Your voice was an iced fruit apple slice to us, Shared while seated outside every summer, Though you never travelled in any season. Your laugh was a comedy catchphrase. You were the pink Marks & Spencer meringue nests, Crystal-cut glasses of cherryade, and amethyst birthstones on bracelets. You were the bag, laden with photographs, postcards, Prayers, and magazine tips for houses. The school I confided in you about, And the certificate I earned from there— You were the imagining of it framed on hospital walls. You were the marble-handled, soft-bristled hairbrush, The Revlon make-up, the hot drinks before bedtime, Silky blouses, blazers, and slippers. You were the grandma we prayed for a miracle for, As we willed you to get well. Now you are the neat, grassy path I know by heart And tread with utmost care; The earrings of your sister we must arrange to repair, The door ajar at a certain moment, The good luck wish, the tiniest horseshoe, And rosary beads we last left you with. Poem after 'John' by Maggie O'Dwyer About the author:
Kay Medway works full-time in a library. Kay writes poetry in her free time and had a poem for children in The Dirigible Balloon's Chasing Clouds anthology to raise funds for The National Literacy Trust.
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Content warning: reference to suicide.
March 5, 2025 06:18
Nothing. No one. Or other pieces of emptiness that wander through my atrophied memory. The big white birds talk among themselves incessantly, even in the middle of the night. The sea was yesterday a blue wall, which I would not have dared to cross for anything in the world. So beautiful. The elders once came from the other side of the horizon to here, and for them it was the end of the world. Pines tortured by the wind surround me, today, it’s blowing from the East, from Central Asia like the people here. An abandoned cathedral, Greek Orthodox and all white, was empty. The path climbed steeply to the top. We passed a cemetery without a cross. A man imitated a bird there, looking perfectly ridiculous. In my dream there was a painting painted thirty-five years ago broken by a stranger. I discovered a piece of it by chance at a friend's place who was indifferent to it. This strange character can't speak English, the others are bandits. In the gallery everyone thought I was rich, it makes him think about Under the Sun of Satan when he looks at them. At night I hear the heavy footsteps of the seagulls above my head, moving and screaming even in the middle of the night. They are insomniacs, winter is coming to an end, it's the season when they talk too much. Something or someone stole two eggs, as white as both my eyes, from a nest placed on a window ledge thirty meters above the ground. So she never came back. Human beings and animals are the same, it's sad or not. It’s the beginning of the fasting for some, the awakening for others, at six o'clock sharp. Life is paradoxical, as the angel Gabriel told me once. I have nothing to say against that, I don't know, nor will I ever know. I could have or should have jumped, no one would have known anything about it. She’s totally aware that suicide is the only way out for him if things keep on going like this. Others have always been afraid of him, rightly so, and vice versa. After madness, nothing will be the same again. And yet, the blue sea was certainly not a wall for him, but an abyss, in the end.
Still, calm and noiseless
The charade bustling street is at rest Emeritus drawing from the overflow Well of Knowledge Birthing life in white and black Emptiness! A fight of vanity Isolated in the other world Waging war against inner demons Ranging from human venoms To cracking rumor Conspicuously muted Her Mouth is sealed Yet, she raced in heart As she swims across oceans of thoughts Mi Corazón esta perturbado The bang is louder Will she yield to its call? Again, this tune fascinates me Will she dance to the rhyme? It all resonates with my soul! This arrow pierces through her heart It aches like a kiss of blade Rivers ceaselessly flow through Her balls, sad but true Her guard is down Imminent pains of gains Applauds her tenacity Her breast flapped in agony Of want and needs Reality is falsified They all speak the familiar language of danger Project of death in a lovely package No more fight in paradise Paranoid by paralysis of desire Who wins, the demon or me? This shadow deep in hollow May one day hallow her hassle Shackles of lack Luck and will Trends afar her The cloud is ‘bout resting Before dawn I valiantly beat him To rust and dust Though choked but she moves! Till next episode Where the moon bows out to the sun I shall retain my strength To wind through the storm And sail across the Nile
No matter how we pray or sorrow, no matter how we festoon bells and lights, no matter how we wrap and sing and bake and make lists of the futures we want, this winter might be masked and frazzled. Invoke a solstice astral alignment. Bargain with politics and viruses cajole the antique angel doorknob-dreaming. Light a flameless candle in the back window. Have cinnamon and old movies on hand. Find one craftstore present significant because it makes you laugh-- a little stuffed lion with glittery fur and a unicorn horn; improbable connundrum of strength and myth. Mail the tailed talisman on its perilous journey cross-country to a land of tumbleweeds and dewless skies. Your friend will shake his head questioning long-distance intentions. But some nights, we each need to believe. Dancing toys, talking animals, taps on the midnight roof. Telescopes or televisions trained. Everyone is looking for their cure. About the author:
Blind American author Nancy Scott's over 975 essays and poems have appeared in magazines, literary journals, anthologies, newspapers, and as audio commentaries. Her latest chapbook appears on Amazon, The Almost Abecedarian. She won First Prize in the 2009 International Onkyo Braille Essay Contest. Recent work appears in *82 Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Braille Forum, Chrysanthemum, Kaleidoscope, One Sentence Poems, Pulse Voices, Shark Reef, Wordgathering, and The Mighty, which regularly publishes to Yahoo News.
Would you measure a warrior’s worth by the rewards they’d earned or the trophies they’d spurned, by the number they’d slain or the many they’d spared; praps you’re persuaded by the songs of their kin who survived them. Or you’d celebrate their renown and vaunted prowess in battle when it is really those without such advantage who show more courage in not fleeing the field when outmatched by every other foe. See – it is those of whom you’ve not heard that might more truly deserve your prayerful thoughts and earnest hymns your hushed tales, be they ever so tall, by the warming hearth of our time-wearied feasting hall. Would you have me tell you their names though your lips are unworthy to speak them, your ears deaf and your mind too dull to grasp what it genuinely is to have known Thorin Oakenshield, last of his ancient and noble line. About the author:
A J Dalton (www.ajdalton.eu) is a UK-based writer. He’s published the Empire of the Saviours trilogy with Gollancz Orion, The Satanic in Science Fiction and Fantasy with Luna Press, the Darks Woods Rising and Digital Desires poetry collections, and other bits and bobs. He lives with his monstrously oppressive cat named Cleopatra.
Vita is life, our will lives in us, Bee-ing outside increases our vitality. Our will to live increases outdoors, in gardens bright with blooms and dew, flower to petal a tale is woven, As we notice the circles and cycles of nature Death is nearer, so we recoil a bit. Nature’s beauty is there also to save us. In the morning hue. She, The Queen, A monarch She knows her life-force. As she sits in this sheen, a court convenes, Her men toil and spin While SHE flaunts her golden-violet rhythms busy bee your tireless zest dawn to dusk is collection time, for her, translucent silken buds glisten, wide arms open. She drops her chin, drawing up nectar. wildflowers flirt swaying in tune. on a tapestry breeze, criss-crossing winds sway the bottlebrushes who blush in an, Australian blaze, humid thick. They gathered their milk for Mother. next to some wild carrots, plump Queen sits, eyelids shut, surveying though, each heartbeat of her hive approval is met by vital signs alive, aligned. In a wilderness cool, yet oozing warmth. glory of life we see. in both toil and freedom, we dream. sweet in my mouth and thy Queen’s, this jelly heals all beginnings. and ends, a rose sun sinks another horizon.
Like birdseed, a sequinned gown, They would glitter them into the crowd each year around Christmas time. It was your smear- fingered -smile Little treat. We curled our tiny bodies into the ruby- lip slippered red of those opulent seats, sat tight as a bow. We savoured the buttons up… Hush, now let us begin. Slam Searing Black. That gunshot spike crack was the very worst sound of my life. I wanted to shred shed wolf peel at my skin. Wings battling uselessly into the wax of lights. You're a hunted animal. Fresh. screams, fever, green gaping horror-mouthed memories bashing again and again and again and again at the walls. Trapdoor. Claw. After a while, you know the hot scent of desperation. It's the ugly, stubborn snarl of curled fag smoke. If you want a light, you always, always, always have to ask them, even though you can hear them: their crabapple laughs crackle, vines choke at your ankles along the whole sterile length of the aisle. Snare, trap, flare. You're cored. You can no longer bear the sight of them. You shrivel in the corner and lick at your wounds. Fawn and Freeze. Retreat, curl up and Dry. Eventually, you don't even recognise your own white face. You are definitely not today The fairest, fairest… Each nightfall, animated eyes blare in this hunter's wood. They watch, watch, watch Watch. Your hair witches with time. You hold out your finger not for a ring, but for yet another bite of heat and blood; Your body spread out on a slab. Be good or they won't let you out… Gasp down til you bloat leak and weep like a frog. It's not real, it's not real. It's not real… Now you're encased into tall ivied walls. What you know is that they long to return the lush butchered prize of your heart. who even is the villain Anymore? One night, someone pads. tears at the plastic with fangs- and there's that familiar sweet purple glint once more. It's winking at you: royal like a cloak. About the author:
I'm an autistic social researcher based in Cardiff with a passion for heritage and museums. I also live with chronic eczema. I use poetry to engage people with research, and I am inspired by connections between artists and their work as well as interpreting well-known histories and stories from fresh perspectives, or uncovering under-appreciated historic figures and the tales they can tell.
Oh ! Love I give my warmth to the scaly hands Who crush my oven and spit on it Oh ! Love, Yet, I look at them with rosy imagination And they make stinky by throwing me into a pit Oh ! Love, I give my thorny carpet to welcome you Oh ! love, I give a sandy dream to build a castle for you Oh ! love, Yet, I do not know how much unscrupulous I am Oh ! Love, I don’t want to be pardoned Oh ! Love, I want to be burnt to be alive Into a pit of ash of rotten bed Oh ! Love, Give me nectar to be dead Give me hemlock to be alive So that I can rest there alone With the fire of atonement By breaking the fundament About the author:
Partha Sarkar, a resident of Ichapur, a small town of a province West Bengal Of India, is a graduate who writes poems inspired by the late Sankar Sarkar and his friends (especially Deb kumar Khan) to protest against the social injustice and crimes against nature. His poems have been in different magazines both in Bangla and in English. Once, he would believe in revolution but now he is confused because of the obscurity of human beings, though he keeps fire in soul despite.
‘Downe in the bottome of the deepe Abysse/ Where Demogorgon in dull darknesse pent,/ Farre from the view of Gods and heauens blis,/ The hideous Chaos keepes, their dreadfull dwelling is’ from The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser. She’s finding the pattern in empty packets of crisps across the living room floor. There’s a river running through a valley between mountains of pizza boxes, a waterfall over rocks of scattered shoes. She’s not going anywhere but here is the world in miniature. One day (soon) she’ll gather it all up, put it on a boat and sail this Italy and the Alps all the way to the tip. Then the room will be the Gobi desert, lizards hiding away during the day but chasing spiders and scorpions throughout the night. She doesn’t feel ready for that yet, adds an empty sweet wrapper. She knows you can’t step in the same river twice, and as soon as the river meets the sea, there’s a reckoning. First she’ll watch how silver foil glints in the midday sun. About the author:
Hannah Linden has struggled with depression and anxiety most of her life. She’s a survivor of multiple traumas, including the suicide of her father when she was a child. Her poetry explores many kinds of impact from mental health challenges and she is particularly interested in the way trauma, and the experience of marginalisation, is explored in folklore and fairy tale, in both negative and positive ways. She has a Northern working-class background but, for many years, has lived in ramshackle social housing in Devon. She is widely published and, most recently, won the Cafe Writers Poetry Competition 2021, and was Highly Commended in the Wales Poetry Award 2021. Her debut pamphlet, The Beautiful Open Sky, (V. Press) was shortlisted for the Saboteur Award for Best Poetry Pamphlet 2023. X: @hannahl1n
A road seldom trod takes you somewhere strange. A shooting star, smoking in your hand, lights the woodland path, portends your axe will soon drip blood. Beyond the pine trail bobs a red hibiscus hood-- grasped in her fleshy grip, a wicker basket, wafting freshly baked bread; some would simply huff, “obese.” And yet, you know these miles too well, smell a wolf, suspect his wiles . . . Through the windowpane of the crone’s cottage, a candle flares. You limp forward, confound the old wound, fog up the glass as you peer in. There, mostly covered by a quilt, too, too much hair! That wicked goat! You splinter the door. Your blade flies through the air. Peculiar deliverer, like a fish gutter, so clever, you free her, free her! wood smoke ghosting the tarn hunter’s moon About the author:
Dr. Anna Cates teaches writing, literature, and education online and has published a variety of books (poetry, fiction, and drama) through www.cyberwit.net, prolificpress.com, redmoonpress.com, and wipfandstock.com. Her full-length poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her two cats. |
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