Three Poems by Gregg Norman

 

NO MIND

 

Seek the serenity

Where serendipity survives

Where all is stillness

And creativity lives

No mind

 

Read Li Po and Du Fu

To find the effortless

State where concepts

Do not cling

No mind

 

Find a mind emptied

Of the muffled roar

Or life’s brickworks

And white noise

No mind

ASPENS

All felled, felled, all are felled;

Of a fresh and following folded rank

            Not spared, not one

(“Binsey Poplars” – Gerald Manley Hopkins)

 

Stand in a stand of Aspen trees,

Deciduous hardwoods,

White, black, and green,

Around you everywhere seen

From birth to death.

 

See how they sucker,

Shallow-rooted, spreading,

To occupy every clearing,

Dense, invasive, colonizing,

Standing together as one.

 

Resilient, adaptable,

Coming back quickly

From harvest or fire,

Recreating their tribe.

 

Look on their many skins –

Green in youth, then white,

Then black, furrowing

And wrinkling with age.

 

Look at their leaves,

Smallish, near-round, identical,

Wilting yellow in fall,

Falling from brittle limbs.

 

Think on their shallow life force,

Roots so close to the surface

Of their crowded world,

Extensive, but temporary.

 

The stand is cloned, each tree

A genetic replicate of its mates

They grow up together

To weaken and die together.

 

It is not known if they grieve,

Only that they are forced to leave

By mandated life span

That belies their potential

And brings their lives full circle.

BEASTS

 

We require our demons

to be beyond imagining,

mythical beasts born

of fears and fevers.

It has always been so.

We cloud our skies

with fierce dragons

and winged horses,

our darkest woods

with banshees and babayagas.

Leonids, griffins, manticores

lurk in our shadows.

Selkies and sirens beckon us

to the bottom of the sea.

Archetypes of antiquity;

kraken and roc,

medusa and minotaur,

cyclops and chimera.

 

Our children do not

know of such things.

We seed their dreams

with Bigfoot and Yeti,

Godzilla and Kong. 

 

We cannot deny our need

for fearful fantasies.

These beasts resolve

our mysteries,

act as culprits

in our oldest coldest cases.

Gregg Norman is a Canadian poet living and writing in a lakeside cottage with his wife and a small dog who runs the place. His work has been placed with many international poetry journals and literary magazines. He has been nominated for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize.

 

 

Three Poems by Marie C. Lecrivain

 

Always One Step Ahead

I wish my days weren’t filled with dread.

Grief’s always one step behind.

All my friends and loved ones are dead.

My anxiety is tendered and fed

with nightmares of the worst kind.

I wish my days weren’t filled with dread.

At night, sorrow comes into my bed

with promises both cruel and blind.

All my friends and loved ones are dead.

At dawn, I wake with an empty head,

hope’s gone, and memories data mined.

I wish my days weren’t filled with dread.

I don’t want to be the last one led

back to the wheel, karma reassigned.

All my friends and loved ones are dead.

The day when no more tears are shed

I’ll gladly undo the ties that bind.

I wish my days weren’t filled with dread.

All my friends and loved ones are dead.

Ares Vallis

I used to think Hades would be like this;

the absence of blue, green, white, 

water, trees, rams, and clean winds

fragrant with the aromas of fish

and mermaids.

In the landscape where the cosmos 

pulverized nature into submission,

I’ve become a philosopher of sorts -

it was either this - or madness. 

I’ve had time - deep time - 

to become one with 

the bombast of silence 

that surrounds me.

I’ve listened long enough 

to hear my own voice

answer back.

Ares Vallis (II)

I keep coming back here.

Perhaps the silent stones

are the only true friends

I’ve ever known.

This is where I rage - and weep, 

where I search for answers 

to my unasked questions, 

and where I fall into

a chthonic slumber

in the dusty deep.

This is where I come

to find forgiveness,

for my immortal sins,

so long forgotten,

by everyone but me.

Marie C Lecrivain is a poet, co-publisher of Sybaritic Press, and an ordained priestess in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis. Her work has appeared in California Quarterly, Gargoyle, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Nonbinary Review, Orbis, Pirene's Fountain, and other journals. She's authored several books of poetry and fiction, including Ashes to Stardust: A David Bowie Tribute Anthology (c 2023 Sybaritic Press).

Five Connected Sonnets by Paul Brookes

 

Destabilise

 

The walls are stiff and closing in like fists.

Sit down to eat breakfast. Start the day slowly.

Something no one is talking aboutist.

Make your bed first. Start your day as tidy.

 

The sun doesn’t sit still, it wobbles on

its balance point as we do on ours. Site

of that point differs per planet.  So one

of us the balance point, a source of light.

 

As with every crisis the common

herd is to blame and must recompense those

innocent rich through costly solutions,

government bailouts, wage cuts while rich repose.

 

This is alleged and for entertainment

purposes only. Wrong eyes on me spent.

 

The lost

 

Purposes only. Wrong eyes on me spent.

That friend who always asks weird questions.

I wouldn’t be because that’s not relevant

to how I believe. The ultimate satisfaction

 

is a person knowing what you need now

without words. About time we address this.

The ports are empty.  We know why and how.

Bare shelves and higher prices. The knot twists.

 

Bad experiences we keep hid

within ourselves. All in one portrait

editor imagine when sense undid

Your sole means and ways to communicate.

 

Strategic inflection point surgical,

Planned. Cutlery used outside in. Tabled.

 

So high end visuals

 

Planned. Cutlery used outside in. Tabled.

Obsessed with a lost love you stalk them. This

isn’t a safe reading. Unconcluded

part of a past life. Entitlement dissed.

 

The poor will be eating less and less. Starve.

Put your potatoes in the ground now. Dig

so you won’t go hungry. Must keen carve

sharpen moments in silence.  Don’t commit.

 

Have you felt something is off recently?

Eat the same five meals forever. Nappies

are so dry and comfortable now. she

said. Not something you can explain. Ghostly.

 

Restarting. Updates are underway. Do 

Not switch off. Security saves you.

 

 

my foresight

 

Not switch off. Security saves you.

This site was never meant to be found. Look.

They deliberately don’t inform you.

Conspiracy happens .Take a deep look.

 

“Facts are what you believe. Not unbiased.”

He said. This needs a memorandum

of understanding. My normal things list

feel like luxuries when I do the sums.

 

The truth is always far more sinister.

Now everything cures everything.

Reverse brain rot recall re-remember

French Germinal is the month of sprouting.

 

I’ve never seen that so I don’t believe

It. History’s disinformation weave.

 

we rage bait

 

it. History’s disinformation weave.

Confused about how to design your space?

We are being slowly boiled so grieve

every angle in an alone space.

 

Everyone tells everyone else

to wake up. “I”ve an app can explain things

better than you can” he says. It’s all self,

self, self nowadays. Enrichment brings

 

A self confidence. That pause was so hot.

We need to stop watching people’s pockets.

Don’t flip the middle finger to your hot

fans. Listen to them, respond, then lock it

 

Down. We are shocked and can’t believe the news.

Evidence is suspect. Value all views.

Paul Brookes is a shop asst.

During employment as a security guard, postman, admin. assistant, lecturer, poetry performer he had the following chapbooks published: The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). Collections: The Headpoke And Firewedding and Stubborn Sod (Alien Buddha Press, 2017, 2018),  A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), As Folk Over Yonder (Afterworld Books, 2019). A poetry collaboration with artist Jane Cornwell resulted in Wonderland in Alice, plus other ways of seeing (JC Studio Press, 2021).

The first in a collection of seven collections, called Ganders whose other books are: As Folktaleteller (ImpSpired, 2022), These Random Acts of Wildness, (Glass Head Press, 2023), Othernesses, (JC Studio Press, 2023), Wolf Eye (Red Ceilings Press, 2023), Wolf Eye Territory (ImpSpired, 2024), Ever Striding Edge (Dark Winter Press, 2024).  A second collection of seven collections titled Mashing began with The Dude Work, (Sherwood Press, 2024). Hedgerow of Voices (JCStudio Press, 2026). In Your Mouth, Culture Matters Press, 2026, The Drey Skin, The Red Ceilings Press, 2026.

He edits The Wombwell Rainbow and a Substack webzine, The Starbeck Orion.