Murky Valley – Chandan Dey

 

The questions, turned
into the waves ~
                            hissing & slamming
into the screen door

A swim ~
                 in a spiral galaxy
a sense
                            of your close presence

A signal ~
                  from a neutral field,
where blur
joy                  &                  sorrow A ditch ~ a love flux
                  around your house,
an agonizing severance ~
                                                    too…

 


Chandan Dey is a young and emerging writer. His work has appeared in Liquid Imagination, Vayavya, Sky Island Journal, Foxglove, and is forthcoming elsewhere. He works as an accountant in a company and is a passionate reader and writer of poetry as well. He takes a special interest in writing speculative poetry and fiction, and loves to write articles and books on scientific philosophy. He lives in Kolkata, India. Some of his work can be found on www.chandankumardey.blogspot.in.

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Soon the Drift of Dusk – Darrell Coggins

 

Twirls of seaweed strew

over dimpled rocks

 

quickly shed free –

across damp sand

playing off each other

 

papery filaments skitter

and flip

 

Later, washed over

crisscrossed in a half-smile

frail footsteps recede

 

disquieting behind me

ribbed with graveyard bones

limestone fragments crumble

 

wallpapered underneath

in imprecise lines

 

snippets of ochre conjure

an amoebic design

a patina stained and flecked

 

Soon the drift of dusk –

unmoored, about to weep

drawn back and back

 

both beautiful and hypnotic

a bevy of clouds merge

towards the sea

 

continuously glassy

minute waves lap

almost silent –

 

gentle against my feet

 

 

IMG_1301Darrell Coggins is a poet, visual artist and musician who lives in Adelaide, South Australia. His poetry has been published in Poetry Matters, Positive Words, The Mozzie, Tamba, Studio, Nine Muses, Envy – Seven Deadly Sins, The Crow and Friendly Street Poets anthologies. Darrell’s poems are of moments seen, heard and felt.

Secret life of seals – Rebecca Gethin

 

Secret life of seals Rebecca Gethin 1

 

unnamed 1Rebecca Gethin lives in Devon. She was a winner in the first Coast to Coast to Coast pamphlet competition with Messages. A pamphlet about endangered creatures called Vanishings is due to  be published by Palewell Press in 2020. Two pamphlets were published in 2017: A Sprig of Rowan by Three Drops Press and All the Time in the World by Cinnamon Press who previously published a collection and two novels. She has been a Hawthornden Fellow and undertook a residency at Brisons Veor in 2018. Find more at www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.com.

remember – Lisa Reily

 

our dog came first in our relationship,

our first child, our only child,

our Henry.

remember his tongue-wagging runs on the beach,

our cabin amid the paperbarks,

ocean mist coming through our window?

remember the soft call of the butcherbirds,

the laugh of the kookaburras

the only sound to wake us?

remember cups of Earl Grey tea on our balcony

while Henry slept in his basket;

the simple pleasure of our walks on the sand,

Henry running ahead on the empty beach,

ears wagging, sand stuck to his nose;

holding hands over rocks, limpets, starfish

and crashing waves that we thought would sweep him away,

climbing to the tops of cliffs, losing our way back down?

remember the mist that went on forever, covered everything,

took with it the cliff, the long stretch of beach,

Split Solitary Island;

remember the ashes we scattered on the sand,

the beach that took them, that took

the love of our lives,

ashes forever to float to the island;

our first child, our only child,

our Henry.

 

 

Photo - Lisa ReilyLisa Reily is a former literacy consultant, dance director and teacher from Australia. Her poetry and stories have been published in several journals, such as Panoply, Amaryllis, Riggwelter, River Teeth Journal (Beautiful Things), and Magma. Lisa is currently a full-time budget traveller. You can find her at lisareily.wordpress.com.

Along the Way – M.J. Iuppa

 

Standing squarely on rip-

rap that juts out into Ontario,

 

like a shaft of a house key

unlocking robust waves

 

into a spray of silver—

glittering in its arc

 

that rains upon us

like pure joy.

 

A moment where

we look up through

 

the cold air’s brightness

and see the distance

 

to another country

cloud over with gulls.

 

We know how

to read this passage

 

without words.

 

 

MJ Publicity1 CropM.J. Iuppa is the Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program and Lecturer in Creative Writing at St. John Fisher College; and since 2000 to present, is a part time lecturer in Creative Writing at The College at Brockport. Since 1986, she has been a teaching artist, working with students, K-12, in Rochester, NY, and surrounding area. Most recently, she was awarded the New York State Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching, 2017. She has four full length poetry collections,This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017), Small Worlds Floating (2016) as well as Within Reach (2010) both from Cherry Grove Collections; Night Traveler (Foothills Publishing, 2003); and 5 chapbooks. She lives on a small farm in Hamlin NY.

Watching waves – Byron Beynon

 

Do you recall

watching waves through

a library window,

where a painter stood

on the edge of the beach

with the afternoon light.

Footprints that walked

towards the plastic inhabited sea,

imagination drawn there

by the coastline’s question

as to where all

the labyrinths of life disappear.

Before leaving the wide frame

he stood there,

a personal composition

that changed under

a resurrected air.

 

 

Byron Beynon 2014Byron Beynon lives in Swansea, Wales. His work has appeared in several publications including London Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, San Pedro River Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Yellow Nib and the human rights anthology In Protest (University of London and Keats House Poets). Collections include Human Shores (Lapwing Publications) and The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions).

Hooked – Kristin Garth

 

I swim around your boat for days before

I catch your eye. On deck, the sun so bright

it blocks your face just long enough to lure

my head around these blinding rays and right

into your pirate heart. My tail begins

to flip against the waves, and I cannot

pretend I don’t belong to you. The end

for me is not a hook or net. You caught

me with a look. My trembling hands descend,

before my captain now. Your hook overcomes

exposes half a girl. My piscine end

on board transformed, subdued. The sun

so warm against us while we rock and float.

New legs you touch first, always on this boat.

 

 

unnamed (1)Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola. Her poetry has been featured in Anti-Heroin Chic, Fourth & Sycamore, Mookychick, Moonchild Magazine, Occulum, Faded Out and many other publications. Follow her on Twitter: @lolaandjolie and her website: kristingarth.wordpress.com.

The Trawl – Robert Pelgrift

 

We stand on this sandy point in the bay,

where the channel races into squally seas,

knee deep in riffles that mirror the gray

of iron clouds rushed by the gusting breeze.

 

Partly clothed by the sea, I scarcely heed

the raw, bitter rain.  Balanced here, I stand,

and see schooling, swerving silversides lead

quick unseen hunters past our ledge of sand.

 

In their path, we stretch, then draw, our small seine,

and the wet, the chill, the gray, the chop recall

the old village ships, struck by gusts and spray

as they ploughed these waves.  And now once again,

we net our catch, as those ships dragged their trawl

of silver to the beach across the bay.

 

RYP JR picRobert Youngs Pelgrift, Jr. practiced law in New York City for many years and is now an editor for a legal publisher, working in New York City.  His poems have been published in various anthologies and in The Lyric, The Rotary Dial and The Galway Review.

Da Eye Wifey / Woods Number 1 – Kersten Christianson

 

Title “Da Eye Wifey” borrowed from Shooglenifty.

 

Emerge from the fog road

squint-eyed

to belly flopping waves

jumping from one small sea-

sick ferry to another

saltwater & cod tongues

summer grasses & violet lupine.

Blue butterflies swarm

the sunlit forest.

Awakened, we ramble;

Trans-Canada Highway

from west to east

and back again.

Mile 0,

I’d follow you forever.

Chime of cymbal,

song’s end.

 

img_2972Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing, high school English-teaching Alaskan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry through the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2016. Kersten’s recent work has appeared in Cirque, Inklette, Sheila-Na-Gig and Pure Slush. Her book Something Yet to Be Named by Aldrich Press and her chapbook titled What Caught Raven’s Eye by Petroglyph Press will be published in 2017. Kersten co-edits the quarterly journal Alaska Women Speak. When not exploring the summer lands and dark winter of the Yukon Territory, she lives in Sitka, Alaska with her husband and photographer Bruce Christianson, and daughter Rie.