For day 17 of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge, inspired by the artworks of Asum Wasim Dar and John Phandal Law. Please go to Paul’s blog to see the art and read the poems.
Aftermath
Full fathom five
in pearl-light bathed they lie
or in the deep and petaled mud
their coral bones wave-rocked
or gnawed by dogs
all pale all dead all gone.
Day Seventeen
-John Phandal Law
-Anjum Wasim Dar- Fathoming
-Gaynor Kane – Hotel Tea Tray
17. [Fathoms AWD17]
Only measuring fathoms through water,
And in one direction,
And the starting point is us,
On the surface.
Only saying how much ‘down’
There is beneath us, that we know of.
How much ‘down’ we have below us,
How much ‘down’ we have to go,
Till we touch…
Till the water gets so solid we can stand on it.
Till the water gets so heavy we are flattened by it.
Or till we disappear, as dense as what we’re in.
-Math Jones
Aftermath (Inspired by AWD’s Fathoms and John Phandal Law)
Full fathom five
in pearl-light bathed they lie
or in the deep and petaled mud
their coral bones wave-rocked
or gnawed by dogs
all pale all dead all gone.
-Jane Dougherty
17 JPL
Kramatorsk.
Evolve. Revolve.
Pleas: leave while you still can.
Will poppies commemorate these bodies in the streets?
Or at a railway station in Donetsk Oblast
where families gather to escape? Protruding
from the dead tarpaulin
one man’s pale
fist.
-Lesley James
Fathoms (AWD17 Fathoms)
A cave in the sea, icicle bright
in shimmered folds of brine
lit by bloomed fluorescence
of last bioluminants hiding
in what is left of the dark
Or is it a ruin smoking on land
half a defeated castle, recently
wrecked by heavy artillery
flame-illuminated, soot-flecked
in what is left of the dark
-Lesley Curwen
Conundrum
To GK 17 Hotel Tea Tray
A hike to the Conundrum Hot Springs in Colorado.
“Just over the pass, he said.
Quick hike.”
He took the heavy pack
With the tent, food, water –
Up to 50 pounds.
My pack, just 15 or 20.
He always hiked ahead.
Practically running.
My steps, more cautious.
Tree roots, mud slides,
Scree fields. Switchbacks.
We ascend, descend,
Ascend, descend.
“Can we just go back?
Stay at a motel?”
I dream of a warm bed, bath, pool,
Room service. Hot coffee and cherry pie.
“Come on. It’s just over there,” he says.
“Is this a creek or a river?” I ask.
“Cross here? Are you kidding me?”
High sun. Low blood sugar. Rain.
The way narrows to a game trail.
I breathe to the beat of just over there.
Just over there. Just over there.
After eight hours.
Finally, the hot springs.
Filled with guys. Naked guys.
Curious guys.
“I’m not going in there”, I say.
But the other pool, too shallow.
Too tepid. I’m led back to the party.
They watch. I refuse to disrobe.
Entirely, anyway.
“Happy!?” My crossed arms say.
The water is warm, soothing the tired bones.
More people arrive. A woman with mushrooms.
“Want some?” Her voice lilts with song.
“I’m good, thanks.” Shake my head.
Along side the pool, a shirt and towel
Pressed to the earth. Stomped on.
“Someone drowned here recently,” she says.
Dizzy snow lands on my wrinkled fingers.
Something knocks against my foot
In the steamy pool. Maybe a snake.
I scream.
My husband laughs.
Soon, a noisy crowd approaches,
Hauling six packs, whiskey, bourbon,
Vodka, party food.
“What? Are you kidding me?
Over 3 mountain passes, a river, mud slides.
And scree fields?” I ask.
“No, we’re from Aspen. We parked
Just over there. Not far
From the Marriott.”
-Barbara Leonhard
AWD17
Night peers down,
takes a deep breath
blows
rolls back
the white and yellow
of the day
pushes cloud over the ridge
sends it tumbling into
the valley below the hill
a head-over-heels rushing
that scatters into mist
hangs in translucent shadows
above the river
-Beth Brooke
JPL17
Every year
the authority
holds a ceremony
to reassure
the wounded cannon-fodder who survived
and the bereaved of those who died
that they, who were comfortable
to send the young to war,
do really care —
a necessary tradition
to ensure the continued supply
of filled-with-pride human ammunition
-Peter A.
Fathoming
This is based on AWD17 Fathoms
white, tight
toes curl
on rock edge
eyes squint
half-dazzled by
sideways sun
skin cools as
feather-light breeze
teases pellucid water
crouching in golden gleam
fingers flutter the surface
like dragonflies
then
slow entering
slow breathing
slowly fathoming
the length and the breadth
of all that is held
here
-Vicky
Submerged (Inspired by all three images.)
I’d never seen a sea so blue,
we dove through our reflections
to the unfathomable depths below.
I saw a mermaid, you teased.
I saw a shipwreck, I replied,
and we went back to our hotel
had our tea on a tray in bed,
gasping and grasping like swimmers
near drowning—submerged here–
the do not disturb sign on the door–
and I never wanted to leave
the room, you, tea,
the sound of the surf–
but here I am on this foggy coast,
firmly bound to shore,
the sea is the grey of winter memories
out there, above the sunken ships
called by sirens,
lovers sail on ships of dreams.
-Merril D. Smith
Treading Water
After Fathoms AWD17
a beach a cove liberty
sanctuary glanced jealously
from this cave snatched
daylight stolen false hope
swirls with the gulls circling
searching for prey
for scraps for sustenance
the tide pulls away dredging
sand a single whelk
in a bay of mussels
stay safe
under seaweed-lined crags
undercover treading water
until the inevitable dark
we can run unscared
-Jamie Woods
AWD17
At the edge
Of consciousness
Lies
The unimaginable
Cloaked
By madness
-Carrie Ann Golden
Fathoms
In the blue cave
creatures live brief lives;
some alone, drifting,
carried by the unseen tide.
Others, schooling together,
flicking direction, sensing
peripheral danger.
On the rocky walls, some
have crafted their own
protective shells, or hide
in subtle gaps.
-Tim Fellows
In War Their Hands Trench the Soil, Their Bones Feed It (JPL17)
Flanders Fields—a glass
casket of poppies. Senseless
beauty. Remember.
—Lynne Jensen Lampe
I Sup Fathoms
of poppies from a hotel tea cup roll
away the stones from the graves, find clothes
they were buried in. Drink the whole
flowers to ease the loss and recompose
what is lost. Reach for the stars, her upbeat
song played at her funeral, takes me back
to her cremation, her ashes in heat
tea leaves so I sup her brew bring her back.
Asbestos thread cough killed my dad. Ashes
I must broadcast over Lake District tracks.
Cancer took mam, old age nan, all mashes
tea leaves so I sup their brew bring them back.
Grief is a conflict over flight or fight.
Can’t resurrect not dead with drugged delight.
-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.
-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)
Whilst dedicated cavers continue to dive and squeeze further and further underground, mapping new networks and entering underground ‘rooms’ no-one else has ever seen, others have always preferred to consider archaeological and anthropological findings in depth rather than simply move on. Jerome Rothenberg has translated and anthologised texts under the term ethnopoetics; Clayton Eshelman has synthesized theology, psychology, creative writing and what would now be called eco-criticism to explore the ‘Upper Paleolithic Imagination’; whilst the first (and for a long time only) monograph about the Lascaux caves was written by Georges Bataille.
Much, of course, was made of the 20,000 year-old art found (or re-rediscovered) in 1940 at Lascaux and other caves in the Dordogne region. It fed into fine artists’ obsessions with ‘primitive’ cultures, as well as providing an argument that art had always been important, perhaps pre-dating spoken language, and allowed much conjecture about art as magic, celebration…
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For day 16 of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge, a poem inspired by all three images that you can see here, and read all the submissions, of course.
Oz
Look on my works
only their images
kept for posterity
ye Mighty
have set the world alight
built heaps of sand
and despair
yet the despair is yours
there is none here amid the ruins
nor buried forgotten deep
for hope rises from the flames
and a desert of sand
will fill your mouths.
Inspired by JPL16
Seashore Summers
Seashore summers, oyster shell skies, salty-wet breezes,
and sun-gold beaches—an unquestioned invitation to dig—
and you did,
creating a tidepool community of castles, schools, families of
calcite exoskeletons and imagination–
and when you stopped,
the gulls grabbed your sandwich
with a laugh,
and that became part of the stories we tell.
I am once again participating in Paul Brookes’ April Ekphrastic Challenge. Each day, I will post my poem(s) here. You can see the art and read the other responses by going to Paul’s site here.
The artists are Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, and Anjum Wasim Dar. Thank you for your wonderful and inspiring art!
I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, so I’m doubly delighted to say that this week’s drop in is by Pratibha Castle to reflect on her impressive debut collection, A Triptych of Birds & A Few Loose Feathers.
This poem, which first appeared on One Hand Clapping a couple of years back, and later in Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis, like many of my poems, was inspired by an image from childhood.
I was with my father one morning when he was digging a plot of earth. While he took a break, a robin turned up. Not unusual, when there is a chance of worms. There was, of course, a spade. My father’s name was Patrick. St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, is indeed rumoured to have driven the snakes from the isle of Poets and Bards. But my mother was the one who left…
View original post 875 more words
Day Sixteen
-Gaynor Kane – Gothic Building, Liverpool
-Anjum Wasim Dar – Flames
-John Phandal Law
Break of Day: A Tanka (AWD16)
Once rain was allowed
to seep instead of sizzle.
Drought, lightning—trees flash
a thousand suns. Sky tears its
cloak of fire, mourns owl and deer.
—Lynne Jensen Lampe
AWD16 Flames
The movement, the dance
For me, that has always been
the key feature
The defining quality that catches
the eye of the viewer
Tells the imagination there is a
life liberated there
Could never be seen as
inanimate by the
objective observer
The more you stare
into their flickering core
the more you see
and more
appreciate
the power
As you
witness each
flame stand
and walk
embrace and
undulate
frighten and
fascinate
in equal
measure
You will
find their
oxygen
breathing
existence
ever more
compelling and
difficult to
extinguish
-Peter A.
-Jane Dougherty
16. [Flames AWD16]
The people (we do like to make them
People) that dance (that too)
In the flames, in the fast-paced rust,
They loom above the town.
(There’s a goddess named Looming;
looming things are named for her.)
When the looming (goddess) people
Dance in the flames (air-eating, oxidising)
When the people (yes, people, this time)
See the flames’ dance, looming
Like a goddess, above the town, then
The thought might strike them.
-Math Jones
My Father’s Ashtray
to AWD 16 Flames
My father’s trauma flares from his fingertips,
Simmers into ash on his lap.
His life stories, circles of writhing smoke,
Frame my face, obscure his words.
I try to breathe my own smoke rings
Sucked from a reed at the lake.
His anger rises up, a fire of sand,
Slapping my face.
Still, his trauma lights up
Pack upon pack, burns to the skin.
The past has to last. Wounds
Smolder into a mass of butts
In the crystal trough,
Never clean. Scrubbing away
The abandoned ash of old news
Becomes my compulsion.
Smoke rings fizzle into fear,
Punch holes in his bones.
My grief curls
Into a withering whiff.
-Barbara Leonhard
Victorian Civic Architecture Makes Its Apology
GK16
I was built in an age of certainty
made to celebrate
the certainties of men,
their judgement, their
knowing best.
I was built when people understood
where they were placed
in the order of things
and did not think about where
the money came from for the
stone that made the Doric columns.
Call me classical, call me gothic,
call me civic, philanthropist.
In the tungsten light of a cold evening
I will squat on the horizon
of your journey home.
Later, you will dream about me,
my gaslit corridors, the conversations
that took place in small rooms
at the back, civic men
deciding things among themselves;
the basement where the bodies,
perhaps, are buried.
-Beth Brooke
On Mount Horeb
after Flames AWD16
stare long enough into the crackle and hiss take in the fumes and drown your eyes
be open susceptible acceptable accessible throw your life into the relentless party
take off your shoes and pick up your new twisted staff
meditate baby asphyxiate baby hallucinate baby
burning brambles burning bushes bush fire brush fire shrub fire forest fire pyrrhic pyre fire pile
you can see everything dancing intoxicating manifesting in the onslaught of the flames
now breathe in deep go back to your people and make believe you’ve met your god
-Jamie Woods
Drink (With a forward reference to day 23)
The red liquid stared at him
the last half inch in the large glass
drained easily, staggered track to the door
out into the city night
sounds of sirens, only emergencies
and taxis this late. The Gothic building
towered over him; he felt its
disappointment, its disgust.
“Fuck you!” he shouted,
and vomited into the road.
-Tim Fellows
Seashore Summers (Inspired by JPL16)
Seashore summers, oyster shell skies, salty-wet breezes,
and sun-gold beaches—an unquestioned invitation to dig—
and you did,
creating a tidepool community of castles, schools, families of
calcite exoskeletons and imagination–
and when you stopped,
the gulls grabbed your sandwich
with a laugh
and that became part of the stories we tell.
-Merril D. Smith
JPL16
The empty beach
Except for the child’s toys
Under a red sky
-Carrie Ann Golden
GK16 Gothic building Liverpool
Edifice
behold the art of over-decoration, architectural man-brag summoning acres of stone
hacked into porticoes, towers, pillars, ledges, pediments, scrolls and don’t forget caryatids
those smooth nudes with teenage nipples, classical enough to get the nod from vicars
and corpulent aldermen, corset-laced, whose dark commerce funded the grand erection
-Lesley Curwen
16 AWD and GK
(and for Alexey Navalny)
They burned some, buried others, hoping
for shifting sands of global communication
to blur the crime, re-interpret lonely debris.
War Crimes came up three times
in the 8 o’clock bulletin. Three times
in the 8.30 too. The phrase pinches hard.
The child’s toys. The civilian clothing of the dead.
No oxymoron, or Graves’ Cool Web.
War is crime.
-Lesley James
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)
Inspired by all three works of art.
What Is
Grey winter days
brightened by her crayon—
she chooses red–then
blue, green, and yellow,
the world becomes
a garden of flowers, an enchanted place
with magical glowing creatures
her life
no longer in shadows
(when she was a boy)
no why,
simply is
full of light and color.
When I was writing this poem, I did a quick consult with the Oracle, and the words boy and life stood out. It made me think of this song, “When I was a Boy,” by Dar Williams. I can still remember the first time I heard it. Dar Williams is a big favorite of my children, too.
My poems don’t always seem to make it into his posts, but I am once again participating in Paul Brookes’ April Ekphrastic Challenge. Each day, I will post my poem(s) here. You can see the art…
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This cleave poem is for day 15 of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge. It was inspired by the artworks by Anjum Wasim Dar and John Phandal Law. You can see them and read the other poems here.
The Wombwell Rainbow 