Day Twenty-Six
-Anjum Wasim Dar – Half The Year
-Gaynor Kane – Pig With Scarf
-John Phandal Law
JPL 26
Hostilities will cease for a while, they say,
Come: walk a barbed-wire corridor in a wind-blast,
in a lull, in a pause. Snag a jumper on a barb – watch
it dance and wriggle. Teeter at the cliff edge,
wobble along. All the colours available are shades of dust.
Even above ground, the vista is watercolour grey.
-Lesley James
-Tim Fellows
From Children’s Book to Diner Menu (GK26)
Calf in diapers, deer
in go-go boots,
hen wearing pearls.
Pig in a kerchief. Barnyard
buddies. I flipped
pages at a farmstand
album of a favorite
hog now clothed
in plastic and hiding in a
cooler. Pinkie. Smarter
than a three-year-old
and cleaner too. Barely
born, they already
recognize their names.
Pigs can’t fly, but
they can swim.
In the Bahamas. But no
string bikini, please—I draw
the line at bacon in a bow.
—Lynne Jensen Lampe
GK26 pig with scarf
I know a young girl
who gives human names
to creatures, even insects, not
traditionally given human names
and it seems to work
against the human
instinct to crush them/
perhaps dressing pigs as humans
will, in a similar way, stop humans
treating them as pork
-Peter A.
Stravaig (JPL26)
wind-slant hawthorn
sun-bloomed gorse
and
she, small pilgrim
fingertips seeking
seedheads, grasses
and
he, leaning
into love
-Vicky Allen
26. [Half the Year AWD26]
I will not feel bad
about feeling bad.
Roses for you then,
too.
Thorns ‘n’
all.
-Math Jones
JPL26
The jog on the beach
Would have been fun if not for
Angry sandpipers!
-Carrie Ann Golden
A Fable for Our Time
to AWD 26 Half the Year, GK 26 Pig with Scarf
Once upon a time
There was a little swine.
You’ll never see a wiggie
Upon this sweet Miss Piggy.
She wears the color pinkie
Just to make you winkie.
And possibly you’ll swoon
And marry her in June.
Each day when you awaken
You’ll practice makin’ bacon.
And soon you will make plans
For all your sweet young hams.
I’m sure they’ll all be famous –
Certainly not heinous.
What happens next depends
On when this daft poem ends!
-Barbara Leonhard
Catch It (Inspired by all three images for today.)
The beauty of a summer rose
is obvious,
less so, the stark winter landscape
of skeleton trees and washed-out sky–
but there–if you look closely–
my cat is beautiful to me,
your pet pig to you–
love doesn’t make us blind,
it makes us see
the lines on a face are roads
on a map
a life-journey—
traveled through places real and imagined,
in monochrome minutes or bright-hued hours,
like a pink bow bobbing in a sea of grey,
a life-preserver tossed to you—catch it.
-Merril D. Smith
When no bird sings (inspired by Anjum Wasim Dar’s painting Half the year)
We have stepped into the light,
the leafing trees with birdsong ringing,
and slanting sun is honey-sleek.
Behind, the dark year, deep as night,
and black as feathered crow-birds winging,
we sup the sun, with up-palmed hands,
forget how silent, bitter-bleak
is dawn in stark and birdless lands.
-Jane Dougherty
Pink Pig With Scarf
Sleeps with it, hugs it as a comforter.
She tells it that it is safe and it won’t
get hurt. Houses burn in her quick picture.
She draws bombs falling. Says to her pig don’t
worry. Don’t cry. I wont let it hurt you
I’m your mummy. Don’t cry. Mummy gets
angry when you wet the bed. This is new
on so she’ll have a paddy it its wet.
No you can’t watch TV. Cos it’ll make
you worserer. Mummy says when lots, lots
of people fight it’s called a war. It makes
mummy’s and daddy’s hurt each other lots.
I’ll hug you tight, so they can’t hurt you, pig.
Me and you, in the morning can play tig.
-Paul Brookes
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.
–Barbara Leonhard’s
work appears in various online and print publications. She earned both third place and honorary mention for two poems in Well Versed 2021. She is currently writing her first poetry collection about her relationship with her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. From that memoir collection, her poem “Marie Kindo Cleans My Purse at Starbucks” was voted Spillwords Publication of the Month of January and February 2022. Barbara was also voted Spillwords Author of the Month of October 2021 and recognized as a Spillwords Socialite of the Year in 2021. You can follow her on WordPress at https://www.extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog.
-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)
The Wombwell Rainbow 