Hello and welcome to this month’s Showcase. My name is Danny Baxter, I’m a creative artist living in Barking and Dagenham, east London and I’ve been spending my time regularly contributing illustrations and poetry to this magazine over most of its lifespan. I’ve enjoyed being involved!

In this, my first Showcase, I’ll be diving straight in to explore the ‘Mindset’ theme from a personal angle.

At 7:35am on the 21st April, Pope Francis passed away, aged 88; a significant event for many millions of people. It was significant for me too but for an entirely different reason, as it was also the day of the sixth anniversary of Stanhope Augustus Baxter’s death: my father.

A year ago, the day after the fifth Anniversary of his passing, I was travelling to Well Versed, a local open mic event, when I decided to finally speak about my loss and I used poetry as my medium to do so. Just over a year on, I’d like to share it with you.

When My Dad Died

When my dad died, he was 77 and I was 44… a difference of 33 years, divisible by 11.
When My Dad died, it was 3 days before my birthday.
When my Dad died it was on Easter Sunday.
When my Dad died, I hadn’t eaten or drank for 3 days.
When my Dad died, Terrorist bombers killed over 200 people attending church in Sri Lanka.
When my Dad died, I became the head of the family.

When my Dad died, we found out it was due to hospital negligence.
When my Dad died, there was a lot of paperwork to do.
When my Dad died, me and my wife sang at the funeral, a song called Regeneration.
When my Dad died, I reflected on not having visited him as much as I would have liked.
When my Dad died, I found out about a half sister I’d never met, amongst other things.
When my Dad died, most people I didn’t tell because I didn’t want to process their sympathy at that time.
When My Dad died, things got more complex.
When my Dad died, Covid was hot on his heels.
When my Dad died, for a stray moment I felt it.

When my Dad died, me, my bro and my friend Jerry watched him go as they turned off the machine.
When my Dad died, and they told me the cause was a Brain Haemorrhage, I thought immediately of Invaders, the 60s Sci Fi Show.
When my Dad died, I felt that it was a spiritual attack long time in the making.
When my Dad died, I was settled in the knowledge that he had been a good dad.
When my Dad died, I resolved to honour his memory by keeping up what I was doing.
When my Dad died I remembered how he’d held my son Phoenix as a baby and smiled and I regret not taking a picture.
When my Dad died, me and my bro made jokes about it coz that’s how we deal with stuff.
When my Dad died I was beyond angry.

About a year later, I bumped into a friend, who’d just lost his last parent due to Covid and he was
broken. I only survived the conversation of that chance meeting by telling him about when my
Dad died.

© Danny Baxter, 2024

Connect with Danny: Instagram @dan_lbbd

In the face of this tragedy, I chose to align my mindset to the positive and the creative, rather than to bitterness. This is what my father would have wanted. There seemed to be a strange symmetry between these two incidents, as if things had come full circle and it was an indication for me that a new season had begun.

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There’s always a temptation to let external challenges shape our mindset. If the disruption is too great, it can make us question our deepest sense of self.  In this next poem, the natural instinct to worry is defended as a right. Though Eithne does admit that a mind caught up in a non-productive groove is not always a good thing!

Worry

sit back and tell me not to worry
it’s easy for you but I’m sorry…I worry

the world’s a puzzle to solve, no worries –
you survive, feel relaxed, no voicing of sorries

as anxiety worsens and swallows my worry
I can’t throw back my head to say it’s a breeze

there are pitfalls and pratfalls on the road to worry
it’s hard to feel safe and determine a path

I wonder the weight on my shoulders – the worry
and the sinking I feel as I carry that worry.

© Eithne Cullen, 2025

Connect with Eithne: Instagram @eithnecullen57

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In contrast, our next poem seems to encourage taking responsibility for our thought journeys – though, once again, sounding a note of warning.

The Key That Opens The Door

The key that opens the door,
the attitude to take, to make,
having a different outlook, a different perspective,
not going through a downward spiral,

down, down, down,
around, around, around,
the chatter, a matter of self-criticism, self-doubt,
Turn that key around in the mindset.

The key that opens the door,
the resilience to go, show, and know you can face the challenge,
having optimism, having a positive outlook,
not going through a downward spiral,

down, down, down,
around, around, around,
the clatter, spatter, self-doubt, self-sabotage,
Turn that key around in the mindset.

The key that opens the door,
is to have a mindset,
Having the approach to turn the key
that it is going to open up to a positive place,
another place of thinking and becoming, and being.

© Tavinder New, 2025

Connect with Tavinder: Instagram @tavinderknew

I get the impression the author is acquainted with mind pathways which the poem speaks of and I very much like the use of the key as a device. The idea of simply turning a key in a lock to gain access to ‘the positive place’ really appeals, as having that mechanism in place can create confidence in even the most difficult situations.

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This next poem uses religious overtones to paint a picture of one who regrets having a mindset based upon a religious doctrine or dogma.

Endless Search

I walked on scolding coals while the wind whipped up sparks scarring my knees.
I crawled on scarred knees along scorching sands as the sun slapped my back.
I pulled your chariot up hill and through winding passages despite witnesses who threw their hate.
Turning the other cheek, I clasped my calloused hands together to call upon you.
I searched for you, high, low and everywhere I go.
I bled on your temple stairs, without being allowed in.
My tears washed your altar a thousand times over for every damn sin.
I peered into empty bottles that was filled with spirits, for it to only reflect my flaws.
I looked to the moon; I stared at stars. I gave sultry eyes to Venus. I went to war alongside Mars.
I sought signs when the planets align, yet still, you choose to remain benign. A ghost in your own cruel design.
In vain, I watched for angel numbers, 1, 1, 1. 1. Over and over again. I begged for a glint.
I was told my existence defies the odds. Born of sacred geometry and the golden ratio.
A divine blueprint.
Yet, every time I choose myself I am crippled with guilt and shame. Shallow.
I force forgiveness for the fakeness to return tenfold, forcing me to my knees and hands. Gutted. Hollow.
I poured out all that is within into the idea of you.
I put you on a pedestal, held lopsided by the scaffolding  of my conditioning, propped up by hope.
I dismiss my sorrows, misfortune, the betrayal, all evil as your will. Just lessons to learn.
But still I yearn.
I strain my ears, to listen to your word. Easily led when I hear people speak of your glory.
Maybe this way or that way is the right way. Perhaps this is the story.
And in every attempt to embody any version of them who worship you. Who see you. Who feel you. Who hear you. Who know you.
I have failed. Deeply. Desperately. Destructively.
Because in trying to find you. I have lost me

© Silviya Vijeyaruban, 2025

To me, Silviya’s poem explores the nature of blind faith, illustrating a journey driven by unexamined beliefs and emotional investment. It highlights how such pursuit, lacking critical self-reflection, ultimately leads to regret, sorrow and a questioning of the motivations and voices that guided it.

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Staying with the subject of faith, our final poem is one of the first pieces of work from my project: ‘Barking Revival’. It explores the interaction between the different aspects of religious, spiritual and creative influences against the backdrop of the centenary of the 1925 Barking Christian Revival and is expressed through a series of local collaborations.

Seeking to process this subject through a ‘different mind,’ I enlisted the talents of a poet writing for the Poetry Takeaway (a creative arts collective that invites members of the public to order their own customised poem). This poem is his take on the various themes we discussed.

Barking Mad

Born again? I must be mad.
But are you aware of the history that Barking has?
The energy in this Barking land.

So yeah, Damn right I’m Barking Mad.
I’m feeling the healing and by God it is freeing.
Faith flowing through my veins.
Faith healing the pain.
There were miracles made with spiritual energy that was here, but our history has faded and I’m not jaded.
If anything, I’m thankful for the strength.
Just astonished by the lack of recognition.
So now it’s my mission,
To let people know,
A century ago,
There was a revival in these streets.
100 years later and you can still feel in in your feet.

It’s empowering. I thought I had turned my back on Christianity, but now,
It has grabbed me,
And I can feel its pull,
And its aura and want more people to see.
In a world growing in acceptance accept this,
Accept us.
No more ‘Born Again’ crazy talk.
Just feeling Barking Mad.

© Tyrone Lewis, 2025

The poem addresses the elements making up the complex equations that inform my religious experience and the uncanny connection to the Revival site, the former Barking Bath House in front of the Town Hall; a place HM Queen Elizabeth II, our late Queen, visited in 2015. It’s as though this 100-year-old spiritual hotspot was drawing me in to become the inspiration for my subsequent creative endeavours. Tyrone has really captured this and I’m very grateful to him!

I look forward to sharing more pieces around ‘Mindset’ and what inspires me next week. It’s an important topic because, if we are in the right frame of mind, we can evolve into more capable people and tap into our hidden potential.

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If you’d like to see your writing appear in the Write On! Showcase, please submit your short stories, poetry or novel extracts to: pentoprint.org/get-involved/submit-to-write-on/

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