This new lockdown, I am writing in my notebooks again, letting what emerges, emerge. You can read about the Lockdown Poems here – their immediacy, their rootedness in my place.
Once again, I have begun writing what I see, and what is before me in this moment. Whereas the earlier poems, starting in March, are largely written outside, this one is about looking out. Beginning to write is a revealing thing. As I proceeded, I felt that what I was exploring was that sensation of being stuck inside – looking out, but not with longing. I am looking out at a world that is far from inviting. Cold, wet, and darkening as it is. Once again, that small moment, that everyday feeling of watching the rain, seemed to unfold and reveal a wider and deeper difficulty. Not so much of being stuck inside, but of not wanting to venture out…
Last Friday, 8th Jan, I was honoured to be invited by Cheltenham Poetry Festival to be their featured poet at their online zoom reading along with the excellent and incandescent Catrice Greer, a mind-blowingly amazing collection of poets who took part in the open mic and the best smiley-faced and supportive audience you could ever…
Kerfe Roig – Clarity Many faceted kaleidoscopic gemSparkling all wavelengths of lightFiery passion interlaced with dark mayhemLight and dark in a perpetual fight Sparkling all wavelengths of lightComplex weave, carefully crafted hologramLight and dark in a perpetual fightBetween bright joy and dank sorrows dam Complex weave, carefully crafted hologramHiding behind social media. All’s fine!Between bright […]
Israel Eliraz (1936-2016) was born in Jerusalem. From 1963 to 1980, he published three novels, a book of short stories and a number of plays and opera librettos. He started writing poetry in 1980. He was the recipient of numerous Israeli literary awards, as well as an Honorary Citation by the French government. His poetry […]
Ice broke cracked open snowy cold engulfed all life tumbling upside down
KR13 Clarity
Time and space beneath the wisdom Hades aflame unfeared, assault murders rape continue, tender innocent bodies abused, why? Deadly sins allover rage, bird in anguish cries in captivity, trapped, trying to escape to free skies, in vain, ocean held like a gigantic bowl uncovered holding life dead, drowned, floating be wise be good be kind be understood.
CO13
I have no place to go, I am abandoned I hide with nothing to hold or show though the place is green, a wonderland but where only there is a fall, no place for the short or tall; gardens bloom odorless bland and colorless, flowers grow down, water flows upward and I cannot find the way to peace, loneliness my partner now forever is silent, locked down am I till I die or breathless be like so many the unseen killer may come and get me, Ah the cruel corona covid virus.
-Anjum Wasim Dar
The urban garden and the I (CO13)
In these few square metres I make my den I surround myself with all that is good I bubble wrap my patch of calm I hide it behind brick and smoked glass. Inside, it is always blooming. I become known for my garden, it is transformed into an object of desire. It is untouchable for those outside I can see the faces peering in I see jealousy in their eyes. I burst a cherry tomato against my palette I sip on a mojito made with fresh mint I am cocooned in my greenery I have achieved all that I wanted I remember only vaguely why I did this I am completely alone
-Hilary Otto
ClarityKR13
It’s that moment when the daylight gives, when the owl raises careful silence with the moon, spread circular, decisive in his action. He sees all from the fence, set apart, overlooking the valley. He rises, pearly flare in the half light focused on the point where two fields meet three dimensions, feathers muffling his flight, and then pulls back his head and drops feet first straight on his mouse. Accuracy and stealth give him an edge, but the skill that’s been rehearsed and honed through centuries repeating death is how to wait; the importance of surprise – he knows how to choose the perfect time to rise.
-Hilary Otto
CO13
Twins
Amid the greenery, a crib. Behind the layers, window panes.
Dreaming faces. One is pale, worried, one darker, enclosed in a kiss.
A mouth, serious or suppressing a smile. Two versions of the same.
Tender pink and blue, lace foliage. Floating red balloons—ova? Two with fetuses inside.
-Holly York
Clarity – KR13
The Sun shines, the Moon glows, the owl more than knows. The sky is clear, the water dear, the understanding flows.
10,Ja,2021 for the thirteenth of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and the painter Kiroji Roige.
Responding to KR, Clarity
Clarity
Coming home from the ER, I felt a sense of clarity amidst the exhaustion, and in the over-awakened midnight hour, an owl hooted over and over again
calling for love, not warning, I decided. And for love, we returned to the hospital as the sun rose over the bridge to light the shadowed city streets.
Responding to CO 13
Unfinished
There are ghosts in the secret garden drifting through the flowers’ birdwing-flutters, she senses them, but they are masked, invisible against the bright blooms, unfinished with this world, outside of time, inside the walls, they wait.
-Merril D Smith
MH13
matador his black arts of death terminate in blood
-Jim The Poet
KR 13 (owl)
periscope shit
the sun is cooking guano
the seas fail to quench
-Jim The Poet
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
The piston shrimps load snap The stingrays electric zap Such wonders beneath the sea Wonders that will die out before all are seen
Moray eels in their holes Fish dancing in big shoals Who will translate their song When the great whales are all gone
Corals in every rainbow bow hue Flatfish waiting patiently for its due Who will care about dolphin chatter When money and power is all that matters
Shellfish doing the cleanup Fluorescent yellow fish to sun up From the sea came alive to this lands Now it’s dying by humanity’s hands
Deep Sea creatures with their own light Stingrays looking like flying kites We have forgotten the seas bountiful gifts How the Songs of the Sea our souls uplift
What dost thou hope to find in the bosom of the sea
innocent souls seeking food in cool deeps, a single
line holding tight for life, lest it slip by with the pull,
grasp the rod with faith, and courage never to submit,
strong may be the forceful wind, threatening clouds
above, but a rainbow waiting behind unseen unknown.
Blue Whale
KR 12
Jail hours thirty six
mistake forgiven, freedom
a blessing divine.
and O the lyrical body simple, deep
gliding curve of the mouth the eye
and the superimposed rise
of two opposite hills before
there were hills, wet
with the first of the first of the first
of the first of songs.
-Godefroy Dronsart
KR12
BlueWhale
Watercolor the color of water the color of sky. Smiling, transparent, partially submerged creature needs both sea and air. Leviathan coughed Jonah up then swam through a pool of azure ink. No Moby Dick here because in watercolor whiteness is absence.
-Holly York
Blue Whale KR12 Inside a hangar of bone: your myth. Your ribs raise an echoing vault, your belly sets the stage for a tale. All force and streamlined muscle, your shadow patrols the submerged. Your throat bears the pleats you save for the scoop of your floating sieve. How can we count the ocean you contain in your bloated mouth when it balloons to fit your bite? For a time, your blubbery hide was a paper lantern lit by its own fat, and we burned it low. But you swam your teardrop path to deep places we couldn’t find, and there you blow.
-Hilary Otto
MH12
they let out the demon by speaking falsehoods bearing arms it roared out of the cave and into the city dragging a noose behind in which jerked its old face of respectability until it became mute
-Hilary Otto
CO12
The reception round here is pretty bad and my battery is getting low. We’re deploying the camera now; see what it can show.
Sorry ? No, rod isn’t a guy. It’s a fishing rod with a minicam submersibubble. What ? No, a submersible. We shouldn’t be talking, I’ll get into trouble.
We’re looking for a body, but our technique is a bit shoddy. If we can’t see through this ice-cream we’ll have to call the diving team.
I should be back for teatime, it’s too cold out here. I’ll call in for a pizza and maybe get a beer.
10,Ja.2021 for the 12th of. -Alan Gary Smith, inspired by Paul Brookes and painter Chris O`Connor.
KR12
song of the deep sea booming in distant blues why am i crying
-Jim The Poet
MH12
rage in the playground a friend dowsing the flames of his hidden pain
-Jim The Poet
Songs of the Sea
The piston shrimps load snap The stingrays electric zap Such wonders beneath the sea Wonders that will die out before all are seen
Morenas in their holes Fish dancing in big shoals Who will translate their song When the great whales are all gone
Corals in every rainbow bow hue Flatfish waiting patiently for its due Who will care about dolphin chatter When money and power is all that matters
Shellfish doing the cleanup Fluorescent yellow fish to sun up From the sea came alive to this lands Now it’s dying by humanity’s hands
Deep Sea creatures with their own light Stingrays looking like flying kites We have forgotten the seas bountiful gifts How the Songs of the Sea our souls uplift
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
