Ascension

Descent is never easy.
Sometimes, it’s a
Slow-motion sensation.
Though the ground is drawing near, and
That familiar sinking feeling settles in,
It’s not welcome.
Descent becomes denial.
“Keep looking up!”
We tell ourselves and each other.
But all the searching skyward can’t deny gravity its pull.
The mind is forced to
Meet the body in a downward lull.
Until,
Earth finally doesn’t
Feel so low, again.
And the heart remembers ascension
Was never about rising,
But transformation.

-st

You Meet

eternity in a shopping queue
if you don’t keep your distance.

Eternity in the hand,
or in the change in it.

Eternity in the unthinking
person who brushes past,

their eye on the goal
of an item missed.

Despite your precautions.
your gloves and mask.

Don’t steer your plane into clouds.
Many hide a mountainside.

-Paul Brookes

Stream of Consciousness from a Moonless Sky

The stars are falling from the sky, tiny fires that extinguish on impact. They have lost their way and forgotten the shape of the earth. Where does darkness hide in a world that sits in the palm of a storm?  The moon breaks into pieces, a million small blades that are eager to pluck the light from my eyes.  I am a constellation with no center, no wings to scoop up the wind. I try to fly, but the roots of despair are heavy and tether me. I am a moonless sky, plummeting into the sun, terrified my secrets will be discovered.

-Susan Richardson

Emotional Currency

All feelings levitate towards the sky
and every signal joins their hands to soar.
The qualitative nouns have welcome Visa;
there is a barter system of emotions.
Do buy the sadness from me but only
if you contribute courage. I don’t
have enmity in stock; check if compassion
would do. They want to search if there is water
on Mars. I’m worried whether there is love.
For transporting water needs a lot of cash—
Expensive! but sharing love is as simple as
tagging a person and sending message
into the cloud. My emotional rainbow is ready—
Begin and send unwritten postcards to me in space.

-Jay Gandhi

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell

 

The Silver Darlings (After the Wick disaster 1848)

Was that what we called them?
As they slipped between our hands,
from gutting table to salter
to packer to barrel, clogs in time.
We never minded the rising red,
the stink that told you of home.

From what I remember, the day was ordinary,
August heat, and a fleet sea sortie.
set south, on the Lammas tide,
out beyond the bay to the horizon,
a night fall, nets shot – waiting.
Everyone breathed with the wind.

Some did read the signs in the sky –
turned before the angry clouds
chased them back to shore,
For the last time. In the growling gale.
columns of air, walls of water,
before they knew it they were on the rocks.

We watched, spectators sewn together
in hope, willing them back in on wings
and moonlight. One by one, briny gauntlet
ran,wood kissing wood in awkward embrace.
The maths worked out like this, thirty seven gone,
equals sixty three fatherless children,
seventeen widows.
Nobody sails the lammas tide

for fear and superstition.
What have we learnt?
That a small keel will not favour a strong swell,
that fore and aft you must do more, always.
Ninety four over thirty was enough for our small town,
Black Saturday is still a thing.
There is no memorial though,
the sea always made a pact,
to keep hold of the dead.

= Ali Jones

Adornments

Variants of blue fish
Uniformly line the dresser runner
My sister bought for us in
East Africa, some years ago now.
They keep order
All day and night,
A neat school
Side-by-side-by-side,
An ornament to the dresser,
That decorates our bedroom,
Storing ornaments for the body.
But what decorates our souls?
We need loaves along with our fishes,
Humility along with our pride,
Chaos along with the order of
Fish swimming on white linen.

-st

Kill It My Sister

screams at the fish flap
gasp for air on Flamborough’s

Summer warmed stone quay
where moments before
we lobbed our line
into an income of waves.

Smash its brains out. Its what
You’re supposed to do.
You’re scared.

As the fish eyes memorise my face.
You do it then. I say.

and recall our glee.
Caught one! she shouts.

You do it. I say,
as the fish struggles for air.

I caught it, Its your turn,

I remember when we got the reel
talked of bringing a fish
home for tea, for mam and dad.

I throw the fish back.

Coward, she says.

-Paul Brookes

Fish in the Hand

Slippery landlord

doesn’t wear a mask,
thinks the pandemic
can’t touch his fat wallet.
He demands we let him in,
thinks the law is on his side.
Ask Mr. Mayor,
we shout.
Ask Mr. Policeman.
Ask the family next door
whose matriarch died.
See that barricade on the door?
That’s for you Mr. Fish in the Hand.
You aren’t coming inside.

-Susan Richardson

MONOSTICH

Tuna looks brighter in water than on plate

-Jay Gandhi

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell

Lament

They were always barefoot,
the shoes they had were shared.
They went to church on Sundays,
to show the Duke they cared.

The father rose so early,
two haddocks on his plate.
Set against the time and tide,
‘til he met a watery fate.

They sailed out far to save a boat,
that struck upon the rocks;
floating fast above the foam,
where screaming seabirds flocked.

The turning tide was not their friend,
upon that fateful day;
the swirling currents sucked them down,
forever drowned to stay.

In gansys, mittens, oilskins,
lost deep within the waves,
with selkie sisters fathomed deep,
within a watery grave.

The sea, the sea, the sea our friend,
she brings us endless joys.
The sea, the sea, our enemy,
that she smashes boats like toys.

-Ali Jones

When the Sails Were Still Up

The American experiment
We learned about in school sailed straight
And true, with sails full of the winds of change.

The ocean was large, yet
Our nation was somehow larger.
With Manifest Destiny we claimed her.

But that was only the beginning of the journey.
The real claiming
Was in the taming Of our hearts,

To deserve her rich peoples
From all the world’s corners.
When we were her sailors,
We didn’t always steer right, but the sails were,

Indeed, still up.
We made corrections to our errors.
Now, sails down,
We watch helplessly

As she blows listlessly,
The victim of plutocratic pirates
Fighting over the helm, discussing her direction.

Whichever course is set,
presumes to dock her
at the same sad, destination.

-st

Age is only a number

Talisman

The sun falls like a talisman
pushing her sails toward the edges
of an autumn afternoon.
She is blind to what lurks beneath,
what may be waiting
on the watery path ahead,
but she glides onward,
tall and proud.
She never makes a sound.

-Susan Richardson

Vasco da Gama

I drift towards the foreign shore
and may not get the food to eat.
A place where hungry lions roar
and sands refuse to kiss my feet.
I will pluck the fruits from tree;
find waters to quench my thirst,
roam like a wanderer, remain free
create a house; survive cloudburst.

-Jay Gandhi

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell

 

Petrichor

Forests feel no fear,
the miles go on,
so many behind us.

Fear not, you are
who you are,
until you forget
where your shadow falls.

Jump into the lower branches,
open your arms wide,
to gather in the trees,

when the moon goes out
you will know the way,
your hands will give you,

a second chance, don’t be afraid
to empty yourself of sound,
try to be alive for longer.

Failing is fine, the best part
of the heartwood is where
you are going, with dead friends,
passing through like falling mist,

tune out, tap in.

-Ali Jones

The Language of Trees

Confession #1:

I’m no good at drawing, but I
Always thought I was pretty good at trees.
Don’t tell them.
They might whisper it
To one another through their
Underground fungal tendrils,
The ones the scientists call “mycorrhizal networks.”
Then, I would be embarrassed by my muse.

Confession #2:

It’s silly, but I think I understand the trees.
And, on bad days,
If I could get deep enough into the woods,
I’m sure they would embrace me, envelop me
In their stillness and strength,
Maybe even mistake me for one of their own
Instead of the imposter that I am.

Confession #3:

If the trees could see me
For who I am,
I have a feeling
They would keep me anyway.
It’s the way of trees–
To listen first,
Then speak up
For their neighbors in need.

Confession #4:

It turns out I don’t yet know
The language of my muse.
But they know mine.
It’s a skill, to know as we are known.

-st

Let Me Pass Through

city walls that bind all your threads together,
walk through this wood,
let your cityself take same walk,
see buildings as lone trees,
homeless hostel is an oak,
butchers, a willow that bends
down over the stream
where jammed traffic swims.

A dead bird breathes,
animated by flies,
is a man in the corner who sings
the blues to passers.

That fall of a leaf
a tickertape homecoming parade.
Your pavement footfall
echoes in my forest.

-Paul Brookes

Fog Rolling In

The neighborhood of my first steps,
first crushes
first kiss,
was a place my Mom called, “The Hill”.

It was a neighborhood born into sunshine,
cul-de-sacs trodden over by barefoot kids
who played outside almost every day,
walked home from school
unhurried,
unafraid.

On the handful of rainy days
that fed our thirsty streets,
Mom picked me up from school
in her powdery grey fiat,
rain turning the windscreen into an ocean.

I remember her happy on these drives,
meandering up roads so steep,
we could feel the car swaying in the storm.
We sang along
to the soundtrack of Evita,
accompanied by the beat of the rain.
She was always Che.

As we traversed the battered spiral of streets,
arriving at the final climb
to our shrouded suburban kingdom,
she would smile as big as the sun,
take a long deep breath and squeeze my knee,
“Do you see,”
she’d say,
“the fog is rolling in.”

=Susan Richardson

Just Anther Relationship

-Jay Gandhi

Bios and links

-Jane Cornwell