-Considering The Night by Terry Chipp

-Angry White Mouse Get A Life by Marcel Herms

Angry White Night

darkness’ fist opening
hidden agendas
rodent emerge,
copse-light’s behest;
scattered heirs
inked skied, implied

-Sarah Reeson

Night walkers

Night closes about the timid,
the mouse-hearted,
bird-nervous,
and it pads soft
as the anaesthetist’s rubber soled shoes,
bringing the solace
of silver and silence
to the dear departed

-Jane Dougherty

Nightfall

Night falls on Washington,
on a White House in the grips
of its first dictator. Do not be
alarmed by the votes not yet
counted, the false god stealing
fire from the stars. Consider
darkness the price of privilege.
We are blind to our own
salvation, shrouded in numbers
and electoral maps, states
of consciousness altered by facts.
‘Trump will be defeated soundly.
Put the razor blades and Ambien
back in the medicine cabinet.
We’re going to be fine.’

(Inspired by James Carville)

– Gayle J. Greenlea

THE CROW AND THE CREEK

Crow blinked and the creek dried up.
The woman stumbled down its rutted channel,
night blind until stars fractured the sky.
Saltwater leaked from her feet and she coughed
until fish bones poured from her mouth.
Crow flapped down from its roost, took one
in its beak and flew into the storm’s heart.

-Susan Darlington

Considering the Night

Frosty crispness etched on swirl
of gray night branches can’t predict
the apparition of a swan,
tiny shadow of himself,
at the center of it all.
Black swan of the improbable,
with nowhere else to swim, all furrows
lead to you. You mate for life,
so where is yours? You delay
your song until spring’s melt gives you
a place to glide. She waits, paddling
in nonexistent underwater
sunlight, for dark-feathered presence.

-Holly York

Angry white mouse

Stealing my pork rinds, demanding
toast, it ate the small brown mouse
with a horrible squealing
from within the wall, blood spattered
it dashed across the living room
skittering on the old pine
floorboards.

The angry white mouse
a harbinger of some cataclysm
knocks over spices in the cupboard
shuts on the plates,
sits on the sugar jar
staring me down,
watches me sharpening
the butcher knife
as if it has its own mighty blade,
we are now an armed camp,
the old dog is afraid,
the cat has left us
without a backward glance.

-Peach Delphine

On Staying Clean

Addiction in poetry.
all I need is a line
to get me started –
again after that ageless stretch
of nothing –
and I am here for it
this decision
towards staying clean.

I drink the night away
and rolled on here
by the silent junkie
in his kingdom of junk.
I am confident, yet
that there is still time to stay clean
but age itself brings
other forms of silence
and it ends as it began
suffocating
in the silence of dreams.

-Liam Stainsby

CONSIDERING THE NIGHT

Consider the night
if you will,
turned and twisted,
hacked from Jade.
Down gloom’s black river,
as a steamboat dealer
shuffles the pack.
Sheets once flat and
ice cool.
Now are snake gripped,
sun burnt, twisted
and trapped.
The night is tinned
and piping hot.
Old, I sleep creaking
under menaced sky.
When young I slept deep,
my dreams rolled velvet slow.
They journeyed carefree
where they would.
Now my stories are light
They stick and jam
and know just where to bite.
While I sleep… just
below the line of sight.
Waiting for dawn
as the hours slow.
For it will bring
deep sleep and
vivid chocolate dreams.
And when the waking comes
and the sandman burns my eyes,
I’m too tired and sleepy, just
wishing my
day was waiting sweet as
a Sunday morning.

-© Dai Fry 3rd November 2020.

.day 4.

:: the car park ::

the days come darker still
considering the night

white they peer
sadly into empathy
faces cloud
shoulders bowed

not so the beginning
look at it
look at it

no stars here no separation
the two become one
again

you see that your perception of things
is different from the others

hold it
hold it and you will find after time
some no longer see

today there is vacant parking at the church

.. sbm ..

(Considering The Night, TC)

“Space For Other Thoughts”

On quiet nights I try to allow for
Space to form other thoughts
The day does not sufficiently permit
Nights, devoid as they are of most white noise, allow for reenergizing, regrouping,
Understanding, reconfiguring, accepting

(Angry White Mouse, TC)

“I Know Kung Fu”

Martial arts deployed –
For self preservation.
Nothing personal,
I just really, really need that food.

-Lydia Wist

Bios and Links

-Terry Chipp

grew up in Thurnscoe and ia now living in Doncaster via Wath Grammar school, Doncaster Art College, Bede College in Durham and 30 years teaching.

He sold his first painting at the Goldthorpe Welfare Hall annual exhibition at the age of 17 and he haven’t stopped painting since.

He escaped the classroom 20 years ago to devote more time to his artwork.  Since then he has set up his own studio in Doncaster, exhibited across the north of England as a member of the Leeds Fine Artists group and had his painting demonstrations featured on the SAA’s Painting and drawing TV channel.  Further afield he has accepted invitations to work with international artists’ groups in Spain, Macedonia, Montenegro and USA where his paintings are held in public and private collections. In 2018 he had a solo exhibition in Warsaw, Poland and a joint exhibition in Germany.

His pictures cover a wide range of styles and subjects from abstract to photo-realism though he frequently returns to his main loves of landscape and people.

Visitors are welcome at his studio in the old Art College on Church View, Doncaster.

e-mail:  terry@terrychipp.co.uk

Facebook:  Terry Chipp Fine Art Painting

Instagram: @chippko.art

-Marcel Herms

is a Dutch visual artist. He is also one of the two men behind the publishing house Petrichor. Freedom is very important in the visual work of Marcel Herms. In his paintings he can express who he really is in complete freedom. Without the social barriers of everyday life.
There is a strong relationship with music. Like music, Herms’ art is about autonomy, freedom, passion, color and rhythm. You can hear the rhythm of the colors, the rhythm of the brushstrokes, the raging cry of the pencil, the subtle melody of a collage. The figures in his paintings rotate around you in shock, they are heavily abstracted, making it unclear what they are doing. Sometimes they look like people, monsters, children or animals, or something in between. Sometimes they disappear to be replaced immediately or to take on a different guise. The paintings invite the viewer to join this journey. Free-spirited.

He collaborates with many different authors, poets, visual artists and audio artists from around the world and his work is published by many different publishers.

www.marcelherms.nl

www.uitgeverijpetrichor.nl

-Hokis

Hokis is an American Poet of Armenian descent. She is senior editor of Headline Poetry & Press and a regular contributor to Reclamation Magazine. Her work is found digitally and in numerous print anthologies, including SMITTEN (Indie Blu(e), Oct 2019), Pandemic Poetry Anthology (Gloucester Poetry Festival, Oct. 2020), and Heron Clan VII(Heron Clain). You can her digital work and information on her debut collection, UnBecoming, at hokis.blog. 

-Jane Dougherty

writes novels, short stories and lots of poems. Among her publications is her first chapbook of poetry, thicker than water. She is also a regular contributor to Visual Verse and the Ekphrastic Review. You can find her on twitter @MJDougherty33 and on her blog https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/

-Peach Delphine

is a queer poet from Tampa, Florida. Infatuated with what remains of the undeveloped Gulf coast. Former cook. Has had poems in Cypress Press, Feral Poetry, IceFloe Press, Petrichor. Can be found on Twitter@Peach Delphine

-Dai Fry

is a poet living on the south coast of England. Originally from Swansea. Wales was and still is a huge influence on everything. My pen is my brush. Twitter:  

@thnargg

Web: http://seekingthedarklight.co.uk

-Susan Darlington

Susan Darlington’s poetry regularly explores the female experience through nature-based symbolism and stories of transformation. It has been published in Fragmented Voices, Algebra Of Owls, Dreams Walking, and Anti-Heroin Chic among others. Her debut collection, ‘Under The Devil’s Moon’, was published by Penniless Press Publications (2015). Follow her @S_sanDarlington    

-Holly York

lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her two large, frightening lapdogs. A PhD in French language and literature, she has retired from teaching French to university students, as well as from fierce competition in martial arts and distance running. She has produced the chapbooks Backwards Through the Rekroy Wen, Scapes, and Postcard Poetry 2020. When she isn’t hard at work writing poems in English, she might be found reading them in French to her long-suffering grandchildren, who don’t yet speak French.

-Gayle J. Greenlea

is an award-winning poet and counselor for survivors of sexual and gender-related violence. Her poem, “Wonderland”, received the Australian Poetry Prod Award in 2011. She shortlisted and longlisted for the Fish Poetry Prize in 2013, and debuted her first novel Zero Gravity at the KGB Literary Bar in Manhattan in 2016. Her work has been published in St. Julian Press, Rebelle Society, A Time to Speak, Astronomy Magazine, Headline Poetry and Press and The Australian Health Review.

-Helen Allison

lives in the North East of Scotland. Her first poetry collection ‘ Tree standing small’ was published in 2018 with Clochoderick Press. Her work has appeared in journals and magazines in print and online and she is working towards a second collection.

-Lydia Wist

Like someone who tries out hats or other samples before making a final decision, experimenting with different ideas and techniques is how Lydia spends some of her time. This allows for other portions of time to speak through the lens of fiction, creative nonfiction and art. You can find her work at Cargo Collective , Lydia Wist Creative and on Twitter @Lydiawist.

Website links:

https://cargocollective.com/lydiawist

https://www.facebook.com/lydiawistcreative/

-Sarah Connor

lives in the wild, wet, south-west of England, surrounded by mud and apple trees. She writes poems to make sense of the world, and would rather weed than wash up.

-sonja benskin mesher

-Liam Stainsby

holds a bachelor in English Literature and Creative Writing and is a secondary school teacher of English and Creative Writing. Liam is currently writing his first, professional collection of poetry entitled Borders that explores poetry from all around the world. Liam also Co-Hosts a movie discussion podcast entitled: The Pick and Mix Podcast. Liam writes under the pseudonym ‘Michael The Poet’ 

Links: WordPress: https://michael-the-poet.com/

Twitter: stainsby_liam

Instagram: Michael The Poet

-Sarah Reeson

is 54, married and a mother of two, who has been writing and telling stories since childhood. Over the last decade she has utilised writing not just as entertainment, but as a means to improve personal communication skills. That process unexpectedly uncovered increasingly difficult and unpleasant feelings, many forgotten for decades. Diagnosed as a historic trauma survivor in May 2019, Mental health issues had previously hindered the entirety of my adult life: the shift into writing as expression and part of a larger journey into self-awareness began to slowly unwind for her from the past, providing inspiration and focus for a late career change as a multidisciplined artist.

Website: http://internetofwords.com

-Gaynor Kane

is a Northern Irish poet from Belfast. She has two poetry pamphlets, and a full collection, from Hedgehog Poetry Press, they are Circling the Sun, Memory Forest and Venus in pink marble (2018, 2019 and Summer 2020 respectively). She is co-author, along with Karen Mooney, of Penned In a poetry pamphlet written in response to the pandemic and due for release 30^th November 2020.  Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com.