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Food Bank Another working day, Twelve hours with the elderly, Waiting for my pay, Loving family tenderly. Nothing to report but, Dreading the journey home, Claiming income support, No credit on my phone. Another payday loan, Council flat is dank, In shadow seeds are sown, Waiting at the food bank. Britain Needs Gurdwaras There are 300 Gurdwaras in the UK, A little-known statistic, If you’re hungry, they will feed you, This gift of community ensures survival, Filling hearts and bellies. All ages, all creeds, all needs, good deeds, No questions asked, just humanity with a smile, Our flesh and blood are the same, just different, A first world country, leaning on community efforts, Dedicated volunteers lift spirits, When there’s nowhere else to go, What happened to social mobility? Rising beyond origins, carving success? A lost term among hidden beneficiaries, As teenagers we talked of eradicating child poverty, Eradicating world hunger, yet here we stand, Poverty and hunger in a first world country. Politicians shrug shoulders – let’s set up a working group, A Royal Commission to report back in five years, Some subjects are too big for one lifetime and a million politicians, There’s enough food for us all, you know, not just the few. Gurdwaras show society the errors of its ways, They offer true leadership, true ambition, true humanitarian love.  Born in Manchester, England, Vince first started writing poetry influenced by the 'punk' poet, John Cooper Clarke in the mid-1980s. Since then he has travelled extensively and enjoys writing about both beautiful and disturbing things. Coming from a tough background, Vince recognises the difficulties of ordinary people. He works as a trainer helping people overcome the fear of public speaking.
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Loaves and Lilies There is this Chinese proverb stating that, when you have only Two pennies left in the world, you should buy a loaf of bread With one and a lily with the other. Which is a good illustration Of an admirable message – feeding not only the stomach but Also the soul… man cannot live by bread alone… those sorts of Sentiments. But there is now a higher truth that involves altruism And our common humanity: spend one of your pence on a loaf For yourself and the other on a loaf for a faraway fellow human Who is desperately hungry. Involving a lack of lily, conceivably Compensated for by my sense of virtuousness – of having done The ‘right thing’. But here, for me at any rate, there is a bit of a Problem. Call me greedy or selfish if you must but I favour the Lily before me to the temporarily satiated individual, unknown to And distant from me, noble though my gesture might have been. So, what to do? Possibly fourteen of us should share the lily in Question between us and dispatch a baker’s dozen loaves to a Zone of famine – and there are multitudes of those. But, here Again, that doesn’t work for me: I want my lily, not a share in a Lily but sole ownership thereof. Any other ideas? Well, how about We clear the fields and we provide the grain and the agricultural Implements and some fertiliser, thereby enabling those starving People to produce loaves (possibly alongside lilies) themselves? Which involves some initial sacrifice on my part (half a loaf is Better than no bread) but, in a year or two, I would not need to Go without my lily and my conscience would be clear. What’s That – the rich landowners have seized the land? The villagers Have eaten the seeds? There’s no money to fuel the equipment? The fertiliser fails to meet environmental standards? Let us face It, there are some questions without answers, some problems Without solutions. I’ve certainly enjoyed my daily bread but I see That my lilium convallium has finished flowering. It must now be Deadheaded, pruned, cut back, and mulched in readiness for the Year ahead and so I’ve just no time to think further about hunger. BIO: MIKE DOUSE has worked in education internationally since 1963. His publications include An Enjoyment of Education, One World One School, and numerous journal articles and conference presentations, along with four collections of his poems: Old Ground, Gone to Ground, Grounded and Groundhog Nights. He is living happily ever after in South Wales with his dear wife Patricia.
The Recipe may take its name from the country of birth or from the author, but depends on the right amount of ingredients in the right order: no higgledy piggledy. Although tastes have proved as fickle as simile, the seas dishes sail in are groups that rise and fall in frequencies that follow whales feeding in plastic fields. Between the poetry and metaphor, between our finger and our mouth, hangs an image of a starving child above rivers of uneaten flavour. The lost recipes of Eden live in golden grains of singing wheatfields.  Deirdre is an award winning playwright and poet. Her first book of poems 'The Language of Coats' was published by New Island Books and includes the poems which won The Listowel Poetry Collection Prize. 'The Mermelf-A Fable for Our Times' was published by Austin and Macauley in April 2024 and is a verse novella for younger readers.
Green Light in the Wasteland This morning's news is that food bank usage has skyrocketed this Canadian Thanksgiving. I’ve had my breakfast and am feeling thankful. My hunger is for everyone to be fully fulfilled. Yet the garden of plenty is not feeding us all. In the corner growing is a shining hope seed. Planted to keep the night from becoming day. Let’s nourish this plentiful spirit that those who have less can be filled with the dignity of more.  David C. Brydges is an autodidact solo scholar and lover of the liminal. Whose bedside book "Poetry as Insurgent Art" is a constant companion and reminder of how we need to listen and heal our planet with words of hope.
A single grain of rice I have value. I am important. I have purpose. I cry staring at my bowl. I fear the world forgot me. It’s empty, Like the promises made to save me. Today we got rice. Yesterday too. I used to count each grain, But now each hunger pain Drives me insane. I wonder what it’s like, To not question if I will eat today. I wonder if they realise That we are as important As every single grain of rice.  Joanne Macias is a multi-disciplinary creative from Western Sydney, with multiple publications available both online and in print. She is an alumnus of the 2023 Westwords Academy and will embark on her first residency in Ireland in 2025 to complete her poetry collection which explores body confidence. She loves to find interesting ways to challenge reader perception by placing her characters in truly unique situations. You can follow her writing adventures on Instagram at @joanne_macias_writer
This road This road buried the living hunger. This road has the tyrannical sucking blood of the native This road was filled with carcasses. This road heard her pleading cries. This road carries the waft of murder. This road had the track of musk deer. This road has a different grammar, different character, different syntax, and different poetry. Sleep wanted to dive into those innocent, hungry eyes; they Can bite this cinder of hungry Hunger that remained long in her dying eyes Paid more than the borrowed sum Face covered with ashen policies and plans The turn of the road is where their houses conjoined the dancing flames. Here the white vultures feasted on the sweat and toil of deer. Here once the old lions tore the flesh of the souls. Here their hands designed the structure after structure. Here they divided them into parties, sects, ideologies, beliefs, and preached pieces. The ditch is where they learned to say yes. Oh! Hunger, have some patience; they will be exiled soon. Crying I heard the familiar cry calling Sound is similar in Asia, Africa, Australia Gaza, Nigeria, Russia, Ukraine, …… I wanted to write A for apple, but what it’s H For hunger That familiar crying child disturbs me Day and night That orphan on the railway station Circling his dead, starved mother To wake up Though she has left some Hunger for him to feed on Click to hear the poet read the poem.  Pulkita Anand is an avid reader of poetry. She has translated one short story collection, “Tribal Tales from Jhabua”. Author of two children’s e-books, her eco-poetry collection is we were not born to be erased. Her creative works have been published in: Shortstory Kids, Twist and Twain, Tint Journal, Lapis Lazuli, The Creativity Webzine, Winc Magazine (Issue 1, 2, 5 &7), Stanza Cannon, Superpresent, Madwomen in the Attic, Poetica#11 &12, NCTE, The Uglywriters, Impspired (online &print issue) redsoethorns Journal (online) and magazine, Kritya, The Amazine, Carmina Magazine, Origami Press, Asiatic, Inanna Publication, Bronze Bird Books, New Verse News, Hakara Journal, Madras Courier, Convergence anthology (selected), MAI and elsewhere.
When We Didn’t Know We Needed More Until ‘more’ is seen Contentment flows in less. Freshly baked bread The few photos from that time show a lanky brother, too thin and tall by far, a pretty, but too slender mother, her hair strictly drawn off her face, wound into a bun, and this kid with a flower-pot cut in a white blouse, puff sleeves and checkered skirt, legs with knobby knees going on forever, up, up... but then, the photo was taken from below the little hill on which we posed. We ate. Most of the time. Vegetarian by default, forays into meat making us sick, our system wasn’t used to the heaviness of animal protein. I once got a rash all over my body because my mother, generously and happily, spread my bread with lard my father had sent in a battered old aluminum flask, leftover from someone’s trench warfare. When our landlady planned a birthday party for her baby boy, we had no idea. She’d obviously saved flower, butter, sugar from her ration card and probably bought some extra on the black market. Then she set to baking, glazing, creaming, sugaring. That day we sat at the birthday table she beamed across to us all: ‘Guten Appetit!’. After a while most of us felt sick. One little boy began to cry. We all turned to him and asked with our eyes... He sobbed: “I wanted to try a bit of every cake. That one with the dollop of cream on top I haven’t touched, and I can’t. I can’t! I am too full.” Until ‘more’ is seen Contentment flows in less. Freshly baked bread  A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and eight poetry collections, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals.
www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com Subsistence Economy After the blight she thought often of the steamed bun skins she’d thrown away her whole life. Lapping up anti-carb hate lit, peeling those fluffy white skins, tasting those fillings: pasty red bean, charred meat, gooey custard, demure lotus seed. Fingertips scorched, mouth and tongue burnt by tiny bursts of steam, chewing through a world of yesterday’s textures. So many skins on so many plates – a harvested mountain, foothills of ivory dough puffing up, frothing to a crimson peak. She could have, should have eaten that for a lifetime. Ahead was a realm of alien textures, new appetites to wrestle, fresh dangers to feed; still she dreamed of those steamed bun skins. This poem first appeared in Aimsir Journal: Lúnasa 2024, 26 September 2024.  Ping Yi writes poetry, travelogues and fiction, and is in public service. His work appeared in Orbis, Litro, London Grip, Aimsir Press, ONE ART, Harbor Review, Litbreak, Vita Poetica, Poetry Breakfast and Wild Greens, among others. Ping Yi is from Singapore, and lived in Boston, MA, and Cambridge, UK.
About Bread, Germany, 1944 I can see myself. A small girl. White vest, black, ballooning shorts, handmade. She stands on a milestone, giving her the height to overlook the wheatfield, trying to see the wave. In the distance a cuckoo calls. The children have finished picking out the potato beetles and their larvae by turning over each leaf, walking slowly through the field where row after row of the potato green thrives, ready for August. I see the girl in front of the big farmer’s wife, her apron a sea of colours, here and there slightly soiled. The woman presses the big round loaf against her swelling belly, cuts it in half and hands the child a slice as long as two of her hands after spreading some lard. The girl is walking home from the bakery. The baker lady cut out two coupons from the ration card. Under the child’s left arm, a big, crusty loaf. With her right hand, and an experienced finger, she hollows the bread through the crust from the exposed end. At this moment she doesn’t think about consequences. They picked up the last wheat from farmer Braun’s field after he finished the harvesting. Mother carried it home in a bag she’d brought. Left the stalks to dry on the windowsill, beat out the grains. She sits, the coffee mill between her legs, her dress sagging between her thighs. If we find enough firewood, we’ll have a small fresh loaf tomorrow. If the train doesn’t get bombed, Father will arrive just in time. From her poetry collection LIFE STUFF, Kelsay Books November 2023. Glamour Aunt Lil wore her black hat at a coquettish angle, its little veil pulled over her forehead. She was Arpège and blood-red lipstick, long, pointed fingernails to match, nylon stockings, everything I wanted to be one day. She bought me ‘Schillerlocken’*. My uncle was a lawyer, a tall tree in a forest of lesser trees. He seldom bent down to my ten-year-old, somewhat undernourished body. With a stentorian voice he hinted that I was making a nuisance of myself just by being a kid. I found out later that he had always thought my mother a creature of a lesser race. She didn’t speak like one is used to hearing. It was whispered behind fluttering hands that Aunt Lil had been a barmaid. Now she was the wife of a professional, was perfume and lace, and a deep-red slit replaced her mouth when she laughed. Which she didn’t do often. The idea that this childless couple would look after me for ten days while my mother went back to East Germany (in danger of being sent to a Russian gulag if caught) to sort out the lives we left behind in a hurry had been hammered out between the women. Uncle Fried looked at me across the huge dining table as he would a fly and frowned. ‘Has nobody shown you how to eat with knife and fork, child?’ My voice not quite steady from fear: ‘We had nothing to cut, Uncle.’ * “Schillerlocken” is a sweet, cone-shaped German pastry. The name was inspired by the typical curly wigs that men, like the German poet Friedrich Schiller, used to wear in the 18th century.” From her poetry collection LIFE STUFF, Kelsay Books November 2023. BIO: A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and eight poetry collections, her work has been widely published in US poetry journals. www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com
I Am Not Afraid Of You I am no longer afraid of you, Dear hunger. I am not afraid of your pain. I am not afraid of your sting. I am not afraid of your stare. I am not afraid of your footsteps. I am not afraid of your looming presence. I am not afraid of the fear that comes with you. I am a gold in the making, I am not afraid of the fires. I am a house full of treasures, I have all it takes to become great. I am a man full of potentials, I have all it takes to prosper. Your sting is just for a while, Your pain is only for a while, Your presence is for a while. I will rise above all hunger. I will rise above all pain. I will rise above all menacing atmospheres. I will rise above all enemies of creativity. I will rise above all enemies of the truth. I will rise above all enemies of joy. I might be hungry, But still, I am a full human being. I might be hungry, But still, I have a story to tell. I might be hungry, But still, the world is waiting to hear my voice. I might be hungry, But still, I am not going to hate myself. I might be hungry, But still, my creativity is still intact. I might be hungry, But still, I am writing this poem. I might be hungry, But still, the universe will read this poem. I might be hungry, But still, the gates of ignorance will be smashed down. I might be hungry, But still, I am going to wake up each morning, Wash my face, Take a bath, And occupy my space with all boldness. I might be hungry, But still, I have a story to tell.  Born in Nigeria in 1997. First work of fiction and poetry will be appearing in The Kalahari Review and Writers' Journal - Live & Learn by September and December 2024.
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