Buttons by Clive Donovan Like someone else's mother's button box not quite the same and these lingering threads and grime are they not just a little repulsive? Not meaningful their stories missing such as my favourite big blue button off Sandra's coat that never got sewn back on and where is the real bone and abalone mother-of-pearl and early bakelite and look at this disgusting cloth-covered nub off a suspender belt my God the things some folks keep! And this absurd picture of Scottie dogs disgracing a toffee tin our classy shortbread box- lid portrayed a Gainsborough velvet boy I remember days of her sorting through possessions as she prepared to enter her final home from home she sifted slow with crabbed fingers that never more would stitch and preoccupied with beds and chairs I let her say farewell and ditch them all with many ornaments rattling to the landfill bin and I regret that now and forever since catching myself at frowsty stalls and charity shops purveying bric-à-brac hovering over other people's lost small fortunes of family collections but it's never quite the same. About the Author Clive Donovan devotes himself full-time to poetry and has published in a wide variety of magazines including Agenda, Fenland Poetry Journal, Neon Lit. Journal, Prole, Sentinel Lit. Quarterly and Stand. His debut collection will be published by Leaf by Leaf in November 2021.
Bird’s View by Jenny Robb We watch grounded, heavy humans fly in metal coffins. You’ll never know the rush of air separating and thinning over curved upper-wings, and skimming under flat-planed under-wings, pushing our bodies high. We are music, song, infinite colour. We are feathers, predators, prey. We are air creatures. Our telescopic eyes ignore your feather-less lives, but some of us devour decaying flesh. Our Peregrine Falcons dive like stealth-jets, beaks severing necks in mid-air: but you could eliminate us all. About the Author Jenny lives in Liverpool. Since retiring from work in mental health services, her poems have been published in online and print magazines, and in anthologies. She has poems forthcoming in Prole, Orbis and The Dawntreader. Her debut pamphlet will be published by Yaffle Press in 2021.
Two Poems by Paul Waring Pizza & Trumpets There’s no greeting fanfare in Arrivals, chest-high sign blaring your name in black capitals, pat on the back for a model past, reunion with family tree and pets. All that awaits is white, corridors of unfamiliar faces like first day at school. Hymns plucked on thousand-string harps, no flamenco slap or Starman on the radio oh-oh. Driven wild by whispers of basement parties, Jesus flipping burgers at barbies, brobdingnagian pizza and trumpets, gin-swilling saints, Hollywood greats, Elvis, Prince and Jimi Hendrix on stage, John and Yoko together again. Turning Point Tongues loosened by quaffable red, shared ear for Ella, Miles, Lady Day and Coltrane, we ratchet up banter. Air scents of kitchen roast chicken notes, winter light all but out, rain playing percussion on window panes, I watch you ovenglove the cradled beast to rest, brindled, bedded on veg, carving knife poised before my curveball comment punctures the mood. Eyes fixed apart, we bolt down dinner, chew over barbed words, wait for time to dress, digest the wound. About the Author Paul Waring is a retired clinical psychologist from Wirral. His poetry is published in Prole, Atrium, Obsessed With Pipework, Ink, Sweat & Tears, London Grip and elsewhere. Awarded second prize in the 2019 Yaffle Prize, commended in the 2019 Welshpool Poetry Competition, his debut pamphlet ‘Quotidian’ is published by Yaffle Press. www.waringwords.blog Twitter: @drpaulwaring
Two Poems by Mark Fisher I Street there is another world down that street filled with fault line fables cracking through the archetypes of neighbors and all the loving truths stuffed away in the backs of refrigerators in Tupperware hells with all the other leftovers grown fuzzy with mold but such a pretty blue blessing the bread Midnight City moonlight bright streetlights cast shadows across your soul while angel faced women dance naked through the saxophone streets and late night vagabonds with the cash shell out for crispy potato prayers in diner cathedrals sipping Stella Rosa communion wine wistfully looking through mandala windows into blind primordial streets feeling the liquor bottle emptiness of waiting and just getting older About the Author: Mark A. Fisher is a writer, poet, and playwright living in Tehachapi, CA. His poetry has appeared in: Angel City Review, A Sharp Piece of Awesome, Altadena Poetry Review, Penumbra, Young Ravens, and many other places. His first chapbook, drifter, is available from Amazon. His plays have appeared on California stages in Pine Mountain Club, Tehachapi, Bakersfield, and Hayward. He has also won cooking ribbons at the Kern County Fair.
Three Poems by Kayleigh Campbell Lunar Eclipse She stares at the triangle between her legs, the darker tip of it like a snow-covered mountain top. She lifts her foot from the water and suspends it as a skin-covered moon. She lifts her right hand as Zhenyi might have, scrunches it into an earth-fist. She holds her left hand up, palm flat, fingers outstretched into a pygmy sun and pauses: she aligns here in this moment, before letting her limbs go limp. Dear Vera Shimunia embroider me a star splattered night sky and sew my body so beautifully into a constellation so I can hang myself and the universe on the kitchen wall. Andalusia She licks crisp schnapps from her lips as she watches palm trees sway in Balearic breeze. She fingers pages of The Handmaid’s Tale, as she examines the body language of sun loungers. She spots her fiancé in the pool, hazy with cheap beer and chlorine. She imagines it is a stranger. She begins to imagine a different holiday, where she is alone. She looks beyond the resort, across the beach into carolina sea and imagines she could be crystallised like salt and drift away from here. About the Author Kayleigh Campbell is a third year Creative Writing Ph.D candidate at The University of Huddersfield. She has previously volunteered for Stand Magazine based at The University of Leeds; she lives in Leeds with her partner Joe and their daughter Eliza. Her pamphlet Keepsake is available from Maytree Press. Her work has appeared in the likes of Anthropocene, Butcher’s Dog and Ink, Sweat & Tears.
Siren Song by Leanne Moden The clamouring of rooks among the treesreminds me of the sirens on the shore,whose raucous songs were blatant augury,of omens too pernicious to ignore.The scream of sirens on the motorwayremind me of the sirens on the shore:a devastating ending to the day.Those birds will seek the car-crash carrion.The scream of sirens on the motorway – a call as bright and clear as clarion –inviting us to seek our own demise.Those birds will seek the car-crash carrion: like Erysichthon, nothing satisfiesthe calling void. Obsession quantified,inviting us to seek our own demise. The war inside my head is amplified;the clamouring of rooks among the trees.The calling void, obsession quantified,whose raucous songs are blatant augury About the Author Leanne Moden is a Nottingham-based poet. She’s performed at events across the UK and Europe, including WOMAD Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Sofar Sounds, and Bestival. Leanne’s latest collection, ‘Get Over Yourself’ was published in July 2020 by Burning Eye Books, and she’s currently working on her debut theatre show. You can find out more about her work on her website: http://www.leannemoden.com
Resurrection by Imogen Foster In my dream-space I pick up a garden fork and driving steel through compacted soil I find that among the worms and sharp stones I am excavating something that looks familiar. Fragments rise from the dirt, shape themselves into cups and saucers, a floral jug, a sugar bowl. Intact again, each piece takes its place on starched linen, fine drawn-thread work laid over red chenille. A photographer ducks under his black cloth, his subjects posing, stiff beside their tableware. Behind them stands the housemaid, my grandmother, sent into service aged eleven, and now about to speak. She tells me only that this house is a lonely place and that she has been taught a few words of French in case they should be required: le lait, the milk; le pain, the bread; le sel, the salt, la bonne, the maid. About the Author Imogen Forster returned to writing poems a few years ago, after a long interval, much of which she spent working as a translator from French, Spanish and Italian. She has an MA in Writing Poetry from Newcastle University, and expects to publish a pamphlet in 2021. She lives in Edinburgh, and longs to be able both to travel outside the city again and to attend live poetry events. @ForsterImogen
Dad Teaches Me to Light Matches by Holly Magill Welephant had done too good a job on me him and all the scare-scar horror stories. Boy who, on November 6th, picked up – he’d thought – a dead firework. Boy now with no face. Girl who stood too close to the fire in a shellsuit – green and purple glued her a second skin. Birthday sparklers, gas hobs, Bunsen burners the casual lighter-flicks of the smoker girls in school. Me, 19 years old. Still petrified. * He stands me at the utility room worktop in the dream cottage he’d restored with Wife No.2 the counter where she spoons the cat-food whole other room from the show kitchen. He squares the small oblong in my palm its rough sides flinch my fingers. We’ll do every one together until you can. His hand cups mine steady guides me to do something practical, useful. Love – matchbox-sized – terrifying with each strike proves to me I can be safe whatever lies in years either side. About the Author Holly Magill’s poetry has appeared in numerous magazines, including The Interpreter’s House, Bare Fiction, and Under The Radar, and anthologies –Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches Press) and #MeToo: A Women’s Poetry Anthology (Fair Acre Press). She won first prize in the 2019 Cannon Poets ‘sonnet or Not’ competition. She co-edits Atrium – www.atriumpoetry.com. Her debut pamphlet, The Becoming of Lady Flambé, is available from Indigo Dreams Publishing. https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/holly-magill/4594330527
I Remember the Bedroom by Cristina Discusar i slept in every bed the blue cover was my favourite like the dark air every time i woke up i was alone and knew nothing it was only my eyes that captured: the backyard behind the block of flats the window the park in our neighbourhood the health centre in the afternoon light - as if they were polaroid snapshots and i could not recall the cold, as if it never existed several days ago, i sat on a bench and watched two cranes, moving slowly as they were building a block of flats it looked like they would never finish I recorded it deep inside my mind several days ago, i watched electric wires and trees and didn’t blink About the Author Cristina Dicusar (07.08.1993) is a young, talented poet from Chisinau, The Republic of Moldova, who was already introduced to our readers in the autumn in our Translation Tuesday feature. She published her first poems in the „Clipa” magazine and in a poetry collection: „Casa Verde”/„The Green House”. Now she is writing her PhD with a thesis on contemporary Romanian poetry. She read at various literary clubs: The “Vlad Ioviță” Workshop (Chisinau, Republic of Moldova), “Tram 26” (Romania), “Mihail Ursachi” House of Culture (Romania), Bar Behind the Curtains (Czech Republic), Prague Writers’ Club (Czech Republic), Beseda Castle, Švrček Theater, (Slovakia) etc. She is member of the “Vlad Ioviță” Creative Writing Workshop and of the “Republica” Cenacle. The featured poem is visually powerful and brings a different poetic view from a different corner of Europe. Translation by Cristina Discusar, Mircea Dan Duta and Natalie Nera.
Visual Poems by Seth Crook THE VISIBLE WORLD I DISCOVERED THE EX T THE INVISIBLE WORLD AT LAST I FOUND THE WAY N . About the Author Seth Crook is transitioning into a seal, swims daily. His poems have appeared in such places as The Rialto, Magma, Envoi, The Interpreter’s House. And in recent anthologies such as Port (Dunlin), Green Fields (Maytree), Declarations (Scotland Street). His concrete/word-visual poems have recently appeared in Streetcake, Dreich, The Projectionist’s Playground, and a forthcoming anthology celebrating Edwin Morgan.
