Day 19. My annual National Poetry Month 2021 ekphrastic challenge is a collaboration between artists John Law, Kerfe Roig, Jane Cornwell, and writers Ankh Spice, Jane Dougherty, Redcat, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Simon Williams, Susan Richardson, Tim Fellows, Anjum Wasim Dar, Tony Walker, Merril D Smith, and me. April 19th

Day 19

KR19_everything you want_wombwell

Everything You Want

-Kerfe Roig

JL19 Fly Agaric

Fly Agaric

-John Law

JC19

-Jane Cornwell

Mother’s little alien

Adolescence blew the doors off
Our suburban ranch house,

And I walked out, newly sprouted,
Blinded by the arcing lights.

I inhaled this world of spices.
As mother’s voice faded

Behind my thinning shadow,
As I stepped into the craft

And never looked back.

-Elizabeth Moura

Inspired by all three works

Burning Bright

Burning bright, each season’s swift turning,
she comes named and nameless, always here
assuaging aches and calming yearning
giver of life and light—see her,

she comes named and nameless, always here
reaching the apples, making fungi sprout,
giver of life and light, in darkness, see her
circling–a serpent, in and out

reddening the apples, making fungi sprout,
not angel nor demon, she is desire
circling. A serpent in and out,
beyond time–she’s earth, air, and fire–

not angel nor demon, she is desire,
assuaging aches and calming yearning.
Beyond time, she’s earth, air, and fire-
burning. Bright, each season’s swift turning.

-Merril D Smith

Wormhole

You’d toed the tunnel like I had, both of us
spun and spat out, and oh how it consumes you that it failed
to consume you. Is there mercy you bled
into the afterwards still
travelling on through
stolen time and I can’t answer you. We can’t stop
the engine long enough in a way that isn’t
risking forever. My hands clench to yank
all the mechanisms they use in the films
to show time passing, off the map. Too real,
cloud-scudding flicker of calendar pages, clocks break-
dancing moon after moon, those rivers of necked sand.
I want to unlandscape, no soundtrack, hold the tongue
of everything relentless and ticking. We’ve had days
I’d globe in glass to keep safe, but even they rattle
the beat, our feet on rough-remote still chewing mile
after mile of watchless, clockless, carless, phoneless, fussless
us-ness. Even unplugged, we keep our metre.
Best I can tell you
of mercy is that the countdown
of my cells wants to sound it out clearly this time,
as present as a bang on the glass. From ten down
to lift off, conscious of the fuel. Even idling, even knowing
we have to leave. Do it full, just like you were preparing, this time,
for a much longer trip.

-Ankh Spice

The blackberry way
Inspired by all three artworks.

Who would have thought the path
would be so unkind, unfair?

Walking in the light reveals the poison
in the shadows, the hedges full of things
we must not touch, the tempting fruits
that turn to dust on the tongue.

Where did it go, the dream,
or was it only ever duty,
bow the head and avert the gaze?

I stop my ears to the muttered
menace, the sterile warnings
that birth only bitterness
and the thin line of lips.

I will walk in the light among
all that drips and creeps,
and what is sweet, I will taste,

like the blackbird tastes,
pays with a song
and moves on.

-Jane Dougherty

Forbidden Fruit

A lonely, bored woman called eve
to satisfy hunger did thieve
the low hanging fruit
thus changing the route
of the future of mankind in the physical and intellectual wilderness on earth!
-Tony Law

silhouette (JC19)
moon backlights all monochrome
from the past the future looms
-Simon Williams

‘Everything you want’

It’s always such an anticlimax when someone succumbs
The Bible’s first couple lost Eden to understand good and evil?
Of all the feasts they could have fallen for, they chose crumbs?
And to make this worthless choice they were allowed freewill?

The sage of Wittenberg was supposed to thirst for knowledge
But bargained everything away for 24 years of knavery
For pranks and sex he dipped the pen in his blood and made the pledge
In return for nothing of worth and an eternity of infernal slavery.

I’ll admit to being pliable to temptation myself, it takes just a look
That re-issued bebop vinyl, the collected works of Dickinson
So many times I choose to wear the old coat, read the new book
And my choices probably seem petty to those with clear vision

Everything you want is always out of reach, but somehow only just
And that illusion of nearness, that’s the secret, that’s why we chase lust.

-Jayaprakash Satyamurphy

Life Lessons

Beware the serpent who promises everything without demanding anything in return.
He just plays on the ego’s lazy wish to receive without having to earn or learn.

Watch out for the seeping poison that hides behind polished images online.
They are just there to trick you into thinking polished surfaces lead to clouds nine, where everything is always fine.

Think twice before leaping into beliefs that promise salvation and explanation as long as you follow the rules and never question anything.
They just play with your ego’s fear of life’s uncertainties, anything can happen, even if you try to control everything.

Watch your step whenever someone promises a pill or drink or smoke or sniff will make everything fine.
They are only out for your hard earned dime, while you dull your shine and end up in dependency confined.

Keep your wits about you whenever you feel bedazzled and someone tries to sell you something your heart, soul and gut know sounds too good to be true.
They are most likely out trying to put your perspective askew, leaving you feelig stupid, lonely, sad and blue.

Life is never as easy as we wish, sometimes it’s full of hardship and anguish.
Mostly it’s full of hard work, with the occasional perk.
It is also full of moments of happiness and joy, of love, friendships and passions that our souls buoy.
Listen to your instincts, heart and soul, and you’ll find what for you is a worthwhile goal.

-©RedCat

Shrooms

(Inspired by John Law’s 19th Painting – Fly Agaric)

And I fell when my sister
pushed me down
to the level of the beauty
of three fly agarics sprawled
and a couple more asleep nearby;
“If you eat those,” warns my sister,
but I am already a fly stupefied,
hallucinating that the dark forest damp
is the universe, and unless I
open my eyes this would never end –
this me, her, shrooms, buzz,
scent of our innocence
and sweet decay of the imminent.

-Kushal Poddar

in the beginning

After seven days
of evolutionary millennia
the artist formerly known as
God
laid down her/his brush,
looked upon the canvas
stretching away below, bathed in light
the earth
spanning the void above, dark like night
the firmament
and the artist considered the canvas
the heaven and earth
the day and night
the grass and herbs and fruit
the moving creatures, flying fowl, every creeping thing
and thought
it was good
a smile of achievement alighted on his/her lips
as tears of pride fell
from the heavens onto the canvas below
blurring
smudging
breaking
boundaries, barriers, borders of separation
and thought
it was better
-Tony Walker

Toads

A dome of red
and dots of cream
seems like the perfect place for
toads to squat.

The perfect height
to pontificate
and put to rights
the problems of the world
of toads.

How there are
too many frogs
around the pond these days
with their weird croaks
and mysterious froggy ways.

The toads all nod,
slip off their stools
and disappear
into the evening gloom.

-Tim Fellows

See Everything You

want or need, only you will pay for what
is awareness of your own nakedness.
It’s a bed of red mushroom with white spots.
It brings animal dreams and fearlessness.

Wandering in the not there, a long fast,
Only water to drink before sacred
food for a talk with ancestors, in vast
world as eyes in flight or earthed as naked

hog in dark forest, feel gust tip wingtips,
or high wander into oncoming light.
Startled by harsh hospital sight that rips
away visions until wounds are pain bright.

Swap one sensation for inspiration.
Widen a mind in grey desperation.

-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.

Hellcat – April Ekphrastic Challenge

RedCat's avatarThe world according to RedCat

Kerfe Roig


Don’t react if they bully and tease.
Turn your other cheek and say please.
Don’t hit back!
No one likes a girl who attacks.
Don’t show you’re smarter than the boys.
It will them only annoy.
Don’t talk back to adults.
Even if they are wrong it’s an insult.
Don’t show you’re smarter than men.
You’ll just be a bother again.
Don’t speak up for anyone’s rights.
They’ll just think you’re picking a fight.
Don’t claim any self worth.
What? Do you think it comes with birth?
Don’t state your opinions.
You’ll just get shun.
Don’t stick out, it’ll break Jante’s law.
Remember you’re just another bah, haha!
Don’t pursue creative dreams.
You might as well chase moonbeams.
Don’t be a nuisance girl.
Do you think you’re a precious pearl?
Don’t be a disturbance.
No one wants to see your brilliance.

Or..
Do the opposite of all that!

View original post 57 more words

Distances: Ekphrastic Challenge, Day 18

merrildsmith's avatarYesterday and today: Merril's historical musings

How do we measure distance?

Between yesterday and tomorrow,
the light of long-dead stars echo

like a voice, a song, a laugh
lingering in memory, and dreams

that bridge the distance
between imaginary and real,

to tumble over and over like waves–

but where does a wave go? And does it roll,
or unroll onto the shore as it picks up and deposits the sand,

each grain a part of something larger—
a rock, a meteor, a star—

the distance between before and now
a footprint on the beach, gone.

For Paul Brookes’ Ekphrastic Challenge. You can see all the art and read the poems here.

View original post

April poetry challenge day 18

Jane Dougherty's avatarJane Dougherty Writes

Here is my day 18 poem for Paul Brookes’ challenge, inspired by John Law’s Barmston looking from Fraisethorpe and Kerfe Roig’s Distances. You can read all the contributions here. Except mine, which got lost again.

JL18 Barmston looking from Fraisethorpe by John Law

On the sands of childhood

On the sands of childhood, wild and windy,
skylarks singing above the dunes,

and the rolling waves on the chilly shore,
deep green and pungent with bladderwrack,

where the sun was fitful, breeze poked fingers
through the holes in woollens. We

followed the rills of running water
through the deserts, pebble-dashed

with fiery gems and empty shells.
We never saw the whales and seals

but they were there, just watching, free.
There are days, I wish I could reel in those nets.

View original post

Day 18. My annual National Poetry Month 2021 ekphrastic challenge is a collaboration between artists John Law, Kerfe Roig, Jane Cornwell, and writers Ankh Spice, Jane Dougherty, Redcat, Jayaprakash Satyamurthy, Simon Williams, Susan Richardson, Tim Fellows, Anjum Wasim Dar, Tony Walker, Merril D Smith, and me. April 18th.

Day 18

JL18 Barmston looking from Fraisethorpe by John Law

Barmston looking from Fraisethorpe

-John Law

KR18_distances_wombwell

Distance

-Kerfe Roig

JC18

-Jane Cornwell

On the sands of childhood

On the sands of childhood, wild and windy,
skylarks singing above the dunes,

and the rolling waves on the chilly shore,
deep green and pungent with bladderwrack,

where the sun was fitful, breeze poked fingers
through the holes in woollens. We

followed the rills of running water
through the deserts, pebble-dashed

with fiery gems and empty shells.
We never saw the whales and seals

but they were there, just watching, free;
I wish I could reel in those nets.

-Jane Dougherty

Cardiac theatre

written to JC18 and KR18

We spoke, once, candid
as an opened chest. There’s steam
when a tough membrane is pierced
and what emerges is ridiculous
with living. Who would dare doubt
any word floated in the presence
of that? Some days the surgery required
to get from one point
to another goes on so long
every conversation in the room
is the beat that’s held back, and
that day you marked quietly the rhythms
of a kid not-even-close to surgeon
at space camp, the certainty
of stars, sure things orbiting
toward her steady hands. Someone turned
the music down and we all waited patiently
as the tabled heart for the punch
line, silent sempahore
of eyebrows in that gap of expression
between cap and mask – we only recognise
each other outside this place
by looking someone deep in the dark tunnel
of the eyes. I’m sorry, there’s no satisfying end
to be found here, the rush
must resume when it does, the story
always trailing second. The patient woke up
and there it was
the sun humming again in the middle,
the black hole the bubble rides on
hidden for one more verse.

-Ankh Spice

Hellcat

Don’t react if they bully and tease.
Turn your other cheek and say please.
Don’t hit back!
No one likes a girl who attacks.
Don’t show you’re smarter than the boys.
It will them only annoy.
Don’t talk back to adults.
Even if they are wrong it’s an insult.
Don’t show you’re smarter than men.
You’ll just be a bother again.
Don’t speak up for anyone’s rights.
They’ll just think you’re picking a fight.
Don’t claim any self worth.
What? Do you think it comes with birth?
Don’t state your opinions.
You’ll just get shun.
Don’t stick out, it’ll break Jante’s law.
Remember you’re just another bah, haha!
Don’t pursue creative dreams.
You might as well chase moonbeams.
Don’t be a nuisance girl.
Do you think you’re a precious pearl?
Don’t be a disturbance.
No one wants to see your brilliance.

Or..
Do the opposite of all that!
Better be called a hellcat than live as a trampled doormat!

-©RedCat

The Shield

(Inspired by Jane Cornwell’s 18th Painting)

As if I’ll weld one piece of pewter with another,
as if the street, house, market, hearts, hospital
and crematorium are all made of metals
and I can marry them in peace until
death drifts them apart again,
I wear my pestilence armor,
and yes, it does look like a metal-worker’s face shield.

I want to know if you need something from the shops as well.
I desire to know the zones I need to skirt and how to baffle
death by saying – my appointment with him befalls
somewhere else in the futurity.

I stare outside. Everything perceivable floats far and farther,
and death fuses all together.
“What do you desire from outside?”
I hear my voice rising to reach you. Why do you not answer?
Grasp on reality sweats and sinks in the salty sea
swelling up inside the suit supposed to protect me
from this sprawl of pandemic.

-Kushal Poddar

Isolation Tank
(inspired by JC18)

We are strangers,
carrying death notes in our teeth,
warding off the evils of a rampant virus.

Two metres and a galaxy apart,
be sure not to speak,
not to breathe too deeply,
not to cry.

Behind the mask

i am an isolation tank
a storm inside the shelter
silence in the wake of a bomb

he is an open hand
sunlight filling a cold room
laughter first thing in the morning

We are strangers,
choking on a new strain of fear
lodged like a peach pit in the throat.

Last night I held a friend’s hand,
remembered the splendour of touch,
light and sound,
woke up in darkness.

-Susan Richardson

Behind The Mask

The small, warm, bright flame on the candle flickers
the uncomfortable, inevitable breeze
bullying through cracks in the pane
of existence.
Hands,
young and smooth, calloused from toil
family, friends and well-meaning strangers
shelter the stuttering point of light.
Eyes,
bursting with hope
overflow onto cheeks red and flush
with the absurdity of memory.

We knew this all along.

The wick is small,
burned down to an exhausted useless nub
in a pitiful puddle of self-extinguishing inadequate
evaporating wax.
For light there must be dark
heat only warms the cold
life must have death and
only having stood on earth can we soar to the heavens.

Soulful phoenix rising from life’s extinguished fire.

-Tony Walker

Distances

(inspired by all three works of art)

Distances keep breaking down
Everyday the distances break down
The numbers pile up

Somewhere someone is suiting up
To face the blast
Of the furnace, the ICU

Maybe they’re looking back at
Something in the mind’s eye
A day on some beach
Distances unimportant, swimsuits bright

The crematoriums are melting
Melting like colours into colours
In a painting that could mean anything
Could mean everything

Hanging there on the wall
Distracting the gaze, momentarily
Of someone somewhere suiting up

To face the blast.

-Jayaprakash Satyamurphy

Inspired by Kerfe Roig, “Distances” and John Law “Barmston Looking from Fraisethorpe”

Distances

How do we measure distance?

Between yesterday and tomorrow,
the light of long-dead stars echo

like a voice, a song, a laugh
lingering in memory, and dreams

that bridge the distance
between imaginary and real,

tumble over and over like waves–

but where does a wave go? And does it roll,
or unroll onto the shore as it picks up and deposits the sand,

each grain a part of something larger—
a rock, a meteor, a star—

the distance between before and now
a footprint on the beach, gone.

-Merril D Smith

She Breathes

deeply through the mask,
fixes her visor one more time;
another day, another thankless task
for unknown lives laid on the line
and in her hands.

She pulls
on another pair of soulless gloves
and closes eyes long drained of tears
for all the hurt and absent love
that will scar so many future years
and recalls the sands

as she awakes
on cliffs above the curving coast
and tastes the ocean in her mind
where ten thousand swirling ghosts
float with her, endlessly entwined
on a fine-spun strand

She returns
to flourescence, bustling noise,
as seascapes smear and snap the thread,
and vows to fight all that destroys
her memory of the gasping dead
of this blighted land.

-Tim Fellows

Erosion

reshapes the coast of my thoughts, as I dress
for the wards. Long days check on patients health.
Every death prompts did I do less
than I could, or enough, relax myself.

From this promontory I observe all
the decay, distant tides undermine soft
sand, dislodge clay, design the next fall
of what am I achieving here, a death stopped.

For a time without proper PPE
we improvised protection against waves.
It is vocation for many, and me.
I smile at recovery of the brave.

My care for cases, focus on doing
gives job satisfaction, stops decaying.

-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.

Purgatory Has an Address by Romaine Wahington (Bamboo Dart Press)

tearsinthefence's avatarTears in the Fence

Romaine Washington’sPurgatory Has an Addressis Bamboo Dart Press’s newest release. This new imprint of Pelekinesis Press publishes many poets and writers from Inland California like Stephanie Barbe Hammer, Cindy Rinne, Kendall Johnson, and Dennis Callaci; Washington’s newest poetry collection shows why they focus on the overlooked writing of that region of the United States.Purgatory Has an Addressis an emotionally sensitive look at the purgatories that people live through, often suggesting a strategy for those times that has worked for the poet. This collection that looks at the pain of the world might have easily ended with a kind of cynical hopelessness. Instead, Washington’s work is life affirming and suggests the kind of courage that it takes to be alive.

The poem “Saguaro” is emblematic of this hope as it discusses the way saguaro cacti seed and take root in the harsh climate of the desert, and…

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In The Badger Sett – April Ekphrastic Challenge

RedCat's avatarThe world according to RedCat

Kerfe Roig


Grandma Badger came to greet me
Most dashing in her dinner frock
Invited me to midnight tea

All the little cubs came to gawk
They hadn’t seen a witchling before
Down and down we went, quite a walk

At length we came to a carved door
Come into the library dear
Where we our ancient knowledge store

In here you can meet our seer
She’ll teach you whatever you need
To from the witch hunters stay clear

Decipher the signs you must heed
Help you light the white ardent flame
That must any vision quest lead

It’s time to your inborn strength claim
That’s what will set your spirit free
I see it in your fire brick mane

First we’ll have fortifying tea
Then we’ll see what signs you can see

©RedCat


Researching and writing this I learnt a few new words, first witchling which, when it popped…

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April poetry challenge day 17

Jane Dougherty's avatarJane Dougherty Writes

A triolet inspired by Kerfe Roig’s beautiful Badger. You can read all the contributions here.

Badger light

In the grey of badger light
That smells of earthy, rooted things,
The dark is fox and barn owl flight.
In the grey of badger light,
You rollock through the scented night.
On sharp-clawed pads, no need for wings,
You skim the grey of badger light,
That smells of earthy, rooted things.

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Beneath the Surface: Ekphrastic Challenge, Day 17

merrildsmith's avatarYesterday and today: Merril's historical musings

Inspired by John Law, “Back from Shopping” and Kerfe Roig, “Badger”

Sturdy women coated and scarved,
against the cold, damp English day. Tight-clad legs step
clop clop on water-pooled streets. The little one’s hand grasped—
everywhere unseen dangers lurk.

There will be no jumping now. Come along, her mother says,
and goes on talking about Bess’s too-soon baby, Tom’s gout,
and Will who lost his job—again.

Beneath the surface of their words, stories swim,
fish waiting to be caught,
the meanings elusive, not quite hooked.

The woolen hats and packages move with the women, yellow, red, and green
contrasts with the grey all around.
In the fine drizzle of the fretting sea,
the shops are nearly invisible,
like the badger in their garden, a fog-creature of the night.

The girl wonders if he lives beneath
the surface of the puddles. She jumps…

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