The Tree – Daniel Tobias Behan

 

I spoke with

the tree-man,

and he told me

 

how deep his

roots buried

into the Earth;

 

connected

through moss,

rock, and soil,

to places far

and wide –

 

they held

knowledge

humanity had yet

to even consider.

 

His trunk, he

told me, contained

layers in concentric

rings, infused

 

with memories

of all people who

had passed

him by over

the years.

 

His branches,

he said,

kept secrets

of the birds,

 

who sang him

tales of their

dinosaur ancestors –

 

his leaves

communed, with

the sun,

wind, stars,

 

sky, and moon,

about the

state of affairs

across the galaxy.

 


Daniel Tobias Behan is a London born-and-based poet. From 2017 to 2019, Daniel performed regularly at the London Irish Centre, Camden; in 2018 Daniel was interviewed by the Irish Post as part of their London Calling podcast series, and in 2020 had a short film made of ‘The Visit’ featuring acclaimed actor Nora Connolly and directed by Patrick O’Mahony, was interviewed for Wombwell Rainbow, and commenced a poetry series ‘Findings’ on channillo.com.

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Ghosts in the Nursery – Kerry Ryan

 

Will you help me? My son says.

Always, I reply, as I always do.

He looks up from his Lego.

What if one day you say no?

(To play what ifs is his favourite).

I laugh. That’ll never happen.

He pulls a roof tile off a brick.

But do some mamas not help?

 

My mind drills through years

to rain, ocean, storm.

 

Outside, a child wails.

Oh, that sound, I say.

My son frowns. What sound?

I can’t hear anything.

 


Kerry is the founder of Write like a Grrrl. Her writing has been featured in various publications including Steer, The Manchester Review, the Kenyon Review and Spilling Ink. Kerry has recently been published in Queerlings and has poems forthcoming from Off Menu Press. Her play Trust was recently performed at the Gulbenkian Theatre. Find Kerry on Twitter @writelikeagrrrl and at www.writelikeagrrrl.com.

Lichen – James P. Roberts

 

Covers gravestones

Erases names and dates

 

Pale green

& white growth overlapping

 

circular shapes expand

with every year

of neglect.

 

Rain

will not wash away

the stain

only spur

further growth.

 

I expect

someday to wear

a mantle of lichen

like a warm coat

sheltering me

from the cold, dark dirt.

 

 

James P. Roberts is the author of five previous collections of poetry. Recent work has been published in Weirdbook, Mirror Dance, Rosebud, Sand Canyon Review and Zingara Poetry Review. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin where he haunts Little Free Libraries and has a passion for women’s flat-track roller derby.

Siren – Jessica Michael

 

There is an ache like oceans

emptying themselves of everything but salt.

 

I walk the bottom,

cut my feet with wandering,

I fear her reckless chasms

and keep going.

 

Because for years

I thought I had a choice

in who and what and how I loved

 

when the only choice I ever had

was if I loved at all.

 

Here I am,

singing music to call the sea to shore.

 

 

10036_2Jessica Michael lives and writes in Prescott, AZ when she’s not traveling this intriguing blue planet. Her work has appeared in Allegro, Comstock Review, Red Fez, Rebelle Society, Outdoor Australia, and others. Find her poetry and photography at www.authorjessicamichael.com or follow her on Instagram as @authorjessicamichael.

Rumble Rumble – Joe Albanese

 

I thought I lost a thousand years,

turns out I was just blinking

What I thought a ruptured volcano

is just what I’ve missed in aching

 

Hanging out the window sill –

is even half of me worth saving?

I never made it to the church,

but held my faith in breaking

 

Why rebuild this house when it’s the land that’s cursed?

I hear it, I hear it, I hear it

 

I got nowhere by acting low –

even my shadow overheated

What’s a rhapsody within myself

when all I did was stay seated?

 

Forge anything and hope it grows

to shed a weight only Atlas knew

I calculate I’m nothing special

because entropy does what we already do

 

There’s a wave so big I can’t see its crest

But I feel it, I feel it, I feel it…

 

 

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.

Freshers – Ben Banyard

 

Dotted about, they cling to one another

like survivors from a shipwreck,

shiny and new as the morning.

 

Shaky from first attempts at ironing

their independence is eggshell frail.

 

Early evenings, watch them snake

the pavements on route-march pub crawls,

terrified of that one indiscretion

which earns them a nickname or

tattoos a campus anecdote.

 

Studies will prove peripheral

for three or four years of this cakewalk.

They choke back their homesickness,

fledge into themselves day by day.

 

 

ImageBen Banyard lives in Portishead, near Bristol, UK. He’s the author of a pamphlet, Communing (Indigo Dreams, 2016) and a full collection, We Are All Lucky (Indigo Dreams, 2018). He blogs and posts mixtapes at https://benbanyard.wordpress.com.

A fist lost – Gareth Culshaw

 

The pitch was always poor in under 14s 

footie. At the start of the season the council

would send men out. Paint the lines,

mow the turf, align the goalposts.

 

I always played better when he came

standing there with his accent.

My first goal scored, smiles all round.

Jogging back, raised fist to you

 

yours pumped in the air. We got on 

back then before the stubbornness set, 

distance in years between us showed.

 

That break in the relationship a hole 

in my memory, will never be filled.

 

 

IMG_1727Gareth lives in Wales. He has his first collection out now by FutureCycle called The Miner. He hopes one day to achieve something special with the pen.

Giving to Charity – Megan Whiting

 

Yesterday I gave my life away.

Ripped the past from the present

and left my house devoid of memories.

Bullied my childhood into boxes

and coerced my teenage years into carrier bags,

then lugged the entire sorry lot to the one place it might be useful.

Here, I handed every part of my former self to an elderly volunteer,

who groaned at the weight of my old life

and decided what it was worth.

Only then could I return to my empty house

and start again.

 

 

megan image 5Megan is a freelance writer and proofreader based in Suffolk. A poet at heart, she has been published in anthologies and online and offers personalised wedding poetry as one of her services. Megan loves to read and go for tandem rides with her fiancé. Find out more at www.meganwhiting.co.uk.

Yesterday Calling – Laura Potts

 

Somewhen,

a gull snaps its wings

and laughs

as I stretch out the past

 

to the city with its dark heart

and us,

splitting our skins for a kiss.

 

On the rim of a memory,

spinning,

we fizz

like silver pins

on that street

or this.

 

My lover’s words I remember

trembled

like globed pearls on tepid stars

the hot dark of torchlight

kicking

from the pavement

sparks

as he went.

 

Bone-bent,

with eighty-six years in my face,

I read books

and play cards

and years have dried up,

slow prunes

in a vase.

 

But last,

in my crabbed hands his skin,

doused with river lights,

no foul breath of wartime but

a whole lost world of long-kissed nights,

 

thin films of eyes candled bright

in the lobes of my palms,

the four-medal arms deliberate,

passionate,

strong.

 

 

Afterwards, the distant salute of a bomb.

 

 

527Laura Potts is twenty-one years old and lives in West Yorkshire. She has twice been named a Foyle Young Poet. Her poems have appeared in Seamus Heaney’sAgenda, The Interpreter’s House and Poetry Salzburg Review. She has recently been shortlisted for a Charter-Oak Award for Best Historical Fiction at The University of Colorado and also made The 2017 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Prize shortlist. This year Laura became one of The Poetry Business’ New Poets and a BBC New Voice for 2017. Her first BBC radio drama Sweet The Mourning Dew will air at Christmas 2017.

Jacks – Lisa Reily

 

Scratched colours in the palm of your hand,

after many years, skilled in the art of hand flipping;

a jack rolls on the ground, another flung into the air

and caught once again; all five pieces collected

in one triumphant sweep of the hand; jacks

which long ago, were the bones of animals,

the knuckles of an unsuspecting beast.

 

 

Photo - Lisa ReilyLisa Reily is a former literacy consultant, dance director and teacher from Australia. She is now a budget traveller with two bags, one laptop and no particular home. You can find out more about Lisa at lisareily.wordpress.com.

Buried – Sara Comito

 

You can get a horse as soon

as you get a backhoe big

enough to bury it, Momma

told her. Likewise, she didn’t

have the smarts to bother

with college.

 

Down the pier a sailor smoked

and mended his net. Feeling her

stare, he pegged her for

lonely, took her out to sea.

 

Momma didn’t get a husband

til she had a big enough knife.

The net was big enough for this

new catch, but – Momma

will be missing me.

 

His face cracked with years

of salt like those sore, handknitted

knots. Swells made false islands

of horizon. Seven miles and you

lose the land, he says.

 

The distance she can’t

make sense of. It folds itself

into a wave she could ride

all the way back there and bury

everything. But she can’t

tell.

 

Is it big enough?

 

 

Bio photoSara Comito is a writer living in Fort Myers. Her poetry has been published at places like A-Minor Magazine, Thrush Poetry Magazine, and Blue Fifth Review. Her interests include a new love – fiction writing, plus experimenting with world cuisines, camping in Florida’s swamps, and watching her teenage son invent his future.

Wickham’s Crick – Robert Pelgrift

 

(Cutchogue, Long Island, New York)

 

The air is still, the Crick is low and clear;

and like the rain slanting down from storm clouds,

the sun’s rays streak this watery atmosphere

and light the mud bottom and wrinkled kelp shrouds.

 

We pole the old boat and silently pass

through a broken wall of mud and green rush,

into a salt pond hidden by marsh grass,

floating, weaving with the prow’s gentle push.

 

Through the muddy bank, the tides barely seep;

and under the pond’s smooth slick, thick with sun,

gray leaf flecks float, then settle, where the years lay

their ruin in a watery carbon heap

in the pond’s bed, as they have always done,

and will ’til all the centuries decay.

 

 

RYP JR picRobert Pelgrift 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, The Galway Review, The Foxglove Journal and The Waggle.