2025

 

 

DECEMBER

 

 

 

Angela Arnold, Zhu Xiao Di, Margaret Galvin, Usha Kishore, Alexandra Monlaur, Kenneth Pobo, Tony Press, Debbie Robson, David Mark Williams, Greg Wood.

 

 

 

 

ANGELA ARNOLD

 

 Dancing Through the Book

 

Knowing the end of the sentence

before the eye quite catches

the little platoon of black forms

marching across the snow of the page.

          The eye of the mind

not really keeping in step, advancing,

orderly – more darting and dancing.

Nothing captured of these mere fleeting

snow flakes of sense, seesawing

and swaying, savoured twice

while noting the warm round

redness of every a

as it leaps up for the eye's attention.

          Memory leading and lifting

to the music of comprehension.

Each page a landscape

full of the chatter of i and o

and the hum of m.

          All busy Breugheling

in their allotted space

till you wonder whether they

would if you weren't there – if

this visitor closed the book,

having twirled and tangoed and

jived through it for a bit,

synaesthesia and all.

 

Angela Arnold is a writer, poet and artist. Her poems have appeared widely in print magazines, anthologies and online, both in the UK and elsewhere. Debut collection: In Between (Stairwell Books, 2023), and another forthcoming from Poetry Lighthouse. She lives in Wales.

 

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ZHU XIAO DI, 

 

How Could I Tell Rose the Beauty of Snow

 

What color is it,

asked the rose in my backyard.

It’s white, pure white,

I responded.

Only white, no other colors at all?

she asked.

Isn’t that too plain and boring,

my rose shook her head in the east wind.

Well, I said, snow white creates its own beauty.

Nothing else is needed, otherwise that would destroy its purity.

 

My rose thought for a while and then asked,

Can you wear it, carry it, or decorate anything with it?

Well, I thought for a moment and acknowledged:

No, I can’t, but I can make a snowman next to my house, as tall as myself.

 

Does snow grow from the earth like me and blossom in spring?

No, it comes down from the sky in the coldest winter hours.

Like rain in spring? asked my rose.

More or less. White flakes swirl and fall silently on the ground 

over the top of everything, no matter how tall it is.

 

Can I meet him someday when I’m still here or on my next visit?

“I’m afraid you may not, my dear rose,” I replied sadly.

 

Somehow, as I was saying that to her, I dared not look her in the eye.

 

Zhu Xiao Di, author of Thirty Years in a Red House: A Memoir of Childhood and Youth in Communist China (memoir), Tales of Judge Dee (novel), Leisure Thoughts on Idle Books (essays in Chinese), and poems published in journals based in the U.S., Singapore, U.K., and Canada. 

 

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MARGARET GALVIN

 

Cuan Aingeal, Wexford

Angel Harbour, Wexford

 

Vigil keeper at Wexford Harbour,

Our Guardian Angel keeps watch 

from the Memorial Garden at Ferrybank.

 

She presides over the cold surge of the estuary,

recognizes the signs of distress,

shoes removed on the bridge,

someone climbing the parapet. She listens

for the splash, the sluice of water

as the Slaney closes over the turmoil and carries

off our dead: the elderly men, the young lads,

sometimes a woman.

She’s familiar with the river rescue people,

and the bereaved who tie

wreaths and photographs to the railings.

Every funeral cortege passes her sentry post.

She’s in everyone’s rear view mirror.

 

Are there days, Angel of Wexford when you have to look away?

Turn your eyes to the Riverbank Hotel across the road

where the brides sip champagne bubbles,

smile for the camera with young husbands, well-groomed

chaps with the world at their feet.

Days when all you want to see

are debutantes in dresses,

new graduates in gowns and mortar boards.

 

Days when you’d surrender the wings, apply for a desk job?

 

Margaret Galvin writes poetry and memoir essays. Her most recent collection is Our House, Delirious from Revival Press, Limerick. Her work is often broadcast on 'Sunday Miscellany' on National radio in Ireland. She facilitates writing workshops in cancer care and mental illness.

 

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USHA KISHORE

 

The Sarus Crane

 

The Sarus Crane refuses to believe

he is on the verge of extinction.

He measures life in a dance of amour,

he wraps his sweeping wings

around monsoon skies, their midnight

tips sketching cinereal silhouettes.

His grace is pre-destined; his windhover,

a lightning requiem; his slow drift, a

twilight symphony. I talk to him

in Sanskrit, but he insists on Prakrit,

which translates his name, lake bird.

He does not care for Latin, Grus antigone,

which chronicles his bare neck.

 

The Sarus Crane refuses to believe

he is on the red list. I tell him,

his wetlands are long buried

under swathes of paddy fields.

He tilts his crimson head

in arabesque lift. He flutes in

disdain; he is sanctified

by the Divine Bird, poetry

birthed in his lovelorn chassé.

I tell him he revels in myth.

He trills in scorn; he is worshipped

by five-god votaries, who invoke him

in gliding light. I tell him, the ghost

moon has eclipsed his silvered down.

 

The Sarus Crane shrouds his precious clutch

with sheaves of myrtle grass. He trumpets

in treble to his mate, who flew away in

a mistral of feathers. He would starve

to death than pair again. When rain kindles

fire on air, he dreams of winging his soul

in a waltz of seduction, of whistling a storm

in immortal fens, where time stands still;

where water is earth and earth, water.

 

Usha Kishore is an Indian born British writer and translator, resident on the Isle of Man.  Usha is internationally published with three collections of poetry, the latest being Immigrant (Eyewear, 2018) and a book of translations from the Sanskrit. Usha completed her PhD in Postcolonial Poetry with Edinburgh Napier University, this year.  www.ushakishore.co.uk 

 

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ALEXANDRA MONLAUR

 

Journey Man

 

Wake.

Wet warmness, nice.

Warm wetness, blad black blad-her bubble burst.

Close eyes, sleep. Wake. Wet are arse.     

Arsehole.     

Sore, cold wetrub rubbing balls.

Close eyes, tier, tier drip off nose-end.

 

Their mouth shapes say Journey.

Recovery Journey, Therapy Journey, Treatment Journey, Home Care Journey.

They bring word salads to my bed;

like they’ve opened a jar of moths and out they flutter.

“Prognosis”

“Diagnosis”

“Ataxia”

“Physiotherapy”

“SLT”

“Pee”

“Poo”

“Accidents”

“Push down”

“Purse lips”

“Take weight”

“Try”

 

I don’t want it, don’t want don’t want don’t want journey.

Fuck the Journey.

FUCK

THE

JOURNEY

 

The Long and Winding Road

 

Amira watched as the blowfly circled the child’s eye socket under the brow, down past the side of his nose, finally coming to rest on the philtrum. The overhead sun made sheer its wings and silhouetted the orange bristles on its head as it settled into position.

She had gradually discarded all her other burdens on the walk towards the border. The once valued objects cast aside to conserve energy. She stepped backwards away from the tiny corpse; flaccid limbs and waxy completion unrecognisable now; once her only son.

 

Turning away, she felt nothing; no hope or despair, she had moved beyond feeling, beyond thought. There was only the walking, the endless stony earth and the tug of her daughter’s hand dragging at her skirt.

 

Alexandra Monlaur is a Scottish-based poet of mongrel Celtic heritage, whose work has been published in a number of anthologies. Her first pamphlet, inspired by the life of Mary, Queen of Scots is due to be published in 2026.

 

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KENNETH POBO

 

After Lunch

 

Soup again, cream of chicken,

and a couple of buttered rolls. 

Stan is visiting his mom.  I’m alone

with November, a good but

 

difficult friend.  A sunny

morning, but by one o’clock

a tepid gray sky returns.

Barren trees can’t stop it

from enfolding me. 

I could go out and clean up

the garden—death on leaf

 

and stem.  Spring, another

friend who died.  I try

to believe in resurrections,

hard to do with brown leaves

swirling around my legs.  Some

bulbs need freezing days

 

to bloom in spring.  So,

come freezing days, for the sake

of our hyacinths and tulips,

put your frozen hands

around them.  Let them rest

in your creeping touch.

   

A Show-And-Tell Dahlia

 

The tuber has eyes

to see its way

into spring.   

 

Only months ago,

reddish blossoms,

yellow tips,

like someone had

set the ends

on fire.  The sun,

a struck match. 

 

July: a strong stalk

more than waist high

to hoist heavy blossoms. 

 

The phone camera

makes each flower

look small, decorative. 

Not the lion pacing

out of a bud

with a silent roar.

 

Kenneth Pobo (he/him) has two new books out: At The Window, Silence (Fernwood Press) and It Gets Dark So Soon Now (Broken Tribe Press). “A Show-And-Tell Dahlia” was first published in Brittle Star.

 

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TONY PRESS

 

Fairfax Life

 

We were so young,

Thought we were old.

Lived in that little house behind the lumber yard,

Mt. Tamalpais both behind and above us.

 

We were so young

Played with and changed our names weekly

You were Hope, then Grace, then Jessie-Belle

I nailed the sign to the door, Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter

 

I worked at the yard

Helping where I could, mostly with my weight

As I could carry more than most, but didn’t know

A hinge from a socket unless I’d unpacked them myself 

 

I worked at the yard

Toted and lugged and dragged and

Sometimes actually sold something

Sometimes even worked the register

 

We were so young

I worked at the yard

Until the day you came in to say

“They’ve raised the rent and they want it now,”

 

“They’ve raised the rent and they want it now,”

You said, and I smiled, and went behind the counter,

Rang up a pretend sale and we walked home together 

Twenty twenties in my pocket.

 

Twenty twenties in my pocket

We lived in that house only another week

Then it was the county jail for me and …

Where you went, I never knew

 

Where you went, I never knew.

 

Tony Press tries to pay attention and sometimes he does. His story collection, Crossing the Lines, was published by Big Table, and his poetry chapbook Equinox and Solstice by Right Hand Pointing.  He cherishes walking the streets of his tiny town, and sipping hot chocolate, too. 

 

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DEBBIE ROBSON

 

Two Deaths

 

Ariel was born at Court Green, three acres

wych elm and blackberries. Her mother moon

silvery in the sky, her father yew tree black

against the stars and a bonfire blazing as Sylvia

burns paper after paper on the red flames.

Curling up in the smoke her divided self.

 

She will fight and claw her way to be a poet

and everyone her subject and everything

dripping blood, red filaments and white hospital

rooms and the soul amputated and the moon,

 

shining down on her. She keeps looking, not out

at the world, but within. And seizes the chance

to live where Yeats had worked at Fitzroy Road,

inside white and cold, her final home.

 

While more than forty years before Virginia

finds her celebrated pen lost in the dust of

Talland House, St Ives near whitewashed houses

with thick walls, a windy fishing town. Haunted

by ghosts she sets sail on a voyage of discovery

to find the fin in the waters far out to sea.

 

To stop and feel the waves pounding on

the shore beating the measure of her days

to the end and always the lighthouse beam,

turning, illuminating moments of being.

 

Owling, prowling in the city she finds the

England of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens

bombed out. All the completeness ravished

and her life streaming away down unlighted

avenues to speak with the dead again.

 

She passed like a cloud on the waters sinking

into the Ouse weighted with stones, slipping away

down the river to others. No longer will Leonard

need to turn the key to keep the world out and

her writing in. Let the river subside and deliver her.

 

All is well now as the gas dissipates when others

fling open the door and find how carefully

Sylvia organised her suicide - cracks taped, doors

and windows stuffed with towels, her head

 

resting on a small, folded cloth, on the oven floor

bowed, kneeling at altar. Leaving a world she had

left many poems ago. Out of the ash will she rise

with red hair? Both gone. Two deaths for us to mourn.

 

Debbie Robson has published a chapbook with Boats Against the Current, a novella with Alien Buddha Press and previously Crossing Paths: the BookCrossing Novel and Tomaree a WWII love story. Her poems, micro, flash and short stories have been published internationally and online. She is on X and Instagram @lakelady2282.

 

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DAVID MARK WILLIAMS

 

The Fight for Light

Let the dead wood lie. Let it feed the living.

 

Be advised, we are ready for everything

high flying, low flying, whatever it is

whatever the threat, we’re ready.

Make no mistake, we have our conning towers,

our native trees, sharing data

beneath the ground.

I’m talking root networks

I’m talking mycorrhizae, the number of species

under one bluebell you wouldn’t believe,

a network spanning continents, and listen

just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Exercise caution at all times.

This is a radio transmitter area.

Please obey all further signage.

In the fight for light, there are always winners and losers.

That’s the way of it, understand.

Access is restricted, non-ionising radiation

and the blue water of bluebells

sphagnum moss and someone

creeping up behind you, the snap

of a stepped on twig, sensing movement

from the corner of your eye.

Access denied, restricted to authorised personnel

with appropriate RF monitoring equipment only.

Safety harness and correct personal

protective equipment must be used.

Do not proceed beyond this point.

In these times, the way things are right now,

proliferation of signs getting out of hand,

translucent fresh leaves everywhere,

it’s hard to know exactly where you are.

If in doubt, halt, keep still unless that is

you’re where you’re not supposed to be.

 

David Mark Williams writes poetry and short fiction. He has been shortlisted for the Montreal Poetry Prize and won Second Prize in the New Zealand Poetry Society International Competition. Two collections of his poetry have been published: The Odd Sock Exchange, Cinnamon, 2015 and Papaya Fantasia, Hedgehog, 2018.

 

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GREG WOOD

 

watching

 

birds cannot fly

through the

pebbles of the sky

when it rains

 

but they can watch

droplets fall

through the windows

of the trees

 

whistle

and await

return of blue

sweet blue,

soon air-dried

by the sun.

 

they can watch us

watch them

through

our own

screen windows

 

while

we perch in

soft of

stillness.

 

Greg Wood is a southern cosmopolitan poet with roots in Virginia and connections to Alabama and Amman, Jordan. He publishes regularly in Dissident Voice and was recently featured in Ireland's Dodging the Rain. Greg is the founder of Skylight, a creative arts outreach group that has touched the lives of many individuals across the United States.

 

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