In the Slips. A poem by Pratibha Castle

In the Slips
 
While the world watches, 
Violetta, clad in years
the measure of a week,
journeys from Odessa 
with her doll and cat 
 
and a Granny, face 
a crumpled map 
of lifetime drills 
framed by a scarf 
the colour of loss
compels a soldier boy
put this flower in your pocket
 
hopes his flesh, rotted 
into trampled mud
bone and blood
transmutes to 
a claggy womb, 
will birth a crop 
of smiling sunflowers
 
and a mob 
of men in black 
as if spectators 
at a cricket match 
watch a tank 
grizzle over cobblestones
across the city square 
while a man
sprints into its path  
scoops up a hand- grenade 
underarms it 
at a pile of stones
the dog-end 
dangling from his lip 
a red-eyed fuse

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Pratibha Castle, an Irish born poet living in West Sussex, is widely anthologised and published in journals and ezines including Agenda, The Friday Poem, High Window, Orbis, Spelt, Stand, Tears in The Fence, Word City Lit and One Hand Clapping. A Pushcart nominee, short listed in The Bridport Prize 2023, her work has additionally been highly commended and shortlisted in numerous poetry competitions including Indigo Press, Repton, King Lear Award and the Welsh Poetry Competition. Her latest pamphlet, Miniskirts in The Waste Land, a Poetry Book Society Winter Selection 2023, takes the reader on a trip through Notting Hill and India in the late 60s/early 70s. She is currently working towards a full collection.

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