Living with parents – Christiana Sasa

 

My mum and dad call me

many times a day.

we live in the

same house,

but on different floors

when I’m working,

I hate to get interrupted.

They understand me

and I, too, understand them.

still….

it often makes me

erupt in a yell,

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t call me now please”;

but my heart sinks,

every time I react like that.

An emptiness

bites on my nerves.

I know

One day I’ll miss getting interrupted…

 

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Christiana Sasa has been writing poetry for three years. Her work has been published in the literary magazines Poetry Life and Times, Literary Heist, Rye Whiskey Review etc. and in two E-zines called Dark Poetry Society and RavenCage. Besides poetry, she’s interested in painting, music, short films, and comedy.

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June 7, 2022June 7, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Christiana Sasa, creative, creativity, days, emotions, emptiness, floors, future, heart, home, interruptions, life, living, nerves, parents, poem, poet, Poetry, time, together, understanding, work, writing Leave a comment

Lacuna – Alfie Prendergast

 

Lacuna means a gap in something;

like we don’t know how they built Stonehenge.

That’s a lacuna.

We have a lacuna in our knowledge about Stonehenge.

A Stonehenge lacuna.

I used to have a lacuna lacuna but then I looked it up.

It has the same root as lake.

Latin: lacus, meaning pool.

Which is odd. Because a pool, a lake,

is by definition a gap filled.

The big empty lake-shaped space in the earth is filled

with water; making it a lake.

Otherwise it would be a crater.

From the Greek: krasis, meaning mixture, then krater,

meaning mixing bowl.

Which also suggests a gap filled

with whatever’s being mixed.

 

I suppose all lacunas are filled.

Pools, mixing bowls. The water in them

is so perfectly clear that we can’t see it.

It is the same temperature as our bodies.

It is empty space. But it is there.

Thin and fluid,

awaiting murky knowledge.

shining a light in the dark, the edge of the light.

The border of the darkness is the lacuna.

It’s empty but full.

 

 

Alfie Prendergast is a writer currently studying an MLitt in Creative Writing at Glasgow University. He writes about human futures, occult pasts and thoughts overheard. He is currently working on his first novel, as well as producing Open Mic Podcast; a literary reading podcast which hopes to capture the intrepid energy of open mic reading nights in podcast form.

August 13, 2018August 13, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Alfie Prendergast, creative, creativity, earth, elements, emptiness, gap, knowledge, lacuna, lake, language, light, names, nature, poem, Poetry, pool, roots, Scotland, space, water, words, writing Leave a comment

After Me – Julia Molloy

 

Darling, come closer. There’s nothing to be scared of, nothing to fear. You are always safe with me. Whenever you smile, I’ll smile too, though mostly you make jokes that aren’t funny these days. Whenever you cry, I’ll be waiting with my shoulder and a glass of your favourite wine. It’s the Rioja you prefer now, isn’t it? When we first met, it was all about the alcopops and fluorescent cocktails that quickly got us high so we could dance and be free. We’d dance to songs we no longer heard while others vomited and fought and cried. We’d dance and hold each other close. I guess we lost friends that way. But I can still remember how it felt, the first time we held each other. Our shoes stuck to the floor and the DJ shouted through the air, but all I could focus on was you. I thought my skin would ignite. As the years have mellowed, as our days have grown more fleeting, we savour the Rioja while we can. We don’t dance or play music. We sit, and we hold hands through fading daylight and long dark nights.

Darling, come closer. That was what you used to whisper in the darkest of nights after our son died. We held each other under bed sheets you always insist on ironing. We waited for time to do its work, but I think we both still feel the emptiness. So we hold each other wrapped in the clean, sharp edges of the bedsheets. We stop asking why.

Darling, come closer. I worry about who will keep you safe after me. Who will know about your favourite Rioja? Who will know how to leave you in peace when you come home from work, how to give you that space in which to breathe? Who will know the hole inside? I suppose someone could learn this soon enough, but still I worry. I don’t recall learning these things about you as much as absorbing them. We cried once at a study where children were punished and rewarded to see if they learned better. Our own son toddled at our feet. But now I come to think of it, that was how I absorbed these things about you. Your joys and your hates, your laughs and your rages, punishments and rewards. Who else can absorb these things and keep you safe?

Darling, come closer. I need to feel you near me. You don’t understand why I worry so much about you, why I don’t worry more about myself and what I must face. You don’t understand that worrying about you keeps the fear away. When we met, I remember how I felt a weight had been lifted from my mind. I didn’t have to be alone. I could hold you in my arms and you wouldn’t even comment on my clammy skin. Now, I worry about you to keep darkness at bay.

Darling, come closer. I can feel the darkness coming. I whisper to you again and again, or at least I think I do. You’re smiling, but not as you used to. It’s a smile that will turn into a cry the moment I close my eyes. I whisper again, or perhaps I don’t. Perhaps this is just the dream of life. Perhaps this is how you are after me.

 

 

Julia Molloy is a short story writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming at The Fiction Pool, Fictive Dream, Crack the Spine, STORGY, Platform for Prose and Riggwelter Press. Her work was shortlisted for the Fresher Writing Prize 2016. She graduated from Lancaster University in 2015 with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing and now works at a government organisation. You can find her at www.juliamolloy.org and on Twitter @JRMolloy2.

July 2, 2018July 2, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, ProseTags: closeness, creative, creativity, dance, darkness, death, emptiness, ending, family, fear, fiction, flash, Julia Molloy, life, loss, love, memory, past, short, story, UK, wine, writing Leave a comment

saving a shell – Paul Waring

 

I picked you from a shallow grave

of mussel shells one of many 

that lie close to the sea wall beneath 

the promenade left exposed when 

the tide rolls back into the horizon

 

haphazard clusters of naked nacreous 

sockets without eyes and blue-black 

domes of weathered backs in rockpools 

at rest on soft skin of red and grey

pebble and stone I chose you

 

I don’t know why I stepped over 

seaweed tendrils sprawled on sandstone 

to ask questions about your secret life 

how you met death unglued unhinged 

prised open cracked like a code 

 

scooped out by curve-billed curlew

or common gull abandoned washed 

and buried here by the incoming tide 

in this ghetto of empty homes I don’t 

know why I thought I could save you

 

 

Paul Waring is a retired clinical psychologist who once designed menswear and was a singer/songwriter in several Liverpool bands. His poems have appeared in journals/sites including Reach Poetry, Eunoia Review, The Open Mouse and are forthcoming in Clear Poetry and Amaryllis. He recently returned from living in Spain and Portugal and continues to enjoy being re-acquainted with the wonderful variety of nature in Wirral and other parts of Britain. His blog is https://waringwords.wordpress.com.

October 2, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: abandonment, animals, colours, creative, creativity, death, emptiness, fauna, home, horizon, life, nature, Paul Waring, poem, Poetry, questions, rockpools, sea, secrets, shell, tide, UK, writing 1 Comment

Void – Lynn White

 

There are dark misty spaces

topped by the blackest clouds,

so that I can’t see into them.

I have always been afraid

of the monstrous beings

which may lurk there

waiting in the dark.

But now the mist

is lifting,

moving

away.

The cloud is becoming thinner,

allowing the light to penetrate.

Now I am even more afraid,

afraid of the light,

afraid

that it may reveal

not monsters, but

the bare boards

of emptiness.

 

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Her poem ‘A Rose For Gaza’ was shortlisted for the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition 2014. This and many other poems have been widely published on line and in print publications. Find her at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lynn-White-Poetry/1603675983213077 and lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com.

May 17, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: afraid, beings, clouds, creative, creativity, darkness, emptiness, fear, feelings, humanity, light, Lynn White, mist, monsters, poem, Poetry, reveal, thoughts, UK, unknown, waiting, Wales, writing Leave a comment

The searchers – John Grey

 

When I claimed to have seen the boy,

the others shouted “where?”

But he was already gone.

I was in a bunch of weary men and women

who were more than ready to pack it in,

cold and damp, and aching for their warm beds.

As the others retreated, I stayed behind,

in woods so silent and empty,

nothing rivaled my heartbeat for sound.

The trees felt like the dark walls

of an abandoned church,

the rocks, altars stained with rain.

And I was the preacher without flock.

Or was that the flock without preacher?.

Was the boy really out there?

Every square inch of forest had been trudged through

by his would-be rescuers.

The wind was bitter, clouds low and gray.

It wasn’t winter but not through lack of trying

on the weather’s part.

Maybe he’d found a secret place

out of reach of red-eyed shivering saviors.

When I ran away and hid, I wanted people to find me.

But that was a long time ago.

When I claimed to have seen the boy,

maybe that was me skirting between the trunks,

through the brush, terrified, miserable,

but enacting part of a plan to be retrieved, taken back,

squeezed even deeper into the family fold.

I stopped. I listened to the shouts.

I longed to cry out in return.

But that wasn’t how it was supposed to work.

I had to lead them on that weary chase longer,

until the anger was fully drained from my pursuers

and only the compassion remained behind.

Forty years later, I wait and watch.

The boy is probably home and safe with his mother

tor all I know.

Most likely, only I am out here now.

So do I keep searching?

Or do I go home to bed?

Wait a minute. What was that?

I thought I saw… or felt penetrate.

Small but bright. The boy. But which one?

 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. His work has recently been published in New Plains Review, Stillwater Review and Big Muddy Review, and is upcoming in Louisiana Review, Columbia College Literary Review and Spoon River Poetry Review.

April 27, 2017April 27, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: Australia, chase, creativity, darkness, disappearance, elements, emptiness, family, heartbeat, home, humanity, John Grey, memory, nature, past, poem, Poetry, search, silence, trees, weather, woods, writing Leave a comment

What I could do, but won’t – Jessica Hanson

 

I could put on those shoes there

the little ones

unlock the door and walk out

and not stop walking until I reached somewhere I wanted to be

where I could escape from the inexorable emptiness inside me

as empty as the house I have deserted.

No one need know, as long as I am back by sundown

yet I know I will not

(it’s not what people do)

I know I will sit here and dream of waves breaking

on far-away shores

of sunsets over foreign towns.

And I will learn to be content.

 

Jessica Hanson is an 18 year old with a love of writing, travelling and books. She tweets at @JessicaGraceH.

November 16, 2016February 25, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: dreams, emptiness, freedom, humanity, Jessica Hanson, pain, poem, Poetry, sadness, travel, UK Leave a comment