Macmillan Cancer Support

Each and every day, 822 people in the UK are told the devastating news that they have cancer. Macmillan Cancer Support aims to improve the lives of people living with cancer, as well as supporting family members, friends and carers. Macmillan’s increasing range of services, include nurses, doctors and other health professionals, cancer care centres, specialist cancer information and help with money.

Right now, Macmillan are only able to reach one in two people who need this vital support. It is their ambition
to be able to reach everyone.All of these services are only possible thanks to people’s generosity and every penny raised by the sale of Soul Feathers really will make a difference.

If you have questions about cancer you can contact
Macmillan on 0808 808 00 00,
or visit www.macmillan.org.uk

OR VIA PAYPAL

UK

EUROPE

REST OF WORLD

Here Is The Place Where Loveliness Keeps House – Madison Cawein

Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house,
Between the river and the wooded hills,
Within a valley where the Springtime spills
Her firstling wind-flowers under blossoming boughs:
Where Summer sits braiding her warm, white brows
With bramble-roses; and where Autumn fills
Her lap with asters; and old Winter frills
With crimson haw and hip his snowy blouse.
Here you may meet with Beauty. Here she sits
Gazing upon the moon, or all the day
Tuning a wood-thrush flute, remote, unseen;
Or when the storm is out, 'tis she who flits
From rock to rock, a form of flying spray,
Shouting, beneath the leaves' tumultuous green.

The New World – Katrina Naomi

I live in Ana’s caravan,
strew it with poppies and moss.
She adds cornflowers, cow parsley,
liking colour, greens and blues.
I position the van towards the moon.

She’ll sleep here
or in the woods.
I can never be sure,
but if it’s a night when she’s playing
with wolves, I undo the latch

and sew. I cover her bed
in Kente cloth and matted grass,
find a pink Formica table
from a seaside café that’s selling up,
place it by the window,

so she can paint the stars
by numbers. I leave her
offerings of a bamboo bar,
a solar-powered record player,
scratched jazz.

I love to watch her dance,
how quetzals lift her step,
lizards pull her to the ground.
I cook a dish of cacti,
leave it steaming at her feet.

From The Girl with the Cactus Handshake - Katrina Naomi, Templar Poetry, 2009.

For A Friend Not So Far Away – Sean (TA-2) Gregory Buttram

In the darkness,
There was a light he could not see;
In the light,
There was a darkness in what he found;
Uncovering "true" beauty,
When it could not be found on the surface;
 
In the "I" of the Performer,
Beauty was uncovered in the tiny aperture,
The smallest little opening in his mending heart;
 
A ray of life...
A puzzle piece to a complicated story;
A light of truth...
A dream becoming reality;
Some stories when properly discovered...
Have happy beginnings.

In loving memory of James Key - A True Inspiration

Find Me – Maggie Sawkins

In the ring around a blackbird’s eye, find me.
In a cup of ocean, a patch of sky, find me.

On this the shortest day of winter,
in the persistence of a seagull’s cry, find me.

In a blade of grass by a dusty roadside,
in the mating song of a harvest fly, find me.

In the huddle of trees outside your window,
in the moon’s gaze and the wind’s sigh, find me.

At the top of a blue stack mountain
imagine feathered wings and fly, find me.

As you cast your breath you’ll find the answer
in the place where shadows lie, find me.

From ‘Is it possible to write a religious poem in the 21st century?’ - Flarestack

Epitaph – Stephen Leake

I gave you the forest,
Full-leaved, carefully escaping itself;
Its carved secrets ringing in
The shrinking mouth of a lost bird.

You took it, direct as a prayer
The way a child receives an alien
Fruit, or discerning fly
Addresses a casual wound.

And we settled. Inseparable
Yet estranged in our sharp-shaped thoughts,
Dropping from the steps to
The muted absence of what lay ahead.

It was a place borrowed
Where we borrowed ourselves,
Warped in time’s rumours.
With vines. Flint.

And you smiled across the
Interlude to a vanishing point:
A hint of verge where the white stone lay-

Its dreams still learning;
Its lyrics, grey.

Like Persephone – Patrick B Osada

You have endured.
Stolen from the light
You faced your darkness;
Bravely you returned,
With wisdom and insight.

But darkness recurred,
Gripping you softly.
 
Reaching out and out
It spreads across the void -
To touch all of those
You have ever loved.

Poppies by Bosch – Wendy Webb

There is a piece of jigsaw
awaiting revelation, to the most misshapen poet
inspired by poppies.
Today, or tomorrow, the dove will descend
and all those pieces connect,
a work of art.