Bonfire Night by Debi Crow

Bonfire Night
Paper flies to the fire.
Hair stings. Fingers gather up
a posy, a coin, a string.
The star burns down
to unreadable ashes.
The harvest swings at my hip.
The estuary wind sucks my skirt.
Water meets earth
with a whooshing hymn.
They splinter my door,
brutal and wary,
clattering into my room.
I have no cunning.
I am barely wise,
and definitely not a devil.
Yet here I [...]

Only She Remembers by Debi Crow

It’s inevitable
He’ll deny everything, of course he will
He wasn’t even there, he’s never seen her before
He only bought her a drink, and then
the silly bitch drank too much, didn’t she?
He wasn’t even there, though, so, you know, I don’t know
What are you going to do? Accuse
him of something? He’s never seen you!
What are you going [...]

Poem by Debi Crow

Youth is innocence
Age is beauty
If we can age in our
own bodies, in our own
skin
Unaltered, unadulterated, untouched
by the dogmas of patriarchy,
We can truly subvert.
That ageing in ourselves and as our Selves is an act of subversion
is perverse, but
subversion it is, and
subvert we must.
I subvert and we subvert.
We re-fuse, and re-
wire, re-connect and
re-define
beauty.
by Debi Crow

Hagar and Sarah by Jennifer Wildflower

Hagar:
Hagar tied a knot
and slipped through it
she tapped her
skull to
her son’s
and together they
dipped into the
river of life.
She could lead a battalion
to a place of
naked peace
if not for her flesh,
wrapped in butcher’s paper.
She was unvisited by grace
and so she spelled it out
in the sand.
We are rent from her now,
God’s own beauty
strong only by breaks
in every [...]

Unspoken Word by Ami Mattison

by Ami Mattison

She is Risen by allecto

This poem is dedicated to Rebecca Mott because she inspired it. You are an Amazon, Rebecca. Don’t you forget it.
She is Risen
Sing to me, siren
Of the night
Let the melodies take you
Distant tunes in the dappled light
The faithless drifting
Whilst I am caught
In a song and her eddies
With the lost and once-owned.
And she rises
Shaken from the seaweed
Riding the cantankerous waves
Of [...]

Stormrunner by Embyr Arrikanez

Lightning struck the Earth and she was there,
Standing with her arms full of children of all skins and races;
& her hair ran black with all colours, crackling
Like the fairy-touch of a gentle lover along a plump thigh, or
Tender smiles half-felt along cheeks in the darkness, and
Her legs were red with life;
And storm-born she ran with [...]

We will not slumber until every woman wakes by allecto

This is dedicated to Heart from Women’s Space because she is a sister. Because she is brave and strong and tireless.
Love and peace to you, Heart. This is for you.
***
The world breaks open. Underneath the layers, transcending the past, making the present.
I have seen it written. In the hour of our forced surrender. The world [...]