Greg Watson: Your Obituary

I am reading your obituary, calmly, by lamplight,

as if it were merely a poem I came across

in these old papers -- not the mundane and obligatory

list of facts cobbled together on your behalf, 

of which you would most certainly disapprove --

but the one you wrote, long ago, for your

college writing class, when you were so young

and such an exercise must have seemed amusing,

a mere novelty to be redrafted and played with.

In this telling, you have become the survivor 

of your own demise, able to alter, delete, 

and transform the details of your life, just as you

liked to do when you were in the midst of it.

No one liked a good story more than you. 

So, I am reading of your birth across the Atlantic,

how your very identity was kept a secret

before you were sent by steamship to be raised 

by film stars deep in the Hollywood hills.

It's a tale you could almost make me believe,

and one that you certainly wished were so.

You are no longer here to say, your narrative lost

among the silence that now becomes a kind of

signature -- everything you have left out,

by choice, chance, or simple forgetfulness, faint

red ink on onion skin receding from view.

The ocean hums. Your fiction is safe with me.

Greg Watson's work has appeared in numerous literary journals, and has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and Best of the Net. He is the author of eleven collections of poetry, most recently Stars Unseen, published by Holy Cow! Press. He is also co-editor with Richard Broderick of The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood, published by Nodin Press. For more information, please visit www.gregwatsonpoet.com. 

Jessamine O'Connor: The Most Moral

Today I watched a man

rolled casually off a roof

by the boot of a uniformed soldier

who nudges him over and over

like this man is some object

he’s found

His friends look on

while he shoves with his foot

until the slack body flops,

bends back

and drops.

The soldiers amble off,

disinterested in the fall

or its impact

But in a minute they return,

this time they’re swinging

a second man

like a black hammock –

one, two, and he’s clear -

slumped down the side

of this building

we’re watching

Then a third, kicked,

hit and thrown

from the same roof

and judging by the energy invested

this time, it looks to me like he’s alive,

or was

I can watch this

from several angles

so it’s not difficult

to judge, though some papers say

these were men, acting

uncharacteristically,

their army will investigate -

as if this is not policy -

so the bulldozer waiting underneath

to bury the evidence

must have been

circumstantial,

but anyone with eyes

can see an endless skyline

of rooves

just like these.

Jessamine O’Connor lives on the Sligo Roscommon border. Her collection ‘Silver Spoon’ is published by Salmon Poetry, she has chapbooks with Nine Pens Press and the Black Light Engine Room press, and she is an editor with Drunk Muse Press. www.jessamineoconnor.com

J.R. Solonche: Funerals

I need to go to a funeral.

I haven’t been to a funeral

in a while. I don’t remember

the last one I went to. I need

to go to one so I don’t forget

what death is all about.

I need to meet people who

for years were part of my life

but are now only part of my past.

I need to meet the relatives

and friends and colleagues who

have been only names brought

up in conversations. I need to

go to one more funeral before

I die. I don’t want the deceased

to be a friend but a third cousin

I met once at another funeral

or a neighbor I waved to those five

or six times during the years we

lived on the same road, all those

forty-five or forty-six years. I need

to go to his open casket funeral.

I need to see his face for once.

Nominated for the National Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of over 40 books of poetry and co-author of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

Terez Peipins: Amtrak

Blank space

between train whistles

passing

empty river,

the swamp.

A stalled truck

at the edge of my eyes.

Maybe it’s love,

your shoulder pressed

against mine.

Terez Peipins is a writer of Latvian descent from Western New York.  Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in publications both in the United States and abroad. She is the author of four chapbooks of poetry and four novels, The Shadow of Silver Birch, Three Bonds Unbroken, Snow Clues, and River Clues. 

Faye Boland: Forest Therapy

Now I know that moss-covered rocks smell different to moss-covered trees
that moss covered trees smell different to one another

that the strongest forest smell is rotting wood

that wood sorrel has a rubbery underside

that Scots pine leaves smell stronger underneath than above

that the taste of air on my tongue is colder than the touch of air on my cheek

that stones hold cold as well as heat

that the flow of a waterfall depends on the shape of the rocks it passes over

that a tree nourishes its offspring through mycelia

that I am nourished by forest

that I come alive in its woody, leafy womb

Faye Boland won the Robert Leslie Boland Prize 2018 and the Hanna Greally International Literary Award 2017. She placed third in the Bere Island Poetry Competition 2024. Her Chapbook Fishing For Tea was highly commended in the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition 2024 and she was highly commended in the Desmond O' Grady Competition 2019. Her first poetry collection Peripheral was published in September 2018 by The Manuscript Publisher.

Angela Zimmerling: playing the game

‘i win’ he says
‘i know the game’
                    and
                    sometimes
                    she believes

                                a professional poker player
                                is not a contradiction
because
 

he says
            ‘love’
and other things. ’
 
he plays
                        texas hold ’em
               
                        those games
                        television broadcasts
                        from somewhere
                                              sun-glassed players hide
                                              within themselves
                                                                      and women drape like tinsel
 
texas hold ’em
                        he plays that game
                        in glass and neon
                        poker rooms
                                                without time
 
                        he forgets himself
                                                fades like mist
he weaves
through her life
a thread
that frays and
twists
            and breaks
 
they tie
the ends
            again
                        at a corner shop she
                        sells coffee and doughnuts
                        to oil stained factory men
                        and boozy eyed executives
                        to the undead who sit until dawn
                        her shift’s a graveyard.
 
they pay their
rent in coins and bills
 
in promises
 
                        he knows the game
 
 she’s
learned
            his language
                                    aces
                                    on the river
                                    flush
                                                this shit
 
 
her wedding ring
                            is twisted
on a broken finger

Angela Zimmerling is a former journalist who works in poetry, fiction, non-fiction and illustration.  She is passionate about human and animal welfare, and the planet.  She lives on a small subsistence farm with her beloved animals and husband.

Kristin Roedell: The Southing Geese

The wind blows through the trees

on an oboe, the fields unfurl

like sheet music—

the long fences the staff,

the crows on the line

the notes.  

They are playing the song

of the rural, the farms:

the winding path,

the sheep beneath a blue spruce,

the cats hunting shrews,

Orion in the stars at night.

All of it is a wild orchestra:

The brown owls, the blue jays,

the southing geese calling.

Every new lamb

is a concerto in C

on trembling legs.

Kristin Roedell graduated from Whitman College, 1984, and U.W. Law School, 1987. Her poetry  appeared in JAMA, Ginosko, and Crab Creek Review. She's authored two chapbooks: Girls with Gardenias (Flutter Press) and Night Circus (Legal Studies Forum) and a full length collection, Downriver (Aldrich Press.) Her website is at kristinroedell.wikidot.com

Erik Korhel: Modern Music

Read this in the voice of a coward. Over-

whelmed and unfulfilled all at once. Sometimes

appearing equally matched, but not quite. With no

one to visit the following day. Curtain

permanently shut. A request delayed.

Fearful and dormant. This poem now the bur-

den. And so, the disconnect begins. May cause

internal bleeding and a distance between

those uninvolved. Uneasy smile and quiet

demeanor. In search of trouble. Just like a-

ny good empath. I do not recommend it.

Erik Korhel is from Seattle, Washington. He currently has three children's picture books of poetry. Korhel has achieved a 'Must Have Books and Resources' listing with the New York City Department of Education. He is currently working on what he hopes to be his first full collection of poems.

Angela Topping: Enamelled Boxes

for Pascale Petit

Harold Raby Collection, Manchester City Art Gallery

 

Unlike eggs, their treasure,

is not within. These are inside out.

Look at this frog, self-satisfied, its jewels

gleaming in the spotlight;

this speckled hare, ears back

couched upon a mound of green;

head of Neptune, empty of brains

as though someone had sliced his skull

at the temple, but being immortal,

he’d survived to wear this hat

of painted shells, sea serpents and fish,

whatever the painter’s wild dreams brought.

Then there’s the mottos:

Though absent not forgotten;

I prize the gift because I love the giver.

Raby, bank manager, came home each night

from a colourless day, to these gaudy dainties

he’d braved bombs to buy,

bonbonnières and patch boxes,

to bring him levity and joy.

[Originally published in the collection Paper Patterns, Lapwing, 2012]

Angela Topping is the author of nine poetry collections and four pamphlets. Her latest book is Earwig Country (Valley Press 2024).She is a former Writer in Residence at Gladstone's Library. Her poems are widely published and have won several prizes. She blogs at angelatopping.wordpress.com

Vidya Hariharan: Bad Hair Day

As I step out

In the morning

On my way to work

Clutching my bag and

Disobedient hair,

I am aware of

myriad patterns

of light and shade -

under the old oak,

rainwater flowing

down the sloping roof

into my neighbour’s

koi pond,

the feral cat sprawling

on my car’s hood

challenging my ownership,

floating in a puddle

on the road -

finally, a rainbow!

Vidya Hariharan is an avid reader, traveller, published poet and teacher. She recently was shortlisted for the Editor’s Choice Award for her haiku from Under the Basho in 2024. Currently she resides in Mumbai, India.