, boyfriends, lovers -
other mother’s sons.
An open page of sand blurs to peach-bloom
scribbled with graffiti of the sand-worm
and the scatty hieroglyphs of feet
of child and seabird on its fading sheet
under the safe sea wall
….and beyond the long horizon –
men, massing with their guns.
Fathers, husbands, boyfriends, lovers - 
other mother’s sons.
I read in jetsam war’s lunatic symbols -
the shingle’s bone-screed; sucking crab-holes
burying the living, arms of trees,
boat-shard, sheep hull – carnage of savage seas
under the safe sea wall
….and beyond the long horizon
men are massing with their guns.
Fathers, husbands, boyfriends, lovers,
fathers, husbands, boyfriends, lovers,
fathers, husbands, boyfriends, lovers,
and other mother’s sons.
Chrys Salt Wren - Leonie Ewing
Is it me? (The Refugee Befriender)
Now that she’s here
only one thing matters.
Each time we meet
it changes.
‘Why only one hour
a week?’ she implores.
Today, learning English
is the key to secure a
new life for her family.
This is logical and I mount
a campaign matching her
indignance with my best
efforts to unravel the red
tape preventing it. I teach her
that phrase inwardly wincing
at its old-fashioned sense of
injustice, can almost smell
a wood-panelled office where
tight-skirted girls pushed paper.
She checks her smart-phone
for a translation and
suddenly I see this capricious,
desperate, singularity of purpose
in the provincial UK town
she imagined would be city
smart might be about me.
Maybe she thinks we Scots
can only manage one thing
at a time. She has a degree,
contracts with Syrian TV, calls
me dear and darling in texts.
And I’m older than her mother
Clare Phillips
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