F 1.20. The far darrig

F 2.20. LEGEND OF THE TUIÚIÚ (JABIRU STORKS)

F 3.20. The Blue Lady

The Jabiru Storks (Inspired by F2.20)

Even with upturned beaks they always look sad.
Forever with their naked heads bowed
to the ground. Long legs raking dirt
where legend says, that long ago, a kindly couple
who fed them grain from the palms of their hands,
are buried now beneath the dust.

Like children, they return looking for handouts,
then sulk and pace in circles, like weaned fledglings
chasing worms; expecting food to jump right in
to their black and swollen throats

-Gaynor Kane

 

The Blue Lady (Inspired by 3.20 “The Blue Lady”)

Perhaps this one is different—
in blue, the color of hope.

Perhaps she is distinct,
unlike the spectral women
of grey, white, and red—

the scorned and deceived
set on revenge, the victims
who incited lust.

Perhaps she’s only set apart
by youth, a maiden still—

perhaps she wanted more–
prejudged, condemned,

perhaps you see her,
perhaps you don’t—

she’s trapped between
what was and what might have been.

-Merril D Smith

Pearls for a baby (inspired by the Blue Lady of Temple Newsam)

Who would give pearls to a baby,
a string of bad luck,
too much to hold in tiny fists?

And then the highwayman,
at gunpoint
in the lonely dark,

took her pearls
and her mind, they said,
but perhaps

that was not all
he took, she lost,
she searched for,

in the round and round
of madness, the spiral that
could only end in death.

What did he expect?
Giving pearls to a baby
and a lifetime of bad cess.

-Jane Dougherty

20. The New Baby

(F 1.20 Far darrig)

It wasn’t hers, she said. There’d been a mistake. I said, you were out of your mind when you birthed her. How would you know? She said, the red dent on the forehead. The forceps, said someone. It’ll hammer out. Give it a day. A day? said she. By then the far darrig will be far away with my baby. And I am ashamed to say I did not believe her. The red cap, she said. The red – I should never have married an Englishman. As I rolled my eyes at another new father, beeping screamed out. Several machines on the ward began glitching, then harmonising, like laughter. The child in the cot that bore my name turned happily, soothed by the circuits’ shrieks. You know, said a nurse, post-natal dysphoria – my wife’s eyes shot her like a blowdart. The baby, of course, was my baby. We all say a lot of things when we’re weary. Rested, home and familiar, my wife was love itself, all-surrounding, a nourishing canopy. Years went on, and the baby stretched and groaned into a version of me. We joked about that first day, but truly the far darrig’s victory lay in my scrutiny. Trained on my son, euphoric with relief, I missed the trick entirely. Followed the hand and the patter, tracked the wrong cup. Missed the switchling who opened her shirt to him, smiling.

-Kirsten Irving

Far Darrig

Of course you’re a changeling
I should know, I did it myself,
for a laugh. I took a boy
now ‘he’s awa’ with the fairies’.

Oh, happy, they love humans,
so well behaved and loving—
their own are not that,
souring breast milk, hobbling kine
beating up the non-fae kids
strangling cats, running dance marathons.

It’s a laugh a minute
watching lives collapse
air out of tyres, brake fluid drips
rewiring plugs, relabelling fuses.

-Dave Garbutt.

Gone (F2.20 LEGEND OF THE TUIÚIÚ (JABIRU STORKS)

wind sighs through the wingtips
the sibilant hiss of formless sorrow
stirring the fringe feathers in whispers
endlessly dripping, drooping,
scooping the wind
and sifting for familiar familial sound
-chattering, scattering seeds, sharing feed-
those who came with sustenance and smiles
now gone – the wind is suddenly silent.

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen @boscoedempsey

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.

F 3.19 The White Lady A_Magician_by_Edward_Kelly

F 1.19. Gancanagh

F 2.19 pe garaffa bottle foot

 

Don’t Raise the Dead (3,19 The White Lady a Magician by Edward Kelly)

Rising from the crypt-
fiery pins and needles rippling up and down awakening limbs,
sky dizzyingly vast, the fresh air aglow like hellfire.

Better to stay dead and molder in the dark,
every inch of home known.

All is confusion, the unrest,
the intrusion on atrophied senses -moonlight blindingly white,
the hammer blow of tromping feet,
cloying odor of sweat and peat.

Better to stay dead and molder in the dark
Decaying all alone.

Memories, long dormant, erupt in a roiling
chaos of flitting images and sensations.
Glimpses of faces, inklings of voices, fleeting motion.
Grief comes alive.

Better to stay dead.

Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen @boscoedempsey

Edward Kelly, Magician (Image, 3.19, Edward Kelly, A Magician in the Act of Invoking the Spirit of a Deceased Person)

He speaks with angels,
raises the dead,
shares the thoughts of a spirit guide,
gold comes with sharing brides.

And what of his wife? And Mistress Dee?
How willingly did they comply? What did they see?

Magic brings him fame and fortune—
wealth accrued through deception,
arcane words and symbols, hands waved
in half-light—
did he believe in angel-language and alchemy,
crystal balls and second sight?

He rises, but he plumets and bleeds,
a man, not immortal,
felled from jealousy, lust, and greed.

-Merril D Smith

I met Gancanagh

I met Gancanagh in Bedford Park
when we were sprites that didn’t know
that doings in the dark could lead
to the Birch Bog or the carpet of stars.

We raised a glass to London Town,
we raised a glass to Ireland
we raised one to the unobtainable
(although he claimed there were none)
and a double for the next poem—
always the best–—the unassailable;
and we went our way
sent postcards once a year
and on into our lives we wrote the rest.

-Dave Garbutt

The woman in white (again)

She always wears white.
No one would see, in the dark,
if she wore black.

And if no one
were to see,
what would be the point?

Can you haunt
someone who doesn’t know
you are there?

Can you frighten
someone who doesn’t know
who you are?

And where does she go
in the daylight, when no one
would notice

her insubstantial transparency,
and waiting for night, how
does she fill up her time?

I wonder if such apparitions
of dead, virginal women
spring from guilty consciences,

only visible to men
who find it hard
to sleep at night.

-Jane Dougherty

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

Spriha Kant is a poetess and a book reviewer. Her poetry was featured firstly digitally in the “Imaginary Land Stories”, the poetry featured was “The Seashell”. Her poetries have been published in anthologies including “Sing, Do the birds of Spring”, “A Whisper Of Your Love”, “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” and “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” and many other poetries on his blog “Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com. She has reviewed three poetry books, including, “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews “Spaces” by Clive Gresswell, and “Washed Away- a collection of fragments” by Shiksha Dheda. She has been a part of the celebration for Jeff Flesch’s launch of his debut poetry book “Nature Speaks of Love and Sorrow”.

-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 

Menopause (On the World Menopause Day)

The red leaf I brought for my mother
from an exotic tree made her cry, and she
whispered, sending ripples across her
black Darjeeling, “Don’t mind me. Mood swings
in my autumn. Some days are salt. Some days
are blood.” I didn’t comprehend.

There were crow feathers cawing, “Good afternoon.”
There was a hiss midst the grass, “Hibernation, soon.”

“I could never have another son.” My mother murmured.
I could not comprehend.

-Kushal Poddar

The Menopause Diary:

A transition bloomed in my body.
My body is burning like a hot Sandwich griller.
My skin glowing like an ember is
exuding moisture profusely through its pores.
My granny used to say well-used vaginas on aging
dry and shrink. Maybe, this is the reason
pains are gripping me tightly while sitting, exercising, and peeing.
Dryness is flaring its bellows on my skin and in my eyes and mouth.
I fell while tight-roping my sleep.
My mood is drenched in mercurial rain.
No more fertility
for my womb is like a barren tree now.
A transition bloomed in my body.

-©Spriha Kant

Menopause

Not slept for nights on end but still hauling myself up
Pale enough to be asked if I’m feeling no better
But all I am is aching and exhausted tortured
By the craziest dreams and days of forgetfulness
Did I leave my glasses in the fridge again?

Horrible repetitive acid that boils whatever I eat
Some foods off the menu make it worse
And I’m sure I asked you to do that but you didn’t
You say I never even mentioned it
Am I losing my mind the tears come

Followed quickly by anger at anything and nothing
My joints ache creaking like stairs of an old house
Suddenly my face feels like an old sock worn out
Too many washe, full of holes, ready for the bin
Sleep with no covers on, windows open wide

Even on HRT I no longer feel quite like me
And I’m unable to pinpoint why that is yet
I don’t accept the things I used to just ignore
The people that would bully me for sport are told
Unequivocally that they’re getting no more warnings

As I yawn behind my hand and try to recall what it was
I actually came into the room for
Or when I read the notes I made in the dead of night
To write down in day I’ve not the faintest clue
What it was I was driving at at all

Some days I’ve migraine so bad I want to lie in a dark room
Until I get better but I could be there days you see
Like many women I have so many symptoms and try to
Just get on with them however crappy it all feels
And then I’m asked how are you doing, today

I think of saying well it’s like this or
That I feel like a burst balloon tied with string
And I answer as I always do, we all do
Oh, I’m fine you know.

-©Ailsa Cawley 2022

A Guide to Surviving the Menopause

1. When over-heating during the night throw off the covers and howl at the moon.
2. Whenever possible wander around town for hours, or along the beach, searching for the young man/woman you mistakenly think you have fallen in love with.
3. Move out of your house temporarily and:
4. Live in a hut
5. Volunteer to teach small children high up in the Andes
6. Travel to the deserts of the world
7. Go and live at your friend’s place while she is away
8. Yell, throw plates, tell your husband/wife/lover/partner/ that he/she is the most boring person you have ever met
9. Try to sleep with your colleague/guide/tutor/friend – this is unlikely to be successful but no one can later accuse you of not making the effort
10. Refuse to cook/clean/iron/work – in fact refuse anything you don’t want to do – after all you have spent a life-time as a people-pleaser and surely it is time for a change
11. Get outrageously drunk/smoke/get off your head, dance madly, cause some kind of scene/any kind of scene
12. Get a tattoo/shave off your hair, wear your pants on your head
13. Turn up the music loud to annoy your neighbours
14. Climb a tree, canoe a river, give away your possessions

One day you will wake up and you will be through this stage of your life and even though you will not miss the flushes and sweats, the giddy spells, the foggy brain, the fits of rage, you will miss the madness of it all.

-Bronwen Griffiths

Bios and Links

-Kushal Poddar 

An author, journalist, and a father, Kushal Poddar, editor of ‘Words Surfacing’, authored eight books, the latest being ‘Postmarked Quarantine‘. His works have been translated into eleven languages. 

amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet

Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe 

-Bronwen Griffiths

is the author of two novels and two collections of flash fiction. Her flash fiction has been widely published both online and in print anthologies. She is currently working on a novella

-Spriha Kant

is a poetess and a book reviewer. Her poetry was featured firstly digitally in the “Imaginary Land Stories“, the poetry featured was “The Seashell”. Her poetries have been published in anthologies including “Sing, Do the birds of Spring”, “A Whisper Of Your Love”, “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” and “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” and many other poetries on his blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com. She has reviewed three poetry books, including, “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews “Spaces” by Clive Gresswell, and “Washed Away- a collection of fragments” by Shiksha Dheda. She has been a part of the celebration for Jeff Flesch’s launch of his debut poetry book “Nature Speaks of Love and Sorrow”.

-Ailsa Cawley

Ailsa was brought up in the North East of England, and now lives on the Isle of Skye. She’s always been fascinated with myths, legends, faery tales and folklore whether it’s horror or local legend. She’s currently in editing stages of her first novel which includes some ghostly characters (surprise, surprise!) and has a story in the Red Dog GONE anthology in November.