Alex Mazey has not contributed to this last day. He says
“I wasn’t going to write a poem for day 31. I quite like the idea of having a day in the month dedicated to silence.”

-Alex Mazey

These walls and windows
Are tearing me apart
Yet my soul’s untouched

There are no heroes
No one to claim my worn heart
My spirit’s a black muck

This vessel holds all my sorrows
Tears filling each bodily part
There are no short cuts.

-Carrie Anne Golden

Renewal

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven” -Eccl. 3:1

Withered pathos
Strung out with
Dead deer along the
Traffic-lined highway
On the route of life.
Today is death and
Unsafe circumstances,
Creating distrust
At best.
At worst, disgust.
But we are a renewal people.
As long as we’re able,
Seeking rebirth – moving
Beyond crumbling leaves,
Dead carcasses –
Continuing the journey.

-st

Manifest

These bodies we sail like the first boats,
knots and all, ignoring the leaks
until they sink us. When we stripped
away the bark and sank the chisel
and saw the rill of rings, the chambers
left by families of owls, the shapes
of organs left us wanting green. So natural
that liverwort’s fleshy lobes
would prime the filter, or that a walnut
oiled every tongue and groove
inside the hard wood of a head. That saxifrage
unroots the stones among the beans. And I know
we’ve died of willingness to believe
in a hand that signs the manifest
more legibly than all our jokes about physicians.
And yet I see the ivy boats, their jute-brown sails
snapping in the wind of a trunk’s horizon – eyes slide
to watch our passage from the grain, above
full-throated choirs of leaves. My manifest is scrawled
with names of illnesses that boarded ages back –
new cures are shaped like tiny stones. Some boats
are stabilised by ballast, and some go under
sinking slow
when magic leaves the wood.

-Ankh Spice

the model.

31.

it comes as horrendous, we have been
brainwashed by those about
how to look
how to be liked

like a manequin

five men
those men who desire
who speak in three voices
is all i will say here, you know who you are

too late i have learned and carry on learning
now

i am covered in ivy

sir

-sbm

formicidae

ant’s-eye perspective:
Lilliputian Appenines
beckon pathfinders

-Rich Follett

Faux Eternity

I seek to make
a journey of a kind,
into the buddha face.
As if soft eyes hold,
answers to hope.

A lustre that says
I do not sleep,
but time my breath
my circadian dreams,
to the rhythm of stars.

We are all travellers
within the enigma
of a conscious mind.

Do you know to hope,
see what I see?
Do you cleave green seas?

I hold my life entire
in fragments of
long forgotten song.
My visage serene, or
maybe too tired to frown.

Step away now, or feel
my chameleon breath
enter your eyes and
stir the fronds
of a faux eternity.

©️ Dai Fry 30th May 2020.

Epilogue
(A final letter to Humanity)

Whoever you are or wherever you are
no matter what your culture, religion,
sexual orientation or political and social
views are in this sea of souls we refer to as life,
you do not have to exist alone in this complex
natural world we all battle to understand and
for some of you, it might even feel like you are
the only one of your kind, like no one else really sees
who you really are – Do not doubt your existence in this
world of billions of personalities, attitudes, mentalities and a
myriad of perspectives. You are unique. You are relevant.
You matter. You have a place in this global village of la Vida.

This human race is admittedly complex. Our lives are increasingly
becoming stifled by inept governments and gravy train drip
leaders unable to unite citizens or ensuring freedom of speech
or access to basic human needs, although there are capable
exemplary leaders of nations who thrive in a multilingual and
multi-faith society. Some of you might find yourself on a
predestined elected path forged by your religious and cultural
beliefs, as well as your unique customs; maybe even expected
to continue family traditions. However, there comes a moment
in our lives where we find ourselves at an existential crossroads
with a multitude of voices urging us to follow a designated path.
This is that pivotal moment when you have to decide if the time
has come to follow your own path, fuelled by an inner stirring
of emotions, frustrations and a need to get the opportunity to
explore this earthly existence. Some of you might battle with
your own spirituality or questions of faith. Trust your instincts
and never feel guilty to question,
to investigate, to open your mind. You might be pleasantly
surprised by the human spirit, despite our differences.

Be bold. Be brave. Explore new places, even if you never leave
your hometown, city, province, state or country. Trust your inner
moral compass, to help steer you through challenging circumstances
and new experiences. Go beyond your perceived limitations.
Learn from those around you. Be receptive to strange new
experiences. Explore our natural world. Each strange unknown
face you encounter in this life has a story, a history, a legacy.
Even a genuine smile can be a healing gift to someone who has
nothing or no-one. Be kind to each other. Be helpful in
any way possible. Live righteously. We all experience
love, loss and laughter but those of you who do not –
You are not alone. Strive to become who you know
you were always meant to be. If ever you doubt yourself
or feel undervalued, discarded or invisible –

Turn the impossible into ‘I’m possible’…

-Don Beukes

A Stilled Mannequin

leaf washed up by gust
on performative shores.

Trees lose their masks,
and gloves. No longer
use protection so open

window display tall,
thin models who wear well
the cost of living, open

doors to our flotsam insides,
our efforts to sell
the right image.

Mannequins in our image,
not just hangers for clothes
but sustenance providers

for soil hardened to weather.
Goodness givers res-seed barrenness.
A gift left on the doorstep by kindness.

Trees will remask, reglove
in the Spring. We hope to lose
our masks when a cure is found.
When we take off the gloves
washed up on familiar shores
to hug, warm the winter into spring.
strangers into old friends.

-Paul Brookes

cento

Seeking rebirth – moving

I do not sleep,
but time my breath
my circadian dreams,
to the rhythm of stars.

We’ve died of willingness to believe.

Bios and Links

-Alex Mazey

(b.1991) received his MA (distinction) from Keele University in 2017. He later won The Roy Fisher Prize for Poetry with his debut pamphlet, ‘Bread and Salt’ (Flarestack, TBA). He was also the recipient of a Creative Future Writers’ Award in 2019. His poetry has featured regularly in anthologies and literary press magazines, most notably in The London Magazine. His collection of essays, ‘Living in Disneyland’, will be available from Broken Sleep Books in October 2020. Alex spent 2018 as a resident of The People’s Republic of China, where he taught the English Language in a school run by the Ministry of Education. His writing has been described as ‘wry and knowing,’ with ‘an edge that tears rather than cuts or deals blows.’

Twitter: @AlexzanderMazey

Instagram: alexmazey

Here is my interview of Alex:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-alex-mazey/

-Rich Follett

is a High School English and Creative Writing teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than forty years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and the late Felino Soriano’s CounterExample Poetics, for which he was a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human &c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com.)

As a singer-songwriter, Rich has released five albums of independent contemporary folk music. His latest. Somewhere in the Stars, is available at http://www.richfollett.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, playwright, and director.

-Ankh Spice

is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (NZ). His poetry has appeared in a wide range of international publications and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He truly believes that words have the power to change the place we’re in, and you’ll find him doing his best to prove it on

Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams
or on Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

-Carrie Ann Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse.

-sonja benskin mesher

born , Bournemouth.

now

lives and works in North Wales
as an independent artist

‘i am a multidisciplinary artist, crafting paint, charcoal, words and whatever comes to hand, to explain ideas and issues

words have not come easily. I draw on experience, remember and write. speak of a small life’.

Elected as a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the United Artists Society
The work has been in solo exhibitions through Wales and England, and in selected and solo worldwide.
Much of the work is now in both private, and public collections, and has been featured in several television documentaries, radio programmes and magazines.

Here is my interview of sonja benskin mesher:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sonja-benskin-mesher/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/11/02/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-don-beukes/

Avoiding Prolonged Regret

Open doors can mean
Opportunity, but
Following yellow
Brick roads often
Leads to more unknowns, and
Darkness behind doors
Ajar, can be worrisome –
Consuming, until it’s
Hard to tell the
Difference between
Brick and mortar reality, and
Fictional curiosity.
I turn away, not wanting
(Because I’m not wanting)
To squander this moment,
For the sake of expectation.

-st

Red Asylum oct 2019.

Alone with my thoughts
I park the car
and climb the
stubborn slopes
to my childhood.
Up Cockett Hill
to the Red Asylum.

I glance down
for a glimpse of my
child knees, not there.

Water tower and chimney
shoulders tight,
stark upon that hill.
A land marked Swansea bay.

Now a conglomeration
of housing,
cul-de-sacs
to a builder’s greed.
And our house
a creation
of the same
victorian red brick.

Rotted no value left
save for the slugs
and other denizens
of damp places.

A wet ruin is left
turned to a wisp,
as insubstantial as
my early memories.

Through the letterbox
sits a sad hall, mould
wet and pleading.
Listen for my mother’s voice
but its not there,
not even an echo.

A little life, unravelling.
Old damp letters
circle the mat.

My family’s absence,
this random cruelty. A
product of my time.

Once I was a child here
with a cat that purred,
I thought it was
a lion roaring.

And outside, those dark
woods that I remember.
Just six pine trees, dying.

That mighty forest,
stolen away for ever.

©️ Dai Fry 29th May 2020.

The Door of my Heart

The door of my heart
is open
and I cannot close it.

The door of my heart
is open to the wind:
a sanctuary of winter silence.

The door of my heart
is open to the sea;
oceans pass
in and out
like breath.

I know
I am broken:
the fire gone to embers,
almost drowned in the cold.

I am waiting.
I will always be waiting
for you to come
into the circle of my arms;
into the circle of my heart.

I cannot forget
your heat on my skin,
your voice in my ear.

The steady beat of your heart
under my hand.

Deep in arctic waters
embers flare.
This is a fire
that can never be drowned.

The door of my heart is open.

-Yvonne Marjot

Phoenix Rising

Red my searing childhood trauma from vicious
weak needy bullies who channelled their pathetic
insecurities onto my face my body my race my inner
sanctum invaded – I still hear their jealous raucous
laughter trying to impress their gargoyle minions
and their poisonous euphoria for seemingly gaining
more followers mocking and jeering point scoring.

The marks they gifted me are unseen yet it drags me
sometimes down their demon alleyways but they know
I cannot stay as I have something they still crave for
in my loving family glow keeping their gnashing baying
away – I now soar above their darkened memories
only their former essence still reaching out sometimes
haunting my dreamscape visions but as always I burn
their hot rod verbal darts away as I rise higher to battle
each and every challenging day trying my best to still
find my way in this life but they continue to throw
boulders my way.

I have just managed to release all my haunting bitter
Memories and I am better now my confidence lasting –
For I am Phoenix rising…

-Don Beukes

avalon

colorizing slums
does not erase black and white
spirit-killing want

-Rich Follett

*

With the motion of white feathers.
and visiting hours, and the stench,

you said, of tomato feed left in the sun, and the feeling, pickling salt
between my fingers, each morning left on the side

and wondering what was left for us and
knew, at the same time – only salt,

only pain.

-Alex Mazey

Shelter

At the end of the street, that field
eye-high with weeds – a sanctuary

for lost horses. Sad horses were snapped crayons
to country kids, but the bones

of the old villa, also haunting that field – pure myth.
In one room, ectoplasm: the huge pale ghost

of a moulded plaster ceiling, turned to dust. You spoke
to me only because I always had some limb

or another in a cast, which meant gruesome
and intriguing, so I was not unlike the lure

of a derelict house, and the plaster cast I fashioned
from ghosts and rainwater for you was heavy

and convincing. In a thing abandoned, the weight
of the fear it will happen again lives deep

in the struts. You coveted what was broken
more than once, and I pretended your Dad

was mine even when he was shouting
about your arm. It was one of many bargains

we didn’t voice, a couple of mouths busy grazing, beasts
unshod and unclaimed. I heard you never escaped

that town, and never broke a thing.
I never went back, and I don’t know

what would be worse – a new house
sitting whole on a grave

or a completely empty field
with not a horse in sight.

-Ankh Spice

herrison.

his name is geoff with a g
not jeff with a j

was on the seat beside me
travelling to dorset

i tried to be good and quiet
yet

outside dorchester i exclaimed again, he smiled
pardon me, did you say herrison?

i did
i blushed, did not explain

closed now, shut down rotten

i went back once over the fence
it was empty dusted done

memory remains of visits
by train and special bus to alight
where patients waited

where on sunday patients paraded
to church

where i was horrified, terrified

where her head split in two

she tooks them pills constantly
sometimes too many

my brother lived away
my brother signed her over
committing her to that place

instead of st anns
we were used to that

now

my brother has dementia
he is probably dying

the roundabout is called monkey jump

-sonja benskin mesher

We Stop Decay

devote lives to prevent decay
of wood, breath, bone, brick,
gardens of our minds,
faculties of our hearts

Each day we weed, we resow,
rework, rebuild
the wood, breath, bone, brick,
gardens of our hearts,
faculties of our minds.

Laugh to heal the stench
of rot, worm eaten
brick, bone, breath, wood
landscape of flesh
fresh produce of light.

Born to decay in decay
heal the ever opening wound
brick, bone, breath, wood
flesh of landscape
light produce of flesh.

Laugh.

-Paul Brookes

cento

Brick and mortar reality, and
a couple of mouths busy grazing.

Heal the ever opening wound.

Once I was a child here
with a cat that purred,
I thought it was
a lion roaring.

Bios and Links

-Alex Mazey

(b.1991) received his MA (distinction) from Keele University in 2017. He later won The Roy Fisher Prize for Poetry with his debut pamphlet, ‘Bread and Salt’ (Flarestack, TBA). He was also the recipient of a Creative Future Writers’ Award in 2019. His poetry has featured regularly in anthologies and literary press magazines, most notably in The London Magazine. His collection of essays, ‘Living in Disneyland’, will be available from Broken Sleep Books in October 2020. Alex spent 2018 as a resident of The People’s Republic of China, where he taught the English Language in a school run by the Ministry of Education. His writing has been described as ‘wry and knowing,’ with ‘an edge that tears rather than cuts or deals blows.’

Twitter: @AlexzanderMazey

Instagram: alexmazey

Here is my interview of Alex:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-alex-mazey/

-Rich Follett

is a High School English and Creative Writing teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than forty years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and the late Felino Soriano’s CounterExample Poetics, for which he was a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human &c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com.)

As a singer-songwriter, Rich has released five albums of independent contemporary folk music. His latest. Somewhere in the Stars, is available at http://www.richfollett.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, playwright, and director.

-Ankh Spice

is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (NZ). His poetry has appeared in a wide range of international publications and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He truly believes that words have the power to change the place we’re in, and you’ll find him doing his best to prove it on

Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams
or on Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

-Carrie Ann Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse.

-sonja benskin mesher

born , Bournemouth.

now

lives and works in North Wales
as an independent artist

‘i am a multidisciplinary artist, crafting paint, charcoal, words and whatever comes to hand, to explain ideas and issues

words have not come easily. I draw on experience, remember and write. speak of a small life’.

Elected as a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the United Artists Society
The work has been in solo exhibitions through Wales and England, and in selected and solo worldwide.
Much of the work is now in both private, and public collections, and has been featured in several television documentaries, radio programmes and magazines.

Here is my interview of sonja benskin mesher:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sonja-benskin-mesher/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/11/02/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-don-beukes/

Phantom Whispers

Echoes of regret weaving a widening
tightening net in my brittle porous psyche
bouncing off unstable walls in the hollow halls
of hurried pocketed memories meant to remain
hidden but that is not a given as I urgently attempt
to suppress decaying regrets doing my best to stay
afloat in my secret sheltered harbour where I am
commander and master electing to sail or drown
in wailing gales of deepening untreated depression
with only my fading reflection as a fellow passenger
to endear to as I have no more trusted confidantes
nor allies to maybe expect a reassuring hug maybe
even just a brief passing touch of support in this
broken moral compass world we now live in, so
I just lie down in an imagined embrace –
My self-esteem in pieces my worth leaking out
as I listen to soothing phantom Whispers…

The Bees are Dead

Fading flowers signalling a worrying neglect
of nature’s gifts to our species but our kind not
that kind to our existential nourishing life-giving
necessities – We just take it for granted to have
continuous uninterrupted access to our culinary
needs but how can we possibly allow a decline
in responsibly tending to our flora and fauna in
our mad race to build the biggest, construct the
tallest, creating the most award winning concrete
jungles, expanding urban megacities whilst
removing nature’s bounty?

Deforestation annihilation the destruction of fauna
Migration to natural kingdoms in which to multiply
and thrive but the bees are dead the flowers wilting
the rivers disappearing our food sources diminishing
due to our irresponsible neglect our insatiable
need to destroy or change the status quo whilst
bowing down to corporate powers puppet shows
guiding our disappearing moral compass steering –
I cry as I yearn for common sense to prevail
but maybe it is too late as the bees are dead…

-Don Beukes

Après-fête

partygoers gone,
weary lawn goes back to work:
confetti concedes

-Rich Follett

Ekphrasis 290520

Breath of spring wind
caressing my skin with fingers
cooler than water.

Feeling you so close.
Am I alone with you now,
or just by myself?

Poignant memory,
stops my heart for a moment:
your voice in my ear.

-Yvonne Marjot

Soul Sunrise

“Weeping may last for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” -Ps. 30:5

Lavender lilac
Petals fall from
The past
On dusty
Dirt roads and
Brittle dry grass.

The spring wind
That carries the
Scent of the years,
Becomes memory and
Mourning and
Sentimental tears.

Evening dark
Frees the senses to
Rise with the moon.
Night is relief,
Depth, release –
Bringing forth new.

-st

Newtonian Fluid

As I birth, so I draw
this first breath
through my reflection,
no features yet.
No memory to spoil.

Newtonian forces
ripple the fluid
that holds all,
in divine tension.

To wonder aloud,
alone and pointless,
as if in
a dream or yet now
awake.

Like Alice pulled,
then stretched long.
From the mirror
to the looking glass room.
As her old times cling
distorting memories,
of her left behind world.

Once stories and
dreams ran freely,
before language gripped
and took our sight.

Wondering at last,
near death
what if, and
will the dream
continue alone.

The remnants lie in
stranger’s eyes,
a leaf that blows
all wrong.
A thing that cannot be,
a dream detection.

©️ Dai Fry 28th May 2020.

29.

flowers fall
petals separate

this is not confetti
not a wedding for these are not permitted
we cannot see each other face to face yet
nor marry
we must live alone on lockdown

flowers

sbm.

*

I remember growing an herb garden in your mother’s garden, and one
morning, finding white feathers. You told me, then, angels were near,
and I thought about every incremental – angels and God, and small
hands digging the cold earth, the rose bush, and the clay, and every
forgotten car park, walked between the sign posts, faded in long grass.
Once stood in a puddle of water, and looking up at the blue sky, saw
the blue holding something out of place, the motions of white feathers.

-Alex Mazey

Obscurity

Is looking in the mirror
To see a formless face
Who am I
To think I am someone
Who matters
In a world that cares not
But I desire
To be seen if only by
Just a few
Perhaps then the image
In the mirror
Becomes the person
I can believe in

-Carrie Anne Golden

The Face

the petals of a flower
expressionless without wrinkles
crisps in the sun,
laughter lines increase

sheds colourful skin after skin,
gusts make them wings,
energy returns to the bulb
There is always next year.

-Paul Brookes

cento

Brittle dry grass.
Don’t you want to see what’s going on.

There is always next year.

Bios and Links

-Alex Mazey

(b.1991) received his MA (distinction) from Keele University in 2017. He later won The Roy Fisher Prize for Poetry with his debut pamphlet, ‘Bread and Salt’ (Flarestack, TBA). He was also the recipient of a Creative Future Writers’ Award in 2019. His poetry has featured regularly in anthologies and literary press magazines, most notably in The London Magazine. His collection of essays, ‘Living in Disneyland’, will be available from Broken Sleep Books in October 2020. Alex spent 2018 as a resident of The People’s Republic of China, where he taught the English Language in a school run by the Ministry of Education. His writing has been described as ‘wry and knowing,’ with ‘an edge that tears rather than cuts or deals blows.’

Twitter: @AlexzanderMazey

Instagram: alexmazey

Here is my interview of Alex:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-alex-mazey/

-Rich Follett

is a High School English and Creative Writing teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than forty years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and the late Felino Soriano’s CounterExample Poetics, for which he was a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human &c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com.)

As a singer-songwriter, Rich has released five albums of independent contemporary folk music. His latest. Somewhere in the Stars, is available at http://www.richfollett.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, playwright, and director.

-Ankh Spice

is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (NZ). His poetry has appeared in a wide range of international publications and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He truly believes that words have the power to change the place we’re in, and you’ll find him doing his best to prove it on

Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams
or on Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

-Carrie Ann Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse.

-sonja benskin mesher

born , Bournemouth.

now

lives and works in North Wales
as an independent artist

‘i am a multidisciplinary artist, crafting paint, charcoal, words and whatever comes to hand, to explain ideas and issues

words have not come easily. I draw on experience, remember and write. speak of a small life’.

Elected as a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the United Artists Society
The work has been in solo exhibitions through Wales and England, and in selected and solo worldwide.
Much of the work is now in both private, and public collections, and has been featured in several television documentaries, radio programmes and magazines.

Here is my interview of sonja benskin mesher:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sonja-benskin-mesher/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/11/02/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-don-beukes/

Fire Below

Rising protesting urban tired voices collectively
announcing shared smouldering frustrations
red hot emotions surging steadily to the surface
whilst in secret shady alleys a growing army
of protesters march in unison – Their steps
echoing flat-lining as it reaches a choking city
strangled by social stagnation in this shadow
nation where political fat cats slurp up burnt
left over bitter molasses – Their spoils from
prolonged corruption denying their part in
destroying a nation’s heart whilst pretending
it was all done in good spirit but their gargoyle
eyes reflect their burnt out lies!
Anger boiling over emotions flaring revolution
stirring igniting a ravishing existential fire
below in this charred charcoal urban halo…

Still Here

Historical halo still illuminating our inner
moral compass despite our forced hindrance
to conform follow the norm remain silent ‘Yes
sir no ma’am me sir please ma’am’ – No
violence scream in silence, yet our common
sense still rage within as we pass our past scars
daily in urban shadows only mural concrete echoes
chronicling our attempts to change the status quo
revive our intended blood flow but only fractions
remain of our liberty dance now mere urban
legend frescoes in sleazy shadows as if we have
never lit up the skies to try and kill forced
lies from authoritarian clowns even now the
midnight crow still mock their pathetic show
so we will persist and resist as we are still
here in huddled numbers maintaining our
continuing necessary monitoring…

-Don Beukes

..utility..

anyway, dave, over here, we had rationing as you know,
which continued afterward. things had to be simple,
saving stuff and time, and had a mark like two hungry birds.

utility mark
summer winds scattering paper
cut with a ruler, smudged and marked.

tearing the words, categorising,
knowing
it is all worth it in the end.

you would be surprised

torn paper can be fish

or hungry birds

dave

-sbm.

*

Once had a student who wanted to learn English, maybe as another help,
a mother with fruits and vegetables on the docks of another bay. Good
mornings spent pacing the wooden slats of the seafront, recounting numbers
and colours, and the names of things she already knew. Had a student who,
after homework and dinner had been addressed, sold water to cooing tourists
at a newspaper stand with his grandfather, maybe wouldn’t work long hours
above the wooden slates – with another help, the reoccurrence of each sun.

-Alex Mazey

Soon Gibbous

Unglazed crescent.
Fear your light should
fall from grace, through
crystal panes.

In early night
blue, an electric,
sharp as any knife.

A promise has arisen
from the middle east, as
desert sands softly glow.
Soon to be gibbous,
not yet full.

Celestial forevers
and on its tail,
Venus the even-star,
sister of the morning.

Cold luminosity
exotic geometry
hung in a childhood’s sky,
and there in rheumy eyes.

Without it why
would I loose a
lycanthrope’s howl.

Or grassland to blood
outside my bars.
Far ocean panting as it
licks the shore,
amorphous too big
for a beast.

Something unnatural
about this moon.
Born spilling red
and silvered fear.
Sizzling
on my counterpane.

©️ Dai Fry 27th May 2020.

Middle-age

I am old, and
I am young.

I am fear of failure,
And satisfaction of success.

I am the painting and
The canvass –

The rising moon and stars,
But also the setting sun.

-st

Hathor’s gift

Last night you called me from the bottom of a well
and I pictured the signal between us as a rope ladder
woven from a bunch of years. A bit frayed, this connection,
and this metaphor, but both holding together just enough
for you to see the ladder just a little bit more clearly
than you were seeing the rope. And I don’t care if we’ve not spoken
since before the world cracked its lid, I’m just grateful
I look like some kind of stick when the alligators find the ass.
Often it’s hard to respect the tree in someone who’s fallen
in a quiet, intolerant forest, over and over,
and when you’re soft wood, well. Did you know that Hathor
kicked out the crocodile god even though she was
at least partly a cow. I bet they underestimated just how fierce
a prey animal waxes when her herd is in the dark
and feeling the closing teeth. I bet they underestimated her
even after she teamed up with the sun
and gored the darkness of her loved ones on the tips
of her kind, soft horns. Stabbed it until it was striped
with secondhand light, then drowned it
in the milk of inhuman kindness.

-Ankh Spice

moderne extempore

layered opinions,
shameless promotional shards:
accidental art

-Rich Follett

History

is a wall of torn posters
we walk past as it is only part
messages in foreign languages
we struggle to comprehend.

There was no Golden Age
of good food, good living,
good government. Only in our
imagination the posters

are not torn. the messages are clear.
We do not pass them by
but stand and read into the gaps.
We reinvent the occasion.

-Paul Brookes

Cento

I am the painting and
far ocean panting as it
licks the shore,
amorphous too big
for a beast.

We struggle to comprehend

I bet they underestimated her.

Bios and Links

-Alex Mazey

(b.1991) received his MA (distinction) from Keele University in 2017. He later won The Roy Fisher Prize for Poetry with his debut pamphlet, ‘Bread and Salt’ (Flarestack, TBA). He was also the recipient of a Creative Future Writers’ Award in 2019. His poetry has featured regularly in anthologies and literary press magazines, most notably in The London Magazine. His collection of essays, ‘Living in Disneyland’, will be available from Broken Sleep Books in October 2020. Alex spent 2018 as a resident of The People’s Republic of China, where he taught the English Language in a school run by the Ministry of Education. His writing has been described as ‘wry and knowing,’ with ‘an edge that tears rather than cuts or deals blows.’

Twitter: @AlexzanderMazey

Instagram: alexmazey

Here is my interview of Alex:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-alex-mazey/

-Rich Follett

is a High School English and Creative Writing teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than forty years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and the late Felino Soriano’s CounterExample Poetics, for which he was a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human &c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com.)

As a singer-songwriter, Rich has released five albums of independent contemporary folk music. His latest. Somewhere in the Stars, is available at http://www.richfollett.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, playwright, and director.

-Ankh Spice

is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (NZ). His poetry has appeared in a wide range of international publications and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He truly believes that words have the power to change the place we’re in, and you’ll find him doing his best to prove it on

Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams
or on Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

-Carrie Ann Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse.

-sonja benskin mesher

born , Bournemouth.

now

lives and works in North Wales
as an independent artist

‘i am a multidisciplinary artist, crafting paint, charcoal, words and whatever comes to hand, to explain ideas and issues

words have not come easily. I draw on experience, remember and write. speak of a small life’.

Elected as a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the United Artists Society
The work has been in solo exhibitions through Wales and England, and in selected and solo worldwide.
Much of the work is now in both private, and public collections, and has been featured in several television documentaries, radio programmes and magazines.

Here is my interview of sonja benskin mesher:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sonja-benskin-mesher/

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/11/02/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-don-beukes/

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers three options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger, or an interview about their latest book, or a combination of these.
The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Carrie Anne Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse

Blog: https://awriteradolescentmuse.wordpress.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cagolden71

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I have found that writing poetry was the best way of expressing myself as a woman and as a creative. It is very cathartic for my soul that I can never get enough!

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Although I was really introduced to poetry via school as a girl, it was a coworker many years later who re-introduced me. Through her, I learned about National Poetry Writing Month (in 2008) which I tried and became “addicted” to writing poetry.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

I was never truly aware until very recently.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

Pre-COVID19 the mornings were my time to write since I had the house all to myself. Now, with my guys home all the time, I try to squeeze it in whenever I can.

5. What motivates you to write?

Characters and stories motivate me. If I don’t get them out of my head, I’d go insane!

6. What is your work ethic?

I’m usually too laid back to stick to a strict schedule. As long as I am creating something each day or as often as I can, I’m happy! Deadlines usually stress me out however at times they are the only way to get me to focus and complete a project.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I read a lot of horror and supernatural books as a girl so I guess these had a hand in the kind of stuff I like to write.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

I love Terry Brooks’ books. Although he tries to keep a set writing schedule, he spends a lot of his time in a hammock outside losing himself in his imagination and daydreams.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

Writing comes more naturally yet at the same time it is the most difficult thing to do. The feeling I get each time I create something nothing else matches it!

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

In order to become a writer all you need to do is pick up a pen and write words on the paper. Don’t worry about anything else just write what comes to mind.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I have two projects at the moment. One – I’m using poetry as a tool for writing my first memoir. Two – I’m in the process of writing a disaster-creature book called Terror From the Deep. The third one is actually a guilty please that I’m dong for myself a fantasy/scifi story involving magic and apocalyptic events that is set in an alternate dimension (the story is called Armageddon’s Race).