With unruly hair, capped-tamed, she stood before the white-wigged judges to confess the sins of her wandering mind.
On and on her words poured out to dance around the room— the dreams she’d seen, the visions hued in blue and gold and silver-
streamed they rushed from head and heart, of a specter at a portal, a future seen of cities now invisible, but that would someday gleam– tall towers reflecting the sun, rising high
and bridges spanning rivers, and ships that sailed the sky. No witch, am I. Only a dreamer.
The watchers sighed. The dazed and dazzled judges called for order, and she was punished, a time in the stocks and weary-work to check her mind’s meanderings.
Responding to MH “The Confession” and KR “Invisible Cities”
With unruly hair, capped-tamed, she stood before the white-wigged judges to confess the sins of her wandering mind.
On and on her words poured out to dance around the room— the dreams she’d seen, the visions hued in blue and gold and silver-
streamed they rushed from head and heart, of a specter at a portal, a future seen of cities now invisible, but that would someday gleam– tall towers reflecting the sun, rising high
and bridges spanning rivers, and ships that sailed the sky. No witch, am I. Only a dreamer.
The watchers sighed. The dazed and dazzled judges called for order, and she was punished, a time in the stocks and weary-work to check her mind’s meanderings.
But even a small spark can flare a blazing fire. She still dreamed— and now, so did the others.
-Merril D Smith
Take this crime (MH20)
and keep it safe for me I have carried it for so long that it has grown larger since I first committed it. Now it strains to escape the walls of the box I noticed the flaps lifting and knew it was time to find it a new home. You must be sure to water it once a day with tears or even blood, as long as you keep it moist. Above all, it must be protected. On no account expose it to light. If you do, it will explode and the consequences may destroy us both too.
-Hilary Otto
MH20
TheConfession
This isolation’s not so hard, I confess. Trees are still black shadows against the sky when I arise. I jingle kibble into dog bowls, pop in a pod of Keurig French Roast, and head back to bed with a pile of books. I read and scribble on the unmarked day, staying away from complicated lines. Morning walk beside carless streets– I see no one and that’s ok. Not a bad way to live, I confess, as long as my thoughts don’t stray to questions of why.
-Holly York
InvisibleCitiesPortal – KR20
Barriers appear with structured openings. Dark clouds abound yet we still see the Sun. Vastness of space and a comet will come. A man thinks a small hill is a mountain. Others see a tunnel, a bridge or a flight that can take you to the cities far out of sight.
19,Ja,2021 for the twentieth of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and the painter Kiroji Roige.
TheConfession – MH20
I’ve got to admit it was me. But I did it for the best can’t you see ? I offer you my hand to show that I care. I know what you’re thinking with that horrid, dog stare.
19,Ja,2021 for the twentieth of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and the painter Marcel Herms.
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.
-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.
-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
Anjum Wasim Dar was born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir, She is a migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi she has a Masters degree in English Literature and History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English from Cambridge UK. , a Diploma in TEFL from AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan. She has been writing poems,
articles and stories since 1980.A published poet Anjum was awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal in 2000 by ISP International Society of Poets and poetry.com USA .
She has worked as Creative Writer at Channel 7 Adv. Company Islamabad, and as a Teacher Educator for Fauji Foundation Education Network Inservice Teachers
The flowing tresses of auburn man bind Follow drawn by every curvy sashay Swift bubbly laughter sings love in their mind Among leaves twirling she dances away
Smile drawing the hunting merry wild chase Darting vision of fall forest beauty Feet leaping lightly through swaying trunk maze Further into skin on skin, touch frenzy
Green dusted with gold secret yearning hold Unlock with a honest champion heart Requires her suitors to be fiery bold Adore her, love her, never be apart
Deep in the woods on a bed of soft straw Men worship her season with spellbound awe
My garden pond must have achieved five stars on Yelp for Migrating Robins. In intricate patterns, they soar and dive, swerve and land together, take off together, perch bright-breasted in trees together, then fly on. The next group checks in.
This gray January Sunday I sit with their crystalline song, more than enough gratuity for the messiness of their leaving.
-Holly York
FallMaiden – A Sonett
The flowing tresses of auburn man bind Follow drawn by every curvy sashay Swift bubbly laughter sings love in their mind Among leaves twirling she dances away
Smile drawing the hunting merry wild chase Darting vision of fall forest beauty Feet leaping lightly through swaying trunk maze Further into skin on skin, touch frenzy
Green dusted with gold secret yearning hold Unlock with a honest champion heart Requires her suitors to be fiery bold Adore her, love her, never be apart
Deep in the woods on a bed of soft straw Men worship her season with spellbound awe
Honey-sealed in an expensive institution she saw cells everywhere thoughts sealed in wax walls where they are all alone in each cell one larva nourished until hatching honey-slimed and dripping to fly between the arches her thoughts were stored in an alley off the quadrangle she didn’t publish the parts littered with dead drones
Contemplating the current panorama (KR19)
The barbed wire draws a grid of choices. Focus on a space and I’ll give you a view. It will be your view only, and only for a moment, after that you will be guided on to the next. This mediation is a rosary for the natural world it will take you from blue flight to the heights of flame. You will experience in depth the rustle and hum of fall woodlands and feel the imprint of damp earth. You will smell the remains of thyme, get lost in a tangle of branches, and wander until the rays of a low sun lead you home. Afterwards, you will find in your pocket a memento of your journey. Try to hold it at least until the Spring, or if you don’t believe in Spring, until you find a gap in the fence
-Hilary Otto
Responding to “Second Autumn” (KR) and CO19
Unknown
Why is that sometimes spring and summer seem to come again, but autumn only once?
The azure skies that fade into violet sighs, the leaves of russet and gold, turn brown, fold within leaving only a crunch—
they turn to dust.
Now I hear the geese in honking V, pull free time’s stitches— land to sea.
And if I sit on moonlit porch—and listen– will I hear the rustling ghosts of what was or what might have been?
A summer night. A picket fence. A snake. A bite. Life or death? What happened after? What happened then?
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.
-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.
-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
Anjum Wasim Dar was born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir, She is a migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi she has a Masters degree in English Literature and History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English from Cambridge UK. , a Diploma in TEFL from AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan. She has been writing poems,
articles and stories since 1980.A published poet Anjum was awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal in 2000 by ISP International Society of Poets and poetry.com USA .
She has worked as Creative Writer at Channel 7 Adv. Company Islamabad, and as a Teacher Educator for Fauji Foundation Education Network Inservice Teachers
For Visionary Leaders, First Responders, Resisters, and All the Helpers, Everywhere
We’re in the same boat— Death swims all around us, floats
with crocodile grin in skeletal face, glides, sometimes without a trace–
a certain-skater, a shadow-waiter
for color to flee. Let him be–
if there’s no hope–to do what he must, when blood flows out and cold winds gust.
Beware the fakes and winter witches who line their pockets with others’ riches–
but—call the intermediaries, if you can the ones who stop the flow and span
the distance between wish and despair– the bringers of light, the helpers who care–
those who take us from frozen tombs to whisk in spring’s incipient blooms.
Dead dying faces all Covid taking back to fall sudden horror call
-Merril D Smith
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day (CO18)
The toast is crying again. I have spoken to it firmly about this: I told it that in the mornings it must try to show more positivity if I am to have a chance of making it through the day. If this attitude continues, I may have to resort to muesli despite its recurrent dark spots.
Showboat (MH18)
This show is only for those in my boat. It’s not funny but you might find yourself laughing uncontrollably. Laughter has more teeth than tragedy and it takes you beyond your boat into the blue, heightens your emotions, raises your temperature from Depression to Resignation; and if you are lucky beyond that all the way up to Guilt. The water is still coming in; I never said it could fix the hole. So keep baling while you watch, and think of it as a form of exercise.
-Hilary Otto
Here’s a short poem, inspired by the famous poet Kalidasa and the winter scene of Kerfe Roig’s ‘intermediary.’
Shishira, Winter ( Homage to Kalidasa)
Clusters of lack lustre stars, cool moonbeams chilling the air, breeze that curdles with dense sleet, huddles of snow, chill the breath of life steamed inside awaiting warmer climes, dare the flowers to bloom when sandal paste to cool is applied, still my beating heart, that winter may soon fly away, I lie in misty lair the denuded trees greened, the iced waters melt and flow, life Begins.
-Leela Soma
KR12
Perceive color amid green and brown living plants trees and crown life is breath, rest are but mortal matters, lifeless? Dry in fetters, Live to eat , dead? Cannot be fed.
-Anjum Wasim Dar
Entropy
Winter blows frozen halitosis Spring spews vomit of blossoms Ice-choked branches fall on power lines Moss-flocked live oak stands, for now Mud-darkened slush seeps into snow boots Sun dapples daffodils Projections in opposing directions Tenuous seam that will not hold
-Holly York
Intermediary (afterYayoiKusama) – KR18
You’ve altered the thermostat again. I’ll knock it back down to twenty; that should be plenty.
How about shutting the upstairs window. It’s not nice feeling cold when you start getting old.
Summer will soon be here. It’s nearly equinox; we can ditch our thick socks.
17,Ja,2021 for the eighteenth of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and the painter Kiroji Roige.
Felt – (CO18)
I like your red hair. Are you Cindi Lauper ? You`ve got an orange face; I bet you;re not a pauper. You have a square head. Are you a Cavalier ? With a dirty mouth like that you’re not welcome round ‘ere.
17,Ja.2021 for the 18th of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and painter Chris O`Connor.
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.
-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.
-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
Anjum Wasim Dar was born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir, She is a migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi she has a Masters degree in English Literature and History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English from Cambridge UK. , a Diploma in TEFL from AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan. She has been writing poems,
articles and stories since 1980.A published poet Anjum was awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal in 2000 by ISP International Society of Poets and poetry.com USA .
She has worked as Creative Writer at Channel 7 Adv. Company Islamabad, and as a Teacher Educator for Fauji Foundation Education Network Inservice Teachers
The Wombwell Rainbow 