Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8 Poets/Authors/List of Contents - Available Now from Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8 (lulu.com)

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8

Echoes Dancing with Shadows

January – Mid February 2022

Available from Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8 (lulu.com)

American poet Carl Sandburg said "poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance. " Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 8, features 74 internationally renowned poets and fiction writers as scintillating Echoes Dancing with Shadows including 2022 Pushcart Prize winner - Kurt Fuchs.

 

“Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance” –

                                                         Carl Sandburg

 

"Rather, I think one should write, as nearly as possible, as if he were the first person on earth and was humbly and sincerely putting on paper that which he saw and experienced and loved and lost; what his passing thoughts were and his sorrows and desires."

- Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac

 

"If you believe you're a poet, then you're saved." - Gregory Corso

 

"I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future." - Jack Kerouac

 

"And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy that I always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm." - Jack Kerouac

 

The POETS/AUTHORS

 

Margaret Kiernan

Fred Johnston

Lisa Marguerite Mora

Peter Knight

John Drudge

Karen Mooney

Michael Igoe

Catherine Arra

Julian Matthews

Afiah Obeneewaa Grace Danquah

Adrian David

Susan Tepper

Greg Patrick

Yuu Ikeda

Terry Wheeler

Pragya Suman

Rustin Larson

Imelda O’Reilly

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

Steve Klepetar

Brittany Hause translations of Ricardo James Freyre

Peter F. Crowley

Fiona Perry

Paul Demuth

Lynn White

Eric Burgoyne

Sana Tampeen Mohammed

Ernesto P. Santiago

Debbie Robson

Gary D. Maxwell

Mandy Beattie

Gale Acuff

Mona Bedi

Sam Barbee

Kushal Poddar

Kim Malinowski

Julian O. Long

Rowena Newman

Heath Brougher

Hibah Shabkhez

Ken Gosse

Margaret Kiernan

Nicholas Alexander Hayes

Debbie Robson

Kurt Luchs

RC deWinter

Douglas V. Miller

David Ades

Alan Catlin

Ursula O’Reilly

Peter Magliocco

Dmitriy Galkovskiy

John Grey

Richard M. Ankers

Wayne F. Burke

Dana Trick

Ethan Vilu

Duane Vorhees

Les Wicks

David Alec Knight

Adele Ogier Jones

James Miller

Angel Edwards

Christopher Barnes

Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia

Daniel Nemo

Doris Wei Tan

GJ Hart

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha

Adrian David

Sunil Sharma

Joe Sebastian

Mohibul Aziz

Bhuwan Thapaliya

Salim Yakubu Akko

 

Contents

 

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                              Pages

 

January – Mid February 2022 - Poems and Fiction

 

Margaret Kiernan

1.         Trip to the Mountain                                                  16-17

Fred Johnston

1.         How to Save a Life                                                     18-21

2.         An Event

3.         Song of a Child in an Atlantic Liner

4.         Arc

5.         Lake Incident

6.         Bone Room

Lisa Marguerite Mora

1.         Surfeit                                                                         22-26

2.         Yesterday Paris

3.         King Lear

4.         Winter, Winter

Peter Knight

1.         Brust, the Witwerd                                                     27-34

2.         boggart hole clough: silent eyes speak

3.         Humpty doo

4.         Childbane

5.         that stranger eye

John Drudge

1.         A New Voice                                                              34-37

2.         Brambles

3.         Into the Machine

4.         Loss

5.         On the Horizon

Karen Mooney

1.         beginnings                                                                  37-40

2.         I think of you as a tree

3.         Apple Tart and Lemon Meringue Pie

4.         I Touched You

Michael Igoe

1.         All Skin And Bone                                                     41-44

2.         Think This Way

3.         Fissure

4.         Waiting for St. Stephen

Catherine Arra

1.         Wheel of Fortune                                                       44-48

2.         The Tower

3.         The Sun

4.         Writer’s Block

5.         High on the Slanted Ceiling

Julian Matthews

1.         I am not an Xmas tree                                                48-50

Afiah Obeneewaa Grace Danquah

1.         Red in Pink                                                                 50

Adrian David

1.         Tribulations                                                                51

Susan Tepper

1.         Conspiracy – Meditations on dear Petrov                  52

Greg Patrick

1.         Raven’s Night – Short Story                                      52-55

Yuu Ikeda

1.         Whiskey’s Kiss                                                           55-56

2.         I’m an Impatient Poet

Terry Wheeler

1.         Timothy Leary                                                            57-61

2.         open the hive

3.         dark ages

4.         there is no end of talking

5.         sound effects

Pragya Suman

1.         A Pink Postmodernist Crept in Pale Prague               62-64

2.         Cold Coffee

3.         The Bier’s Bench

Rustin Larson

1.         Houdini                                                                       64-71

2.         Song of September

3.         Overripebananas

4.         The Make No Sense Room

5.         Silence, Earthling

Imelda O’Reilly

1.         Hoax                                                                           72-74

2.         Pomegranate and Plums

3.         Gas Bottles to the Soul

4.         Back

5.         Holes

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

1.         Every Night She Has Dinner With Me                       74-77

2.         The Junkie in the Bathroom

3.         We Don’t Care What You Say

4.         Grapes of Wrath

5.         Sitting in a Dark Bathroom

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

1.         Dear Mom – Flash Fiction                                         77-79

Steve Klepetar

1.         My Parents Walked by the Sea                                  79-81

2.         The University of Forgotten Names

3.         The Velvet Dark

Brittany Hause translations of Ricardo James Freyre

1.         Song of Evils                                                              81-86

2.         The Heroes

3.         The Hero’s Death

4.         The Sword

5.         Valhalla

Peter F. Crowley

1.         Alissa – Short Story                                                    86-90

Fiona Perry

1.         Everyday Goddess                                                      90-91

Paul Demuth

1.         Twins                                                                          91-92

Lynn White

1.         The Crimea Pass                                                         92-94

2.         The Fallen Ones

3.         A Hair’s Breadth

Eric Burgoyne

1.         Pretty Girl On The Beach                                           95-98

2.         5,000 Miles Away

3.         Pineapple Stain

4.         Nearing Hanales

5.         Manhattan Island

Sana Tampeen Mohammed

1.         Arabesque                                                                   99

2.         No Casualties

Ernesto P. Santiago

1.         Haiku                                                                          100-101

 

Debbie Robson

1.         Passage                                                                       101-102

Gary D. Maxwell

1.         Sonnet                                                                         102

Mandy Beattie

1.         Asleep - Awake                                                          103-107

2.         Through the Turnstile Between Two Fields

3.         Here Meets There

4.         Inside The Kist of Caithness

5.         Neeps and Pumpkins are not just for Halloween

Gale Acuff

1.         When the world ends I guess I will too, but               107-109

2.         One day when I’m dead you’ll be sorry I

3.         One day your dead so they tell me at church

4.         I don’t want to die, not that I’m happy

5.         Everybody goes to heaven they say

Mona Bedi

1.         Haiku                                                                          109-110

Sam Barbee

1.         Tissue                                                                         110-114

2.         Urbia

3.         Bonsai

4.         Evened Temper

5.         The Telephone Game

Kushal Poddar

1.         Politics                                                                        115-116

2.         The Slow Dog

3.         Hunger

4.         Calendar

Kim Malinowski

1.         Who will sing our names to the stars                         117-120

2.         Unfastened by magnets

3.         Stonehenge Bluestone

4.         Wing

5.         Shade

Julian O. Long

1.         Loss of Birdsong                                                        120-124

2.         No Kid is Safe

3.         Doe In the Headlights

Rowena Newman

1.         Sheela-Na-Gig                                                            124-126

2.         Beautiful ice cream

3.         What the leaves said

Heath Brougher

1.         Kerouacian Haiku                                                       126-130

2.         Sleep Deprived Personification of Motionless Cars

3.         The Phony

4.         Everyone Pays a Toll

5.         Dark Side of the Bed

Hibah Shabkhez

1.         Plenicorn, Not Cavicorn                                             130-132

2.         Would We Love You Then

3.         Painted Flower and Dying Flower

4.         Authorship

5.         Please Go Back

Ken Gosse

1.         The Foggy Foggy Dews and Don’ts of Dewy..Fog    132-136

2.         When in France, Spell as the French Do

3.         A Diamond on the Beach (Walrus & Carpenter poem)

4.         My Side of Genius

5.         The Dark Side of the Rainbow

Margaret Kiernan

1.         Venetian Sojourn                                                        137-139

2.         Venusian Retro-grade

3.         Wheel of Shadows

Nicholas Alexander Hayes

1.         Five Untitled Poems                                                   139-140

Debbie Robson

1.         Passage                                                                       140-141

Kurt Luchs

1.         Baby’s First Lie                                                          141-144

2.         Tabula Rasa

3.         What Borges Said

4.         Robin

5.         Nonbeing

RC deWinter

1.         the treachery of mirrors                                              144-148

2.         after the battle

3.         agent provocateur

4.         9 Lines for June 9

5.         moving day

 

Douglas V. Miller

1.         A Chance Encounter – Short Story                            149-150

David Ades

1.         New Year’s Day                                                         151-156

2.         If You Could Change One Thing

3.         The Benefactor

4.         Men’s Group Zoom Meeting, Eight Locations

5.         Blinkers

Alan Catlin

1.         Southern Gothic: Romance..Antietam (Black Sun)   157-159

2.         Southern Gothic: A Romance After Sally Mann. The Turn

3.         Southern Gothic: A Romance After Sally Mann. Blackwater

4.         Southern Gothic. Blackwater. (Valentine Windsor)

Ursula O’Reilly

1.         Do Not Disturb the Gnome                                        159-161

2.         Enchanted

Peter Magliocco

1.         Phalanx of Wing                                                         161-164

2.         Street Music Outside Taco Bell

3.         Broken Window in Winter

4.         The Alien Portrait

5.         Living the Dream

Dmitriy Galkovskiy

1.         Yuletide Bestiary –Translated by Alexander Sharov  165-166

John Grey

1.         The Guy                                                                      169-170

2.         The Job Interview

3.         The Names Have Been Changed

4.         Lying In The Meadow

5.         Sunday Morning

Richard M. Ankers

1.         The Endless Night – Short Story                                170-174

Wayne F. Burke

1.         Old                                                                              174-177

2.         Air Force

3.         Day Dreaming

4.         Ache

Dana Trick

1.         Praise to Poetry                                                          177-179

2.         How to Write Poetry

3.         Pens

Ethan Vilu

1.         My Very Own Command Core                                  179-181

2.         After Barnett Newman’s Note XII (State I)

3.         Into The Trench

4.         Third Rondel – Reno, NV

5.         Fourth Rondel – Blue Palace

Duane Vorhees

1.         The Calligrapher Writes the Landscape                     181-184

2.         Mirrors, Heroes and Seers

3.         The Actual Anatomy

4.         The Pit

5.         My Lovers, a Puzzle

Les Wicks

1.         Against the Grain                                                       184-188

2.         Report

3.         What is Believed

4.         Time Taken

5.         The Session

David Alec Knight

1.         Old Scarification and New Wounds                           189-192

2.         Wool Portraiture

3.         The Vernal Morning

4.         Grendel Descent

5.         Saxon Shore

Adele Ogier Jones

1.         On William Blake’s Tyger                                         192-194

2.         The Tiger Called Caspian

James Miller

1.         New Year’s Eve                                                         194-197

2.         Stormy Night

3.         Fire

4.         Moon Sheen on the Lake

Angel Edwards

1.         All in Your Mind                                                        197-198

2.         Beauty Problems

Christopher Barnes

1.         Almanac 26                                                                 199-200

2.         Almanac 27

3.         Almanac 28

4.         Almanac 29

5.         Almanac 30

Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia

1.         Coincidence 1 (Canto Pastiche)                                 200-203

2.         Coincidence 2 (Allusion Pastiche)

3.         Coincidence 3 (Imitation Pastiche)

Daniel Nemo

1.         A Forest                                                                     204-207

2.         A Victory for the Sultan and the Queen of Spades

3.         Central Locking

Doris Wei Tan

1.         Two Paths                                                                   207-208

GJ Hart

1.         What They Say                                                           208-209

Ngozi Olivia Osuoha

1.         Black Child                                                                 209-215

2.         The African Girl

3.         Letter to my Teacher

Adrian David

1.         Petrichor                                                                     215

Sunil Sharma

1.         One Flower – Three States of Mind                           215-218

Joe Sebastian

1.         Tanka, Haiku and Senryu                                           219-222

Mohibul Aziz

1.         To Me Sorrow’s Like                                                 223-224

2.         A Rare Encounter

Bhuwan Thapaliya

1.         Lily in my hand                                                          224-225

Salim Yakubu Akko

1.         Grief as My Uncle                                                      226

2.         Another Beginning

 

Five Poems by Diarmuid ó Maolalaí (DS Maolalai)

Drive dangerous; wear a seatbelt 

 

slaps crash like fast cars 

over country at night-time,  

and hard overtaking 

on blindspot-signed 

corners in cork. and we try  

very hard, but sometimes  

 

they happen when drinking,  

and after we neither 

apologise. it's not so important  

and nothing's been said 

 

that won't be forgiven 

eventually. love is secure,  

but the thing with security 

is it makes you  

take risks –  

drive dangerous; 

wear a seatbelt.  

smoke cigarettes, 

drink heavily and jog.  

 

Enjoying a cigarette 

 

standing by a wall: 

all brick, and the coolness 

of bar-shadowed alleys.  

smoking a cigarette.  

incredibly noir and good- 

looking. blowing up burn  

at the lights which burn 

also, but dimly, like it is  

their job. light like the texture 

of coins in gloved fingers. I remember 

this. loving it. being out 

for a moment. silence: the world 

in the bar and me out of it.  

walls with a waterstain –  

a broken-down gutter  

above me. black bricks: 

their dirt coloured 

shadow in moisture and moss 

like coaldust on palms, 

under fingernails. 

moist as the centre 

of rocks and of organs,  

though dry on the nights  

I'm remembering –  

roads parched as a salt- 

bacon sandwich. the bins 

smelling terribly. 

and cigarettes always.  

enjoying one – also  

a beer in my hand,  

held casually 

in calculated pose. 

the neck on the space  

between thumb 

and my forefinger. low 

like a sixgun. and  

cigarettes. one  

foot enbooted,  

cocked up on the wall.  

 

The clothes you used to wear 

 

don't get me wrong, 

you were a good fuck as well, 

limber as a hunting tom cat 

and warm as a long  

morning shower, 

but for some reason the thing 

that was best 

for me –  

the thing that would be the painting 

if I ever became a painter –  

was when you would first take off your coat; 

peeling it like fruit 

and revealing 

whatever it was  

you had chosen to wear that day. 

 

I think that, perhaps, 

was what I wanted to fuck; 

that's what made this the best part. 

the part of you that made those decisions, 

that chose between a black skintight turtleneck 

and a light 

denim-blue blouse, 

grey jeans 

on black pants. 

somehow that was what got me then 

and hell, the memory has got me now. 

 

if you were somehow to turn up again 

and ask me to lie down in a puddle for you  

you know I'd do it. 

you were sex, straight  

as a river. 

animals in headlights 

were not as stuck  

as me.

Writing poems 

 

it used to be easy  

like ripping off  

sticking plasters – perhaps 

I've got better. perhaps 

I have not.  

 

Lusty poetry 

 

girls on dutch bicycles –  

fit and so wonderful –  

looking like nothing  

but girls riding bikes.  

legs moving, bodies 

tied lines like roped flagpoles 

in skirts and in beautiful 

trousers – and this kind, of course,  

of overt lusty poetry  

now is not fashionable 

and, honestly, I don't 

much like doing it –  

but something’s 

there anyway; 

girls on their bikes 

which skim low  

like swallows 

and sparrows,  

fresh blackberry- 

ripe, and grown 

in a lay-by 

while you drive,  

going fast with the radio. 

 

Diarmuid ó Maolalaí (DS Maolalai) - is a graduate of English Literature from Trinity College in Dublin and recently returned there after four years abroad in the UK and Canada. He has been writing poetry and short fiction for the past five or six years with some success. His writing has appeared in such publications as 4'33', Strange Bounce and Bong is Bard, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Out of Ours, The Eunoia Review, Kerouac's Dog, More Said Than Done, Star Tips, Myths Magazine, Ariadne's Thread, The Belleville Park Pages, Killing the Angel and Unrorean Broadsheet.

He has been nominated nine times for Best of the Net and seven times for the Pushcart Prize. He has released two collections, "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016) and "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019). His third collection, "Noble Rot" is scheduled for release in April 2022.