Poet of the Month
2021: Poets featured as Poet of the Month
February: Jim Gronvold (USA).
March: Carolyn Mary Kleefeld (USA).
April: Tozan Alkan (Turkey).
May: Byron Beynon (Wales).
June: Michelle Chung (USA).
July: Jim Gwyn (USA).
August: Jonathan Taylor (England).
September: Beata Poźniak (USA).
October: Maria Taylor (England).
November: Stanley H. Barkan (USA).
December: John Dotson (USA).
2022: Poets featured as Poet of the Month
March: Mike Jenkins (Wales).
April: Cassian Maria Spiridon (Romania).
May: Simon Fletcher (England)
June: Sultan Catto (USA)
July: Vojislav Deric (Australia)
August: K. S. Moore (Ireland)
September: Kristine Doll (USA)
October: Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan (USA)
November: Christopher Norris (Wales)
December: Maria Mazziotti Gillan (USA)
February: Tôpher Mills (Wales)
March: Rob Cullen (Wales)
April: Mandira Ghosh (India)
May: John Greening (England)
June: Rosy Wood-Bevan (Wales)
July: David Hughes (Wales)
September: Tiger Windwalker (USA)
October: Laura Wainwright (Wales)
November: Humayun Kabir (USA)
December: Alan Peterson (USA)
February: Sanjula Sharma (India)
March: Derek Webb (Wales)
April: Jo Mazelis (Wales)
May: Robert Minhinnick (Wales)
June: Sally Roberts Jones (Wales)
July: Tuesday Poetry Group (Wales)
August: Laura Ann Reed (USA)
September: Irma Kurti (Italy)
October: Patricia Nelson (USA)
November: Ann Flynn (England)
December: Merryn Williams (England)
January: Annest Gwilym (Wales)
February: Sam Smith (Wales)
March: Dave Lewis (Wales)
April: Scott Elder (France)
May: Angela Kosta (Italy)
ABEER AMEER (WALES)
Abeer Ameer is a poet of Iraqi heritage who lives in Cardiff.
Herpoems have appeared widely in journals including The Rialto,
Magma,The Poetry review, and Poetry Wales. Her debut poetry
collection, Inhale/Exile, was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the
Year 2022. She is currently working on her second collection and
regularly shares readings of her poems on her YouTube channel.
A Widower’s Pockets
His robe and pyjamas
are weighed down
by pockets always full.
They hang off
his skeletal frame.
He rustles as he potters.
Check his breast pocket
and find
a tree of folded tissues
annotated photographs
five to six ballpoint pens
sixteen elastic bands
half a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch
a magnifying glass
scribbled notes to himself —
reminders of who came to visit
the names of his sons —
for the moments he can’t hear
and for when he doesn’t want to.
Write it for me. He nods and closes his eyes.
I have never seen pockets more like
Mary Poppins’ carpet bag than these.
You might find
a shop selling stationery
a tall lamp
with glowing Tiffany shade
and a spoonful of sugar
in the pocket of his robe.
On the rare occasion
when the pockets are emptied,
you will notice they are damp
with grief.
(c) 2025 Abeer Ameer
Green Ink
The thin man in the three-piece suit
is the only one who waits in a queue.
Nobody else cares to take turns.
He comes each year to register deferred entry
for his daughter at Baghdad University, clings
to the hope that dust can settle, things will
get better, and his daughter and her husband can return.
He writes her name, signs in green ink.
At home he settles into his fixing position,
crouched in his white dishdasha, glasses to tip of his nose
he fixes irons and kettles, listens to the news on the radio.
At war with brothers in Iran now.
He smokes as he worries. Always wartime it seems.
His daughter in England savours each airmail letter,
the smell of spent matches, deep inhale of green ink
to capture his scent until he visits. It’s been years.
She kisses his hands as he gets off the coach from Heathrow.
Kerosene suitcase full of hand-weaved loofas, date syrup, bricks of olive
and bay leaf soap, the glass cups and saucers her mother sent.
Black tea as he likes it; heaped sugar, a slice of lemon.
He pours it into the saucer to let it cool, and sips.
Between visits and sips, hairs grey and wars end
and begin. Saddam invades Kuwait.
No contact as the bombs rain on Basra and Baghdad.
Saddam takes revenge on rebels. Stories in parts.
She hears he's passed and mourns her father though he lives.
Six months. She doesn’t know until crossed lines
transmit the echo of his voice. Soon, the same unsettled dust
blocks his coronary arteries. His fountain pen dries,
his pocket watch stops telling time. Exhale.
A portrait of Saddam facing his hospital bed.
(c) 2025 Abeer Ameer
/Single-use Plastic Bag/
This plastic bag has a single use/ –/ to hold 18kg of human flesh/
a single use to/ represent a person/ to hold a loved one/ to hold the melted bones/ hair & clothes/ congealed into one/ this bag represents / one
name / one prayer /one soul/ this single-use bag/ is a skin/ a form/
a shroud/ for one janaza/ this single-use bag holds/ 18kg/ of human flesh/ flesh that was sought/ in the debris/ in the ash/ flesh that was gathered/
with care/ flesh that was weighed/ collected/ from the aftermath/ of the
dawn prayer/ flesh/ weighed to 18kg/ 18kg/ the average weight/ of a
sixyear old/ here/ these days/
The receiver/ of this single-use bag/ the mourner/ the bereaved/ must
use/ their imagination/ to see/ the familiar/ heart-melting smile/
through/ the flesh in the bag/ must use their imagination/ to see/ that
this/ single-use plastic bag/ holds only/ their child/ see that the flesh/ is
the whole body/ the whole body/ of only their child/ they must see/ that
it is their child/ when they hold it close/ they must/ use their
imagination/ when they pray over it / when they pray over/ this single-
use plastic bag/ when they bid it farewell/ when they bury it/ when they remember/
(c) 2025 Abeer Ameer
12th August 2024
Photographer in Halabja, March 17th 1988.
He shoots everything he sees before him:
families gathered in alleyways,
birds fallen from their nests,
that day in Spring.
In front of steps
the figure of a man rests
wearing Kurdish turban and baggy pants,
a large sash wrapped around his waist,
face down in the dirt,
holding a baby in his arms.
Muted earthy tones around a pink blanket,
a white, glowing face, chin-up to the sky.
The photographer
holds his camera tight
to capture this perfect still life
of the just-dead.
Hands shake as he takes the parting shot:
newborn face towards the camera.
This exposure burns
his right index finger, his retina.
He’ll share what the world needs to see
though no image can show the pungent air
thick with sweet apple and bile.
No shadow dark enough.
(c) 2025 Abeer Ameer
It started with a hiss in 1993
pulling the ring of a can of cold Pepsi back
in the coach as it leaves Jordan’s side of Traybeel
past the identity checks at the border,
past the chance of being found out.
The hiss, the quiet,
and the triumphant fizz of America
psssht of escape
psssht of safety.
Young men now free.
But he can’t pull the ring
back like the others can.
He sees the faces
of his brothers
his father
his mother
his mother
his mother
no way to tell them he’s okay
so with each small pleasure
he sees their faces
and continues his journeys
thirsty.
(c) 2025 Abeer Ameer
Spoilers
She can’t bear to watch a film
or read a book without spoilers.
It started some years ago.
That feeling so strong
in the pit of her stomach.
She didn’t notice at first,
reading through synopses,
scanning parental guides
for gore and violence. Upsetting scenes.
Never to watch thrillers,
their triggers and themes.
Unexpected plot twists unravel her tightly wound yarn,
spin the scales, shift the earth tilt too far.
Fire, stairwells, candles and teens
rewire her mind to the images
of that night in Baghdad’s Al-Hadi Mall, 3rd July 2016.
Now, orange is a pyre, not sunrise.
Blue-silver is cinders, not sea nor sky.
She won’t let her son out to the gym, 5pm is too late.
Eyes wide open to foresee the unspeakable.
Danger is the heaviness in her abdomen,
the crack of her chest, the crush in her neck.
A fine balance. No deep breaths. There is only smoke.
Everywhere smoke
imbibed into pores
stinging eyes
clogging lungs
it seeps infiltrates
to an unhealthy gasp
everywhere smoke
unconfinable form
background foreground
above and below
leaving ash
between each tooth
each follicle
each fibre
each fold of cortex
held in each blood cell
flowing through her plasma
keeping her permanently
struggling
for
air.
(c) 2025 Abeer Ameer
This light
avoids the fanfare
of dawn’s chorus
it wanders in after
your search
has taken your breath
so long
it moves with you
and there
when your troubles
show no end
it creeps towards
your peripheral vision
subtle unnoticed
it senses your heart rate
quicken
upon its arrival
an arrival
like the new crescent
in the still sky
a quiet seep
until the moment
it fills your sight.
(c) 2025 Abeer Ameer
Valentine’s Day 1942
The Fiesers
He, an inspiring teacher, enthusiastic and engaging,
all-round athlete who leads expeditions
to beaches and mountains,
canoeing and hiking with his best students.
She, quick-witted and impeccably dressed,
hopes to be a medical doctor
but transfers to the study of chemistry
with the professor she’ll marry.
They write and research,
bond in their love of carbon.
They synthesise vitamin K for clotting,
and steroids for rheumatoid arthritis
to ease the burning in deformed joints.
Theories abound about the causes of cancer,
carcinogenic compounds,
bring them the Nobel prize.
Secret research at Harvard is classified:
US Military uses their expertise
for the perfect poison gas.
It sparks an idea in his mind to replace Thermite.
Just add a pinch of salt to gasoline and coconut oil.
Mix to the consistency of applesauce and let it sit…
Alum salts of naphtenic and palmitic acids
make the name Napalm,
a catchy conflation for their brainchild.
This Valentine’s birth-day was so easy. The perfect incendiary.
Safer for soldiers. In the burning of buildings and fields;
in the burning of roofs and sofas and skin.
Like a needy child, it clings to all touching it.
Fanning flames to the core of things, pyres in its wake
it turns rivers to lava and devours all air.
The couple continues to conduct research together.
They wash their hands like Pilate, write chemistry textbooks,
illustrate them with pictures of their pet cats.
(c) 2025 Abeer Ameer
Acknowledgments
A Widower’s Pockets was first published in Under the Radar
Green Ink and Photographer in Halabja were published first in Poetry Wales and in my collection Inhale/Exile
Valentine's Day 1942 was published by Anthropocene
It Started with a Hiss in 1993 was published first in Atrium
Spoilers was published in The Rialto
This light and /Single-use Plastic Bag/ were first published on my social media accounts online