One Poem by Lynda Tavakoli

What Remains

 

'Please will you come and see my war crime?'

 

Of everything,

this is what finally broke me -

the request small, polite.

 

A father.

The body of his dead boy

in a coffin-car of cold and bloody dark.

 

This one old man.

This son.

This love.

Lynda Tavakoli lives in County Down, Northern Ireland, where she facilitates an adult creative writing class and is a tutor for the Seamus Heaney Award for schools.  A poet, novelist and freelance journalist, Lynda’s writings have been published in the UK, Ireland, the US and the Middle East, with Farsi and Spanish translations.

Lynda has been winner of both poetry and short story prizes in Listowel, The Westival International Poetry Prize and runner-up in The Blackwater International Poetry Competition and Roscommon Poetry Competition. Her poems have also appeared in The Irish Times, New Irish Writing.

She was recently a guest poet on RTE1 The Poetry Programme and her poem, ‘You’re Beautiful’, was featured in the ‘Words Lightly Spoken’ podcast.

Her debut poetry collection, ‘The Boiling Point for Jam’ is published by Arlen House and includes these three poems which concern the plight of refugees, a subject that has sadly been forgotten about recently.