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Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 33

Vortex Voyagers

February 2024 Continued

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Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 33 (lulu.com)

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 33 – Vortex Voyagers features the best fantasy and contemporary poetry and fiction from 73 internationally renowned poets and fiction authors. Join these Vortex Voyagers on this journey through life and its myriad relationships, real and imagined, where folklore, mythology, realism and dystopia mingle and merge casting light on secrets and shadows.

 

The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.

Ezra Pound

 

Like the Borg in Star Trek, empire says to you that resistance is futile. Those who don’t know that Christ resisted the Borg like Roman Empire, will be sucked into the vortex of today’s empire.

Peter Hall

 

Fog Portrait by Carl Sandburg

RINGS of iron gray smoke; a woman’s steel face … looking … looking. Funnels of an ocean liner negotiating a fog night; pouring a taffy mass down the wind; layers of soot on the top deck; a taffrail … and a woman’s steel face … looking … looking. Cliffs challenge humped; sudden arcs form on a gull’s wing in the storm’s vortex; miles of white horses plow through a stony beach; stars, clear sky, and everywhere free climbers calling; and a woman’s steel face … looking … looking …

 

Featured Poets and Fiction Authors

 

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko Randy Barnes Kelly Moyer  Gary Bills Jennifer Gurney Paul Tristram Susan Wilson  Kushal Poddar Rekha Valliappan Steve Klepetar Debarati Sen 

John Drudge Lynda Tavakoli John Doyle Tina Negus  John Grey Kim Ports Parsons Michael Lee Johnson  Laura Stamps Ira Rosenstein Joan Leotta Dr Ralph Monday 

Kathleen Chamberlin Gopal Lahiri Amanda Niamh Dawson Peter Mladinic Wendy Webb Nolo Segundo Lilija Valis John Harold Olson Mary Bone Alan Catlin Carol Tahir  

Mohibul Aziz Jay Passer Julie A. Dickson John Sweet  Nancy Tinnell Alec Solomita 

B.L. Bruce Bruce Hunter  Danielle Page Duane Vorhees Anushna Biswas

Michael H. Brownstein Kelley White Eric Robert Nolan  Daniela Rodi Scott C. Kaestner Martina Reisz Newberry Jerome Berglund Sal Rochelle David Alec Knight  Fay L. Loomis Daniel Cyran Karen O’Leary & Paul Callus  P.C. Scheponik Maria Teresa Sisti 

Wayne F. Burke  Roberta Beach Jacobson Stephen Jarrell Williams Rachel Dill 

Giulio Magrini Dr Randy Brooks Jackie Chou  M.J. (Michael Joseph) Arcangelini 

Mona Dash  Stephen A. Rozwenc Salvatore Difalco Rick Hartwell  Pawel Markiewicz Christopher Barnes

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 32

Wild Swans

December 2023 Continued - Early February 2024

Click to BUY PRINTED BOOK

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 32 (lulu.com)

congratulations dear contributors to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 32 – Wild Swans. I am honoured and delighted to publish your superb poetry and fiction from the months of December 2023 Continued – Early February 2024 in this stunning volume and have attached your free PDF Copy. The printed book is now available from today to purchase from lulu.com by clicking the link below-

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 32 (lulu.com)

I hope you will consider purchasing this stunning 244 page feast of 79 internationally esteemed poets and fiction writers for your personal published collections, family, friends and libraries. Thank you for your continuing contributions and support of Lothlorien Poetry Journal my Fellow Lothlorians. Every purchase helps me to continue publishing Lothlorien Poetry Journal and is deeply appreciated.

Warmest wishes,

Strider Marcus Jones – Editor in Chief. Xx

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 32 – Wild Swans features the best contemporary poetry, fantasy and fiction from 79 internationally renowned poets and fiction authors. Join these Wild Swans on this journey through life and its myriad relationships and situations, real and imagined, where folklore, mythology, realism and dystopia mingle and merge casting light on secrets and shadows.

 

Tie your heart at night to mine, love, and both will defeat the darkness like twin drums beating in the forest against the heavy wall of wet leaves. Night crossing: black coal of dream that cuts the thread of earthly orbs with the punctuality of a headlong train that pulls cold stone and shadow endlessly. Love, because of it, tie me to a purer movement, to the grip on life that beats in your breast, with the wings of a submerged swan, So that our dream might reply to the sky's questioning stars with one key, one door closed to shadow.

Pablo Neruda

 

The swan, like the soul of the poet, By the dull world is ill understood.

Heinrich Heine

 

Those who awaken never rest in one place. Like swans, they rise and leave the lake. On the air they rise and fly an invisible course. Their food is knowledge. They live on emptiness. They have seen how to break free. Who can follow them?

Gautama Buddha

 

Swans in the winter air
A white perfection have

W. H. Auden

 

The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The waters of the lake grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more rare.

Wilkie Collins

 

I like relativity and quantum theories because I don't understand them and they make me feel as if space shifted about like a swan that can't settle, refusing to sit still and be measured; and as if the atom were an impulsive thing always changing its mind.

D. H. Lawrence

 

The Wild Swans at Coole

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

 

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty swans.

 

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;

I saw, before I had well finished,

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.

 

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

 

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

 

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away? 

 

 Wild Geese | by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

 

THE BUSHMAN SPEAKS

(Note: The occasion for this speech is the arrival of an expedition headed by a European in a Bushman werf around the year 1900.) 

This desert is our life.

From the dry earth we gather roots and melons.
Over the endless sands we hunt the gemsbok and the springbok.

Sometimes the ga roots are shrivelled and bitter.
Sometimes men are sick with thirst and hunger.

When there is water we drink and sing and clap our hands.
When there is food we eat and dance and clap our hands.

The eland does not come to us and ask to be eaten —
one must know how to make the arrow and poison it
and where to look and how to hide and shoot. . . .

What man is so foolish as to expect more? To expect

the rain to be always falling, his eggs full of water and
his stomach full of meat?

You have strong animals to carry you.
You have much food and water.
Your digging sticks are hard and sharp.
Your shooting-sticks are like lightning.

You are a powerful man and a good man.
I can see that in your eyes.

But what you offer is a dream.

You can give us water and meat.
You can fill our hands with tobacco and perfect beads.

But you cannot give us happiness.

A man can only drink so much and then he is full.
If a man is always eating honey, he tires of it and becomes sick.

And even if all life were sweet —
what man is not food for lions and dogs?
A man who has tasted in his life no bitterness will find death very bitter.

My mouth longs for sweetness
but sweetness brings bitterness
and in the end they are one.

So I ask you:
Take your digging sticks and your shooting-sticks.
And do not leave them behind.
Go to the green lands you came from.
We shall walk in this desert as we always have.

 

FEATURED POETS & FICTION AUTHORS

December 2023 Continued – Early February 2024

 

Simon MacCulloch  Nancy Machlis Rechtman  Sterling Warner

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko  Andy Perrin  Steve Sibra

John Tustin  Robert Witmer  Kathylynne Somerville

Bruce Hunter Abel Johnson Thundil  Kenneth M. Kapp

Kushal Poddar  Linda H.Y. Hegland  Mark Young

Ankur Jyoti Saikia  Isabel Cristina Legarda  George Vance

Chris Collins  Dan Smith  Barbara Leonhard

Victor Kennedy  Jane Blanchard  Townes-Thomas

Bonnie Meekums  John Drudge  Elizabeth Marino

Steve Klepetar  Kelly Moyer  Moe Seager

Dibyasree Nandy  J.D. Nelson  Wendy Webb

Ken Gosse  Robina Rader  Jayanta Bhaumik

R.I. Karoly  Allan Lake  Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon

Joshua Green  Esmorie Miller  Fred Johnston

Karen A. VandenBos  Roger Haydon  CLS Sandoval

J.B. Hogan  Deepa Onkar  John Doyle  Jennifer Gurney

Tony Dawson  Lynn White  Fabrice Poussin

Gopi Kottoor  Amrita Valan  Christopher Fried

Cyril Simsa  Charles A. Perrone  Sarah Das Gupta

C.S. Hughes  Christina Chin  Michael Shoemaker 

Bradford Middleton  Philip Butera  Snigdha Agrawal

Michael Ceraolo  Petrouchka Alexieva  O.P. Jha

Concetta Pipia  Terrence Sykes  Xenia Giagli

Oonah V. Joslin  Steve Deutsch  Elizabeth Marino

Daipayan Nair  Angel Edwards  Thompson Emate

Don Edwards  Anise Algin  Mark Hendrickson

               

Contents

 

                                                                                Pages

 

December 2023 Continued – Poetry and Fiction

 

Simon MacCulloch

1.       Dreamer                                                         17-21

2.       Garden of Remembrance

3.       Joy

4.       Assumption

5.       Bird Song

Nancy Machlis Rechtman

1.       Inside the Waterfall                                                  21-25

2.       Origins

3.       It’s 2:00 AM

4.       Heat on the Big Screen

5.       Untouched

Sterling Warner

1.       Ochre Flash                                                   26-30

2.       Road Rage Cinema

3.       Water Bottle

4.       Hooked on Half-wit Devices

5.       Supermarket Chariots

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

1.       The Gaza Stripped                                         31-33

Andy Perrin

1.       Winter’s Silhouettes                                                 33-35

2.       The Escape

3.       That High Distant Hill

4.       An Old Rusty Bicycle

5.       To Linger   

Steve Sibra

1.       Biscuits                                                          36-37

2.       Gunpowder Flash

3.       A Ballroom of Tempests

John Tustin

1.       Armchair                                                       37-42

2.       Heroes and Villains

3.       He’s Your Lover Now

4.       That Sad and Broken-Hearted Girl

5.       Waiting for Li Ch’ing-Chao                         

Robert Witmer

1.       A Toy Gun with Real Bullets                                   42-46

2.       Addled Stop

3.       A Few Words Worth

4.       The Curse of the Colonel

5.       Spacetime

 

January 2024 – Poetry and Fiction

                      

Kathylynne Somerville

1.       Mommy Makeover                                                  46-50

2.       The Flirtation of a Fantasy

3.       Chemical Bonding

4.       I Almost Died

5.       Stuff It        

Bruce Hunter

1.       The Rooks in the Sycamores at the Tomb of Dunn  51-55

Abel Johnson Thundil

1.       Giving Birth                                                 55-56

2.       Guidance

Kenneth M. Kapp

1.       Kalman’s Head – Short Story                                  57-59

Kushal Poddar

1.       The Boy Left in The Attic                                        59-61

2.       Winter Trapped in The Room

3.       The Social Contracts Made at A Mortuary

4.       The Orbit of The Tired Stalker

5.       Weighing The Leaves

Linda H.Y. Hegland

1.       A Love Worthy of the Word                                    61-63

2.       The Heat of Stilled Days

3.       Suspension

Mark Young

1.       As simple as a page borrowed from a botanical…   63-67

2.       A Dick is a Strange Compass

3.       The Caribou

4.       Porcupine gumbo

5.       Things and How They Seem

Ankur Jyoti Saikia

1.       Florescence                                                    67-68

2.       Roadside haiku

3.       Burnt-out

4.       Wax, wane, repeat

5.       Ecliptic kiss

Isabel Cristina Legarda

1.       Self Portrait as a Chartres Cathedral Sculpture…    68-71

2.       The Lady and the Falcon

3.       Behind the Blue Drape

George Vance

1.       A Wall in Crete                                              72-73

Chris Collins

1.       Presence of Being                                          74-77

2.       Primal Scream-Primal Cry

Dan Smith

1.       The Ram Inn                                                           77-81

2.       Antonin Artaud Throws Down at the Lame-o- Poetry…

3.       The AI like us had good intentions

4.       Attaining the top rung…

Barbara Leonhard

1.       As for Death                                                            81-82

2.       I Wish the Words

3.       There Was a Knock

4.       My Mother Haunts My Twitter Feed

Victor Kennedy

1.       Canoe Lake, 1988                                         83-84

2.       I Have Heard the Wild Wolves Sing

Jane Blanchard

1.       Tristan and Iseult                                          85-86

Townes-Thomas

1.       The mystic in the fens                                             86

Bonnie Meekums

1.       A precarious balance                                               87-89

2.       Protecting the Young

3.       A tiny thing to hold

4.       The dance of spine-woman

5.       Finding my way home

John Drudge

1.       Birth of a Tear                                                         90-93

2.       Morning in France

3.       Letting Go

4.       Of You

5.       Returning

6.       You in Venice

Elizabeth Marino

1.       Never Be Shamed For Your Survival                      94

Steve Klepetar

1.       Christmas Eve 2023                                                95-96

2.       Vodka

3.       Festival

Kelly Moyer

1.       The Christmas Sweater – Short Story                      97-99   

Moe Seager

1.       River Traffic                                                            100

Dibyasree Nandy 

1.       She Knew of the Thorn                                 101-103

2.       Black Ocean               

J.D. Nelson

1.       10 Untitled Monostich Poems                                  104-105

Wendy Webb

1.       Developments                                                          105-109

2.       Put on Your Dancing Shoes, Honey

3.       Page, Page Against the Lying Screens of Night (Villanelle)

4.       Who Cooks, Who Plays, Who Capsizes?

5.       Death of a Little Girl By Stages

Ken Gosse

1.       A Sweeping Kingdom                                             110-112

2.       Calico Tats

3.       Felinity

4.       Cataclysm

5.       Sharing the Peanut Butter

6.       Pollywoggles

7.       Monty’s Parrot

Robina Rader

1.       An Italian Chapel in the North Sea                          112-114

Jayanta Bhaumik

1.       For a love poem with beeps and pauses                   114-116

2.       Consideration, a pointless journey

3.       For a pith-chemistry bracketed in me

R.I. Karoly

1.       Eight Haiku Poems                                                  117-118

Allan Lake

1.       Neither Prodigal Nor Weary                                    118-120

2.       Through Solitary Pane

Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon

1.       Aftermath                                                      120-124

2.       Driftwood

3.       A monkey in silk is a monkey no less

4.       What Do Babies Weigh

5.       Dilemma

Joshua Green      

1.       The Bloom – English Sonnet                                   124-126

2.       An Engagement by the Sea – English Sonnet

3.       The Library Field – Spenserian Sonnet

Esmorie Miller

1.       One Less Looking Glass                                126-131

2.       For Mothers & Fathers & Other Folks Who Parent

3.       An Ode for My Friends On (Our) Precarity

4.       Creator, I am Contrasted and Juxtaposed!

5.       A Cleansing by Fire, Known Also as Grief 

Fred Johnston

1.       Lines on Leaving a Madhouse                       132-134

2.       Tethys in the Bath House

3.       Counterweight

4.       That’s All

5.       Weather

Karen A. VandenBos

1.       Sounds of a Distraught Lullaby                     135-137

2.       Beneath Black Pointed Hats

3.       When All Women Were Birds

4.       Just Another Pretty Face

5.       The Resilience of Hope

Roger Haydon

1.       Not a Fable – Flash Fiction Story                            138-139

CLS Sandoval

1.       Alexandrine Realization                                 139-142

2.       Before bed, I

3.       Missed Meeting

4.       The Conversation that Never Started

5.       The Path of Most Resistance

J.B. Hogan

1.       Last Phone Call                                              142-144

2.       Isolation

3.       Regret

Deepa Onkar

1.       Box of Broken Jewels                                              144-147

2.       The Daydreaming Pen

3.       Walking in Second Avenue

4.       Transient

John Doyle

1.       Radio Killed the Digital Star                                   147-152

2.       Mexilhoeira Grande

3.       Edwin

4.       Darkness Falling: County Wicklow

5.       Gethsemane Cemetery, Kentucky

6.       Airplanes

7.       The Girl from College Who Wasn’t Half as Kooky…

Jennifer Gurney

1.       Haiku Poems                                                           153-154      

Tony Dawson

1.       The Night Before Christmas – Flash Fiction Story  154-157

Lynn White

1.       The Usual Santas                                           157-161

2.       Wrapped Up

3.       Beam Us Up

4.       Abracadabra

Fabrice Poussin

1.       As if Merlin                                                   161-165

2.       Breakfast of Champions

3.       Done with you

4.       Joy of the Knife

5.       Love Pathetic

Gopi Kottoor

1.       Today                                                            165-166

2.       The Flowering

3.       Cuckoo Clock

Amrita Valan

1.       Mobius, Meristem Metamorphosis                          167-171

Christopher Fried

1.       Life Turns Tragic for Mr Charles Beaumont           171-173

2.       Roar

3.       The Peeled-Back Facts

4.       Culture Warrior

Cyril Simsa

1.       Colophony – Short Story                               173-179

Charles A. Perrone

1.       Making Sense of Five Superior Questions               179-181

2.       The Fate of Chosen Garb

3.       From a Distance

4.       Memo to the Curious

5.       Casting Fate 

Sarah Das Gupta

1.       The Fishy Cloak – Short Story                      182-184

 

February 2024 – Poetry and Fiction

 

C.S. Hughes

1.       How to Be a Cockatoo…                               184-192

2.       Yowl

3.       On the Impossibility of A De-Anthropocentric Distance

          In Poetry 

Christina Chin

1.       Never shop before food                                 192-193

Michael Shoemaker 

1.       The Road to Beyond                                                193-196

2.       Almost Everything Is Unseen

3.       The Corner of One’s Eye

4.       Rag Rug

Bradford Middleton

1.       The Warmth of the Sun                                 197-200

2.       The Sun Came Today

3.       A Routine in Lock-Down

4.       Contemplating Escape as the Days of Old Return to Haunt

5.       Saturday Afternoon Home Alone

Philip Butera

1.       As the Aperture Opens Wide                                   200-205

2.       The Cheek Kiss

Snigdha Agrawal

1.       Reluctant bed fellow                                                206-208

2.       Trapped Miners – Triku Series  

Michael Ceraolo

1.       J.B.                                                                208-212

2.       The Lincoln Trilogy

Petrouchka Alexieva

1.       Aurora’s Cosmic Ballet                                  213-216

2.       In a Rescue Team

3.       White Owl in Winter Mid-Night

4.       Salvage of Broken Heart

5.       Seven Roses on the Bench 

O.P. Jha

1.       For Victoria Amelina                                              217-218

2.       Talking Eyes

Concetta Pipia

1.       To Be Present: A Dance with Existence                   218-222

2.       In the Meadow of Moments

3.       Beneath the Shattered Sky – Flash Fiction

Terrence Sykes

1.       Prague Symphony                                         222-224

Xenia Giagli

1.       Pink                                                               225-229

2.       On remembering (Orange)

3.       A farewell to innocence

4.       Her

5.       The God of Big Things

Oonah V. Joslin

1.       Year of the Dragon 2024                               230

Steve Deutsch

1.       Erato                                                              231-232

Elizabeth Marino

1.       When You Open a Door                                232

Daipayan Nair

1.       Ten Haiku Poems                                          233-235

Angel Edwards

1.       Celebrity Light                                             235-237

2.       Nightmare Rules

3.       Nightmare

4.       Retreat

Thompson Emate

1.       Untitled Poem                                                          238

Don Edwards

1.       Cold Water                                                    239

Anise Algin

1.       Moonlighting love                                         240

Mark Hendrickson

1.       I Thought, I Saw                                            241-242

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 31

Free Spirits

December 2023

Click to BUY PRINTED BOOK

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 31 (lulu.com)

Congratulations dear contributors to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 31 – Free Spirits. I am honoured and delighted to publish your superb poetry and fiction from the month of December 2023 in this stunning volume and have attached your free PDF Copy.

The printed book is now available from today to purchase from lulu.com by clicking this link -

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 31 (lulu.com)

I hope you will consider purchasing this stunning 244 page feast of 70 internationally esteemed poets and fiction writers for your personal published collections, family, friends and libraries. Thank you for your continuing contributions and support of Lothlorien Poetry Journal my Fellow Lothlorians. Every purchase helps me to continue publishing Lothlorien Poetry Journal and is deeply appreciated.

Warmest wishes,

Strider Marcus Jones – Editor in Chief. Xx

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 31 – Free Spirits features the best contemporary poetry, fantasy and fiction from 70 internationally renowned poets and fiction authors. Join these free spirits on this journey through life and its myriad relationships, real and imagined, where folklore, mythology, realism and dystopia mingle and merge casting light on secrets and shadows.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

Albert Camus

To keep our faces toward chance and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

Helen Keller

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Albert Einstein

Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!

Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

POETS and FICTION AUTHORS

Catfish McDaris Amara Meredith John Drudge Karen A VandenBos Steve Klepetar Lynda Tavakoli Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal Kathryn MacDonald Cliff Wedgbury Shivangi Mishra Stephen Kingsnorth Concetta Pipia Eric Brown Holly Payne-Strange J.J. Campbell Kelly Moyer Gordon Scapens Elena Ershova John Doyle Smitha Vishwanath Gifford Savage Jennifer Gurney Gary Bills Tricia Lloyd Waller David M Blake Ron Rosenstock and Gabriel Rosenstock Dr Bikram Kumar Mohapatra Kenneth M Kapp Claudia Wysocky Ikechukwu Henry Nolo Segundo Philip Butera Michael La Bombarda Snigdha Agrawal Aaron Lynn Mike Zone Wendy Webb Alan Morrison Sharon Waller Knutson A J Dalton Myrtle Thomas Wayne F Burke Mykyta Ryzhykh Michael E Theroux ‘Teru’ Douglas Richardson Ayesha Siddiqa Khan R W Stephens Lorie Greenspan Ed Lyons Sam Szanto Jason Ryberg Joseph A Farina Ed Ahern Linda Imbler Wayne Russell Linda King Duane L Herrmann Jon Wesick Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca John Harold Olson Mary Bone Arthur Turfa Jayanta Bhaumik Angel Edwards Toyb ben Uilliam David Barber Lan Qyqalla Avantika Vijay Singh Mubarak Said Duane Vorhees

 

Contents

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                          Pages

December 2023 – Poetry and Fiction

 

Catfish McDaris

1.       Gringo Loco                                                  17-19

2.       Never Eat Barbequed Seagulls

3.       Supernatural

4.       Five Finger Discount

Amara Meredith

1.       Water on Mars                                                         19-22

2.       Every Storm a Serenade

3.       Civil Twilight

4.       Summerlands

5.       The Water Labyrinth

John Drudge

1.       As Winter Begins                                          22-25

2.       Journeys

3.       Rural Impressions

4.       Escape

5.       Messages

Karen A VandenBos

1.       Stillness Comes with Secrets                                   25-28

2.       Be Not Afraid

3.       Child of the Marshlands

4.       Begin

5.       Orb Weaver

Steve Klepetar

1.       Water and Sand                                             28-30

2.       Cruelty

3.       Chocolate Sauce   

Lynda Tavakoli

1.       Unknown 99                                                            31

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

1.       Block Party                                                    32-36

2.       The Voices in My Head

3.       Shine Out

4.       Out of My Control

5.       Count the Stars                         

Kathryn MacDonald

1.       Moontreader                                                            36-38

2.       Follow Birds and Dreamers

3.       Of Sages & Seas & Butterfly Wings                

Cliff Wedgbury

1.       My love sold revolutionary newspapers                  39-43

2.       blind date

3.       French kissing

4.       ant

5.       kiss

6.       waving with molly

Shivangi Mishra

1.       Wild in Restraint, Pristine as Unkempt                    43-44

Stephen Kingsnorth

1.       all trades                                                       44-47

2.       Early Learning

3.       Conceit

4.       Blokes

5.       Shaken Still

Concetta Pipia

1.       The Drizzling Dream                                               47-50

2.       tiny lens, tinier shutter

3.       Harmony’s Embrace

4.       Love’s Flight

5.       In the Echoes of Despair

Eric Brown

1.       Black Squirrels in the Dooryard                    51-56

2.       Ode to Charon

3.       Hymn to Mintha

Holly Payne-Strange

1.       Strange Gifts                                                            56-62

2.       Wind Whipped Waves

3.       No Ordinary Man

4.       Disappear Diamond

J.J. Campbell

1.       a blistered fucking ego                                   63-67

2.       the lust for gun violence

3.       ruin me

4.       say hello to god

5.       fishnets and a long cigarette

 

Kelly Moyer

1.       Mother Pomegranate and the Orphan Child             68-71

          - Short Story

Gordon Scapens

1.       Fleeting Contentment                                               72-75

2.       Voters

3.       Directions

4.       Excuses Not Required

Elena Ershova

1.       What You Are – Such Your Life                             75-77

John Doyle

1.       I Regard These Things as Dood Investments           77-80

2.       The First Thing They Say on Monday Morning is…

3.       Alice

4.       It Tore My Heart to Pieces When I Heard the Levee…

5.       An Unfortunate Habit of Making Enemies

Smitha Vishwanath

1.       Tarot card reader -  a satirical poem                        81-83

2.       New World Order

Gifford Savage

1.       Shemen Zayit (tree of oil)                                        83-84

Jennifer Gurney

1.       Clouds                                                                     84-88

2.       Haiku

Gary Bills

1.       Annunciation                                                          89-95

2.       Not Darkness but Day

3.       Uplands Orchard

4.       Weighing Winter

5.       Swifts and Shadows

6.       Night Magnolia

7.       Epiphany

8.       Wine Glass

9.       Puddle

10.     Fishing Spell

Tricia Lloyd Waller

1.       She Wants to Ask Where He Has Hidden It             95-100

          - Short Story

David M Blake

1.       And if the heart’s a rock                                101-102

2.       Sad in another time zone

3.       Into the Green

Ron Rosenstock and Gabriel Rosenstock

1.       Faroe Islands – A photo haiku sequence                  103-105

Dr Bikram Kumar Mohapatra

1.       A Bare Solitude                                             105-108

2.       In the Moments of the Setting Sun

3.       The Monologue of a Dwarf

Kenneth M Kapp

1.       I Heard It from a Friend – Short Story           109-110

2.       Out on the Prairie – Flash Fiction Story

Claudia Wysocky

1.       Heaven and Hell                                            111-114

2.       Thoughts On Cars?

3.       Foolish Understanding

4.       Redacted   

Ikechukwu Henry

1.       Sinned – Short Story                                               114-120

Nolo Segundo 

1.       Quintessence of Dust                                               120-128

2.       A Child and Eternity

3.       For I Can Hear Life

4.       Existing Without Time

5.       When Flowers Die

6.       Echoes of God

7.       When An Old Man Dreams

8.       I Too Wanna Live

9.       A Poem Is Just a Tease

10.     The Face of the Buddha               

Philip Butera

1.       A Raven Among Crows                                 129-132

2.       They Are Balloons

Michael La Bombarda

1.       Walking for Inspiration                                 133-136

2.       Doctor’s Visit

3.       Stuyvesant Park

4.       Excavation

5.       High Up

Snigdha Agrawal

1.       Cutting Board                                                          136-138

2.       Wine Bottle

3.       Capitulation

Aaron Lynn

1.       Dancing Little Skull                                                138-139

2.       Nascent Aura

Mike Zone

1.       Parking lot meditation                                              140-142

2.       Nocturnal promises

3.       The greatest number

4.       Frequency

Wendy Webb

1.       Strange Artistic Temperament Vanishes – F/Fiction          143-147

2.       To Autumn’s Pleasant Sounds of Nothing

3.       Breathing Through the Pain

4.       SHUSH! Naughty Moon

Alan Morrison

1.       Whats App Mr Time?                                              148-156

2.       Liskeard Eighty-Six

3.       Bruised Fruit

Sharon Waller Knutson

1.       Heir to the Throne                                         157-161

2.       Larry and Gerry Gene

3.       Uncle Worship

4.       The Big Red Barn

5.       Friday is Fish Night

A J Dalton 

1.       Loki’s Lament                                                         162-166

2.       The Misery and Mirth of Mjölnir

3.       Viking Winter

4.       Odin Wayfarer

5.       A Girl’s Vision

Myrtle Thomas

1.       Invisible Realms and Regions                                  166-169

2.       Borders of a Bedroom

3.       Where Natural Light Wanders

4.       A Daughter of Eve Born from The Morning

Wayne F Burke

1.       Irish Lit. 101                                                           169-171

2.       From the Rib Comes the Juste

3.       Memorabilia

4.       ditty

5.       Ku

6.       Words on the Hit List:

Mykyta Ryzhykh

1.       who are happy                                                         172-174

2.       This poem smells blue

3.       Haiku

4.       Haiku

5.       Untitled Poem

Michael E Theroux ‘Teru’

1.       Divine Remains                                             174-178

2.       Rebirth

3.       Fall to Winter in the Valley

4.       Redemption Bones

5.       To My Muse

Douglas Richardson

1.       The Pharmacist                                              178-180

2.       Set My Alarm: A Winter Strategy

3.       It’s True You Were Eccentric

4.       Pop Culture Continuum

Ayesha Siddiqa Khan

1.       Salt                                                                181-183

2.       Red

3.       Stay up tonight

R W Stephens

1.       Haiku – Ekphrastic Escher Series 2 - Liberation      183-184

2.       Encounter

3.       Liberation

4.       Square Limit

5.       Circle Limit IV (Heaven and Hell)

6.       Dragon

Lorie Greenspan

1.       Whack the Retchling!                                              185-192

Ed Lyons

1.       A Christmas Fantasia – Short Story                         192-194      

Sam Szanto

1.       Athena                                                                     195-197

2.       Merope

3.       The Coat Stand Grows Old

Jason Ryberg

1.       Late Afternoon in Early November                         197-202

2.       Some Sort of Grand Unifying Metaphor…

3.       Big Plans

4.       Exurbs of The Great American Dream

5.       Keep Moving

Joseph A Farina

1.       ghosts of water street: epilogue                      202-204

Ed Ahern

1.       The Recognition                                            204

Linda Imbler

1.       Wild Moon                                                    205-208

2.       Counterfeited Glory

3.       Defanged Pain

4.       Death On the Run

5.       Fate of the Devil’s Victory

Wayne Russell

1.       At Night                                                       209-213

2.       Sometimes

3.       The Ruins

4.       Universal Dreams

5.       âmes jumelles (twin souls)       

Linda King

1.       Somewhere beyond reason                                      213

2.       Space will replace all of you

Duane L Herrmann

1.       Circle and Circle                                            214-217

2.       Those Few

3.       Open the Door

4.       Listen To…

5.       The Way 

Jon Wesick

1.       Another Asshole with a Chapbook                          217-219

2.       The Great Wall At Badaling

3.       Lisa Asked Me

4.       Null and Valid

5.       Pelicans Patrol the Sky

Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

1.       Packing                                                          219-221

2.       Lost

3.       The Forest

John Harold Olson

1.       Saturday Snow                                              221

2.       Rowboat

 

 

Mary Bone 

1.       Hope on the Road to Nowhere                       222-223

2.       Blue River

3.       Resting on My Laurels

4.       Mad Woman

Arthur Turfa

1.       Pilsner Urquell in West Berlin                       223-228

2.       Viaticum

3.       Plot 2 Row 30 Grave 30 – PVT Edmond Schollaert

4.       Winning the Powerball

Jayanta Bhaumik

1.       For a love – poem with beeps and pauses                228-229

2.       For a pith – chemistry bracketed in me

Angel Edwards

1.       Haiku – Adult Flower                                              230     

Toyb ben Uilliam

1.       Garlic – Flash Fiction                                              230

David Barber

1.       Le Dernier Chevalier du Graal                       231 

Lan Qyqalla

1.       In the Theatre of Tragedy                              232-236

2.       One Day

3.       Lora in Adriatic

4.       Lora in the Rain

5.       Lora

Avantika Vijay Singh

1.       A water nymph                                              237-238

Mubarak Said

1.       Elasticity                                                        238-239

2.       All Wait To Decay

3.       Transformation

Duane Vorhees

1.       The Obligations of a Freedman                      240-242

2.       Sanctified

3.       A Mind Rewinds

4.       Siege

5.       Unlusting

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 30

Threads of Fate

November 2023 Continued

Click to BUY PRINTED BOOK

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 30 (lulu.com)

Congratulations dear contributors to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 30 – Threads of Fate. I am honoured and delighted to publish your superb poetry and fiction from the month of November 2023 continued in this stunning volume and have attached your free PDF Copy.

The printed book is now available from today to purchase from lulu.com by clicking this link -

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 30 (lulu.com)

I hope you will consider purchasing this stunning 244 page feast of over 70 internationally esteemed poets and fiction writers for your personal published collections, family and friends. Thank you for your continuing contributions and support of Lothlorien Poetry Journal my Fellow Lothlorians. Every purchase helps me to continue publishing Lothlorien Poetry Journal and is deeply appreciated.

Warmest wishes,

Strider Marcus Jones – Editor in Chief. Xx

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 30 – Threads of Fate features the best fantasy and contemporary poetry and fiction from over 70 internationally renowned poets and fiction authors. Join them on this journey through life and its myriad relationships, real and imagined, where folklore, romance, realism and dystopia mingle and merge casting light on secrets and shadows.

There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be... ― John Lennon

The Poets/Authors

Steve Klepetar Mandy Beattie John Drudge Cynthia Bernard Joseph A. Farina Lynda Tavakoli Stephen Bett Tobi Alfier Mark Novak Barbara Di Sacco Jonathan Butcher Luanne Castle Nolo Segundo Angela Kosta – Translated by Dilip Mewada Giulio Magrini Teresa O’Connor Diskin Julian Matthews John Harold Olson Catherine Arra Marcus Whalbring Wendy Freborg Bruce Hunter Mary Bone Steven Bruce Christina Chin & Uchechukwu Onyedikam Duane L. Herrmann Robina Rader Dominic Rivron Kathleen Chamberlin Ryan Quinn Flanagan Jacqueline Jules Jonathan S. Baker Khedidja Chergui Stephen Anderson Rose Mary Boehm Jim Murdoch Anne Archer Peter J. Donnelly Michael Carrino Julie Sampson Jonathan Humble Ursula O’Reilly Joshua Martin Joshua Britton Zach Keali’i Murphy Snigdha Agrawal Kushal Poddar Daniela Voicu Sunil Sharma Mohibul Aziz Maya Daneva Taylor Dibbert Alessio Zanelli Stephen Philip Druce Jay Simpson Paul Tristram Maria Downs Wayne Russell Sarah Das Gupta Maria Teresa Sisti Samo Kreutz Nidhi Agrawal S.C. Flynn Wendy Webb Richard Weaver Myrtle Thomas Sushant Thapa R.S. Art Ó Súilleabháin David Parsley George Gad Economou Chris Sahar Pawel Markiewicz

Fate is the raw materials of experience. They come uninvited and often unanticipated. Destiny is what a man does with these raw materials. — Howard Thurman

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him. Groucho Marx

Art is a revolt against fate. All art is a revolt against man's fate. Andre Malraux

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out til too late that he's been playing with two queens all along. Terry Pratchett

 

Simple Twist of Fate

Bob Dylan

 

They sat together in the park
As the evening sky grew dark
She looked at him and he felt a spark
Tingle to his bones
'Twas then he felt alone
And wished that he'd gone straight
And watched out for a simple twist of fate

 

They walked alone by the old canal
A little confused, I remember well
And stopped into a strange hotel
With a neon burning bright
He felt the heat of the night
Hit him like a freight train
Moving with a simple twist of fate

 

A saxophone someplace far off played
As she was walking on by the arcade
As the light bust through a beat up shade
Where he was waking up
She dropped a coin into the cup
Another blind man at the gate
And forgot about a simple twist of fate

 

He woke up, the room was bare
He didn't see her anywhere
He told himself he didn't care
Pushed the window open wide
Felt an emptiness inside
To which he just could not relate
Brought on by a simple twist of fate

 

He hears the ticking of the clocks
And walks along with a parrot that talks
Hunts her down by the waterfront docks
Where the sailors all come in
Maybe she'll pick him out again
How long must he wait?
One more time for a simple twist of fate

 

People tell me it's a sin
To know and feel too much within
I still believe she was my twin but I lost the ring
She was born in spring
But I was born too late
Blame it on a simple twist of fate

Songwriters: Bob Dylan

 

Contents

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                              Pages

November 2023 Continued – Poetry and Fiction

Steve Klepetar

1.         Concert in the Park                                                     17-18

2.         Coloured Squares

3.         A Different Name

Mandy Beattie

1.         Sinclair Bay                                                                18-20

2.         Buddleja Davidii

3.         Flotsam in Longshore Drifts

4.         The Flow Country

5.         The Hill o’ Many Stanes

John Drudge

1.         Autumn in the Village                                                21-23

2.         Into the Stream

3.         Pearl

4.         Something Like Sorrow

5.         The Poet

6.         The Wavering Sun

Cynthia Bernard

1.         In the Laundry Room                                                 24-28

2.         Intersection

3.         Daddy

4.         In my kitchen at midnight

5.         Fault Lines

Joseph A. Farina

1.         ghosts of water street                                                  29-32 

Lynda Tavakoli

1.         The Winding Sheet                                                     33

Stephen Bett

1.         Runnin’ in the Gaps                                                    34-37

2.         Ba Ba Ba (rockin & a-rollin’)

3.         What you do to me                            

Tobi Alfier

1.         Something She’s Not Saying                                      37-40

2.         A Slice of Lourdes

3.         King Cake

4.         At the Country House One Sunday in Summer                     

Mark Novak

1.         Board Pounder                                                            41-48

2.         Break on Through

3.         Thelwall’s Lament

4.         The Ode of Convict Mike     

Barbara Di Sacco

1.         Share                                                                           48-53

2.         All in one spiral

3.         Voice of life

Jonathan Butcher

1.         A Red Brick Wormhole                                              54-55

2.         Trial Separation

3.         A Gift Empty of Gestures

Luanne Castle

1.         The Stranger                                                               56-60

2.         Forever

3.         When I Bravely Attended My 50^th High School Reunion

4.         Is It Theft if It Fills an Absence

5.         When a Leaf Falls

Nolo Segundo

1.         When Flowers Die                                                      61-66

2.         When An Old Man Dreams

3.         When Angels Come

4.         When I Leave You

5.         When Death Was Free to Roam the World

6.         When the Heart Breaks

Angela Kosta – Translated by Dilip Mewada

1.         For My Mother                                                           67-69

2.         You Are a Lady

3.         A Piece of Bread

Giulio Magrini

1.         To the Small Press Publishers                                    70-75

2.         The Revelation of Her Embrace

3.         Cruising the Aisles of the Whole Foods Dream

4.         They Will Live Forever In Us, In Our Tuscan Fields

Teresa O’Connor Diskin

1.         I Have News for You                                                  75-77

2.         Sonnet Without End

3.         The Long Now

4.         Staring Po-faced at Us

Julian Matthews

1.         The Coffee Grinder – Flash Fiction Story                  78-79

John Harold Olson

1.         Love Is a Flavour                                                       80

Catherine Arra

1.         It’s Your Fairy Tale                                                   80-84

2.         Orphan Hero

3.         Cut Down to Size

4.         How Do You Write an Elegy

Marcus Whalbring

1.         An Imaginary Garden with Real Toads in It              85

Wendy Freborg

1.         Some Things My Mother Made for Me                     86-88

2.         On Discovering Shared Diagnosis

3.         Junior High

4.         Waiting for You

5.         We Have a Problem with Mornings

Bruce Hunter

1.         There is a Road                                                           89-93

2.         Riffs

3.         Dark Water

Mary Bone

1.         Spa Day                                                                     94

2.         The Harvest

3.         Tiny Pincers

Steven Bruce

1.         Limits                                                                         95-96

Christina Chin & Uchechukwu Onyedikam

1.         Five Tan-Renga Poems - Collaboration                     97-98

Duane L. Herrmann

1.         Morning Dreaming                                                     99-102

2.         Wind Did

3.         When Salmon Doesn’t Explode

4.         Stars Shine

5.         Hills Up

Robina Rader

1.         Trains in the Night                                                      103-104

Dominic Rivron

1.         Thirty-Nine Flash Fiction Story                                 104

Kathleen Chamberlin

1.         All My Yesterdays                                                     105-109

2.         Now and Then

3.         Blood Echo

4.         Escape

5.         Grief’s Burden   

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

1.         Chance Meeting in the Hall                                        109-112

2.         Yakuza Glory

3.         Head Shop Rastafarian

4.         Patsy Maker

5.         Everyone Hoping to Be Redeemed like Expired Coupons

Jacqueline Jules 

1.         Tricking the Troll                                                       113-115

2.         What I Learned from My Mother’s Mahogany Table

3.         Things That Make Me Sigh

4.         Statistically Speaking               

Jonathan S. Baker

1.         Late Night                                                                   116-117

2.         I’m sorry I haven’t finished the book yet

3.         Living the dream

Khedidja Chergui

1.         Ethereal whispers                                                       118-121

2.         It was but a mirage

3.         The Last Sky

Stephen Anderson

1.         The Then and Now of It                                             121-125

2.         Betrayal

3.         Cosmos

4.         Telegram

5.         Voyages

Rose Mary Boehm

1.         Bartering your Soul for Salvation                              125-129

2.         Bigger and Better

3.         Childhood Love Pains

4.         Gladrags and Bling

5.         My Cars Were Male

Jim Murdoch

1.         It’s Complicated                                                         129-132

2.         Happiness is a Pair of Glasses

3.         Purity

4.         Shrinkflation

5.         Small Losses

Anne Archer

1.         Stories                                                                        132-135

2.         On reading frank: sonnets

3.         Rise

4.         Murmuration

5.         We never

Peter J. Donnelly

1.         Fairfax House                                                             135-138

2.         Unexpected Things

3.         Your Seven Years in Dulverton

4.         Middleham

5.         Housing Maintenance, Repairs Section

Michael Carrino

1.         Tsukimi                                                                      138-141

2.         One Autumn Morning in Montpelier, Vermont…

3.         Hotel Vermont

4.         In the North Country

5.         You Want to Know

Julie Sampson          

1.         What we did next                                                        141-147

2.         Farewell

3.         The idyll of the luminous dream

4.         I came here

5.         Copse

Jonathan Humble

1.         What’s It All About, Albert?                                      148-152

2.         Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

3.         Towards a Theory of Everything…

4.         Clearance

5.         Drifting

Ursula O’Reilly

1.         Good Samaritan?                                                        152-155

2.         Nightfall

3.         Have You Seen

4.         Storm

5.         Photograph

Joshua Martin

1.         Geological Accommodation Process                         155-159

2.         Stoic Tandem Creating Waves

3.         Stump, then Stunned, As a Horse Relents

4.         Sheltered Quotation Tribute

Joshua Britton

1.         If I Killed Somebody – Flash Fiction Story               159-161

Zach Keali’i Murphy

1.         Faults                                                                          161

Snigdha Agrawal

1.         Substance                                                                    162-164

2.         Minds Unknown

3.         Great Expectations

4.         Rewinding Times

Kushal Poddar

1.         Strawberry Moon                                                        164-167

2.         City, 2023

3.         Girl With a Plastic Cola Bottle On Her Head

4.         Bodhi

5.         The Tattoo

Daniela Voicu

1.         Insipid Blue                                                                167-169

2.         Birds

3.         Stone in time

4.         Hungry poem

5.         Poetic bazaars

Sunil Sharma

1.         Validation – Short Story                                             170-173          

Mohibul Aziz

1.         Reality                                                                        174-175

2.         Labyrinth

3.         Smile Flashes Like the Knife

Maya Daneva

1.         Haiku Poems                                                              176

Taylor Dibbert

1.         Living and Loving                                                      177

Alessio Zanelli

1.         Sky Resort                                                                  177-181

2.         What Parallels the Chute

3.         Drop the Pestle

4.         The Silver Elephant

5.         A Hill Runner’s Casual Wacky Thoughts

Stephen Philip Druce

1.         Planet Zugon                                                               182-185

2.         Planet Ugolaz

3.         Planet Vorludian

Jay Simpson

1.         Well Matched                                                            185-187

2.         Locks Without Keys

3.         Potent Insight

4.         Solitary Confinement

5.         Emotive         

Paul Tristram

1.         Clingy-less                                                                 188-192

2.         Claude at 28

3.         In Between Chapters

4.         That Clock’s Been Tough Today

5.         Chaos Magic and the Cut-Up Technique

Maria Downs

1.         An Image of Heaven                                                   192-197

2.         Forgotten Worlds

3.         Peaceful Bliss To Place

4.         Rich Verdant Green

5.         Rose 

Wayne Russell

1.         Inaccessible                                                                198-200

2.         Don’t Take My Sunshine Away

3.         Bird of Prey

4.         Dream Chain

Sarah Das Gupta

1.         Golden Chains                                                            200-202

2.         The White Hare

3.         That Other Country

Maria Teresa Sisti

1.         Haiku Poems                                                              203

Samo Kreutz 

1.         Haiku Poems                                                              204-205

Nidhi Agrawal

1.         Infidelity                                                                     206-207

2.         Bard of Blood – On the battlefield

3.         It’s an unbearable spectacle

4.         Homicide without hunger

S.C. Flynn

1.         Labour                                                                        207

Wendy Webb

1.         Flight to Paradise                                                       208-211

2.         Suncatchers in Broad Daylight

3.         David (Pantoum)

4.         Mooring a Voice Diamond-Bright in Norfolk

5.         The White Elephant is a E…T…        

Richard Weaver

1.         Freddy Rat twerks                                                      212-214

2.         Blind Owl

3.         Rat Trap Revolution

4.         Your crooked little heart

5.         Hardscrabble

Myrtle Thomas

1.         The Ocean Within                                                      215-217

2.         The Unborn

3.         Things I’ve Found in Dreams 

Sushant Thapa

1.         Way                                                                            218

R.S.

1.         Echoes of Departure                                                   219-221

2.         As Golden Tresses Feather Through

3.         A Solitary Spring’s Melody

4.         Stop all the Clocks (Inspired by W.H. Auden’s poem)

Art Ó Súilleabháin 

1.         A Laburnum speaks to me                                          221-225

2.         Clinker built

3.         Building a workshop

4.         The hill of the lights

5.         What Naoise, Daragh. Radha and the unborn must learn

David Parsley

1.         What the Future Dares                                                226-228

George Gad Economou

1.         A Toast to Billion-Old Deaths                                   229-232

2.         Battle Ready

3.         Yapping in the Wrong Places

4.         Drowning But Saved

5.         Envisioning the Bar

Chris Sahar

1.         The Evergreens                                                           232-236

2.         Speak to Me Nothing

3.         On Being a Composer

4.         Cheetah (Stanzas 1-4)

5.         A Memory

 

Pawel Markiewicz

1.         The amaranthine fairy                                                237-239

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 29

Amplified Voices in the Murmurs of Infinity 

October 2023 Continued - Early November 2023

BUY PRINTED BOOK

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 29 (lulu.com)

Welcome to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 29 – Amplified Voices in the Murmurs of Infinity. Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories and flash fiction. Journey with these 72 internationally renowned poets and fiction authors whose voices are amplified in the murmurs of infinity. Immerse yourself in poems and stories that linger and haunt. Discover sublime works of fantasy, fairy tale and folklore, dreams and dystopia, nature and magical realism with romance and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks.

 

Earth, moon, sun and human beings all represent dots, a single particle among billions. All of us live in the unfathomable mystery and infinitude of the universe.

Yayoi Kusama – Portrait 2015

 

Auguries of Innocence by William Blake

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour…

 

We are travellers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.

Paulo Coelho

 

We cross infinity with every step; we meet eternity in every second.

Rabindranath Tagore

 

A Breath of love can take you all the way to infinity

Rumi

 

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity.

William Wordsworth

 

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.

Rod Serling

 

I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

 

Correspondences by Charles Baudelaire

 

Nature is a temple where the living pillars

Let go sometimes a blurred speech—

A Forest of symbols passes through a man's reach

And observes him with a familiar regard.

Like the distant echoes that mingle and confound

In a unity of darkness and quiet

Deep as the night, clear as daylight

The perfumes, the colours, the sounds correspond.

The perfume is as fresh as the flesh of an infant

Sweet as an oboe, green as a prairie

—And the others, corrupt, rich and triumphant

 

Enlightened by the things of infinity,

Like amber, musk, benzoin and incense

That sing, transporting the soul and sense.

 

 

Contents

 

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                              Pages

 

October 2023 Continued – Poetry and Fiction

 

Wendy Webb

1.         Turning the Tide                                                         17-20

2.         Sticks & Stones, Sorry – Won’t

3.         Right Joke, Wrong Town

4.         Love on the Marshy Horizon

5.         Telestich Places Rocks on View (Acrostic)

Steen W. Rasmussen

1.         God Is A Place                                                            21-22

2.         A Pointless Poem

3.         Soulspotting

Margaret Duda

1.         The Chaos of Butterflies                                            23-25

2.         Above the Old County Jail

Darren Lynch

1.         Astral Holdings                                                          26-29

2.         Words

3.         Violet Mirrors

4.         Beyond

5.         An Artist

Hedy Habra

1.         Or What Else Could We Do But Raise Our Hands?  29-33

2.         Hall of Mirrors

3.         I Always Knew I Was a Sibyl at Heart

4.         Vanishing Point         

Kushal Poddar

1.         The Lunar Triumph                                                    34-35

2.         After Reading Stephen King

3.         Twilight Evolution

Meg Freer

1.         Final Petal                                                                   36-39

2.         Voices for Whom All Is Dark

3.         June Blues

4.         Wanting Times of Anticipation

5.         Tag Team

                                   

Ryan Borchers

1.         The Feast – Flash Fiction Story                                 39-40               

Angela Hoffman

1.         Welcome the Inevitable                                              40-42

2.         I’ll Wear My Magenta

3.         I’ll Be Your Brown

4.         Wild Things

5.         You’re My Window  

Edilson Afonso Ferreira

1.         Stumbles, Ambushes and Spells                                43-47

2.         Fallen into Oblivion

3.         Days of Fury

4.         Fears and Feelings

5.         Passage to Paradise

Snigdha Agrawal

1.         Faith, Hope and Charity                                             47-49

2.         Make believe world

Joshua St. Claire

1.         Ten Haiku Poems                                                       49-51

James Croal Jackson

1.         Operatic Pop                                                               51-54

2.         Cashing Out

3.         Megan Visits Pittsburgh

4.         Wall-Pounding Street-Squawking

5.         Forty Years from Now

Lynda Tavakoli

1.         For Those Who Wait – Short Story                            54-59

Douglas G. Cala

1.         Orwellian Tale                                                            60-63

2.         Unfolding

3.         Byproduct of Tutelage

4.         Methodical Moriarty

Karen O’Leary & Paul Callus (Collaboration)

1.         Five Tan-Renga Poems                                              64-65

Joseph Bernard Shaw

1.         Where Living Was                                                     66-69

2.         Dream House

3.         To the Moon

4.         Starboy

Jeanna Ní Ríordáin

1.         Upward Mobility                                                        70

2.         Crossing the Channel

Mark Young

1.         The Soft Machine                                                      71-72

2.         aka The Song Dynasty

3.         Café terrier

4.         The Super Bowl Winner Sat on the Grass

5.         Trip Wire Sentience

J.B. Hogan

1.         The Burden of Expectation                                        73-74

2.         The Illusion of Success

3.         The Triumph of Failure

Farideh Hassanzadeh

1.         Isn’t It Enough?                                                          74-78

2.         Pen Pal Poem

3.         A woman’s desk

4.         That Dark Side of the Cities

5.         Posthumous poem: Memories of a dead woman from

            walking in her city

John Grey

1.         In the Far North of New Hampshire                          78-83

2.         The Mist Is

3.         Her Physical World

4.         The Child I Used to Be

5.         The Wait

Madeleine French

1.         Paper Piecing                                                             83-85

2.         Sol y Sombra

3.         Slicing Strawberries

Les Wicks

1.         The Day Before an Election                                       85-91

2.         Chicken Little

3.         Wand Chalice Book & Blade

4.         An Aspiration for Firmaments

5.         There’s talk about the newest wave…

Mykyta Ryzhykh

1.         Five Untitled Poems                                                   91-92

Michael Ceraolo

1.         Eight Weeks: A Play of Voices                                  93-100

Duane Vorhees

1.         For All My Friends                                                     100-103

2.         This Vessel Is Only

3.         At This, Our Nuremberg

4.         Jeremiah? PollyAnna?

5.         Re-Sartour Resartus

Danielle Riccardi

1.         Dreamwork & the Self                                               103-104

Michael McCormick

1.         Poker night                                                                 104-105   

River West

1.         The Glass Man                                                           105

j. lewis (Jim Lewis) 

1.         on the anniversary of my death                                  106-110

2.         breakfast of champions

3.         i am riding a dead horse home

4.         colour drought

5.         scraping the barrel’s bottom               

Susan Waters

1.         There is an Autumn Within Us                                   111-112

2.         No

3.         The Lie

Stephen Kingsnorth

1.         Heroes’ Odyssey                                                         112-116

2.         After Bubble-Wrap

3.         Pickings

4.         Flushed

5.         Father Wept

Kelly Moyer

1.         The Remove                                                               116-118

2.         Limerence

3.         Sleep Well

Terry Wheeler

1.         last supper                                                                   118-122

2.         krishnamurti farewells annie besant

3.         papal bulls

4.         stum

5.         patrick bourke

Tina Negus

1.         Bewitched?                                                                 122-124

2.         Hobbit Questions

3.         Hobbity Hill

R.P. Singletary

1.         Nimble up there – Short Story                                    125-126

Lara Dolphin

1.         How to find Yeston and Kopit’s Phantom                 126-129

2.         How to Find the Tree that Owns Itself

3.         [She Sails Off to the Cab]

4.         Brandolini’s Climate

5.         Invocation Over Athelas

Keith Snow

1.         Egg Roles                                                                   129-130

2.         The Glaring

3.         Visceral

John Yamrus

1.         Paul                                                                             130-134

2.         he found her

3.         her mouth

4.         Tina

Teresa Godfrey

1.         Five Haiku Poems                                                      134-136

2.         Words

3.         Inside the Earth

4.         Song

Derek Thomas Dew

1.         Totality                                                                       136-139

2.         Frozen Entrees

3.         Drip Gas Fever

4.         Survivor Guilt

5.         Striking, Strikeon

Roisin Browne

1.         Malachy – Flash Fiction                                             140-141

Christopher Barnes – Epigrams in Mist

1.         Ubiquitous Entertainment                                          142-144

2.         Food Minus Thought

3.         Unctuous Organism

4.         Take the Air

5.         Bailiff’s Budget

Shamik Banerjee – Five Sonnets

1.         In Autumn                                                                  144-146

2.         On My Disappointment From a Surmise

3.         A Dissociation

4.         Gulmarg Valley

5.         If I Consider Winter As My Foe

 

Jennifer Gurney

1.         Ten Short Form Poems                                               147-148

Nolo Segundo

1.         When I Leave You                                                     149-157

2.         Memories Travel Without the Weight of Time

3.         In My Grandmother’s Day

4.         An Aging Wife

5.         A Child and Eternity

6.         What to Tell the Children

7.         What Poetry Is

Myrtle Thomas

1.         The Scent of Autumn and Love                                 157-159

2.         Dust and Roses

3.         Found Between a Net of Stars and Footprints

Eric Robert Nolan

1.         Essay – Requiescat in Pace – Dennis Williamson     160-162          

Henry Wolstat

1.         On the Acela                                                               162-164

2.         Spirit of the Peddler

3.         Aging Thoughts

Santosh Bakaya

1.         The Ramblings of a Forgotten Wordsmith                164-168

2.         The Rooster of Memory

3.         And Time Scurried Past

4.         Do I Really Matter?

Francisc Edmund Balogh

1.         Invoking                                                                      169-171

2.         Your tower

3.         Flowers of twilight

4.         It is snowing

5.         Late thrills

John Harold Olson

1.         7 and Albatross                                                           172

Shoshauna Shy

1.         The Thrice-Divorced Woman in the Locker Room   173-177

            Braids Her Hair

2.         Electricity

3.         The Artist Arrives to Pack Up Her Show, Learns

            Nothing Sold

4.         Homemade from Scratch

5.         The “Chosen” Child Chooses

Marc Isaac Potter

1.         Yellow Truck                                                             177-184

2.         Homage to My Mother

3.         Wyoming

4.         Postulation

5.         Making Progress        

Rick Hartwell

1.         Inevitable Judas                                                          184-185

Joan Leotta

1.         The Language of a Leaf Bouquet                               185-188

2.         Listening to Trees

3.         Stormy Day Stillness 

Chris Butler

1.         I was written by AI                                                     188-190

2.         Orange Orangutan

3.         Blue Balloon

4.         Truth

5.         Death is Not the End

Wilda Morris

1.         Walking Guanajuato                                                   191-195

2.         Hot Chocolate at la Biblioteca

3.         Souvenirs of Mexico

4.         Picnicking in Rural Mexico, 2007

5.         Florrie Finds Me in Mexico

Jack D. Harvey

1.         Icarus Reduced                                                           196-201

2.         Socrates Said

3.         Steinmetz

Sherry Steiner 

1.         The Key of A                                                              201-202

Jim Meirose

1.         Discovery of a Wonderfully Wild New Planet          203-204

            Short Story

 

Early November 2023 – Poetry and Fiction

 

Marieta Maglas

1.         Still Living                                                                 205-207

2.         Losing Hope

Edward Lee

1.         What Is                                                                        207-208

2.         A Danger Only To Myself, But Still a Danger

3.         In Your Eyes  

Lynn White

1.         Once There Were Fairies                                           209-211

2.         Fairies

3.         Magic

4.         Never Never Land

Greg Patrick

1.         To Harvest the Fair                                                     212-215 

Christina Chin & Uchechukwu Onyedikam

1.         Five Tan-Renga Poems - Collaboration                     216-217

Ken Gosse

1.         Verbena by Any Other Scent Would Smell So          218-220

            Sweet

2.         Seasonal Greetings

3.         Unsteeling His Nerves

4.         Oh Dear Mama (To Me She Is So Wonderful!)

Angel Edwards

1.         The Ghost of the Ghost Train                                     221

2.         Haiku

Jahnavi Gogoi

1.         July – Villanelle Poem                                               222

Nolo Segundo

1.         Poet Eternal - Essay                                                    223-226

                                                                       

                       

Contents

 

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                              Pages

 

October 2023 Continued – Poetry and Fiction

 

Wendy Webb

Steen W. Rasmussen

Margaret Duda

Darren Lynch

Hedy Habra

Kushal Poddar

Meg Freer

Ryan Borchers

Angela Hoffman

Edilson Afonso Ferreira

Snigdha Agrawal

Joshua St. Claire

James Croal Jackson

 

Lynda Tavakoli

Douglas G. Cala

Karen O’Leary & Paul Callus (Collaboration)

Joseph Bernard Shaw

Jeanna Ní Ríordáin

Mark Young

J.B. Hogan

Farideh Hassanzadeh

John Grey

Madeleine French

Les Wicks

Mykyta Ryzhykh

Michael Ceraolo

Duane Vorhees

Danielle Riccardi

Michael McCormick

River West

j. lewis (Jim Lewis) 

Susan Waters

Stephen Kingsnorth

Kelly Moyer

Terry Wheeler

Tina Negus

R.P. Singletary

Lara Dolphin

Keith Snow

John Yamrus

Teresa Godfrey

Derek Thomas Dew

Roisin Browne

Christopher Barnes – Epigrams in Mist

Shamik Banerjee – Five Sonnets

Jennifer Gurney

Nolo Segundo

Myrtle Thomas

Eric Robert Nolan          

Henry Wolstat

Santosh Bakaya

Francisc Edmund Balogh

John Harold Olson

Shoshauna Shy

Marc Isaac Potter

Rick Hartwell

Joan Leotta

Chris Butler

Wilda Morris

Jack D. Harvey

Sherry Steiner 

Jim Meirose

 

Early November 2023 – Poetry and Fiction

 

Marieta Maglas

Edward Lee

Lynn White

Greg Patrick 

Christina Chin & Uchechukwu Onyedikam

Ken Gosse

Angel Edwards

Jahnavi Gogoi

Nolo Segundo

                                                                        

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 28

Messengers 

September 2023 Continued - Early October 2023

BUY PRINTED BOOK

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 28 (lulu.com)

Welcome to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 28 – Messengers. Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories and flash fiction. Journey with these 73 superb poets and fiction authors as metaphysical messengers on the road. Immerse yourself in poems and stories that linger and haunt. Discover sublime works of fantasy, fairy tale and folklore, dreams and dystopia, nature and magical realism with romance and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks.

 

Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.

Mahatma Gandhi

 

Love is the way messengers
from the mystery tell us things

Rumi

 

I'm a messenger. I'm one piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle.

Simon Sinek

 

People want to listen to a message, word from Jah. This could be passed through me or anybody. I am not a leader. Messenger. The words of the songs, not the person, is what attracts people.

Bob Marley

 

As a writer you have a duty to be a messenger.

Jay Griffiths

 

Coincidence is a messenger sent by truth.

Jacqueline Winspear

 

Every word is a messenger. Some have wings; some are filled with fire; some are filled with death.

Mary Oliver

 

Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear
Year after year in gloom, and desolate despair;
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
And offers for short life, eternal liberty.

Emily Bronte

 

Old and New

by Dejan Stojanovic

If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago

He would've thought they were birds

Or angels from another world

Or messengers from other planets.
 

Every new machine would have surprised him—

The car, TV, radio, phone, camera.
 

He would've thought he was a savage

Who didn't understand.
 

If he saw a computer,

Watching people talking on the internet,

He would have thought it was a civilization

Much more advanced and ahead of his.
 

And if he stayed longer among the messengers

He would have learned that every child had the knowledge

And understanding of these things

Or how to use all of them.
 

Yet, after a while, he would have noticed

That none of them were advanced enough

To be labelled as those who know more

Than the one who said: I know nothing.

 

 

Messenger

By Mary Oliver

 

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

 

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

 

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

 

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

 

POETS & FICTION AUTHORS

September 2023 Continued - Poetry and Fiction

 

Gordon Ferris

Barbara Di Sacco

John Yamrus

Sharon Waller Knutson

Russell Dupont

Snigdha Agrawal

Zak Wardell

David Chorlton

Wayne F. Burke

Michael Durack

Inam Hussain Begg Mullick

Duane Vorhees

Royal Rhodes

Dr Mona Bedi

Duane L. Herrmann

Steve Klepetar

Sarah Das Gupta

Rustin Larson

Wendy Webb

John Drudge

Angela Townsend

John Doyle

Patricia Walsh

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

 

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

Simon MacCulloch

Tina Negus

Sushant Thapa

Kushal Poddar

David Alec Knight

Kim Olmtak Gomes & Christina Chin         

Dallas Lee

Mary Bone

Wayne Garry Fife

Matthew James Friday

Neil Higgins

Deborah A. Bennett

Tony Dawson

Paul Tristram

Carla Maria Kovsca

Ken Gosse – Six Epitaffies

Elizabeth Weiss

Allen Ashley

Christian Ward

Nancy Machlis Rechtman

Frederick Pollack

J.J. Campbell

Tohm Bakelas

Kathryn MacDonald

J.D. Isip

Angel Edwards

Damon Hubbs

Emily Bilman

Robert Witmer

Andrea Damic

Gifford Savage

Clive Aaron Gill

Louis Efron

Dana Trick

Robert Cooperman

Jamal Uddin 

Charley Chow

 

Early October 2023 – Poetry and Fiction

 

Kenneth M. Kapp

Cliff Wedgbury

Jay Simpson & Randy Barnes

Nina Zivancevic

Greg Patrick

David Jibson

Smitha Vishwanath

Alec Solomita

Mandy Beattie

                                                                       

                       

 

Contents

 

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                              Pages

 

September 2023 Continued - Poetry and Fiction

 

Gordon Ferris

1.         Beauty’s Kiss                                                              17-19

2.         Safe Fantasy

3.         Winter Comes

Barbara Di Sacco

1.         Feet like rocks                                                             19-24

2.         Garconniere

3.         Space time

4.         The Pizzica

John Yamrus

1.         the woman                                                                  24-27

2.         he stuck his

3.         nobody

4.         the only books

5.         the hurt

Sharon Waller Knutson

1.         Toddler Houdini                                                         27-32

2.         Octogenarian Cowboy

3.         Ballad of Big Bad Bob

4.         Cousins

5.         Some Have It. Some Don’t.

Russell Dupont

1.         A Muffled Voice                                                        32-36

2.         On The Road

3.         Past Or Prologue

4.         One Red Shoe

5.         So Now          

Snigdha Agrawal

1.         Upon Your Breast                                                      37-39

2.         Faithful Friend

3.         Checkmate

Zak Wardell

1.         Double A sides                                                           39-42

2.         Bogeymen

3.         1981 Space Odyssey  

David Chorlton

1.         Spider Rock                                                                42-45

2.         Trading Post

3.         Land Alive

4.         Navajo Dusk

5.         Reservation Midnight             

Wayne F. Burke

1.         Emily Dickinson                                                         46-48

2.         Clouds

3.         N.C. (1926-68)

4.         Broke Back

5.         Bang   

Michael Durack

1.         Second Place                                                              48-51

2.         Agnostic

3.         Writing Poems

Inam Hussain Begg Mullick

1.         A Gymnast Disrobes the Universe                             51-57

2.         A libidinous cat

3.         In your hands

4.         Inamorato Travels Through the Seasons & Thunderstorms

5.         Amorino Breathing

Duane Vorhees

1.         An Essay Concerning Human Understanding            57-59

2.         Confessions

3.         Dowser

4.         Properties

5.         Persistent Relevance of Etymology

Royal Rhodes

1.         Remember, body…                                                    60-63

2.         The Man Who Lost His Shadow

3.         Sundown

4.         The Call

5.         The Pardon

Dr Mona Bedi

1.         Haiku                                                                          64

Duane L. Herrmann

1.         The World Once                                                         65-68

2.         Twilight Transition

3.         How to Eat a Book

4.         Missing Myself

5.         Midnight Softens

Steve Klepetar

1.         All My Other Lives                                                    68-70

2.         House Fire

3.         The Centaur’s Blood

Sarah Das Gupta

1.         Puck, by any other name…                                        70-73

2.         Beware the Hare!

3.         It is dark here

4.         Midsummer 1595 (Prose Poem)

Rustin Larson

1.         Flower Mountain                                                        74-79

2.         Back to Sleep

3.         Black

4.         Sparky

5.         McChild McMartin

6.         Random Episodes of the Time Tunnel

Wendy Webb

1.         Strange Meeting                                                        80-84

2.         Bee Sparking ashes

3.         June’s Cold (Pantoum)

4.         Bringing Woodland Indoors/Out (Pantoum)

5.         Sailing into the Storm (Pantoum)

John Drudge

1.         Damned                                                                      85-87

2.         Long Roads

3.         No Hate

4.         Gone

5.         Misfire

6.         Racing

Angela Townsend

1.         Chew on This – Flash Fiction                                     88-90

John Doyle

1.         Bernard                                                                       91-97

2.         Fugazi

3.         Paris Junk, 1979

4.         Two Red Lights on the Tail Wagon of the Liner

5.         Vivian

6.         Sometimes Eugene Landy Got it Right

Patricia Walsh

1.         Fearless Praying                                                        97-100

2.         Acquired Tattoo

3.         Trip Switch

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

1.         Never Marry a Cashier…                                           100-103

2.         The Girl with the Driftwood Legs

3.         4 Windows

4.         You’re Going to Wreck Mommy’s High

5.         The Tattoo Matcher of Jalisco

6.         The Night of the Tequila

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

1.         The Other Option                                                       104-110

2.         Untitled Poem

3.         Neither This Nor That

Simon MacCulloch

1.         The Tree of Life                                                         111-115

2.         Sun Bird

3.         Crock of Gold

4.         Effusion

5.         Jack O’Lantern

Tina Negus

1.         Dolmen at St. Vivien                                                  115-118

2.         Green Man, green mysteries

3.         Peacocks

Sushant Thapa

1.         Aesthetics                                                                   119-120

Kushal Poddar

1.         The Ancestral Serpent Hibernates                              120-122

2.         Club Underground

3.         The railings

4.         The Way We Realise the Facts About Our Families   

David Alec Knight

1.         I Knew Your Beauty Then                                         122-125

Kim Olmtak Gomes & Christina Chin  

1.         Tan-Renga Poems – Collaboration                            126-127               

Dallas Lee

1.         Book of Paper and Ink                                                127-129

2.         Dear Elvis in Heaven

3.         Milky Way Band

4.         Vulture Religion

Mary Bone

1.         The Outcast                                                                130

2.         Baggage

Wayne Garry Fife

1.         The King’s Decision – Short Story                            131-133

Matthew James Friday

1.         Fishing for Poems                                                       134-136

2.         Something Wonderful this Way Comes

3.         The Moth

Neil Higgins

1.         Death’s Corner                                                           137-138

2.         Infused

3.         The Siren’s Song

Deborah A. Bennett

1.         Five Haiku Poems                                                     139

Tony Dawson

1.         Death of a Plumber – Flash Fiction                           140-142

Paul Tristram

1.         Another Ritual Down                                                 143-146

2.         Ponies x’s 3, & my friend Jessica (a Landscape Oil..Canvas)

3.         Anti-Public

4.         Old Woman Falling Off a Balcony

5.         Ambivalent Catacombs

Carla Maria Kovsca

1.         Nuvolario – Short Story                                             147-152

Ken Gosse – Six Epitaffies

1.         A Fading Glimmerick                                                152-153

2.         Quoth the Maven Nevermore

3.         Breathless in Anticipation

4.         Don’t Beat Your Wife!

5.         Good Riddance

6.         A Token Farewell

Elizabeth Weiss

1.         My Mother As Warrior For God                                154-158

2.         Saratoga Racetrack

3.         My Mother on the Soccer Field

4.         After Fifty

5.         Lost FootagE

Allen Ashley

1.         My Mirror Never Lies – Flash Fiction                       159-161

Christian Ward

1.         Tiger                                                                           162-163

2.         Uprooted are the trees with forgotten names

3.         Don’t judge me with your owl-faced periscope

4.         Hunting for beginners

Nancy Machlis Rechtman

1.         Riding the Tilt-A-Whirl                                             164-166

2.         Saving Myself

Frederick Pollack

1.         Attempt                                                                       167-171

2.         The High Point

3.         Option

4.         The Civilian

5.         Goof

J.J. Campbell

1.         a partially full moon                                                   172-176

2.         the stupid teenage shit

3.         you would have locked it

4.         all the tricks and treats

5.         having been a child

Tohm Bakelas

1.         Ten Short Form Poems                                               177-178

Kathryn MacDonald

1.         She Sings Only at Twilight                                        179-182

2.         Company of Wayfarers

3.         A Blizzard Blows

4.         Phantasm

5.         Beloved          

J.D. Isip

1.         Imagine                                                                       183-186

2.         Frog and Toad Are Friends

3.         Impressionism

4.         The Walking Dead

5.         Sharks in the Streets

Angel Edwards

1.         Last days of summer                                                  187

2.         Haiku – Strawberry Moon Glow

Damon Hubbs

1.         My Irish Poet Friends Sure Don’t Smile at Saratoga 188-191

2.         Riddle of Steel

3.         Dog Star

4.         On Our Way

Emily Bilman

1.         Intermezzo, a dream                                                   192-194

2.         A reminiscence

3.         Antagonist

Robert Witmer

1.         A Pigeon Is a Dove                                                     194-197

2.         Dreadful Speech

3.         The Dew’s Sweet Slumber

4.         Satori

5.         Ijin

Andrea Damic

1.         People                                                                        197-199

2.         Precarious Existence 

Gifford Savage

1.         Turning                                                                       199-200

2.         Brief Encounter

Clive Aaron Gill

1.         My Best Friend – Short Story                                    201-205 

Louis Efron

1.         Writers Eulogy                                                           206-210

2.         Arcadian Eyes

3.         God’s Garden

4.         Short Circuit

5.         Rooms Without Nightlights

Dana Trick

1.         Ghosts, Spirits, Poltergeists                                       211-215

2.         La Llorona

3.         Darkness

4.         Monster, Demon, Oni, Devil

5.         Changeling

Robert Cooperman

1.         First Ride with My Father                                          216-219

2.         First Driving Lesson

3.         Me and Parnelli Jones

4.         A Country Drive

5.         Breakfast with My Father

Jamal Uddin 

1.         Fall View from the Opera House                               220-222

2.         Satyriasis

3.         Burning Green

4.         No ball

Charley Chow

1.         Ballade of the Cresset                                                 223

Early October 2023 – Poetry and Fiction

 

Kenneth M. Kapp

1.         Bragging Rights – Short Story                                   224-227

Cliff Wedgbury

1.         doodlebug                                                                   227-228

2.         matinee

3.         tea with dad   

Jay Simpson & Randy Barnes

1.         Line Up – Jay Simpson                                              229-233

2.         Once Lived – Randy Barnes

3.         Riddle – Jay Simpson

4.         Shadow Play – Randy Barnes

5.         Courting Chaos – Jay Simpson

6.         Boomtown Benders – Randy Barnes

7.         High Wire – Jay Simpson

8.         Block and Mortar – Randy Barnes

Nina Zivancevic

1.         Am I wrong or something deeper is going on…        233-237

2.         On translation

3.         Taming the demons

4.         Russian roulette

5.         The Russian 

Greg Patrick

1.         Rebel’s Heart – Short Story                                       238-243

David Jibson

1.         Things I Learned from Reading My Own Memoir    243-249

2.         Notes from the Lake County Jail

3.         Fugitive Memories

4.         Fathers’ Hopes for the Sons

5.         Nothing’s Going On

Smitha Vishwanath

1.         The Novice Artist                                                       250-251

2.         Ekphrastic Sonnet – Bathers at Asnieres - Seurat

Alec Solomita

1.         Mourning                                                                    252-255

2.         Time Passes, Listen…Time Passes

3.         In the Earliest of Days

Mandy Beattie

1.         Song-Stitch in Time                                                   256

                                                                        

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 27

Magicians with Words 

August 2023 - Early September 2023 

Buy

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 27 (lulu.com)

Welcome to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 27 – Magicians with Words. Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories and flash fiction. Journey with these 70 superb poets and fiction authors, herein Magicians with Words on the road. Immerse yourself in their spells cast in poems and stories that linger and haunt. Discover sublime works of fantasy, fairy tale and folklore, dreams and reality, dystopia, nature and magical realism with romance and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks.

Her Kind by Anne Sexton 

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

-Anne Sexton

“Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings — stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.” ― Greg Bear



“Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.“ ― Plato



“Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.“ ― Alice Walker



“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, that we may record our emptiness.” ― Kahlil Gibran



“A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.“ ― Salman Rushdie



"Poetry is like a bird, it ignores all frontiers." ― Yevgeny Yevtushenko



“Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.” ― Charles Bukowski



“When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.“ ― John F. Kennedy



"In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty." ― Seamus Heaney

 

Thank you to the following Poets & Authors for their superb contributions of Poetry and Fiction in Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 27 – Magicians with words:

 

Fred Johnston

Karen A. VandenBos

John Doyle

Lynne Kemen

Kushal Poddar

Wendy Webb

Damon Hubbs

Dr. Anushna Biswas     

Charles Rammelkamp

Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

Philip Butera

Snigdha Agrawal

Ahmad Al-Khatat

Lynda Tavakoli

Steve Klepetar

Dr. Koshy A.V.

Cheryl Snell

Rustin Larson

Barbara Leonard

James Walton

Myrtle Thomas

Neil Fulwood

Sharon Whitehill

Dan Raphael

Lynn White

Joseph A. Farina

Ann Privateer

Patrick B. Osada

Santosh Bakaya

Parker Fendler

Hifsa Ashraf and R.C. Thomas           

Stephen House

Persephone Ezra

Bonnie J. Scherer

Stephen Kingsnorth

Julie A. Dickson

Dr. Charles A. Stone

Nolcha Fox

Mohibul Aziz

Andrea Potos

Sterling Warner

Ursula O’Reilly

Gary Bills

Marie C. Lecrivain

Eddie Heaton

Susan Isla Tepper (Art on Blog by Digby Beaumont)

Cliff Wedgbury

Mandy Beattie

Michael Shlain

Emmie Christie

Chuck Kramer

Sharon Ferrante

Mark Hendrickson

Marcia Mitrowski

John Harold Olson

Dr. Emily Bilman

Nolo Segundo

Marguerite Doyle

James Penha

Jessica Weyer Bentley 

Allan Lake

 

Early September 2023 – Poetry and Fiction

Linda H. Y. Hegland

GJ Hart

Samo Kreutz

Bernard Pearson

Ninko Kirilov

Dr. Anissa Sboui

Michael H. Brownstein

Stephen A. Rozwenc

 

Contents

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                              Pages

August 2023 - Poetry and Fiction

Fred Johnston

1.         Motif on an Old Scots Ballad                                     17-19

2.         News Just In

3.         Canticle

Karen A. VandenBos

1.         Crow Medicine                                                           19-24

2.         Swamp Sisters

3.         Daughter of Spider Woman

4.         Thirteen Birthed Daughters

5.         An Ordinary Day

John Doyle

1.         My American Poet Friends…                                    24-29

2.         Beauparc Level Crossing, County Meath…

3.         The Low Days

4.         Donnie James, Rio

Lynne Kemen

1.         Childhood Is a Blur                                                    29-32

2.         Barn’s Burnt Down

3.         Dog & Boy’s Delight

4.         A Found Poem

5.         Icicles

Kushal Poddar

1.         Near the Red Light                                                     33-34

2.         The See-Through Dress Sun Wears Today

3.         That Last Train          

Wendy Webb

1.         Perspectives, Entranced (Ekphrastic)                         35-39

2.         I Wandered Bowderstone to Grasmere…

3.         Pressing for a Pulse

4.         Lighter Evenings

5.         Tanka

6.         Senryu

7.         Village Sign (Triolet)

8.         Shuck Up, After Dark (Limerick)

Damon Hubbs

1.         Dancing at Le Phonographique with Sylvia Plath     40-43

2.         Pail Shop Corners

3.         The Kings of Rattlesnake Hill

4.         Impressionists

Dr. Anushna Biswas

1.         Bleeding Land                                                            43-46

2.         Dreary Night

3.         Chasing Mirage

4.         Brown Dawn

5.         Jumping Bumps                      

Charles Rammelkamp

1.         One Night on Second Avenue                                                46-49

2.         The Howl

3.         Jo Boobs        

Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

1.         Bombay Fish Market                                                  49-52

2.         Ancestral Shipwreck

Philip Butera

1.         When a Dragon Blocks My Way                               52-57

2.         There Was a War Going On Back Then…

Snigdha Agrawal

1.         Love rhythms                                                             58-60

2.         Calming strategy

3.         Senryu

Ahmad Al-Khatat

1.         Asking The River                                                       60-61

2.         Let My Grief Flourish

3.         Her Laugh

Lynda Tavakoli

1.         Pathfinders                                                                 62-65

2.         Aftermath

3.         First Day at School

Steve Klepetar

1.         Even Then                                                                   65-67

2.         Praise

3.         The Final Verse

Dr. Koshy A.V.

1.         My Friend from Manipur – Short Story                     68-70

Cheryl Snell

1.         Big – Flash Fiction Story                                           70-72

Rustin Larson

1.         August                                                                        72-75

2.         Today Sounds Like a Washing Machine

3.         Raising Myself

4.         Courtyard

Barbara Leonard

1.         In the Meadow, Red Viburnum                                 75-79

2.         Collateral Damage

3.         Carrying the World in a Broken Laundry Basket

James Walton

1.         Daydream on a Season’s Ticket–Flash Fiction Story 80-81

Myrtle Thomas

1.         My Name Written in the Stars                                   82-84

2.         Walking Through Old Seasons

3.         Autumn Once Again

Neil Fulwood

1.         Beecham                                                                     84-86

2.         Reiner

3.         Jochum

4.         Harnon court

Sharon Whitehill

1.         Hiraeth                                                                                   86-91

2.         La Dame Aux Comelias

3.         Burning Mouth Syndrome

4.         Accidental Expressionism

5.         Sixteen

Dan Raphael

1.         [no title fits]                                                                91-94

2.         Even Almost Winter

3.         Sampling Autumn

Lynn White

1.         Temptation                                                                 95-98

2.         Underworld

3.         The Empty House

Joseph A. Farina

1.         American Anthems                                                     98-100

Ann Privateer

1.         Over and Over Again                                                 100-101

2.         Unaware

Patrick B. Osada

1.         Warming (The Lighthouse)                                        101-104

2.         Nothing

3.         Warning

4.         Magpies

Santosh Bakaya

1.         Dreamscape [a Haibun]                                              105-107

2.         The Fractured Reality

3.         The Octogenarian and the Dachshund   

Parker Fendler

1.         The Outlaw and the Snake                                         108-109

Hifsa Ashraf and R.C. Thomas

1.         Five Tan0Renga Poems - Collaboration                    110-111               

Stephen House

1.         occasionally I read Harry and Meghan Stories…      112

Persephone Ezra

1.         The Fools Ballad                                                        113-115

2.         Sin Waves

3.         Syntaxi Cabs

Bonnie J. Scherer

1.         Ten Short Form Poems                                               119-120

Stephen Kingsnorth

1.         Peddle Car                                                                  120-126

2.         Up The Creek

3.         Poster Paint

4.         Copperhead

5.         Western Ghats

6.         Within Range

Julie A. Dickson

1.         Ocean of hello                                                            127-130

2.         Memory

3.         Promise of water

4.         Lost at Sea

5.         Hanging plant

Dr. Charles A. Stone

1.         In the Dream                                                              130-132

2.         Suppressed

3.         Follow Me Home

Nolcha Fox

1.         An Instant                                                                   133-134

2.         Someday I’ll Be in Love with Light

3.         The Hard Road

4.         Fugitives

5.         A pretend Haiku

Mohibul Aziz

1.         The Same Candles                                                      135-137

2.         Intercontinental

Andrea Potos

1.         Sometimes, the Air                                                     137-140

2.         Muse Arrives in an Early Morning Hour

3.         My Mother and Gratitude

4.         Her Decision

Sterling Warner

1.         Rainforest Awakening                                                140-144

2.         Carrie’s Theatre

3.         Universal Arcs

4.         Hep

5.         Pins & Needles Wonderland

Ursula O’Reilly

1.         Objects                                                                        144-147

2.         Reflections

3.         Guests

4.         Irish Coffee

5.         Inside The Parenthesis of Being

Gary Bills

1.         Baldur                                                                         147-153

2.         Silly, Beautiful Things

3.         Unease

4.         October Flight

5.         Swarmies

6.         Winter Journey

7.         Winter Mosaic: Chedworth Roman Villa

8.         Markers

9.         Foggy Christmas

10.       Solstice Balefires

Marie C. Lecrivain

1.         The Star (XVII)                                                          153-157

2.         Saint Sinéad

Eddie Heaton

1.         one lost                                                                       157-159

2.         virtual non-reality

Susan Isla Tepper (Art on Blog by Digby Beaumont)

1.         Visit                                                                            159-160

Cliff Wedgbury

1.         Ahakista                                                                      160-161

2.         distances

3.         memory

Mandy Beattie

1.         The Feminine Misaligned & Maligned                      161-165

2.         First Lady of Flowers

3.         The End is Another Beginning

4.         Song – Stitch in Time

5.         Yang-Fur is Not Yin-Fur       

Michael Shlain

1.         An Ode to Nothing                                                     166-168

2.         La Dissidence

3.         The Sorcerer

Emmie Christie

1.         Diagonal Attraction                                                    169-170

Chuck Kramer

1.         Seasonal Transformations                                          171-175

2.         Poetry Today

3.         St Francis and the Animals

4.         Weatherman

5.         Home

Sharon Ferrante

1.         What Is Wicca                                                             175-176

2.         We Previously

3.         Cherita

4.         Tanka

5.         Haiku

Mark Hendrickson

1.         The River Has a Bucket List, Too                              177-178

2.         BarbieHeimer, The Summer’s Hottest Trend

Marcia Mitrowski

1.         While Reading Szymborska’s “Monologue of a        179-182

            Dog” with My Cat

2.         The Blue Truth

3.         Hold On

4.         Whose Time

5.         Peace Bridge  

John Harold Olson

1.         Doing Our Best                                                           183

2.         105 At Midnight

Dr. Emily Bilman

1.         Double Bind – Short Story                                         184-204 

Nolo Segundo

1.         Wrestling With God                                                   204-209

2.         The Gifts of God

3.         When I Pray

4.         Does God Get Lonely

5.         Where The Soul Hides

6.         Once, One Cell

Marguerite Doyle

1.         Lament for Hy-Breasal                                               210-214

2.         The Haunting of Loughshinny

3.         Snow Globe…After James Joyce

4.         Grandmother’s Alternative Bedtime Tale

5.         Demon Cream…After Bulgakov

James Penha

1.         In Equilibrium – Flash Fiction Story                         214-215

Jessica Weyer Bentley 

1.         The Tender Transformation                                       216-217

2.         The Virtue of Bathsheba

3.         The Mourning of Fille

Allan Lake

1.         Gone Viral                                                                  218-219

2.         Your Legacy

Early September 2023 – Poetry and Fiction

Linda H. Y. Hegland

1.         Sing My Song                                                             220

GJ Hart

1.         Time and Time and Time Again                                221-223          

Samo Kreutz

1.         Blossoming                                                                 223-225

2.         A piece of my poem

3.         No boundaries – Haiku Sequence

4.         Sleep and Wakefulness – Haiku Sequence

Bernard Pearson

1.         Dark Lord                                                                   225 

Ninko Kirilov

1.         Saturday Morning                                                       226

2.         A Girl on a Beach

3.         Anhedonia 2

Dr. Anissa Sboui

1.         Of Rebirth and Mother Earth                                     227-233

2.         to breathe, or not to breathe

3.         Pregnant with Paper

4.         the drowning youth

5.         slavery

6.         Arab Lives Matter

Michael H. Brownstein

1.         In the Heat of a Sleep                                                 234

2.         An Island Floats Down the Missouri

3.         Sun Storm

Stephen A. Rozwenc

1.         Afterlife Hindsight                                                     235-236

                                                                       

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 26

Peaceful Interludes 

June 2023 Continued - July 2023 

Buy

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 26 (lulu.com)

Welcome to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 26 – Peaceful Interludes. Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories and flash fiction. Journey with these 70 superb poets and fiction authors on the road,  sharing peaceful interludes and immerse yourself in their poems and stories that linger and haunt. Discover sublime works of fantasy, fairy tale and folklore, dreams and modern dystopia, nature and magical realism with romance and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks.

 

 

Letter from Albert Einstein to His Daughter Lieserl

 

In the late 1980s, Lieserl, the daughter of the famous genius, donated 1,400 letters, written by Einstein, to the Hebrew University, with orders not to publish their contents until two decades after his death. This is one of them, for Lieserl Einstein.

 

…”When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.

 

I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.

 

There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us.

 

This universal force is LOVE.

 

When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force.

 

Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it.

 

Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others.

 

Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals.

For love we live and die.

 

Love is God and God is Love.

 

This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.

To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation.

 

If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.

 

After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy…

 

If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.

 

Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.

 

However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.

 

When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.

 

I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer! “.

 

Your father Albert Einstein

 

Contents

 

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                              Pages

POETS and AUTHORS

 

June 2023 Continued- Poetry and Fiction

 

Wendy Webb

John Brantingham

C.X. Turner

Dennis Camire

Jay Maria Simpson

petro c.k.

Kadambari Kaul

Mark Young

Jeanette L. Miller

Steven Sibra

Daniel de Culla

Jim Meirose

Lavana Kray

Mikal Wix

 

July 2023 – Poetry & Fiction

 

Peycho Kanev

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

Gary Bills

Margaret Duda

John Drudge

Katherine E. Winnick

Maurizio Brancaleoni

Linda Imbler

Wayne F. Burke

Dr. Anissa Sboui

Kushal Poddar

Cleo Griffith

Robert McCarthy

Barbara Di Sacco

Joe Kidd

Mahua Sen

Paul Demuth

Rose Mary Boehm

John Harold Olson

Nolcha Fox

Ken Gosse

Linda H.Y. Hegland

John Yamrus

Artemis Rose Archer

Nathan Anderson

Lorie Greenspan      

Burgess Needle

Nancy Kennedy

Rp Verlaine

Adele Ogiér Jones

Tom Holmes

Chyrel J. Jackson

Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter

Glenis Moore

Allan Lake

Lyris D. Wallace

Rick Hartwell

JL Huffman

Sushant Thapa

Alec Solomita

Irma Kurti

Philip Butera

Daniela Rodi

Raymond Alexander Turco

Angel Edwards

Daipayan Nair

Desiree Batiste 

Peter Mladinic

Amrita Valan

Prithvijeet Sinha

Tina Hudak

Michael Lee Johnson

Gail White

Sandeep Sharma

Bridget Houlihan

Elliot M. Rubin

                                                                       

 

 

Contents

 

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                              Pages

 

June 2023 Continued- Poetry and Fiction

 

Wendy Webb

1.         Rethreading Garments                                                17-21

2.         Joie De Vivre, After

3.         To My Father, On Shaving

4.         Bike Ride, Earlham

5.         The Meaning of Mundesley

John Brantingham

1.         Butterfly Summer                                                       21-24

2.         Orange Summer Newt

3.         Chicken of the Forest

4.         Small Columns of Stone

C.X. Turner

1.         Ten Short Form Poems                                               25-30

2.         Sunflowers

3.         Stem

4.         Reconnecting

5.         Shoreline

6.         Rescue

Dennis Camire

1.         After Her Ex Takes His Own Life…                         30-36

2.         For the Bread Baker and His Conjoined Twins

3.         For the Black Bear Biologist Tagging Hibernating Bears

4.         Upon Learning Her Husband only has a few Months…

Jay Maria Simpson

1.         Dancing on the Frozen Stars                                      36-40

2.         The Loneliness Factory

3.         The Dancer

4.         Three Ways

5.         Train Tracks Wisdom and Bullshit   

petro c.k.

1.         Nitrogenase Ecclesiastes                                            41-43

2.         Hey Day Huggers

3.         Jethro Mothra

4.         Logarithm Begin the Juju

5.         Urticaria Jr.

Kadambari Kaul

1.         On Love                                                                      43-44

2.         Song of Life   

Mark Young

1.         Returning from foreign war zones                             44-47

2.         A double cypher

3.         Installing the new wi-fi extender

4.         Doubles Entendre

5.         Potpourri                     

Jeanette L. Miller

1.         First Snowfall                                                             47-50

2.         My White Dresses, Her Red Shoes

3.         A Crone Speaks from the Forest

4.         Me, My Aunt & Cousin, My Mother…

5.         Two Grandmothers Plus My Mother

Steven Sibra

1.         Blue Cheese                                                                51-52

2.         Pebbles

3.         Shattered

Daniel de Culla

1.         Where Are You Going?                                              53-57

2.         When the Frog Grows Hairs

3.         This Flower

Jim Meirose

1.         Something Seemingly Not Even a Road–Flash/F      57-58

Lavana Kray

1.         Five Photo Poems – (words only)                              58-59

2.         Honeycomb – Flash Fiction/Haibun

Mikal Wix

1.         A Farewell from the Sloth of Space                           60-63

2.         The Old Man in the Sky

3.         Parliament

 

July 2023 – Poetry & Fiction

 

Peycho Kanev

1.         A Note on the Pillow                                                  63-65

2.         At the End

3.         The Twin

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

1.         Holding On                                                                66-70

2.         Selfie

Gary Bills

1.         The Watchers from the Flood                                     71-79

2.         Graven Flowers

3.         Country Burr – Short Story

Margaret Duda

1.         Ask for Whom the Bell Tolls                                     79-83

2.         My Catholic Mother’s Jewish Sister

3.         Where Did It Come From?

John Drudge

1.         Alchemy                                                                    84-87

2.         Another Morning

3.         Depths

4.         Into the Wind

5.         Journey

6.         Spirit

Katherine E. Winnick

1.         Haiku                                                                          88

Maurizio Brancaleoni

1.         Bird Haiku – Translation Italian-English                   89-91

Linda Imbler

1.         Le Passe-muraille                                                       91-94

2.         The Well

3.         Hordes

4.         Vigil Within the Vernal Equinox

Wayne F. Burke

1.         Dream                                                                        95-98

2.         Bought-a-Gun

3.         You Are Loved

Dr. Anissa Sboui

1.         The Desired Heaven                                                   98-101

2.         The Quranic School

3.         God Spoke to Her

4.         I Lyric to the Critic

Kushal Poddar

1.         Loops                                                                          102-104

2.         The Dry Spell

3.         Halo-rainbow around my sins

4.         The Obscene Gesture of a Milestone

5.         Where the Nuclear Power Plant Melted Down

 

Cleo Griffith

1.         For You Who Remember                                           105-107

2.         Gifts

3.         Glow from Old Lanterns

4.         White Chevy Silverados

Robert McCarthy

1.         Exequy                                                                        108-113

2.         Fissiparity

3.         Many Loves, None of Them True

4.         Undistinguished Aridity

5.         Prayer in Winter

Barbara Di Sacco

1.         Canio                                                                          113-116

2.         Music is Female

3.         Puppet

Joe Kidd

1.         Dream of Kings                                                          116-119

2.         Night Falls Upon the Silent and the Still

3.         October Rose

4.         Solstice – part one   

Mahua Sen

1.         Anamnesis                                                                  120-121

Paul Demuth

1.         The Shipwreck’s Bar                                                  122-123

2.         Hoop Anchor Top Egg

3.         Sunday               

Rose Mary Boehm

1.         Advent                                                                        123-127

2.         Crossing Illegally from Germany into Germany

3.         Feierabend

4.         Guilt

John Harold Olson

1.         Gloria or Prodigal Blues                                             127-129

2.         Untitled Poem

3.         Untitled Poem

Nolcha Fox

1.         Haiku                                                                          129-130

2.         Storm

3.         If sleep was an elevator

4.         Fork

 

Ken Gosse

1.         Not Enough Hair on My Chinny-chin-chin               131-133

2.         Desert Deuces for Dessert

3.         When the Dawn Came Up Like Thunder

4.         Abruptus Interuptus

5.         Breaking Up is Hard to Dooby Dooby Do…

Linda H.Y. Hegland

1.         Old Chevy Truck and Prairie Choirs                          133-136

2.         Wishes on a Falcon/Freeing Falling Stars

John Yamrus

1.         LEDA was a dancer                                                   137-142

2.         did you ever

3.         it was

Artemis Rose Archer

1.         Sliver of Moon                                                          142-144

2.         Bumble

3.         Maple

4.         Like a Songbird

Nathan Anderson

1.         Collapsing into Symphony                                         144-150

2.         Hatchet rings as [anti]-bells

3.         Lopsided [not] Dromedary [touch]

4.         Medical Reduction (vanishing)

5.         Telegraph//Inhalation

Lorie Greenspan      

1.         i am                                                                             151-154

2.         My turtle

3.         The curves of grace

4.         first, on a road of whales

5.         Playful

Burgess Needle

1.         All That Is Left                                                           155-159

2.         Gift of Goodness

3.         Kiss of Jojoba Oil

4.         Tucson Rose After Rain

Nancy Kennedy

1.         To the Patron Saint of Lost Causes                            160-163

2.         Night Song

3.         Daughter of Ophelia

4.         White Plastic Buttons

5.         Fait Accompli

Rp Verlaine

1.         A.I. Interactive                                                           163-168

2.         Plethora

3.         Escape Has Its Benefits

4.         That Drunken Night

5.         Inside The Parenthesis of Being

Adele Ogiér Jones

1.         Haiku for the longest day of the year                         169-170

Tom Holmes

1.         A Long-Forgotten Story with Shoes – Short Story    171-178

Chyrel J. Jackson

1.         Nature’s Incubator                                                      179-181

2.         Limitless Devotion

3.         Rushing

4.         Broken

5.         My Heart is Happiest Watching Ezra Dance

Benjamin Bennett-Carpenter

1.         Every Day                                                                   182-184

2.         Equality of Day

3.         They Jump

Glenis Moore

1.         A glass darkly                                                             184-185

2.         In the dark

Allan Lake

1.         Annual Report                                                            185-186

Lyris D. Wallace

1.         Moments                                                                     186-190

2.         Motionless Feet

3.         Keep Running

4.         A Beginning

5.         Still We Move

Rick Hartwell

1.         Nurse Says                                                                  190-191

2.         Street Safety

3.         Ribbons in the Sea

JL Huffman

1.         Haiku/Senryu                                                              192

Sushant Thapa

1.         The Awakened Heart                                                  193

Alec Solomita

1.         Lunch Poem                                                                194-195

Irma Kurti

1.         The Naked Day                                                           195-198

2.         Come Back to Me

3.         Without A Homeland

4.         Your Voice Won’t Reach Me

Philip Butera

1.         Some Friends are Black Mirrors                                199-200

Daniela Rodi

1.         Haiku                                                                          201-203 

Raymond Alexander Turco

1.         The Apocryphon of Remus – Short Story                  203-207

Angel Edwards

1.         From Love Withdraw - Lyrics                                   208

Daipayan Nair

1.         Haiku                                                                          208-210

Desiree Batiste 

1.         Following Greatness                                                   210-216

2.         Hourglass

3.         On the Floor

4.         She is Not Me, but I am Her

5.         The River

Peter Mladinic

1.         Message in a Bottle                                                    216-220

2.         Up and Out

3.         Chapter from an Egyptian Novel

4.         Selfie

Amrita Valan

1.         Hocus Pocus – an Ekphrastic poem                           221-225

2.         Impermanent Eternity

3.         Your Dominance of My World

Prithvijeet Sinha

1.         Go Into the Crevice                                                    226-230

2.         Dying Breed  

Tina Hudak

1.         Poughkeepsie – Short Story                                       231-234

Michael Lee Johnson

1.         Summer is Dying                                                        235-237

2.         Bowl of Black Petunias

3.         Memories Past

4.         Now That I Desire

 

Gail White

1.         I Can Imagine                                                             237-238

2.         The Innocent

3.         The Old Dame Looks Ahead

Sandeep Sharma

1.         Rhymeopause, Baldness and all that stuff                 239-240

Bridget Houlihan

1.         Spring (I)                                                                    240-243

2.         Last Moments

3.         Corks

4.         Spring (II)

5.         Shower of Leaves

Elliot M. Rubin

1.         moon dreams                                                              244-245

2.         my newest son

3.         oxford

                                                                       

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 25

Crows in Boots Walking 

June 2023 

Buy

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 25 (lulu.com)

Congratulations dear contributors to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 25 – Crows in Boots Walking. I am honoured and delighted to publish your superb poetry and fiction from the month of June 2023 in this stunning volume and have attached your free PDF Copy. The printed book is now available from today to purchase from lulu.com by clicking the link below-

Buy Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 25 (lulu.com)

I hope you will consider purchasing this stunning 242 page feast of 75 internationally esteemed poets and fiction writers for your personal published collections, family and friends. Thank you for your continuing contributions and support of Lothlorien Poetry Journal my Fellow Lothlorians. Every purchase helps me to continue publishing Lothlorien Poetry Journal and is deeply appreciated.

Warmest wishes,

Strider Marcus Jones – Editor in Chief. Xx

 

Welcome to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 25 – Crows in Boots Walking. Lothlorien Poetry Journal is a contemporary literary journal featuring free verse/rhyming/experimental poetry, short stories and flash fiction. Journey with these 75 superb poets and fiction authors on the road, walking with crows and immerse yourself in poems and stories that linger and haunt. Discover sublime works of fantasy, fairy tale and folklore, dreams and dystopia, nature and magical realism with romance and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks.

 

 

“Not cry. Fly.
“I can’t fly,” Bran said. “I can’t, I can’t…”
How do you know? Have you ever tried?
The voice was high and thin. Bran looked around to see where it was coming from. A crow was spiraling down with him, just out of touch, following him as he fell. “Help me,” he said.
I’m trying, the crow replied…
The crow took to the air and flapped around Bran’s hand.
“You have wings,” Bran pointed out.
Maybe you do too.
Bran felt along his shoulders, groping for feathers.
There are different kinds of wings, the crow said…
Bran was falling faster than ever. The grey mists howled around him as he plunged toward the earth below. “What are you doing to me?” he asked the crow, tearful.
Teaching you how to fly.
“I can’t fly!”
You’re flying right now.
“I’m falling!”
Every flight begins with a fall, the crow said. Look down.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

 

 

“On a bare branch a crow is perched - autumn evening”

― Bashō

 

 

People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.

 

-James O'Barr

 

 

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.

 

William Shakespeare

 

 

Crows don’t take from you,” Dean said. “They give your soul wings.

 

Caitlin Kittredge

 

 

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

 

-Robert Frost

 

 

POETS & AUTHORS

 

June 2023 - Poetry and Fiction

 

Bob MacKenzie

C L S Sandoval

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Savannah Hernandez

Mark Hendrickson

Lynda Tavakoli

 

Nolo Segundo        

Duane Vorhees

Angel Edwards

Alec Solomita

Keith Snow

Walter Bargen

 

Snigdha Agrawal

J.J. Campbell

Pawel Markiewicz

Patricia Furstenberg

John Doyle

Thomas Elson

 

Michael E. Theroux (Teru)

Ken Kapp

Wayne F. Burke

Inam Hussain Begg Mullick

Wendy Webb

John Harold Olson

 

Margot Block

John Yamrus

Henry Wolstat

Dr. Anissa Sboui

 

Greg Patrick

Angel Edwards

 

Robert Cooperman

Cindy Ellen Hill

Stephen A. Rozwenc

Susan Isla Tepper

George Gad Economou

Amanda Niamh Dawson

 

Vernon Frazer

Louisa Muniz

Jack D. Harvey

Joan Leotta 

Jerome Berglund

Michelle Rule

 

Christina Chin,

Marjorie Pezzoli

Katie Mohr

Sherry Grant

Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi

Sushant Thapa

 

Julie Ann Thomason

Diarmuid ó Maolalaí

Sarah Davies

Richard D. Houff

Myrtle Thomas

Fabrice Poussin

 

Jackie Chou

Alan Catlin

Shelly Jones

Christopher Barnes

Joan McNerney

Kushal Poddar

 

Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon

Clarke Zlotchew

Mykyta Ryzhykh

Robert Witmer

Linda King

Timothy Resau

 

Anthony Fagan

Ursula O’Reilly

Mike Zone

Maria Teresa Sisti

Laura Stamps

Stephen Kingsnorth

 

Karen O’Leary & Paul Callus

Terry Wheeler

J.D. Nelson

Santosh Bakaya

David Alec Knight

                                                                       

 

Contents

 

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                                Pages

 

June 2023 - Poetry and Fiction

 

Bob MacKenzie

1.        peace                                                                         17-19

2.        even this matters

3.        study in white

4.        the artist

5.        Rouge

C L S Sandoval

1.        Amidst the Crowd                                                  20-23

2.        Away from You

3.        Blank

4.        Daily Impact

5.        Effects of My Betrayal

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

1.        He Went to the Bahamas, His Luggage…                     23-27

2.        Mechanically Separated Cars

3.        He Said the Hadron Collider Sounded Bad…

4.        If You’re So Gutted, Why Don’t You Become…

5.        Swami Salami

Savannah Hernandez

1.        Shattered Shell – Flash Fiction Story                            27-28

Mark Hendrickson

1.        Mid-West Living (or My Apologies)                               28-29            

Lynda Tavakoli

1.        Garden                                                                                  29-31

Nolo Segundo

1.        A Morning’s Walk                                                   32-39

2.        Come and Draw Strength From Me

3.        The Look In Her Eyes

4.        Will My Soul Fly?

5.        A Passing Glance

6.        When Sedate Age Remembers Crazy Youth  

Duane Vorhees

1.        A New Study In Scarlet – Short Story                40-41             

Angel Edwards

1.        Take Time                                                                 41-43

2.        At War

Alec Solomita

1.        The Dying Gaul                                                        43-44

Keith Snow

1.        Semi Unconscious Stream                                               44-46

2.        If Poems Were Promoted Like Movies

3.        Lost City Found Behind Big Lot…

4.        Sanctuary

Walter Bargen

1.        Domestic Doubts                                                    47-51

2.        Great Salt Lake

3.        Ultima Thule

4.        Little League

5.        Return to the Sea

Snigdha Agrawal

1.        Five Haiku Poems                                                   52-53

2.        Five Micro Poems

J.J. Campbell

1.        further away                                                                        54-57

2.        for over thirty years

3.        tripping the night away

4.        without ever having to wait in line

Pawel Markiewicz

1.        The responsive awakening of springtide                     58-59

2.        The Druid – Flash Fiction

Patricia Furstenberg

1.        When Man Birthed Art                                         60-66

2.        A Life in Yellow and Blue

3.        The Vanishing Dragons

4.        When Her Body Whispered

5.        After a Lurid Dream

John Doyle

1.        I’ve Got to Be in Nicaragua by Noon                             66-70

2.        Don’t Dream, It’s Over

3.        Ben

4.        Hospitals

5.        The Groovy Gang from the Liberal Arts College Drama…

6.        Algorhythms

Thomas Elson

1.        What’s Left to Hear                                                           70-73

2.        The Boathouse

3.        His Butterfly

Michael E. Theroux (Teru)

1.        Sunday Morning Nap                                                       74-77

2.        Touch

3.        Riptide of the Soul

4.        Odd

5.        Life’s Wine

Ken Kapp

1.        D’aneter, a Porpoise with a Purpose – Flash Fiction            78-79

Wayne F. Burke

1.        Class President                                                        79-82

2.        Bad Day

3.        Fog

4.        Aphorism

5.        Local # 27

Inam Hussain Begg Mullick

1.        Love Cosmic                                                             83-84

2.        Inamorato Takes a Walk

Wendy Webb

1.        Reflections Into Fall (Palindromedary Sonnet)          85-89

2.        Valley of the Tiger’s Shadow (Glosa)

3.        If I Had…A Daughter

4.        Where’s It Going?

5.        At Cross Purposes

John Harold Olson

1.        Shore Patrol                                                             90-92

2.        El Cajon Boulevard

3.        Cornelia and Portia

Margot Block

1.        Five Untitled Poems                                                          92-94

John Yamrus

1.        he was in                                                                  95-98

2.        i worked

3.        he said

Henry Wolstat

1.        A Beam of Light                                                      99-100

2.        Returning Home

Dr. Anissa Sboui

1.        Her Own Portrait Is Painted                                            100-102

2.        I was safer

 

Greg Patrick

1.        Derry Nights I Dream of Fire                                           103-108   

Angel Edwards

1.        At the Edge of Paradise – Short Story              108-121

Robert Cooperman

1.        Reciting “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”121-124

2.        Chekhov’s Gun

3.        A Game of Chess

4.        Writing the Great American Novel               

Cindy Ellen Hill

1.        All Hallow’s Eve                                                       125-127

2.        Hounds

3.        March Snowfall (Spring Equinox)

4.        Picking Fiddleheads

5.        Night Frolic

Stephen A. Rozwenc

1.        Four Haiku Poems with French… Translations           128-129

Susan Isla Tepper

1.        Crunch in the Night                                                           129

George Gad Economou

1.        screaming driver                                                     130-133

2.        a fairytale

3.        all those wasted nights

4.        we stayed

5.        eternal infamy

Amanda Niamh Dawson

1.        Soul’s Flight                                                             134-135

2.        Nature’s Art

3.        History Holds

Vernon Frazer

1.        Doubled Back                                                                     135-139

2.        Game Patriots

3.        Drunk on Promise

4.        Living Down the Good Life

5.        Vacation Refuge on Vacation

Louisa Muniz

1.        Gone Missing                                                                      140-143

2.        Persephone

3.        Invocation

Jack D. Harvey

1.        You’re Only Dead Once                                        143-149

2.        Michael the Paphlagonian

3.        The Persistence of Beatrice

4.        Playing with Fire

5.        Melissa

Joan Leotta 

1.        Reading Neruda on War While Waiting…                    150-151

Jerome Berglund, Michelle Rule, Christina Chin,

Marjorie Pezzoli, Katie Mohr & Sherry Grant

1.        Five Linked Form Collaborative Poems                        151-155

Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi

1.        Song sets                                                                  156

Sushant Thapa

1.        Carrying a Novel                                                     156-157

Julie Ann Thomason

1.        Twelve Haiku Poems                                                         157-159

Diarmuid ó Maolalaí

1.        Mongrels                                                                  160-163

2.        The kitchen table

3.        A patch-furred dog

4.        Carrion

5.        Making Things Warm

Sarah Davies

1.        Moonscaper                                                             164-167

2.        The museum of you

3.        Memento

4.        The Scholar

5.        Fragmental

Richard D. Houff

1.        A Hometown Story                                                167-171

2.        The Paper Route

3.        My Disassembled Head

Myrtle Thomas

1.        Catching Fireflies Until Twilight                          172-173

2.        Soul Searching

Fabrice Poussin

1.        Beauty Masks                                                                      173-177

2.        Script 2021

3.        Sign of Being

4.        True Believers

5.        What if?

 

Jackie Chou

1.        The Performance                                                    178-180

2.        Not Another Hallmark Love Poem

3.        The People-Eater

4.        Red

Alan Catlin

1.        First Snow                                                                181-182

2.        Untitled Poem

3.        Untitled Poem

4.        Seaside Still Life Winter

Shelly Jones

1.        Requiem                                                                    183-184

2.        Echo

3.        On Listening to the Patter of Melting Snow

Christopher Barnes

1.        Fragments 26                                                                      184-185

2.        Fragments 27

3.        Fragments 28

4.        Fragments 29

5.        Fragments 30

Joan McNerney

1.        Falling Asleep                                                                     186-189

2.        Nightscape

3.        Lost Dream

4.        Beach

5.        When I Was New

Kushal Poddar

1.        I Couldn’t Catch That                                                        190-191

2.        Enamel

3.        Emergency Benevolence 

Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon

1.        After Visiting Dove Cottage                                             192-195

2.        Internal Dialogue Whilst Waiting for Transport

3.        Lachrymose

4.        Unprecedented Weather

5.        Moving On

Clarke Zlotchew

1.        Honey and Grapes – Short Story                                    196-202 

Mykyta Ryzhykh

1.        Five Untitled Poems                                                          202-203

 

Robert Witmer

1.        Placibo Domino in regione vivorum                              203-205

2.        A Snapshot of Our Times

3.        Cast Out

4.        Little Boy Blue

5.        Unto Zophos Descends the King of Byblos

Linda King

1.        in this short transit                                                206-207

2.        lines of stones in a fallow field

3.        the crows at happy hour

Timothy Resau 

1.        dear kierkegaard – Short Story                          208-210

Anthony Fagan

1.        No New Messages                                                  211-212

2.        I Kissed Your Lips

3.        Brave Face

4.        Doll’s House

Ursula O’Reilly

1.        Beautifully Cracked                                                            213-215

2.        Between the Cracks

3.        Cracked Box

4.        Not Broken

Mike Zone

1.        The Crown                                                                216-221

2.        Social distortion

3.        Train of thought

4.        Dreaming blue

5.        Peninsula Gardens

Maria Teresa Sisti

1.        Six Haiku Poems                                                     221-222

Laura Stamps

1.        Accessorizing                                                                       222-223

2.        Boy or Girl

3.        How to Manifest Your Dreams 

Stephen Kingsnorth

1.        Joint Enterprise                                                       224-228

2.        Dyslexic Games

3.        Lengths for Width

4.        Rows

5.        Growing Patch

 

Karen O’Leary & Paul Callus

1.        Two Tan-renga Poems                                          228-229

Terry Wheeler

1.        earworms (kylie dub)                                                        229-232

2.        come on in my kitchen

3.        madame george

4.        lost highway

5.        old treetops nocturne

J.D. Nelson

1.        brain zaps                                                                 233-234

2.        oscillating fields

3.        junior light

4.        villa alegre

5.        sinistar

Santosh Bakaya

1.        The Nocturnal Gab Fest                                        234-237

2.        Red Tape

3.        The Broken Cup

David Alec Knight

1.        On Spec                                                                     238-241

2.        Leave To Arrive

3.        Crows, Dying On the Winds

4.        Beware of Poet Dancing

                                                                       

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 24

Variations in the Triangle 

May 2023 Continued

Buy

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 24 (lulu.com)

Congratulations dear contributors to Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 24 – Variations in the Triangle. I am honoured and delighted to publish your superb poetry and fiction from the month of May 2023 continued in this stunning volume and have attached your free PDF Copy. The printed book is now available from today to purchase from lulu.com by clicking the link below-

Buy Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 24 (lulu.com)

I hope you will consider purchasing this stunning 254 page feast of 70 internationally esteemed poets and fiction writers for your personal published collections, family and friends. Thank you most sincerely for your continuing contributions and support of Lothlorien Poetry Journal my Fellow Lothlorians. Every purchase helps me to continue publishing Lothlorien Poetry Journal and is deeply appreciated.

Warmest wishes always,

Strider Marcus Jones – Editor in Chief. Xx

 

Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 24 – Variations in the Triangles features the best poetry and fiction from 70 internationally renowned poets and authors who bring their own original take on twenty-first century life and society. These poets and authors delve deeper and fearlessly search for truth, understanding and freedom exposing variations in the triangles of life.  Join them and discover poems and stories of fantasy and folklore, dystopia, magical realism, romance, and anything hiding deep in-between the cracks.

 

 

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

There are no variations except for those who know a norm, and no subtleties for those who have not grasped the obvious. — C.S. Lewis

 

 

There are infinitely many variations of the initial situation and therefore no doubt indefinitely many theorems of moral geometry. — John Rawls

 

 

It struck me that favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones tend to be destroyed — Charles Darwin

 

 

Water Source and earthbound substance in endless theme and variation. There is need of rest, renewal and appreciation of the ever-changing landscape. — Lynne Hurd Bryant

 

 

Repetition makes us feel secure and variation makes us feel free.

Robert Hass

 

Change is upsetting. Repetition is tedious. Three cheers for variation!

Mason Cooley

 

Nature is so delightful and abundant in its variations that among trees of the same kind there would not be found one which nearly resembles another, and not only the plants as a whole, but among their branches, leaves, and fruit, will not be found one which is precisely like another.

Leonardo da Vinci

 

 

It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.

Albert Einstein

 

 

There are patterns which emerge in one's life, circling and returning anew, an endless variation of a theme — Jacqueline Carey

 

 

Life set itself to new processions of seed-time and harvest, the skin newly turned to seasonal variations, the very blood humming to new altitudes. — Mary Hunter Austin

 

 

The thoughts which the word "God" suggests to the human mind are susceptible of as many variations as human minds themselves. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

 

There are not many original shapes or silhouettes
only a million variations. — Charles James

 

 

Featured Poets/Fiction Authors

 

Randy Barnes

Margaret Duda

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

John Grey

Andrea Potos

Stephen A. Rozwenc

Mary Grimm           

AE Reiff

Susan Wilson

Massimo Fantuzzi

Patricia Furstenberg

Duane Vorhees

Lara Dolphin

Stephen House

Farah Ali

Dr Charles A. Stone

j. lewis

Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

John Doyle

Ammanda Selethia Moore

Rick Hartwell

Lark Beltran

Peter J. Donnelly

Lynn White

Rustin Larson

Snigdha Agrawal

Philip Butera

Karen Lynn Kerekes

Steve Klepetar

Jennifer Lagier

 

Fadrian Bartley

Angel Edwards

Samo Kreutz

Karen A. VandenBos

Joseph A. Farina

Julie Ann Thomason

Kushal Poddar

Catherine Zickgraf

Damon Hubbs   

H.K.G. Lowery

Abel Johnson Thundil

Ed Ahern

Patricia Nelson

Dr Ralph Monday

Julie A. Dickson

D.R. James

Cliff Wedgbury

Nolcha Fox

Arthur Turfa

Sharon Waller Knutson

J.B. Hogan

Aariona Harris

Ken Gosse

Tony Pena

Michael H. Brownstein

Kelley White

Tony Brewer

R.W. Stephens – Ekphrastic Escher Series 1

Kathleen Chamberlin

Steven Fortune 

Bartholomew Barker

Jonathan S. Baker

Tony Dawson

John Tustin

Linda M. Crate

Paul Sohar

K.G. Munro

Joe Bisicchia

Kenneth M. Kapp

Hifsa Ashraf and Oscar Luparia – Collaboration

 

 

Contents

 

Editorial Poems by Strider Marcus Jones                                Pages

 

May 2023 Continued - Poetry and Fiction

 

Randy Barnes

1.        Opinions Consigned to Eruptive Causes                      17-19

2.        Blind Honey Bends the Wires

3.        A Pill for Your Troubles

4.        Minute Correction

5.        Wandering Caseload

6.        Take Two

Margaret Duda

1.        Keepers of the Faith – Short Story                                20-27

Ryan Quinn Flanagan

1.        Bob Marley Breaks into a Limbo Outside the Toyo   28-31

2.        Leaf Erikson

3.        The Charleston Bridge Crossing

4.        The Bet

5.        Good Evening, from the Russian Underground

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko

1.        KALEIDOSCOPE                                                        32-36

2.        Green

3.        Old Friends

John Grey

1.        Any Moment Now                                                  37-41

2.        Isaac

3.        Boundaries at the Fast Food Restaurant

4.        The Little Match Girl and the Dragon Slayer

5,        Survival Tactics      

Andrea Potos

1.        Poem to 4:40 PM ON March 20, Spring Equinox       41-43

2.        When My Mother Called

3.        On Dreams

4.        After Not Being Chosen to Read at the Emily Dickinson…

5.        Three Acorns from Emily’s Yard

Stephen A. Rozwenc

1.        Ten Haiku Poems                                                    44-46

Mary Grimm

1.        Dorothy Wordsworth Undercover-Flash Fiction       47-49             

AE Reiff

1.        Earth Descending in the Lovely                          50-55

2.        The Road to Zion

3.        New Troy

4.        Leviathan Spread

5.        Squid Hats

Susan Wilson

1.        Every Ten Years                                                      56-58

2.        City Lunch Rendezvous

3.        I’ve Been Listening to…

4.        One for Sorrow

5.        Weekend Working

Massimo Fantuzzi

1.        Full August Lost and Found                                             58-62

2.        Ash

3.        Witchery, a Pastorale

4.        Barcarolle

5.        Tender Afternoon on Cream Crocheted Wool

Patricia Furstenberg

1.        Life Lived Backwards and Upwards                               63-67

2.        Speaking Stones

3.        Prophecy

Duane Vorhees

1.        We Are the Progeny of the Big Bang                            67-69

2.        Some Four or Five Descents Since

3.        That Ancient Gentrification

4.        Amphibians

5.        Correct Attribution

Lara Dolphin

1.        When There Are No Cracks                                             70-71

2.        The Park That If You Had More Than One Life…

3.        The Park That Fills You With Sudden Inexplicable

            Curiosity

Stephen House

1.        how much – prose poem                                     72

Farah Ali

1.        Starling Theatre                                                     73-79

2.        To Walk In Ancient Woodland With You

3.        Intertidal Zone

4.        Witches’ Circle

5.        Love Apothecary – Haiku Sequence

Dr Charles A. Stone

1.        Morning Rituals                                                      79-80

2.        Fair Share

j. lewis

1.        every cancer is my mother                                              81-82

Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca

1.        This is the City                                                        83-84

2.        Give Me Oil in My Lamp

John Doyle

1.        The Liminal Figures                                                            85-88

2.        Inertia 101

3.        Love Song for the Year 2019

4.        Jesus Christ, Mr Dubois and Those Dreams of Voodoo

Ammanda Selethia Moore

1.        Looking Down Glen Canyon Dam                                  88

Rick Hartwell

1.        Kaua’i, South Shore Morning                                          89

2.        Flowering Hibiscus

Lark Beltran

1.        Ylang-Ylang                                                               90-93

2.        All I Have Never Seen

3.        Fantasia

4.        Watching The Line

Peter J. Donnelly

1.        The Other Bennett                                                 93-97

2.        Despite the Myths

3.        Just a Few Lines

4.        Curlew

5.        Language and Music

Lynn White

1.        A Fishy Tale                                                              98-99

2.        Fish Out of Water

3.        Goldfish

Rustin Larson

1.        Seaplane                                                                   100-107

2.        Circus

3.        The Fort

4.        Tempest

5.        The Hobbyist

6.        The Urge to Paint

7.        Ghosts

8.        Instruction

9.        Amish Grocery

Snigdha Agrawal

1.        Dissenting Voices                                                   108-111

2.        Portrait of Her

Philip Butera

1.        The Reflection from a Million Mirrors Shattering     112-116

Karen Lynn Kerekes

1.        Suspended                                                                116-119

2.        Undiscovered

3.        Winter Haven   

Steve Klepetar

1.        The Markets of Eternity                                        120-122

2.        Twenty Questions

3.        The River of What Used to Be

Jennifer Lagier

1.        Acorn Woodpecker                                                            122-124

2.        Murder in the Afternoon

3.        Colibri               

Fadrian Bartley

1.        No Skin Is Too Thick                                                           124-127

2.        Cat-o-Nine Tail

3.        Wind and Whispers

4.        Rules of Attraction

5.        Wired and Remote

Angel Edwards

1.        Teddy the Teddy Bear       - Micro Story                                  128-129

Samo Kreutz

1.        Eight Haiku Poems                                                 130-131

Karen A. VandenBos

1.        And So It Goes                                                        131-135

2.        She Is Here

3.        The Devil’s Trumpet of Reality

4.        Dear Muse

4.        Moonbeams and Shooting Stars

Joseph A. Farina

1.        senescence                                                               135-137

2.        panorama

3.        anziani

4.        paper kisses, memory embraces

5.        black magic targa

Julie Ann Thomason

1.        The Acrobats Wheel – Flash Fiction                              138

Kushal Poddar

1.        Mirrorground Fair Narcissus                                           139-140

2.        The Village In The Shadow Of A Windmill

3.        Look Up Syndrome

Catherine Zickgraf

1.        You Still Walk Among Us                                      140-141

Damon Hubbs        

1.        Iceland (ii)                                                                141-145

2.        Briar Rose

3.        Pretty Mouths

4.        Hutch

5.        Sprezzatura! and the Birds of Paradise

H.K.G. Lowery

1.        Tinnitus                                                                     145-148

2.        Coincidentally Sat with Paul Muldoon…

3.        King Charles Spaniel Eulogy (Interlude)

4.        On Nero Playing A Lyre While Rome Burned

Abel Johnson Thundil

1.        Blue windows                                                                      149-150

2.        Unappreciated

Ed Ahern

1.        Sweet Petunia – Short Stoty                                           150-153

Patricia Nelson

1.        Igor Contemplates His Master                            153-155

2.        The Centaur Chiron

3.        The Uncertainty of Omens

4.        A Sybil’s Wish

Dr Ralph Monday

1.        Cultural Conversation Over Creamed Coffee             155-162

2.        All the Doubles Never Known

3.        Sand Painting a Promise

4.        An Appalachian Moon

5.        Love as a Cosmic Quandary

Julie A. Dickson

1.        The fabric of my world                                          162-165

2.        Dream boat

3.   &nbs