Wednesday 30 March 2022

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

Wednesday 23 March 2022

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.

Lothlorien Poetry Journal

Wednesday 30 March 2022