After the Fact

A minister's son married
a deacon's daughter
after a long courtship.

It was difficult at times
doing everything right
but the young couple 

saved themselves
for the wedding night
when the groom 

sat on the bed 
and watched his bride 
carefully undress,

finally removing
the bra he never
knew was padded.

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. 

Woman Descending in Park

She produces a pint of cheap gin. 
Contemplates it. Finishes it. 
And waits as noting is illuminated. 
Not the pain in breathing, 
or the lovers that aren’t. 
Only the expanding silence
of being alone fills her mind. 

In failing tenebrous light
she tosses her empty bottle
and then, in unsteady contemptuous gait, 
she flounces
past a couple of burnt-out freaks
from the seventies, 
hunkering
in the falling shadows, 
snorting coke, and talking
about the meaning of poverty. 
She swings past them 
ranging into the blank and
widening night. 
There she sashays past parkmen, 
sitting like gravestones: 
aging, grained and pebbled fingers
dancing deadly 
on mahogany canes;
eyes
harnessed
only
on the bucking of the sea. 

by Steve de France

The Rich

Honestly, I have seen more hope, and more life, in the whites in the eyes of the pigeons that scuffle and scrape at breadcrumbs and litter that line the streets.
I tell you I have seen it.
And so rather would I gift them greater coins, and let the birds continue to salvage and scrap. And more would I join them on the pavements than knock shoulders with those that live and yet are all already dead.
For we are not vultures or peasants, and nor are we pigeons;
But great, big birds. 
Large and emphatic.
We just don’t have diamond wings.

Daniel Eagles, 
Amsterdam
danieleagles4@gmail.com 

Continuity

I'm just a dog barking,
I tell my wife who's upset
with my yakking on and on
at our weekly meeting
on a Saturday morning
stationed in our recliners
facing forward as if we were
in the same row on a plane 
with the middle seat empty.

I tell her eventually
any dog will stop barking
if you give him a bowl of kibble
or let him in the house
or find his ball and play fetch.
Or do what my mother did
when I was an infant bawling 
and woke my father who faced 
work as a lineman the next day.

My mother would get out of bed,
grab her old bathrobe
and whisk me to the rocker.
Even to this day,
many decades removed,
it's the best solution:
Put a breast in my mouth
and silence will ensue.
Eventually I may even coo.

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.

Tidalwave Making Moon

Decades lived by finding hope 
on the cliff.
The cliff remains but hope 
is gone and mercy
has taken its place, donning a revised skin.
Surrender is not gentle or shallow, 
does not come with a sigh but overtakes with a shudder,
a whimper, sleep.
I am branded as mush like the crawling thing 
that early summer created – clear and stripped of lasting form.
Corners blend then curve and curve again to make a sphere.
Searching is only born from blindness. Perfect vision comes
with the maiming of everything 
non-essential, when the only
essential is love and being alive to excite clouds into paintings.
The bountiful children 
clutter on the doorstep, have
one bed, two pillows for their many nesting heads. 
This they have, thin soup and no winter boots – 
each one giggling freely, sweetly at the first falling snow.
Branches are lizards I have broken before. Their thorny teeth,
a blessing to swell the stream 
of immediacy, covering me completely with oily holy sludge 
I have been trying for weeks 
to wipe from my nostrils.
Rubbing clean like singing – crescendo, couplet, and just breathing in 
as part of the song, holding breath, building in the stillness. 
Slowing awakening from the pressure, containing force 
in a tight-tongue swirl, movement starts, and cannot stop, 
until it beats out a haunting, lingering completion. 
What is left is the chilling joy 
of mutual mercy 
needed, received. Blood 
becomes a false dream, 
and the moon, and money too.

Allison Grayhurst
Toronto, Canada
www.allisongrayhurst.com

Boat Sailz Split, Croatia

Paper boat, 

you sayz.

To hold the weight of waterz
airz and unknownz sparkly thingz,
like canz, ringz, birdz and grandpa'z gun.

Me suitcase is ready wizz
a piece of a dense cloud 
hair spray and night-iz 
and some pair of daily daggers too. 
for in case of hunting. fishez. them look sou less

Problem iz, we're too heavy for-
you catchez me mouth and sayz it must be you wrist watch
and us take it out. 
we goez up North wizz a paper 
boat bigger an' bigger forests made it.

the clutch of me hand is of one fruitz, dark oily ink suburb of rose nettly
plum me savez for dis big stomach 
wizz a little mouth inside. we knowz not how long 'coz--
we only listenz to whalez in dark or knowz its kickz in morningz,
but time stayz on shorez. 

Afrodita Nikolova

Home country: Macedonia
(temporarily living in England)

afrodita.nicol@gmail.com

Calling It Love

Black Sea, palm tree dreams,
recorded Springsteen’s Badlands,
philosophic gift to a lover
borrowed from your room mate,
when you lived on a street named for lanterns.

Wrapped in your long black coat,
cross the city underground,
through heavy draped doorways,
nuzzle into smoke, and hot grog.
timeless sailors, reluctant to approach,
as if they knew something steel hidden in your pocket.

The last time you were here -
making cigarettes for a lover
borrowed from your room mate.
conversation a blur. Cinema forgotten,
unburdened in a room above the kiosk.
all sense of betrayal excused by adventure…

Next morning, walking home 
dry steel footsteps echo,
as even you found yourself
believing in what you knew was not
and calling it love.

by pd lyons
pdlyonspoet@yahoo.co.uk
ireland