Eight Poems by Rustin Larson

 

Lions, 1974

In Africa they have their organized

patterns of hunting and community--

a grunt in the magical night,

the icy stars. I lie awake

listening to the lions in the dark,

the neighbor's security light

neutralized by black-out curtains.

I live near the zoo. I hear the lyre

birds call. I hear the lions mate

languidly in their enclosures.

This isn't Hemingway's savanna

in Kenya, although all around

me my neighbors oil their guns

and keep them ready.

The moon is bright over the city.

It's an avatar sleeping in a hammock.

I hear the neighbor's 1970 Super Bee

pull in, early Sunday morning, its

hemi engine intake peering above

its orange hood like a fat

many-eyed periscope. I can hear

my parents snoring and I am envious

of their unconsciousness. I will

not sleep, but will listen

to Tales of Topographic Oceans

on headphones. When light comes,

when the sun makes it so,

I will sleep.

Yogi

I carved a whistle

from cheddar cheese

and played Clare de Lune.

A yogi never dies

said the yogi.

I carved a clarinet

from a bright orange carrot.

Not only is Rock'n'Roll

here to stay,

it will never go hungry,

smarter than the average bear.

Standing in line

at Misty's Malt Shop

behind four people

who look stupefied.

I ask. I swear they say

yes, so I cut the line.

Wuttya think you're doing?

The woman is a lioness

of the breaded tenderloin.

My mistake. I hold

my hands up in surrender.

My eyes go on

a honeymoon

with each other.

Her husband is frightened

of my celery

colored shirt.

The room screams

“STRANGER!”

It's a Saturday

in Ruby Red

at the crook in the river.

I fart and pat the trash

receptacle and quietly wait

my turn, thinking hunger

is overrated.

2025

I acknowledge the year

has only a few weeks

to live. It's a lock of hair

that keeps falling over my

eyes so people call

me Captain Oatmeal

wherever I go. My therapist

today is a maple tree. It

houses the soul of a monk.

It celebrates full moon nights

with a shushing silence.

In daylight, it is an airport

for sparrows. They

come, they go. At 1:20 in

the afternoon my body still

remembers this is nap time

for three-year-olds. I never

knew if I was any con-

sequence to NASA or the

government, but I think Disney

had a stake in my attention

as a consumer of animated

motion pictures, or live action

starring Dean Jones and

That Darn Cat. I packed

my mother's travel kit with

Kleenex as she left me in

the care of our Boston Terrier

whose name smacked of

tea parties and massacres,

and I trusted Walt Disney as my surrogate dad.

Two Hours 'Til Midnight

My daughters are in

the living room, communicating.

Let's face it. They are all

pushing 40, right? Peppermint.

Come off the bench. Lemon.

Vishnu Sahasranam. I am Licorice

going to the duck show,

duck show, duck show,

on a Yamaha! Hit by the pitch

and hit like that, bang, bang.

Orange roughy or God

baked potato? A turkey canoe?

I remember1983. Pass the gravy please,

Uncle Jed, Dr. Root Beer float.

The winning run was in position,

game 5, 10^th inning, tied 2-2.

It's gotta be fair

to the peas in the green pod.

And it's all edible. My second

daughter says she once dreamed

about being trampled by cows.

The cows were stomping down

the basement staircase. What

a terrible dream. There is

a yellow praying mantis watching

me from my bookshelf.

Yellow Praying Mantis

came from nowhere, now

is here, meditating upon me,

tilting its yellow head.

Driving home, a rainbow

ahead, a few miles off.

Where does it begin?

Where does it end?

What happened?

I drove to the store for Ibuprofen,

Zyrtec, bananas and blueberries.

Everyone behaved peacefully.

Sleepy kitty buries

his head in my wife's

pillow. It's the first really cold

night of autumn.

Groundhog stands at the basement window

with his little hands

pressed against the glass.

Fish

Fish may feel pleasure,

fish may feel pain.

Fish may feel confusion

as they circle down the drain.

October Something or Other 2025

After breakfast, that cat

decided to go right and not

left down the path as usual.

Why? The trees are coloring

yellow and red. I'm in my

private classroom for 66 year

old kindergartners. I'll have

tea instead of milk and cookies,

but I'll still have nap time

to soft music

and the distant sounds of earth

excavators building roads

for a tract of new houses.

There was a baptism last

Sunday my wife tells me.

She searches for something

yellow to wear. It is

the day we clothe ourselves

in sunlight.

1965

My mother trained

the philodendrons

to run along the ceiling

near the tin clock

that ticked like a black

and yellow sun.

*

I drink orange juice

from a red plastic

cowboy boot.

*

A yellow mongrel

saunters down the tar road

looking for children

to play.

*

I eat buttered toast

and grape jelly.

The moose puppet on TV

wants me to pay attention.

A bientot! Okay?

I pull on my brown coat,

put on my black rubber

boots and walk to school

over the glowing blue

snow.

Rustin Larson's writing spans poetry and prose, with his work appearing in notable publications such as The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, North American Review, and Poetry East. He has published several collections, including "Crazy Star," which was selected for the Loess Hills Book’s Poetry Series in 2005, and "Selected Later Poems," released by Cyberwit.net. His recent collection, "Red Wing," showcases his ability to blend the past, present, and future in a unique narrative style.

Three Poems and Three Haiku by Sue Spiers

 

Eboniza – Goddess of the half-cast

 

 

Her skin is dark as polished jet

Her eyes are pools of loam.

Of icicles her cloak is made.

It chink-clinks as she roams.

 

She strides across the winter-tide

with seeds of persimmon

to plant them deep where snow comes down,

but how did she begin?

 

Her father played the violin

and lived the tinker’s way.

He drank his fill of damson wine,

made friend of waif and stray.

 

He sat below a tall black tree

and fiddled up a storm

that echoed through the mountain side

and found a mystic form.

 

Both tree and man were buried deep

within the avalanche.

The man, he died but saved the tree,

became part of each branch.

 

In spring the tree bore damson fruit,

a strange and mobile kind,

with legs and arms and purple lips,

a wand of wood to hand.

 

The goddess wanders Northern hills

with magic in her staff

to blend and mend what’s separate

and made from half and half.

 

She welcomes mermosets to swim,

octocorns and cowbees,

oakphants, roserats and kangagos

all find her treedom’s keys.

 

Her summertime brings dandy-cups

where butterlions sprout

In her purview we all find love;

she cares for those cast out.

 

As winter comes she weaves her cloak

of ice chimes, fine and thin.

Her hand in pocket wrapped around

a nugget of rosin.

Haruto and Ishi

   After the Tongue-cut Sparrow fairytale

 

Haruto ploughs his rice field

wipes his brow and, at sunset,

trudges homeward to his wife, Ishi.

 

Fish is so expensive.

The neighbour’s boy made faces.

 

The old man talks to his pet sparrow,

gives her tit-bits from his plate.

 

You spend so much time with Enka,

I wonder you don’t fly away together,.

 

Haruto trudges to work at sunrise.

He gathers plants in weather worn hands,

feels the memory of Enka’s tiny claws.

 

My washday starch is stolen,

have you scoffed it greedy Enka?

 

The bird bows its apology, sings

for clemency, it was an honest mistake.

I’ll have your tongue! Now shoo!

 

Haruto looks for his pet at day’s end

but she’s banished to the forest.

 

Next sunrise he can bear the loss no more,

fears Enka is in pain, can’t eat, can’t sing.

 

He finds her, her tongue regrown

by some force he doesn’t comprehend.

Enka speaks, invites him to her home.

 

She is Lady Sparrow, her home glorious.

Into the night she entertains her old friend,

offers the choice of two gifts.

 

Haruto takes the smaller bamboo box,

promises to return when work allows.

 

You fool, not taking the larger box.

We’d have more jewels and gold.

Tell me where to find that spiteful bird.

 

Haruto sent me for the second gift.

Ishi’s back aches, her legs ache, she halts,

cannot wait to see inside the heavy box.

 

Out fly scary demons, ugly toads,

stinky monsters, fearful dragons.

 

There, there Ishi, don’t worry,

it’s your own fault for being greedy,

little Enka only let you see that.

 

Medusa and the Legacy

 

 

I

A scalp of writhing vipers

hidden under a beanie hat,

unless you need men stiff as granite,

kept still to halt their slashing swords.

Made monster to show Athena’s rage,

turned to stone by your own reflection,

shield decoration for the Goddess.

 

II

You flick your copious blonde hair,

draping it over each breast

drawing attention to them, making men

think of tresses on a pillow, beneath

their weight. Make of it a crown;

your sense of power over mortals.

Tragedy when the chemotherapy stole it.

stroll between bushes

translucence finer than hair

arachnopanick

 

 

Haiku

 

greyhound’s sleek coat

curve of his noble neck

badger’s claret jaw

 

 

 

soil cracks open

swallows green, belches dust

cloud weeps

 

 

 

ample lovers

red wine, beef stew, herb dumplings

steamy evenings

 

 

Sue Spiers’ poetry appears on line with Atrium, Black Iris, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal and The High Window, and in print with Acumen, The North, Obsessed With Pipework, Stand and Under the Radar magazines. Sue is a wave 17 iamb poet. She has self-published four collections with Lulu.com and has a pamphlet A Wallet of Creature Poems with Hedgehog Press. Her 5^th collection, Paisley Horizon, will be published by Poetry Space by April 2028.  Sue edits the annual anthology of the Open University Poetry Society and works with Winchester Poetry Festival. Sue won the Shepton Mallet competition in 2024 with ‘Byrdie’, and Poem of the Month with Verve in August, 2Recipe for a Long Life’ and the prizes are funding her 4^th collection A Trunk of Creature Poems (Lulu.com) which features both poems. Sue has been longlisted in the National Poetry Competition and has two Pushcart nominations, and two Touchstone nominations for haiku.

Six Poems by Gary Bills

 

A Gothic Song

  

The dead months come with wind and rain -

an owlet from the ruin calls

for wicked monks to sin again,

all cowled in deep satanic laws.

Now Jenny Witch will cross a throat

and blameless blood will stain her knife -

while from the wood, a shrieking stoat's

impatient for the tang of life -

And once the fire is burning low

and Jenny's in her lord's embrace,

the stoat’s abroad - for he must know

how spilled blood always leaves a trace.

Her filthy cauldron’s off the boil -

now stoat, be sly - let no one see,

and lick the gore from leaf and soil,

unhallowed though your supper be.

 

 

Low Sun

Waking up to violins of ice

as ferns and flowers splinter over glass

waking up to violins of ice

and penny whistles - rising from a dream

and many, many icicles are flutes -

inaudible then heard from hoarfrost eaves

waking up to violins of ice,

their scrapes of shadow reaching over fields - 

a sun to warm the bones is out of style

and even statues turn with puzzled faces,

because their time has frozen on the dial.

 

 

The Unknown God

  

We may have cause to be afraid 

Beyond the known meridians:

A scowling god with lips of jade,

With teeth of green obsidian.

Why set the sail for thunder’s isle,

For heat that smites the parrots low?

The unknown god may never smile

For all we know – for all we know

Volcanoes brood with guts of sun

And vomit on the vine and fern -

If there is spite where lavas run,

If Something seeks a man to burn.

 

 

The Transcendental Sea

 

He draws the blind – that record spins for me,

although the sound’s too low, for walls have ears.

I hear a choir – a transcendental sea,

but barely can I listen in my fears.  

Outside, the cries are frightening from the street –

from busted bars and girls with naked hands,

and there are shots and sounds of dragging feet –

quite normal, in these regulated lands.

Outside, the cries are frightening from the street,

but voices kiss in waves and bless the sun

and draw me to a circle so complete

I dream that grief and suffering are done.

My secret joy and God are not the same,

but where does one conclude, the other start?  

I only know, the murmuring tides of life

are bursting through the chambers of my heart.

 

Talisman

It's time to raise the Faerie Luck -

We'll mend it first with threads of blood,

That silken flag one touch might change.

We'll raise it with the bell and book

Then let the armies clash and die

And cap a fate that's cruel and strange -

For beldame stitches wild or plain

Are not the stuff that should remain -

Let towers fall as banners fly!

But let me keep a changeling's tear

And poems from a Bedlam's tongue

And beauty from his keening song -

Because the Dark is looming near.

Deaf like Goya

 

Beyond the garden wall, there’s blood, there’s violence -

no need to stick your fingers in your ears,

the dark unchains them all – both men and monsters

And you will hear them call, if you’re alert,

like Goya staring long at painted horrors

or painting foulest witches into silence.

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 in to 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.