Lothlorien Poetry Journal
Pushcart Prize Nominations 2024 for 2025 Edition
Lothlorien Poetry Journal is honoured to nominate the
following individuals and their pieces of work published in 2024 for the
Pushcart Prize 2025 Edition:
https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/
Edited by Strider Marcus Jones
E-mail LothlorienPoetryJournal@outlook.com
https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/
Eight Sonnets for Compline
Poetry
Lothlorien
Poetry Journal: Eight Sonnets for Compline by Gary Bills
Published November 1st, 2024
2. Antonia
Alexandra Klimenko
Who’s There?
Poetry
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: One
Poem by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
Published March 23rd, 2024
The
Nightingale of Lancashire
Poetry
Lothlorien
Poetry Journal: Five Poems by John Doyle
Published March 24th, 2024
Sentinels
Poetry
Lothlorien
Poetry Journal: Two Poems by Gregg Norman
Published September 9th,
2024
Pine Gap
Poetry
Lothlorien
Poetry Journal: Five Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Published June 8th, 2024
What They Need to Hear
Fiction – Short Story
Lothlorien
Poetry Journal: What They Need To Hear - Short Fiction Story by Marie C
Lecrivain
Published September 5th,
2024
1. Gary Bills
Eight
Sonnets for Compline
Poetry
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: Eight
Sonnets for Compline by Gary Bills
Published November 1st, 2024
Eight
Sonnets for Compline
INVISIBLE BUT NEAR
Lord bless the earth - be close to us in sky,
Oh God the Father, wearing clouds for beards,
Both changing and eternal! - drift
on by,
Drift on, until great Charlemagne is
done,
With steeple tops and weather-vanes and cocks;
All battles won, and beggars sent away,
And Perkin justly pelted in the stocks -
All crowd a clockwork sphere, and cannot
stay;
But bless our modern world - be close in sky,
Invisible but near - a bubble's film from
here,
And grant me grace to seldom question why
No dancing proof can ever quite appear;
Though moon-eyed Galileo sought your throne,
And searched your stars in vain, and wept alone.
PLAINSONG AT EASTER
We chant, because a dead man starts to breathe
-
His tomb is filled with echoes, filled with
awe,
And we - wide-eyed like saints on parchment
leaves,
We'll sing this day beyond the doubting shore.
There's patience in our song, in silence too -
We kneel in licks of shadow and of light -
Whatever candles bring – the end is true -
His triumph at the edge of death and night;
Though cities burn, one city shall remain,
Though many crosses gather around the one
His universe will summon every name,
And all shall rise when time and dark are
done;
Let’s sing until the risen God has heard -
To make new Earth and Heaven, with one word.
BEYOND THE LOCK AND KEY
Country graveyard - silence or the bee,
Where ragwort grows between the leaning
stones,
Preserve these names - they had more faith
than me,
A briefer time to pray. I bless their bones
And if I could, I'd show them Heaven's door,
Eternity beyond the lock and key;
Their haunted seasons made them hope for more
-
They paused, bewildered, in their barley sea
And knew the fever's verdict on the young
And blighted harvests bringing hunger's bite
And sudden ague, taking off the strong,
And Adam hale at breakfast, dead by night;
But bring on Eden's maypole, then amen!
With cider too, was that enough for them?
CHRIST IN THE PAGAN GROVE
When Christ observed those peasants deep in
prayer,
He frowned, at first, to see the gods they'd
made -
Three wooden idols stood in open air,
Familiar, but silent in their glade -
Silvanus in his wolf-skin, led by fauns,
And piping Pan with ivy round his hips -
Still nimble on his hooves through sylvan
dawns,
And Flora breathing spring from laughing lips
To make the winter chill release its grip,
When aconites might bloom in every dint
And bees delight in coltsfoot - sip by sip
And bring the vatted honey's golden glint.
Then Christ forgave those starvelings at their
shrine:
The doubts, the cries, both human and divine.
A BYZANTINE MONK CONSIDERS
CANDLE
MAGIC
A vain buffoon, I did not think it odd
to add my votive candle to the rest,
convinced my words – my words - might alter
God;
though others prayed, my prayer alone was
blessed -
as if, in some far cave where genies roam,
I'd turned a borrowed Gnosis into rhyme;
but if my verses echoed, around that dome,
as time put out the candles, line by line,
I could not claim a light re-lit was new.
They are enough, those candles in their shade,
to be the stars, and Heaven's lanterns too;
they burn to be unmade, and they are made -
they are enough, and more than rite and
prayer;
no words from me can warm the winter air.
KING OF ZION
When Jesus Christ was handed to the troops,
the devil took time out and shared their fun -
drawn by cries and shrill, sadistic whoops,
to see a Man-God broken in the sun.
He saw how whips can flay the back to meat,
how thorns must find the shrieking nerve and
vein,
and Satan found no purpose on that street,
but he adored the pageant, all the same -
before fresh days for butchery with glee,
with time, perhaps, for Shabbat morning kills.
These men were experts, this was plain to see;
no need to praise their lust and eager skills
-
The King of Zion? Christ! You're not so
tough...
He watched them at their work. It was enough.
A SONNET FOR BYZANTIUM
Please, tell me how to find Byzantium,
don't say the chiming days are dead and gone
for saints in slow procession, one by one,
and gold mosaics that flare with Easter
sun.
Through time and cogs, metallic
feathers chirr -
and gongs that stirred the bones in Yeats's
ear
are almost-heard, although they never were -
are even felt along the nerve, as fear
becomes a lion in the street, as time
collects the trinkets, and every grand
conceit,
and every flute and every pouncing rhyme
which kept the lords and ladies on their feet.
Night Watchman on your tower! – still give the
word -
To bolt the gates and save the singing bird.
DURHAM CATHEDRAL
At times, they did not comprehend the plan,
Those lines on parchment, concepts out of
reason,
As if an angel whispered in their dreams.
They built their ship with stone, although
they knew
That stone must sink, and that, of course, was
faith;
Their masts were sandstone columns without
sails,
Who needs a sail to cross one thousand years?
This ship won’t sink, although it’s made of
stone,
And doubt’s a heavy cargo in the hold;
Above the gorge that rises like a wave
When all four winds are blowing time to Hell,
This ship is steady, set towards an end
Where doubt will be an offering at His feet,
And He will not condemn the frightened child.
Gary
Bills was
born at Wordsley, near Stourbridge. He took his first degree at Durham
University, where he studied English, and he has subsequently worked as a
journalist. He is fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake.
Gary gained
his MA in Creative Writing at BCU, with a distinction.
He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his post-modernist epic poem,
“Bredbeddle's Well”, which was published in Lothlorien in 2022, and he has been
nominated for the Best of the Net awards, for his short story, “Country Burr”.
Gary's
poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Magma, HQ
and Acumen, and he has had three full collections published, – “The Echo and
the Breath” (Peterloo Poets, 2001); “The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart”
(bluechrome, 2003); and “Laws for Honey” (erbacce 2020). In 2005, he edited
“The Review of Contemporary Poetry”, for bluechrome.
His
work has been translated into German, Romanian and Italian. A US-based indie
publisher, The Little French, published his first novel, “A Letter for Alice”
in 2019, and a collection of stories, “Bizarre Fables”, in 2021. His second
novel, "Sleep not my Wanton", came out in January 2022, and it is due
out shortly as a Spanish language version.
2. Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
Who’s There?
Poetry
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: One Poem by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
Published March 23rd, 2024
Who's There?
Someone I loved
once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
---Mary Oliiver
An orphan at seven
I had to love the questions--
I didn't have any answers
Knock knock I'd say
Knock knock
Only no one ever let me in
Only no one even asked "Who's there?"
so they packed me off to that country
where the moon sucks dreams from a rubber nipple
and I stayed there
and I stayed there
When I was eight
they handed me a doll for my birthday
handed me a doll without a cry
Deaf baby death rattle
glass tears for eyes
Mouth as stiff as her skirt
in a cardboard box
taped on all four sides
taped on all four sides
a cardboard box
for a coffin
And still I rocked her
And still I rocked her
Don't step over the line Honey
don't step over the line--
or they’ll snap off your head
and they’ll melt you down
for all your plastic truth
Outside
the Pope is playing hopscotch with God
Outside
Mexican borders are crossing themselves at night
Outside
the hems of all the confessors are coming undone
by their own undoing
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned
Stay inside your box Honey
stay inside with me
Let them do your thinking for us
She stared at me through her windowpane
I looked at her pain through mine
I an aging mime without sound
rotting like a frozen vegetable
In the dark in the dark
my icebox is making that awful sound
In the dark
my refrigerator is dying
Don't step over the line Honey
don't step over the line--
stay where you will keep forever
wrapped in your cellophane smile
When Death comes to blow out your candles
close your eyes and make a wish
You can open yourself on your birthday
just don't hold your breath!
When I was nine
I crossed over all the boundaries
rocking back and forth
between moon and madness
La dee dah La dee dah
And so I rocked me
And so I rocked me
In the hospital that other country
they watched me
they watched me
so I swallowed a handful of miracles
all of them invisible
all of them blind
I floated out of my body
I floated into your mind
just to know how you were feeling
just to know that I was alive
just to have another answer
Cross over cross over
the voice said
(They'll reduce me to rubber
they'll use me for glue)
Cross over cross over
the voice said
There IS no division
You’re just passing through
Every moment
(breathing out breathing in)
I stand at Life's door
knock knock
I stand at Death's
knock on wood
Oh pick one or the other! I say
Just don't leave splinters in everything!
Forgive me, Father, for we know not
Every day
the horizon bleeds rainbows
into herself
La dee dah La dee dah
as my own dreams
recede into the peeling plastic
of a thousand melting sunlamps
and I am dying
I am dying
Every day
I stand at my own door
I ask the same question
I let myself in
“And what have they done with my dolly?” I ask
No one could teach her to cry Honey
no one could teach her to cry
And so I rock me
And so I rock me
Antonia Alexandra
Klimenko was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary
world by the legendary James Meary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of
T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few. his
death, it was his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, who took an interest
in her writing and encouraged her to publish.
A nominee for the Pushcart Prize, The Best of the Net, and a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence.
Her selected poems On the Way to Invisible was recently published by The Opiate Books and is now available.
3. John Doyle
The Nightingale of Lancashire
Poetry
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: Five
Poems by John Doyle
Published March 24th, 2024
The Nightingale of Lancashire
Newspaper article from June 1925, about the accidental
electrocution of a nightingale and other creatures in a field near St. Helens
It must be that I am not made to be a dead man, but these places
and this discussion seem like a dream, and not a dream dreamed by me but by
someone else still to be born
Jorge Luis Borges
On a malfunctioned road in systems of skulls
my letterbox kisses the lips of the angel who brings death;
electricity has done worse I'm sure they think,
poets are off at wars, dying in their gentrified scourge,
songs of innocence dressed in bonnets,
or rowdy men sipping stout who draw your song with harmonicas -
the nightingale's song gone forever,
scored in stumps of mice laid swollen with death beside it,
a lark, gone as well, trembling in your muted coda.
They forget - those lords and masters of death, and
noose-tightened despair,
that I shake and shiver inside time, around it,
and I do not switch on death's illuminations, death beware -
the nightingale is music, and eternity is a song,
the nightingale's song I loosen my letterbox with;
and now that you are immortal, little one and friends,
I'm setting you free to soften angels of death
who dangle from wires
where no music softens their fall
John Doyle is from County
Kildare in Ireland. He returned to writing poetry in February 2015 after a gap
of nearly 7 years. Since then he's had 7 poetry collections published. His 7th
collection, "Isolated Incidents" was published by Pski's Porch in
Summer 2021.
4. Gregg Norman
Sentinels
Poetry
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: Two
Poems by Gregg Norman
Published September 9th, 2024
SENTINELS
Prairie
grain elevators
Once one day wagon-trip spaced
Now lined along steel highways
Names
high in tall font
Looming over dying villages
Standing in patient service
To the world’s breadbasket
Amid featureless fields
With
vanishing points
On
roads in all directions
Never
lost here
Sentinels
always watching
Like giant desert cacti
Whispering
on the wind
Over
here over here
Watercoloured everywhere
To
grace the walls
Of small-town diners
Old
farm kitchens
Summer
fair craft tables
Old
growth heritage wood
Douglas Fir drawn and quartered
Timber
posts and beams
Wood
grain carved
By grains on grains
Built stacked and cribbed
With
corners overlapped
So strong yet now laid low
To
build dance floors
And
decorative furniture
Landmarks
gone in time’s mist
Villages
soon follow
The
vast land empties
Of symbols of pride
Perseverance and posterity
Towering timber touchstones
All
but gone away
Given over to monstrous concrete silos
Lined in solemn rows
Like
artillery shells
Gregg Norman lives and
writes in a lakeside cottage in Manitoba, Canada, with his wife and a small dog
who runs the joint. His poetry has been placed in journals and literary
magazines in Canada, USA, UK, Australia and India. He is also the author of
four published novels and a novella.
5. Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Pine Gap
Poetry
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: Five
Poems by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Published June 8th, 2024
Pine
Gap
Have
you been to Pine Gap?
Seen
our friends from another end?
Licked cosmic custard from the bottom
of
the bowl?
I realize that is a quick succession of questions
not seen since kings replaced queens
on
a throne made of rowdy thickets.
That
you hold no more answers than
the many number to call billboards along the freeway
that seem to slowly devour the sky.
And tourist dollars are just outside contraband
smuggled
into local prisons,
let’s get that out of the way like a communal
sidestep
of perpetual evasion.
The
last time you drank too much and got sick,
I
held your hair with surgical scalpel exactness.
Over a toilet that hadn’t been cleaned
since
Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
Call that love.
Call back the phone centre
that
has everyone else on the line.
If
we walk together in the rain,
no
one will have to pretend to get wet.
In
these prurient tight fangs
of
razor wire rockabilly.
6. Marie C
Lecrivain
What They Need
to Hear
Fiction –
Short Story
Lothlorien Poetry Journal: What
They Need To Hear - Short Fiction Story by Marie C Lecrivain
Published September 5th, 2024
What They Need to Hear
Short Fiction Story
by Marie C Lecrivain
I.
Apollo finds a long line of the faithful coiled around his
temple spiralling outward into the dusty foothills. He smiles. Yes. Business is
booming, he tells himself, but the franchises need equal distribution. The
shareholders are not happy.
He considers his next move. Apollo knows his horny father left a trail of hoof prints and feathered destruction between here and Cyprus. He decides to become one of the little people. Apollo bows his shoulders like Atlas, drinks a cup of black coffee to stain the white of his smile, unlaces his sandals, and stashes his lyre into a battered guitar case. He rubs earth into his hair, and behold; he's now a 99%er, albeit a little too good-looking, but the day’s hot, and the line’s long, so perhaps, no one will notice.
II.
Apollo takes his place at the end of the line. He wonders
what's become of the world he once knew, the one he once looked down upon in
his daily sunrise travels while cruising in his celestial Porsche with one
million kelvin horsepower and rhino leather interior. The former green-and-blue
world is now stained brown and grey.
He
wonders when the sacrifices, libations, and jingles the bards wrote in his
honour will resume.
Where have all the tributes gone?
He’s never asked his worshipers for much; a few nymphs to
seduce, a crown of sonnets, a handful of coins - every day - this is what he
requires. He’s nothing like his twin sister, Artemis, who demands all aspirants
become lifetime members of PETA and invest all their savings in turbine
wind-power farms. Nor is he like his brother, Ares, who spends his devotees’
donations on manufacturing cheap chariots and subpar body armour, and then
sells them back to his favourite warmongers at 3,000% profit.
No. Apollo doesn't understand their ways, or their
reasoning.
Where did we go wrong? Apollo asks himself.
Perhaps the answer’s among mortals. He fine-tunes his
heavenly ears to listen to the whispers within the hearts of men.
The wailing of ten thousand whiners crashes against the
surface of Apollo's mind. He tries not to flinch at the tsunami of misery.
Apollo knows the key to successful customer retention is active listening, so
he lets the tides of complaint wash over him. The lightest float to the top:
I can’t conceive a child.
I need a good 401K plan.
I want to buy a hut, but I have shitty credit.
These are everyday concerns, not ones Apollo allows his
oracles to spend more than five minutes ruminating. They’re not worth chewing
laurel leaves.
He dives in deeper, searches for true misery, and finds
more of the same.
I work two jobs, and I still can’t pay my rent.
My wife has cancer and our insurance stopped covering her
treatments.
I’ve been unemployed for three years. No one will hire me.
I’m a veteran of the Peloponnesian Wars, and the government
cut my benefits.
Apollo becomes frustrated, as these are - again - everyday
concerns. Why are there so many people here, instead of at one of the other
three friendly locations? He just installed a new coffee bar at Delphi. For an
extra 50 drachmas, aspirants can now receive expedited prophecies.
Apollo realizes the answers can’t be found in the hearts of
men, so he turns off his heavenly hearing, cracks his neck, and sighs.
III.
Behind Apollo, the line has stretched beyond the farthest
point a mortal man can see. Astounded, Apollo finds himself at the bottom of
the temple steps and wonders how much time has passed. Tapping on the pilgrim’s
shoulder in front of him, he asks, Dude, what time is it? I left my portable
sundial at home.
The pilgrim shrugs. It’s mid-morning, but hopefully, I’ll
be able to meet with the oracle. They close for lunch at 11:30. I’ve been in
line for two days.
Apollo considers this information carefully. With
trepidation, he asks, There are other oracles you could visit. Why are you
waiting so long for this one?
The pilgrim smiles and utters one word. Orpheus.
IV.
Apollo patiently waits as the line moves forward. He watches the
pilgrims, one after the other, enter the shrine, a modest arch lit by the light
of lavender-and-thyme scented candles. He watches each pilgrim emerge with a
satisfied smile on their face and realizes this is what he’s not seen in a very
long time: the Sign of Satisfaction, the guarantee of customer loyalty.
V.
It’s Apollo’s turn to enter the shrine. He looks around for
a temple maiden to take his payment - and finds none.
He walks slowly through the arch. Inside, he finds none of
the usual trappings. Gone is the 50ft gold statue of Apollo’s radiant being.
Erased are the frescoes of his sexual exploits. Vanished is the marble
prie-dieu for the pilgrims to kneel upon. In its place is a simple three-legged
stool placed near a wooden pedestal upon which sits the head of Orpheus, eyes
closed, a faint frown on his pale face.
Apollo regards the silent face of Orpheus and wonders. How
long can an immortal go without sleep… and dreams?
Apollo seats himself on the stool, stretches out his legs,
opens his guitar case, and pulls out his lyre. Setting his hands to the
strings, he plays a soft melody meant for Orpheus’ ears alone. He watches the
face of Orpheus gradually change; the frown bends upwards into a smile and the
lines recede from his brow.
Once he’s through, Apollo puts away his lyre. Orpheus’s
eyes open; one green, the other black, long-ago reminders of his adventures
upon the earth, and then below.
I miss music, says Orpheus. A single tear drips down his
face. I miss the feel of the lyre in my hands.
Apollo stares into the eyes of Orpheus.
My son, you're taking business away from the other temples,
Apollo says. Why?
Orpheus says nothing.
Apollo cracks his knuckles, a staccato chorus that
reverberates through the shrine.
Orpheus, he says, I have to know what you're doing
differently, and why.
Orpheus sighs a long melodic breath that sends a shiver up
Apollo’s shrine.
It’s not what I’ve done, he says, his eyes filled with
tears. It’s what’s been done to me, left to rot forever in this room, an
eternal sympathetic ear for the world’s problems. I never asked for this. I
never asked for this… but what’s there to do, other than listen and give them
the one answer that fits every inquiry.
What answer?
Apollo asks.
There are worse things than suffering, answers Orpheus, all
of this will pass away. They’ll never truly die.
VI.
The melodic symphony in Orpheus’ tears can only be heard by
Apollo, who then reaches out and caresses the back of his son’s head.
Orpheus, my boy, Apollo says, I’m sorry, but you're fired.
I figured as much, Orpheus says, but what shall become of
me? May I die now?
Gently, Apollo picks up the head of Orpheus, opens his
guitar case, and tucks it in beside the lyre. We'll discuss that as soon as I
come up with an answer to satisfy the shareholders.
(Note:
this story was inspired by the writings of Apollonius of Tyana)
Marie C Lecrivain is
a poet, publisher, and ordained priestess in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica,
the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis. She currently curates two
literary blogs: Dashboard Horus: A Bird’s Eye of the Universe (travel themed
poetry and art), and Al-Khemia Poetica: A Women’s Art and Literary Journal. Her
work has been published in California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Gargoyle,
Nonbinary Review, Orbis, Pirene's Fountain, and many other journals. She's the
author of several books of poetry and fiction, including the upcoming Call Me
Pamela: A Poetic Journey Through the Smith-Waite Tarot (2025 Sybaritic Press,
www.sybpress.com).
