Photograph: ©John Stadnicki
I bring white little stones from the market
and place them, like pills, in long straight lines on my desk.
Although full of stuff, my body lives at the top floor –
with a view towards a perfect car park.
I watch the beheadings through a narrow hole in the sky
and
I point a fully-loaded gun against the world.
The earth rests
suspended between wild heavens and landscaped gardens.
And yet the sun is still rising above the silent bell ropes,
hanging loose among people who stand up to
look at the death pit as if
nothing has happened.
©Maria Stadnicka
First published in Your One Phone Call, Wales, available here
(August, MMXVII)
Montage: ©Claire Palmer, published in International Times, 26th July 2017
The hunger was the woman with a friendly, foreign name-tag.
That busy Saturday.
A miracle healer, as pale as milk, passed through the city –
a reminder that we all had our role to play in the war.
For a moment, his voice stopped the curious shoppingbagscrowd-
echo between tall cement buildings.
A sudden rain followed, baptised my sleeping bag,
in the queue at the Lower Street Food Bank.
The history sliced a nearby road in tiny squares of holy bread.
– published in International Times, available here
Photograph: © Maria Stadnicka
From afar,
the poetry,
big fat bottles on a kitchen shelf.
A collection of colourful glasses,
with human hearts
preserved in salted water.
Photograph: ©Andrew Keenan / http://www.andrewkeenanphotography.com
I live in a round house across the road
and every day I wave the invisible white flag
just to distract you from writing so many letters.
Other times, all I do is stare at your reflected image,
bent over the desk,
thinking whether your back is broken,
having to bear so many words.
You do not lift your eyes up,
never see anything but yourself.
The only time you stand up and walk to the door
is to refill the glass with sand.
You do not receive news from the outside world
you do not know we live in times of peace now.
©Maria Stadnicka 2017
Photograph: ©Andrew Keenan
For more information about Andrew Keenan’s work, check https://www.andrewkeenanphotography.com/
Photograph ©John Stadnicki 2017
If we want the world to move forward,
we must hold hands. Documenting the pain and the joy,
on the same page,
with water, with fire, with ashes
not with ink.
Freedom means nothing when the healthy and the sick
eat at separate tables.
Even the trees sit together. They know that life is actually simple.
But once people renounced their entitlement,
it will take more than a revolution
to reclaim such a right.
For too long we took the wrong turn.
What kind of world is this if
the madman tells us that
we should be ashamed of ourselves?
©Maria Stadnicka, 2017
Published today in International Times with illustration produced by Nick Victor.
