Flowers and night-time flowers – DS Maolalai

 

camden. the bus

flipped like a swing

in bad weather

with somebody

kicking their heels.

11pm. earth gone

grey in salty

shades of orange.

the shops all closed, bars

curled open,

like flowers

giving way to night-

time flowers. someone

already hammered,

being sick in a corner

next to a fish shop.

pavement alive

like a pond

with ducks.

a part of the city

with evening in shades,

beautiful and busy.

stylish people

and shirts

bought from second

hand stores.

 

---

DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).

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April 4, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: beauty, Camden, city, clothes, colours, corner, creative, creativity, DS Maolalai, earth, elements, evening, flowers, Ireland, life, night, pavement, people, poem, Poetry, time, weather, writing Leave a comment

Boxed Dusk – Jenny Moroney

 

A beginning of an evening was grasped by the room

whose sparse light seeped in from a solitary window.

Lain on the bed, a pencilled in person noted the square

of sunset with its pastel pinks, blues and greens

layered over a charcoal city skyline.

 

Moving their hand against the square

so the light was sieved through their skin like dust,

they noted how this beginning of an evening

could be anything from a painting

to a life.

 

 

Jenny Moroney lives in South-East London. She studied English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and has been published online and in print.

August 4, 2019August 4, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: bed, beginning, city, colours, creative, creativity, dusk, dust, evening, Jenny Moroney, layers, life, light, London, nature, poem, Poetry, room, skin, sky, UK, window, writing 1 Comment

Bear – Rhianne Celia

 

She kneads herself into the grass,

brooches of hay collecting on her back.

I’m on my stomach, the grass glossed

and sun-pooled, and for once

I’m not waiting for something or someone

to slip from surface talk to the big stuff

as readily as a mother forgives –

I’m watching her beard fill with buttercups

and the wet beads on her tongue nudge back

and forth as she shimmies against me.

I reach for a stick, throw it, and off she trots,

her paws a skit as she loses track

of its flight. She returns with an open

tennis ball in her mouth, a clopping ring box

she presents with a flourish. I readily accept,

placing it on my stomach like an upturned

book, and then I’m looking at the sky – a hearty

magenta block, and the remainder of my evening

appears in hob flames and final Tupperware clicks.

She leads me home, my hessian stopwatch,

urging me to live, live, live.

I swallow as the script starts up.

 

 

Born and raised in Manchester, UK, Rhianne has recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at The University of Manchester. She has loved words (and arranging them) since she could put fluffy pen to paper (that’s a lot of fluff, and a lot of paper!). She explores human relationships in all of their wonderful complexity in her work and writes a lot about mental health, a subject close to her heart. You can find more of her poetry and general musings over at rhianne-writes.tumblr.com.

May 2, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: colour, evening, flight, flora, flowers, forgiveness, grass, home, Manchester, movement, nature, paws, poem, Poetry, Rhianne Celia, senses, sky, sound, sun, talk, time, UK, waiting Leave a comment

A wounded goose – Kieran Egan

 

A ragged V of calling geese approaches, 

one powering to take its turn at point 

as others find their places in the slipstream. 

Then as they rise towards the line of trees 

one flailing body tumbles to the ground; 

a cry and splatter twenty feet away.

It flaps a damaged wing and starts to run 

south in the direction of its fellows,

neck straining toward them, stopping at the wall.

The wounded goose and I both stand helpless 

at this sudden fathomless tragedy. 

Well to the south, the rest climb onward, 

powerful chests heaving tireless wings;

their distant honking to each other fades 

as the line dissolves in the evening sky.

 

 

 

Kieran Egan lives in Vancouver, Canada. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Quills (Canada), Literary Review of Canada, Dalhousie Review (Canada), High Window (UK), Orbis (UK), Raintown Review (USA), Envoi (UK), Shot Glass Journal (USA), Qwerty (Canada), Snapdragon (USA), The Antigonish Review (Canada), Acumen (UK), Canadian Quarterly and The Interpreter’s House (U.K); also shortlisted for the John W. Bilsland Literary Award, 2017 and for the TLS Mick Imlah prize 2017.

March 8, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, birds, Canada, creative, creativity, cry, evening, fall, fauna, flight, geese, ground, honking, Kieran Egan, nature, poem, Poetry, sky, slipstream, trees, tumble, wings, writing Leave a comment

Earthquake – Susan Richardson

 

The earth rolls beneath my feet, a wave

carrying me across the courtyard.

I sink into his mouth.

Afternoon erupts with fear as the

ground spits back its shaking aftermath.

Sunburned pavement cracks in his grasp.

Evening whispers its descent,

peppering the sky with darkened clouds.

Far below, the world stands still.

 

 

 

Susan Richardson is living, writing and going blind in Hollywood. She was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 2002 and much of her work focuses on her relationship to the world as a partially sighted woman. In addition to poetry, she writes a blog called “Stories from the Edge of Blindness”. Her work has been published in: Stepping Stones Magazine, Wildflower Muse, The Furious Gazelle, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Chantarelle’s Notebook, Foxglove Journal, Literary Juice and Sick Lit Magazine, with pieces forthcoming in Amaryllis. She was also awarded the Sheila-Na-Gig Winter Poetry Prize.

March 4, 2018March 4, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: aftermath, body, CA, creative, creativity, descent, earth, earthquake, elements, evening, fear, feet, ground, mouth, nature, poem, Poetry, senses, sky, Susan Richardson, US, world, writing 1 Comment

Servitude – Nigel F. Ford

 

They have walked in warm weather all the way from the beach, along the harbour wall, into the city, through the old quarter, up to the skirts of the castle, seeking the shade where possible, trying not to hurry, but not wanting to be late.

An attempt has been made before.

Two attempts in fact.

This time we are determined.

‘Do I look alright?’

‘You look fine. What about me. What do you think?’

‘O you always look alright.’

‘That’s alright then.’

‘What do you think? Can you see? Is there a long queue?’

‘It’s difficult to say. There is a queue of about half a dozen persons at the door. But then, there are several people leaning against the wall opposite the entrance. Some of them have come out for a smoke, I should think. But some of them might be part of the queue.’

‘We should probably start by waiting at the door.’

‘That’s the best plan.’

‘I think those people there are leaving. She’s fishing in her handbag.’

‘Could be. Still, we’re not the first in the queue.’

‘What’s the time?’

‘Eight thirty.’

‘We’ll wait until eight forty-five, but no longer.’

‘Alright.’

They stand patiently. A waiter talks to them briefly, smiles, laughs, jots down a note on a pad, nods and leaves.

Around them the evening crowd heaves and swirls, revealing empty hollows and then refilling them, like the sea they have watched for much of the afternoon.

‘What’s the time?’

‘Ten to nine.’

‘We’ll wait until nine o’clock. But not a moment longer.’

‘Alright.’

 

 

Born in 1944, Nigel F. Ford wrote his first radio play aged 14 (refused). Jobs include reporter for The Daily Times, Lagos, Nigeria, travel writer for Sun Publishing, London, English teacher for Berlitz, Hamburg, copy writer for Ted Bates, Stockholm. Had a hand in starting the Brighton Fringe in 1967. He started painting etc. in 1983 and has regularly exhibited in Sweden and on the Internet in various publication. In addition, several magazines in UK and US have been kind enough to publish his writing. Such as Nexus, Outposts, Encounter, New Spokes, Inkshed, The Crazy Oik, Weyfarers, Acumen, Critical Quarterly, Staple, T.O.P.S, The North, Foolscap, Iota, Poetry Nottingham, Tears in the Fence etc. He is now trying to produce & direct one of his stage plays.

November 6, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, ProseTags: attempt, beach, castle, city, creative, creativity, crowd, door, entrance, evening, fiction, flash, humanity, journey, Nigel F. Ford, queue, sea, short, story, time, waiting, weather, writing Leave a comment

Erebus – Christopher Eskilson

 

Days have passed since

I

was in my mouth,

long and oddly shaped.

 

The touches

of a dead rock leave me opened wide.

Silence sits beneath a maze of multiplying sand.

 

I had never forgotten a tune the planets learned,

brightening like a spoon collecting

pictures of a gone world.

 

Now, my pupils burn.

The innards of a feeling blacken.

The vibrations sigh

& bury your

excuse me.

 

Let go, spreading out along a road

cutting through my woods.

I rub my tongue in evening as

the pines curl asleep.

 

Listen:

The dream

—its special music—

hums.

 

This is the mind;

cold and black light blue;

the desert carelessly approaches.

 

A sea of squeezing bites.

 

I can’t inhabit where I goes.

An effigy,

a wild silence.

Living, burning, lost control.

 

Christopher Eskilson is a Junior at Pitzer College studying English and world literature. He is a managing editor at the Claremont Colleges’ The Student Life Newspaper and also an associate editor for Claremont Graduate University’s Foothill poetry magazine. In the past, he has worked as an editorial intern for Red Hen Press in Pasadena, California. Christopher’s work has appeared in After the Pause, 30 N (formerly the North Central Review), Apeiron Review, A Quiet Courage, and others.

March 30, 2017March 30, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: body, CA, Christopher Eskilson, colours, creative, creativity, dream, elements, evening, feelings, journey, mind, music, nature, poem, Poetry, senses, silence, thoughts, US, woods, world, writing 1 Comment

Ode to Bishop – Carl Boon

 

Late September means

the chickens—

 

in summer imperturbable—

scatter at the shack’s wall.

 

They sense a flesh confined

trucks moving away,

 

the ends of all things

hot and strange.

 

This evening the wind

has shifted; the vines

 

have browned, fall against

the boy’s summer plan:

 

a pyramid, a monument

to which he did not pray.

 

Mother tries the door.

The cat has perched atop

 

the Hyundai top,

a kind of porch,

 

and symbols here have pushed

away to need—tin foil

 

makes a drape, branches

of fig to fence the strays.

 

When the rains come,

the girl, barely old enough

 

to lie, will gather armfuls

of rocks, wishing they were clouds.

 

Carl Boon lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American culture and literature at 9 Eylül University. His poems appear in dozens of magazines, most recently Burnt Pine, Two Peach, Lunch Ticket, and Poetry Quarterly. He is also a 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee.

March 8, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Carl Boon, cat, chickens, clouds, creative, ends, evening, fauna, fig, home, nature, need, ode, poem, Poetry, rain, rocks, seasons, summer, symbols, Turkey, vines, wind, writing Leave a comment

Winning the tombola – Maria Sledmere

 

She turned the package over in her fingers. Silken, purple, properly gift-wrapped. The thought of what might lie inside glazed over her mind like the sweetening glow of a bar of milk chocolate, crunched alone on a cold evening.

She had a full hour to herself, before they returned. This kitchen, the room of her life, seemed transformed before her. The bread bin was open, the fridge was bursting with its hoard of treasures. She didn’t need to touch anything, though it was seductive, to think of the carrots neatly lined up like pens in a stationer’s, the orange juice, the dark bitter rye bread, the drawers chockfull of hazelnuts and brazils and the luxurious sugared lemons they’d bought for the festive season.

Earlier, he’d pinned her against the mahogany wardrobe.

“Do it like this,” he whispered. She remembers such words like a litany.

There were seven words to be said for the lottery. The old women tittered at the sight of her skirt, the hole in her tights. It was an unfair judgment; she had done nothing but turn up, as was her right. Seven words to be said. The music was harsh and synthy; dissonant, like the music they play in a mall, only slowed down to a creepy, molluscan crawl.

He poured dark muscovado sugar on her tongue, lovingly. He put his finger in her mouth, swirled it around, till the coarse stuff got sticky and wet and dissolved. It was as if he had drained the juice of her blood and here she was, dried and rasping. Come.

He used to scrunch her hair in his palms, and later it would lie a certain way against her neck, limp and curled, the filaments crushed.

He had been a jazz musician once. He had played the saxophone in her sleep, the shrill buzz of those notes swivelling through the staves of her veins, twisting her organs to a new truth.

The old women drew papers from a golden box. The one with an amethyst scarf waved a number, triumphantly, as if declaring the birth of an age.

“That’s me!” she had shrieked, leaping from her seat. Their eyes had been upon her, and maybe for a moment she had felt ashamed. Still, it didn’t last. The parcel was duly handed over; she treated herself to a taxi home.

What was the use in waiting? She had dallied long enough.

The ribbons fell apart in her fingers. Her heart backflipped, a ballerina. So this was the promise?

What she saw made her vomit.

 

Maria Sledmere is currently studying for an MLitt in Modernities at the University of Glasgow, and is otherwise an assistant editor for SPAMzine and part-time restaurant supervisor, a job which provides her with many ideas for strange stories. She regularly writes music reviews for RaveChild Glasgow and has had work recently accepted by publications including From Glasgow to Saturn, DataBleed, Robida and Germ Magazine.  When not obsessing over the literature of Tom McCarthy she may be found painting, making mixtapes or writing about everything from Dark Ecology, Derrida to Lana Del Rey at http://musingsbymaria.wordpress.com.

February 6, 2017February 6, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, Prose, UncategorizedTags: chance, cold, evening, feelings, fiction, flash, food, home, humanity, kitchen, life, luck, Maria Sledmere, music, pain, promise, relationship, sadness, Scotland, story, suffering, UK, writing Leave a comment