Leaveners would like to thank all our aspiring poets and curators for their input and efforts and for all those that have contributed in some way to offering such a creative platform. The project is now at an end. Please keep up-to-date with our website as we will be developing other exciting digital projects for artists in 2017.
Isn’t it strange,
How something so simple,
Can hold so much worth?
Like flying a kite:
My own bird on a string.
Tugging with the zephyrs and gusts,
Swooping the bright, blue skies.
Flapping with joy,
As it effortlessly glides,
With as much happiness as I have,
Stood looking up.
by Rebecca Kaur
Rebecca Kaur lives in Wolverhampton and is a member of Blakenhall Writers Group. She writes about childhood memories. “Kite” is a short poem about life’s little pleasures and those same memories. This poem was published in Blakenhall Writers Anthology – Poetry and Prose on Identity 2016.
Mummy, are you white?
Not really, my love.
More vanilla sponge or shortbread, almond, buttered toast,
Known for short as white.
And is my Daddy black?
Not really, my sweet.
More roast coffee, molasses, bitter chocolate, rum truffle,
Known for short as black.
Then what colour am I?
You, little one, are a delicious blend –
A warm cappuccino-cream, toffee-fudge-and-caramel,
Known for short as beautiful.
by Ros Woolner
Ros lives in Wolverhampton (UK) and is a member of Blakenhall Writers and Bilston Writers. This poem was written for her daughter and was published in Blakenhall Writers Anthology – Poetry and Prose on Identity 2016.
Waking up to the apricot baby
of a half born sky,
the orange peels and the
under layers of your skin,
the skin of your teeth and the
morning again.
Drives head inches higher,
roots feet into autumnal grown,
frequencies squeak higher now like you decided
to wear your electric coat and everyone got excited
to see you.
We work this smile line,
our line together.
“Can you keep up or would you rather
go home?”
Contemplate the lack of social desire,
contemplate the lack,
contemplate the self who designates the idea of
lacking,
baseball pitch to dirt mound,
line of the rainbow trout goes taught.
I widen my stance for incidents arrival
glance at palms to see the goddess with her
aching feet and victorious belly
lying unclothed on a bed
waiting for goose bumps.
By Rosalie Wilmot
Rosalie Wilmot is an American living in Thailand. She has a chapbook, Portal published by Bottlecap Press in 2015 and self-published a micro chapbook, We Grew Weeds on Scrib’d the year prior.
“Who are you?”
calls the caterpillar.
For a second I cannot answer.
The words walk me home as I encounter
versions of myself eating peaches on public transport.
The armoured clouds come back to me, Estefania.
the blue wind wrapped around your yellow legs,
the blue wind biting your ankles,
the blue wind loving the white wind in the black desert,
the blue wind that flows up your skirt and moves,
mysteriously around the halls of your palace of blue.
Every night we bathe with fairies in the fountains of the Alhambra,
every night we dine on Federico Garcia-Lorca’s eyes,
we stroll around the wasteland of his dreams.
We see unicorns devoured by dogs.
No we are not unicorns. No, we are not dogs.
the blue wind dripping blue on the bluebells,
the bluebells dancing wildly in the blue wind,
the blue wind blowing over bruises of the blue moon.
Sometimes I find myself eating poems by the roadside,
sometimes I find myself in little pockets of gas.
where I cannot breath as there is no air.
But mostly, Estefania, I find myself in you.
I leave my answer for the caterpillar
though the caterpillar is gone.
by Charlie Baylis
Charlie Baylis lives in Spain. His critical writing has been published in Stride, Neon and Sabotage Reviews. His poetry has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, the Forward Prize and for Queen´s Ferry Press´s Best Small Fictions. He was (very briefly) a flash fiction editor for Litro. ´Elizabeth´, his debut pamphlet is out now on Agave Press. He spends his spare time completely adrift of reality .
8 AM
It’s time for a square outfit
and
Smile No.3
I look further in my agenda:
7 PM
My apron is due,
Pizza Hut perfume.
11 PM
I’m a wild cat
with lipstick, cherry red.
So many roles to play:
Daughter, Mother
Sister, Friend
Colleague, Boss
Student, Teacher
Wife, Lover.
So many acronyms to wear:
Miss, Mrs.
B.Sc., M.Sc
Ph.D.
When it’s time for me?
To wear I?
by Maja S. Todorovic
Maja is an educator and writer, currently living in the sunny Hague. When she is not busy with rhyme, she munches on the bowl of fruit and pretends to do some yoga – or at least that’s how she would like to spend her time.
I require an entirety of you,
A surfeit solution nothing else but
Later or sooner I will draw nearer
A vertical mile’s clear separation,
To watch ptarmigan cracked silences,
Before I dispatch the sky back to you.
Somehow these many years’ oscillations
Harmonise to condense in steady state.
No stuff anti stuff annihilation,
No empty horizon of absent light.
Is it an answer, or only a kludge,
To contain and constrain our universe?
No dark matter, just singular us, with
Time, the river, and that old bridge crossed.
By Steve Smart
Steve lives in Scotland and he says: “After five and a half decades the world only seems to become stranger. I am writing more poetry now. Aspiring seems like quite a big word.”
