Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Four
November- December 2025
NO! Vember, poems by Anne McDonald.
NO! Vember
What if I spent this month saying no?
To toxic odds
To it’ll do
Or it’s not me at fault, it’s you?
What if I said no?
What if we said no?
To funding bombs
And blocking aid
And using God
To get landmines laid
What if I said no?
To keeping quiet
When all I see
Is human hurt and misery
In the name of something
written in a book by men
(I’m not sure any God has a pen?)
What then?
What if we don’t stop?
There will be no one left.
And we can have church and pew
And synagogue and holy shrine
And temples full of fat buddhas
And watchtowers claiming power
But there will be no one left to go.
What if we, I, you,
Before November ends,
To see how we go,
Just said no?
Sea View Terrace
Sea View Terrace is exactly seven and a half miles from the sea.
Front doors watched by coal plant chimney stacks,
windows dulled with powdered soot, net curtains torn.
At dawn, the back lanes creak and groan as hydraulic arms
swing jumbo bins across the sky,
crash landing them into Jim’s Scrap Metal Supplies.
Outside lavatories on Sea View Terrace now house pigeons,
rusty bikes and bags of coal that smell of cats.
Residents of Sea View Terrace make little eye contact
when lugging groceries from a shop no longer on a corner.
Bought on tick, prices inflated, meat outdated, “but still good to eat,”
says Benji as he fills his A4 hardback with accounts
of what is owed and what is lent.
Benefits stretched, then quickly spent by Friday
when it’s two for one at Milo’s Chippy Kingdom,
comfort wrapped in greaseproof paper.
A boot mark scars the door of Number Three,
rendered by a late-night session and a lost key.
Number Four has a reinforced door after a raid
that shattered locks and glass panels
originally stained to prettify the light.
A fight at Number Seven ended in a death.
Fines for debts, defaults or threats not taken lightly here.
There is no sea near Sea View Terrace,
so the bachelor at Number Nine took a bus the seven miles,
walked the last half on Christmas Eve.
He walked and walked and never baulked at waters’ cold.
He was known only as “Old Jo”, no relatives to speak of,
no I.D. when washed back ashore with the tide at dawn.
A child from Number Three laid a grubby toy
on his doorstep on Christmas morning,
and prayed to God that he had gone to heaven.
© Anne McDonald
Anne McDonald is an award-winning poet, playwright and artist. She has recently won the 12th Annual Bangor Poetry Competition (2025) and the Keshkerrigan Short Story Competition (2025). Her first play, “Crystal Belles in Bettystown,” has been read in her hometown of Bettystown, Co. Meath, Ireland, and in Dublin City, directed by Claire Galligan. Her poetry collection “Crow’s Books” was published in 2020. She has had many short stories and poems published widely in print and online journals, and her work has been reviewed and broadcast on Irish National Radio. She is a creative writing facilitator working with adults, and her writing weaves real life and social justice issues together with humor and pathos. She is a firm believer in the power of creativity to heal, inspire and connect people.