Responding to Der Tod ist ein Dandy auf einem Pferd Marcel Herms
And CO 8 by Christine O’Connor
Death Blooms
Death wanders and hovers– in plagues, pounces; with demagogues and flag-waving fools, dives. He prances through porticos, and capers in life’s collage— see there, the dark spaces among the blooms?
Some toss fireworks, others lay flowers– the dead stay dead.
This riot of selected scraps– is the meaning seen or hidden? Orange, purple, blue displayed against the cream or the paler version of each element, same shape but unmoored and flipped to show its other side.
They cling together in softness, sometimes suggest the familiar: apples, flowers, bits of wedding gown, a puff of cloud, a scarlet ribbon. Squint your eyes and it’s a swirl of dancing geishas pasted in profusion on life’s canvas.
-Holly York
Kingdom of Karmic Weaving Fates (MH8)
Now, now! Dear soul! I’ve done this countless times before. I move between and between. It wouldn’t do, to be forever seen. I divert with the screech of an owl. Even though, I pity souls killed by neglect and foul. I don’t recommend staying as a ghost. Even though together you would be a mighty host. Now! Peek beneath my cowl! Look into the void, and honk like a lost wildfowl. My eyes are the portals. Transporting all Bardo states mortals. Handing you off at the gates. Of the Kingdom of karmic weaving fates.
What shall we do, Where shall we go ? Aim for the top; faster, not slow, Poli-ti-cally, Finan-ci-ally, let`s get to the top; our place to be.
Nice place to be so sod them all. Really don`t care. We will not fall. Steady the ladder, it`s not feeling good. Get some insurance ! We`ll fall with a thud.
Funds have run out, income is nil. This is rotten, making us ill. Falling to pieces. You leaving me. It sure isn`t all it`s cracked up to be.
9,Ja,2021 for the eighth of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Humpy Dumpty, Paul Brookes and the painter Kiroji Roige.
CO8 Burst
It might swell with liquid, it might hurt or it might strain until the structure of colour is visible, blues becoming more transparent in streaks until it’s gone. It might carry the sound of sudden happiness from beyond the closed door of another home. It might explode from a fist of gas in the dark, or it might be otherwise: opening doors in a green wall, tearing through debris, the thrill of unexpected blooms.
All the king’s men (KR8)
I saw his look of surprise and heard the scrape of the sword. His beard was curly, he was an old man. Blood collected in the curls, gathering and seeping, gathering and seeping. I wiped the sword and sheathed it. The memory escaped.
MH8
A beast grumbles past, something seated on its back. A dog raises its head. Turns and runs.
-Hilary Otto
Responding to Der Tod ist ein Dandy auf einem Pferd, MH8 And CO 8
DeathBlooms
Death wanders and hovers– in plagues, pounces; with demagogues and flag-waving fools, dives. He prances through porticos, and capers in life’s collage— see there, the dark spaces among the blooms?
Some toss fireworks, others lay flowers– the dead stay dead.
-Merril D Smith
KR 8 (king’s men)
beautiful rips this paper horse of troy at the headwaters
-Jim The Poet
CO8
sewing basket a growing realisation of the collidascope
-Jim The Poet
MH8
the asses welcome there is room in the manger once again
-Jim The Poet
Death Is
a dandy on all the king’s horses, and all the king’s men can’t embroider your colours back to life but let the loose threads unspool the yolk spill out your broken shell.
is an artist working in glass, metal, fibre and paint. Sometimes her work is based on photographs, but more often, she creates in the moment. She loves to play with texture and colour.
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.
RedCat’s love for music and dance sings clearly in The Poet’s Symphony (Raw Earth Ink, 2020). Passion for rhythms and rhymes, syllabic feets and metres. All born out of childhood and adolescence spent reading, singing, dancing and acting.
Her writing spans love, life, mythology, environment, depression and surviving trauma.
Originally from the deep woods, this fiery redhead now makes home in Stockholm, Sweden, where you might normally run into her dancing the night away in one of the city’s techno clubs.
is a historian and poet. She lives in southern New Jersey, where she is inspired by her walks along the Delaware River. She’s the author of several books on history, gender, and sexuality. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale and Sparrow, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Fevers of the Mind.
-Godefroy Dronsart
is a writer, teacher, and musician currently residing near Paris. His poetry has appeared in Lunar Poetry, PostBLANK, Paris Lit Up, The Belleville Park Pages, and Twin Pies Literary among others. His first chapbook, “The Manual” (Sweat Drenched Press, 2020), explores the space between poetry, prose, and gamebooks. He has a sweet tooth for all things experimental, modernist, and strange. Follow him on Twitter and his Bandcamp for electronic explorations.
-Joy Fleming
Born in County Down, Joy has studied, mothered and worked in Scotland since 1980. Brief excursions to follow her heart, back to NI mid-1990’s and England for first round Covid-lockdown ’19, Joy is currently back living in Glasgow. Joy’s first poem was accepted as part of the C. S. Lewis themed Poetry Jukebox curation A Deeper Country in Belfast in 2019. This poem, Ricochet was published in The Poets’ Republic Issue 8 Autumn 2020. A love of reading poetry is now accompanied by sporadic writing of poetic lines which spill out as an apparent by-product of processing dark and sorrowful days.
-Alan Gary Smith
A Lincolnshire Ludensian living in Grimsby who built up his poetic stance after visiting Doncaster and Mexborough during his real ale and comedic music searches. Surprised to find a recent DNA check leaned heavily towards being a strong mix of Scottish, East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. A sixty year old baldy who loves Julie, astronomy and chocolate; after giving up on football and telly.
-Hilary Otto
is an English poet based in Barcelona. Her work has featured in Popshot, Black Bough Poetry, AIOTB, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and The Blue Nib, among other publications. She received her first Pushcart Prize Nomination and performed at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. She tweets at @hilaryotto
-Jim young
is an old poet living in Mumbles on The Gower. He does most of his writing from his beach hut at Rotherslade – still waiting for the blue plaque
2 always, earth transitioning—life rearranged into new patterns—open your arms wide– inhale, welcoming
For Frank Tassone’s #haikai challenge for the New Year, and Colleen’s #tanka Tuesday challenge to write a poem of hope, I’ve written two variations of the same idea, and reprised a collage I did for an earlier #tanka Tuesday in 2019.
Colleen asked us to use our favorite form of poetry and to tell why we like it. Of course I love pantoums and all repetitive poetry, and I often write using Japanese poetic forms, but I most often write in shadorma. Somehow its rhythm and length work well with the way I express my thoughts, and when I’m stuck, it works to focus me, making…
My art is featured in the Winter 2021 showcase of The Zen Space (available online here) and the Summer 2020 Raw Art Review (available for download here). My thanks to editors Marie Marshall and Henry Stanton for selecting my work.
Inky black, her nightly travel track Hopelessness all luminescence lack Ancient lore, by all who has gone before Depression’s demons lonely souls adore Cold sorrow, haunting dreams of tomorrow Unloved child, cutting pain in bone and marrow
Fiery passion, smothered without compassion No freedom to create in whatever fashion Bright love, fading to embers without the care it behooves Lost without the moon’s brightness above Hope dart, as sudden kindness heal a hurt heart Stars glimmer as dark clouds depart
Warm trust, swells in the arms of lust Surrender to soul guidance we must Sunrise’s clarion call, there’s hope for us all Chance to rise again after a fall Fear ended, trauma shattered mind mended Rise like a true abuse ascender
Poem inspired by Sarah’s poem It’s raining in turn inspired by Laura Bloomsbury’s poem In The Rain. Another version of that meeting, or not. For the dverse prompt. The light dredges up the memorythe colour of rain-smeared windowsof a seedy caféthe kind where dirt seeps into the poressmears on plasticwhere spoons drown in coffee dregsand […]
Whenever I took photographs in Paris, my lens always seemed oblivious to the hundreds and thousands of tourists and inhabitants strolling around me, as if it was all mine, art and shadows. Now, these days, with all the closures, this is how I still imagine the museums; sitting, waiting, watching the shadows turning and time…
The Wombwell Rainbow 