Helen Overell
Beit Hanoun, Gaza, 19th April 2001
the scent of crushed oranges masks
the dank rubbled odour of crumbed
concrete, pounded doorways, ghost rooms
open to the sky, walls folded
in shocked despair around clothes drowned
in mud, broken bedsteads, blankets
counterpaned with taut twists of steel
the juice of cropped oranges dries
on dulled leaves, ripped branches, tree trunks
prone on matted earth, roots dazzled
with daylight, water wells silted
to choked silence, men stood bone struck
on trampled tank tracks, women dazed
statues in stone staggered nightmare
the skin of scrapped oranges curls
to dark ribbons, pith heavy, weighed
into spirals with dust gritted
remnants of pulped fruit, withered years,
children occupied with land rights,
lost harvests, sling shot skirmishes
with soldiers in ear defenders
Helen Overell lives in Surrey and has has work in Acumen and Other Poetry.
Page(s) 47
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The