-Neal Zetter

Monday Morning Smile

Smile
Every Monday morning
Smile
When you’re tired and yawning
Smile
Forget weather warnings
Smile
Make a Monday morning
Smile

Let your lips go curly
Smile
Who cares if it’s early?
Smile
Though your tongue’s still furry
Smile
Make a Monday morning
Smile

Tara, Tom, Tess, Trevor
Smile
Get your head together
Smile
Keep the rule forever
Smile
Make a Monday morning
Smile

As the week’s beginning
Smile
Do some facial grinning
Smile
You will soon be winning
Smile
Make a Monday morning
Smile

No excuse – just do it
Smile
Till the sun shines through it
Smile
And the world can view it
Smile
Make a Monday morning
Smile

To prevent a blue day
Smile
Show it to a new day
Smile
So it lasts till Tuesday
Smile
Make a Monday morning
Smile

-By Neal Zetter

The Healing

It happened yesterday in my home town,
at noon or thereabouts,
the sun at its full height.

We all stopped suddenly inside the shops,
across a road,
to look each other in the eye.

It frightened me at first,
then seemed exactly right
for everyone to stand and wait.

I wish I’d been the first
to reach out to a stranger,
say I love you as I love myself.

He didn’t call me mad,
or turn away and laugh.
He simply said the words as well.

I heard them echo through the trees
to settle in the highest branches.
My voice flew back to me:

I’m tired and need to rest but dare not
if there’s any fear between us.
We must call a life-long truce.

You’re free to dress the way you want,
worship as you please.
There’s room for me to do the same.

The only arms we’ll ever raise will open
just as wide as they can go,
reach out to end all mutual need.

I’ll step aside when you walk down the street,
hope you’ll do the same for me
without a sense of loss.

We nodded in agreement
that seemed too good to last
much longer than it took to speak.

But here, on this new day,
I passed a stranger
who stepped aside and smiled at me.

-Jenny Mitchell (The poem previously appeared in The Rialto)

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,
to hug, warm the winter into spring.
strangers into old friends

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Jenny Mitchell

is winner of the Aryamati Poetry Prize; the Segora Poetry Prize; a Bread and Roses Poetry Award; the Fosseway Poetry Prize; joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize 2019 and 2 x Best of the Net Nominee.

A debut collection, Her Lost Language (Indigo Dreams Publishing) is one of 44 Poetry Books for 2019 (Poetry Wales) and a Jhalak Prize #bookwelove recommendation.

A forthcoming collection, Map of a Plantation (IDP), is due in 2021.