Kenneth Owens: Ice

The move to winter always jolts

despite it being marked on the calendar,

this annual trauma, jouncing in

so soon after September.

I shop for hoodies, sweater,

read articles on hot water bottles,

phone my mother and bemoan my age –

was I ever cold as a child? Doubtful.

Windows remain closed; dust breeds.

Mornings are a closed coffin.

Kenneth Owens is an occasional writer and reviewer with full-time imposter syndrome, residing in Northern Ireland. 

David Adès: The Gaining of Wisdom

As a boy I watched, bemused,

my father on his annual autumnal

 

sorties to the large expanse of lawn

separating our house from Anzac Highway,

 

rake in one hand, bags in the other,

wondering why on earth he bothered

 

to rake and bag the thick spread

of yellow, orange, red and russet leaves

 

that shifted and swirled like the lawn’s

plumage, that spoke lavishly of the season

 

and could, I thought, have remained 

in place, when later, my mother 

 

would note his pain, his lumbago,

a word I loved as much as zabaglione 

 

and tartufo, only to find myself now,

older than he was then, 

 

doing the same thing, and finding

comfort in it, ritual, repetition,

 

the satisfaction of imposing

transient order in one small,

 

contained area, while chaos runs rampant 

across the wild tracts of my life.

David Adès is most recently the author of The Heart’s Lush Gardens. His next collection, A Blink of Time’s Eye, is forthcoming from Five Islands Press. He is the host of a monthly poetry podcast series, Poets’ Corner, which can be found on Youtube. 

Deirdre Cartmill: Will You Sing?

And the word flew

from the lips of love,

and this was the first note,

and it rang through the heavens,

calling all the lost notes to it,

all the sharps, flats and naturals

that yearned to connect one to the other,

and so the souls were born

who would sing those notes,

whose very bodies would vibrate

with their own celestial pitch,                                 

 

and each note sang to the next

in harmony and con amore,

soprano, tenor, bass and alto 

until as one they grew

into figures, bars, phrases,

into a chorus,

leaping, lamenting, loving

the interplay of note on note,

and the melody erupted

into a canticle, 

into a song of songs

that filled the heavens,

and still it grew,

and so you were born.

And then the great silence fell,

as each note was damped,

was made to sing another’s note,

and the melody diminished

as the notes became a monotone,

and even the word itself was silenced.

And so the joyless time began

when each note was quieted,              

forgot it could ever sing,

forgot how to break the silence

until one day one came

who started to sing again 

– one lone note

singing out over the deserts and the barren lands,

singing out over the grey-starred darkness,

singing not just with their lips

but with their whole being,

holding their note’s pitch                    

as they breathed in and breathed out,

sounding their note, no matter the cold winds

or the silence answering back,

waiting, waiting,

for another to sing,

until another sang out,

and one note became two,

and slowly the sound spread

across the silenced land,

and a song began to build,

and the rhythm awakened the earth,

and the birds joined in,

and the angels sang out, 

and so you were reborn.

Will you sing?

Will you sing to me

of love lost and love found?

Will you sing

of each simple moment

alive with your rhythm

until my body vibrates in harmony

and a note pours from me,

and as I sing and you sing

and the word re-enters my heart,

my heart vibrates with love,

and love asks me,

Will you sing?

Deirdre Cartmill has published three poetry collections - The Wind Stills to Listen (Arlen House), The Return of the Buffalo (Lagan Press) and Midnight Solo (Lagan Press). Her fourth collection is forthcoming. This poem was inspired by her time as Writer-in-Residence for Belfast Cathedral. www.deirdrecartmill.com

Jan Wiezorek: A Vessel for Sweet

Taffy or candy corn, no,

sweeter still than a beignet

or a balanced blade of a cake knife,

a chainsaw on an ash tree trunk,

stripped from bark, peeling away,

sweet, for basketweaving.

We can remember past

and pretend our way tomorrow,

but miniscule present

weaves strip by strip,

binding permanently past us,

no matter how we try to spin it forward.

The artist, the basket-maker

could spend his month creating

and then burn the vessel of lost culture,

lost tongue, lost sound, lost words

of our sweet poetry.

How will we hold sugar, honey?

And the basket, thick at the top,

meaty, tapering:

toward a muscled thigh

bulging

black ash

and sweetgrass.

_____

* Native American basket-maker Jeremy Frey makes and burns his basket in a video titled Ash (2024).

Jan Wiezorek writes from southwestern Michigan and walks regularly along McCoy Creek Trail. He is author of the poetry chapbook Prayer’s Prairie (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press) and the forthcoming chapbook Forests of Woundedness (Seven Kitchens Press). Wiezorek’s poetry has appeared in The London Magazine, Vita Poetica, and BlazeVOX. Visit janwiezorek.substack.com.

Kushal Poddar: Convalescence

My old weight has returned.

Should I welcome it? Should I

regret? Still weak after

the calenture and the fever,

I take the weekend for a drive.

We talk about the skies:

Autumn hides under their broad smile.

When we reach the beach,

everyone else has left the stretch

for some shade. Thirst

is a pleasure; hunger is.

They mark the point of return.

The author of 'Postmarked Quarantine', Kushal Poddar has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of 'Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe. Amazon.