Small paper nautilus,
cockleshell octopus,
two of her tentacles
soft wands for conjuring
calcium carbonate
into her miracle
shell, light and delicate,
white ribbed and tuberculed
elegant watercraft,
henceforth and constantly
hers for the captaincy.
Mark Totterdell’s poems have appeared widely in magazines and have occasionally won competitions. His collections are ‘This Patter of Traces’ (Oversteps Books, 2014) and ‘Mapping’ (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2018).
Mrs. Reardon walks down the pavement
which is more broken now than when
she pushed four different children in their prams,
two of whom will be at the funeral today,
of the man she married
because the man she loved married her friend.
Her friend died last year and the man she loved
will also be at the funeral of the man she married.
The man she loved realized too late, too late
that he cared less for the woman he married
than for Patsie Reardon, née Walsh, of days long gone.
Mrs. Reardon and the man she still loved
passed on this street with their children in prams,
then he with a son and football and she with ballet shoes and a daughter
then walking with further sons and daughters, some taller than either of them.
Would he, after the funeral and after due time . . . ?
Her heart and stomach were afraid and light and excited.
Or will the formal reserve they had cultivated like a shell
be now so hard they can no longer break through it?
Were they still the two who had once loved each other?
His once hair . . . her once taut skin . . .
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.
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.
(Pinjarra, the saltwater crocodile at Melbourne Sea Life Aquarium)
we came into the world in the same year
you
chased out of a shell
and into the muddle of mud and mangrove
me
snipped slapped weighed and wrapped
for you
it was crocodile breath the press of a mother’s teeth
and the first flush of river
for me
it was the touch of fabrics voices the breath
of last adult meals and afternoon light
perhaps we were born on the same day
same moment to be axis points on a globe
you
with your long leathered face
silent hunger and cold blood in brackish water
me
with my green bones and jellyfish flesh turning
towards cathedral bells beyond the walls of the room
we are each sixty five years old separated by glass
along the way we’ve made mistakes
you
for being in the wrong place after a flood
for becoming stranded on a Queensland farm
me
how long have you got
now look at us
Graham Burchell lives in South Devon. He has four published collections. He has an M.A. in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University. He is a Hawthornden Fellow, 2012 Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year, winner of the 2015 Stanza competition, and runner-up in the 2016 BBC Proms poetry competition.
Hapless at weekends, yet still with that
contrived joy; in the beer gardens and car
parks, where perfume and aftershave still
smell fresh against fake fur and denim.
The hiss of music from the outside speakers,
that threaten to fall, but never damage conversation.
The bottles strewn across badly mounted tables
and tree torn, cracked pavements.
The warmth of this room blocks out winter, yet
its shell remains fragile, like rusted gates that
no longer retain the strength to block out the
weakest of imposters.
And again we glide without protest, our voices
placed only where needed, our feet as nimble
as ever; tripping over curbs now an art form,
that at last we have finally mastered.
Jonathan Butcher is a poet based in Sheffield, England. He has had poetry appear in various print and online journals including Ink, Sweat and Tears, Elbow Room, Your One Phone Call, Mad Swirl, The Transnational and others. His second chapbook ‘Broken Slates’ was published by Flutter Press.
Foxglove Journal 