Two Poems by Smitha Vishwanath

 

The Novice Artist

 

There is an easel in the living room
beside the unbleached white sofa
with the Indian yellow cushions and Paynes grey throws
Behind it is the glass cabinet
with memories from far and near-
a viridian red Vespa and a Prussian blue windmill
the leaning tower of Pisa in the highest value
of yellow ochre and the Eiffel tower in blue-grey,
On the top shelf is a photograph of her girls
on their first birthday- one in lilac and the other in pink.

On the wooden easel- the colour of raw sienna,
lies a blank canvas, waiting
urging
her to begin; the spotless white daunting
makes her ponder, ‘what if she falters?
What will it take for a novice like her
to paint the world that she sees?
Is a palette of a myriad hues
enough to replicate the yellows and blues
of O' Keefe's sunflower and Gogh's starry skies?’

‘Is it enough to overcome the dread-
tubes of sap green, viridian green, scarlet and cadmium red,
to duplicate Monet's 'Water lilies' and Heade's 'Sunrise'
or is it wise
to give up without trying
and let the canvas stand brooding
desperate for a splash of colour?’
She pauses awhile-
staring out into the distance
before dipping her brush in a palette of crimson.

Ekphrastic poem on the painting ‘ Bathers at Asnières’ by Georges Pierre Seurat

A Sonnet

 

I stand on the banks

Of the Siena on a warm summer’s day;

I see men and women of lower ranks

lounging; waxen figures, their eyes far away.

With strokes and dots, I capture the view-

Bridge, boats, people who matter.

Green trees, ashen smoke, and pale blue

Of the skies and ripples on the water

I choose not to paint the Saints and Gods,

Or tell a story of the past through my art

Neither do I paint the Ladies and the Lords

But only that which touches my heart.

So, view my painting not in parts, but in its entirety

Be enraptured by the beauty in the ordinary.

 

Smitha Vishwanath is a banker turned writer. She began her writing journey in 2016 through her blog. Thieving Magpies, Spillwords Press, Silverbirch Press, Borderless Journal, and Rebelle Society have published her poetry. In 2019, her poem, 'Omid' was nominated for Best of the Net and her poems, 'Do you have dreams?' and 'Forgotten' were given special mention in NaPoWriMo, 2021 and 2022, hosted by Maureen Thomson. In addition, she was awarded the Reuel International Prize for poetry during the NaPoWriMo month by TSL. In 2019, she co-authored a book of poetry, 'Roads- A journey with Verses', which received positive reviews. Smitha's writing is peppered with the lessons learned from the plethora of invaluable experiences that come from having lived in India, UAE and Iran, worked in a multi-cultural environment and travelled widely. She resides in Dhaka, Bangladesh, with her husband and two daughters. When she is not writing, you can find her painting, travelling, or sharing reviews of books she has read on Goodreads, Amazon, and her blog. Her debut novel 'Coming Home' was released on 24th March 2023 and is currently available through Amazon on Kindle and as paperback, in most countries.

Five Poems by David Jibson

 

Things I Learned from Reading My Own Memoir

 

I was less successful than I thought I was.
I had worse parents than I thought I had.
Everything I know is wrong.
Everything I remember is false.
I thought I would make a difference.
Gravity is not always my friend.
The things I did for others, I did for me.
Some things are worth doing badly.
I don’t have a lucky number.
Choose the simplest font.
I was not the lover that I imagined.
There’s no good reason to write a memoir
unless you’re Winston Churchill.
I thought I would make a difference.

Notes from the Lake County Jail

 

I never liked Bolodino.
He sat at a corner table at the reunion
with a woman I presumed to be his wife.
Prettier than mine, you Nimrod.
I couldn’t figure it.
Bolodino was the same ugly bastard
I remembered from high school.


“Bolodino, how are you? You haven’t changed a bit.”
You’re fatter, uglier and going bald.
“You have,” he said.
I’ll let that one go.
I offered a hand, but he ignored it.
“This is my wife, Linda,” he said.
“Linda, this is my classmate, Baker.”
“Barker,” I corrected him, “Chuck.
That’s two, you pig. You damn well know my name.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
She nodded but didn’t speak.


“So what are you doing these days, Bolodino?”
I picture you cheating people selling used cars.
“Selling used cars,” he said.
“Got my own lot right here in town.
You should come by. I’ll give you a deal.”


“I’ll keep that in mind”
for the day Republicans start telling the truth.
“You do that, Baker,
or you could be in for a wedgie.”


Then — that stupid Bolodino smirk,
that thin-lipped curl
beneath his porcine nostrils
and greasy, pencil mustache.
He reminded me of everything
I hated about about growing up
in this jerkwater town.
Well — screw you, Bolodino.
Someday I’m gonna knock that smirk
right off your ugly face…

 

Fugitive Memories

 

     “Our representation of the past takes on a living, shifting reality. It is not fixed and immutable…”
               — Elizabeth Loftus, PhD, University of California at Irvine

 

1957: My little league team loses the final game of the season and finishes in last place. I am the starting pitcher. Mr. Duncan tells me it isn’t my fault. “All I wanted from you was to throw strikes and that’s exactly what you did, but we didn’t have players in the field who could catch the ball.” The team goes for ice cream. I have vanilla.

 

1971: I get married on March 25th. I ask my friend, Arthur, to be best man. He shows up a week early, tells me he thought the wedding was this week because he couldn’t imagine I’d pick a date on the weekend of the NCAA final. After he leaves, I call Ben, who doesn’t like basketball, and ask him what he’s doing next weekend. Ben suggests I call Arthur. I explain to Ben what happened. I tell him that now he’s my best friend.

 

1954: I’m in first grade and I go home for lunch. My sister, Joy, is heating Campbell’s Tomato Soup on the stove. She calls for me to help, but I don’t go because I’m six and I can’t cook.  Soon, she comes running past me toward the front door. Her clothing is on fire. She runs into the yard. A woman stops her car, gets out and tackles Joy to the ground, taking off her own fur coat to smother the flames. The neighbor across the street sees this through her window and comes out to help. They put Joy in the lady’s car and they drive off. The neighbor calls out to me that she’ll call my mother from the hospital. I step on a bit of Joy’s blouse, still smoldering on the lawn. I walk back to school without any lunch.

 

2011: Working for hospice, I meet a man named Dennis, a Coast Guard veteran, who’s dying of pancreatic cancer. He tells me he is one of a handful of people who has been to both the north and south poles. He shows me a special medal he says commemorates that fact. He wears it pinned to his pajamas and says it will go into the box that contains his ashes. I can’t think of anything I’d want to put in the box that contains my ashes.

 

1965: It’s Christmas Eve and my father comes home drunk. He’s passed out in his car and I only find him because I’m taking the trash out to the burn pit.  I shake him and pry an eyelid open to wake him up. He staggers toward the house and I gather up all the presents he’s bought, most of them from the Western Auto Store next to Claude’s Bar. He’s bought me a whole case of BBs. I’m too old for a BB gun.

 

1976: I’m visiting my sister, Kay, in Pennsylvania. I’ve just separated from Margo. Kay suggests I take her single friend, Tanya, out to dinner. I don’t want to,  but Kay tells me that Tanya has already said yes, and is excited to meet me. I pick Tanya up at her trailer park. Her two kids are in the yard with a teenage babysitter. Tanya’s not bad looking but I’ve never felt attracted to redheads. Dinner conversation is sporadic and dull. When I drop Tanya off back at her trailer, it’s still daylight. I don’t think she’s excited anymore.

 

2023: I get an email from Monica King, but she has a different last name now. We worked on a college newspaper together more than fifty years ago. I thought I might be in love with her back then, but figured she was way out of my league,  so I never asked her out. One day, I found her class schedule for the next semester in the office and I switched some of my classes to match hers. It didn’t do any good. I still never asked her out. I wonder if her hair still smells like it did back then. Probably not.

 

1953: My sister Ann and I are doing dishes. We get into an argument about who’s going to wash and who’s going to dry. I have a potato peeler in my hand and I pretend I’m going to stab her with it. She puts up her hand at just the wrong moment and the peeler opens a large gash in her hand. Blood goes everywhere.  My mother takes Ann to the emergency room. She has to have stitches. I do the dishes by myself for a long time.

 

1980: I’m moving to Ann Arbor. I arrive with my rented truck the day after a violent thunder storm has knocked out the power. They say it will be days before everything is restored. I get the van unloaded but the stores and restaurants are all closed so I can’t get anything to eat. I drive back to Lansing that night. I have to return the truck anyway and pick up my car. I stop at a gas station on the way back and buy beef jerky and some other snacks. I decide I’m too tired to drive so I pull into a rest area to sleep until morning. I discover that some of the people you see sleeping in rest areas live in their cars and park there overnight because of the bathrooms and vending machines. Some of them seem to know each other. I’m not sure if I should feel sorry for them or envy them.

 

2022: My last surviving sister dies of COVID. My niece tells me she thinks she got it because her neighbors threw her a big 80^th birthday party, even though everyone was supposed to be in quarantine. I had gone the year before to see her. While walking a Lake Erie beach so she could look for beach glass, she wondered if this might be our last time together. Later, we bought green tomatoes from a farmer who looked like Richard Brautigan and fried them for supper that night. Her husband had never had them before.

 

1978: Harriet, who hates her name so goes by Angie, tells me she is a virgin. We’ve been seeing each other for about a month, and I had already guessed. I tell her intercourse is not the only way for a couple to enjoy sex. She asks me to show her, so I do. I like to think I made her future husband’s life a little more interesting.

 

2012: A hospice patient I’ll call Mr. K. was a long-time broadcaster with The Voice of America. I find out he was a friend of Robert Frost. They had dinner together whenever Robert was in Washington, once with John Kennedy when Robert was preparing his inauguration poem. Kennedy asked Frost to recite Stopping by Woods…, which he did, but he missed the entire third stanza. Mr. K. thought it was a better poem without it. I guess everybody IS a critic.

 

1994: A friend of my ex-wife calls with the news that Margo has committed suicide. Margo and I have been divorced a long time and I haven’t seen or talked to her in several years. I don’t think it would have made a difference if I had, but you never know in a situation like this. Margo didn’t leave a note.

 

Fathers’ Hopes for the Sons

 

In the picture are a bluetick hound and six men
with long handled peaveys
on a raft of logs afloat on the Muskegon River.
The men are my great uncles.

In the discoloured albumin print,
you cannot see their faces
because of the shadows cast
by their broad-brimmed hats,
but if you could, you would know
right away they are brothers.

A seventh brother, Albert,
is missing from the photograph
because he left the family business
to study pharmacy at a college
in a city far away.

I suppose my great grandfather, Robert,
shook his head and shrugged,
just as my father must have done
when I told him I had no interest in
following him into his construction business
and, instead, chose a path of my own,
and just as I must have done when my son
forsook a college education to become
the man my father hoped I would be.

 

Nothing’s Going On

 

It was past midnight when Marge called.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have answered,
but, this late, I thought it might be something serious.
“Do you know what your son has been up to?” she asked.
“I haven’t talked to him,” I told her.
“Well, you should,” she said.
“He’s been up to his old tricks and you need to talk to him.”
“What do you expect me to do about it, Marge?
He’s forty-one years old and he hasn’t listened to me since he was eleven.
“Well, the least you can do it try,” she said.
“Lord knows, I have. Now it’s your turn.”


“Leon, you know how I hate when your mother calls. What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on, Pop. Why? What did she tell you?”
“She said you’ve been up to your old tricks again.”
“You know how she exaggerates, Pop.
Don’t listen to her. Nothing’s going on, I promise.”
“You sure, Leon? Why would she call me if nothing’s going on?”
“She’s just mad I haven’t brought my wife over to meet her yet.”
“You have a new wife? Why haven’t I heard about this?”
“She’s not exactly new. Sorry I haven’t mentioned her.
I guess it slipped my mind.”


“Well, Leon, maybe if you did what you mother wants
just this once, she would stop calling me.”
“I can’t help you this time, Pop.
You need to deal with her on your own.
and really — nothing’s going on.”

David Jibson - Having grown up in rural Michigan, David Jibson now lives in Ann Arbor where he is  the editor of Third Wednesday, an independent quarterly  journal of literary and visual arts, a member of the Poetry Society of Michigan and a coordinator of The Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle. He is retired from a long career in Social Work, most recently with a Hospice agency. His poetry has been published in dozens of journals both in print and online.

Rebel's Heart - Short Story By Greg Patrick

 

Rebel's Heart

Short Story

By Greg Patrick

1798 West Ireland

"I arise today Through the strength of heaven: Light of sun, Radiance of moon, Splendour of

fire, Speed of lightning, Swiftness of wind, Depth of sea, Stability of earth, Firmness of rock."-

St. Patrick's Breastplate

From aerial perspective an eagle soared through a brooding darkness of grumbling storm clouds then bursting into the sunlight hovered over a lonely figure standing on the windswept summit of mist wreathed Croagh Patrick. It lingered; its majestic wings illuminated like a vision of an illuminated manuscript scribe. The raptor's keen eyes saw the intricacies of the talisman dangling and shimmering over his heart. The eyes of eagle and man met. Its shrill cry swept and rallied his heart as its descending shadow seemed like a dark teardrop flowing down the face of pale stone.

His breath steamed in a sigh in the chill air where old warrior's wounds pulsed. Had one followed red footprints on the mist enshrouded summit of Croagh Patrick one may have found him overlooking the vale below, thinking the resplendent green was no match for the impossibly green eyes of his lost love, Sorcha.

He  remembered when their eyes last met at the gallows. She had been executed on suspicion of stealing bread for sunken cheek weans. He was held at bay by the bayonets of redcoats as she was hanged. Their eyes met amid the drumroll before the drop and her feet kicked on air to the keening of the crowd. When the soldiers left, he steadied her as she swayed in the chill wind kissing her feet. He lingered oblivious to the cold rain as others left and returned to their homes.

Under cover of mist and darkness he returned to the site of her execution. He collected her body by torchlight kissed her cold lips and pressed her pale hands to his heart in farewell before her burial in secret before a long-abandoned pilgrim's shrine in the remote wilds. As if he was haunted by the radiant ghost of her, memories of her came back to him. And she was a vision of rare beauty. Her flushed face and melodious  laughter. Her lilting brogue…the special way her eyes lit up when she smiled.

On the towering summit of Croagh Patrick, he threw back his head suddenly and cried out in anguish that he could display before no one. The roar echoed and re-echoed. He remained silhouetted against the crimson dusk remembering her….how the last layer of earth covered her, and he staggered home cursing their king and his lackeys. Haunted by the visions of a crownless Ireland, he read the note left by a runner in the night naming the secluded place for the gathering of pikes. He crumpled the note and cast it to the peat fire. It ignited and flared casting his face in crimson on his brooding face and lighting his eyes. He found himself feeling for then drawing a rusted sword he had hidden in the thatched roof.

How he thirsted for vengeance…He left his drink untouched. His mind had to be sharp as a sword blade to avenge her. It was close to winter. His sigh steamed in the chill air and old wounds pulsed as the long nights closed in. He sought an elusive solace in the windswept heights of mountains and the solitude of the wilds to compose a song in her honour yet the words provide maddeningly elusive. Shepherds grazing their flocks avoided the ruins of a siege shattered castle because they believed it haunted by the ghost of an eternally lovesick bards for the harp songs they heard in the hollow of its shattered halls, but it was him. As he fell asleep in the midst of composing, he dreamt he was visited by the ghost of a bard who was blinded tongueless and fingerless condemned to never write another rebel song by Norman lords and exiled to wander the wilds haunted his sleep. The apparition touched his fingerless hand to his forehead, and the limb glowed with eerie light infecting him with a poet's inspiration. Yet for that he felt the right words for her was ever a song unsung for there were no words in the tongues of men to do her memory justice. Every place he had a memory was a haunted place to him now. 

One night he returned haggard and dishevelled to the pub. Sitting with drink untouched, His haunted eyes looking over the rim of his cup into the red depths of the flames in the hearth. Then the redcoats entered, demanding the best drink in the house without pay. They sang “God save the king” as men avoided their eyes meekly.

Only when one of them grabbed the barmaid by the hair did he move. Suddenly he rose and began to sing an outlawed rebel song in Irish Gaelic. Others spontaneously joined. Rallied, they rose and overpowered the redcoats in a mob. He grabbed the redcoat officer by the throat and forced his head into the hearth fire. There was a shocked silence after the last of the screams ceased. Then they began to sing again in chorus as they left the pub.

Children and others followed them as their procession became a march. Hidden pikes were uncovered. Stashed rusted swords were pulled from thatched roofs. The redcoats from the garrison expected them to scatter at shots in the air. Yet they dipped their pikes in the flames and lifted them now burning, the blades smouldering red. To the eyes of the soldiers strange crimson lights seemed to hover in the air before them like fireflies. The rebels advanced at a run, their spears impaling the screaming redcoats, the pikes sizzling into their flesh. The rebels marched across the mist-enshrouded burren. The caress of the wind swept his face and soul like a ghostly prophetic lament for the men about to fall on the morrow when they faced British reinforcements.

He had been an eager student of a sacred hedge school before his teacher was cornered and hanged. He was captivated by the legends of old Ireland peopled with warriors, princesses, and tragic High Kings. As he walked the windswept burren he envisioned with daydream haunted eyes horseman of the Fianna riding with them, their tall proud forms silhouetted in the vermillion twilight racing the fall of night. That eve of battle the rebels encamped under the myriad of stars.

He stood aloof from the others his eyes haunted and distant.

“Sing for us will you not?” he was asked.

He nodded and silhouetted against their bonfire he sang a poignant lament for his lost love as they listened spellbound.

“Not so sadly brother. It will infect the men,” their commander whispered.

“Something to rally their spirits instead?”

He sang a rebel song:

“Out from many a mud wall cabin

Eyes were watching through the night,

Many a manly heart was beating,

For the blessed morning light.

Murmurs rang along the valleys,

To the banshee’s lonely croon

And a thousand pikes were flashing,

By the rising of the moon.”

That night he strayed sleepwalking from the camp and came to rest in the midst of an ancient circle of standing stones haunted by strange dreams. As the moon cast its ghostly spell over his sleep he dreamt he was a bard with harp in hand announced into the bannered hall of an ancient Celtic chieftain and the lords and ladies made way before him. The Chieftain flanked by wolfhounds on a proud golden throne beckoned him to pay homage to his muse who he beheld as a Celtic lady of radiant beauty in gold trim gown of green and majestic red hair falling in waves from a golden diadem on her brow.

"Forgive me My Lady for I have not the words..."

The figures dematerialised with the red dawn of battle as if burnt away as he opened his eyes.

The grey morn was ushered in by the chill wind's disembodied lament that caressed his soul. A fugitive priest absolved and blessed them as they knelt in prayer with their pikes. The radiance of the sun undulated in radiance over the array of raised pikes before being immersed by the mist that swept over them like the waves of a ghostly sea. They marched under cover of rain and mist singing an old rebel song. A reinforcement of garrison redcoats had been sent to put their rebellion down. The arrogant young redcoat commander who bought his command flattered himself that he struck a formidable figure. He had every expectation that the rebels would be overawed by the sight of regular redcoats.

“Halt!” he suddenly ordered.

He cursed the mist that swept in, enveloping them, and obscuring the vale. His horse stomped restlessly.

“Something is spooking him…” he fretted.

“I see nothing sir...” his second in command said. His last words.

He was unhorsed, impaled by pikes.

The commander’s horse threw him as Gaelic battle cries erupted in the mist.

He scrambled on top of a rock formation frantically fending off pike thrusts with his sabre and screaming for help.

"Fix bayonets!" he cried out.

"Volley!"

Red lances of musket fire streaked crimson through the mist.

“Cavalry! Charge!”

Horses snorted blood and reared and threw their riders. The redcoats reeled back from the red pikes. The song for her that eluded him for so long came to him in a wave of inspiration, a force of nature like the cold wind that swept the Burren like the ghostly battle cry of warriors who fell on the field centuries before he first drew breath and shuddered through him sweeping and caressing his soul. He envisioned her as the officer's sabre swept down to command a volley, his eyes transcendent. He beheld her, the very essence of a Celtic bard's inspiration in the rapture when songs and poems came to him. He remembered like a poem in crimson and pallor amid burning debris snow hailing her like frozen tears melting in mid air from the flames. The rebels roared from the mist and into a series of volleys ranks fired by the redcoats in succession. When the smoke cleared only ghosts remained it seemed the last Gaelic battle cry cut off. The wind stirred the manes and hair of fallen horses and men.

Still trembling, he accepted a hand down from his perch laughing nervously.
“Well…This victory certainly merits a toast of fine wine at my country manor house and a victory banquet and ball are in order. Foolish peasants. They never really stood a chance...
I wonder why they even tried...”
"Something a man like you would never understand.
A lone figure confronted him in the mist
“Bring him down!”
The British commander fumbled to reload as he strode forward. Musket shots hit him and still he strode gripping a sharp shard of a broken pike. He staggered but steeled himself to endure as he was run through with a bayonet. He looked into the commander's frightened eyes as he lifted the officer's dropped pistol cocked and levelled it at his heart.

“A victory toast you said?”
‘To Sorcha!”
His young eyes burnt with ancient hatred.
He locked eyes on the man with the horse like crossed blades. He saw the confident smile waver.
“You have no honour!”
The words were like a battle cry, before pulling the trigger.

 

Greg Patrick - A dual citizen of Ireland and the states, Greg Patrick is an Irish/Armenian traveller poet and the son of a Navy enlisted man. He is also a former Humanitarian aid worker who worked with great horses for years and loves the wilds of Connemara and Galway in the rain where he's written many stories. Greg spent his youth in the South Pacific and Europe and currently resides in Galway, Ireland and sometimes the states.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Collaboration by Jay Simpson (4 Poems) & Randy Barnes (4 Poems)

 

 

(Art - Anselm Keifer)

A Poem by Jay Simpson

Line Up

Line Up

set the stage for universal truth

enrapture congregations

sing holy words to dancing jackals

deliver your promise

purge humanity

destroy the rivers and the streams

spray your semen into the pool

your religion and your holy sore

caress your weapon

remove the dissenters

crouch on the Hill for the kill

destroy the children with closed eyes

their hope their right their history

 

A Poem by Randy Barnes

Once Lived

Set the stage for universal spin

a heavy price for rapture in the promised land

chants and taunts the stadium rocks

a court of jesters passing sentence

all bets are off with crazed promises

a country of believers come to deliver

dry your eyes while rivers die

drink of the praises the poisonous seed

one mind for the numbing mob

Moses in a suit with God on the Hill

visions of ruin in a palace of death

red rain to quench the sinners’ thirst

there’ll be no escape from the burning cross.

 

(Art Joan Mitchell)

A Poem by Jay Simpson

Riddle

Walk into wildness a broken dirge

caress the curves of fallen trees

press against raging storms

dig deep into earth

feast on reverie

colour mystery in abstractions

riddle the lines

fall away

write again

 

A Poem by Randy Barnes

Shadow Play

Tongue-tied with squelched decibels

a matter of locality or troubled inventions

collateral damage revolving explanations

time passes hallway to hallway

barriers of recurring events

moans of a lover heard from afar

every poem a stolen liturgy

recovery tempers the reflexes

between tales it’s skips and groans

a terminal sensation a final straw

payback futures reassembled

subjects of change romance the airwaves

alibi profiles a past in exile

those scents that excite a world away

an outsider in the rain while you sleep.

 

(Art - Gerhard Richter)

A Poem by Jay Simpson

Courting Chaos

Break free of encumbrance

pour petrol on the fire

wander the despairing forests

rue junkies on the nod

find chaos in their dreams

the blind truth can’t exonerate you

can’t restore your claim

the glass breaks into a thousand shards

your house of shame dies in dust

the corner bar is bound to hell

the rubber bullets turn to lead

 

A Poem by Randy Barnes

Boomtown Benders

Boomtown benders’ impossible odds

tow the line for entrapment central

death in the fine print hung from a thread

fast lane cruisers with fentanyl takedown

a fireproof fedora and the well gone dry

a world of slow suicide with bills unpaid

it’s cockroach and rat and mummified reptile

scraping bones from the burn zones

or treading high water metaphors for extinction

we’ve come back to the future what’s been told for years

it’s difficult times in the Halls of Horror

with no safe passage for the unforgiving children

orphans in exile their uninhabited motherland.

 

(Art - Brice Marden)

A Poem by Jay Simpson

High Wire

The sound is found on the high wire

the reverb spreads its wings and flies

moving toward the inexorable

truth discovering heart

dancing shoes quiet nights empty forests

oceans sing seductively

calling me calling you

we long for the touch the smell

the ecstasy of hope of want

we touch the moment of shameless pleasure

moan into the beat of life

 

A Poem by Randy Barnes

Block And Mortar

That great yellow ball dreaming aloud

there’s night with its walls and rooms

talk of the coming storm the crossing of oceans

a gallery of stone and enterprise

cartoon worlds flashing fate at the margins

a flesh upon flesh remembrance

an old song a juke in a dim cathedral

steps carefully placed yours and mine

a pocket full of moon and stars

nothing said everything felt

been through the blow by blow

penitent chains rusted beyond repair

silver and gold block and mortar

new mornings in every breath.

 

Jay Simpson was born in Sydney, Australia. She is recently published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, ‘The Empath Dies in the End’, Fevers of the Mind, ‘Voices from the Fire’ Anthology, The Writer’s Club, Horror Sleaze Trash, Fevers of the Mind Showcase, ‘Ukraine: The Night and the Fire’ Anthology and ‘Bedroom Anatomy Lessons’. Jay is also published in a number of online magazines and journals. She is currently working on her new manuscript.

Randy Barnes is a lifetime honoured Historian/Beat Poet Laureate, Washington, USA. He is widely published both nationally and internationally. His next book is Material Evidence: Dispatches 2020 - 2022, a bilingual (Italian/English) edition to be published in Italy in late winter/early spring 2024.

"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly." Franz Kafka

Three Poems by Cliff Wedgbury

 

doodlebug

(for rose)

 

the engine stopped

and in that moment’s deafening silence

she threw two babies from the pram

into a sunlit hell

and leapt upon them in terrified love

as a shadow of hatred fell

matinee

 

waiting in the darkness

for the film to begin

a matinee performance

with very few in

 

i chew dry popcorn

coat taken off

sweet bags are opened

someone coughs

 

sitting on our own

in a world of private dreams

anticipating love

interpreting what that means

 

half a dozen ladies

and sentimental me

waiting for the romance

at half-past three

tea with dad

 

lost in the heat haze

of a backyard sunday

he would sit and gaze

across a steaming pond

of a china mug

 

talking in that cheerful way

where truth surfaced easily

 

as mum hoisted wet white sheets

like familiar sails on a still horizon

Cliff Wedgbury is a Cork based poet, born in London in 1946. His formative years were spent in the folk clubs, jazz clubs and second-hand bookshops of the Charing Cross Road area in London. His last collection “A Lingering Adolescence,” was published by “Belfast/Lapwing.”

Bragging Rights - Short Story by Kenneth M. Kapp

 

Bragging Rights

Short Story

by Kenneth M. Kapp

 

Kel hurried Daryl along the deer trail that cut across a corner of the Chequamegon National Forest in north central Wisconsin. “We put the first one up five years ago. It’s was my uncle Zeke who figured it out – start to finish. Took a lot of cooperation on the part of the critters but you know what they say about ‘United We Stand.’”

“Yeh,” Daryl chuckled, stopping to rub an itchy antler on a convenient tree, “standing united on all four legs.” Then he became serious. “I seem to remember, it’s up ahead!”

It was Kel’s turn to laugh. “You would say ‘head’ – it’s a beauty. You know it was Zeke who figured out how to get the squirrels in on the game. Started a raffle, an acorn apiece. Grand  Prize – skull mounted in the tree with your nest. No one’s going to mess with any squirrel in that tree!”

“How did he get that trophy in the first place?”

Kel coughed, stomped the ground to get his breath back. “That was easy. Hunting ‘accident.’ Word out was one hunter was boffing another’s wife. They were supposedly good friends. Never should have gone hunting together but who knew? Clean shot though. Zeke had one of the black bears twist the head off, put it out for the crows to pick clean, best parts inside were cleared out by a pair of escaped minks. No love lost there. The way they’re raised by people shouldn’t be allowed. Zeke told me it was a ‘righteous eat!’”

“And there was no search for the body, sans tête? Daryl’s antlers occasionally picked up a French station from Canada and he was always showing off.

“Initially, but it was a lean fall and there were some very hungry coyotes. We’re almost there, just beyond those firs. But to answer your question, no, the coyotes buried the bones so they’d have something to eat come winter. The next season my cousin heard another hunting party talking about the kill and how the surviving friend got divorced, became a vegetarian, and moved out of state. Said it was some kind of trifecta.”

Kel stopped. “There he be, Daryl. This time of the year the setting sun hits the skull full-on about 5. Zeke said that when it was first put up some of the herd thought it was smiling. But the lower jaw dropped off and now you can’t tell.

“If we hustle, we can get to the grove when the sun sets. It’s the initiation place for The Society of Elken Equilizers.” When Daryl looked puzzled, he added, “I’ll explain when we get there. You’ve probably heard them called S.E.Ers. from the initials.”

Kel picked up the pace. They crossed a fire road and walked quickly for a minute down another then jumped a ditch and up the other side, continuing on another deer trail that cut back into the woods. Five minutes later they approached a grove of aspen. Kel slowed down and reverentially trod his way through to the clearing on the other side. Daryl followed silently.

Kel turned around and bent his forelegs. Four identical young trees had skulls atop their central leaders. Daryl followed his gaze; his jaw dropped when he saw the skulls riding high on the crowns of the trees. A hoarse whisper escaped his lips. “Oh my goodness.”

Kel snorted. “I understand; you never get used to it. I’ve been here dozens of times and still find it overwhelming. That was the time it was meat for the deers rather than the other way around. Then there was all hell to pay. Zeke had to get out of town after his picture showed up on a farm’s trail cam less than a mile from where they found the hunters’ car crashed around a sharp turn in the road.”

They stood silently until Daryl finally asked about the skulls. “Was it Zeke that killed them? I mean, they were all armed, probably itching to shoot anything on four feet that moved.’

“Oh, it was Zeke, all right. Told you he was smart. Knew that by the time the sun set most of these hunters were six sails to the wind – never understood that one – just means that after dark most hunters are good and drunk. But even if they shouldn’t be shooting, they see a big buck when they’re driving back to their camp, they’ll pull off the road and take a couple of shots hoping to get lucky. Heck, some roll down the window and start shooting without stopping the car.”

“But that’s doubly illegal, hunting after dark and shooting from a car!”

“Yup, that’s what made Zeke so mad. He had an idea. Said he got it after reading about the Indonesian shadow plays. He set up a large log around a sharp turn in the road. Front end sticking out of the trees, ten feet back. He stuck branches on the front to look like antlers if you came up fast. And then he waits up on the opposite side where there’s an outcrop. Sees a car coming or gets the signal from a lookout down the road, I forget which, and at the right moment he rolls a large stump down the hill. Driver doesn’t have time to think. Boom – into the ditch.”

Daryl started to whistle taps. When he stopped, he asked, “Still, how did they ID Zeke?

“Another cam, this time on one of the hunters. The hunter’s body cam was either on or it got bumped on in the crash. Go figure. Anyhow, they put a bounty on Zeke. He had a broken antler then. Other trail cameras marked his territory, But still it took two years plus to get him. Really, people should thank us – helping thin the herd of the dumb ones.”

Daryl smiled. “Going to take a while – the thinning.”

“You could say so. Still, must have been a smart one that got Zeke.”

Kel coughed into his hoof. “You could say so. But I heard some of his cousins say that if you come here on a moonless night you can hear Zeke rallying the troops. But I think that it’s him, puffing his chest out, claiming all the bragging rights are his.”

Daryl hung his head. Waited silently for two minutes in case Kel had something to add. Then cleared his throat and said nervously, “I heard that they got him last year. There’s talk about building a memorial museum in his honour.”

Kel ignored his remarks. “You know, the joke’s on the people that shot him if they ever try mounting his head. Zeke showed me how he practiced skewing his eyes and muscles in his face. He planned to do that if he was ever shot, claiming his face would eventually twist so he’d be looking out cross-eyed. Now that’s the Zeke I remember. No question the bragging rights are his.”

This story appeared 10/1/23 in the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature

Kenneth M. Kapp was a Professor of Mathematics, a ceramicist, a welder, an IBMer, and yoga teacher. He lives with his wife in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, writing late at night in his man-cave. He enjoys chamber music and mysteries. He was a homebrewer for more than 50 years and runs whitewater rivers on the foam that's left. His essays appear online in www.havokjournal.com and articles in www.shepherdexpress.com.

Please visit http://www.kmkbooks.com.