They came to see the girl , they had to choose, and then she was chosen all the time the boy and the boys mother,sat looking at her,she was frozen
wonder what they had in mind, what they expected, what they saw in reality, her fair color, smoothness of skin, length of hair and body, style of femininity
the tea trolley had felt heavy as she pushed it in the living room, steps heavy on the carpeted floor, eyelids dropping with sleep, she glimpsed a fat belly
wondered whose was it in the family chosen for her, for future life and living ‘tea has a good taste, did you make it ? a croaky voice sounded tight n chilling
she dared not raise her eyes, she was not supposed to typical Eastern attitude of shyness, maturity, submissiveness, obedience, acceptance,service n servitude
No fear, courting death Hovering shadows and shades Silver threads stretched about Hovering here with honeycombed ground Oblong cells, flowers of sleep New life quick in the damp earth A kind of tallowy swirling De mortuis nil nisi prius The mourners split, stepping on the brink
-Doug Chinnery
Ballsbridge threads. Stretched shadows yawn Descendant might love Starving. Kneeling might produce The Botanic Gardens. A bargain! Fat Treacle cells cracking, Dead laugh hard, Wind barrow split. Gravediggers nose round.
-Elizabeth Moura
Abridgements (a black out poem with help from James Joyce)
All want to be on good terms with Habeas corpus I took to cover when she disturbed me And temper getting cross He had the gumption to Dangle that before her. It might thrill her at first Shadows of the tombs A big giant in the dark Gas of graves
The clock was on A young widow Men Love In the midst of death Vitals desire The window.
A fair share go under in Time Come up some day above ground in a landslip To be flowers With New life With thanks.
The soil Bones Nails Green and pink Go on living To feed Themselves
A devil Must be Swirling with them. Your head Gives him a sense of power He looks at The cockles of his heart
This morning The dead Would like to hear The women Laugh Better The human heart Daren’t joke At His funeral.
They say you live longer For tomorrow The papers Ceased to Care -st
An Old Actor’s Lament
Bloom, grey spouting beard! Thrill her!
Here, the same women still kiss young Romeo, pleasure tantalising, gnawing, desire growing.
Over there, every man – well preserved – would of course live forever.
Those pretty little ladies – hot, strong, and sweet – laugh; joke about your life.
How many have you asked? Two, ten, eleven? The papers ceased to care.
-Tim Fellows
-Mark Grainger
-Mark Grainger’s second erasure from the same page
The caretaker’s fear after the funeral. Churchyards yawn and say Romeo – tantalising, gnawing desire all honeycombed.
Giant poppies killed the Christian boy, cheerful Peter, strong and sweet. Hard to read your own obituary.
-Georgia Hilton
Shave the dead
the tombs yawn and sleep pitchdark Romeo tantalising the starving
a fair field, honeycombed and neat
flowers of sleep gardens blood-fruit
rot black feed a devil
cheerful, cracking cockles the men hear juicy, hot, sweet
put the papers in the graves
-Sarah Connor
Bios And Links
-Tracy Dawson
is an active member of Read to Write (Balby and Mexborough) and Lippy Women. Her poems have been published in anthologies by Maytree Press and Ripon Poetry Festival.
this door is too small, but am I too tall or big or big minded, what is that? a key? will it open the door for me?
there is only One who has a key to every lock in every door,and a lock for every key..
like an inner eye there is an inner door, rising high when pure it is elegant when patient,shadow less Shadowless in the sun? stranger still in constant revolution…
what great doors are these? The Door of the Night Faery and Elf Doors Forbidden Doors and more Ali Baba’s Door,
no more no more how much, how many keys more I need, of kindness charity forgiveness_ will I be able to clean the dark mess no ‘eat me’ ‘drink me’ will work but only no Hercules Nor Ulysses nor Poseidon No Icarus will carry high …
Light sparkle in the pool of tears Rising to the surface lustrous pearls Crafting paths that through the murk spear Freed soul fire unseen wonders unfurls
Rising to the surface lustrous pearls Transforming a life lived in fear Freed soul fire unseen wonders unfurls Bright ray of hope trauma shackles shears
Transforming a life lived in fear A heart that passionately yearns Bright ray of hope trauma shackles shears Finding there’s power in these words
A heart that passionately yearns Crafting paths that through the murk spear Finding there’s power in these words Light sparkle in the pool of tears
The flecked sea seethes out beyond the headland. It’s a day of gust and foam the wiry grass blown to one side leaning in with the stumps of gorse clinging to the cliff top. I’ll sleep tonight this vision of home blustering through my mind howls a tunnel clean through until, stripped by the West wind I roll soft and grey-green to the deep horizon.
-Hilary Otto
Responding to CO2Feb, KR “Wet Sunlight,” and MHFeb2
Every Winter, but Especially This One
In a blanket fuzzy-soft with woven dreams muted in the winter days of daze and grey-fog haze—
cozy-wrapped to window-watch the whipping winds kiss the rocks and lick sand-blasted cheeks and chins.
But muted blues and greys, turn brighter as clouds part, and dawn streaks the sky, and we try to reconcile, this art
of rapprochement, the unfurled fury with the sight of so much beauty, so much light
hidden, so much forbidden, in history resurrected, the monsters walk among us—sometimes undetected–
but see the sunshine, through the clouds, and glowing now, vivid summer-loud.
Winter tears evaporate to fall as spring rain, the patterns repeat—again
the woven patterns form straight lines of vibrant hue to circle, cuddled in brumous blue–
to wait for what? Who knows how or why a flower grows
in a crack, and then comes back
like a beloved voice, a brilliant smile, the sparkling scintillation soaring across miles–
glowing, flashing—the sight of color flowing from, rising to the white.
-Merril D Smith
Wet Sunlight – KR2F
Dank, dreary day. It shouldn’t be like this in Tenerife. Grey cloud massed above keeps sending sleet. Hiding under cafe canopy, getting wet feet.
Cloud meets blue sky in razor sharp line. Five minutes to a flood of beautiful sunshine. Burst into view, the light of my dream. Get the pesetas out, I’ll have an icecream.
1,Feb,2021 for the second of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and the painter Kerfe Roig.
is an artist working in glass, metal, fibre and paint. Sometimes her work is based on photographs, but more often, she creates in the moment. She loves to play with texture and colour.
is a Dutch visual artist. He is also one of the two men behind the publishing house Petrichor. Freedom is very important in the visual work of Marcel Herms. In his paintings he can express who he really is in complete freedom. Without the social barriers of everyday life. There is a strong relationship with music. Like music, Herms’ art is about autonomy, freedom, passion, color and rhythm. You can hear the rhythm of the colors, the rhythm of the brushstrokes, the raging cry of the pencil, the subtle melody of a collage. The figures in his paintings rotate around you in shock, they are heavily abstracted, making it unclear what they are doing. Sometimes they look like people, monsters, children or animals, or something in between. Sometimes they disappear to be replaced immediately or to take on a different guise. The paintings invite the viewer to join this journey. Free-spirited.
He collaborates with many different authors, poets, visual artists and audio artists from around the world and his work is published by many different publishers.
RedCat’s love for music and dance sings clearly in The Poet’s Symphony (Raw Earth Ink, 2020). Passion for rhythms and rhymes, syllabic feets and metres. All born out of childhood and adolescence spent reading, singing, dancing and acting.
Her writing spans love, life, mythology, environment, depression and surviving trauma.
Originally from the deep woods, this fiery redhead now makes home in Stockholm, Sweden, where you might normally run into her dancing the night away in one of the city’s techno clubs.
is a historian and poet. She lives in southern New Jersey, where she is inspired by her walks along the Delaware River. She’s the author of several books on history, gender, and sexuality. Her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale and Sparrow, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Fevers of the Mind.
-Godefroy Dronsart
is a writer, teacher, and musician currently residing near Paris. His poetry has appeared in Lunar Poetry, PostBLANK, Paris Lit Up, The Belleville Park Pages, and Twin Pies Literary among others. His first chapbook, “The Manual” (Sweat Drenched Press, 2020), explores the space between poetry, prose, and gamebooks. He has a sweet tooth for all things experimental, modernist, and strange. Follow him on Twitter and his Bandcamp for electronic explorations.
-Joy Fleming
Born in County Down, Joy has studied, mothered and worked in Scotland since 1980. Brief excursions to follow her heart, back to NI mid-1990’s and England for first round Covid-lockdown ’19, Joy is currently back living in Glasgow. Joy’s first poem was accepted as part of the C. S. Lewis themed Poetry Jukebox curation A Deeper Country in Belfast in 2019. This poem, Ricochet was published in The Poets’ Republic Issue 8 Autumn 2020. A love of reading poetry is now accompanied by sporadic writing of poetic lines which spill out as an apparent by-product of processing dark and sorrowful days.
-Holly York
lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her two large, frightening lapdogs. A PhD in French language and literature, she has retired from teaching French to university students, as well as from fierce competition in martial arts and distance running. She has produced the chapbooks Backwards Through the Rekroy Wen, Scapes, and Postcard Poetry 2020. When she isn’t hard at work writing poems in English, she might be found reading them in French to her long-suffering grandchildren, who don’t yet speak French.
-Alan Gary Smith
A Lincolnshire Ludensian living in Grimsby who built up his poetic stance after visiting Doncaster and Mexborough during his real ale and comedic music searches. Surprised to find a recent DNA check leaned heavily towards being a strong mix of Scottish, East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. A sixty year old baldy who loves Julie, astronomy and chocolate; after giving up on football and telly.
-Hilary Otto
is an English poet based in Barcelona. Her work has featured in Popshot, Black Bough Poetry, AIOTB, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and The Blue Nib, among other publications. She received her first Pushcart Prize Nomination and performed at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival. She tweets at @hilaryotto
-Jim young
is an old poet living in Mumbles on The Gower. He does most of his writing from his beach hut at Rotherslade – still waiting for the blue plaque
Anjum Wasim Dar was born in Srinagar (Indian Occupied )Kashmir, She is a migrant Pakistani.Educated at St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi she has a Masters degree in English Literature and History ( Ancient Indo-Pak Elective) CPE Cert.of Proficiency in English from Cambridge UK. , a Diploma in TEFL from AIOU Open Uni. Islamabad Pakistan. She has been writing poems,
articles and stories since 1980.A published poet Anjum was awarded Poet of Merit Bronze Medal in 2000 by ISP International Society of Poets and poetry.com USA .
She has worked as Creative Writer at Channel 7 Adv. Company Islamabad, and as a Teacher Educator for Fauji Foundation Education Network Inservice Teachers
Her hands are a kaleidoscope, holding within all the colors, shapes, textures she once touched. Far distant memories telescoped and brought close—flaking pink polish on her nails makes her think of flowers that grew in her garden, her crooked finger, reminds her of her mother’s hands.
Her hands are a map, the etched lines a pathway showing where she’s gone and where she’s heading. That crosshatch marks the years of the now-demolished city shop where she touched goods and gestured to customers— these show the first time
she picked up a paintbrush, or held a small boy’s hand as he scampered on a beach. She sees his boy-face in her mind…
I am turning 50 on February 22nd, in a few weeks. Like most everyone in this pandemic, I’ve had trouble sleeping. I try a variety of routines and schedules, diet changes, screen time changes, and an assortment of pills. Last night I had a new experience of being flooded with very vivid memories of my […]
Scott Thomas Outlar lives and writes in the suburbs outside of Atlanta, Georgia. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the 2019 and 2020 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. Selections of his poetry have been translated into Afrikaans, Albanian, Bengali, Dutch, French, Italian, Kurdish, Persian, […]
Page from Ulysses by James Joyce
The Wombwell Rainbow 