Author: The Wombwell Rainbow
Day 20. Congratulations to all contributors on achieving two thirds of the challenge. My annual National Poetry Month 2022 ekphrastic challenge is a collaboration between artists Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, Anjum Wasim Dar, and writers, Angi Plant, Tim Fellows, Math Jones, Merril D. Smith, Jamie Woods, Lesley James, Lesley Curwen, Carrie Ann Golden, Peter A., Barbara Leonhard, Jane Dougherty, Eloise Birnam-Wood, Jen Feroze, Vicky Allen, Simon Williams, Jona Roy, Beth Brooke, Caroline Johnstone, Lynne Jensen Lampe and myself. April 20th.
Day Twenty
-Anjum Wasim Dar – Waves
-Gaynor Kane – Liverpool Lights
John Phandal Law – Whitby
Light Trail Photography
after Liverpool Lights GK20
Since I was admitted
everything is now
blurred and disjointed,
a prolonged exposure
to a living headache
of light trail photography.
No traffic or motion:
tedious strip lights and signs.
They gave me a book about my illness
but none of the letters
look like letters any more:
upstrokes, downstrokes
smudged and fractured,
confused, contused, lost.
– Jamie Woods
GK20
lights become lines
through the rain-smeared window
the late evening shades into night
warm welcome cold sheets
still waiting
for the journey which will never arrive
-Simon Williams
Be as Water
to AWD20 Waves
It flows from falls into silt,
creates pools and streams,
moves around rocks
and through openings
in masses of reeds.
Be as water.
It flows without obstruction.
It finds its course
over the embankments
into stillness fed by streams.
Be as water.
Earth’s pulse,
flexible, agile,
life giving, lithesome.
Its supple force cleanses all.
Be as water. Its nourishment
creates and sustains life.
Its steam forms clouds
in Earth’s simmering heat.
The ice in her arctic breath
pierces fog.
Be as water,
Pure and enriching,
with powers that can’t be harnessed.
It’s Earth’s blood.
It pumps life into her veins
with vital force.
Be as water,
Dangerous and destructive.
If Earth’s veins are slit,
her roaring torrents of tears
are savage and fatal.
Water knows its course.
Be as water.
A force of peace and joy,
it spits up shells and glassy treasures.
A force of nature,
it sweeps away the ages
that need rebirth.
-Barbara Leonhard
Waves
The waves are sparkling today,
bubble-froth on shining sand
straggles of brown seaweed
dragged in, abandoned
to dry out on high tide.
The April breeze picks up the salt
and cools it on our faces
in the lemon ice-cream sun.
Carries the sounds of reopened
amusement arcades, gulls
and excited children.
The first taste and sound of summer,
the town’s high tide,
lost in the ebb of drizzle drenched winter.
-Tim Fellows
-Carrie Ann Golden
20 AWD & GK
Think of an embroidery, free-style/ like a painting done on cloth/ think of Bayeux,
commemoration of battle/ like reportage as art. Think of tides /of spilled intentions, flashes
of exploded dreams/ wonder what threads, what skeins are strong enough/ to pick out
loss spilled from veins.
-Lesley James
20. [Waves AWD20]
Cross the ninth wave,
And you’ll be no longer
Known to us.
Leap the ninth crest,
Scatterjack rabbit,
Taken by the sea.
Shun the ninth furrow,
Hobbley-Too-High,
We will lose you to the time,
But the tenth, take the tenth,
And do you know,
We will see you in the dawn.
-Math Jones
Liverpool Lights
At night, light dances:
a shimmy on dark pavements,
heel-toe taps as the last bus
drives down the road.
Midnight eyes are tantalised
by neons; bright pulses
of jazz hand- yellow and
acid-white wave at nightclub
stragglers, tempt them to
stay, to dance in the rain.
-Beth Brooke
Infinite, Indefinite (Inspired by all three images)
What was here—or anywhere—
before light
traveled
streaming from no-time, from no-color,
from emptiness
flowing in waves,
as the tide of the universe
rises and falls
to burnish rooftops
and create shadows on the beach
where you stand
on glowing sand
against grey-green waves, blue sky,
and umbrellas rising like flowers
in a variety of hues–
at night, the rain will stream
the city lights into puddles
reflected to the sky
bouncing back to the boundless
in-between
and endless possibility.
-Merril D. Smith
Fossils (inspired by all three images)
Is this what was left when the lava cooled,
when the dust settled and the lights grew dim?
Are these cities, whose pulse
is the electric jerks of cabled blood,
our future?
Were all those millennia just preamble
for the great unplugging?
Beach and cliff call us back to the birth time,
the tiny things,
shells, crabs and sea-crawlers
in their sarcophagi of fossilized stone.
Dumb and blind now,
their stone ears are full of the booming silences
of prehistoric oceans,
in our hands, cool and smooth,
and not so dead as the concrete wastes
we have made of our hearts.
-Jane Dougherty
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)
NaPoWriMo 2022 day 19
A message from the obliterated to the obliterators
For Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge, I used the images by Anjum Wasim Dar and Gaynor Kane. You can see them here, along with all of the poetic responses.
A message from the obliterated to the obliterators
We don’t want to be put on a pedestal,
worshipped for our modesty and culinary skills,
kept out of the fray, the rough and tumble,
because we are too precious, too fragile,
because because because
Just stop asking or you know what will happen.
We don’t want to have decisions made for us,
because we are soft in the head, not quite formed,
but oh, so precious and maternal and modest,
and our place is safe indoors
and if you go outside alone, you’re a whore,
and you’ll get what’s coming to you.
We don’t accept that we need to ask permission,
that what you want is in anyway an ukase
dictated…
View original post 50 more words
Day 19, Ekphrastic Challenge, My Poem, Women’s March
Inspired by all three images: GK19 International Women’s Day Parade, AWD-19 Rotation, and JPL19
Women’s March
That January day we marched—family, friends, and strangers—
scared by the present, not knowing it would get worse—
we thought of past generations,
we thought of our children and grandchildren–
thousands of women—the blue sky crackled with our energy,
we were stars
unaware of black holes or dark matter,
we shifted light, and streams of color rotated,
perhaps a young girl alone saw a rainbow,
felt some hope.
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!
Day 19. My annual National Poetry Month 2022 ekphrastic challenge is a collaboration between artists Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, Anjum Wasim Dar, and writers, Angi Plant, Tim Fellows, Math Jones, Merril D. Smith, Jamie Woods, Lesley James, Lesley Curwen, Carrie Ann Golden, Peter A., Barbara Leonhard, Jane Dougherty, Eloise Birnam-Wood, Jen Feroze, Vicky Allen, Simon Williams, Jona Roy, Beth Brooke, Caroline Johnstone, Lynne Jensen Lampe and myself. April 19th.
Day Nineteen
-Gaynor Kane – International Women’s Day Parade, Belfast
-Anjum Wasim Dar – Rotation
-John Phandal Law
-Jane Dougherty
The Last Man on Earth
had plenty of time on his hands.
Time to ponder the big questions.
How had it come to this?
Would another species evolve
with the ability to destroy itself?
And why is the last human on Earth
always a man?
-Tim Fellows
19 AWD
It’s fuel on the surface of waves
which tells a truth
phosphorescent and slick
polychromatic interference to transmission.
Their hair linaria-frondy
mermaids torment sailors inside a sealed
metal box on a coastal sea-bed
their loss concealed by incandescent
fuel on the surface of waves
concealing truth.
And in one metal box inland,
what makes a tormentor
think surrender
different from death?
-Lesley James
JPL19
I’m going to tell you
the end of the story –
the ending few of us
have ever been told. The
Government would prefer
that no one ever hears
how breaking promises
may be punished; it might
give the People ideas
of leader replacement.
You must remember the
Town of Hamelin and
its plague of rodents, how
the Town Council reneged
on the agreed payment
for eradication
of the infestation
carried out in good faith
by the Pied Piper and
his faithful instrument.
When the Town Council said
they would not pay him the
Piper went out and played
a lively tune, leading
the town’s children distant,
dancing hill-ward never
to return – you know this
but know also there was
an orphan in the town
who remained resistant.
His ear was musical
and he duplicated
the virtuosity
of the piping stranger,
neutralising the sound.
He then devised a new
tune which he played in front
of the Town House until
the councillors, like rats,
followed and were drowned.
-Peter A.
Human Spirit (JPL19)
The music
Within
No foe
On land, in water
Can defeat
As long
It keeps
Playing
-Carrie Ann Golden
At Low Tide (JPL19)
Wet sand under bare feet,
cool water on toes,
the smell of the sea,
the cry of gulls
and an expanse of blue
and that feeling-
like there is only you –
and you stand as tall
as King Canute and
imagine, for a minute,
that you can succeed
where he did not,
and you look out
at the horizon until
the lapping of the
water lets you know
that the tide is on the turn.
-Beth Brooke
19. [Rotation AWD19]
I’m spinning,
You know, but I don’t know,
Which way.
Who’s winning,
You go, I’m too slow, so
You say.
You’re grinning,
It’s shows, you’re going to go,
Today.
Beginning
To flow, so much to throw
Astray
And singing,
Alone, trombone, and no
Dismay.
-Math Jones
Cassandras Rising
to GK 19 International Women’s Day Parade, Belfast
Women, gold out of abyss,
Rise just in time.
We were disposed of,
Gagged with snakes,
Green-scaled hush money,
Our prophecies cursed
By Apollo’s crowd,
Hoarding their prides
Of child brides,
Of maidens chained to duty.
We refuse to bear Apollo’s young
To spare our tongues.
Our grandmothers, mothers, sisters,
Our Bodies, our Selves,
Cannot be bound
By those who pose
As blind gods
Celebrating their grand delusions.
We overturn the hard ground
To sow new gardens.
Soil does bleed
In re-creation.
We labor to birth a new Earth
As prophesied.
We burn our life stations,
Designed by the Pantheon,
For confinement no longer serves us.
We sing our notes in harmony.
We don’t say, “Me, too!”
We say, “We do!”
-Barbara Leonhard
AWD-19
your face
your face
always and forever
wherever
I may look
your face
-Simon Williams
Women’s March (Inspired by all three images: GK19 International Women’s Day Parade, AWD-19 Rotation, and JPL19)
That January day we marched—family, friends, and strangers—
scared by the present, not knowing it would get worse—
we thought of past generations,
we thought of our children and grandchildren–
thousands of women—the blue sky crackled with our energy,
we were stars
unaware of black holes or dark matter,
we shifted light, and streams of color rotated,
perhaps a young girl alone saw a rainbow,
felt some hope.
-Merril D Smith
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)
Games people play
For the 18th day of Paul Brookes’ April poetry challenge, a poem inspired by the painting Playing Field by Anjum Wasim Dar. Please call by Paul’s blog to read the other poems too.
Games people play
Funny to think of people playing
at a time like this
men chasing a ball
crowds cheering and hugging
as if as if as if
the world was saved
the children not dead
the cities not destroyed
the oceans not poisoned
the forests not razed.
Funny how they can cheer
at a time like this
as if as if as if
the most important thing beneath the sun
is a ball kicked into the back of a net
almost as funny as arguing
over celebrity antics
TV characters
or which side God is on
the devout murderers’
or the humane unbelievers’.
Napowrimo 2022 day 18
Day 18. My annual National Poetry Month 2022 ekphrastic challenge is a collaboration between artists Gaynor Kane, John Phandal Law, Anjum Wasim Dar, and writers, Angi Plant, Tim Fellows, Math Jones, Merril D. Smith, Jamie Woods, Lesley James, Lesley Curwen, Carrie Ann Golden, Peter A., Barbara Leonhard, Jane Dougherty, Eloise Birnam-Wood, Jen Feroze, Vicky Allen, Simon Williams, Jona Roy, Beth Brooke, Caroline Johnstone, Lynne Jensen Lampe and myself. April 18th.
Day Eighteen
-John Phandal Law
-Anjum Wasim Dar – Playing Field
-Gaynor Kane
AWD18 – Playing Field
from above
an enlightened view
adjusts
the corrective lens
which spins
kaleidoscopic truth
from lies
that life has stilled —
rejecting
the homogenised,
eyes spy
dancers in the plain
-Peter A
Be a Lady
to GK18 Ice Queen at C.S.Lewis Square Belfast
Hold in your tummy
When you walk, or else
You won’t be pretty. I want you
To do the dishes for Mrs.Smith
After dinner with them on Saturday.
No complaints –
It builds character. By the way,
Everyone can see you misbehaving
In the choir. You’re setting a bad example
For your brothers and sisters.
Don’t play with your hair
When you talk to those boys
Across the park. Such flirting,
Will only cause you trouble.
Ladies don’t wear such shirt skirts.
We want you home by nine.
No complaints!
Don’t cross your eyes like that.
They’ll freeze in place.
-Barbara Leonhard
18. [Playing Field AWD18]
In my new dress of green,
I settle softly on the grass,
Hoped to watch the summer pass,
Reflect on what I’ve seen.
Johnny had come by to ask
My father in the lambing field
If he might a cottage build,
And me to be his lass.
I ached to see my father yield,
(Johnny is a handsome lad,
But comes in cloth of scripture clad),
A spit and shake and sealed.
And with a choice I never had,
I sit amongst the butterflies,
All circled round me in disguise,
And yearning to be sad.
But still beneath the growing skies
The wings, that never were the same,
Seem to play a fairy game
Of little ladies. little guys,
Chasing for a sacred name
They fling above the bounding air,
Rolling, dressed in only hair,
And ignorant of shame,
They intimate another where,
A girl in her new dress of green,
Might slip off glady, never seen,
And Johnny will not care.
Math Jones
Level Playing Field
The playing field
slopes right to left;
steeper and steeper
until it becomes
vertical.
-Tim Fellows
Games people play
Funny to think of people playing
at a time like this
men chasing a ball
crowds cheering and hugging
as if as if as if
the world was saved
the children not dead
the cities not destroyed
the oceans not poisoned
the forests not razed.
Funny how they can cheer
at a time like this
as if as if as if
the most important thing beneath the sun
is a ball kicked into the back of a net
almost as funny as arguing
over celebrity antics
TV characters
or which side God is on
the devout murderers’
or the humane unbelievers’.
-Jane Dougherty
Marram Grass (JPL18)
Onshore breeze strokes the strands
of marram grass the way a person
might caress a cat
and the marram grass moves
lithe as a cat, leans with the wind,
watches the sand grains shift
along the shore.
-Beth Brooke
JPL18
I bend
I bend
like bamboo
I bend
in the typhoon
I bend
no matter what the world may do
I bend
because the alternative is breaking
breath taking
heart aching
an end to future making
so I bend
but I bend from strength not weakness
I bend full of light not of darkness
I bend
-Simon Williams
Rorschach Test (AWD18)
He was sweating and so was his bloody
mary. Coasters. He checked the coffee-table
drawer and found a small canvas, a swirl
of absinthe and maraschino cherry spikes.
The painting made him think of columbine—
the flower, not the shooting. When they
moved to this house just two stems flailed
in the front bed, but now they were everywhere,
the columbine outlasting the azalea,
hellebore, bleeding heart. Flowers dim
their colors as summer bleeds out to fall.
Her mother’s assignment. Art therapy.
She’d forgotten about it, never asked
what it was. Red yarn, maybe, the kind
that tufts a blanket made of old denim and faded
flour sacks, heavy as an xray shield. Every
cedar chest holds at least one. She stared
at the green shimmer, remembered her mother’s
crème de menthe. In the painting she saw a crazy
quilt—knots against chartreuse satin stitched
to vermilion velvet and white wool. It didn’t belong.
Not here. She wanted nothing to do with crazy.
—Lynne Jensen Lampe
Windbreak
After JPL18
If the sickened wind
blew iller or harder
the arching stems could reach
snapping point
and that’s why we have splints
and poles and windbreaks
and that’s why we have medicines and vaccines and plasters
at the lake the long grass regrows each year
and that’s how we know we might just survive
-Jamie Woods
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)
The Wombwell Rainbow 