Stephen Knox: The Shipping Forecast

South westerly 4 or 5, south 5 or 6 later,

thundery showers, becoming cyclonic.

Fisher dogger german bight,

fair isle faroes humber wight,

shannon sole irish sea,

malin viking cromarty,

fastnet forties south east iceland,

south utsire bailey portland,

hebrides utsire north,

rockall thames plymouth forth,

tyne lundy biscay dover,

shipping forecast's almost over,

sending waves across the sea,

across the deep's geography,

warns of storms and squally showers,

crashing gales for several hours.

She listens, sleepless, through the night

prays to God they'll be alright.

Stephen Knox lives in Belfast. Many of his poems appear on the Positive Belfast YouTube channel. He has had poems featured on BBC Radio Ulster, as well as being published by New Isles Press and online by Rancid Idols Productions.

Carly Heider: Spiralling

 

[Originally published in Coin Operated Press literary magazine, 2022]

Carly Heider is an emerging poet from Virginia with a background in education and writing. Her work has been featured in several literary magazines, and her poetry often centres around themes of trauma and healing. You can find her on Instagram: @beautyandherbrain

Richard Collins: No Longer Drunk on the Road at Night

            – after Li Yu*

Last night wind and rain danced frantic till dawn.

Window curtains clapped for their mournful song.

The power went out and the clocks all stopped.

I got up and sat for a while but could not sit for long.

When my daughter was a baby, she loved to sing this song:

Row row row your boat, life’s a butter dream.

How like a storm are our short lives, flooded with forgetting,

Ashes and gold nuggets gushing down gutters in a stream.

I used to think I should spend more time drunk on the road at night

So that I might live, so that I might think I continued to live.

But now the memory of a kid’s misprision

Hits me like a Blakean vision.

I want to go back and row a boat over butter;

I want to go back and do it all over – but better.

*inspired by the poem 'Last Night the Wind and Rain Together Blew (Crows Crying at Night)'

Richard Collins lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, where he directs Stone Nest Zen Dojo. His recent poetry is in Xavier Review, Urthona: Buddhism and the Arts, Littoral (UK), MockingHeart Review, Think, Alien Buddha Zine, Paper Dragon, and Shō Poetry Journal, among others. His books include No Fear Zen (Hohm Press).

James Kangas: Promise

The sun is slamming up the east

after a night of hard squalls.

Peonies out back have yet to pop

this cold spring, which is good,

I think; better not too hot too

fast. My brother and I sit on

the photographer’s studio bench

we’ve been sitting on since 1945,

both of us with silly-ass pasted-on

grins, both in short pants, hair

smoothed to the right, towheaded

almost, sitting closer than we’d

ever sit again. I look at all that

promise on my mantel, lost in the

ashes of the last century in whose

waning years my brother up and

died, tired, I think, as I am now,

burned out from too much

disappointment, tired of beer,

tired of romance, tired of fishing,

tired even of his favourite--looking

at the stars. When one tires of

everything, even the tireless sun

slamming up the east promises only

terrible light glaring on one’s

insufficiencies. To look at the

likes of that every morning is more

than one should have to bear. 

 

Originally published in Avalon Review Fall 2016

James Kangas is a retired librarian living in Flint, Michigan. His work has been published in Atlanta Review, Faultline, New York Quarterly, Penn Review, Unbroken, et al. His chapbook, Breath of Eden (Sibling Rivalry Press), was published in 2019.

Kelly Sargent: Before Blue Was a Colour

Black and red were named early on.

Sooty coal and kiwi seeds, and

fire, pomegranates, and trickles of blood

made themselves known.

But blue — that elusive illusion 

and whisper under the earlobe —

evaded the frame for generations. 

Blue is the colour of life, 

until we get there. 

The ocean is blue,

until we hold it in our hands. 

And then it slips away, 

like a thief stealing the breath 

from unspoken words.

I find myself mired in musings such as these

as I watch you back down the driveway,

wishing it was more than dirt and gravel,

and sticky, instead, to hold you in place.

But you go, saying that you must

because you are too blue

to stay. 

And like water,

you slip through my fingers

to search for what flows

through our veins

and colours cloudless skies

before a storm. 

A hard of hearing writer and artist, Kelly Sargent is the author of two memoirs in verse and a short form poetry collection. Other works have appeared in more than eighty literary journals. She serves as the creative nonfiction editor of The Bookends Review. Visit www.kellysargent.com to learn more.

Janet Guastavino: The Source

The jouncing drip-lap

ribbon of twigs

rushing cool and clear,

laced with dancing lichen;

wherever you have been

you are here now

and gone in the plash of a tear,

dripping cheek to stone.

I see myself;

I see the clouds

flowing on their course

and withering

in the plash of rain

that brims you over

and urges you, go

where you must go.

Janet Guastavino is a native Californian and a fifth-generation San Franciscan whose poetry has been published digitally and in hard copy. She curates a web site that features poetry and flash fiction about mental health and emotional wellbeing, written by women over the age of fifty-five. https://croneswords.page

Petar Penda: Silence

-to my sister- 

The weight of silence descends on me

Heavy like low clouds which press the sky,

A summer shower which makes 

The sky and the sea become one,

A hefty marble tombstone on your grave.

I wish you spoke to me in my dreams

And told me you were in peace now.

I would tell you how I live day by day,

How I think of you and rarely cry,

But now and then my stony heart moans,

Puts asunder and turns into dust.

It is a miracle how it puts together

To be dissolved again and again,

And I wonder how many miracles 

I deserve to happen in my life.

Petar Penda (he/ him/his) is a professor of English and American literature (University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina), literary critic, and translator. His translations have been published in renowned journals in the USA and the UK. His poetry and flash fiction have been published in Fevers of the Mind, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Trouvaille Review,  Amphora, Dark Winter Lit, Suburban Witches and other journals.

David Q. Hutcheson-Tipton: Weather

Windshield wipers 

bat away raindrops.

Mom is driving. I ask where are we going?

                           (I think,

                           (Are we running away?)

She & Dad are

not getting along, 

might get a divorce,

if they do, who would I want to live with—

*

For years after “going to bed” 

I’ve been lying in the hallway

where Mom & I wait

during tornado warnings/

watches before climbing into

the linen closet

            

            Dad power-walks out

the front door,

his eyes scanning the sky 

for funnels

sleepless,

waiting for voices 

to grow tense. Inevitably: 

“Mary, why don’t you see a psychiatrist?” 

“John, how can talking to one help?”

*

A dozen times over as many years 

she locks herself in a bathroom 

clutching a bottle of pills

she threatens to take 

as Dad

mows the lawn

[The final six lines appeared under the title “Harmless threat” in One Sentence Poems, November 2023.]

David Q. Hutcheson-Tipton is a poet and semi-retired physician. His poems have found homes in Red Eft Review, One Sentence Poems, and Unlost. He lives near (and occasionally in) the Colorado Rocky Mountains with three miniature poodles (a few other people, as well).

Maurice Devitt: The Uncertainty of Winter

There is a darkness on the brightest of days,

maybe just a speck, but he knows it’s there,

a last wasp ghosting behind him,

tripping his mind with the fear of the sting.

He slows his step, turns around

and it’s gone, just a stranger laughing

or a blind spot in the mirror. Takes five

deep breaths (a recentring technique

he’d picked up on a talk-show and started to trust),

busies himself with other distractions, hoping

that starved of attention, it won’t slink back

into his peripheral vision, firstly as mote

then full-blown spectre, standing

in the middle of the room, spotlight fully on.

A past winner of the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland, Bangor Poetry and Poems for Patience competitions, Maurice Devitt is the curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site. His second collection, ‘Some of These Stories are True’, was published by Doire Press in 2023.

Fred Pollack: The Street

Sometimes you hear a voice that’s hard

to identify: soft, husky,

that of a woman who wants

you. And you hurry

joyfully towards her through all

the obstacles, which include

your bones and lungs and heart. But as

you struggle, the voice becomes that

of your mother; it’s time

to come in. And you cry, Oh no,

see how bright the day is,

the street is safe and I’m not tired;

and she, with the mystifying sound of a tear,

says it’s not and you are.

Fred Pollack is the author of The Adventure, Happiness (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), A Poverty of Words (Prolific Press, 2015), Landscape with Mutant (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), and The Beautiful Losses (Better Than Starbucks Books, September 2023). Many other poems in print and online journals. www.frederickpollack.com

Cindy Ye: The Package

I have wrapped up all our shared memories in a paper box,

covered by light blue plastic paper and sealed with tape.

I don't like bows, paper flowers, or other cheap decorations,

and a square box is just what I want.

I will call the delivery man to pick it up,

he will charge me an additional three dollars

for another cardboard box to wrap it in,

and then send it off for me.

The delivery will begin as air cargo,

and upon landing will be transported by truck.

I didn't choose expedited shipping,

so reaching your place will take about seven working days.

The delivery person might be careless

and leave it on someone else's doorstep.

So, if by that day you haven't received it,

you can take a look at other people's homes.

(But be careful not to be mistaken for a thief and reported.)

I must leave for an unfamiliar place,

where nothing was familiar to me except soil and plants.

I have to burn each piece of soil into bricks to build my house,

and plant each apple seed into apple trees

to have something to eat.

If I'm lucky, I'll meet strangers, learn their language,

and understand why

they name December after shooting stars.

Then I'll write letters to my friends,

hopefully, I can begin writing when the apples ripen.

The plastic wrap may have faded by then.

And the colour will have seeped into the cardboard box.

By then, I hope that you have already opened this package.

Otherwise, you might appear blue

in the memories that you see.

Cindy Ye is a graduate school admissions advisor and a sustainability advocate. Her writing explores bonds between individuals that go beyond verbal communication and conventional interactions.

Glen Wilson: Play

She takes it seriously, my cat Molly,

every limb committed

to its part, inching forward

smooth and silent. The crow

is busy with his repertoire

of caw, croak, and rattle.

And I only notice this high stakes moment

as my radio drama has just finished,

the tune of Barwick Green fading,

- and then with a leap my cat sinks teeth and claws

into the bird’s black mass, feathers scatter

from torn pinions, they twist together,

calico to black to calico to black and red.

The crow gets in a few jabs with his beak

before it is beat.

Then it is still,

She purrs over her prize, licks her wounds,

every choice a consequence,

and slowly walks over to her saucer.

She laps the milk I left out this morning

before disappearing over the fence.

I ready myself to clear the body,

for I’ve done this before, it does no good

to put it off. Just as I go to open the door

another crow lands beside his fallen mate,

and as if giving directions, he is resurrected,

and flies off, having given the performance of his life.

Glen Wilson is a Poet from Portadown. He won the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing (2017), the Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Award (2018), the Trim Poetry competition (2019), and Slipstream Open Poetry competition (2021). His collection An Experience on the Tongue is available now. Twitter: @glenhswilson

Jeff Burt: Premonition

I had left my friends exhausted by conversation

and good will to walk the gravel road home at night.

I heard the chatter of tire-tossed rocks in the distance.

I moved toward the ditch and raised my thumb.

A car approached and a car went by.

Pine needles whispered, scything the air,

cutting down the wheat of the yard lamps.

I skated happily on gravel toward home.

Befriended by trees that could not speak,

how could I know, then, life would turn like this,

the beckoning of a road without furthering light,

the tug of communion with others like a rope

tied to the pier once taut, then slacking,

that friends extend and woods bring back.

Jeff Burt lives in California with his wife, floods, drought, earthquakes, and forest fires. He has contributed to Williwaw Journal, Willows Wept Review, and Sheila-Na-Gig, among others.  www.jeff-burt.com/

Tom Kennedy: Resilience

I am an ear of corn:

I listen to the wind,

I feel the sun's caress,

I am blessed by the rain.

If I suffer the imposition

of your desire

to cut me down -

thrash and bind me,

crush and grind me -

you will still find me alive

as you knead and mould me,

shape and fold me,

into whatever form you wish,

far from my field of birth,

my earthy days.

Even as you consume me,

I hear your praise.

Thomas Kennedy is a member Dun Laoghaire Active Retirement group, who among other activities run a weekly creative writing course. Originally from Meath, he is now retired and lives in Dun Laoghaire.

Jennifer Browne: Gastropod, a Love Letter

Bright morning, a trail 

of snail shimmer loops

the sidewalk. So much 

to follow, kind of cursive

underlying these first 

steps. Letters I haven’t 

sent. There are times 

the words I trace across 

a page are just adhesion, 

sticking to a point against

resistance. Other times, 

propulsion, slicking a

frictionless way forward, 

swifter for another to 

follow. I want to give you

this unexpected silver, 

a record of the body’s 

sugar I hold out to you 

without any sort of shell. 

Jennifer Browne falls in love easily with other people's dogs. She has some poems in chapbooks—Whisper Song (tiny wren publishing, 2023) and The Salt of the Geologic World (Bottlecap Features, 2023)—and journals, including Steel Jackdaw, Gargoyle, and Humana Obscura. She lives in Frostburg, MD. 

Attracta Fahy: Enduring Utopia

They, the soul eaters, sons,

daughters betrothed to institutions

have usurped my womb,

my sun, ravaged my mind

with privation –

now they want my body.

I am slave, at the mercy

of food, a weapon, it chokes

me with their need.

They think I am frail, bring plates

with teeth, wild animals attack me.

I cannot tell you, as you come

towards me with your large

platter of nourishment, I am

terrified it will eat me,

that blood in its contents

will soak my bones, trigger

primitive instinct. My stomach

refuses to digest your utopia,

where the witch’s flame is quenched.

My gut has a voice too,

she becomes a wild animal, bloated

with feeling, fat with lies, seeks

revenge for the killing.

She eats not just your food, your

plate, your power, she swallows my smile.

I’ve built a wall of starvation.

No one enters, not even me.

(Originally appeared in 'Dinner in the Fields', Fly on the Wall Press, 2020)

Attracta Fahy, Psychotherapist, MA.W NUIG ‘17. Winner-Trócaire Poetry Ireland Competition 2021. Irish Times; New Irish Writing 2019, Placed 3rd, in Allingham Poetry Competition 2023. Shortlisted for: Saolta Poems for Patience 2023, Fish International Poetry Competition 2022. Fly Press published her debut chapbook collection Dinner in the Fields, in March’20.

Gaynor Kane: Making Life

Begin with the earth: rich open compost, 

Add well-rotted manure, full of minerals.  

Round-up the ancestor’s tools: Gran’s floral fork 

and Dad’s metal trowel; lay them on an altar of green.  

Listen to a playlist of birdsong on shuffle;  

trills as you drill straight rows of well-positioned holes. 

Lift the packet of Early Perfection and tear off  

the corner with your teeth, dispense into a cupped palm. 

Drop individual peas into each furrowed crib  

and rake over a crocheted blanket of loam. 

Take permanent marker to lollypop sticks  

to remind you what has been sown and where. 

Ensure that the watering can is fitted with a fine rose;  

anoint the earth, while praying for warmer nights. 

Gaynor Kane is a Northern Irish poet from Belfast and is published by the Hedgehog Poetry Press. Gaynor has curated events for, and performed at, several literary festivals. Recently, she was a judge for The North Carolina Poetry Society and guest sub-editor for the inaugural issue of The Storms Journal. Her latest chapbook, Eight Types of Love, was released in July 2022. 

Kenneth Pobo: Unexcepted Company

I’m doing the dishes,
sink water grey as the sky—
one dish feels like the next.
Time, a plugged-up drain.  I look
out the window and see—
 
a bluebird!  A blue lake
with feathers.  I drop
the damp towel on the counter
and head for the porch
for a closer view.  The bird
perches on the flagpole
that never has a flag
unless the sky is a flag
which it is on some sunny days. 
 
Off the bluebird goes,
toward the catalpa tree,
which takes him in,
its leafy door always open.

Kenneth Pobo (he/him) is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections.  Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), Lilac And Sawdust (Meadowlark Press), Lavender Fire, Lavender Rose (BrickHouse Books), and Gold Bracelet in a Cave: Aunt Stokesia (Ethel Press).

TAK Erzinger: Hide and Seek

War feeds on childhood:

it makes fear a game,

it claims safe spaces, corners of homes

its tongue slithers down corridors, digesting

rooms, toys and all.  It listens at the edge of

town, hears ragged breath huddled in closets

or outside in tall grass, camouflaged under trees

on bent knees. In a central square, it catches

whole building blocks, taking pets too.

 

War is a sore loser, winner-takes-all player

clearing away every sign of growth,

no matter if in an abandoned place. It's hidden

in the minds of men who never understood

the rules and have forgotten the dreams of a child.

TAK Erzinger is an American/Swiss poet and artist with a Colombian background. Erzinger’s poetry collection “At the Foot of the Mountain,” (Floricanto Press 2021), won the University of Indianapolis, Etchings Press Whirling Prize 2021 for best nature poetry book.  Her poetry collection “Tourist” (Sea Crow Press 2023) was released in April.

Cat Dixon: All Love Ends in Water

 After Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) by David Hockney

 

All love ends in water—be it ocean,

lake, or pool. One moment he’s

dogpaddling and sipping on a cocktail;

the next, he’s swimming full force

to the other end of the pool, away from you,

towards the fresh fish that he won’t

let escape. Your bait doesn’t entice

anymore. Your hook’s gone dull.

You’re no longer able to float, so don’t

get too close. Staring at the ripples,

he leaves in his wake. Turn away!

Look to the trees, the valley, the sun,

the elongated shadow that never

abandons you there on the deck.

Cat Dixon is the author of What Happens in Nebraska (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2022) along with six other poetry chapbooks and collections. She is a poetry editor with The Good Life Review. Recent poems published in The Book of Matches, North of Oxford, hex, and The Southern Quill.

J.I. Kleinberg: staring down

 

An artist, poet, and freelance writer, J.I. Kleinberg lives in Bellingham, Washington, USA, and on Instagram @jikleinberg. Her poems have been published in print and online journals worldwide and chapbooks of her visual poems, how to pronounce the wind (Paper View Books) and Desire’s Authority (Ravenna Press Triple Series No. 23), were published in 2023.

Dvora Robinson: How to live in your own body: an instruction manual

Inhale.

Exhale.

Let your jaw relax.

Feel your feet on the floor.

Listen to the soft sound of the cat eating wet cat food.

Notice that it’s your own reflection you see in the dark window.

Listen to the white noise of appliances.

Hear the gentle rain outside

and know that you are safe.

Wait for your husband to come home

with groceries and take-out Thai soup.

Try to write something, maybe a poem.

Notice how good it is to wait for a husband

who comes home with groceries and take-out Thai soup.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Let your lungs expand and then contract.

Watch the blunt fingers of your capable hands

dart over and land on the little squares on the keyboard.

Keep waiting for your husband, or a poem,

whichever comes first.

Dvora Robinson is a writer and visual artist living in Portland, Oregon. Her work is published in the anthology Love Letters in Poetic Verse (Southern Arizona Press), in The Post Grad Journal, and in Literature Today.

Jacqueline Jules: Bear Hunt

“We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it…” from We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury

Children clap and sing,

excited by a bear hunt.

Listen to them chant:

Can’t go over it!

Can’t go under it!

Can’t go around!

You have to go through:

the tall grass, the mud,

the river, the forest,

the snowstorm.

The children clap and sing,

untroubled by the truth.

There are many things

you just have to go through.

A job loss, a break-up,

a doctor seeing spots

on a mammogram.

You just have to go through

before you can outrun the bear

and sip cocoa in the kitchen.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman's Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. Visit www.jacquelinejules.com

Jeffrey Zable: On New Montgomery Street

I stop to watch this homeless guy lying down 

with his back against a garbage can on the sidewalk 

of one of the busiest areas in downtown San Francisco. 

Alternating between forefingers, he picks out boogers 

which he proceeds to wipe on the sidewalk. 

The expression on his face is almost orgasmic. His eyes 

are half closed and his lips seem to be offering gentle kisses 

to some imaginary goddess. 

I continue to watch him while trying to imagine what it 

must feel like to no longer care what other people think, 

or for that matter even be aware of their presence. 

After cleaning out what appears to be all that remained

inside his nose, he shuts his eyes, and making himself 

as comfortable as possible, he now appears ready for a nap.

He looks completely at peace with himself, unlike most of us

passing by who have some place that we have to be—

but don’t really want to be there. . .

[Originally published in Down in the Dirt, 2016]

Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer/percussionist who plays Afro-Cuban folkloric music for dance classes and rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area, and a writer of poetry, flash-fiction, and non-fiction. He’s published work more recently in The Gorko Gazette, The Hooghly Review, Cacti Fur,

Alba, Uppagus and many others. 

Barry Basden: Maybe I Should Just Vacuum

I think of her every time I dust mop,

the last chore she could do. She

no longer made coffee or ran the dishwasher,

but she could still dust mop. When asked

how things were going, she always

told everybody she did that. Later,

at the home, they let her help out

a little, even though she

had to be mostly in their way.

Dust mopping. You never know

what can make you weep.

Barry Basden lives in the Texas hill country with Bean, his little rescue terrier. He reads a lot and occasionally writes.