Day Nineteen 

-Gaynor Kane – International Women’s Day Parade, Belfast

-Anjum Wasim Dar – Rotation

-John Phandal Law

-Jane Dougherty

The Last Man on Earth
had plenty of time on his hands.
Time to ponder the big questions.

How had it come to this?
Would another species evolve
with the ability to destroy itself?
And why is the last human on Earth
always a man?

-Tim Fellows

19 AWD

It’s fuel on the surface of waves
which tells a truth
phosphorescent and slick
polychromatic interference to transmission.
Their hair linaria-frondy
mermaids torment sailors inside a sealed
metal box on a coastal sea-bed
their loss concealed by incandescent
fuel on the surface of waves
concealing truth.
And in one metal box inland,
what makes a tormentor
think surrender
different from death?

-Lesley James

JPL19

I’m going to tell you
the end of the story –
the ending few of us
have ever been told. The
Government would prefer
that no one ever hears
how breaking promises
may be punished; it might
give the People ideas
of leader replacement.

You must remember the
Town of Hamelin and
its plague of rodents, how
the Town Council reneged
on the agreed payment
for eradication
of the infestation
carried out in good faith
by the Pied Piper and
his faithful instrument.

When the Town Council said
they would not pay him the
Piper went out and played
a lively tune, leading
the town’s children distant,
dancing hill-ward never
to return – you know this
but know also there was
an orphan in the town
who remained resistant.

His ear was musical
and he duplicated
the virtuosity
of the piping stranger,
neutralising the sound.
He then devised a new
tune which he played in front
of the Town House until
the councillors, like rats,
followed and were drowned.

-Peter A.

Human Spirit (JPL19)

The music
Within
No foe
On land, in water
Can defeat
As long
It keeps
Playing

-Carrie Ann Golden

At Low Tide (JPL19)

Wet sand under bare feet,
cool water on toes,
the smell of the sea,
the cry of gulls
and an expanse of blue
and that feeling-
like there is only you –
and you stand as tall
as King Canute and
imagine, for a minute,
that you can succeed
where he did not,
and you look out
at the horizon until
the lapping of the
water lets you know
that the tide is on the turn.

-Beth Brooke

19. [Rotation AWD19]

I’m spinning,
You know, but I don’t know,
Which way.

Who’s winning,
You go, I’m too slow, so
You say.

You’re grinning,
It’s shows, you’re going to go,
Today.

Beginning
To flow, so much to throw
Astray

And singing,
Alone, trombone, and no
Dismay.

-Math Jones

Cassandras Rising
to GK 19 International Women’s Day Parade, Belfast

Women, gold out of abyss,
Rise just in time.
We were disposed of,
Gagged with snakes,
Green-scaled hush money,
Our prophecies cursed
By Apollo’s crowd,

Hoarding their prides
Of child brides,
Of maidens chained to duty.
We refuse to bear Apollo’s young
To spare our tongues.

Our grandmothers, mothers, sisters,
Our Bodies, our Selves,
Cannot be bound
By those who pose
As blind gods
Celebrating their grand delusions.

We overturn the hard ground
To sow new gardens.
Soil does bleed
In re-creation.
We labor to birth a new Earth
As prophesied.

We burn our life stations,
Designed by the Pantheon,
For confinement no longer serves us.
We sing our notes in harmony.

We don’t say, “Me, too!”
We say, “We do!”

-Barbara Leonhard

AWD-19

your face
your face
always and forever
wherever
I may look
your face

-Simon Williams

 

Women’s March (Inspired by all three images: GK19 International Women’s Day Parade, AWD-19 Rotation, and JPL19)

That January day we marched—family, friends, and strangers—
scared by the present, not knowing it would get worse—
we thought of past generations,
we thought of our children and grandchildren–
thousands of women—the blue sky crackled with our energy,
we were stars
unaware of black holes or dark matter,
we shifted light, and streams of color rotated,

perhaps a young girl alone saw a rainbow,
felt some hope.

-Merril D Smith

Bios And Links

-John Phandal Law

is 68. Lives in Mexborough. Retired teacher. Artist; musician; poet. Recently included in ‘Viral Verses‘ poetry volume. Married. 2 kids; 3 grandkids

-Gaynor Kane

Gaynor Kane lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she is a part-time creative, involved in the local arts scene. She writes poetry and is an amateur artist and photographer. In all her creative activities she is looking to capture moments that might otherwise be missed. Discover more at gaynorkane.com

Twitter @gaynorkane

Facebook @gaynorkanepoet

Instagram @gaynorkanepoet

-Anjum Wasim Dar

started drawing at St Anne’s Presentation Convent High School, Rawalpindi.
Drawing was taught as a Core subject from  Kindergarten.
Anjum learnt the  skill of  Still Life, Sketching,  Landscape Drawing, Coloring  and Shading  She recalled the scented wax crayons and black  paper sketch books vividly.

Subject of Fine Arts at Intermediate level at Govt.College for Women Rawalpindi,   was stopped by the Indo Pak War of 1965. Anjum continued her passion for art privately.
Her job as a Teacher Instructor allowed her to pursue Art work designing and preparing  Thematic Bulletin Boards and Low cost teaching Aids with the Fauji Foundation Teacher’s Training Institute Rawalpindi. www.faujifoundation.org.
This won her the National Education Award 1998.
 
Completing  a Course in Graphic Designing  at NICON Academy Rawalpindi , Anjum began working as a Digital Artist, On Line, registered her Own Firm CER Creative Education Resources 2004 and is a Member of DRN Drawing Research Network UK  and www.bigdraw.org.uk
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/tracey/drn/
 https://sites.google.com/site/cerprofessionaldevelopment/
With her artistic skills she plans and conducts “Environment Awareness Workshops for Children” and is a member of www.unep.org and www.earthday.org
CER Participated in World Environment Day and Earth Day Programs 2011-2013
“Face of Climate Change”
Anjum  loves Nature, landscapes and abstract imagery. Works with pencils, crayons and  the Software ArtRage 2.0  and MyPaint.

Anjum Wasim Dar’s Art Portfolio  can be accessed  here:

https://www.artwanted.com/anjuartwriter/gallery/

-Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in several poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic,  Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press.  Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Website/blog: merrildsmith.com

-Lesley James(she/her)

is a teacher and writer. She was shortlisted for Love Reading UK’s 2022 Very Short Story Award. Featured flash can be found in The Broken Spine, FullHouseLitMag and RoiFaineant. Kathryn O’Driscoll selected her poem Empty for Full House’s 2021 mental health live reading and forthcoming podcast. Brian Moses, The Dirigible Balloon and Parakeet Magazine have published some of her writing for children.

-Lynne Jensen Lampe

has poems in or forthcoming from Figure 1, Olney Magazine, Yemassee, Moist Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Also to come is her chapbook Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022) about mothers, daughters, and mental illness. She was a 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize finalist. Born in Newfoundland and raised in the Deep South, she lives in mid-Missouri where she edits academic books and journals. Visit her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com. Twitter: @LJensenLampe.

-Math Jones

is London-born, but is now based in Oxford. He has two books published: Sabrina Bridge, a poetry collection, from Black Pear Press (2017), and The Knotsman, a collection of verse, rhyme, prose and poetic monologue, which tell of the life and times of a C17th cunning-man. Much of his verse comes out of mythology and folklore: encounters with the uncanny and unseen. Also, as words written for Pagan ritual or as praise poems for a multitude of goddesses and gods. He is a trained actor and performs his poems widely.

-Caroline Johnstone

is an author and poet from Northern Ireland now living in Scotland. She has been published widely including Poetry Scotland, The Blue Nib and Marble Poetry. She loves spending time with her grandchildren, curling up with a good book and champagne or cocktails in no particular order. 

-Lesley Curwen

is a poet and sailor living in Plymouth. She often writes about loss, rescues and the sea.

Her work has been published in anthologies from Arachne Press, Nine Pens, Quay Words, Slate, snakeskin, and soon by BrokenSpine and Broken Sleep.  

Her poetic relationship with sound has been helped by her work as a BBC broadcaster, editing words on screen.

-Carrie Ann Golden

is from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in the Red River Valley of North Dakota (USA). She writes dark fiction and poetry. A Deafblind, her work has been published in places such as GFT Press, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, Asylum Ink, Piker Press, Edify Fiction and others. You can find her on her writing blog as well as Medium and Twitter.  

-Jen Feroze

lives by the sea in Essex with her husband and two small children. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of publications including Ink Sweat & Tears, Chestnut Review, Atrium and The Madrigal. Her first collection, The Colour of Hope, was published in 2020 and she’s currently working on a chapbook of poems about early motherhood. 

-Paul Brookes

is a shop asst in a supermarket. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. First play performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull.  His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews, book reviews and  challenges. 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. Most recent is a poetry collaboration with artworker Jane Cornwell: “Wonderland in Alice, plus other ways of seeing”, (JCStudio Press, 2021)