HANNAH STONE
Armistice remembrance, Waitrose.
When the tannoy sounded, everyone froze,
like the moment in a pantomime
before the transformation scene;
hands suspended in the act of tapping payment;
packets hovering between shelf and trolley.
Yet still the escalator delivered bodies
from the underworld, warning:
‘Caution! You are approaching the end of the conveyor!’
When the coffee queue reanimates,
a youth in half-mast jeans enquires
‘what was that two minutes silence for?’
There’s a question for those khaki-clad lads
holding a final breath in the moment
between explosion and impact.
Hannah Stone is the author of Lodestone (Stairwell Books, 2016), Missing Miles (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2017), Swn y Morloi (Maytree Press, 2019) and several collaborations, including Fit to Bust with Pamela Scobie (Runcible Spoon, 2020). She convenes the poets/composers forum for Leeds Leider, curates Nowt but Verse for Leeds Library, is poet theologian in Virtual Residence for Leeds Church Institute and editor of the literary journal Dream Catcher. Contact her on hannahstone14@hotmail.com for readings, workshops or book purchases.
It's not easy getting a book or pamphlet accepted for review these days. So in addition to the regular review section, the One Poem Review feature will allow more poets' to reach a wider audience - one poem featured from a new book/pamphlet along with a cover JPG and a link to the publisher's website. Contact the editor if you have released a book/pamphlet in the last twelve months or expect to have one published. Details here
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