May Oaksong

-Marcel Herms

Day 31 Kerfe Day

Full of Children

-Kerfe Roig

All Earth’s Children

I have a dream
Of all earth’s children
Cherished and loved
Fed and clothed
Happy and safe
Free to fantasize and play
Allowed to dream
Educated to think for themselves
Regardless of gender, faith or colour
Free to choose whatever their hearts desire

Free to laugh
Free to love
Free to live

-©RedCat

A Rainbow Future After the Storm

Soft dove clouds transform to dolphin dark,
again change, and roaring black wolves
pounce

with a flash, then
the shrouded monochrome world becomes a tapestry,

a multitude of shape, color, hues. Here, a strand of azure,
here, emerald-green, glistening with diamond sparkle, woven
under and over

embroidered with the vibrant wishes of children—blue horses, red deer,
twinkling golden stars, a spotted purple dog, a striped-orange cat—

a collection, a connection of
smiling faces brighter than the sun,
dream of a rainbow future–
after the storm has passed.

-Merril D Smith

Song for the children

They spring from the heart,
those bright smiling faces,
from blood and bone and the watered earth,
and they grow in the grass
and the rain and the sunlight,
hummingbird-winged, colour of dawn.

They spring from the core
of the earth, stone-spun cradle,
nurtured by moonlight and light of the sun.
Let them reach for the stars
in the silence of night time,
for tree branch and moon at the top of the hill,

let them grow like the birds fly,
pups curled in the deep earth,
let their talents unfurl, petals cupping the light,
but poverty pays, and there’s money in wars,
so we weep phoney tears,
let their bright sunlight die.

-Jane Dougherty

On a collage by Kerfe Roig

First of all I see
The faces of children
Most smiling
One serious, one wistful
One a little shy of the camera
One yelling his joy
Children of all colours [‘colour’ seems like
Such a stale, tepid way to express the
Beautiful variations our outer selves
Display, but alright, I’ll stick with ‘colour’
For now]

A simple, appealing set of images with a
Simple appeal: we are all different, all alike
In some way that matters
You can see this. At a glance

I remember when I was 8 or 9 reading about
Children in Palestine and getting my classmates
To sign a letter to the editor
About the children in Palestine
A simple appeal

And then my eyes are drawn to the spaces
Between the faces
There is snowy ground, there is dapple – the artist
Loves dapple
There is green of grass, pink of flower – I find myself
Hoping this is grass that has sprung up somewhere
Away from tidy, greedy lawns, hoping these flowers
Are weeds, I love it when weeds
Are the prettiest flowers

And then there is sky
Blue is so many colours
Clouds are so many colours
And yes, we can talk about colours
And yes we can see between them –
More colours

And then the picture ends

And this month and a day ends, and it is May

There is an apocalypse, unevenly distributed
But deadly. And it hurts too much to even
Think about Palestinian children
I was a child so long ago, you’d think
The world would have changed

Outside my window is dapple
Tree and sky and the ugly
Squat building the ashram next door
Decide to put up a few years ago

But most of all, dapple
Bird song
And the apocalypse that goes on
And an empty schoolroom, a bench
On which someone carved their name
A blackboard waiting, silent
A class photo fading
On a patient wall

And dapple
And sky
So many blues
So many greens
So many pinks
So many smiles

And a month and a day are done
And my race is half-run.
-Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

Kerfe’s missing artwork

An empty wall in the corner of the gallery
displaying Kerfe’s missing artwork.
Simplistic beauty
matched by the complimentary fancied frame.
The absent weight of imaginary artistic extravagance
hanging heavy on ethereal chains of suspense.

Pausing in front of an empty gallery wall
appreciating the undefinable perfection
of Kerfe’s missing artwork.
An unreflective mirror echoing
the vista, observed through the opaque window,
of the viewers soul.

The empty gallery wall holds
Kerfe’s missing artwork tightly, in turn
holding the attention.
Whimsical, composite construction
challenging and questioning
its’ own very existence.

There is a gallery
with empty walls
in each and every one of us.
Kerfe’s missing artwork
displayed as a reminder
of the nature, skill and beauty we show to all.

-Tony Walker

The Children

are blue skies, beach sand, woodland, streets. Released
from plague lockdown they scream and run and play
tig, tap their victim “You’ve got Covid”, teased,
their playmate rushes to pass it away.

This is how to cope with fear of loss, turn
it into a game in which no one dies.
Homework is always a bind, had to learn
how to manage it as an exercise.

Childhood is never innocent, despite
our best efforts to shield, cosset our bairns
they see to the pain as it is in light
Of their eyes a world of sharp pain to learn.

The adventure never ends, age does not
curtail.it, only slows it to a steady trot.

-Paul Brookes

Bios and Links

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.

Day 30

-Jane Cornwell

Woodmouse

-John Law

The Star

-Kerfe Roig

Beach Town Burning

(Inspired by Kerfe Roig’s 30th Collage – The Star)

In sincere silence a star rises;
we are near a beach town;
a waiter wearing chlorine water
places Malibu on a blue plastic table;
we cheer to the health of the star,
a bairn, every night it is so, naked,
Venus, neonate and at the height
of its glorious youth at the same moment.
The world caves in, swirls,
when you mix jetlag and jeopardy
of realizing a birth of innocence so bright
even from this distance
it questions the weakness of life.
My fragile tongue bootlegs pineapple
from the clear rum. Our conscience
bears the burn of alcohol,
the essence of molasses and the fruits,
pure and bare without the flesh.

-Kushal Poddar

Star Prayer – A Sonnet

Goddess of water and star filled heaven
Nurturer of the awakening soul
Guide me in my journey through the seven
Lead me towards wisdom to make me whole

Shower me in the water from your bowl
Cleanse me with every colour of starlight
Show me how to define a new life role
Grant me creative visions that shines bright

Let my passions soar the heavens in flight
Ignite and burn this nest of abuse thorns
Teach me to understand mystical sight
Help me to in hope and faith be reborn

Bless me as my inner fire flame and glow
As stars above reflects soul sparks below

-©RedCat

What you put in

Always feed the birds, and put nothing in the ground
that doesn’t feed it too. This was the first half
of your wisdom, and so we bought millet, passed on
by the rows of weedkillers, the ant bait.
I bought you a new pair of gardening gloves
you’d never use, for myself a seed-pack of fireworks
in potentia – explosions of wildflowers fused
to celebrate the green sky of the berm, come spring.
You pinched your lip like you didn’t approve,
but you did that to hide your teeth
when you smiled, too. Any ration of sentiment
you saved like a coupon, clipped only for green things,
for superstitions, for the dead. You’d known
the furrow was laid for months, nodded a greeting
at the piwakawaka who swooped into the greenhouse,
out again, a circle drawn around you and the cinch
no-one saw, tightening in the chest. We thinned
carrots, dibbed out garlic, dead-
headed roses, and I’d tell you everything I knew
about the birds until you’d hide your teeth, your lip
pulled out like a beak. The last thing I told you
was that vultures don’t circle waiting for the final gasp.
How unfair we are, always making it all about us –
what they’re doing is riding on the song
of the sun herself, on the sweet, warm breath
of a basking earth. All she exhales, it carries them up
with no effort. In the glassy thermals they can glide
almost forever without landing.
The second half of your wisdom was this:
If what you put in feeds her well enough,
with a little sun, a little rain, a little air,
she’ll always have your back.

-Ankh Spice

The Death of Dignity

The birds came to this morbid place
because they always did.
Bringing flowers to weave a wreath
to mourn the recent dead.

They crowded round the fresh dug grave
and ruffled weary wings
with no intent to swoop or dive
and silent was their song.

The flowers from impassive beaks
all withered when they fell
upon the earth so dry and cracked
on this sad, blighted, hill.

For here, within this lonely plot,
old Dignity lay dead.
It starved as Avarice grew fat
and Falsehood stalked the land.

Compassion too, had left this life,
replaced by Fear and Hate.
Anger swamped our shores in waves
and Day was quashed by Night.

It was no plague that brought these birds
to Dignity’s sad end.
Just Humanity’s brutal deeds
that put it in the ground.

Don’t weep for Dignity, don’t cry,
for everything we’ve lost.
The birds have flown, our words are clay,
the time for Hope has passed.

-Tim Fellows

Inspired by all three images

Legacy of the Stars

Once—
stars burst from before time,
blooming fire-flowers from incandescent seeds
germinating, spawning life

in scallop-shelled births on foam-flecked waves,

there is beauty, truth, in the shimmering blue sea,
and in the reflected light, an endless story
of rebirth.

From shadowed depths, fronds and fish, the slithery, slow-crawl–
scale to feather to skin, uncovered to epochs of the sun’s ground-warming,

Now—
the little mouse hides,
emerging to gaze at the stars as she gathers red berries–

all around her, winged predators
and two-legged destroyers
who forget ancestry and legacy—

that they were born from fiery blooms,
the winging, swinging, swirls of singing light,

and the expansive, cerulean sea,
where submerged memories rise, sparkling diamonds
to fly on the spindrift of eons–

catch them–if you can.

-Merril D Smith

Human Constellation 

Emerging naked and perfect I stand before
the unknown, unheard, unopened door.
Soon I reach for the heavens, feet secure on the floor
flying and floating, I swim, build, run and soar.
Imposed limitations of form I simply abhor
don’t tell me I can’t, I’ll simply ignore
your rules and your laws are not without flaw.
As we build and destroy still nature endures
we achieve, learn and evolve to the futures allure.
-Tony Walker

Run
(inspired by JC30)

We fled from a country
stuck under the thumb of a madman,
sullied by the hateful and the mindless.
Waiting for the nightmare to end
we curled into our cocoon,
paralyzed,
as the roots of compassion
were ripped from the earth,
brutal hands
covered in the sludge of self -interest.

We mourned the loss of dignity,
saw it buried
deep under the detritus of greed,
spent weeks in the apartment
watching the world crumble
in the grip of a pandemic,
as America raged against itself
putting human kindness on a back burner,
again
and again.

We held our breath until we could run,
feel clean air in our lungs,
see only green for miles.
We have come home.
Watching from a distance now,
we marvel at the restoration of hope,
new leaders at the helm,
men and women
determined
to resurrect the heart of America.

-Susan Richardson

Earth creeps with tiny things
Inspired by Jane Cornwell’s Legacy, John Law’s Woodmouse , and Kerfe Roig’s The Star.

We tread tiny things unthinking,
our eyes on some unattainable glitter,
or some attainable trash.

Rarely the stars.

Aloof, they won’t be unstuck,
fall into our grasp,
and what cannot be had, counted, traded,
is worthless.

I look at the tiny trembling things
that can’t be grasped and see
a scrap of the universal matter,

a fragment of a star,
light still falling,
millions of years
after its darkening.

-Jane Dougherty

The star

End as began – in arcana
Fool – me Star – I look up to

Artemis’ owl wings past
Huītzilōpōchtli’s hummingbird picks
Riches from earth above – so we must be
Somewhere over the rainbow

Zeus’ daughter emerges, ocean and earth proclaim
She brings precious offerings to both domains

Starry hope, liquid dream
Flowering cacti
Beckon us down shaded porticos

Starbeam and lifedream
A place on the threshold

Ripple and reflection
Star – bringer of illumination
The wisdom to hope

Teach us not to give up
Show us how to flit, to fly,
And make gravity dance us
To wonder’s bidding

End as began – in arcana
Star – guides – me – Fool – so wise.

-Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

what do you expect me to say when you suddenly walk into the room looking like

waterfalls split rainbows
flow upwards
the sound of the sea in Aphrodite’s seashell
the rushing of blood in my ears

(inspired by KR30)

-Simon Williams

Wood Mouse, Or

Long tailed field mouse dignity as it leaps
towards the stars, ears open for silent
wings and sharp claws of owl, fox and cat, keeps
all never in one place at one time, all giant.

Survival a main aim doesn’t have time
to stop and stare, but one sharp star glints more
than its companions, transfixes with shine.
hears brightness speak inside, makes head sore.

The message smells like the freshest spring buds
The message tastes like the juiciest fruit pip.
Not a meal to store in hollowed out wood.
Another star opens, mouse is catnip.

Senses may say it’s too good to be true.
Trust your senses as the best kind of clue

-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.