Monthly Archives: November 2019

Volte-face

Beardless old man’s beard,
unflowered honeysuckle,
brambles dead in alive
above the hillside-cutting path,
hanks entwined,
scrabbling ivy latched
onto sad firs in plantation ranks.

On the brink
shrugging downy oaks
stealing footholds, uninvited also
among this lightless throng;
stationed along the track,
juice-green saucered spurge
targets earth space.

The black-breached bank
sucks in the eye,
tree-dark magnetic paradox
pulls us in to touch the dank,
threatens thorns: keep out
the unrooted, always running,
washing our earth from their hands.

Below, slopes shorn, scattered
rusted iron-black rocks, cold stones
Above, matted grasses slump
fringing the wood barred
by tree heather’s dried bouquets.
One sword lily, shouting Schiaparelli.
If only.
Her spike points another way,
valley-wards,

where crumpled rock roses
inch to the other side,
straddling scree, pink pin-pricked
with thyme, sprigged with lavender,
sprayed with heather
still dabbed in white,
fingertips dipped in cream that tastes of honey,
downy oaks stretching
breeze-swept limbs in light.

 

Jane Angué teaches English Language and Literature in France. Writing in French and English, work was longlisted for the Erbacce Prize 2018 and 2019 and has appeared most recently in Le Capital des Mots, Ink Sweat & Tears, Acumen and Poésie/première. Her pamphlet des fleurs pour Bach was published in August (Editions Encres Vives).

Gust

Only as I reach the bottom of the long slope
and embrace the curved limbs of the bridge,

does it catch me, in the otherwise stillness,
with a sideways swipe, an unexpected blow

to the ribs, a setting-off of sleeping neurons,
and the car staggers erratically, counterwards

for a second, trampling over the regular dash
of lane-lines. Then a rush. Grabbing for the wheel,

I drop everything I was carrying. All those
oversore words rained down in the tired hours,

with the two of us lying, seething, back-to-back,
stop their continuous, murderous looping.

For a moment, no more whispers of a pain
from deep within; no argument with the gods.

 

Robert Ford‘s poetry has appeared in print and online publications in the UK, US and elsewhere, including The Interpreter’s House, Brittle Star, Butcher’s Dog and San Pedro River Review. More of his work can be found at https://wezzlehead.wordpress.com/

Precision of the Minute Hand

The dark of October carries my darkness
in an empty birdcage, in not saying a word
to air that whispers incessantly, just below
my ear— dark face to face— I can’t look in-
to the eye of waking in the scent of camphor
& cedar— the fate of keeping something
wrapped in plastic.
…………………………………..For how long?
There, and not there—sad, or is it beautiful
brocade dress— once worn perfectly, and
now who will it fit? Who does this belong
to? Why am I putting it on in the dark?

 

M.J. Iuppa ‘s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017).For the past 30 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario.  Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

Shall we gather at the river

If angels trod here,
they had thin splayed toes,
or the sharp angles
of hooves.

We know this river.
have marked its source
with coded emblem, with cairn.
Have ringed its mouth
with marina, refinery,
casino and clam bar.

We have sent men
to plot its path,
graph its depth and runoff;
have found shiny town
and shanty, shirtless fishermen,
and willow.

Nowhere
have we found
a throne.

And yet, here we are, some of us
surprised. We look
around at our skinny selves,
shifting, uneasy, some of us,
silly really, without hat or suitcase.

Only these smooth
pebbles at our feet
to palm and skim
endless over the river.

Marilyn McCabe‘s work has garnered her an Orlando Prize from A Room of Her Own, the Hilary Tham Capital Collection contest award from The Word Works resulting in publication of her book of poems Perpetual Motion, and two artist grants from the New York State Council on the Arts. Her second book of poems, Glass Factory, was published in 2016. Her poems and videopoetry have been published in a variety of print and online literary magazines. She blogs about writing and reading at Owrite:marilyonaroll.wordpress.com.

The Garden

It waits for me
rain-whipped, wind-
blown, snail-threaded
sun-kissed,
fluttering in its coat
of many colours,
in thorn and calyx.

It calls with a voice
of insects and dew,
with the glint
of sky-bright
winged things,
cloud-flung branch
and cool root,

with the many ways
sunlight paints
the life of petal and leaf,
with the quiet comfort
of shadows,
the blazing flames
of translucence,

with the sparkling light
of iridescent wings,
the song of birds,
the trance of wind,
the rush of grass,
the push of shoots,

the pull to break
out of the darkness.

 

Lucy Whitehead‘s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Amethyst Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Barren Magazine, Black Bough Poetry, Burning House Press, Collective Unrest, Electric Moon Magazine, Ghost City Review, Mookychick Magazine, Neon Mariposa Magazine, Pussy Magic, Re-side, and Twist in Time Magazine. You can find her on Twitter @blueirispoetry.

Lost Child

Come away, O, human child! For the world’s more full
of weeping than you can understand. W.B. Yeats

 

Listen. One hushed winter night I rushed
westward over the moors. There waves

of moonlight rayed the storm breached
shore. I don’t believe in chance

for omens, visions, saints,
are my everyday life. Far off,

Fanad Cove’s beams swept mercifully
to-and-fro. Gail winds wailed

while a monk seal whelped
over her pup’s corpse below.

My mood went apocalyptic given the merciless
squalls of the sea, which is when I breathed

a benediction for the mother-to-be. I entered
the stone-heeled cottage of the coracle maker,

to the mother’s screams and crossed
myself thrice. And as though in a dream

caressed on her breast, she was kissing
the stone-cold seal pup, or so it seemed.

An at the hearth her husband moaned,
why is our son so cold? The child’s eyes closed,

lay lifeless, cord tied in a Celtic Knot.
Midwives know the womb’s meant to be a poem

of joy, no tomb. And as I clombed home
the craggy cliffs were covered in the snowy

whiteness of seabirds in clamorous song,
………………….keening the child who was gone.

 

Moná Toirésa Ó Loideáin Rochelle’s poetry collections are On the Brink of the Sea (Cave Moon Press, 2019) and Mourning Dove (Finishing Line Press, 2014). Her awards include an artist residency from Fundación Valparaíso, Spain, and a writer scholarship from New Camaldoli Hermitage, Big Sur, California. Her poems appear widely or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, American Journal of Poetry, Notre Dame Review, Spiritus, and Southword. She volunteers with Doctors Without Borders and Catholic Relief Services. visit https://monalydon.com/

Poem with Lines Stolen from Peter Dent

They’re building new futures over what I saw as mine,
territorial claims involving self-pity and a quiet life,
events foreshadowed by imaginings and shouted warnings.

Self-medication was nothing, a world walking endlessly
towards more of the same, seasons going out of fashion
as dreams swing this way and that. It’s no wonder

things don’t change, they’re not worth second opinions.
I was surrealist before that school opened its doors;
put it down to time travel and synchronicity.

Unless I speak don’t join in. Existence is nothing,
do not dream me up. It’s not a question of belief,
more about millions of words spoken in dismay.

© Rupert M Loydell

 

Rupert Loydell is a writer, editor and abstract artist. His many books of poetry include Dear Mary (Shearsman, 2017) and The Return of the Man Who Has Everything (Shearsman 2015); and he has edited anthologies such as Yesterday’s Music Today (co-edited with Mike Ferguson, Knives Forks and Spoons Press 2014), and Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: manifestos and unmanifestos (Salt, 2010).

 

Trespass

You told me you were sorry,
but for her condition only
……..not for your actions
and inaction

that placed us here, impotent
with the thickest of dread
……..life in the balance
touch and go.

Forgive me my trespasses
as I forgive those
who trespass against me.

The condition exceeds my faith.
If I must first forgive him
……..in order to receive Your forgiveness
in order to free my spirit

from soul-suffocating burdens
……..I fear I shall be lost.

 

David Peterson began writing poems one year ago as a way to cope with his wife’s admission to the ICU following a botched “minor” surgery. Shortly after, during his wife’s 85 days in the hospital, David began reading a great deal of poetry and taking classes. A few months ago, he started submitting poems for possible publication, recently being published here, in Amethyst Review‘s July issue. David’s early poems focused on topics related to the hospitalization and spirituality. His reading and workshopping have moved his writing into a much broader universe of ideas and content. David is a retired public educator living with his super-human wife in Anthem, Arizona.

The Lake Mist

When the sun sets west
and the night birds sound,
the warm day’s air cools soft,
and a certain peace 
falls lightly all around.
I take to the secrets of the woods.
A path is hidden by the dark, 
but it is there.
I know where.
I follow it, light-footed
like the other creatures here
who prowl the night.
I seek the sight of the lake 
that waits under cover
of gray mist filled with midges
in restless flight.
I take a last step on the path.
The lake appears.
I am drawn to the shore 
by the beckoning hands 
of the slight lapping waves.
I move toward them
and stand silent on the sand,
rapt in prayers of mortal praise.
I sing in my soul
the song of the mystic mist
that sits softly on the water,
at rest in its reunion with the lake –
just as I am.
We stay transfixed together
in unbound time.
But the midges scold me
with their flitting darts in the dark. 
They want no part of me. 
My intrusion upsets
the balance of lake and mist
and midges in flight.
I breathe in the night and sigh,
then turn back and take to the woods
to follow the secret path
that darkness hides
and be led from the holy mysteries
of world and time.

 

Cynthia Pitman, a former high school Advanced Placement English teacher from Orlando, Florida, has had poetry published by Amethyst Review, Right Hand Pointing, Three Line Poetry, Third Wednesday (contest finalist), Vita Brevis, Leaves of Ink, Ekphrastic Review, Postcard Poems and Prose, Adelaide, and others. Her book, The White Room, is forthcoming.