Christopher Woods: Leaving a Kiss

A woman who says she was so overcome with passion for a valuable painting on display in France has been charged with criminal damage after kissing it. - BBC NEWS

what will become you, of me?

something as brief as a kiss

has united us. Conspirators.

there are rules about me -

lines and brushstrokes

colour, canvas, vision.

but the only lines I think

about are the canvas edges,

the space between me and

those who come to see,

worship or dismiss, world of voyeurs.

you brought me passion,

something I have never known.

out of all those in the museum,

you alone stepped forward.

you will suffer consequences

for crossing another line,

for making me almost human.

Christopher Woods is a writer and photographer who lives in Chappell Hill, Texas. His poetry collection, Maybe Birds Would Carry It Away, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. His photographs can be seen in his galleries: https://christopherwoods.zenfolio.com/f861509283

M.J. Arcangelini: Privilege

The richest men alive have collaborated,
even though it went against their instincts,
to retain a small army of specially trained
technical engineers assigned to completely
redesign the common sewing needle.
 
They have also assembled an expensive
selection of geneticists, biologists, and
zoologists assigning them the very daunting
task of developing a method to re-combine
DNA and create a very tiny living camel.
 
In this way, the billionaires hope to pass
the diminutive camel through the much
enlarged eye of the newly engineered
needle and thereby purchase their way into
heaven, as they are certain God intended.
 
 
M.J. (Michael Joseph) Arcangelini was born 1952 in western Pennsylvania. He has resided in northern California since 1979. His work has been published in many magazines, online journals, over a dozen anthologies, & 6 collections, the most recent of which is “Pawning My Sins” from Luchador Press, 2022. YouTube channel

Miriam Sagan: Honolulu Fracture

The score for birdsong was asemic.

The narcissist was lonely in the rain.

The shopping cart lady lived nowhere but also inside the loop of memory.

On the Pacific rim in drizzle I bought mochi ice cream and Kim Chee.

I said “I love you” and kissed you standing on the street corner.

Without the palm tree there would be no cuneiform.

Sad udon steamed in broth were actually quite tasty.

I drank coffee as if I was trying to remember everything at once.

What have I forgotten? My To Do list, my childhood, my shoes outside the door.

Who else did I kiss on a wet street corner?

How many lines did I set out to write?

Was I a Picasso or a Frieda Kahlo looking for my twin in a mirror?

You can see the gap in the volcanos between skyscrapers when the clouds clear.

Miriam Sagan's books include Castaway (Red Mountain, 2023) and Border Line (Cholla Needles, 2023). Her poetry was set to music for the Santa Fe Women's Chorus, incised on stoneware for two haiku pathways, and projected as video inside an abandoned building during the pandemic under the auspices of Vital Spaces, New Mexico.

Robert Okaji: I’ll Have the Body Sandwich, and Hold the “Me,” Please

The story of my life, as they say. Being that fleshy lump

held between cold steel and granite, blue flame and skillet,

or that subject of inexpert experimentation in a sterile

bedroom funded by military contractors or accounting miracles,

I am no longer startled by my irrelevance to the economy.

I can assemble IKEA furniture, manipulate words, slice

salami, calculate volume in terms of books, chain saw

trees, fabricate shelving, repair PVC, curse in three languages,

prepare quiche from scratch and compose poetry (sometimes

simultaneously), to mention just a few skills, and all with great

humility, and, alas, no pay. In a previous life, I administered,

tended budgets, said "no." Now, I want to say "yes," but no one

will listen. My in-box is littered with ads for portable

oxygen, leaf guards for gutters, herpes remedies and geriatric

dating services, with a few funeral home missives and phishing

expeditions thrown in. I've been sized and assigned to a particular

box targeting a certain demographic which may or may not

be mine. The story of my life, as they say. Whoever they are.

Robert Okaji is a half-Japanese Texan living in Indiana. His most recent chapbook, Buddha’s Not Talking, won the 2022 Slipstream Annual Chapbook competition, and his work has appeared in such publications as Shō Poetry Journal, Only Poems, and Big Windows Review, among others. 

Sam Smith: Mock Sonnet 17

This know-all, kill-all countryman,

mud-spattered dog and gun, drove

one-armed with his belly in his lap,

the pick-up cutting corners and regularly

veering across the road. (It has long been

accepted that human beings cease to be

human once behind the wheel of a vehicle,

become but another cretinous part

of the machine.) This grunt and moan countryman,

sour-faced wouldn't be told, knew all about here,

every dip and bend; but not that another, like him,

was on that same road that day and heading

his way. The pair became a joint funeral notice

sellotaped to the usual village lamp-posts.

Sam Smith is editor of The Journal (once 'of Contemporary Anglo-Scandinavian Poetry'). Author of several novels and collections of poetry - samsmithbooks.weebly.com - he presently lives in Blaengarw, South Wales, and blogs at thesamsmithcom.wordpress.com

Marianne Brems: Tangles of Loss

She clears away crumbs,

brings in the mail,

moves the hose around the yard.

These are not things that fold

under the insistence of grief.

They merely proceed

to punctuate time and matter.

 

I imagine wrinkles of angst

seeping from her fingertips

as I watch her feed the dog.

Then her hand quickly smooths

the top of his head.

Married forty-one years,

his unexpected end so sudden.

It may be that lifting large boxes

while packing up the house

pushes back against

tangles of her loss.

I must remember not to open with,

How are you?

each time I see her.

 

(First published in Mosaic Art & Literature Journal, June 2022)

Marianne Brems is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the most recent, In Its Own Time (2023). Her full length collection Stepping Stones is forthcoming in 2024.  Her poems have also appeared in literary journals including The Bluebird Word, Front Porch Review, Remington Review, and Green Ink Poetry. She lives, cycles, and swims in Northern California. Website: www.mariannebrems.com

Patrick Chapman: Departure

Atonal city petered out, a dying machine

dismantled on the Hudson, its heartbeat

a pocket of corrupted arias. Towers grew

glass coral, their panes refracting a trillion

calumnies across the plazas laid down

without purpose. In degraded circuits

abandoned temples had fallen to ruin

like ancient shopping malls. In the husk

of a Starbucks I found a congregation

of obsoletes, masked faces hard as life.

They moved in unison, an eerie disco,

eyes fixed on glitching screens forever

looping desolate commercials, art for

the bewildered. Politics, erectile tissue

paper, vulvic mineral water, Walmart

euthanasia. ‘I am not,’ muttered Einar,

a creature, ‘your Ottoman automaton.’

I said I understood. I bid him farewell

as I left. In my earbuds came a funeral

of brass. The Knee Plays had resumed.

Footnote: 'Einar' and 'The Knee Plays' appear in the title poem of Chapman's first collection, Jazztown (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1991). 'Departure' is a follow-up to that poem.

Patrick Chapman's first collection, Jazztown, appeared in 1991. His latest, The Following Year, is published by Salmon in 2024.

Jim Murdoch: Endothermic Entropy

Endothermic processes embrace the paradox of entropy's dance, as the absorption of warmth unravels order, giving birth to the beautiful chaos of transformation – Original quote generated by OpenAI's GPT-3.5-Turbo language model

 

Remembering is a bad idea.

Every time you do

you remember a little less

and a little wrong.

 

Memories are brittle

and need to be

handled with care.

Better yet, not at all.

 

We memorise things piecemeal:

dribs and drabs and odds and ends.

Recollection is largely reassembly.

But like doing a jigsaw made of ice.

Jim Murdoch lives down the road from where they filmed Gregory’s Girl which, for some reason, pleases him no end. He’s been writing poetry for fifty years for which he blames Larkin. Who probably blamed Hardy. Jim has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.

Mileva Anastasiadou: Midwinter Daydream

There is light my love, but also, there is darkness here, sometimes.

And sometimes the light is blinding, and when it fades out,

the dark is darker, scarier because we’re used to light.

We feed on love, we’re high on dreams and lust and each other,

we’re fucking bright,

we shine and glow, and when days grow dark,

they find us unprepared, and we do nothing,

but stand still and wait,

we say, this too shall pass,

because darkness doesn’t last long, and light always wins.

There is light my love, but also, there is darkness here, sometimes.

And life isn’t as whimsical as it’s supposed to be in fairy tales,

we are the jokers, the tricksters, we’re Puck’s little helpers,

and when death comes to claim life,

he finds us unprepared, and we do nothing,

but stay silent and mourn,

we say, this too shall pass,

only it doesn’t,

because we don’t know how to fight death and we don’t know how to die.

There is light my love, but also, there is darkness here, sometimes.

And sometimes darkness comes fast, disguised in new forms and old shapes,

dressed in new ideas and old habits,

it comes in bursts, in floods and heatwaves, in failures and letdowns,

and finds us unprepared,

and we slip gently into that good night,

we slowly die,

because we don’t know how to fight darkness or how to rage against the dying of hope.

There is darkness my love, because we did nothing when lights went out,

because we danced and danced and danced like ballerinas,

like the swans in the lake, like sugarplum fairies,

we mixed it all up, but the cake didn't rise,

we said, this too shall pass,

only it didn’t,

we failed at dancing, cooking, playing, loving,

and life is the exact opposite of a midsummer night’s dream,

life isn’t a carefree joyride, it’s sad and cold and hard,

and Oberon, the king of fairies, still lives here somewhere,

but there are no forests anymore and he can’t find his way home,

he’s lost, defeated, dying,

and we are dark particles now,

because we swallowed, we swallowed, we swallowed,

and we postponed war until it was too late to win,

we daydream about summer,

because our hearts remember what light feels like,

but our eyes, our bodies, don’t.

Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece and the author of "We Fade With Time" by Alien Buddha Press. A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work can be found in many journals, such as the Chestnut Review, New World Writing, Milk Candy Review, the Bureau Dispatch, and others.

Ray Givans: Casualty

Somnolent, in the heat and rhythmic tick of the wall clock, it seems hours

before I am invited to cross the stream between waiting room

and Triage. The nurse commandeers a wastepaper basket as makeshift doorstop,

yet a wheelchair, pushed and hauled, barely makes it through.

Her assessment room has become a thoroughfare

as doctors and nurses swoop in and out, scooping up handfuls of papers,

opening and slamming shut drug cabinets.

Height? Weight? …. The Triage nurse disappears

into the adjoining control room, spot-lighted from a blue ceiling.

Doctors align x-rays, display on a screen, scrutinize the radiographer’s handiwork,

then bluster away to attend to multitudes. There are no islands of calm here,

just the fretwork of trolleys, patients folded into available spaces.

A woman on the other side of me engages. Here, twenty-four hours

she wears the forlorn look of a refugee set down on a foreign beach.

Ray Givans has been published in five pamphlet-length poetry collections, and one full collection with Dedalus Press. Ray was reared in Castlecaulfield, Co.Tyrone, but has lived in Belfast from the age of eighteen.

Diana Rosen: Darjeeling in the Himalayas

i.

Mist covered trees: otherworldly, mysterious

then clear bright sunshine exposes lush greenery

tea bushes dotted by pluckers in colourful saris,

headscarves, even frosted nail polish.

Riding along the edge of the endless road alongside

this crest of the fabled mountains, a woman sits,

her back to us, staring outward into the majestic

Indian mountains. I wonder, how did she get there?

ii.

Riding in a car a week later, I’m prodded awake

from a heat-and-humidity nap. “Look!” A turbaned

shoeless man, clothes tattered, grey, sits alongside

of the road next to his grey elephant, both sleeping.

iii.

We continue only to be stopped; a huge truck clings

to the mountain on our left, cliff edge, on our right

workers, oblivious, carry rocks on their heads (women),

pails of hot tar (men), all barefoot, helping road repair.

iv.

We end the day at an engagement party, invited to drink

Fanta, eat samosas, dance. They’re surprised I follow them

easily; I feign genius, fail to mention the steps are like

the hora, practiced since childhood on every day of joy.

Diana Rosen is the author of the hybrid, “High Stakes & Expectations” of poems and flash published by thetinypublisher.com Her work appears in journals in the U.K., Australia, Canada, India and the U.K. To read more of her work, please visit and subscribe for free at authory.com/dianarosen

Silke Feltz: 3 am

The desert heat and the moon and Brother Sleep, 

those three know how I toss and even my little toe 

wishes you were here right now. You’re awake, too– 

of course you are– as I curl into my restless duvet and 

picture how you press against me, forming a perfect 

question mark. We can’t meet in our weekend park, so 

we choose to believe we’re tired with eyes open wide. 

Only the desert heat and the moon and Brother Sleep 

listen to my heart beat where melancholic cicadas sing 

while you lie on your back in a foreign forest and you 

imagine my smaller body, the gift you refuse to unwrap 

slowly. You breathe deeply and wonder how my vegan 

skin smells and why these vulnerable, powder-pink pastels 

keep on crawling into your mula bandha, into your mind. 

When the desert heat and the moon and Brother Sleep smile 

because our last “Till soon” felt like some dramatic goodbye; 

when carefree fireflies begin to dance their silent disco for 

my delight and your endless summer days end earlier so night 

breaks ripples into your routine— then this is the exact moment 

when this desire between you and me seduces us to dream 

ourselves under the same sheet, where we feel less incomplete. 

Silke Feltz teaches writing at the University of Oklahoma and volunteers for Poetic Justice by facilitating poetry workshops in a women’s prison. Some of her poems found a home in Backwards Trajectory, Literary Veganism, Oddball Magazine, and Mockingheart Review. Apart from poetry, Silke researches food ethics and directs her humanitarian knitting charity, StreetKnits.

Lou Raio: If left to my own devices

What we need cannot be bought and 

We couldn't afford it any how 

And more likely 

It's fleeing from us faster 

It's running out and running away from us 

Imagine that cliché hand 

Holding a fist full of cliché sand 

And its cliché slipping through the fingers 

Soon all the guitars will be out of tune and 

They'll be no one left to tune 'em

The cool refreshing water will run hot 

Sweaty brows and denial 

It'll be dry like you couldn't believe 

Your last quenched thirst is behind you 

All the matters will no longer 

Your prized possessions all paperweights now 

And the paper burns 

Lou Raio is a poet, artist, photographer, blogger, vlogger and all around creative creator. He's been writing for about 20 years and has been an active poet for the better part of the last decade. He currently resides in the south eastern United States. Instagram: @_ananxiousman_ & @_poetryforall_ 

Jacquie Bryson: Wild Roses

My childhood parish dripped and danced with

Wildflowers: buttercups, cowslips, forget

Me nots and devil’s bread beneath hedge buds.

The white, embossed roses on the tiny

Coffin of a girl knocked down on the road

That the whole primary school walked to the

Church for the first funeral for most of us.

We crossed ourselves, abruptly aware

Of how the flowers can’t save us but

How they do cross with us at thin places.

My friend and I took to picking posies

To lay on her, and another child’s, graves.

Above them the life size crucifix rose

Silent sorrow bleeding holy rain.

Their guardian God, acquainted with grief.

We’d lay our flowers then kissed Jesus’s feet.

Jacquie Bryson lives in the hills outside Belfast with her family.  She has worked in education and community relations. Her poetry and a short story have been published in 'A New Ulster' and 'The Big Issue'. jacqsblog.art.blog/

Denise O'Hagan: Eavesdropping

That was the winter of the Fagin gloves,

            wedge heel boots and duffel coats

and Friday nights in the Fox and Hound;

the city bulged amber through slumped glass,

            the pavements grew slick with rain, and

cool gathered in the folds of damp umbrellas.

Looking back, we could have been a painting,

            a Rembrandt perhaps, or a Vermeer:

the elements were there. See, the five of us huddled

at a table, leaning—not over dice, or a hand of cards—

            but towards one another, mid-sentence,

firelight lacquering chins and knuckles, wetly;

oils take days to dry. And there he is, still twenty-one,

            slouched at the intersection of thirds,

his dark face flushed, hands upturned in supplication,

perhaps, or anger—or had he just drunk too much beer?

            the face of the girl opposite is masked sheer

by the fall of her hair and the pale ridge of her ear,

but her shoulders are stiff, hands holding each other:

            her whole body speaks. She can’t see the waitress

stepping out of the canvas, twisting back to look at her,

drinks tray tilting; the others are settling into their

            background for the night, the broad brushstrokes

of their thoughts hardening. Only one is turned to us—

but enough. Let us go now, while there is still time

            lest we eavesdrop too long on our own past,

and stir up ghosts to trail the rest of our lives.

 

First published in Mingled Voices 7, International Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology (Proverse Hong Kong, 2023)

Denise O’Hagan is a Sydney-based editor and poet, born in Italy, and former poetry editor with The Blue Nib. Her poetry collection Anamnesis (Recent Work Press 2022) was a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Award (USA) and shortlisted in the Rubery Book Award (UK). Website: https://denise-ohagan.com  FB: Facebook Denise O’Hagan  Twitter: Denise O'Hagan (@DeniseOHagan3)  LinkedIn: Denise O'Hagan | LinkedIn  Instagram: Denise O'Hagan (@blackquillpress)

Sunday Review: "Following Teisa" by Judi Sutherland

Occasionally, on a Sunday, we'll publish a poetry review.

Our second review is "Following Teisa" by Judi Sutherland.

Publisher: The Book Mill Press

ISBN: 9781916475083

Judi Sutherland’s poem sequence Following Teisa literally follows in the Eighteenth-Century footsteps of the little-known poet Anne Wilson, whose long-form poem Teisa chartered the River Tees and surrounding townlands. From its source in Teeshead, near Cross Fell (the highest mountain in the Pennines) all the way downstream to its estuary near Redcar, Sutherland captures the scenery and history of ninety miles of river.

Using inventive adjectives and unearthing uncommon nouns for seemingly common sights, the pastoral elegance of each location is evoked. We have waterways “garlands with bridges”; one bridge with “xylophone planks”; a “ramble of houses… as cute as barley sugar”; a section of the river reimagined as “the water-feature of a Japanese god”. One of the delights of the book is repeatedly coming across these glorious descriptions that make the reader long to go exploring themselves.

But what of the person walking the river way? Sutherland takes the form of a passive observer throughout the work, preferring to act as an omnipresent cataloguer of sights. In fact, there is only one use of ‘I; and one use of ‘my’ in the entire work, and this is when Sutherland draw direct comparison with Anne Wilson’s take and her own. It’s a curious experience for a reader, to have this disembodied commentator reporting back to us, yet saying nothing of how the landscapes might stir themselves. Rather, we are left with pure reportage, albeit a reportage that has a wide grasp of language and terminologies, and which is enthusiastic about its subject.

There is perhaps an over-reliance in the use of lists: there appears to be so many sights and worthy points of note – some disparate, some connected – that often these are piled in on top of each other, and so the sense of natural space and open geography can be compromised at time. However, this works well as we near toward the river’s end, as we experience a shift in mood, of encroaching industry and city.

For anyone familiar with the areas covered, Following Teisa is sure to stir the senses, and perhaps even make one a little homesick. For the outsider, who may have only heard of such grandeur, of glimpsed the majesty of the Tees on the popular Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, Sutherland presents to us a rich tapestry of potamology, folklore and agrarian aesthetics.

David Braziel: Death, Like and Earthquake

The ground he held as solid 

shifted sideways in an instant

taking his eyes, his hands,

leaving door-frames askew,

windows shattered, a survivor

buried under the rubble.

David Braziel is a poet from Staffordshire who now lives in Portadown. He has had his work published in several anthologies and  a collection published by Pen Points Press. He has performed his poetry at events all over Ireland and is a three-time winner of the Belfast Book Festival Poetry Slam.

Howie Good: Poetry Is Dead

(in memory of Mike James)

I sit at the kitchen table, laptop open in front of me, waiting on inspiration. This coming Sunday you’ll be dead a week, and I might still be sitting here, waiting. My muse displays about as much kindness and compassion as the lunch ladies in a school cafeteria. But yours, yours was different. Merciful. Available. Generous. Maybe because you were the best of all of us desperate scribblers. You were a poet, a real one, like a soldier with a flower in his helmet. Then night came on, and the cold with it. The words you would have brought together, celebrated, they’re orphans.

Howie Good's newest poetry collection, Frowny Face, a mix of his prose poems and collages, is available from Redhawk Publications He co-edits the online journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.

Katrina Kaye: Preservation

Left to myself,
            I sink,
and allow eyes to close.
 
To be
            still,
stone,
            ever vigilant.
 
Left to myself,
I will cease to exist
long before death
has the nerve to
visit my doorstep.
 
But I resist decay
by statuing
against chaos.
I close lips,
but keep eyes peeled.
 
I listen,
            listen,
listen.
 
I am not
unchanging.
I rattle
            back and
forth.
 
Left to myself,
I will fade
long before the sun
can bleach my bones.
 
So I protect the beat
of my heart and
            feel each
            breath fill
the empty cavern
of my being.
 
I preserve myself.
 
Hibernation
is not always
about rest;
it is about
            survival.
 
The only way
to make it to
the next season
is to let this one pass.

Katrina Kaye is a writer and educator seeking an audience for her ever-growing surplus of poetic meanderings. She hoards her previous published writings, links to publications, and additional information on her website (poetkatrinakaye.com). She is grateful to anyone who reads her work and in awe of those willing to share it.

Linda M. Crate: maybe there's more healing

the thing about lessons
is you learn them
after you shatter,

you cannot apply them to

situations or people you once knew;

you can only pray for flowers

that you have never seen bloom to

offer you fragrance and reprieve

for all your past mistakes—

you cannot go into the past and alter

who you were to make the future better,

and some say if they altered all their

mistakes they wouldn't exist;

but i cannot think of how much a better

person i might be if i could just redo the past—

maybe there's more healing i must do.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022). 

Megan Pattie: Risotto

To learn patience 

learn to make a risotto 

consider trees 

leave your phone at home and wear no watch 

teach someone you love about something you love 

make lots of risotto 

walk in the footsteps of wood anemone 

read Tolkien 

remember your favourite scarf in the middle of July 

plant seeds 

decide to write a very long poem 

watch the geese leaving in October 

send letters 

make a risotto for everyone who ever sent you a snippy email (before replying)

wash bowls by hand and warm

them blow on the risotto

savour all that richness on your tongue

Megan Pattie is a previous Foyle Young Poet of the Year who lives on the North East coast of England with her husband, two cats, and a rabbit. Her debut pamphlet Tracts was published by Black Light Engine Room in 2021. You can find her on Twitter @pattiepoetry.

Mick Corrigan: Let The Happiness In (ii)

Harvest in, hay saved, golden wheat cut to the scut,

dark scalp of earth streaked through the stubble,

these are the days of swallow filled skies and All Ireland Semi-Finals.

Deep in the woods, butterflies like scraps of silk

taken by an updraft flutter, fragile wings on a tiny gyre,

these are the days to drink deep at the well.

Further on, an old tree fall,

demanding attention from our curious dogs,

the broken stock still putting out leaf

on branches closer to earth than sky,

I stood in the gloaming and thought of my father.  

Mick Corrigan’s poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize (USA) and The Forward Poetry Prize (UK). His debut collection “Deep Fried Unicorn” was published in 2014 by Rebel Poetry Ireland, his second collection “The Love Poetry of Judas Iscariot” was published by Dionysia Press (UK) in March 2022. He likes to do wild, reckless and irresponsible things with his hair.

Sunday Review: “Another Art of Poetry and Doorstones” by Michael Edwards

Occasionally, on a Sunday, we'll post a poetry review on the blog. 

First up is “Another Art of Poetry and Doorstones” by Michael Edwards.

Publisher: Carcanet

ISBN: 9781800173170

The new Carcanet collection from Michael Edwards is really two books in one: Another Art of Poetry, an exploration of what poetry is, can be, and where it might come from; and Doorstones, only given one line of recognition in the book’s official blurb, and seemingly tacked on as an afterthought.

The poems of AAoP are in 194 sections, divided into ten broad themes, designed to be read individually, as “ten discrete poems” or as one long sequence. If one is looking for insights into the nature of poetry, and what it means to write it, dipping into the poems can be very rewarding, Edwards offering up such ruminations as “Without a vocation, | you can say what you like”, or “poetry serves | meekly to listen, and wonder why”. For any reader who is also writer, they will be moved to consider their own relation to the art.

We see poetry “like following | a street and the whole city unfolds around one”, or as “a pause | big | with Memory”. AAoP serves as a love note to the art itself, mixed in with pastoral scenes and evocations of God and spirituality, evocative of Betjeman, illustrating the breath and presence of poetry within our existence. When it comes to practitioners of the art however, Edwards has a distracting habit of using the default gender of ‘man’ when he should really mean ‘people’ or humanity’. Repeated we are told poetry is the realm of men only: “The writer along | with his words” (12); “The poet, by his breath and words” (59); “A poet; an indivi- | dual man” (94), and much more. The reader can only be left with the impression of an outdated terminology and viewpoint, enforced when Edwards using the offensive term “dumb” for mute (158), repeated in Doorstones.

Indeed, we see very little of women in Edwards’s world: the influences he lists throughout speak of Spencer, Hardy, Eliot, Milton, Wordsworth, all the usual suspects. Women only appear as an object of lust in Rita Hayworth, or a figure of tragedy in Juliet Capulet. Edwards fancies that “the Muse is a She”, one that is disruptive and “easy”; it seems that in this exploration of poetry, women only inspire poetry, they do not write it.

Edwards have clearly dwelt on what it means to be moved to write poetry, and why we resort to poetry in order to find expression. He has asides, reflections, thoughts so brief their also seem throw-away, but stand firmly on their own, and it is here that the chosen structure of individual poems within themed segments finds reward. Such insights are however tarnished with a tendency for cheap wordplay: from “at their pose, their poise”; “issues issuing”, “rapt, or raped”, descending to “You-topia” and “similes | smile”.

So, what of Doorstones, the second part of the book? In another lengthy narrative comprised of individual parts, we find Edwards turning his attention to matters of faith. Taking the Biblical story of Saul and David as a jumping off point, the writing is a confusing hodgepodge of personal introspection and the nature of belief, classical music, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the occasional revisit back to King David and the now converted Paul. If the title Doorstones is meant to suggest a threshold, it is uncertain what Edwards to seeking to open onto us. The writing is clearest when it directly addresses a Creator:

            The massive love of God, his infinite

            Farness and nearness, drawing breathe, draws us

            Upwards like broken notes

Edwards excels at portraying the wonder of God, the near-impossibility that requires faith, noting that “Jesus glides in, despite the thickest walls”. He also finds in the duality of Paul/Saul scope to explore his own moments of weakness and fallibility. Yet it lacks the conciseness and cosiness of, say, a C.S. Lewis, who might move you closer to God with their writing. Instead, here, we are left having to wade through Edward’s meandering whimsy to find our own way. Mercifully, the wordplay is lesser and stronger (“Rolling in lolly, lolling in a Rolls” or a gift of “frank instincts”). There is also an offensive and absurd attack on autism, in Edwards wanting to be closer to God and concluding that

            craving for more intimacy falls

            Somewhere between the egotistical

            And the autistic.

This smacks of gross ableism to so casually equate autism with weakness. Along with the misuse of the term 'dumb', and his disregard of women, Edwards reveals himself to be a man sorely behind the times. Overall, although the strength of one's faith is clear, Doorstones fails to stir us in the way that such comparable evocations within AAoP might.

Stephen Watt: 333 Rule

A common and informal technique used to cope with anxiety is using the 333 Rule. Look around to identify 3 things you can see, identify 3 sounds you can hear, then move 3 body parts. This is believed to help focus and ground people when anxiety seems overwhelming.

 

I have forgotten my earphones

after leaving the house for a run

and all I can hear

is bombs and violence.

A building is collapsed upon itself.

The inverted body of a girl

hangs out its mouth like a scalloped tongue

            but a strain of birdsong

            pacifies my brooding.

            Lullabies from the limbs of trees.

The flaming wine spilled

on Palestinian pavements

and hospital beds churns. Turns my stomach green.

When will this end?

            A cherry blossom tree swells

            like a bubble-gum balloon, ready to pop

            and I breathe coolly.

The world is an inferno. Nuclear weapons

are pressed hard

like children’s noses against televisions.

Unavoidable. Lessons to be learned

            but flying starfish

            are frozen into the dark morning sky

and I recognise

that nature is doing its damndest

to look after us.

Stephen Watt is the author of five poetry collections. Stephen has served as Dumbarton FC's Poet in Residence for seven years, and also previously been Makar for the Federation of Writers (Scotland). He has edited two punk poetry collections for the Joe Strummer Foundation and Buzzcocks, and is the Poetry Editor for Nutmeg Football Magazine.

Marty McKenna: Home

It’s different on the way home:
you’re there, I imagine, space
to exhale from the mistakes

of the day. The diary
talks a good home but has become
increasingly disillusioned.

It’s different, this home:
I carry around in my shirt pocket;
I hold you like a photograph,

as close as the gutter to the stars.


Marty McKenna is an independent Irish poet, born in Tyrone, now living and writing in Belfast. Marty has poems published widely in both online and print journals. He is currently submitting work for publication which will inform his third chapbook 'sleeve notes' (Button Press, February 2024). Marty is a neurodivergent poet.