2025

 

 

 

APRIL

 

 

Gareth Adams, Jean Atkin, Deborah H. Doolittle, Neil Elder, Sharif Gemie, Norton Hodges, Mike O’brien, Audell Shellburn, J. R. Solonche, Yucheng Tao,

Bhuwan Thapaliya, Lori Zavada.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GARETH ADAMS

 

A Song Of Earth

 

Between the long fluid lines of the calls of curlew,

The modulated melody of the lapwing,

And the raucous cry of the black-headed gull;

 

Above the high-pitched bleat of the lamb,

The echoing low of the calf in his stall

And the rattle of the rabbit in the hedge;

 

Among the sounds of the tractor, the quad,

The croaking of the reversing truck

And shouts of men herding sheep down the road;

 

Something of the land comes through,

Greets you with the lightest of touches,

But carrying the weight of something very old,

 

The smell of soil, the light of sunrise,

The coolness of a moonlit night in spring,

The thrill of the wind on the back of your neck.

 

 

In The Field

 

A Kite seen from below is splashed with colour –

Red, brown, white and colours in between.

 

The great fan of its tail is translucent

In the sunlight as it casts a wheeling shadow

Across the close-cropped field.

 

There are three of them building a tall column of slow power

In the clear sky – rising and turning, up and around.

 

There is no camouflage in the pattern beneath its wings.

These are the markings of a strange and angry god

Come to take what is his and what it is he needs.

 

Gareth Adams graduated with an English Degree 44 years ago.  He is now retired, happily married and a grandfather.  He reads, writes and draws (badly).

 

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JEAN ATKIN

 

The kist

 

came down through houses that have slipped into the dark.

It came down through the hands of women, thin, hard-

working women with soft dark hair that shed pins, a line

of literate women with green eyes, who grew food.

 

It stood at the foot of Annie’s bed in Ivy Lea.  She raised its lid

and laid inside her mother’s mother’s oval face.

She lifted out the coarse apron in which she snipped slugs

caught on the lettuces, with, famously, the kitchen scissors.

 

Annie bending, changing babies, forever whisking a terry napkin

from the kist and tickling for plump smiles.  Six confinements

up at Ivy Lea, and Madge was twelve when little Dorothy’s dress

caught fire.  And Annie, on her knees, laid down a great white

 

wing that’s still at the bottom of the kist, the last of that surprising

barefoot child no-one could speak of afterwards.  And the kist came

down to Madge.  It stood at the foot of her bed in Cherry Cottage.

Madge stored her mothballed blankets there, and her persistence.

 

Madge, who wore men’s blue overalls to garden in, and drank

good coffee out-of-doors.  Whose Scottish father encouraged a degree 

in English from Leeds.  Madge, who was stopped from teaching

when she wed.  Who couldn’t afford painkillers for the birth of Mary

 

in the desperate thirties, before the NHS. Who stood as a Labour

councillor, and took in refugees.  Madge who trained me,

and the robin, so it fed out of my hand.  Who knelt to light the fire.

Who died in the dark in her Morris and a blizzard of Cumbrian rain.

 

And the kist came down to Mary.  It stood at the foot of her bed

at Fiddlers and she filled it with hand-coloured, annotated maps.  Mary,

whose passion was the ground, who traced the drove roads, the pounds,

the long migrations of thin working people who have slipped into the dark.

 

Mary, who grew up under rationing, who took the dog Jill to the fell

to catch rabbits for the pot. Who seemed always to believe that hunger

might return. Who published learned articles at the age of eighty-six. Mary,

who planted a wood of bluebells in the kist, and could not stop buying books.

 

And the kist came down to me.

  

Jean Atkin is a poet, writer and educator based in Shropshire. Her third full collection High Nowhere (IDP, 2023) was nominated for the Laurel Prize. She was one of the winners of the 2024 Coast to Coast to Coast Individual Poet Journal Prize. Her collaboration with Richard Skinner will be published by Black Cat Press in 2026.

 

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DEBORAH H. DOOLITTLE

 

 

A Vortext of Vultures

 

A dozen of them tilt and whirl

up the thermals, rocking from one

 

stiff wing to the other, barely

flapping to keep the momentum. 

 

They hold themselves open like books

the wind riffling their flight feathers,

 

but they’re no books I’ve ever read,

the words written across their backs

 

are black letters on black pages

that are totally redacted  

 

with their dark ink and feathered quills.

What passes for wisdom among

 

carrion feeders. That both death

and decay they take for granted,

 

a certainty to be desired.

They fly higher, higher until

 

the highest ones become reduced

in my sight, sketching out the bare

 

limits of a funnel, they read

the earth as a book to be searched.

 

I’m a drop of ink, the smallest

punctuation mark on that page.

 

Deborah H. Doolittle has lived in lots of different places (including the United Kingdom and Japan), but now calls North Carolina home.  An AWP Intro Award winner and Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of Floribunda and three chapbooks, No Crazy Notions, That Echo, and Bogbound. Some of her poems have appeared in Crannog, The Journal, and The Stand.  When not writing or reading or editing BRILLIG: a micro lit mag, she is training for running road races, or practicing yoga, all while sharing a house with her husband, six housecats, and a backyard full of birds.

 

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NEIL ELDER

 

Artists In Residence  

  

David Hockney has arrived by barge,  

he sits upon it like a burnished throne,  

resplendent in flat hat and Crocs  

with a fag on the go, his infinite  

variety shining through.  

  

Here to meet him is Grayson,   

Harley in full throttle.  

David rides pillion as they scoot   

towards a long weekend among friends.  

  

Inside the cottage, Ai Weiwei, in charge 

as ever, of evening entertainment, 

waves hello to David who is keen  

to fire up his i-pad, now the muse   

is upon him. Ai Weiwei, is setting up Kerplunk 

and counting out marbles for after.   

The last game of the weekend  

is always Twister, using a spot painting  

made specially by Damien. 

But he’s not been invited this year,  

complaints from the locals   

about scaring the cattle made sure of that.  

  

David paints the canal in colours  

of a Californian pool, bronzed men in tight trunks 

fish from the bank beneath skies  

no English landscape has ever seen.  

  

In the barn, Grayson works on a vase  

to mark the occasion, careful   

to keep it away from Ai Weiwei,  

whose penchant for broken  

pottery is well known from experience.  

 

Upstairs, Tracey is drawing,   

grateful to be among friends   

and feeling the love. Sketching  

a peony held by a dove, hard to believe  

she once preferred to sleep in a tent;  

now Tracey’s happy in the bed  

she’s made and she lies in it.  

  

After dinner, a melange  

of fresh fish with new potatoes,  

cooked by Grayson,  

the gang show off their work,  

but not before the chef nips off  

to return as Claire, all frous frous  

and ruffles, with lipstick to match.  

  

The weekend slips by with walks  

along the towpath, gossip about critics,  

and drinks in the evening;  

fellowship among artists is strong.  

Next morning, each of them places  

the work they have made among  

the bric-a-brac of the holiday let -  

nuggets for someone to find and keep or discard.  

 

Neil Elder won the Cinnamon Press debut collection prize with The Space Between Us, and their pamphlet prize with Codes of Conduct, shortlisted for a Saboteur Award. He has a number of publications, his latest is Like This, from 4 Word Press.  https://neilelderpoetry.wordpress.com/ 

 

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SHARIF GEMIE

 

The Two Storms

 

Sneaking, snarling, screeching

this wind gets through every window

a noisy coldness

ending sleep and rest.

 

Swirling leaves in a vortex

breaking branches on the street

the house creaks

the light shudders

a wordless force wails and mutters.

 

The bridge is closed

the roads blocked

internet down, power cut

and through the night the wind howls

 

***

 

What do you hear in the wind’s screams?

A lament for what used to be?

Some past of gentle breezes and pale autumn sun

where air and rain knew their places

and only foreigners had floods.

 

But now, after the first storm,

the greater one approaches

hidden in this clear, bright calm.

 

You forget your funny turn,

you clear away litter and branches,

you search for comfort on the screen

where the posts twirl and spin,

a blocked road won’t kill us

and whatever that was, it sure wasn’t climate change

 

 

Sharif Gemie is a happily retired History lecturer living in South Wales. He started writing fiction after retirement. He has published twenty-four short stories. His first novel, The Displaced, concerns a British couple who volunteer to work with refugees in Germany at the end of the Second World War. https://sharifgemie.com/ sharif.gemie@gmail.com

 

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NORTON HODGES

 

Culture

 

A man sits in a room.

It is bare except for a chair and a piano

and a suitcase by the door.

 

This is all he’s brought with him:

a few clothes, a copy of Goethe

and these hands.

 

He begins a Chopin Nocturne.

All his furniture is burning

and his house is rubble.

 

But his hands hold the score.

His fingers on the keys

carry their own memory.

 

At the end of the piece he raises his hands

with a flourish and a sigh.

It had been a kind of homecoming.

 

That Old European Melancholy

 

like a Chopin waltz heard through closed blinds

on a hot day in the Madeleine

 

like sultry afternoons when all the books have been read

and it is still too early to sleep

 

like the saints’ days when the streets are empty

and there is no purpose in the bending trees

 

like the black caverns of the churches

with their sinister candles and cloying incense

 

like the immaculate pavements washed at dawn

by anonymous street cleaners

 

like leaving the last performance of the latest film

and wandering the boulevards unable to sleep

 

like the arcane language of taxi drivers

and the anger of the owners of small hotels

 

like the strangers you pass on your way to work

with their closed mouths and unfussy chic

 

like the metro that clanks to a halt

on the outside track next to someone’s washing line

 

like the last glimpse of a departing train

leaving you with sadness and yesterday’s papers

 

Norton Hodges is a poet, editor and translator. He lives in Lincoln.

 

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MIKE O’BRIEN

 

Pigeon Song 

 

In the damp woodland

A damp wood pigeon

Croons its damp tune

Hidden by the damp trees

 

High above, an airplane soars

Hidden by the canopy

Making only a distant rumble

Drowned out by the pigeon

 

Aboard the airplane 

International travellers commute

Airport to airport

City to City

 

The pigeon croons unheard

In an alien hinterland

Trees, fields and settlements surround

 

Our airborne friends will never know

What that damp wood pigeon knows

Singing his counter melody

To far away airport announcements 

 

Trees

 

The midges, mites and tiny flies dance like excitable children

- The trees shiver, and adjust their bark

 

The brambles bristle, and lounge lazily like spiked teenagers

- The trees suck up sap and swill it around stiff, gnarled veins and arteries

 

The thistles and nettles strike out 

Scatter seeds and survive together like newly wedded couples

- The trees stand motionless in convivial silence

Respecting each other’s boundaries

 

The people saunter through

Carelessly mansplaining their lack of understanding 

Sporting their ignorance like dense green foliage

 

- The trees look on without eyes

Listen without ears

Collect their thoughts

And remain silent

 

Mike O’Brien teaches special education in the North of England. He has previously been published in the Black Nore Review, the Stone Circle Review and Dreamcatcher. He publishes his poetry online at Sixty Odd Poems zoomburst.substack.com and the work of others at Sixty Odd Poets sixtyoddpoets.substack.com. 

 

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AUDELL SHELBURNE

 

Secrets

 

If you want to keep a secret, put it in a poem.

Keep it doubly safe by publishing it in a chapbook

or some anthology produced by a little college

or university in the middle of a forgotten state.

The editor might remember your secret just

long enough to send the formal acceptance letter,

but by the time she typesets the page for your poem

your secret will be safely coded and locked away.

 

Major and minor indiscretions—petty thefts, affairs,

lies, blasphemies, maybe murder—remain unread,

unheard, once they hit print. And, if by chance,

someone asks about it, you can always disclaim it

as just a poem, which we all know is really nothing

serious, nothing to worry about, being just a poem.

 

Audell Shelburne has published poems in a number of journals and anthologies, including descant, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, di-verse-city, Loud Coffee, Alchemy and Miracles, Verse Virtual, and others. He is dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Northeastern State Oklahoma in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, USA.

 

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J. R. SOLONCHE

 

Two Farms

 

I often drive on a road

that has two farms.

They’re about a half mile

apart, one with horses,

the other with cows.

When I drive to town

that way, I see the horses

first and then the cows,

and when I drive the other

way to go back home,

I see the cows first, then

the horses afterward,

and for some reason,

they do not look the same

as they do the first time

I pass them, the horses

and the cows, the cows

and the horses. The cows

are more noble, the horses

still noble but more modest,

more sadly so.

 

December 8, 2024

 

In the Hook & Ladder Bar on Main Street,

with New York City’s cops and firemen,

three football games on three screens above us,

I ask for Irish Handcuffs. “What’s that?” asks

the bartender. “I’ve heard of everything,

never heard of that,” he says while pouring

a Guinness for another customer.

“That’s half right there, the beer you're pouring now,"

I say. "Is Jameson the other cuff?"

I nod. It’s so damned noisy, I’m surprised

we can hear each other. He puts the shot

of Jameson down. I begin to down

it while waiting for the Guinness to land.

I’m half done when it arrives, so I dump

it into the stout. The firefighter

or the cop to my left yells at the screen

in front of him.  “Hey, throw the fucking ball,”

he shouts at the quarterback. The fucking

quarterback is sacked. The decade is not

yet half over, but already it’s low,

already dishonest, already three

wars, four, five. It depends on how you count.

More of all this now than there was back then,

more and faster, faster now. Will this one

be lower? Will it be more dishonest?

And in this sodden place of beer and noise,

this Hook & Ladder Bar, it is much, much

harder to “love one another or die.”

 

Nominated for the National Book Award and twice-nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of thirty-six books of poetry and co-author of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.

 

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YUCHENG TAO

 

Observation of Blood 

 

Today, the museum closes its doors early,
waiting;
how much of the night’s bleakness
seeps into it, enjoying the dark corridors.
The Indian tents with pointed frames,
like spears of bone, stand pierced
in the empty lobby, lonely,
waiting;
how the winter wind cuts through it.
As the cold artifacts of the museum
catch the outside glow,
the carnivalesque slaughter brings
laughter to civilization.

 

Denver’s rain is absent and dry,
the natives of the Arapaho
meditate on the sacred mountain
when the invaders come.
I watch how blood spreads—
past and present—and death favors
their flesh, buried under black moonlight
by fire and sword.
Left with sword marks,
they dye the river bend with blood,
winding like red silk;
now it leaves collections
lying in the museum of darkness.
Their bones cannot be read,
as their residues are covered
under the ash of death. 

Inside or out, there is no sweetness—
only the salty taste of blood.
The truth sinks and vanishes;
as for the sleeping city folks,
the moon is clear tonight. 

 

Yucheng Tao, originally from China, studies songwriting at the MI College of Contemporary Music in Los Angeles. His poetry has been widely published in various literary journals. His work appeared in Cathexis Northwest Press and NonBinary Review, which reprinted his poem "Blue Horse" alongside an author interview. He has also been featured in Moonstone Art Center, Spillwords, and Synchronized Chaos, where multiple poems have been showcased across different issues. Additionally, his poetry has been published in The Arcanist, Ink Nest, Poetry Potion, Literary Yard, and Wingless Dreamer.

 

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BHUWAN THAPALIYA

 

Sun and the Sunflower

 

You say the sun came later,
but first, it was the sunflower.
You speak as though

truth blooms only in your core.

 

I have nothing to say.
Words feel heavy,
like pebbles sinking

in the stream of my mind.

I’ve carried too many discussions,
watched them dissolve
into ripples that fade too soon.

 

Say what you will.
Let your philosophies flutter
like moths circling a flame.
I won’t feed the storm
brewing between us.
I guard my peace,
from weeds of pointless debate.

I stand against anything
that disrupts my harmony—
the clang of egos,
the noise of righteousness
distorting the music of tranquility.

The sunflower follows the sun,
or the sun follows the flower—
does it matter?
Let the world dance to its own rhythm.

 

Bhuwan Thapaliya is a poet from Kathmandu, Nepal, who seamlessly blends his professional life as an economist with his passion for poetry. He has authored five poetry collections, including his most recent work, Slipping into Another World, published by Ukiyoto, and Safa Tempo: Poems New and Selected, published by Nirala Publications, New Delhi. Beyond his writing, he actively engages with the global literary community, having read his work and attended seminars in countries such as South Korea, India, the United States, Thailand, Cambodia, and his native Nepal. Through his unique voice and diverse experiences, he continues to contribute to the world of literature both locally and internationally. https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/bhuwan_thapaliya https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14735811.Bhuwan_Thapaliya

 

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LORI ZAVADA

 

Golden Hope

It sounds like God hurling boulders to Earth,

but they never land.

I wake to the thunder,

and think of you.

 

Blasting bombs

Rumbling tanks

Cracking rifles 

Rat-a-tat machine guns 

in a smoky, snow-covered war zone.

 

A contrast to your bright blue skies,
waving fields of wheat,

sunflower head wreaths.

            And still, Ukraine is united in the presence of golden hope.

 

A woman cradles her large dog in one arm,

a small purse slung over her shoulder.

It’s all she can manage.

She runs, drops to the ground for cover, runs, drops again.

 

My dogs lie curled up in my warm, dry bed.

 

A child clutches her teddy bear at the train station,

hungry and tired, she presses on,

unsure if she’s afraid,

or reassured by her mother’s tight grasp.

 

My nephew wakes to the cereal of his choosing, 

begrudging another school day.

 

A young boy, peach fuzz on his tight jaw,

speaks proudly of his father,

who stayed behind to fight.

A small tear escapes and streams down his rosy cheek.

 

An American student is arrested 

for having an AK-47 at high school. 

                             

A young couple from the countryside of Poland,

takes in women and children,

converts their home into a school,

provides food, warmth, a sense of normalcy.

 

A young American woman is arrested 

for shoving an 87-year old lady to her death.

 

A father with deadpan eyes,

bravely patrols his city, foreign object in-hand, 

a stranger to this exercise, but resolved

to protect his family, his neighbor, his country.

 

An American man is arrested for shooting five sleeping, homeless men.

 

An unshaken young president recalls the blue skies,

the wheat fields, the sunflowers,

pleads for his people before watchful allies,

leaders united by bloodshed, arrested  by evil.

 

Your flag waves in my mind, 

and I now see,

the blue skies, the wheat fields, the sunflowers,

golden hope, 

precious and valuable.

 

Standing in your shadow,

we are capable of so much more. 

 

The midnight thunder fades,

God is finished feeding my land,

but in yours, the bombs don’t stop,

I can’t get you out of my head. 

and I pray -

 

for your people,

and for mine.

 

Lori Zavada considers every poem a friend. She enjoys writing from a small seaside town in the southeast region of the United States, following a diverse writing career for magazines, newspapers, websites, social media platforms, and medical and mental health non-profits. “Golden Hope” Previously published in Of Poets and Poetry, Florida State Poets Association magazine, summer 2022.

 

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