Poetry

by  Jana Putrle Srdić    

 I thought it would come in the form of 

grief or loss 

or a sharp continuous pain

 but nothing is long on the

 journey to the end

 stale urine smell

 no blood visible

 torso an eggshell, 

half-boiled febrile

 slime within.

 The body’s final glow

 is a yoke-yellow sun

 in the eye of her restless dog,

 in her own eye – this woman

 clung frantic to the bed-rail

 shouting into the night.

 Such was her past –

 already lone

 the aloneness of trains

 that no longer steam

 no longer chug 

but cross and part

 on silent electric tracks. 

 No pain, 

just wearisome waits in a clinic’s

 endless corridors that snake

 in the cold strip-lit night 

and the desperate scratch

 of a bitch as she seeks escape

 in the half-dark of dog-cataracts,

 running round in circles

 till the calm hour, 

dawn’s dead-to-the-world hour 

when, worn out, head rolled against

 the rail, the woman dreams

 of a mass of luminous grasses,

 how they sway before sunset

 shushing, their sound 

a global drone

 how, woman and bitch, you’d tunnel a way 

through the long grass and tree-trunks

 how the air’s scent 

how cheek how sun-kiss how

 it embraced you, this path

 like a cow’s long tongue

 stretching out –

 this life. 

by Lillian Heimisdottir

  It is late and night is falling,
sombre darkness settles down
on the world and mantles nature
in a dusky velvet gown. 

Now it’s time for us to seek a
sheltered refuge for the night
and to rest our tired bones
until the dawning of the light.

Even though our steps are heavy
and we’re weary from the way,
we will go on with our journey
at the breaking of the day.

by  Ashley Andresson 

 The only people worth our time are those

 who never yawn or say prevalent things;

 The ones who are desirous of the world

 and those who yearn for everything at once.

 They burn like Roman candles in the night,

 before exploding bright across the stars. 

They glow and burn to ashes as they chase 

their lofty dreams with wild tenacity.

 And as we watch them going up in flames

 we know that they have drunk life to the lees, 

and with their charismatic force they have 

forever changed the landscape of our hearts. 

by Sydney Lea  

 Driving a wire-thin road 

 on my way back home from a local trout stream 

 I braked, no traffic behind me, 

in fact not a car in sight.

 Backlit by lamplight, her shadow 

showed on her cabin’s window blind.

 O Lord, how stooped. 

O Lord, how ungainly.

 A miracle some twenty years since, 

it was as if she’d dropped from a cloud 

to her place in these back woods, 

well after few remembered

 –if they ever knew, that is–

 what a legend she’d been. I remembered.

 I instantly summoned her face

 from my red-lacquer LP’s jacket. 

Through the winds of December

 And the magic of May 

Through a million tomorrows

 I’ll remember today

. I played that one song again and again

 so often that one winter morning

 my mother, hoarse and hung-over, 

threw the record down and smashed it.

 I’ve long forgiven her

 for that and for other random explosions

 as I strive to pardon my own. 

My rage, to be sure, matched the moment.

 And so did hers.

 But that silhouette on the blind, 

no matter how quickly gone,

 sent me back to those scattered red shards.

 O Lord, what a trail of ruin.  

by  Sarah Sands Phillips  

Is It Obvious

 The geometry?

 We are all this in spaces 

of gathered angles

 Corners hitting measured hearts 

that must move worlds, and be moved 

Do You Remember

 Do you remember that time in the studio? 

It fell out of me 

dropped and rolled quick past my tongue

 “I feel like I’m not living” 

Cockroach

 There is just something

 about him that unsettles

 me, makes me obsess

 become a helpless digger

 a shadow’s corners keeper  

by Özge Lena   

  Coral Colours

 Call it orange, call it peach.

 Call it rosy, crimson. 

Or call it simply pink.

 For every evil under the sun,

 But they are bleached.

 Morphing into a dead white.

 Slowly withering. 

there is a remedy, or there is none.

 They are ill, stressed. 

After blasted heats and toxins. 

Fading as colossal colonies.

 For some evils under the sun,

 Their candied colours now

 belong to the old memories 

of their cruel culprits.

 there is no remedy, not even one.

------------------------------------

 Bronze Giant

 Arctic dawn. 

By the warm sea. 

Pink as sun’s blood.

 Dropping on the pier. 

Over a circle of cloaks.

 Made of falcon feathers.

 Blazoned by golden chokers.

As alive as Freya the goddess. 

A big lump in the middle.

 Hidden under a velvet veil.

 Until an uncanny polar breeze.

 Blows to reveal a bronze giant.

 Statue of an euthanised beauty. 

That was named after Freya.

 Bright as her red gold tears.

 As dead as Freya the walrus.   

by   Linda Ann Strang   

 The plague came to town a Pied Piper 

This isn’t an asteroid, it’s a pancake. 

and we all ran after it dancing,

 This isn’t a fig leaf, it’s a cure-all.

 wearing masks – a festival Venice. 

This isn’t a bedspring, it’s a rock star.

 We thought we were birds, exotic,

 This isn’t a pip, it’s a landslide.

 with long tails of opal and rainbow 

This isn’t a torment, it’s a catwalk. 

and beaks of chased silver, beat gold.

 This isn’t a pair of tweezers, it’s a stop sign.

 We dressed in our velvet and best 

This isn’t a gill net, it’s galangal. 

with ruffs of Brussels lace and pomanders. 

This isn’t a Munch, it’s a pompom.

 On our feet were slippers of cut glass. 

This isn’t a hanging garden, it’s a high five.

 The wealthiest wore specimen amber.

 This isn’t a big top, it’s a spade card.

 And everyone sang this pied ballad 

This isn’t a strapline, it’s a popgun.

 while we drowned in the ocean with nosegays.

 This isn’t a dress pattern, it’s starlight.

 And we were rats, or perhaps only children.