The Wave – Kristy Snedden

 

A wave curled over my bed

last night, fell into the center of my body,

surf ran through each cell.

The words I was saving for today

Washed away leaving empty space.

It was warm, like that glow around

The waning crescent moon.

 


Kristy Snedden has been a trauma psychotherapist for thirty-five plus years. She began writing poetry in June 2020. Her poem “Dementia,” was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 90th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. Her work appears or is forthcoming in various journals and anthologies, most recently Snapdragon, Open Minds Quarterly, The Power Of The Pause Anthology, and The Examined Life. She is a student at Phillip Schultz’s Writers Studio. When she isn’t working, reading, or writing poetry, she can be found hiking in the Appalachian Mountains near her home or hanging out with her husband listening to their dogs tell tall tales.

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Patchwork Candle – Cat Caie

 

I used up all my candles, collected all the leftover wax.

My big Orange, Cinnamon and Clove came to an end.

Rusty flames, heat in my cheeks, an envelope-seal kissed shut.

 

I bought you a ring with my words engraved in.

Liquid gold melted wax over your silver band in a jar,

I poured in your favourite colour to cover the question up.

 

Now, I wait.

 

You’ll burn the wick whilst I pace alongside the festive scent.

Autumnal colours make it smaller everyday.

Maybe you’ll find the answer at the bottom of the jar.

 

I wonder how long it will take.

I wonder how long the candle will last.

I wonder, what will be your answer to the question I asked?

 


Cat Caie is a poet and writer who is currently based in Liverpool. Studying Creative Writing and Popular Music, she cites inspirations such as Orla Gartland, Halsey and Philip Pullman.

always yours – Lisa Reily

 

after Renoir’s Dance in the Country

 

spring days 

under the chestnut tree

I remember well,

cups of tea and cake

chocolate mousse

raclette with sweet wine,

and you.

across the table 

you in your handsome blue suit,

I waited for your eyes

as snails drowned in garlic butter

and music played.

my dress to catch your glance,

I hoped its pretty flowers

would bring you to me;

but the music caught me another,

and I was swept away.

hot breath in my ear, silky words of love,

his hat to the floor as 

we danced,

pressed against one another,

my gloved hands in his,

while all the while,

it was you that I wanted;

my smile

was always yours.

 


Lisa Reily is a former literacy consultant, dance director and teacher from Australia. Her poetry has been published in several journals, such as Amaryllis, London Grip, The High Window, Panoplyzine, Channel Magazine, The Fenland Reed, as well as Foxglove Journal. You can find out more at lisareily.wordpress.com.

A Few Very Speculative Ideas About Language – Ann Pedone

 

sometimes it’s hard to remember/the names of things /those trees

along the side of the freeway/ I used to know what they are called

and  then there are words  I’ve never known /is there a word for

the lust bees feel for a flower /or the way his neck tastes /that moony

combination/ something like cyprus and salt and bone.

 


Ann Pedone graduated from Bard College with a degree in English and has a Master’s degree in Chinese Language and Literature from UC Berkeley. Ann is the author of the chapbook The Bird Happened, and the chapbook perhaps there is a sky we don’t know about: a re-imagining of sappho is forthcoming in December. Her work has recently appeared in Riggwelter, Main Street Rag, Poet head, Cathexis Northwest, The Wax Paper, and The Phare, among others.

Another Word for a Stopped Watch – Edward Alport

 

And then my watch stopped, but not

Like a crashing car or a rabbit caught by a fox.

No drama in this crisis.

The hands slid to a graceful halt,

Worn down by time and friction.

 

My elderly neighbour had an elderly Aston Martin

Parked in a garage and never driven again.

He would glance at the garage

And glance at his watch

And say ‘You need a light heart

‘To drive one of those.

‘Now it is weighed down by grease and gravity.’

Though whether it was his heart or the car I never asked,

Even though I bought the round.

 

But it sold, and sold well,

Unlike the house, which hung around for years.

We sat beneath the oak tree and watched his roses grow

While the shadows of discarded machinery

Marched across the lawn.

 

<>

 

Time has a language of its own, I’ve heard,

With hard words like ‘Never’ and ‘Enough’,

Soft words like ‘Maybe’ and ‘Again’.

Healing words, like ‘Bind up’ and ‘Embrace’,

Cutting words, like ‘Told you so,’ and ‘Stop’.

 

The language that everything learns as it grows old;

The earth tells it to the oak,

The oak tells it to its leaves.

My neighbour, I reckon, taught it to his car.

But my watch had to learn it for itself.

 

 

Edward Alport is a retired teacher and proud Essex Boy. He occupies his time as a gardener and writer for children. He has had poetry published in a variety of webzines and magazines. When he has nothing better to do he posts snarky micropoems on Twitter as @cross_mouse. He moderates the monthly @ThePoetryFloor poetry event on Twitter.

King’s Cliff Wood – Anthony Watts

 

And if at times there seems to be

no more to it than this

return with muddied boots to the locked car

 

(groping for comfort under coats, cold nose to cold

nose, the same old words you won’t

or don’t believe)

 

then love is always the path we saved for another

day, the tunnel winding, whisper-filled,

under a sun-rug of November trees.

 

Also (and always) love is the lit sky, shorn

of its restless weathers,

falling

forever

into everlasting.

 

 

Anthony Watts - head &amp; shoulder portrait (3)Anthony Watts has been writing ‘seriously’ for about 40 years. He has won 26 First Prizes in poetry competitions and was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition 2014. His poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Salzburg Review, The Rialto and Riggwelter. His fifth collection, Stiles, is due to be published by Paekakariki Press. His home is in rural Somerset and his main interests are poetry, music, walking and binge thinking – activities which he finds can be happily combined.

Love Of Mine – Daniel Tobias Behan

 

Love

of mine,

so are you

forged, in

muted

yearnings;

murmured

remembrances –

hushed yellowed

 

keys, of

sun-smile’s

faded verse

beaming;

measured, in

amber leaf’s

fractured shade

crumbled,

into moist

earthen-bed;

 

in words

cast gently,

through

shimmering

refractions

of deep sky’s

sonorous

canvas,

 

impressed

in cotton

cloud-floss,

singed, by

skirting

of emerald pine

sparkling;

 

in kiss of

frost-tendered

mountainside,

in sweetest

whispered

breath’s

exaltation.

 

My love,

such

are you

birthed,

in ballad

of thick root,

and fragrant

moss-lined soil;

in beetle

and bug’s

scurrying;

 

ant’s nest, bush,

and tree trunk:

the soft

underfoot

crackling

of scattered

parts: bark,

and branch,

seed,

and twig.

 

 

danielbwDaniel Tobias Behan is a London born-and-based poet. Since late 2017, Daniel has performed regularly at the London Irish Centre, Camden, and was interviewed by the Irish Post as part of their London Calling podcast series. Daniel sees creative writing, and especially poetry, as a great natural form of therapy and creative self-development, allowing thoughts and emotions to be communicated effectively in a non-linear fashion.

supernatural – Paul Robert Mullen

 

supernatural paul robert mullen

 

bd2be44c-8549-4936-b696-4ff45fb3bfd0Paul Robert Mullen is a poet, musician and sociable loner from Southport, near Liverpool, UK. He is a keen traveller, having lived and worked in China and Australia, and has scaled the entirety of Asia. He also enjoys Leonard Cohen, bass guitar riffs, porridge, paperback books with broken spines, and all things minimalist.

How I love – Joe Albanese

 

From your hope is how I hear you

Through your unabashed scars is how I feel you

 

Between each thought I always see you

And it’s in your flowing that I know you

 

The sacred and magic are born from you

For simple being, the world should thank you

 

In crowded streets I may have lost you

But with heart-star lantern, I’ll search for you

 

Although ghosts may sometimes haunt you

It’s because who wouldn’t live beside you?

 

From your laughter I cannot save you

But in tears I’d never have you

 

If it’s in the sunlight that I want you

Then it’s in its shadows I am with you

 

If all our lives I never reach you

Then let these words be how I love you.

 

 

JoeAlbanese_photoJoe Albanese is a writer from New Jersey. His work can be found in publications across the U.S. and in ten other countries. Joe’s novel, Caina (Mockingbird Lane Press), and his novella, Smash and Grab (Books to Go Now), were both published in 2018.

Competition – Louise Wilford

 

I won a competition. Yes, I did. My fingers

drew a poetic Fall, all red and gold decay.

I know the debt I owe – Keats’ ode still lingers –

but my creation was, in its own way,

worth fifty quid.

 

Chaotic interlinkage. Velcro hooks of words,

confusing as a froth of wasps stuck in a honey pot.

Some end up barbed wire bundles, spikily absurd,

or limp on, split and wounded. I’d be the first to spot

my writing sucks.

 

Yet sometimes words escape, their goal the blooded page,

and go home, battle-weary, on figurative legs;

they mesh like lovers meeting, no griping war to wage,

and fit like Lego bricks or halves of Easter eggs,

a greater whole.

 

 

unnamed (2)Yorkshirewoman Louise Wilford is an English teacher and examiner. She has had around 50 poems and short stories published in magazines including Popshot, Pushing Out The Boat and Agenda, and has won or been shortlisted for several competitions. She is currently writing a children’s fantasy novel.

Afterthought – Beth O’Brien

 

I’ve recycled the packaging before I thought

To check the calories.

 

Half way to the bin, I made myself stop and I’m

Standing in the middle of the kitchen,

Battling the need to know, with the words:

It doesn’t matter.

 

But just wanting to look feels like I’m

Walking backwards, and

The words: ‘Just looking won’t hurt’

Already do.

 

Turning around, I sit back down and

Tell myself to just be proud

That calories are now an afterthought.

 

 

unnamed (3)Beth O’Brien is currently studying a degree in English Literature at the University of Birmingham. She loves reading, writing, food and seeing the world – when any of these overlap, she loves them even more!

Years later, we drive home – Michael H. Brownstein

 

Drive with me through this field of prayer,

through mudflats and iron foot,

the eulogy deep and dried passion fruit,

the salt of columbine, a terrain of frenzy,

lacewing and the yellow mollies of spring,

milk and milk thistle, a porcelain of words.

 

Drive with me past the girth of oak,

the prayer tree, the blue iris,

purple passion, the field of glories

behind the back forty no one touches.

Share with me wild onion, mint,

dandelion leaves and acorn meat,

the edible leaves of the Acacia.

 

Drive with me. Share my bounty.

The eulogy premature, prayer alive in flower

and grass, blossom and honey bee, a porcelain

of words, of muscle cars and beaters,

this car we are in now going home again

a strength in who we really are.

Brighten your day.

 

 

unnamed (3)Michael H. Brownstein’s work has appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Convergence, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), and The Possibility of Sky and Hell: From My Suicide Book (White Knuckle Press, 2013). He is the admin for project Agent Orange (projectagentorange.com).

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.

 

 

unnamed (1)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.

Chocolate – Robert Beveridge

 

If I could take a drop

of honey from the tongue of Satan,

 

or dip my silver chalice

in an Erewhon river of chocolate,

 

I would feed you, my lips to yours.

 

Instead I have filled my mouth

with words, my cup

with water from a mudpuddle

 

still I ask you

take your nourishment

from me

 

 

20160903225845_IMG_2924_20160903230828315Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Savant-Garde, Other People’s Flowers, and The Indiana Horror Review, among others.

Honest Hands – Susan Richardson

 

If he is the rain, then I am gravel,

parched under the embers of shame,

longing for the relief of him.

He washes the soot of loneliness

from my skin and offers me comfort.

 

Irish blood and bones, he is

the son of verdant landscapes,

shared pints of stout and fierce loyalty.

He navigates life vigorously

and laughs with his whole body.

 

His voice carries the tones of Autumn,

rich with the luster of unravelling gold.

I sink into the warmth of his words as

he helps stitch my broken limbs

with threads offered from his heart.

 

I remember so clearly the night

he wrapped his arms willingly

around my imperfections.

It was the first time I was

touched by honest hands.

 

 

IMG_0069Susan 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.