David Harrison Horton: Cassius Clay v Sonny Liston (February 25, 1964) Round 6

The ensemble plays a lament 

that carries on through the halls, 

slowing, then picking up, 

the pace.

The shot pans wide, for no 

apparent reason.

The work is in the detail,

a practiced precision.

Dandelion florets disperse in a breeze

that disturbs very little

of the tableau.

A man in a suit, thick lapels, skinny tie, shouts 

something

that should not be repeated.

David Harrison Horton is a Beijing-based writer, artist, editor and curator. He is author of Maze Poems (Arteidolia) and his chap Model Answers is forthcoming from CCCP Chapbooks. He edits the poetry zine SAGINAW. davidharrisonhorton.com

Patrick Cotter: Pig Factory

Among the honking, snorting throng, some child’s

pet - a banbh, bottled-reared and brow-stroked

whose widening grin and happy waddle

were cuddled until the day came to be prodded

into pork. Portioned and packaged in the factory

in the city where often a leering Camas moon

arced over the hill. There, a line of clattering

hooves whose honks turned to the squeals

of rusty hinges, hundreds in a chorus.

And the squeals turned to screeches of terror

and the screeches turned to screams of excruciation.

And in the houses next to the factory, people too poor

to move away paid no more heed to the squeals

than they would to the high-pitched chatter

of children in a schoolyard at breaktime.

And the screeches blended in their ears

with the screeches of gulls by the weir

where a culvert spewed into the river bits

and blood the rats and mullet scrambled for too.

Blood beyond the congealing of drisheen,

beyond the Pollack-like streaks on the walls

visible when first-floor doors were ajar on hot

days and the wafting scents of scraps made

the local moggies yawn at their privilege.

All this I know and yet that banbh I eat

albeit without its grin and the ears that wiggle

no more, dressing centre-table at the dinner parties

of well-earning, slumming gourmands.

Patrick Cotter lives in Cork. His poems have appeared in the Financial Times, London Review of Books, POETRY and Poetry Review. His latest collection is Sonic White Poise (Dedalus, 2021), More at www.patrickcotter.ie

 

Katerina Stoykova: untitled

They say

you work to live. They say

you live to work. They say

life is work,

work is life.

Without work, life is not life.

They don’t say that,

but you’ve worked

your way up

to that understanding.

Katerina Stoykova is the author of several books, most recently Between a Bird Cage and a Bird House (University Press of Kentucky, 2024) and The Poet's Guide to Publishing: How to Conceive, Arrange, Edit, Publish and Market a Book of Poetry (McFarland, 2024).

Laura Daniels: Shades of Pink

What to hold?                                     What to free?

unusual questions                                this routine Wednesday

I want to hold                                      I want to hold

warm dryness                                      quiet rocks

I want to hold air                                 I want to hold it all

through cold breath                             and desire it now

I want shades of pink                          I want flowing scarves

when grey abounds                             when breezes billow

I want words to flow                           I want the last bite

when prompted                                   to be as good as the first

I want the first sip                               the alcoholic swallow

to quench my thirst                             that’s never quenchable

The glass shapes                                 The glamorous sensation

the day’s hour                                     the sophisticated moment

An addictive thirst                              An unhealthy thirst

a troubling thirst                                 a sickening thirst

A diseased thirst                                  unable to terminate

May the craving cease                        May the vessel fill                                                      

to hold                                                 the thirst

Laura Daniels (she/her) is a multi-genre writer and founder of the Facebook blog The Fringe 999. Curated in NJ Bards Anthology, Silver Birch Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She resides with her partner in Mt Arlington, NJ, where she crafts colourful musings. Follow her at: https://lauradanielswriter.wordpress.com

Lauren O’Donovan: and she flew

With plastic teardrops on soft fingertips, 

we hot-glue multicoloured craft feathers

to a cut-out frame. I stick and she snips

semiplumes to lay, each slightly longer 

until it is time for ones washed and dried:

snowy seagull contour and flight feathers

we collected together at low-tide

along with mottled plumes from the plover. 

Nearly there, we bend them in a gentle

curve to look like the wings of a real bird,  

and use glitter duct-tape guided by pencil

marks to attach braided straps to matboard.

She raises one arm up, then the other —

Unaware, I fasten wings on my child’s shoulders 

[First Published: Not The Time To Be Silent Anthology, 2022]

Lauren O’Donovan is an Irish writer. In 2023, she won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, the Cúirt New Writing Prize, and was runner-up for Poetry Business Book & Pamphlet Competition and the Listowel Writers’ Week Collection Award. She is fortunate to have her work published often in journals and anthologies. https://twitter.com/LaurenODonovanW https://www.facebook.com/laurenodonovanw

Hanna Yerushalmi: Reluctant Light—Nir Oz

The birds chirp a high pitched 

mourning song in rounds,

and the cat winds around my leg, 

so eager for any kind of touch.

The lemon tree is full of fruit, 

next to it, the lonely trampoline 

is reduced to a burnt metal frame.

Inside the house, once rich with 

warmth and laughter and comfort, 

a sippy cup lies on its side

no longer holding any milk 

and men’s clothes hang

in closets waiting patiently, endlessly 

and dry, cracked soap sits in a dish 

next to towels parched from disuse 

and bullet holes in windows 

let the reluctant light in.

There is soot on the ground 

and on the walls of the houses, 

and the cat lies on the gravel, 

her white fur grey with ash.

Hanna Yerushalmi grew up in the Midwest, where kindness is a priority and listening is the first step in a relationship. An ordained liberal rabbi, Hanna works as a couples therapist and along with her husband, is raising four children by teaching them about kindness and the value of listening.

Emily Young: Cellular Phoenixes

Someone once told me

every seven years, our cells turnover –

tendons, organs, skin, blood.

Inaccurate, to be sure, but therein lies some truth.

We are cellular phoenixes, every one of us.

I met you eight years ago,

Befriended you seven years, nine months ago.

Fell for you seven years, five months ago.

Became yours exactly seven years ago.

So now I wonder:

Are any parts of me left that once touched you?

Does your skin still remember my skin?

Or are my lips as foreign to yours

as ash is to wings?

Emily Young was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, holds a master’s degree, and works as a full time health care provider. She is a member of the Redmond Association of Spoken Poetry and Prose, a loving wife, and a proud dog mom.