Featured Poet - Donna McCabe
AFTER THE STORM
All adrift of late
Emotions ebbing and flowing veraciously
Caught up in a hefty storm
One of life’s unexpected curve balls
Having taken the wind out of these sails
Yet amidst all this tempestuous chaos
A flicker of hope lingers
Knowing that storms come and go eventually
And whatever can be salvaged will be
Then the true healing can begin.
CROSSROADS ...
Life has become dark and dreary
Death seems all around
The light obscured by darkness
Nothing seems to make a sound
It feels as though the end is near
Nothing has no meaning any more
Life as it was known before
Has changed so radically
I really do deplore.
EXPRESSIVE DISCLOSURE
Written words spilled upon paper
Words that won’t, can’t be voiced aloud
To full and emotionally charged
For the voice to carry aloud
Laid down on paper as an outlet
A purge to ones sanity, ones soul
Moving ever forward in my journey
A way of becoming newly whole.
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
Hidden in darkness so long
A long dark tunnel of anguish, despair
For what seemed like an eternity
Then little chinks of light started to appear
Little rays of hope and warmth
Bathed my flesh
Slowly and surely igniting a flame
Of fresh determination and resolutions
To colour my world once more
Make self love, self care a foremost
After many a hard lesson learned.
DETERMINATION
Course of action taken
Overcoming the fear and difficulty
Uneasy, yet persevering
Resisting the negativity around
Always pushing ahead
Gaining new perspectives
Envisioning a better future.
MODIFIED
Swimming, almost drowning
Through a tumultuous array of emotions
Grief and loss does many things
Alters many aspects and views once held
Changes a person completely
Reshapes and remoulds
Each and every passing
Creating a new persona.
ABOUT THE POEMS:
"These poems were written as a way of dealing with difficult and dark periods of my life - some of which I'm still dealing with to this day. I lost my dad to suicide at age 15, and lost a baby boy at 24 weeks. I also lost my 23 year-old son in June 2023, and am still currently dealing with the shock, grief and acceptance, as well as figuring out how to live life again after his passing. He suffered from seizures but was never diagnosed with epilepsy, and had a lot of mental health issues too. While managing my own epilepsy and mental health issues, I do personally believe that the therapy of writing - and art for me more recently - has brought me much joy and healing, and helped soothe a lot of the pain and heartache."
ABOUT DONNA
Donna is a 45 year-old Welsh poet with over twenty years of experience, and whose variety of work has gained her multiple accolades within her field of literature over the years, and has been published both nationally and internationally in journals, magazines and anthologies. Her intricate wordplay displayed in her works has been personified by her past and concurrent experiences which include her hardships, trials and tribulations. She is also an artist, and her lifetime admiration of reading and writing and love of art has steered her into an adventurous new direction of collaborations with an up -and- coming Canadian artist Ala Ilescu whose idiosyncratic mind and artistic works compliment the vivid images her narrative works paint. These collaborations have resulted in a beautiful book of poetry and artwork entitled “Explosion Of Love” and “My Sad Is Sadder Than Yours.” Her creativity has also taken her onto other platforms in recent times, using Instagram to reach out and display her love of writing, artwork and love of the natural world to a wider audience. Her writings and interactions with the wider poetry communities there have helped her gain a good following and many awards and features too.
Instagram: @donnamccabe_
Facebook: @Poemsbydonnamccabe
