Here are three poems which will feature in Steve Urwin’s small but beautifully formed Moodswing magazine.

History Talks
(Charlie’s Park, Jarrow)

In the park missing renegades dig in the bushes,

fire at missing soldiers as ghosts hit mist.

Struggling round the bandstand,

long-dead lovers,

tired of waiting for soldier boys,

killed at Dunkirk or Flanders

without a song hitting dry lips;

survivors tell their tales

in care homes for the profoundly deaf.

The park and lovers faraway,

their day no longer.

I still hear them shushing in the grass,

growing into a shout until pain numbs,

the picture and noise settles

into a ball:

history that will never roll away.

Tom Kelly

History
(11)

Dirty Wednesday night, papers fill doorways

up and down Collingwood Street.

Sky’s too black;

I slip home,

life warped by poverty.

I crouch by the Tyne,

untidy allotments,

tide out

river filled

buckled wheels, dead dogs,

broken wooden pallets…

I want to

give everything order.

Tom Kelly

History

Winter night:

stranger brushing past, saying “sorry”,

arc of light pulling away from his cigarette.

Gas lamped streets, patches of black

hit by blue tinges, washed windows.

Today the street’s DVD’s are on.

Past dead,

useless to these lads

comparing tattoos, kicking shop doorways,

waiting for night to make their history.

Tom Kelly

Steve Urwin
Moodswing
Talking Pen
12 Derby Crescent
Moorside
Consett
County Durham
CH8 8DZ

£2.00 per issue