Voices in a mystery - an Easter cycle by Paul Mein.

"Voices in a mystery - an Easter cycle"  is a collection of poems by  local poet, Paul Mein.

The poems form an exciting dramatic cycle, looking at the events of Easter through the eyes of ordinary people such as the carpenter who made the cross, the doctor who signed Jesus' death certificate. 

They also present unique perspectives on other, better known characters - Barabbas, Judas, Mary Magdalene.

Performed by a group of enthusiastic, experienced readers and performers called 'The Nine,' the work is being presented at a number of  venues  across Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, culminating  at St. Peter's Church, Nottingham, where it will form the centrepiece of the church's Good Friday afternoon service. 

Don't miss the opportunity to see this unique presentation. The full programme of performances is as follows:

Wed. 25th March.      Southwell Library  7.30. £2.00

Sun. 29th March.        Lace Market Theatre, Nottingham. 7.00. £5.00

Tue. 31st  March.        St. Wilfrid's  Calverton.  7.30. Retiring collection

Wed. 1st. April.            St. Michael's  Waddington.  7.30 Retiring collection

Fri. 3rd.  April.              St. Peters's Nottingham.  12 noon. Retiring collection



 'Voices in a mystery' the book, which accompanies the performance,  is for sale at  £5.00

Spring Dust by Susan Flower.

Spring-dust


We speed by hot lime fields, emerge into milky fans’ sunlit
Filters through awakening woods, ground-pocked with bluebells’
Flashing ultraviolet; cloud- pink sky shafts   pierce an earth redolent
With winter- crumbled detritus; spores, rich brown mould, lichens.

Our tourer hood back; a red lacquered, leather courtesan’s fan,
Its skin -brittle aged pleats display a controlled wantonness.
A single shuttered eye without lid; one cinematic  observer.

My yellow scarf gusts and eddies; a parachute sulky in wind,
Frothy parasols of cow parsley, creamy blobbed antennae
On spindled legs; such linear green and herby tripods.

The air dances, April  shimmers; spring’s white dress flicks
Back raindrops as we speed through cloudy puddles.
Time shivers on its axis, trembles at its irregular edges.

Spotting a single- track we turn onto a drovers’ road
At the foot of a tumulus, a white stile and old barn’sroof
Tiles glow brokenly in the sun; shifting terracotta planes.

We climb the hill hand in hand, breathless with laughter,
Your brown arms strong and sinewy, your hands pulling me
Up and over the steep precipice, ringed with buttercups

We lean together, heads touching, faces tilted as one,
King and Queen we sit on golden couch grass
Throned immortals we gaze and gaze down over vales
Watch shadows dapple fleet hills, hear distant bird call.

Glimpse far away a sparkle of blue, a slick of sea calm
As our afternoon; you take my face in your hands
Plant a tender kiss on my lips, warm in the breeze,
We crush the flowers naked beneath our bodies

Copyright Susan Flower 2014.

New poetry by Susan Flower

Angel Of The North

I raise tired eyes to encroaching dusk sky
Above Lincoln’s rail station trackside.
Golden tracks parallel thoughts of home;
Both his and mine.
Father relatively home at last in a home. 
Father-Christmas emblazoned tee-shirt 
Protects eighty-six years of dignity, pride
In his only great grand-daughter.
Evie stands four and a half years ’proud, 
Auburn curls halo red-cheeked excitement,
She grips his mobility-scooter handlebars,
Granddad beeps at corners, Evie hoots a warning,
Spinning around the top floor, 
Avoiding a corridor of closed doors.

A hushed silence broken by odd bells.
I do not ask for whom they toll.
We are cast both bell and striker,
Turn and turn about; in pealing melodies.
Presently I lift my camera to capture,  
Freeze a magnificent coral-pink angel as it hovers,
Wings raised to the heavens,
Piercing a gunshot-blue sky
And all my blank grey prejudices.                                                                       


Copyright: Susan Flower 2014

Next Meeting of Pimento Poets

Please note that Pimento Poets will next meet on Monday the 9th March at Pimento Tearooms. Please bring some poetry with you. We will commence at 10.30 a.m.

Vernon Goddard.

New poetry by Shirley Bell.

Emigration

That was a dandelion year, their faces turning with the light,
illuminating every roadside verge with their yellow countenances
on midsummer’s day as we drove you away from us.

From Thursday’s visa to Sunday’s plane you were unloosening your grip,
at such a speed, I never quite caught up with you. But your face was filled
with happiness, like the flowers’. How strange to see you loping to the gate
without a backward glance into a future in a new world we’d never seen.

Dent de lion. Those flowers have teeth; they bite me now whenever
I think of that hectic flight. I love your happiness, I love your wife,
but I still recall the years you flourished here with us.
And there’s still that morsel of me left that was sad to see you go.

We’ve visited. It’s alien to us. The flowers are different there,
the squirrels big and black; chipmunks don’t come in cages,
we can taste the dead skunk’s odour as the wheels roll over it.
Chickadees and hairy woodpeckers populate the trees that we don’t have.

Everything was like a dream I half remembered from all the films,
where I didn’t see those wooden houses. She always talked to us,
of our buildings made of brick and stone, the narrow roads which hug the
old boundaries, meandering through years of ownership. It came to life.

Hers is such a big country with so much space for you to stretch and grow.
Wildernesses press up against the highways, so many roads to cross
and cross again a continent. This is not a small world

Copyright by Shirley Bell.