UoB Writers’ Bloc
The Journal
Issue 18 1
Welcome to the eighteenth issue of The Journal! So here it is folks, the first issue of the Journal in the 2016/17 university year and the first Journal with me in charge as editor. The theme for this weeks issue was nature and boy was I not disappointed with the level of quality I received from our very talented writers here at UoB Writers’ Bloc. In this Journal you will read a collection of poetry and prose that cover a diverse range of subject matter whilst staying true to the theme of nature. From Romanticesque poems about autumn, to poems commenting on the divide between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland there are some truly fabulous poems for you to read that really capture the emotions spurned by nature. Thanks to all those people that sent in submissions for this issue and if you find that your piece did not make publication, have no fear because I am already accepting submissions for next issue’s theme. The theme for this next issue is going to be Inspirations and you can send submissions to: writersblocjournal@gmail.com and keep an eye on the Writer’s Bloc Facebook/ Website for more details. Enjoy! Ben Aston, Journal Editor
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Contents Rachel Muller Dear Autumn (Featured Piece)
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Haleema Ahmed All That Lies Between Them
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Rhys Morgan Funeral
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George Bandy Walking Through The Woods
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Matthew Magill A Story of Ireland
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Sam Arrowsmith The Scar That Split The Land From The Water
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Emily Sumpter Unnatural
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Sophie Laing Reflecting on Coleridge
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Jake Scott The Streets Here Look Angry
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Tori Harris-Burton A Tree in The Wasteland
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Featured Piece Dear Autumn Dear Autumn, Oh, how can I begin to do justice to thee; Thou of golden russet upon golden tree? With thy leaves once akin to that emerald city, Now metamorphose into autumnal reverie. Sentinels in ash, oak, and birch cascade Sheltering vermilion, amber, and saffron shades. And so, the squirrel skitters and the fox barks, Patchwork twilight symphony of stag and harp. The badger busies on and the dormouse dozes In thick hedgerows among the blushing roses. Butterfly cradled in chrysalis; woodpecker on the wing Yet each wood warbler and chiffchaff will return in spring. And so, the rich fruits of Mother Nature’s harvest Are lain to bare among these carmine carpets.
Rose Muller
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All That Lies Between Them
The wounded day is fading; starved, Consumes the night with fiery lips, The wind laments his passing And sighs upon my fingertips. But stars begin to blossom Flourishing with spark so bright, They flirt with us on-lookers, The wind forgives the night. The moon unveils her splendour; For her, the proud sea pines, And lovers flock towards her Like pilgrims to their shrines. But as I stand enraptured, As I stand with spirits high, Such questions move within me As I stand wandering; why? For God did not create you; In you no breath divine. So what explains this fervour? These spells upon my spine? I used to dream of angels, Golden heavens for the just, But now my prayer’s just ashes; My faith is now but dust.
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Scripture only constrains you, Sets all your grace and might; Your fragrance, colours, hues, In simply black and white. It shrouds a maiden’s tresses And scorns a lover’s peak, Strangles the chords of music, And makes all passions meek; Captures the moon and star, Reanimates the dead, Wields God across new lands To paint their doorways red. But if God were beside us, Dropping eaves with ear divine, Would he watch and ponder? What spells upon his spine? Or would he slink back and retreat Beneath those Damascan sands, Than wear the weight of one world’s Blood upon his hands.
Haleema Ahmed
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Funeral Gather round friends, and listen if you please, This humble bard shall sing to you of trees, Of their beauty? No, friends, of their demise, Of screams of seas, of coral reefs’ death cries. This is not Romantic. This is a dirge. Speak not to me of nature’s permanence, Ozymandias could not tame the sands, The sands reclaimed his kingdom, as it died Make no mistake, friends, now, that cannot be. We won’t leave crumbled statues, in the sand We won’t leave ruins, fit for nature’s hands, For we have gone too far. Daisies won’t grow, Underneath a ruined car park. Imagine, if you can, an old oak tree. It should live longer than both you and me. But, Naïve, it would extend a friendly branch, Towards the smog, towards the logger’s axe.
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Enough of form and metre, Enough of being tied to conventions, Enough of softening the blow. This bard is too angryAngry, because one day, a boy will take his shoes off, Feel the grass beneath his feet, And wonder why it’s black, not green. He’ll shrug his shoulders, climb a tree, And the branch, gnarled, stained coal-black with our sins, Will snap. We’ll weep as ignorant veils hide our eyes. Meanwhile, upon her deathbed, Gaia cries.
Rhys Morgan
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Walking Through The Woods Walking through the woods one eve, I did once spy a doe. Wreathed in mist, through twilight's shade, She seemed almost to glow. Pitch-dark eyes that glimmered bright, She locked at once with me. Before I could quite catch my breath She fled, no more to see. I sought her through the lofty boughs, Past gurgling stream and brook, But could not find a sign or sight, Of her, each path I took. When I then left the wooded groves, And thought I could be free, I knew without her sight once more Peace would not come to me.
George Bandy
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A Story of Ireland A forgotten evening, grey with age, falls on the roads and dies in a haze. To my left, a field and a broken path, My mind wanders still and my feet come at last. I trip and tangle in the gloom, wading through weaves of rushes and brome, And in a sleep, I am carried along to stones that rattle until they are gone Over the cliff to a rolling sea, barred by a gate, but opened for me, The fence is broken but ferns fill the gaps, the Council has banned and barred the path: “Its display is distasteful and the danger is disgraceful, and the jingle in our pockets deems it far, far too wasteful” Indeed, protest, the horror of such a mess. The dragonfly pest! The raven’s barren nest. And the wildflowers, well, they are weeds as much the rest! (I apologise, dear reader, I did digress.) The boards sound dull beneath my feet, one breaks in my wake and crumbles to peat. I notice now the grasses have gone and in their place brambles live on. Nettles and briars follow suit, and soon a thorn springs from every shoot. Haze that rushes from the road, traces my footprints in swirling forebode. Ice crystals form in the tracks, but just look ahead. Never look back. (Stop. I’m sorry, but despite what I’ve said, in a place like this, Romance is dead. Nature’s bounty in its might, showed me a splendour tainted by blight.
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How can I talk of dreams and light when modern Ireland would rather fight? And not with steel: pen or sword, but with flags and hags that hate who they ward. For Ireland’s woe and Ireland’s end is in these lines I can barely pen. When time by time we vote for change yet refuse to save our dying age. It is the rivals and marches and banners and flags that laden the layman who is just getting by. Gone is the emerald in the isle when it has been sold to fund our revile. What is Ireland? Who are we? Lost is the world of the old poetry. My mind reels in the coming cold, the pressure, the anger, that I’ve never told. A looming question I must address, why live in a place where I feel bereft? The problem is, I can’t decide: to stay at home or to stay alive. For here, it’s clear, I’ll fade away when a damned cliff-path can barely stay. They’ll dig me up from a bracken grave for I have grown sour from my time in Knocklayde.) … Until we join, green and gold, and truly make amends, We’ll be cursed, forevermore, to fight ‘till bitter ends. All the horrors of the past have never truly gone, And until they’re put to rest, the North shall never belong.
Matthew Magill
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The Scar That Split the Land From The Water As I press my back against the cliff the rock claws at my spine and scores a mark on my shoulder blades, but eventually evens out my back to a straighter and proper position. The breeze shoves me to the stone, beating my face with tiny grains carried across the solemn shore from the land of those other people to the waters of no-one else. The sand in my palm falls down. It slips through my frozen fingers and takes bits of me with it as I look at the falling specs that are carried away by the storm. I see a boat out on a grey painting, anchored by the world around it, trapped by the movement of air and sea and the sailor refuses to move, so they just wait and pray. The only way is forward. I cannot scale the cliff, so I fight my way to the sea ignore the crashing cold and keep on walking.
Sam Arrowsmith 12
Unnatural It's not in my nature to feel so alone If I'm not amongst people, I don't feel at home But my loved ones have left and my mind's not my own
I can cope. I am safe. I am here.
It's not in my nature to feel so afraid, To let fear be the reason my acts are delayed, But the threads of my thoughts are just constantly frayed. I must cope. I’ll be safe. Just stay here.
It’s not in my nature to question myself, When my confidence is the chief source of my wealth, But I walk tall, then falter, and damage my health. Can I cope? Am I safe? Where is ‘here’?
When you’ve lost your own nature, your mirror is blurred And your own company is enforced, not preferred, If they ask, you can only repeat the same word: I am tired…I am tired…I am tired…
Emily Sumpter
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Reflecting on Coleridge. I want to live under a rock, run out and play, climb a tree, I want to explore the freshness, take lungfuls of the air. Yet, here I sit, still procrastinating from the lust of nature, to instead fulfil a fleeting duty felt towards an image, that no longer reflects me. Reflecting on Coleridge is often as close to nature as I get. I want to feel the awesome power, that an understanding brought to a witless woeful mariner, or sit basking with the nightingale, whilst the poets proclaim its melancholic state. In truth, I feel more melancholic here, than any form of nature could express, and still I think‌tomorrow? Perhaps.
Sophie Laing
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The Street’s Here Look Angry The streets here look angry. Cutting open parks and estates like they’re desperate to be heard. I promise I can hear you, you keep me awake. I’ve cut myself up on your corners more times than I can count and the paving slabs I’ve sat on are cracked where I’ve waited like so many broken egg shells. But the streets back home are soft, and quiet. They don’t cut, they trace themselves between the fields and hills that roll on with them. They spill, not slice, like wine between stone. They still show me cracked slabs but I like to think they’re cracked, not because they want to trip people up, but as notes we’ve made our mark. For tilled fields can be turned over like new fallen leaves, but cracked pavements always stay the same.
Jake Scott
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A Tree in The Wasteland This tree is the only thing that grows there anymore …… Not because the land is barren and dead, there’s no ash-filled wasteland or desertification; the climate is fine, it rains and shines as if like any typical, boring day in any typical, boring year. No special natural occurrence renders the land unbearable or intolerable to inhabit. Actually, I’m wrong. Completely and utterly wrong. It is in fact a wasteland. A wasteland which is cold and cynical; grey from the concrete slabs that fancy designer heels and leather business brogues stamp on every day; where dreams of adventure and excitement are trampled by real-world expectations and the smell of cheap office coffee that lingers the bleak air. The windows and doors which lead into the scenes of boardrooms and high-end boutiques are almost ridiculous in their pretentious averageness. So that’s why the tree is the only thing that grows there, in the middle of these tower blocks and tram lines. Its green leaves will change to a golden amber colour in the crisp Autumn, falling onto the concrete slabs. New, fresh leaves will sprout with new life each springtime. Those who walk past the tree see it as a waste of time and space, just a piece of wood that has no place in the centre of finance or law (or whatever this place is). But some can witness the branches and leaves with a sense of purpose and hope – the long hours and stressful pressures within the walls of the towers cannot harm the tree, some can see.
The tree can only become bigger, stronger – a beautiful piece of nature in a land of scepticism and blandness.
Tori Harris-Burton
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Issue
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You can start submitting to the next issue now. Up to 1500 words of prose and 50 lines of poetry
Send them to: writersblocjournal@gmail.com Thanks for Reading
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