2022

 

 

FEBRUARY CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

 

Hélène Demetriades, Robert Funderburk, William Ogden Haynes, Jenny Hockey,

 Norton Hodges, Mercedes Lawry, Marie C. Lecrevain, Miram Sagan,

Alison Stone, Andrew Taylor-Troutman.

 

Poems in a Time of Covid-19

Harry McNaughton

 

 

 

HÉLÈNE DEMETRIADES

 

Chez Madame Frise

 

I ride on her swing

             my feet touching mountains,

play with her lodgers,

         search for stripy snails in her log pile;

 

there’s a basket of kittens

                             by the boiler,

slices of pain et chocolat

                              on the table.

 

If you carry on I’ll give you an injection

         she says if we’re naughty.

 

She drowns the kittens

                     in a trough full of tadpoles.

 

At eight

      I have a puff of cigarette

                               in the toilet upstairs

 

my friend Simonetta

                shows me her crop

of black pubic hair.

 

           In the attic a teenage lodger

pins me to the floor,

       wrestles with my zip.

                

When I leave Château d’Oex

                             Madame Frise gives me

a loved cat

      with a worn nose

                          and missing eye.

 

 

Breaking the Enchantment

 

 

Driving through a moonless night,

           scattered mandarin on my lap,

                 brambles rip at the windscreen;

I’ve got to get back to Mummy

                         before the clock strikes.

                                    _

                 

Mum’s freshly painted canvas is propped

                                     against a garden bench;

the butterfly hovers over

                     wings orange like her hair;

they glue down in an oily flower.

            

        I jump out of the car –

                        

the butterfly struggles,

            wings are tearing from the thorax.

                                    

A grasshopper

        vaults out of the tableau.

                                

Hélène Demetriades is a psychotherapist and poet living in South Devon. Her debut collection 'The Plumb Line' will be published by Hedgehog Press in February 2022. She has been published in numerous poetry magazines and webzines, and was highly commended in the International Poetry on the Lake competition and shortlisted for the Wells Poetry competition, 2021.

 

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ROBERT FUNDERBURK

 

As a Shadow

 

Wayne sat on a plastic chair,

t-shirt blood-spattered, blade-

ripped halfway down the front,

left eye swollen shut, soon to

blossom with color.  Will he ever

learn to keep his mouth shut?

 

Double doors banged open, but

the emergency no longer existed.

A white-suited attendant pushed

a gurney steadily and almost

silently across the lobby toward

a No Admittance sign.  An arm

had fallen from underneath the

sheet, swaying slightly with that

unrestrained freedom that only

death can create.  The arm was

smoothly and gracefully muscled,

without the bulk that would have

come later with manhood.  Tattooed

on the outside of the bicep, the words

Born to Raise Hell eulogized a

brief and violent life.

 

Wayne turned his one-eyed gaze

toward the arm, his expression

never changing.    

“Remind you of anybody?”

He stared at the floor, nodding twice.

“Who?”

“My dad.”

The man in white pushed the body

of the boy on through the door

and down a dim hallway

toward the light

at the far end.

 

Robert Funderburk was born by coal oil lamplight in a tin-roofed farmhouse outside Liberty, Mississippi. He moved to Baton Rouge, graduated from LSU, and now is a retired parole officer spending his time writing and enjoying a country home on fifty acres of wilderness with his wife, Barbara, in Olive Branch, Louisiana. Robert has had seventeen novels published, along with fifty poems and two short stories in various literary journals. “As a Shadow” was first published by Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, December, 2019.

 

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WILLIAM OGDEN HAYNES

 

Melancholy, circa 1870

 

“To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to

condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.” 

Emile Durkheim, French Sociologist (1858-1917}.

 

Emile Durkheim

 

It was a time before psychotherapy and antidepressants, when

there was no help in finding an escape from a cage made of ones

own thoughts. Her father had said religion was the answer to any

 

problem. So, every night for years before going to sleep, she would

inch the lamp wick higher to obsessively read passages from the Bible.

She read it over and over, starting anew as soon as she finished. She

 

dog-eared every page that mentioned despair, but so far, the Good

Book held no solutions for her pain. Yet, she continued to re-read

the passages in relentless pursuit of happiness. One morning, as she

 

was already beginning to mentally turn the pages of her own sadness,

the sun broke shiny as the edge of an unused tool, casting light

on parlor floors, filtering through gingham kitchen curtains, illuminating

 

a white china teapot she had not used for years. Drinking a cup of tea,

she watched her cat spin around like a dervish in a shaft of sunlight on

the floor, in a hopeless quest to catch his tail. Around and around he went,

 

first in one direction and then the other. And it brought a smile to her face

as she realized for the first time, the similarity between chasing ones tail

and searching for happiness by obsessively re-reading the Bible.

 

William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan. He has published nine collections of poetry, Points of Interest, Uncommon Pursuits, Remnants, Stories in Stained Glass, Carvings, Going South, Contemplations, Time on My Hands and The Works and one book of short stories , Youthful Indiscretions all available on Amazon.com. Over 200 of his poems and short stories have appeared in literary journals and his work is frequently anthologized. http://www.williamogdenhaynes.com

 

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JENNY HOCKEY

 

In a Cambridge University Lab

 

they’re scaffolding the sun, pivoting its rays.

The polar ice must re-freeze they say — I’ve done it myself

with chicken and lived. They’re buying me hours, maybe

even weeks, a project of ladders, possibly snakes.

 

Above the valley, essential flights persist.

Passengers squint over masks, bewailing the growl of cars,

the din of a train on the Dore to Hathersage line.

They’re trusting the wind to come to their aid,

 

the wind which has no end in sight, only to ruffle the trees  

while they last. Heads inclined to their screens, lips on the move

as in prayer, the passengers hope the sinewy beech will thrive, 

will channel the rain and deepen the cleft of a gorge.

 

They’re scaffolding sun in a Cambridge University lab,

buying me time for one more breath of this damp,

this sweetness of leaves, sweeter even than L’Air du Temps¹

I trail down the gorge behind me, nose sharp to the air.

 

The name of a perfume.  Also translates as ‘the current trend’.

 

 

Jenny Hockey is a Sheffield poet. Her work has appeared in The North, Magma, The Frogmore Papers, The Lake, Orbis and Dreamcatcher. New Writing North awarded her a New Poets Bursary in 2013 and Oversteps Books published her debut collection, Going to bed with the moon in 2019 (jennyhockeypoetry.co.uk. familyhistoryandwar.com)

 

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NORTON HODGES

 

Home Furnishings

 

I could have been an inanimate object,

over there, in the corner, laying low,

keeping tabs on you from a distance, sly as CCTV,

dreaming of being your carpet, your armchair,

your occasional table, waiting for your tread on me

or rest easy on me or place on me a vase of flowers,

freshly picked, a newspaper, a coffee mug,

that half-read book or, on special days, your stockinged feet.

 

Here is a secret. Furniture worships women,

worships them and fears them; some women think

an old sofa is a safe bet, a table lamp a comforting glow

 

but furniture looks up with muted desire

at the arch of an eyebrow, a ghostly smile,

a body strong with soft power, as you look down, insouciant, on us.

 

Norton Hodges is a poet, editor and translator. His work is widely published on the internet and in hard copy. He is the author of ‘Bare Bones’ (The High Window Press, Grimsby, UK, 2018). He lives in Lincoln UK. 

 

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MERCEDES LAWRY

 

Please bring back the clothes you stole

                               Nextdoor

 

I’m chilled, though perhaps you are too.

The green print dress – my favorite,

discovered in a vintage shop at a great price.

Will you love it as much?

I have plenty of other clothes but these,

that you pulled from the line sometime between

dusk and dawn, have sentimental value,

which I’m guessing, you can’t afford.

Will you try to sell them? Discard them

in a littered alley? Wear them so I may see you

on the corner of 3^rd and Pine, like the ghost

of someone I used to be? Someone I may become?

Do they fit you or someone you know, someone

you care for? This sleeve, that collar, the bodice,

the pleats, the pockets, once waving in

the August breeze, an assortment of wings. I left them

out in the star-speckled night and now they’re gone.

Detached, as I should be, of the earthly possessions

piled upon us with barely space to breathe.

 

Mercedes Lawry is the author of three chapbooks, the latest, In the Early Garden with Reason,was selected by Molly Peacock for the 2018 WaterSedge Chapbook Contest. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Poetry, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner and has been nominated seven times for a Pushcart Prize

 

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MARIE C LECRIVAIN

 

Robert Mapplethorpe’s “Patti Smith, 1979” 

 

And here’s St. Patti of the Doves

in New York dryad pose

hair and arms artfully arranged

for avian comfort and pleasure

 

It’s a lovely tableau

until you find yourself 

locked in a staring contest

and fumble for a question

that you can’t — and never will

be able to accurately answer

 

MacArthur Park in Five Parts

          Life is a lively process of becoming

                        General Douglas MacArthur

 

I.

 

A pair of swans

glide through the water

while the mallards

cleave to the lake's edge

and ignore the remains

of the dead seagull

that float by.

An old woman

totters under the weight

of her 99-cent store haul.

A family huddle

over lunch

under a brace

of palm trees

as a thrift store mendicant

summons Armageddon

through a bull horn

on the corner.

 

These disparities

are bound together by

the bright blue sky.

 

II.

 

A red lily languishes

on the ground,

velvet petals on the verge

of wilt, stamen in

vagina dentata formation

as a trail of ants climb

into its crimson shadows.

 

The industrial revolution

goes largely unnoticed.

 

III.

 

Near the Red Line Station

stands a snake-handler

decked in the solar-colored coils

of a boa constrictor.

No reed basket,

pipes or bazaar,

just travelers in transit

too busy to notice

the low tech tribute

to Mr. Kipling

and the Karma Man.

The serpent

raises its head

toward the sun...

maybe it’s dreaming...

 

IV.

 

99 cent store;

the 21st-century answer

to the Middle Eastern Marketplace.

Hope burns in the heart

of an emo Jesus candle.

Diphenhydramine

in purple canisters

promise seven nights

of sleep ease.

Even food,

in all its forms;

real, or Monsanto.

 

All things can be

found here

almost –

all things.

 

No one is smiling.

 

V.

 

I walk back along

a cement path littered with

used dime bags and dry grass,

a perfect metaphor

for wasted lives and dreams.

 

The muse within

makes fun of me

as I compose these lines.

Marie C Lecrivain is a poet, and co-publisher of Sybaritic Press. Her work's appeared in Gargoyle, Nonbinary Review, Orbis, Pirene's Fountain, and many other journals. She's the author of several books of poetry and fiction, and editor of Gondal Heights: A Bronte Tribute Anthology (copyright 2019 Sybaritic Press, www.sybpress.com).

 

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MIRIAM SAGAN

 

The Shapes of Pollen

 

fill the Triassic:
little suns, reds, cylinders, A-bombs, novas

if we’d been there
would we have seen
clouds of yellow
floating from vast evergreen leaves

we still bring flowers
dyed hot house carnations or
seasonal marigolds
to the old part
of the cemetery
with Jewish names
and priestly blessing
of a pair of hands
eroding in marble

or just
leave a (small ammonite)
stone

Scroll

The Russian poet
might write about Troy

and who might not—
it’s November

not yet reassuringly cold.
In the coracle of the self

today there does not appear
to be anyone rowing.

Pages turn from one
saga to another.

Living so far
from any body of water

excited if anything flows
through the dry acequia,

people greet me
along the path

with every posture
of history

scowl, wave, indifference
but surely

there are more dogs here
than was usual in cities

more like a hunting camp
out in the Galisteo basin

where even today you can
fid a scraper of stone

a knocked bit, arrowhead.
All the arrows let fly

from the curved bows
as the walled city falls

and how even without marauding nomads
in their attractive hats

it falls.

 

Miriam Sagan is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction, and memoir. Her most recent include Bluebeard's Castle (Red Mountain, 2019) and A Hundred Cups of Coffee (Tres Chicas, 2019). She is a two-time winner of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards as well as a recipient of the City of Santa Fe Mayor's Award for Excellence in the Arts and a New Mexico Literary Arts Gratitude Award. She has been a writer in residence in four national parks, Yaddo, MacDowell, Gullkistan in Iceland, Kura Studio in Japan, and a dozen more remote and interesting places. Her blog is Miriam's Well--http://miriamswell.wordpress.com

 

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ALISON STONE

 

House

 

Childhood’s a house of many rooms

at the intersection of nostalgia and pain.

You can’t go back there, can’t really leave.

The heart’s a predictable fist.

 

At the intersection of gender and pain,

girls practice starving, learn disgust for their bodies.

The heart’s a predictable fist –

Open. Close. Hungry and alive until not.

 

Girls practice starving, learn disgust for their bodies.,

heavy cages of flesh that

open, close. Hungry and alive until not.

Why has the soul nowhere better to live?

 

Heavy cage of flesh that

needs so much attention.

The soul has nowhere better to live,

heaven believable as posed family snaps.

 

Needing so much attention,

the past precedes us everywhere.

Heaven’s believable as posed family snaps,

as life free from what made us.

 

The past precedes us everywhere.

We can’t go back there, can’t fully leave

to live free from what made us

in childhood’s house of many rooms.

 

 

Pantoum with an Idea Borrowed from Lisa Rhoades

 

Hospital, pet, concert, third grade crush.

How is it decided which memories last,

which fade like Krazy Kolor from a punk teen’s hair?

I’ll never forget the beagle shot in Daddles.

 

How is it decided which memories last?

Advertising jingles edge out people we loved.

I’ll never forget the beagle shot in Daddles

or my teacher’s one green/one brown eyes.

 

Advertising jingles edge out people we loved.

There’s not enough heart-room for everything.

My teacher’s one green/one brown eyes

watched us wash chalk from the blackboard.

 

There’s not enough heart-room for everything.

Time takes back some joy, some shame,

the way children wash chalk from a blackboard.

Hyperthymesiacs remember every second of their lives.

 

Time takes back some joy, some shame.

We’re left with a smattering of heightened scenes,

though hyperthymesiacs remember every second of their lives –

each meal, each beach, each late-night conversation.

 

We’re left with a smattering of heightened scenes,

vibrant as Krazy Kolor in a punk teen’s hair –

that meal, that beach, that late-night conversation.

Hospital, pet, concert. Third-grade crush.

 

Alison Stone (she/her) has published seven full-length collections, Zombies at the Disco (Jacar Press, 2020), Caught in the Myth (NYQ Books, 2019), Dazzle (Jacar Press, 2017), Masterplan, a book of collaborative poems with Eric Greinke (Presa Press, 2018), Ordinary Magic, (NYQ Books, 2016), Dangerous Enough (Presa Press 2014), and They Sing at Midnight, which won the 2003 Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award; as well as three chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, and many other journals and anthologies. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin www.stonepoetry.org  www.stonetarot.com

 

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ANDREW TAYLOR-TROUTMAN

 

Dog Walking Muse

 

May I look to my pen

with as much excitement

as when Ramona spies her leash;

may I explore the page

with the same intensity

she scouts an open field;

may I be as attentive

to sounds and rhythms

as she to shifts in the wind;

may I seize metaphors

as hungrily as she

devours treats back home.

May I pen the right words as

sure as I stroke Ramona’s fur.

 

Yoga

 

There’s downward facing dog, obviously.

Ramona also has this cool stretch

where she plants her front legs,

& lifts, one at a time, her back legs

behind her like a windsock in a stiff breeze.

Perhaps it seems strange to use that simile;

windsocks have gone out of fashion.

Yet, they are useful decorations,

showing which way that the wind blows.

Mo, as my kids call our dog, puts on

a gust of speed as soon as she’s done

stretching, then tugs on the leash like a kite,

pulling my arm into an arrow,

which the kids can follow all the way home.

 

Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Gently Between the Words: Essay and Poems. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

 

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