Untitled

All of the birds flew out of me
When he
said that, & what it meant
out, out, out
they went
screaming like crows
just before the sun goes
down. All the birds inside me broke
(when he spoke)
out of my mind and eyes and ears.
My proclivities
became pterodactyl crows
wheeling around the tiny room;
a vacuum
I was. I was, yes, ‘his’, but free
because he had no need of me. 



Jessica Geddes
Dunedin
New Zealand 

Keen on Tolkien

In trenches, he dreamt of unusual worlds,

To the dictionary, gave new words.

Remarkable languages were first to come,

Perhaps in the Battle of the Somme.

Complex dialects were soon created,

Then various worlds in which they were fêted.

Wasn’t meant to be read as allegory,

Just as a fantastical, fictive story.

With obscure races of men and trees,

To Elves and dwarves, it gave new lease.

At magical realms, one marvels and gasps,

Have subtle connotations that later one grasps.

Aloof and regal, the women seemed to be,

Inspiring, instigating, were the plot’s key.

Ancient lines of fine men grave,

Their world desperately who tried to save.

Magical tools unexplained by science,

Born of Nature’s and mind’s alliance.

Elves from stars brought far-off news,

His worlds had various scents and hues.

Multi-dimensional was his approach,

Prickly topics could easily broach.

Heroes’ minds, intricate and rich,

With complex plots, could easily stitch.

Has been construed in a thousand ways,

New generations it tends to amaze.

Explores details of human nature,

In Man’s psyche, gives an aperture.

Back stories stretched for thousands of years,

Still relevant for mechanized fears.

Humans and nature, fuel and steel,

We ride the same old karmic wheel.

Can Nature prevail over Man’s iron will?

Cause the crash of industrial hill?

-©2012. Sultana Raza

Luxembourg

Sultana Raza is a free-lance writer. Her article, short stories and poems have appeared in numerous publications and have been translated into French.

Dusk on Harrow Hill

The song sheet pylons throb
chords of ice and sea salt skin
plucked like dragged lip lovers.

Dusk is a harsh desert;
birds rip varicose rivers,
gullets pulse for dead fish.

A girl disappeared last June,
skipping to a silhouette 
pounding earth with a gosling.

They’re burning gorse to look for her
the covered man points down
hardened men are vomiting. 



Antony Owen,
Coventry,
England

Dusk on Harrow Hill

The song sheet pylons throb
chords of ice and sea salt skin
plucked like dragged lip lovers.

Dusk is a harsh desert;
birds rip varicose rivers,
gullets pulse for dead fish.

A girl disappeared last June,
skipping to a silhouette
pounding earth with a gosling.

They’re burning gorse to look for her
the covered man points down
hardened men are vomiting.


Antony Owen,
Coventry,
England

Shared Words

In the round room, women gather to share,
Card womb word whispers into soft yarn,
Spun on willow bobbins, to be woven
On aerial looms into sacred shawls.

Like rows of crochet, deftly my words
Link to yours ‘til plaited into a cord,
Strong and binding, closely entwined,
All our hues of colour shining in one cloth.

We sew our shared stories into a quilt,
To give us comfort on dark nights,
To give us shelter from loneliness,
To reassure us we are all alike. 

We stitch our patchwork tales together,
An enduring fabric more powerful
Than each story individually.
Each piece is a memory that binds us

To old dreams of childhood and of youth,
To the white of wedding dresses and rings,
To love, motherhood, joys and trials,
To our sweet, shared knowledge of how it is.

Perpetua Anne Graham
Omagh Northern Ireland
perpetuag@hotmail.co.uk

Three Sisters

We lie on the grass, in a sphere of stars
shrouded by the fabric of night
in liminal space suspended by heat
falling mercurial away from the sun. 

Three sisters’ limbs dance entwined;
weedy minarets, reaching like tendrils
toward the southern cross,
flickering beyond our finger tips. 

We are lunatic kids—moonstruck
skinny silhouettes, wild from the sugars
of plumped apricots; skin reddened 
and poached on sandy beaches.

Our luminous playhouse
is charged with giggle, 
leaf crackle and call of birds— 
night airs played on timeless lutes. 

We thrill in unison with bold
ideas and fierce intent, affection
flowing through our pert silliness, 
its purpose played on our green needled stage.

Our mother’s gaze steals across the window sill. 
Her affection shivers in heat’s shadow,
and rejoins to the call of our wish
to stay, another while. 

Maggie Slattery
Adelaide, South Australia
maggieslattery@gmail.com 

Meditation with Dog, for Piper

I stroke her chest. She smiles, and veils her eyes
to amber slits in pupils dark as dream.
Fingers on fur - sparks, static. Old dogs rise
to memory, living still, or so they seem.

And yet it's just my present dog. Some say,
only Man lives in God's immortal scheme,
while dogs must die at end of Dog's short day.

She smiles. See how her muzzle's turning gray.
I stroke her chest. Her heart in mortal guise
still opens doors. She'll find a passageway.

Taylor Graham
Placerville, USA
poetspiper@att.net

Hermit's Confession

So I never go out
but I'm never at home
so that's why I never
answer the phone.
You can believe me.
I'll tell you why.

The caller might be
someone I never
want to see,
someone who never
wants to see me.
Or so we agreed.

The truth can remain
hidden for years
till hung in the sun
along with the wash
to startle the neighbors
like a red brassiere.

So I never go out
but I'm never at home
so that's why I never
answer the phone.
You can believe me.
I've told you why.


Donal Mahoney

donalmahoney@charter.net
Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has had poems published Ancient Heart Magazine and other publications in the United State, Europe, Asia and Africa,

The Bookcase

The bookcase
has been replaced with
another bookcase

The new thing is made in Sweden
and assembled
in the wet dreams of code breakers
and psychiatrists

I try
all the bits are there
I thumb tiny pieces of metal
into crude wooden holes
the ‘designated ports of joinery’ I believe they’re called

Before we know it
we have a coffin shaped box
in the middle of the floor

The inevitable heated exchange ensues
planning ideas are slung back and forth
with the girlfriend
she’s flustered and gorgeous
I’m half erect and inappropriate
- which is more than can be said about the cheap furniture

and then I pause

Wow
look at us all grown up
we’ve made it
we’re finally fighting
about things
that don’t matter


Danny D Ford

Bergamo, Italy
theunfoldinghead@hotmail.co.uk
www.theunfoldinghead.co.uk

Running

Your stepdad’s in Intensive, 
horizontal, hooked to tubes. 
He won’t 
even know we’re there. 

But we set out anyway, past the neighbors’ 
bay gelding pacing his paddock –
horse that’s never known a halter, never 
been led out into fresh green morning. Forgotten 

steed. He whinnies, pricks his ears, 
listens to the herd in free pasture down the hill. 
His hooves have churned bare soil to mud. 
He does a one-horse dance against his fence. 

This first Saturday in May – Derby day, 
a fleet field of colts and fillies – 
but there’s no chance the hospital will be tuned 
to paddock-parade at the Downs. 

I need to see horses running. Look at this 
solitary gelding. Snuffle against his muzzle. 
Slip onto his back. Muscles slack – let’s kick. 
Remember how to lip-flick a latch –

the gate hangs open on its hinge. 
May means spring. 


- Taylor Graham
Placerville, CA USA
poetspiper@att.net 

Low Fat Cheese

Goats give the lowest fat milk to drink and eat
processed into white acrid cylinders,
they may take all sorts of shapes such as
smoked stones, ash powered dungs.

A sharp knife slices a roll of cheese,
a white, creamy patch keeps stuck on its blade.
I lick it carefully
my craving tongue avoids the cut
of the metal carving tool in my hand.

With my fingers I pick up the slice:
a thin white washer pure as snow,
I could bleat as I eat this tiny titbit
but I hum and I my tongue spits saliva
outside my mouth, on the verge of my lips.



Walter Ruhlmann
http://lorchideenoctambule.hautetfort.com
Nantes (France) 

The Metamorphs

When she and I in clowning coltish forms
Full spun with laughter, every atom splayed
Went spitting ecstacy; our foaming tongues
Trod home together leaning side by side
Collapsed into platonic beds of sleep
‘Cross our flesh would creep a blighted smut
So restless squirmed as dawn began to drip
Not every night, but every other night

Not every night, but every other night
The buried sunsets rise again, again
Through broken vessel eyes, through waking drought
Hold hands and ache for sleep and cringe and groan.
The world is cheap, we have our games of dice
And now and then we’ll lose and end up stung
We play at things, personas yoked and spliced
Dissolved in morning light – the metamorphs.


D.P. Laker 
daniellaker@hotmail.co.uk

Snow White and Rose Red:

 A Jurassic (*) Interlude




Before tea & discourse
we enter the room of string theories.
It's a fairly safe venture
to slip through the grasp of logic
& into the hands of mysticism.

Your eyes widen with delight
at the knotted sculptures
strung between pairs
of indifferent hands.
Your head cocks
to the left
to synthesize
the undertone of spellcraft
crackling over the speakers.
You postulate
the endless ways
to twist the universe
into the shape
of your desire,
& opine against
the lack of Time
to warp circumstance
to suit your needs.

Your preoccupation
allows the bonds
of sisterhood
to loosen between us.

copyright 2010 marie lecrivain

(* based on an exhibit from the Museum of Jurrasic Technology) 




Marie Lecrivain
Los Angeles, CA, USA
marie.lecrivain.pd@gmail.com

Poetry..a lifestyle?

Over the years, I have enjoyed reading many wonderful submissions of poems. There have been poems that truly delighted me, inspired me, horrified me, or at least in some way genuinely touched my heart. I have never been too impressed with poetry that seeks to express cerebral sophistry. I find some of those kind of poems simply dull. And that may be just because I find poetry at its best is, like music, a direct link to the emotional part that dwells in most mortals. A well chosen image, a finely turned phrase, melody whether in a piece of music or a stunning verse, will connect in a flash to something very deep within, something valid and ancient if you will. The bard can take us to this place where shivers of wonder yet endure.

Whether poetry can be a lifestyle I am not quite sure. Perhaps if your entire passion revolves around this rather ephemeral art form. Or perhaps for those few poets who have attained a measure of success. You can find poetry anywhere. In some subconscious slips of the tongue, in some spontaneous unassuming philosophical gem uttered by a pure child, in the heart opening up in joy or despair.

It's all around. You just need to lend an ear..