Day Eleven

-Gaynor Kane – Dundee Graffiti

-Anjum Wasim Dar – Colourful Infinity

-John Phandal Law

It’s Not a Polaroid But It Looks Like Truth (AWD11)

The seals left the scene, and despite
the huddle of hula hoops, no longer

hip bound, the yellow bear rode off
into the sunset on my old blue bicycle,

the one my dad spray-painted
for me when I was six—you know

I loved its dented fenders
and plastic streamers and the memory

of it hanging on ceiling hooks
with newspaper beneath, dad’s

index finger red against the nozzle,
the smell of blue in our noses,

and the swell of silly that made him
finally open the basement window.

—Lynne Jensen Lampe

 

Hexed

(after Dundee, Graffiti, GK11)
This building hides secrets
covered by Dundee graffiti
finches baked in sunlight
5G – N.C. Loved Me –
hieroglyphs runes we rule the school
camouflage hexed algorithms
witches spray tags
on all wireless transmissions

– Jamie Woods

-Lesley James

A Life’s Worth

When I see the larger-than-life birds
painted on the side of an industrial building in Dundee,
I’m reminded that Audubon’s Birds of America
have come to Edinburgh and people are in a flap
to view these priceless books his life’s work.

This building is as whitewashed
as his history all traces of black genes concealed,
for freedom is a white word and slaves a practical tool
to buy and sell like horses in the pursuit
of art and his role as the father of modern ornithology.
They carried his boxes of colour,
carried the guns and the fine shot
that helped him kill a hundred birds a day,
so he could pin them in poses
paint them in such vivid colours
they almost looked alive, proof
if you need it that the pleasure of owning
is worth the price you’re prepared to pay.

-Caroline Johnstone

GK11 Dundee, Graffiti

Learning about the birds and bees and how to
raise a beehive with a backcomb, Honey —
come back soon to the honeycomb, Sonny.
How we behaved before, when we combined
behind the shed, won’t just be buzzing in our minds
but will also be memorialised tastefully
on the white walls of that utility
building of durable fabrication
positioned appropriately beneath
the skyward tower of communication.

-Peter A.

Untitled Haiku (JPL11)

Concealed by the trees
This cottage once knew laughter
The silence is death

-Carrie Ann Golden

-Lesley Curwen

JP11

The end of the street was never in view
until, unexpectedly, you were there.
Past the old thatched house, shadowed
by old trees and leaking smoke
from its ancient chimney.
Dots of red flowers on the plants
by the side of the road, birds
lazily tracking across late afternoon
skies. The urge to go back was strong;
to see it one more time, to be cushioned
in its sepia pillow.

-Tim Fellows

Wouldn’t It Be
To JPL 11

Great – to awaken to
a simple country lane
lined with wild flowers,
A cozy cottage
whispering smoke from the hearth,
A fruit tree
bearing promise,
Birds singing,
The sun shining, somewhere a brook
Running clean
For child play.

-Barbara Leonhard

JPL11

around the bend in the lane
your spirit
always near but never in sight

you used to say you saw through me
and now
no matter my eyes
only your essence remains

-Simon Williams

Nowadays

Mostly he sits in the chair by the window –
Margot upholstered it in velvet years ago
and he wishes he’d told her
how much he liked it.

The fire is on more often,
and there are noises at night
in the thatch overhead.
He can feel his colour changing,
slipping into sepia.

But the garden is alive
with goldfinches, sweetly painful
flashes of vibrance
in the encroaching evening.

-Jen Feroze

The Variegated Universe (Inspired by all three works AWD11 Colorful Infinity, GK1, Dundee Graffiti, and JPL11)

A monochrome world, every day lived
in sepia tones, like a long-ago photo, with occasional red–
well, there was always blood, wasn’t there?

It had been a gradual change—
decrees and books—
told what to see—it was easier that way.

But amidst the root-rustle, verdant patches spread,
birds knew that color wasn’t gone—
and sang and chirped and chirred and whooped

till some remembered and children first saw
the infinite colors in large and small—pebbles and stones,
the circles and cycle of trees and bees,
the thatched cottages that led to the sea
with its wine-dark poetry and iridescent fish,
the rainbowed spindrift, the stars and moon that space-shifted
within an ocean of blues,
the green of pasture, the flowers—the world was multi-hued.

Now they saw it and sang with the sun, while the stars laughed
and the birds laughed, too.

Merril D. 

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)

-Kittie Belle from her collection “Sliced Tongue and Pearl Cufflinks“ published by @parthianbooks 

Forty

Today I feel it is likely
I have lived half my life.

The feeling doesn’t make me sad
as today everyone seems happy.

I can still enjoy a glass of wine with lunch,
a slice of chocolate cake for tea.

My niece’s face getting out of the car
is the cutest face,

the butterfly picture from my sister
is so beautiful that I gasp.

Even the overcast weather is atmospheric
as we walk at Bolton Abbey,

even my greying hair no longer bothers me,
nor do the lines under my eyes.

Today I remind myself
life doesn’t stand still,

you must grasp it
or it will fly away like a moth.

-Peter Donnelly

Pictures

There are collections of insects,
posters I’ve bought for a pound and framed
of Charlotte, Emily and Anne.
My great-grandma’s garden
drawn by one daughter,
coloured in by the other,

her embroidered pink-winged bird,
a purple snake in its talons,
an almost too perfect wreath of flowers.
Grandma’s gold-patterned plate in the lounge,
her sunset in a Wensleydale field
hanging in the hall, facing prints

of Castle Howard by an unknown artist,
a Christmas present from my aunt.
My brother’s portrait of a cat’s face
in a frame like the paintings of vases
my other great-granny brought from Canada,
painter again not known.

My great-aunt’s handmade cards
I keep in an album like photos or stamps.
There are landscapes of Devon and ancient China,
one of Ripon Minster as it was then called,
and a montage of some of the artists
posing for old-fashioned cameras.

-Peter Donnelly

PLOT

Once through the painted gate you were mistress of your land.

Of a thousand waving heads, the children of your hands.
Of bushes sewn with currant gems, opal, garnet, jet.
Of canopies hiding rhubarb flesh.
Of strawberries’ bloody hearts wound fast in fragrant leaves.
Of beanstalk tower, kale cliff and steep potato ridge.

You directed me, your servant,
to the heaviest of work, digging spuds, wheeling muck,
lugging chairs for lunch. We’d eat our pies in silence
hair tugged by Irish winds, as war-planes split the sky
and robins nabbed the crumbs.

Your cheeks glowed neon-rose. An ancient neighbour waved.
I almost believed we’d work this plot
into our tanned old age.

-Lesley Curwen

-Jona Ray

cognate

my sister visited my dream –
she travelled miles within a heartbeat
to hold my hand and to buy
me ghost tea, and let me cry,
and everyone said she was a star.
but this, this I already knew;
she’s held my hand before –
bright starlight forms her core

 Teresa Durran 210325

Asthma

When my brother breathes he sounds like the bellows Daddy uses on the fire when it won’t get going – when all we have is smoke and no heat – which is quite often. When my brother has an asthma attack his lips go blue and sometimes Mummy has to call the Doctor and I get scared and think my brother will die. But asthma doesn’t stop my brother climbing trees or paddling in the stream and it never stops him from being annoying.

-Bronwyn Griffiths (First published in ‘Listen with Mother,’ Silverhill Press, Hastings in 2019.)

Angela

My sister has pearly scars

pairs of stitches, stars

that tidily orbit

a track below her heart

where the surgeon stitched

her up, after he fixed

a faulty valve

that forgot to close

-Spangle McQueen (first published in Kate Garrett-Nield’s 2018 Bonnie’s Crew anthology, which raised money for the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund and Leeds Congenital Heart Unit.)

Sister’s Life

An evangelical church at seventeen
who say they will decide
what boyfriends she can have,
and when she can see them.

A clairvoyant who tells her at twenty-two:
“Your husband will be military,
you will have two children,
your spirit guide is a Native American Indian.”

A son and daughter with her army husband
who tries to control her need at twenty-four
to sell the kid’s unwanted toys,
have a life outside her home.

Carboot sales where she enjoys the buzz
and money selling at twenty-six,
kids in tow, a profit and loss,
a hope after she divorces him.

A Native American Indian spirit guide
at the foot of her bed at thirty
tells her “You will die young,
and join your hankered mam in afterlife.”

A nail in her tyre, or over the limit
after celebrating at thirty-five
her employee’s twentieth birthday,
her car turns over on a hard shoulder.

-Paul Brookes

Bios And Links

-Kittie Belltree

was born in south London and lives in Wales. Her poems and short stories have been published in Orbis, The North, Under the Radar, I am not a silent poet, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, The Lampeter Review and Brittle Star. She has been a Literature Wales Bursary recipient, shortlisted for the Venture Award and highly commended in the Welsh International Poetry Competition, the PENfro Poetry Festival Competition, The Camden and Lumen Poetry Competition and the Orbis Readers Award.

-Bronwyn Griffiths

Her flash fiction and short stories has been  published both online and in a number of print anthologies. She’s been published by Atlas & Alice, Bath Flash Fiction, Barren Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Reflex Fiction, Spelk,  Worthing Flash, 100 Word Flash, Spilling Ink, Flight Journal and others. Her work has also been short-listed (and long-listed) for a number of awards.  

She has four publications currently in print and a novel, Weight of Fog, in progress. 

Twitter https://twitter.com/bronwengwriter

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bronwengwriter/?ref=bookmarks

-Teresa Durran

was born in London and lives in Hampshire but has rarely felt less English; the blood of Celtic ancestors flows through her veins. Being the daughter of immigrants has entirely informed her world view and she has always instinctively empathised with the outsider and the ‘other’. She writes delicate poems for fragile times because she has to. She wanders and wonders and dreams, and she is always lost in music.