Anthony Howell‘s poem, ‘Envelopes’, is inspired by the life and work of Mark Lombardi, an American neo-conceptual artist who specialized in drawings that document alleged financial and political frauds by power brokers, government agencies and organised crime, thus mapping abuses of control. His suicide by hanging is disputed.

*****

Mark Lombardi  (1961-2000)

*****

Anthony has supplied the following  introduction to his poem:

Perhaps the reader’s  appreciation of this poem might be enhanced by some discourse around it. Aphrodite – goddess of Beauty, not Love – was the wife of Hephaistos, the blacksmith and arms-dealer to the gods. In her book Interlock – Art, Conspiracy, and the Shadow Worlds of Mark Lombardi (Counterpoint, Berkley 2015) Patricia Goldstone argues that the global web of corruption and terror that Lombardi delineates graphically is akin to a rhizome in the sense that it does not have a single head, but like a…

Michael Lee Johnson lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada.  Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois.  Mr. Johnson published in more than 1072 new publications, his poems have appeared in 38 countries, he edits, publishes 10 poetry sites.  Michael Lee Johnson, has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/2 Best of the Net 2017, 2 Best of the Net 2018.  214 poetry videos are now on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos.  Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762; editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses available here   https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089.  Editor-in-chief Warriors with Wings:  The Best in Contemporary Poetry, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1722130717.

Vodka Omelet

Make it clear in my mind, Jesus, am I whacked-out on Double Cross Vodka or have I flipped…

David Spicer has published poems in The American Poetry Review, CircleStreet, Gargoyle, Moria, Oyster River Pages, Ploughshares, Remington Review, Santa Clara Review, The Sheepshead Review, Steam Ticket, Synaeresis, Third Wednesday, Yellow Mama, and elsewhere. Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart twice, he is author of six chapbooks and four full-length collections, the latest two being American Maniac (Hekate Publishing) and Confessional (Cyberwit.net). His fifth, Mad Sestina King, is forthcoming from FutureCycle Press. His website is http://www.davidspicer76.com.

THE IMPATIENCE OF INSOMNIACS

Early morning. Neighbors slept like spoiled cats. I guessed they dreamed as I rode past their homes,   homes quiet as dreams, not guessing my bike ride. Robins fussed before the moon blessed me.   The moon blessed the fussing robins’ songs. I jogged and thought of you coughing in the dark.   Had your dark cough jogged my thought of you…

Born in Mauritius in 1977, Vatsala Radhakeesoon is the author of various poetry books and an experimental abstract artist.

She started writing poems in English at the age of 14 and kept on expanding her poetic skills in other languages such as French, Mauritian Kreol and Hindi.
Vatsala Radhakeesoon is one of the representatives of Immagine and Poesia, an Italy based literary movement uniting artists and poets’ works. She has been selected as one of the poets for Guido Gozzano Poetry contest from 2016 to 2019. Her haiku book Tropical Temporariness has also been nominated for University of North Texas (UNT) Rilke prize 2020 .At the age of 41 in 2019 Vatsala started abstract painting and considers this as a miraculous turning point in her life.

Vatsala Radhakeesoon currently lives at Rose-Hill, Mauritius and her day job is that of a literary translator. She is also one of the interview…

Glenn Hubbard lives in Madrid, where he teaches an English which is often rather ugly. Perhaps for this reason he started writing poetry.

He has had work published in a large number of online and paper journals. One of his poems was submitted for the Forward Prize

in 2019 and this year he won the Bangor Literary Journal’s FORTY WORDS competition with his poemThirlage. He can occasionally

become a little obsessiveabout a poem but this is amply compensated for the marvelous experience of losing all sense of time while

he writes. His poetry owes a great deal to that of the late R.F. Langley.

The Beneficence of the Foxglove

See how contentedly the bee ascends each bell within the woody dell.
See how well it fits.
See the bright trumpets; the rambler’s delight.
See how the sickly babe revives, how the parent cries He lives! No longer…

Sarah Mackey Kirby is a Kentucky poet and writer. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Boston Literary Magazine, Connecticut River Review, Impspired, Muddy River Poetry Review, Rat’s Ass Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MA in Teaching and a BA in Political Science. She is focusing on her writing and taking a break from teaching high school history to students who nicknamed her Momma Kirbs and kept her current on young folk lingo.

Compass from the Ruins

I wonder if your dad hadn’t died whether we would have met. Or if he’d done it a different way. Something less son-wrecking than with rope, waiting for you to find him among old boxes and garage tools. If your heart had been just a little less shredded, the pictures in your head a bit less acidic. If we would have happened. Or if I’d stayed home, and that chilly…

Linnet Phoenix is a poet who lives in North Somerset, England. She has been writing poetry for years. Her work has previously been published in Impspired, Punk Noir Magazine, Raven Cage Zine and Open Skies Quarterly. She also enjoys horse-riding.

Cursive Kisses

I listen to the night breeze
for it tells tales of you.
Whispering sweet words
so low I cannot hear
which fae story is told.
I place favour on paper.
Black ink that sinks soft
in grains. A perfume lingers.
Cursive kisses blown,
fingertip touches the void
feeling hair tendrils
with soft twist, a wistful
smile of darkened eyes.
The morning sun may lie
swathed in night clouds
as the blackbird sings
a song of days evermore.

Bruised

Evergreen it holds leaves fast as winter winds tear and rip, heart shaped shaking, waiting for spring warmth. This thing evolves, transcends magnolia blush buds of lust past, blooms of…

This week it is my pleasure to review Barbara Cumbers’ memorable depiction of the Shetland Islands in her latest collection, In the simmer dim (Dempsey and Windle, 2022). I have known Barbara for some time as a fellow member of the Open University Poets’ Society and have long been an admirer of her poetry. It is six years since her first collection, A gap in the rain (Indigo Dreams, 2016), so this new work has been eagerly awaited.

Written in response to a number of extended stays on the islands, Cumbers uses her finely-tuned powers of observation and her aptitude for striking imagery to bring alive their distinctive landscapes and bird life. She is a geologist and ornithologist and it shows. Take for example her poem describing the effects of seasonal change on the appearance of the puffins (Winter puffins). She beautifully characterizes the comic appearance of the…