Day 22
Kid Blue going to the city by Marcel Herms
Trailing by MJ Saucer
Night Tree by Terry Chipp
(Night Tree)
“A Forest Lurches”
Can’t share details lest we be maddened both
Round raving boughs the wind doth gladly flee from scene
A cursed place – black hole – be here stripping life from life
Leave it lone to squander existence; stinking, obscene
(Trailing)
“Sunlight”
How sunlight alters the patina of life remains forever pure
“Support”
Boundaries become supports for those in need of a kindly ear
“Shelter”
Everything shifts into balance as sun gives way to shade
(Kid Blue Going to the City)
“Unrecognizable”
We see our son off
Our blurry boy
See not where he ends and city begins
We hide our pain with hope
As he looks out from his smart window
Hope he’ll recall us in the fields
-Lydia Wist
Kid Blue
Kid Blue comes riding into town,
a pair of six shooters
and a notching knife.
I’m feeling mighty fine,
says the kid.
Gonna drink me
some sour mash,
play poker
and pop a few caps
says the kid.
He turns to his horse.
No son of a bitch
messes with the kid,
says the kid.
He goes into the saloon
crashing through the double doors,
spilling a woman’s drink.
I’m terribly sorry Ma’am,
says the kid.
She looks at the stain
on her fine red dress,
and shoots him in the head.
The kid don’t say nothin’.
-© Dai Fry 21st November 2020
The Night Tree
The night tree withers in the garden,
starved of light. Life’s too grim
for anything bright as the world spins
askew on its axis, savaged by its own
inhabitants. Small blue gem in the dark
of space, ravaged by carbon moguls
and disinformation provocateurs,
mining lies told in board rooms and
State houses.
The night tree with grizzled bark,
roots milked dry by suckling humans.
Starved of dignity, the arc of history
bends toward justice, dimmed. Scars
limned in moonlight, memorialize
strange fruit, harvested from branches
weary from farewelling souls
of dark-skinned men, more worthy
than murderous landowners.
Cities and rain forests burn, oceans
rise. Will no one turn the toxic tides
of extremism? Roll back the currency
of white privilege to diminish and destroy
wealth that belongs equally to all?
Ignorance is a pall spread over creation,
blocking sun, forswearing Earth’s
creatures. The Night Tree foretells our
fate. These branches are connected.
— Gayle J. Greenlea
A new day
The kind of thing we write in stories:
the downfall of concrete,
the uprising of the oppressed,
the green and blue,
les sans dents;
how the sky opens
above the fog and smog
and human filth
and pours, green and growing,
out of the broken flagstones.
When the night trees gather
their peace and let it fall
on the grey, washing it with the colours
of bird feathers, then the earth will sing,
the oceans wash clean our bones.
-Jane Dougherty
Blue, Trailing
the city’s trellis
summer destruction;
falling past
rising calm;
juxtaposed –
stupid, owned
-Sarah Reeson
day 22.
:: this tree ::
there is this one tree
planted early came slightly weedy
planted by the town with a little
fence around
the danger that it may come vandalized
& die
even then some may paint it white , add lights
in the cities green may be required
among the stone and lingering
youth
she said there is a feeling of
impending doom
and on researching we find this
is true for many reasons
.sbm.
MH22
Kid Blue
He’d drive up from below
Myakka, through palmetto and pine
as far as eye could stretch,
nothing in the sky but clouds
turkey vultures and blue,
nothing taller than slash pine,
cabbage palms, islands of cypress,
floating green over green,
we drank whiskey till dawn
down by the Bay, tide ebbing
head in my lap, every time
he comes to town he’s gonna stay,
always we end up by the water,
talking of cows, of dogs,
of stars and what they mean,
always he goes back,
a little less fiery.
MjS22
Trailing
Vine, fence climbing
entangled, old bed springs
a trellis of opportunity,
we call it vine
as if such a small word
was adequate for what consumes
boundaries, dismantles
frameworks, not yet flowering,
shrouding trees, pinnacle
of pine, cloud tops
just out of reach,
tendrilled wind,
at night, between choruses
of tree frogs, hear the creaking
of new growth,
roots plunging
bone deep.
TC22
Night Tree
He said every tree
must be cared for,
his favorites were old navels,
the first oranges he planted.
He would sit out there
on the edge of the house
lights, long into the talking
night, cigarette glowing,
conversation with citrus,
sipping his whiskey, smoking,
you could sit with him
but he only spoke to the trees,
sometimes Moon
or wind, after he passed
we planted flowers
around his evening trees,
they even survived the hurricane
that peeled the roof off the house,
flowering now
bee heavy and sweet.
-Peach Delphine
Limbs
Waiting for leaves that have left
waiting for someone to attach a swing
to that horizontal arm unfleshed,
to face the coldest night, waiting
after a rainy winter day to glaze
these branches so they sparkle
in sunlight. Too heavy with ice they
drag down power lines as they topple
and we, disconnected, wait.
-Holly York 2020
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
-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 her 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 30th November 2020. Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com.
Anindita Sengupta
is the author of Walk Like Monsters (Paperwall, 2016) and City of Water (Sahitya Akademi, 2010). Her work has appeared in anthologies and journals such as Plume, 580 Split, One and Breakwater Review. She is Contributing Editor, Poetry, at Barren Magazine. She has received fellowships and awards from the Charles Wallace Trust India, the International Reporting Project, TFA India and Muse India. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California. Her website is http://aninditasengupta.com
The Wombwell Rainbow 