A cataract blackens my right eye,
the one I used to look at the sun;
no one is left to ask why,
because you are lost in dust,
and our friends are lost with you
at that final beach-mob outpost.
Looking into the sun, then at you
spread out, lovely and moist,
all I could see were black dots
on your face as it smooched air,
and on your knees, now way too hot
raised up, like dream castles, there
were lines and arrows instead
of your smooth knobs, smoothly red.
-Elizabeth Moura
equanimity
on the cosmic timeline
humankind appeared minutes ago—
aeons later (by our reckoning),
like one primeval furrowed brow
or the disappointed jowls of
a disgruntled mage
with a bumbling apprentice,
earth sighed …
-Rich Follett
#2:
My heart
Is like a vast desert
Since you left this world
No amount of water
Can revive
My soul
Wanders an endless wasteland
Hopeless and lost
I don’t want to be found
I don’t need rescuing
I just want to sink in this endless abyss
Of your sweet embrace
-Carrie Ann Golden
13. some folk are superstitious
some are not
some thought that tomorrow
would come different
did not look to see
so some may be disappointed
that the orange terror remains
like the alien in some 1950s film
or tv show
talking pictures
some listened to journey into space
on the radio, imagined such things
scared themselves silly
from behind cushions
this thing can suck the life even from
those hiding in soft furnishings
so they may go live underground
war of the worlds
I saw it live
-sbm
*
Out of this grey-peak mountainside, I did not always realise,
that animals, like dogs, might comprehend another language.
There are only so many times. Only, so many times, a boy
can talk in different languages, hoping to find the right one –
would you like a sandwich? St. Bernard, only here for the tuna.
So, what? – an owner appeared, as beautiful as I imagined any
person could be. Hallo, guten tag, blonde lady… gut, danke.
-Alex Mazey
A Desire
I walk your edgeland desire lines.
Your fingers daylight a xenotopia in me.
A riverwalk into your heart’s sussurus.
-Paul Brookes
Weeds
A plant’s wrong ways, take
shape on chancing breeze.
Anarchy rises to sap
at butchered lands.
Outsiders, friendless
purpose unknown.
Immigrants from the without.
We are frightened,
held rigid
by the different beauty
of their strange song.
These alien ways
like a wild yeast that
comes to a baker’s call.
Fresh, different
much raised in
our estimations.
Re-wilding gods,
stand to let
the ground grow
as it will.
A flower meadow
not a lawn.
Bees see it,
twice as sweet.
Flown, travelling seeds
on wind blown songs.
Till the loam of
a stranger’s town.
Taking the balance
of a natural palette.
And soon we will have a place
of rare delight.
Watered with joy and tears,
cooled by butterflies.
You told me you haven’t been outside in 57 days
and tonight the river is a dropped ribbon, limp and lost
and the sharp stones of the trail as I begin to run
become the sound of something chewing. The faster
we go, the faster we’re eaten. You are moving,
in the lines of your confinement, so slowly now
you have become a painting in my head – static –
existing not to be touched. And in the guilty, lucky air
down here we’re starting up the engines
and on my knees in the soft mud I can hear the first plane
for months, idling beyond the water. I’d wish you were here,
but the wind is whipping up cold, and the coming dark
is frantic with sudden birds, woken startled
from their neat new nests along the runway.
-Ankh Spice
Searching the Depths
” Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” -Matt. 4:19
Seven worms
Squiggle out from the depths
After rain
Seeking sunshine,
Not too much.
Unwittingly,
They crawl into
Small hands
Making ready
To make a meal
Not of them, but
Creatures from different depths.
“Get to the truck, Daddy’s got the poles!”
-st
The Institute (Part Two)
Dear Self – I am drowning in this blinding haze of red,
Locked in this current state, ‘ shut up! Leave my headspace
or I will end you! Are you still there? I cannot go on like this.
Last night another one made herself known to me taunting me,
mockingly. I can hear her in the walls of my deepest most
private secret space – ‘A voice, a voice! No, I refuse to submit
to you! Stop this ridiculous lie you knit every chance you get!’
Flashback – I am back in my childhood room, thirteen again.
I hear my parents bang the door down. I struggle to breathe.
I feel my dad forcing my fingers open as I clamp them
Tighter around my throat…
‘Good morning Mr and Mrs Sullivan. No need to look so
sullen. Rachel will be treated with the utmost respect and
care here at Clarence House. My name is Ms Marsh.
You have nothing to worry about. Are you ready Rachel?
The Confrontation – ‘Ow, You’re hurting me! Where are you
Taking me? Shut up you spoiled brat! You will soon find
out how we heal misfits like you. Let me go you old hag!
Now you listen to me you pathetic little creature. You better
get used to me. After all, you have been placed into my care,
so don’t you dare! You will soon realise you’re not that
special at all. The others will reveal themselves to you soon.
You better get some rest my dear. No need to fear, I promise.
Dear Self – I feel so lost. I heard it again last night – A faint
tapping deep inside my head. Someone also tried to reach me
but it was a faint whisper. What is wrong with me? What is
this place? I’ve got to get out of here. This spiral prison is
making my head burst. Please show me a way out! ‘Hello?’
-Don Beukes
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.’
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.
is an American poet whose work emphasizes emotional integrity and social justice. She is the author of several eBooks including, Learning from Pompeii, Coffee for Neanderthals, Disgracing Lady Justice and others, available on smashwords.com and its affiliates.Chapbook:Ebola (West Chester University Poetry Center, 2014)
is a South African and British writer. He is the author of ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ (CTU) and ‘Icarus Rising-Volume 1’ (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, editor of Scarlet Leaf Review for the ‘Best of the Net’ in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’ in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second ‘Cape Sounds’ in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing). He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of this World’ is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.
is an old new poet. He worked in social care but now has no day job. A keen photographer and eater of literature and lurid covers. Fascinated by nature, physics, pagans, sea and storm. His poetry seeks to capture image and tell philosophical tales. Published in Black Bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore Press and the Pangolin Review. He can be seen reading on #InternationalPoetryCircle and regularly appears on #TopTweetTuesday.
Twitter. @thnargg
Web seekingthedarklight.co.uk
lives in a converted factory and works with elders. She has had poetry, flash fiction or photographs published in online and print publications Human/Kind Journal, Rose Quartz Poetry Magazine, Hawk & Whippoorwill, The Cormorant, Radical: A Lit Zine, Chrysanthemum, Occulum, Flash, Paragraph Planet, and Flash Fiction Magazine. On Twitter @mourapoet, Instagram mourathepoet and mourastudio.wordpress.com.
-Paul Brookes
is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews.
-Mary Frances
is an artist and writer based in the UK. She takes a few photos every day, for inspiration and to use in her work. The images for this project were all taken in the last two years on walks during in the month of May. Her words and images have been published by Penteract Press, Metambesen, Ice Floe Press, Burning House Press, Inside the Outside, Luvina Rivista Literaria, and Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness.
Twitter:
@maryfrancesness
-James Knight
is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.
is an admin worker, currently not in work Married, 2 sons. Loves poetry and words. She considers herself a writer of scribble rather than a poet. She has written a novel and is using her spare time to finally get it published (self-publishing) which has been an ambition of her for the last 10 years.
“In all her doings my mother influenced me to have endurance, dedication, resistance, faith and resilience.” Mbizo Chirasha
Our village rondavels sat on the peripheral fringes of Dayataya, that elephantine mountain of home. It cracked with a fervent babyish glee every promising dawn. Birds sang soprano and black baboons yelped baritone. The chattering monkeys and jiving rock rabbits chanted tenor. Musical Mother, your footsteps to the mountain to pick firewood for our morning meal was a goddess jive, complimenting nature’s rhythm. This is points to the meaning of mothers. They are angels, messengers of life, You, my Mother, are the goddess of all times.
Dayataya wore a light-yellow tinge on its head at dawn. Toward sunset it cracked a harmless oxblood tinted smile. You wore an earthly doek [bandana] with your resilience matching that yellow, the color of freedom.
Dayataya was our mountain of home. Its cousin, Zvegona, remained…
My body, my mind churn:
cauldron of night,
holes punched
where stars should be.
If I’m being honest with myself,
I’m never okay.
Chaos— I know well,
friend turned lover
wringing out
survival my skin, wrung
until I shrivel
into the curl of a November leaf,
regressing
to an embryonic state:
enwombing my world.
I grip this life’s lining,
a child grasping
the bottom of his mother’s floating dress,
hands busy,
hands
just out of reach.
Home, Arrested
Walls—bare winter trees;
ceiling, slanted—overhead landslide;
tan wardrobe, ivory chest-of
open doors, open drawers—
beseeching garments.
I’ve occupied
this attic bedroom for three weeks:
left boxes, unemptied;
picture frames, stacked;
bedside tables—a cluttered bric-a-brac,
spreading plague.
In school, I learned to live
on peripheries.
For any movement or inflection change
I might stand trial,
whipped before the verdict.
Always, I pled guilty,
scrutinized and
fixed my expressiveness into rigidity—a statue—
Once bought a bottle of Jack Daniels for forty euros,
in a truck stop, somewhere, and drank it, snowed in,
on a grey-peak mountainside, and when vomited, early
into white, coffee mugs, wondered how bad the head
would be in three to four hours, when the sun would not
rise, but would gleam again across the snow pine forests,
an old tree stump, halved tuna sandwich with St. Bernard.
-Alex Mazey
Exposing the Light
In the farmhouse
Of my youth,
Remnants of
Wallpaper over wallpaper
Peeled from walls to
Reveal crumbling plaster underneath
Dried in place on ancient lath.
I didn’t know not to pull and pick at it,
Dropping crusty bits to the hardwood floors
To be swept up later.
Peering curious eyes
Behind the layers to see inside –
All the while, making it worse.
Sometimes, streams of sunlight
Would shine through.
Probing messy situations
Can shed light.
-st
Hidden Patterns
A gentle fading,
apparent under grey paint.
Beauty from passing times.
As lonely words woken
from a shoebox diary.
Lifted from lace dreams
by curious children.
Sepia ink, pressed petals
all tied with yellow ribbon.
Bedded in lilac tissue.
Bitter at the old decay
Sleeping years have wrought,
I stare… but you
will not resolve for me.
As old pain lessens
a new loss presents.
Fresh with a hurt that is
not immediately clear.
Memories of Tiervlei – As Sekueb Nodmai bravely entered the
treacherous lake of souls, feeling an ominous stirring of water boiling,
he could not help thinking of his foretold quest to save his beloved
kingdom, ruled by his brave father, Tenamêske – A land of many
suns and moons, of friends and enemies, of secrets and stories, of
ancient bones and stones, now whispering through his whole being –
Guiding him to bravely swim through this lake of souls, not knowing
What will become of him but his own fears compares to nothing
Just thinking of what will be unleashed if he fails in this foretold
mission to secure eons more of the lives of his mense in Tiervlei.
Only he can ensure the survival of his proud nation, his final mission.
Lake of Souls – It began as a mere ripple over the surface of the
Lake but Sekueb knew this was the moment he was born for –
Crossing the lake of souls alive, to reach the source of lewe
in a place called Fluweeltjie. He could sense several hands
trying to drag him below to this bottomless lake but they could
not possibly know what the Oracle presented to him –
Powder of boegoe, dust of knoffel and tears from suurvygies.
He dived below and released his precious gifts, instantly killing
these souls who dared to challenge him, underestimating him!
In the distance, beyond the iron tree forest, he could see the
glow of a Skeeloog guardian, holding up what he came for –
A beker containing essence of Vroteiers, gathered from
the tears of a Skoenderlap, a giver of life, before its own
sacrificial death, its wings disintegrating as her tears were falling –
The Skeeloog beckoned Sekueb to take the precious beker and
Pointed the way out, beyond the pillar of klopdisselboom, where
a meisie was waiting to take him back through the screeching
waterfall to emerge unscathed at the gates of Tiervlei…
totalling 21 and the nightmare
continues into another day the
orange thing reappearing even
on andrew marr
I always imagined watching that
on tv
if I did not work on sunday, now
on furlough find I can
yet the colour comes again
smothering thoughts of a pleasant day
suffocating, melding mouth and those
shades defining
now I have to say that I usually like
the colour as items yet maybe not
as entity
I face the slate
grey
and bleed red
I dare not think on tomorrow
-sbm
Troubled
The plaster is cracked
everywhere;
in the stately rooms, off limits
day and night,
scraps of wallpaper
flutter, like blind butterflies.
Floorboards all creak; some
splinter under the weight
of memory. Memory.
There, where a forehead
poked a rounded hole;
there where many hands
crawled up and down
the discolored lead paint,
discolored even then.
Even then.
Lastly, the windows;
they are gloriously smashed.
Wind brings in quiet dust,
And I ask myself,
who was this?
-Elizabeth Moura
Callimachus doomed the Minotaur
They immortalised his bellowing as cruel
and the ghost of that word travelled
with its knee pressed into his spine
just above the place his tail swept for stars.
We are so willing to forget
that he was Asterion
the son of the silver-chased vault
not an earthly beast at all – but then
we always lusted for understandable monsters.
After he fell, his spirit fled from the hillock
of his great heavy hide
left stinking in the Knossos sun,
and into the cool grey mountains, still
trailing that cruel-mouthed kite, its mortalling tongue.
Written the wrong shape to ascend.
Perhaps he did bellow as he ran
but tone travels dimly between worlds.
Perhaps he bellows still, just like the mountain itself
always has, the groanings
of its quake-tortured bones
so very much like an enormous bull
anticipating the mythic – his true name lost,
in monstrous distress.
-Ankh Spice
alpha
Shamash and Kali
whirl in molten ecstasy—
thus, new worlds are born
-Rich Follett
Poem for day 12 #2
One’s life
Could be seen in two ways
Like a broken pottery beyond repair
Or
Like a journey filled with peaks and valleys.
-Carrie Ann Golden
A Cracked Mountain
murals isolation on an inside wall.
Wear a mask against the dust.
climb over boulders, down valleys
of sinew and bone caught in these four walls.
Listen to your own heartbeat,
increased bird calls through an open window,
slap of your own slippers, crackle of crisp
packets put away after a shop expedition
where you wait patiently, watch for other
folk coming too close, wait behind lines.
Cross the road when others are in your path.
Arrive home to the loud radio, tell yourself
you put it on only for your pet cockatiel.
Unpack the bread, the pasta, the wine bottle
of fears, tidy them away into reasonable
cupboards. Watch another boxset of recent drama
in which all characters shake hands, hug,
unmasked, ungloved: domestic dramas are alien worlds.
A cracked and pealing wall is a vista of mountains
you climb everyday for the fresh air of another place.
-Paul Brookes
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.’
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.
is an American poet whose work emphasizes emotional integrity and social justice. She is the author of several eBooks including, Learning from Pompeii, Coffee for Neanderthals, Disgracing Lady Justice and others, available on smashwords.com and its affiliates.Chapbook:Ebola (West Chester University Poetry Center, 2014)
is a South African and British writer. He is the author of ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ (CTU) and ‘Icarus Rising-Volume 1’ (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, editor of Scarlet Leaf Review for the ‘Best of the Net’ in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’ in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second ‘Cape Sounds’ in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing). He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of this World’ is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.
is an old new poet. He worked in social care but now has no day job. A keen photographer and eater of literature and lurid covers. Fascinated by nature, physics, pagans, sea and storm. His poetry seeks to capture image and tell philosophical tales. Published in Black Bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore Press and the Pangolin Review. He can be seen reading on #InternationalPoetryCircle and regularly appears on #TopTweetTuesday.
Twitter. @thnargg
Web seekingthedarklight.co.uk
lives in a converted factory and works with elders. She has had poetry, flash fiction or photographs published in online and print publications Human/Kind Journal, Rose Quartz Poetry Magazine, Hawk & Whippoorwill, The Cormorant, Radical: A Lit Zine, Chrysanthemum, Occulum, Flash, Paragraph Planet, and Flash Fiction Magazine. On Twitter @mourapoet, Instagram mourathepoet and mourastudio.wordpress.com.
-Paul Brookes
is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews.
-Mary Frances
is an artist and writer based in the UK. She takes a few photos every day, for inspiration and to use in her work. The images for this project were all taken in the last two years on walks during in the month of May. Her words and images have been published by Penteract Press, Metambesen, Ice Floe Press, Burning House Press, Inside the Outside, Luvina Rivista Literaria, and Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness.
Twitter:
@maryfrancesness
-James Knight
is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.
is an admin worker, currently not in work Married, 2 sons. Loves poetry and words. She considers herself a writer of scribble rather than a poet. She has written a novel and is using her spare time to finally get it published (self-publishing) which has been an ambition of her for the last 10 years.
I sat on the wall a while
further up a guy was painting
a cat
I watched him
clever
I heard a small noise to the left
turned
found the bloody orange thing was back
fussing around colouring up the air
smelling slightly warm
and damp
mid sucking noises the face appeared
black and white
from the bloody orange thingy.
-sbm
Murakami is my favourite Japanese writer, I remember
vaguely, a time when he did not show his face in public.
Showed his face as a series of cats. Some days, it is like
cats are the loneliest animals on the planet. I think, again,
of a book, by an author I cannot remember. I think, again,
of a time beyond myself, of these dead things, side roads,
memorialised, beyond face value; it’s more than we know.
-Alex Mazey
Journey to Fluweeltjie
The secret Map – It has been passed on by generations of
Meesters, protectors of their families and heirs to the kingdom
of Tiervlei. An existential secret map showing the way to the
land of Fluweeltjie, where essence of an eternal life force
would only be accessible to a worthy young warrior,
who would survive the treacherous Kaapse Vlaktes –
an underworld marshland filled with exploding
vrekwarm flames from below the sunken city of
Fluweeltjie – There to collect essence of the revered
Bitterbessie, ensuring longevity for all who deserve it –
The honour of collecting the precious bitterbessie
was bestowed on Sekueb Nodmai, heir to the kingdom
of Tiervlei. He followed the ancient path shown on the map,
and made his way to the secret entrance only he knew –
In the distance he spotted a lonely figure hovering just
above the ground, guarding the entrance. Sekueb
noticed that he hovered just above the ground, waiting.
Battle of the Kaapse Vlaktes – As soon as he crossed over
he was confronted by a sonskyn soldaat, ordered to
prevent any attempt at entering the dreaded Kaapse Vlaktes.
As donderwolke clouds exploded in the skies above,
the soldaat suddenly hurled a tokkelos at Sekueb, a fierce
creature which could instantly melt him, however Sekueb
only had to throw dust of poeier into its eyes to avoid
certain death. That opened the path to the gateway to
to the borrelende land of Fluweeltjie – What he did not know
was that he had to swim through the lake of souls, they who
have suffered the curse of failed missions – Looking to welcome
one more, as the water started to boil and stir…
(to be continued)
-Don Beukes
Hunters
I savor the rainbows
on wet streets,
and the pigeons without sense
who peck at nothing.
The streets are empty,
dehumanized.
As it should be, as it is.
I feel the rumbling
not of wheels or thunder;
it is the precious honey bee,
another hunter
as effortless as myself.
It’s hunting in unkept lots
the modest dandelions.
My feet dance
over faded chalk;
I fear nothing.
Elizabeth Moura
Koi feeding
You save the stale crusts from the good brown loaf.
On your early walk through the city gardens, there is a round mirror
to crumble them into, and in it an unfamiliar creature,
folded and loose in his aspect. He watches you from the water.
You have never met his eyes, although you sense they are kind.
This morning autumn has nodded at the trees
and the ember of the squalling sun catches
a plume at his throat, and he blushes bright ¬— young
with newborn flame. The wind arrives
to spread the blaze outwards in ripples
from the man standing with his hands full
of burning bread, and when the fish surface
their mouths make round holes in his body.
In one tiny circle after another
the fire goes out. Cool water ¬— O O O ¬—
welling dark and smooth. It was always the truth.
What feeds on us that steals our fire.
What we feed to remember what we are.
-Ankh Spice
Identity Crisis
Colorful patterns
Etched into
Our lives,
Reveal truths
We often try to hide.
Denying reality
Doesn’t cease to
Make it so.
Call a cat a turtle.
It won’t hurt his ego.
But it does cause confusion.
Then, while we’re all mixed up
Arguing over semantics,
Inscriptions become clear –
Our identity betrays us.
-st
Stripe’s the given name
Latched on anything ‘till me
Now Clingon’s your name.
-Carrie Ann Golden
Practical Cats for Gen-Z
Sandburg’s cat did not have neon feet—
time passes; things change.
Kodachrome bas-relief kitty’s impress:
JPS –
just pussy-footing silently …
but
is neon ever silent?
as it is with humans, so with felines:
we always wish
against our nature.
Eliot’s three-name theory
would not seem to apply here
unless loud, louder, loudest
are on the list …
so, is kitty a success or a failure?
impossible to say
until we know his aim—
his ineffable, effable
(f***in’ ineffable)
deep and inscrutable singular
aim …
-Rich Follett
Of Cats And Gods
It is told in the oldest book that
all cats must have two dreams.
The second a tale
of the fertile crescent,
land of Nebuchadnezzar.
A place of long ago.
Only to leave,
for reasons of their own.
On a great adventure.
Maybe they first travelled
on Abraham’s road to Canaan.
Before they became gods,
and tellers of riddles,
on the banks of that north
flowing river.
“Where one gives birth to the other,
who in turn gives birth to the first”
Catness carries being at its heart.
I am condemned to be free.
If I tremble at the slightest noise,
if each creak announces me a look
This is because I am already in the state
of being-looked-at.
Catness haunts being. Hell is other people.
Catness lies coiled at the heart of being
like a worm.
Consciousness is a being,
the nature of which is to be conscious
of the catness of its being.
-Paul Brookes
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.’
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
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.
is an American poet whose work emphasizes emotional integrity and social justice. She is the author of several eBooks including, Learning from Pompeii, Coffee for Neanderthals, Disgracing Lady Justice and others, available on smashwords.com and its affiliates.Chapbook:Ebola (West Chester University Poetry Center, 2014)
is a South African and British writer. He is the author of ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ (CTU) and ‘Icarus Rising-Volume 1’ (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, editor of Scarlet Leaf Review for the ‘Best of the Net’ in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’ in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second ‘Cape Sounds’ in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing). He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of this World’ is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.
is an old new poet. He worked in social care but now has no day job. A keen photographer and eater of literature and lurid covers. Fascinated by nature, physics, pagans, sea and storm. His poetry seeks to capture image and tell philosophical tales. Published in Black Bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore Press and the Pangolin Review. He can be seen reading on #InternationalPoetryCircle and regularly appears on #TopTweetTuesday.
Twitter. @thnargg
Web seekingthedarklight.co.uk
lives in a converted factory and works with elders. She has had poetry, flash fiction or photographs published in online and print publications Human/Kind Journal, Rose Quartz Poetry Magazine, Hawk & Whippoorwill, The Cormorant, Radical: A Lit Zine, Chrysanthemum, Occulum, Flash, Paragraph Planet, and Flash Fiction Magazine. On Twitter @mourapoet, Instagram mourathepoet and mourastudio.wordpress.com.
-Paul Brookes
is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews.
-Mary Frances
is an artist and writer based in the UK. She takes a few photos every day, for inspiration and to use in her work. The images for this project were all taken in the last two years on walks during in the month of May. Her words and images have been published by Penteract Press, Metambesen, Ice Floe Press, Burning House Press, Inside the Outside, Luvina Rivista Literaria, and Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness.
Twitter:
@maryfrancesness
-James Knight
is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.
is an admin worker, currently not in work Married, 2 sons. Loves poetry and words. She considers herself a writer of scribble rather than a poet. She has written a novel and is using her spare time to finally get it published (self-publishing) which has been an ambition of her for the last 10 years.
news breaks brings an alarm by mobile
to watch
yet i find
i come not bothered no more
it is just words again
while people die
while folk sew their
own ppe
cleverly
adverb
apparently
i made the ladder easily
with sticks and string
for decoration only
the plan today to go
small make more
and crawl under the hedge
pump the brakes
it may be that
that groans
then have my second walk per the day
perhaps about four
before
tea
“In all her doings my mother influenced me to have endurance, dedication, resistance, faith and resilience.” Mbizo Chirasha
Recently, Zimbabwean poet, Mbizo Chirasha, lost his mom. Knowing that his sense of loss and grief is compounded by the fact of his exile and an inability therefor to be with her in her last days and hours or to attend whatever funeral and memorial services are customary in his country, I invited Mbizo to write about his mom, explaining that today in the U.S. we celebrate mothers. We publish Part 1 in this post, an interview, to be followed by a hybrid poem in Part 2. / Jamie
1.) JAMIE: Mbizo, I’m sorry to learn of your loss and thank you for being willing to share some of your thoughts and poetry with us on what is Mother’s Day here in the States. When you think of your mom, what is the…
orange it came flaring
while I was
minding
my business as always
looking at to sea hoping
for a boat
on the horizon
I got this thing whizzing round my face
warm emulsifying, wreaking havoc with
the serenity
buzzed my ears and stayed there
until defeated I moved to the wall
and sat there a while
undeniably tracing honesty in air
with one finger
pointing
it came clear later
-sbm.
*
Most people have a penchant for rocks – dry stone walls
with spiders inside. I once shook the leaves by a wall
to see what fell out, and every night, when I came home,
picked handfuls on my way, breadcrumb leaves to tear,
carefully, like prayer beads once blessed by spit, by piss,
by rain fall. Nobody knows why they do these things,
least of all, tear leaves, and tear, and scatter leaves away.
*
I have always imagined / galaxies shaped like / the inside of a pomegranate fruit. /
Authenticity interspersed with a tragic sense of irony. / Why do we write / like this?
-Alex Mazey
The Dream
I plunge into the depths of
nowhere, of empty uninhabited
space glowing like s beacon almost
beckoning like an empty womb ready
to cocoon new life – Expectant
nourishing, life-giving.
I fall further reaching unexplored cavities
of my questioning mind, witnessing
memories not even born yet, of
revelations still to come – I hear
faint whispers of familiar voices guiding
me teaching me protecting me.
My vision now clearer as I enter the
domain of forever – My former melancholy
turning into a joyous cacophony of encompassing
love. I breathe again. I laugh again. I live again…
Memories of Us
I still sometimes hear the
echoes of our laugher as we
reminisce of our shared happiness –
Our joy of creating new planting borders
Of days languishing in the sun until
the moonrise beckoned daily
reflections of love in various sessions,
of togetherness of silliness of happiness.
I feel such a fool not having shared more
thoughts with you, or not having told you
I forgive you for misinterpreted heated
arguments, of hating my foolish pride
but I cannot linger on anything bitter
as I still feel you with me in poignant
memories of us…
-Don Beukes
Wild Imagination
Yesterday I walked down a path in the woods
And spied a crumbling cornerstone of a building
Lost to past floods
Hidden in its base was a hole
Nearly encased in the shadows of hardwoods
Unsure if it was created by some mole
I moved near the edge and spotted a thick coiled string
Most of it vanished in the dried mud
Vivid images of mystical places down below
Filled my mind to the point that was maddening
With a headache I reluctantly returned to my neighborhood
-Carrie Ann Golden
Shiva’s Dance
All stones, a conglomeration
of illusion and desire.
All dawns, pre-set to rise and fall
breathe and grow
and yet…
all are followed by a drowning sun.
Not a stone story or tellers myth.
For souls so bound in greed and gold.
My house is as opium dreams…
in these whispers of life.
No movement, in still darkling corners
where life and dust move so slowly that
luxing shadows, low and subdued, can
hold a spirit in sleeping deeps.
So dance the ring of fire
without question,
for being must flow
in these meriel seas
and shaded rivers.
Apocalypse and creation
my coin.
You my currency.
Your hair is made
of flowers and death,
your breath mud baked
yet star sparkle sweet.
Your compassion always
greater than your parts.
So dance your dance
on life’s highest mountain,
in low dead seas.
No choice no chance
All else illusion’s flattery.
chestnut and stone wall
speaking of patience and time
passersby know naught
-Rich Follett
Interstellar Connections
You are a small planet,
Unique in every way.
I reach out the solid branch
Of my being, as far as I can
To see if I can touch your greatness,
Learn more about the mysterious
Known and unknown parts
And the pre-existing orbit
Of my earthbound heart,
Causing me to overcome all fears,
To cross the void of space and find
What happens when we collide.
-st
Ishigaki music (the ballad of Rat and Cat)
Each day of that hot summer
the stonemason let the river sing to him
as he ate his noon meal, the moonsweet rice
the pink auras of salmon and ginger
and from his front hedge of rushes
crept sleek black Rat with his shinobue tail
and from the temple’s gap-toothed wall
ambled marmalade Cat with her koto miaow
and for a few grains of lunar rice
Rat conjured a rill of silver notes from his flute
and for a sliver of translucent spirit-fish
Cat would wail her strange ghost’s vibrato
and the inkbrush river shushed its rhythm
onto the clean white page of each day.
For a whole season the stonemason laid every rock
with songs in his head and his hands and his heart
and should you visit the temple
you will see the black Rat and the ginger Cat
who live forever in his tendered wall
and should you put your ear to the sweet stones
all placed just so, the music there
in the neat grains of them
will build and build inside you
a thousand years of comfort.
-Ankh Spice
Stars
Stars, are they the lost group of family?
Mists as memories, I long to see their faces
The navy sky lit by a sparkle of joy
ancestors in their glowing blessings looking
down, as the perfumed night air wafts gently.
A rare manuscript, an album of belonging
Generations bound by dna blood sweat and tears
A remembrance this darkest day of November
I turn the pages of love and belonging
a feeling of euphoria before the melancholy
sets in clinging like the frost on a rose bud
remembering ancestors, the stars in my eyes.
-Leela Soma
My Night
is a bag of nerve dripped stars
under lit lamposts.
Silence is a window strummed
by shadows.
Stone is a cloud announced as married
to dizzy soil.
Walls are rainbowed unicorn skin and bone
petrified by virgins.
Sugar is a grumble made by galaxies seen
by cardboard homeless.
Darkness is the locked door of a whisper
you cannot fully hear.
-Paul Brookes
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.’
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.
is an American poet whose work emphasizes emotional integrity and social justice. She is the author of several eBooks including, Learning from Pompeii, Coffee for Neanderthals, Disgracing Lady Justice and others, available on smashwords.com and its affiliates.Chapbook:Ebola (West Chester University Poetry Center, 2014)
is a South African and British writer. He is the author of ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ (CTU) and ‘Icarus Rising-Volume 1’ (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, editor of Scarlet Leaf Review for the ‘Best of the Net’ in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’ in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second ‘Cape Sounds’ in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing). He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of this World’ is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.
is an old new poet. He worked in social care but now has no day job. A keen photographer and eater of literature and lurid covers. Fascinated by nature, physics, pagans, sea and storm. His poetry seeks to capture image and tell philosophical tales. Published in Black Bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore Press and the Pangolin Review. He can be seen reading on #InternationalPoetryCircle and regularly appears on #TopTweetTuesday.
Twitter. @thnargg
Web seekingthedarklight.co.uk
lives in a converted factory and works with elders. She has had poetry, flash fiction or photographs published in online and print publications Human/Kind Journal, Rose Quartz Poetry Magazine, Hawk & Whippoorwill, The Cormorant, Radical: A Lit Zine, Chrysanthemum, Occulum, Flash, Paragraph Planet, and Flash Fiction Magazine. On Twitter @mourapoet, Instagram mourathepoet and mourastudio.wordpress.com.
Leela Soma
was born in Madras, India and now lives in Glasgow. Her poems and short stories have been published in a number of anthologies and publications, including the National newspaper The Scotsman, The Grind, Visual Verses, New Voices, Gutter, Bangalore Review in India and Steel Bellows in the USA. ‘From Madras to Milngavie’ was her first poetry pamphlet. She has served on the committee for the Milngavie Books and Arts Festivals and on the Scottish Writer’s Centre Committee. Her work reflects her dual heritage of India and Scotland.
Author of ‘Twice Born’, ‘Bombay Baby’ and ‘Boxed In’
Available on Amazon and Kindle.
Her website is http://www.leelasoma.wordpress.com
is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews.
-Mary Frances
is an artist and writer based in the UK. She takes a few photos every day, for inspiration and to use in her work. The images for this project were all taken in the last two years on walks during in the month of May. Her words and images have been published by Penteract Press, Metambesen, Ice Floe Press, Burning House Press, Inside the Outside, Luvina Rivista Literaria, and Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness.
Twitter:
@maryfrancesness
-James Knight
is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.
is an admin worker, currently not in work Married, 2 sons. Loves poetry and words. She considers herself a writer of scribble rather than a poet. She has written a novel and is using her spare time to finally get it published (self-publishing) which has been an ambition of her for the last 10 years.
Mbizo’s Mom 
Mbizo’s Mom 
The Wombwell Rainbow 