F 1.11. The Children of Lir by John Duncan(1924)

F 2.11. Wangliang

F 3.11 lady in red

The Children of Lir (Day 11 The Children Of Lir)

Four children you were
Beloved of Lir
Fionnghuala, Aodh, Fiachra and Conn.
You were motherless for a time
When Aoibh left you in childbirth
But you were granted another
But Aoife grew black jealousy
In her heart and plotted against you
Turning you into white swans
With a human voice that you could use
To sing plaintively about your Fate
Doomed to live three hundred years
In the waters there
Away from your loved ones, your home
The Children of Lir
With blazing white wing
Beautiful voices
Hearts full of sorrow
We remember you still
O dear Swans of old
The children of Ireland.

-Eryn McConnell 

Guilt Embodied, Illusion Clothed (3.11 The Lady in Red)

The mossy walls flatten to gray stone,
Receding as the ghost emerges.
She is fashioned only of desire and dread
yet she strangles the breath, heats the blood.

A memory of red silk softens her visage,
warming her cheeks with hints of rose.
Her plump red lips, too ripe to be bloodless,
pout beneath downcast eyes, alluring.
A mockery of modesty.

She provokes, evokes, invades the mind.
She’s the splinter in your eye
the icy fingers grazing your neck,
She’s the shiver before sleep,
and the morning dread.

Ever present, ever absent
She persists to exist.

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen

Another Lesson for Wayward Women (Inspired by 3.11, Lady in Red)

A figure in the window,
on a staircase, or a stage,

in your hotel room, she drifts past
the bed, dressed in a gown of red,

the color of passion, of anger,
of sex, love, blood,

the color of birth and death,
and she, sex worker, or simply

not a nun, or a saint,
murdered after partying, or by a jealous lover—
or his wife—

wanders, not seeking vengeance,
a temptress trapped between worlds,
lost in time.

-Merril D Smith

Fionnuala (based on F1:11 The children of Lir)

How did you manage alone in the wilds
and three young boys who would never be men?

How did you know with no stars in the sky
to steer them from one sheltered nest to the next,
when the winter came fierce and the ocean swelled high?

How did you live with a twice-broken heart
cast out from your home to never return
and the years that weighed down on your father’s head
till they buried him under a cairn on the hill?

Time flew for those that you loved, and you flew
in the guise of a swan in the path of the storm,
as the world turned, forgetting the old ones and you.

Who would have known of your journey at all
had it not had a moral to be twisted and torn
like the neck of a swan in the teeth of the storm.

-Jane Dougherty

Whooper Swans at Moyle Straights

From the land of silent swans
I travelled to the lakes of Ireland
to hear the talking swans of
the sea of Moyle.

Listen!
How in the swirling snow by the sea-wall
in the slicing eastern wind
that drives away cruel fog
they landed, close, and sang.

They sang of themselves and of
the snow that melts on the sea
of the curses born by the innocent
that will in 900 years to the day—
be melted.

Oh! twisted step mothers —
learn rather of love, and sharing—
our father, our earth,
our lake, our snow,
our singing.

-Dave Garbutt

Bios and Links

-Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

-Eryn McConnell

is a poet originally from the UK who now lives in South Germany with their family. They have been writing poetry since their teens and is currently working on their second collection of poems.

-Spriha Kant

developed an interest in reading and writing poetries at a very tender age. Her poetry “The Seashell” was first published online in the “Imaginary Land Stories” on August 8, 2020, by Sunmeet Singh. She has been a part of Stuart Matthew’s anthology “Sing, Do the birds of Spring” in the fourth series of books from #InstantEternal poetry prompts. She has been featured in the Bob Dylan-inspired anthology “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” by the founder and editor of the website “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art” David L O’ Nan. Her poetries have been published in the anthology “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the Mind”. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry, “A Monstrous Shadow”, based on a photograph clicked by herself, as the “Seventh Synergy” in “SYNERGY: CALLING ALL WRITERS WHO ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS” on his blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com by David L’O Nan. She has reviewed the poetry book “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews. Her acrostic poetry “A Rainstorm” has been published in the Poetic Form Challenge on the blog “TheWombwell Rainbow” owned by Paul Brookes. She also joined the movement “World Suicide Prevention Day” by contributing her poetry “Giving Up The Smooch” on the blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”, an initiative taken by Paul Brookes.

-Gaynor Kane

from Belfast in Northern Ireland, had no idea that when she started a degree with the OU at forty it would be life changing.  It magically turned her into a writer and now she has a few collections of poetry published, all by The Hedgehog Poetry Press Recently, she has been a judge for The North Carolina Poetry Society and guest sub-editor for the inaugural issue of The Storms: A journal of prose, poetry and visual art. Her new chapbook, Eight Types of Love, was released in July. Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com

-Dave Garbutt

has been writing poems since he was 17 and has still not learned to give up. His poems have been published in The Brown Envelope Anthology, and magazines (Horizon, Writers & Readers) most recently on XRcreative and forthcoming in the Deronda review. His poem ‘ripped’ was long listed in the Rialto Nature & Place competition 2021. In August 2021 he took part in the Postcard Poetry Festival and the chap book that came from that is available at the postcard festival website. https://ppf.cascadiapoeticslab.org/2021/11/08/dave-garbutt-interview/.

He was born less than a mile from where Keats lived in N London and sometimes describes himself as ‘a failed biologist, like Keats’, in the 70’s he moved to Reading until till moving to Switzerland (in 1994), where he still lives. He has found the time since the pandemic very productive as many workshops and groups opened up to non-locals as they moved to Zoom. 

Dave retired from the science and IT world in 2016 and he is active on Twitter, FaceBook, Medium.com, Flickr (he had a solo exhibition of his photographs in March 2017). He leads monthly bird walks around the Birs river in NW Switzerland. His tag is @DavGar51.

-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

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen,

a retired teacher and children’s library specialist, considers herself an adventurer. She has meandered the country in an old Chevy van and flown along on midnight runs in a smoky old Convair 440 to deliver the Wall Street Journal. She is a licensed pilot, coffee house lingerer, and finds her inspiration and solace in nature in all its glorious diversity. Loving wife and mother, she makes her home in the wilds of Portland OR. www.MudAndInkPoetry.art 

-Kyla Houbolt’s

first two chapbooks, Dawn’s Fool (Ice Floe Press) and Tuned (CCCP Chapbooks), were published in 2020. Tuned is also available as an ebook. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Had, Barren, Juke Joint, Moist, Trouvaille Review, and elsewhere. Find her work at her linktree: https://linktr.ee/luaz_poet. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet.

Another French form.

Here are the basic rules of the dizain:

⚫ One 10-line stanza

⚫ 10 syllables per line

• Employs the following rhyme scheme:

a

b

a

b

b

c

c

d

c

d

Helpful Websites

https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/160221482/posts/6465

https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/116093637/posts/24348

Chiaroscuro

The moon drums its fingers
across Carnelian Lake, shrugs,
waits for the loon cry.
Seckel pears fester on the ground,
soft & meaningless. Blisters
weep for winter, feed
what could become spring.

Could. Conditional tense,
what we wish for. Hope for.
The gaze is everything
Silence scabs thought
& all dead belong to the King.
God. Religion’s needle,
dull blue bruise. Hurt
means feeling & feeling
means alive. We knuckle
our fear. We hope

our feet to the floor
every morning. A new
song drops & we dance
in the kitchen, throw open
our curtains to the sky.

-Lynne Jensen Lampe

My Desirous Destination:

I am lost in the haunted labyrinth of uncertainties.
My frustrations are frightening me
like poltergeists.
Like a vagabond, my conversation is wandering
from person to person
yet no one gave me a compass
that can lead me to
a station from where I can
board a train to relief.
But I don’t wanna
surrender to the tenebrous shell so
I will continue reading and writing poetries
for they are my amulets.

-©Spriha Kant

Bios and Links

-Lynne Jensen Lampe

was born in Newfoundland and raised mostly in Louisiana. Themes of conformity, sanity, gender, and faith often find their way into her work, including her debut collection, Talk Smack to a Hurricane (Ice Floe Press, 2022). Her poems appear in many journals, including Moist, Figure 1, Yemassee, The American Journal of Poetry, and One, as well as UK anthology SMEOP: Urban and on podcasts such as Eat the Storms. She was a finalist for the 2020 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize. Lynne lives with her husband and two dogs in the US Midwest, where she edits academic books and journals. Find her at https://lynnejensenlampe.com or on Twitter @LJensenLampe.

A link to Lynne’s new book’s page at Ice Floe: https://icefloepress.net/talk-smack-to-a-hurricane-lynne-jensen-lampe/

-Spriha Kant

developed an interest in reading and writing poetries at a very tender age. Her poetry “The Seashell” was first published online in the “Imaginary Land Stories” on August 8, 2020, by Sunmeet Singh. She has been a part of Stuart Matthew’s anthologies “Sing, Do the birds of Spring” and “A Whisper Of Your Love” in the fourth and fifth series of the books from #InstantEternal poetry prompts. She has been featured in the Bob Dylan-inspired anthology “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” by the founder and editor of the website “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art” David L O’ Nan. Her poetries have been published in the anthology “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the Mind”. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry, “A Monstrous Shadow” as the “Seventh Synergy” in “SYNERGY: CALLING ALL WRITERS WHO ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS” on his blog “Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com by David L’O Nan. Her acrostic poetry “A Rainstorm” has been featured in the Poetic Form Challenge on the blog “Wombwell Rainbow” owned by Paul Brookes. She also joined the movement “World Suicide Prevention Day” by contributing her poetry “Giving Up The Smooch” on the blog “Wombwell Rainbow”, an initiative taken by Paul Brookes. She celebrated National Poetry Day by contributing her poetry “Travel in the Laps of Nature” to the blog “Wombwell Rainbow”. Her poetry “I love your smile” has been featured by Paul Brookes on his blog “Wombwell Rainbow” for the celebration of “World Smile Day”. She has reviewed the poetry books “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews and “Spaces” by Clive Gresswell.

F 1.10. dullahan-irish-headless-horseman

F 2.10. Basilisk

F 3.10. Sekien Jorogumo

So Patrick smashed the stone head with a hammer

They made him gruesome,
his own severed head in hand,
and they named him Crom Dubh, the dark,
twisted one, and they gave him a horse.

He was once just a head, Crom Cruach,
(they revered heads in those days) and a god.
In those days, a god reflected what is,
a god was not a magician who made wishes come true,
if only we were good enough, prayed enough,
paid our dues to the regulators.

A god was what is, the night, the day, thunder
and the sun, rain and plenty, floods and famine.
A god was, because what is, is.

To respect what is, is subversive.
Who knows where it might lead.
We might cease to believe that we are responsible
for holding the cables that anchor the world.
That without our sacrifice and obedience,
the world will drift into chaos.

We might lift our deferential, fearful eyes
from the ground, and we would see the stars.

The ancients knew, that what is, is. We are.
We can only watch in awe, and nothing we can do or say
will change the turning of the seasons or the sickness,
let the child live or stop the body’s aging.

Unless, of course, we know of magic well water,
Or have the ear of a wise salmon.

-Jane Dougherty

The Basel Cockatrice, 1474

From a rooster’s body I was laid
incubated by a toad, confused
from birth, “how was I made?”

My featherless wings of soft skin
disgust my feathered kin: I am not them,
but my wattled head revolts batty things.
“How can I grow? How can I change?”

I was tried; my lawyer defended but the court ruled
I couldn’t be. In Kohlenberg they lit
a fire and—whatever I was—I died.

Now memorial fountains of the mis-born cockatrice
pepper the city; if you’re burning — there’s water there.

-Dave Garbutt

Headless horseman

a man killed in battle, a ghost
doomed to ride through foreign lands–

or a demon, a dark fairy, calling the name of those
about to die–
perhaps he is Death himself—

perhaps he rides, not only a horse, but a donkey, or camel,
or may travels on foot, or rumble on a motorcycle—

no need for a helmet–
he holds his head at his side,

if he summons you, ignore him, look away–
no one lives who sees his face.

-Merril D Smith

Dark Horse (F1.10 Dullahan)

Black against the ghoulish moon,
The horse looms, mid-stride, his bones
sodden with silvery sluice of fog
jagged and splintered.
His head – once proud-
is held stiff, resigned, eye blank.
Blind to all, he is fiercely unknowing,
gazing inward away from the breathing world.
Heedless of his headless rider.

Flinty hoof poised, he seems to pause
in delicate balance before he strikes the ground.
sparks flying. A flash of lightning.
He explodes into motion, ignited.
Galloping, pounding, racing at hellish speed
As though chased by the devil.

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen

Bios and Links

-Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

-Eryn McConnell

is a poet originally from the UK who now lives in South Germany with their family. They have been writing poetry since their teens and is currently working on their second collection of poems.

-Spriha Kant

developed an interest in reading and writing poetries at a very tender age. Her poetry “The Seashell” was first published online in the “Imaginary Land Stories” on August 8, 2020, by Sunmeet Singh. She has been a part of Stuart Matthew’s anthology “Sing, Do the birds of Spring” in the fourth series of books from #InstantEternal poetry prompts. She has been featured in the Bob Dylan-inspired anthology “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” by the founder and editor of the website “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art” David L O’ Nan. Her poetries have been published in the anthology “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the Mind”. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry, “A Monstrous Shadow”, based on a photograph clicked by herself, as the “Seventh Synergy” in “SYNERGY: CALLING ALL WRITERS WHO ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS” on his blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com by David L’O Nan. She has reviewed the poetry book “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews. Her acrostic poetry “A Rainstorm” has been published in the Poetic Form Challenge on the blog “TheWombwell Rainbow” owned by Paul Brookes. She also joined the movement “World Suicide Prevention Day” by contributing her poetry “Giving Up The Smooch” on the blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”, an initiative taken by Paul Brookes.

-Gaynor Kane

from Belfast in Northern Ireland, had no idea that when she started a degree with the OU at forty it would be life changing.  It magically turned her into a writer and now she has a few collections of poetry published, all by The Hedgehog Poetry Press Recently, she has been a judge for The North Carolina Poetry Society and guest sub-editor for the inaugural issue of The Storms: A journal of prose, poetry and visual art. Her new chapbook, Eight Types of Love, was released in July. Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com

-Dave Garbutt

has been writing poems since he was 17 and has still not learned to give up. His poems have been published in The Brown Envelope Anthology, and magazines (Horizon, Writers & Readers) most recently on XRcreative and forthcoming in the Deronda review. His poem ‘ripped’ was long listed in the Rialto Nature & Place competition 2021. In August 2021 he took part in the Postcard Poetry Festival and the chap book that came from that is available at the postcard festival website. https://ppf.cascadiapoeticslab.org/2021/11/08/dave-garbutt-interview/.

He was born less than a mile from where Keats lived in N London and sometimes describes himself as ‘a failed biologist, like Keats’, in the 70’s he moved to Reading until till moving to Switzerland (in 1994), where he still lives. He has found the time since the pandemic very productive as many workshops and groups opened up to non-locals as they moved to Zoom. 

Dave retired from the science and IT world in 2016 and he is active on Twitter, FaceBook, Medium.com, Flickr (he had a solo exhibition of his photographs in March 2017). He leads monthly bird walks around the Birs river in NW Switzerland. His tag is @DavGar51.

-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

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen,

a retired teacher and children’s library specialist, considers herself an adventurer. She has meandered the country in an old Chevy van and flown along on midnight runs in a smoky old Convair 440 to deliver the Wall Street Journal. She is a licensed pilot, coffee house lingerer, and finds her inspiration and solace in nature in all its glorious diversity. Loving wife and mother, she makes her home in the wilds of Portland OR. www.MudAndInkPoetry.art 

-Kyla Houbolt’s

first two chapbooks, Dawn’s Fool (Ice Floe Press) and Tuned (CCCP Chapbooks), were published in 2020. Tuned is also available as an ebook. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Had, Barren, Juke Joint, Moist, Trouvaille Review, and elsewhere. Find her work at her linktree: https://linktr.ee/luaz_poet. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet.

A Night in Hamilton

Aberdeen Road did you hear the expectant screaming
Backwards a bulwark who was walking
Come one and all take up your measure
Drop into the park by the lake etch your names in the trees
Each shall say in turn for we come and we go

Frozen cold by microchip factories contaminated steelwork warehouses
Gated designs in wrought iron historical handwork of tobacco merchants’ artisans
Hallelujah above and below the forged chariots

I was walking along a subsidiary canal below tall buildings neon billboard
Jesus was there too smoking a cigarette
Kenter he shouted across the asphalt yards what you up to these days?
Last days end days new days arising new beginnings afoot

Mostly I am tending to my mother
Nothing much beyond that to speak of

O raise your voices in song raise them up
Perhaps we will reach the river shore yet
Questions abound did you know each one has a dance number hat check card place in line

Rest here a while in this declivity of finality
Soon soldiers will saunter in perform a jump blues off Heaven’s truck and check names
Take away those without proper documents lock up the witnesses
Universe still spinning above the night
Veritable as we rise so we rise higher

Wealthy men gather to cart off cut blocks of ice in speed boats full of power tools
X that which can be seen view it take photographs sample noise from the universe below

Young and old the timid and bold anxious for the stadium to open come the red horses
Zachariah appears cuts a swath of fire through flower gardens a mesmeric act one

How Did It Go?

A friend of mine wrote a fantastic alphabet poem about New York City – I started mine thinking of ‘place’; in this construction, Hamilton, Ont., a once vibrant, then languishing industrial city about 2 hours from Buffalo. I grew up there, downtown. For the first four years, I lived in a huge old Georgian mansion, transformed into apartments, where my father was super. We lived on the first floor. This ‘sense-memory’ and the idea of a city-alphabet poem inspired this ecclesiastic rumination through a night-walk for End times. It was fun to create an Alphabet, even a meandering one along the edges of industrial-post industrial poetics.

-Robert Frede Kenter

Bird alphabet

Any bird can dip-dance,
each fluttering glide-hop
imitates jay-jumping.

Irreverent kettledrum-clattering—
listen, music-murdering notes
overwhelm pastoral quiet,

querulous rooks, strident-voiced,
tune unmusical vulture-songs
with xenolythic-pitched yammering,
zephyr-winged arguers born.

Kitchen memories

Apples baking,
candied dumpling-effluves,
filled grandma’s house,
indecently-delicious, just-baked.

Kitchen-longing memories,
nutmegged, orange plumcake-quetsched
remain, summer-scented,
those unctuous voloutes,
wind-borne excelsiors,
yellow-winged, zebra-dappled.

Sailing to the isle of apples

Away we sail, where apples grow,
Bound to search the western isles.
Calm sea waits for those who dare
Defy the whales and monsters there.
Echoes ring from mountain sides,
Fairies hosting with us riding,
Gerfalcons tossed from their wrists,
High among the white clouds circling,
Isle of apples, sharp eyes seeking.
Listen to the hoofbeats splashing,
Manannán’s white-maned horses racing,
Night will find us out at sea.
Owl-wings left behind us failing,
Pale dawn comes to trackless waves,
Row hard until the wind comes filling
Sails, till seals come guiding home to
Tír na nÓg, the blessed isle,
Unfolding sky and stars of youth.

(Jane says:It just occurred to me, the rules don’t state which alphabet we have to use. This is one using the Irish alphabet of 18 letters.)

How did it go?

With difficulty. The constraint of beginning with a set letter can be worked around with some head-scratching, but the possibilities for X and Z are limited, to say the least. Easy to end up with a lot of Xeroxes and herds of zebras. If I were to write another one though, I’d try and find a way of fitting Xerxes into it.

-Jane Dougherty

Maneuvers

Armies are out on maneuvers
Battlefield lines being drawn
Constantly under bombardment
Death and disease is the norm

Each soldier has their own home town
Families waiting for news
God gets his quota of prayers
Hoping there’s nothing to lose

In wishing for intervention
Just protection to bring them home
Kill or be killed is the mantra
Leaves scars running deep to the bone

Moved like pawns on a chessboard
Nudged forward one space at a time
Or sacrificed one for another
Pretending it isn’t a crime.

Queens and Kings, bishops and castles
Rulers might finally fall
Simply replaced by another
That wishes revenge for them all

Until more young soldiers are ready
Victory lies the refrain
When hatred gets the blood flowing
Xenophobia wins once again.

Youth watches its blood leak away
Zealots thrive while families pray.

How Did It Go?

The X is always the challenge. I put it off until I’d got past half way. I never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness for Xenophobia. I’ve used the U.S. spelling of maneuvers as it looks cleaner, no other reason.

-Tim Fellows

HOW I STARTED

Anyhow, I don’t tend to write long poems
Because I started out stealing moments
Closeted in my room
Determined to give voice to
Emotions I’d otherwise have to stuff with
Food I’d snuck, being called
Greedy when I was found out.
Heavy with depression
I would scrawl my feelings
Just short of plumbing their depths
Keeping secrets even from myself
Like how much I missed you
Ma, and how you used to be.
No, we didn’t know the extent
Of what you went through
Perhaps because you talked around it
Questions remained unanswered
Resentments festered
Stung with words and hands
Tears were withheld
Unacknowledged pain.
Vicarious living through offspring
Would not be my fate
Xenophobic I wasn’t
Yearning to broaden my horizons,
Zealous in pursuit of freedom, I write.

-Sheryl Singleton Lynch (09/27/22)

I AM AN INDEPENDENT HAPPY SINGLE WOMAN:

Accepting the truth our relationship has crumbled
Because remaining stuck in the past doesn’t work practically
Continuing my life afresh
Doing paintings and calligraphy
Emerging as an emotionally independent single woman
Fiercely facing all the blowing gusts individually
Guttering tears have stopped flowing from my eyes now
Hollowed hopes are now pitter-pattering with desirous raindrops
Including a to-do list in my target column
Joys are smooching me now
Keeping away all the things possessing our moments together
Loving myself
Moving on toward that point where the distance between us is of leap years
No need for any love in my life anymore
Organizing all the cluttered books in my library
Praising all the good poetries of others by myself with a cup of coffee
Quitting unnecessary mental stresses
Revamping my looks, old poetries, and interior of my home
Singing my favorite songs in synchronization with my dancing heart
Teeing off my everyday smilingly
Upping euphoria and enthusiasm in my psyche
“Vivacious woman” —my tag now
Wackiness in a wizened stage is a blessing
Xeric life replaced by blossomed life
Yonder orchestra of nightingales performing my cheerful life’s song
Zippiness flowing in my life like blood in my veins

How Did it go?

I have never tried an alphabetic poem before Paul Brookes challenged all the writers to try their hands at an Alphabetic poem. So, I just wrote all the letters from A to Z in a vertically downward position with a theme in my mind as a divorced woman becoming a happy independent single woman and just went with the flow of whatever came into my heart, and the piece got finished instantly in one take.

©Spriha Kant

Bios And Links

-Robert Frede Kenter

is a writer, editor, visual artist & the publisher of Ice Floe Press. Work recently in journals incl: CutbowQ, Streetcake Magazine, Feral, WatchYrHead, Anthropocene, FeversOf, Anti-Heroin-Chic. Work appears in The Book of Penteract, an Anthology (Penteract Press, 2022), The Poets of 2020 (FeversOf Press), Pandemic Love and Other Affinities, an Anthology (Ice Floe Press). Their most recent book is EDEN (2021), a hybrid now available at Rare Swan Press.

-Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

-Spriha Kant

developed an interest in reading and writing poetries at a very tender age. Her poetry “The Seashell” was first published online in the “Imaginary Land Stories” on August 8, 2020, by Sunmeet Singh. She has been a part of Stuart Matthew’s anthologies “Sing, Do the birds of Spring” and “A Whisper Of Your Love” in the fourth and fifth series of the books from #InstantEternal poetry prompts. She has been featured in the Bob Dylan-inspired anthology “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” by the founder and editor of the website “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art” David L O’ Nan. Her poetries have been published in the anthology “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the Mind”. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry, “A Monstrous Shadow” as the “Seventh Synergy” in “SYNERGY: CALLING ALL WRITERS WHO ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS” on his blog “Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com by David L’O Nan. Her acrostic poetry “A Rainstorm” has been featured in the Poetic Form Challenge on the blog “Wombwell Rainbow” owned by Paul Brookes. She also joined the movement “World Suicide Prevention Day” by contributing her poetry “Giving Up The Smooch” on the blog “Wombwell Rainbow”, an initiative taken by Paul Brookes. She celebrated National Poetry Day by contributing her poetry “Travel in the Laps of Nature” to the blog “Wombwell Rainbow”. She has reviewed the poetry books “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews and “Spaces” by Clive Gresswell.

-Tim Fellows

is a writer from Chesterfield in Derbyshire whose ideas are heavily influenced by his background in the local coalfields, where industry and nature lived side by side. His first pamphlet “Heritage” was published in 2019. His poetic influences range from Blake to Owen, Causley to Cooper-Clarke and more recently the idea of imagistic poetry and the work of Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez.

-Sheryl Singleton Lynch

is a poet and essayist who lives in New York City.  Her work has appeared in several journals, as well as in seven self-published collections available through Amazon, the latest, Folks and The Adventures of Lovemore Fearless (In No Particular Order) were released Summer 2022. In a previous life Sheryl worked as a telecommunications specialist and still shows signs of being a “nerdy girl.” Visit her website at sherylsingletonlynch.weebly.com.