Daffodil photo by Paul Brookes

the poetry unit. continuing education

who am I to explain to seniors
the poetry they grew up on
in Hong Kong? a crowd of coiffed 
chic women, curls and designer clothes
and combover man dressed
for the office twenty years after 
he left it but happy to indulge me 
as a host, to show him again 
those golden daffodils.

the frail elderly woman with 
jacket of quilted down so common 
to Chinese peasants did not care
if my ego nagged at me fraud. 
we are all gathered for things 
non-verbal, the poetry an excuse
for what spills around the edges:
break time tai chi, shaking hand
the sugar off the saucer
leaving a quarter moon
on the laminate table,
pictures from grandkids
wealthy enough to travel. 

at thirty two I had had foist 
at me or been the foister of 
the poppies growing row on row 
dozens of times. that tiresome 
sad old chestnut  like the national 
anthem with its war march of monarch—
dried hard from so many occasions 
turned over on the coals, but this time
was there a greek chorus?

a ghost wail sound, a primal distress. 
looking in the direction of it, the friendly 
hound puppy of a seniorhad been weeping 
until his collar was damp until I saw him
and he had to express explanation:
“all those dead, short days ago we lived. 
we lived”

his shoulders heaving. gulping breaths
crying aloud. “excuse me excuse me.”
“sensitive” gasp. the purr from those around, 
soothing, empathetic hums.  “stroke.” 
“emotional” the whole room rose 
in their sympathy, our hearts surrounding
the old soldier. and as he found composure
words became again the men
that they once were.

Pearl Pirie 

Bio and Links

Pearl Pirie

is an editor and an award winning Quebec poet. Adding Up to Thisis out from Catkin Press! Another new chapbook, A Couple Sumerians, is available from Turret House Press. Support her at Patreon for the price of a coffee or less and see behind the scenes poem drafts. Or at Substack and read essays on poetics. www.pearlpirie.com

Mr & Mrs A Reframed by Lesley Burt (Templar Poetry)

Wombwell Clouds by Paul Brookes

by Jaron

by Jaron

by Su Zi

Launch Feature – Julie Stevens

Poetic Art Showcase from Paul Warren

Comes grace by Beth Mead

The thing about bon mots by Victoria Leigh Bennett

photo by Paul Brookes

So, Guys, Cave the Other Canem

When the days start to dwindle down,
Yes, and you can already feel it in July, August,
Even while the hot days are threading you thinly through temperature’s needle,
Your every breath a wisp of filmy cotton stuff,
The other dog is fixing to set his teeth in you,
We all do feel it hurt, but few say much.

‘Cause, we bargain, we like to bargain,
And say, “There’s lots left yet of this bluebird, hawk-eyed day,”
Some strange flying creature hovering over us,
While we sit on sandbars, by water, or in shady lanes,
While we play at forevers in green fields,
As if they planned to stay that way.
We only peer once or twice over anyone’s shoulder (yours, no, never mine),
We all do feel it hurt, but few say much.

For he’s already scooped us up in his jaws,
Is practicing right now the parent-carry,
Not to let on to us that we’re his feast,
No bearing down ‘twixt fangs, I’ll give him that at least.
But feel that stormy motion!—as if impatient he sucks in a deep, cool scent of us
We all do feel it hurt, but few say much.

We’re hoping, after all, that global warming isn’t what it is,
And that the sharp canines of January might not bear down,
Guilty for our hope not to suffer the same old season, but worse, come ‘round again.
We may complain, we compare notes, we often discuss weather like intellectuals,
But in real, fearful tones, not bearing it, refusing it, insisting all our strength against it?
We’re already half-chewed; we all do feel it hurt, but few say much.

How Did It Go?

After reading the précis brief on the Cave Canem poets and the Bop poem form, this was my first effort. I find it a workable form, and felt free to escape some of the conventional trappings of poetry, while trying to surprise with an occasional rhyme and a few metaphorical conceits, and while attempting, at least, the conversational flow I so admired in the example on Poets.com by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon. I also elected to take the 4th stanza option with a variation half-line, the way a modern imitation of a traditional form might do, for fun, for expression, and just for the halibut!—
Victoria Leigh Bennett

Oh Well

In cities, we used to see the foul air
feel it in our coughing lungs
spewing from our chimneys and our cars.
Norwegian trees were poisoned,
depletion of the ozone layer;
we watched our weather change before our eyes.

Oh well, someone else will sort this out.

I’ve got my life to live, things to do. Use a bus?
I can’t cope without my lovely car
or heating on all year round,
my food and goods on groaning ships
steaming halfway round the world.
Online meetings? I’d rather fly abroad
and take my holidays in the sun.
Pay more tax? Don’t make me laugh!

Oh well, someone else will sort this out.

The scientists all say it’s true
but when people make a move
in orange dust or Superglue, or make new laws
we don’t like that, oh no, you can’t
do that. Do something else, write to your MP.
Maybe it’s a hoax. They hope it is.

Oh well, someone else will sort this out.

How Did It Go?

I was on a roll with Climate Change so I wrote a Bop about our overall apathy and, in some cases, actual antagonism to anything that disrupts our daily lives. The comfortably off pretending to care for poor people’s economic welfare while not wanting to pay for solutions really winds me up.

Tim Fellows

Tomorrow

When the world turns
too fast, too hot,
too wild and fierce,
and the summers bake,
the winters freeze,
and the round earth cracks,

we’ll have a solution; we won’t all die,

the crops will wither
without water, so we engineer,
manipulate, create sterility
where abundance flowed,
grow animals in high-rises,
(the only ones who will be fed),
square miles of glass houses,
an insect-free world,

then we’ll have a solution; we won’t all die,

but crops grown beneath plastic
in rarefied, sterilised air,
won’t feed the bees
or filter poison from the seas,
so the wilderness will perish,
unwatered, unpollinated, suffocated,

but we’ll have a solution; we won’t all die.

How did it go?

I didn’t warm to this form, too much like a sonnet without much, except the refrain, to justify it not being a sonnet. Not one I can see myself trying again.

Jane Dougherty

Photo by Paul Brookes
Jane Dougherty

Cherita

Smoke in the distance

faint crackling
heat massaging the air

Shouting, running, screaming
fire circling
choking blackened lungs

How Did It Go?

The Cherita is an interesting option on a haiku-type sequence. Written in response to the Greek fires.

Tim Fellows