Readers' Contributions
Contributions from Around the World
Previously on this page we have included contributions from some far-flung spots such as Walton, New Zealand and the dark side of the Pennines – Manchester. Our most recent contribution stems the periphery of the fair city of Wakefield. If that sounds a little domestic then you might be pleased to know that the setting of the poem is Yirka. There, that's got you, hasn't it? We are grateful to Adele Cairns for submitting the poem.
Fast Car
Like the song, your car is fast.
We sweep, breathless, down dirt tracks.
Windows open, hair a tangled mass,
like this country, whipped into tats.
Ameera sleeping across my knee.
How many more days?
One, two, three?
before I go the camera
will capture you and me,
your arm around my waist,
and ten years on I'll know
it was my choice to leave,
when Dina asked me
"stay in Yirka."
Adele Cairns
Full of sanity, empty of sense? Readers might empathise with Sylvia Pio's poem sent to us by the magic of the interwebby thing from Italy.
I once said the apricot tree was my home
because I preferred its clamorous leaves
to the silence sounding old walls.
When Autumn began to confine me inside
I would look to the trees as one looks to a shore
at the end of a travel by sea,
to the sun from a place ransacked by rain.
Now that the tree has died, am I homeless?
I should have chosen oak, chestnut from wildness
but they can die too, I'm afraid.
And it was an apricot tree which stood by the house,
anyway.
I once said the apricot tree was my home
and now in these rooms
full of sanity, empty of sense
I am left to roam.
Sylvia Pio
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