Day 24

-Jane Cornwell

Wishes

-Kerfe Roig

Snipe

-John Law

Wish-birds

(Inspired by Kerfe Roig’s 24th Painting – Wishes)

The origami birds traversed
across the biosphere
needs to be hung on a clothesline
and dry them out before
you can touch those, unfold and read
the messages inside.

We wrote them together
afore releasing them from our old flat roof.
You can read how words have gone askew
one character at a time.
Everything has changed and still,
the wishes are what they were – wishes.

-Kushal Poddar

A Thousand Paper Cranes

I I fold a thousand paper cranes
will my heart be whole again
will I feel the flutter of hopes in my veins

I I fold a thousand paper cranes
will my soul it’s shine regain
will I dare to dream again

I I fold a thousand paper cranes
will my mind cease it’s tear-rain
will I have sun bright wishes again

If I feel hopes flutter again
can I break the trauma chains
that forever all energy drain

If I dare to dream again
can I imagine life without pain
or am I forever stained

If my mind grows light again
can I escape depressions dark bane
stop wondering if I’m sane

I I fold a thousand paper cranes
will I feel free of forced constraints
can I new life purpose gain

I I fold a thousand paper cranes
will it be all in vain
or will I new meaning attain

I I fold a thousand paper cranes
will I understand truths arcane
will I have wishes, dreams and hopes again

-©RedCat

Austral snipe (tutukiwi)*

Who could blame a bird
for slow retreat, this mess
of remote nest, hastened
far from the fast white noise
of the world. How else to dodge
the swivel of that prevailing
milky eye that sorts us.
Each sly nictate invisibles
any deemed unworthy
of being threat, or mate,
or prey. It is waxing clearly
that unlike you we do not hold
any small brown body,
inside our big, blue-green egg,
as significant. On the spat pips
of these islands, you are a tower stilted
with omen. The sea nods and nods
at the repetition, doom shivers
over the water. War, yes war
is coming as it always has,
weapons of the wind
woven through your tail. Hakawai,
hakawai, who’ll ever hear your drums
out here but the bird gods. Trade
eggs? Trade battles? You sit fanning
bad luck in a terrible nest
and each one of your small brown babies
splits free safe. Grow them up
loud and mouthy, in this lee
of isolation. Harbingers –
always warning something terrible
is about to happen, never a certainty
that it already has.

-Ankh Spice

*Hakawai/Hokioi was to Māori people a mythological bird, heard but not usually seen and believed to be an omen of war. It’s unusual sound is now thought to be due to the nocturnal aerial displays made by Coenocorypha snipe (austral snipe, now found only in very remote outlying islands). The non-vocal part of the call is likely to be created by air currents making the tail feathers vibrate as the bird dives at speed. The reaction to the sounds by those who have heard it is generally described as one of terror.

Swift and sweet-sharp

There are butterflies,
soft as rose petals, bright as dawn,
and birdwings swift and scissor-sharp,
shrilling-tongued to fill the sky.

Beak, wings, the long, uncoiled
proboscis spring that delves deep
into sweet flowered tubes,
all tasting life sharp and sweet,

but there is always death
that comes, swift and sharp
as the cracking of eggshells,
the tearing of birth sacks.

Life runs in rivers, tides,
and flutters ephemeral as butterfly wings
in a white blizzard of poplar seeds.

-Jane Dougherty

KR 24 – Wishes

Wishes as wings
Honourable lord crane
Carrying souls and hopes
To up above

Mandala of dreams
Decoupage heart
Chambers pulsing with

Hope for something
Anything

Winged

To take flight
Humming, flickering, soaring

Far above
Fractals of leaf and flower
Of light and shade

To up above
Carrying souls and hopes
Honourable origami messenger
Carry these wishes aloft

-Jayaprakash Satyamurphy

Inspired by KR 24, “Wishes” and JL 24 “Snipe”

Wishes

Wishes glide
on many wings, some
slight flutter
newly born–
butterflies from chrysalis
dreams, desires seen,

soar and sing
as mockingbirds of
dreams. Or dove-
cooed clinging,
birds on a wire, resting,
still before the storm

gusts, blusters,
rising tide, wind blows
winnowing
like the snipe—
creeping dreams, such feathered things
that soar, fly, drift, die

and again
reborn, spring-lighting
from winter
gloom, hatched to
buzz, sting, flitter, sing, and then
sometimes. . . they come true.

-Merril D Smith

Handmade
(inspired by JC24)

The hammer taps once
Softly cracking Autumns shell
Shapes dance in his eyes
Soft hands transform blocks of wood
He wields each strike with love

-Susan Richardson

Snipe

Mottled back disguise
Tread gently on salt washed sands
Rise like a dragon

Lie still and silent
Moon slides across morning skies
Trigger finger tight

Plunge your strong bill deep
Pull smoothly, your body still.
Death comes in the dawn

-Tim Fellows

Crepuscular

Listen, as I hammer dots into dice
goats bleat and haul thunder across the clouds,
loud blow of walrus, or horse whinny spice
mating wishes of a snipe’s downward sounds.

Your tongue tastes shaved, ground metalled workshop air,
Your skin, feathers vibration at twenty
five miles an hour, your names are Teeth barer,
Teeth grinder, you are butchered food many

times and resurrected afterwards. Wish
of origami animals to be
Butterflies, dragonflies, birds, never fish.
All in the how dice will fall mystery.

Stories bawl in every hammer blow.
How we make some sense of our greed to know.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

-John Law

“Am 68. Live in Mexborough. Retired teacher. Artist; musician; poet. Recently included in ‘Viral Verses’ poetry volume. Married. 2 kids; 3 grandkids.”

-Jane Cornwell

likes drawing and painting children, animals, landscapes and food. She specialises in watercolour, mixed media, coloured pencil, lino cut and print, textile design. Jane can help you out with adobe indesign for your layout needs, photoshop and adobe illustrator. She graduated with a ba(hons) design from Glasgow School of art, age 20.

She has exhibited with the rsw at the national gallery of scotland, SSA, Knock Castle Gallery, Glasgow Group, Paisley Art Institute, MacMillan Exhibition at Bonhams, Edinburgh, The House For An Art Lover, Pittenweem Arts Festival, Compass Gallery, The Revive Show, East Linton Art Exhibition and Strathkelvin Annual Art Exhibition.

Her website is: https://www.janecornwell.co.uk/

-Kerfe Roig

A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new.  Her poetry and art have been featured online by Right Hand Pointing, Silver Birch Press, Yellow Chair Review, The song is…, Pure Haiku, Visual Verse, The Light Ekphrastic, Scribe Base, The Zen Space, and The Wild Word, and published in Ella@100, Incandescent Mind, Pea River Journal, Fiction International: Fool, Noctua Review, The Raw Art Review, and several Nature Inspired anthologies. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/  (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/

-Tim Fellows

 is a poet and writer from Chesterfield whose poetry is heavily influenced by his background in the Derbyshire coalfields – family, mining, politics, and that mix of industry and countryside that so many mining areas had. People can email me at timothyjfellows@gmail.com for a copy of the pamphlet or visit http://timfellows13.blogspot.com for recent poems

-Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

is a writer based in Bangalore, India. His books include the novella Strength Of Water (2019) and the poetry collection Broken Cup (2020). He used to write horror, but now it’s anyone’s guess. 

-Anjum Wasim Dar

Born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir,Migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi. MA in English MA in History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English Cambridge UK. -Dip.TEFL AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan.Writing poems articles and stories since 1980.Published Poet.Awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal 2000 USA .Worked as Creative Writer Teacher Trainer. Educational Consultant by Profession.Published http://Poet.Author of 3 Adventure Novels (Series) 7 Times Winner NANOWRIMO 2011- 2019.

-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/

-Redcat

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.

Read more at redcat.wordpress.com

-Merril D Smith

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.

-Tony Walker

By day Tony climbs the greasy pole of clinical hierarchy. Not yet at the top but high enough to feel the pole sway and have his grip challenged by the envious wind of achievement. Looking down on the pates and gazes of his own history, at times he feels dizzy with lonely pride. By night he takes solace, swapping scalpel for scripts and begins his training and climbing again, in the creative world of writing. His writing is an attempt to unify the twenty-four hours. @surgicalscribe seeks to connect the clinical and creative arts of surgery, science and writing. Hoping to do for medicine and surgery through creative writing what Prof Cox has done for physics with television.

So, he practices his art.

-Ankh Spice

 is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa. His work has been widely published internationally, in print and online, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He’s a co-editor at Ice Floe Press and a poetry contributing editor at Barren Magazine. You’ll find him and a lot of sea photography on Twitter @SeaGoatScreams or on Facebook @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry.

-Simon Williams

lives and works in Edinburgh, where running clears his head and creates space for ideas. He publishes short stories and poems on www.simonsalento.com

Paul Brookes

Paul is a shop assistant, who lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His first play was performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull.  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. Had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and videos of his Self Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions and his family history articles have appeared in The Liverpool Family History magazine.