2021

 

 

JUNE CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

 

Estaban Allard-Valdivieso, Georgie Bailey, Daisy Bassen, Sylvia Freeman, Neil Fulwood, Margaret Galvin, Maren O. Mitchell, Fiona Sinclair, J. R. Solonche, Richard Allen Taylor, Damaris West, Sarah White, Rodney Wood.

 

 

 

 

 

ESTEBAN ALLARD-VALDIVIESO

 

you never know

 

the budding gardenia

does not know

how many

flowers to bloom

at spring’s end

nor does

each drop of

sun know

where it will

diffract & careen

in its stubborn little

adventure of stars—

do not tell me

the leaves

know the order

in which they

will fall

or whether the

sea-storm seeks landfall

like so many

drowned sailors—

leave this world

better than you found

it she said

& go down close to the edge

to give it a rest…

only then you will know

what it means to

find your way home

when everything

wants to be.

 

Esteban Allard-Valdivieso is 38 years old, currently lives in Berkeley, California, USA, and has been published in Street Spirit Newspaper, Free Magazine (by the Berkeley Student Co-Op Housing Association), and the CSULA newsletter. He has been writing poetry since he was ten years old. He also operates a photography business focused on music, culture, events and portraits.

 

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GEORGIE BAILEY

 

the art of hearing and receiving.

 

My older brother taught me the theory of

overpopulation through ripped up Dairy Milk wrappers.

Ones left on the dusty living room floor of a long lost

family home. Educated me in accumulation, landfill

and pollution through tiny shards of purple

plastic; lying poised, ready to pounce

on the dusty living room floor.

Via his means, I understood the sewers of latrines,

The importance of the deep cleans and

mysterious, shattered TV screen goings on

in the murky waters of the Philippines.

How termites build their nests

and how important recycling must be

to someone, somewhere, for the best

for the world, for now.

But asking about it these days,

receives no reply from the man with my eyes

taken down from a few generations above.

Maybe we just forget the things we say

in hopeless moments of agitation.

In those sequences of life, those astray, those askew,

making someone see something from your point of view.

 

Georgie Bailey is a working-class Poet and Playwright from Bordon, Hampshire with Romani heritage. He is a graduate of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s Dramatic Writing MA, and mentor’s new writers of all ages through creative projects. His works have been seen in magazines such as The Horizon, Ropes Literary Journal and Drawn to the Light. Georgie is currently on attachment to the Oxford Playhouse Playmaker programme.

 

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DAISY BASSEN

 

Reflections of an Astronaut, Looking down on Earth below (a love song)

 

You become accustomed to awe, the moon

Filling up the window, too close to believe it pearl

Or a fine round of waxy cheddar. Bleached of the rose

Sunset brings to a waste, a desert is left, the dream

A coyote might wake from, desolate, and cry

That the night was empty. Abandoned, love

 

Having fled with all rich color, with heat. There’s no one to love

So far away from our home. You’re solitary as the moon

Whose goddess is usually a virgin, whose sharpest cry

Is reserved for the revelation her breasts are not pearl,

Not the silky, milky flesh of his fatuous dream.

The discovery there is no thorn-less rose

 

Can’t shock me. I’ve always known the seas that rose

Swallowed what they wanted, anything that tending love

Made particular, set apart; everything collected using the logic of a dream,

The dirty jumble of a mind or the sweeping tides. Once in a blue moon

Means never, here-- it means the deceit of bent light, of a pearl

Hiding at its center, contamination; it’s a hopeful cry

 

Or hopeless. Those I’ve learned are more the same than not, the baby’s cry

We never stop hearing, the incurious hairy bee in the rose

Both stinging, breathing; both such sweetness. The pearl

Is the abscess’s sister; the assertion it’s better to love

Disruption into form than cast it off like the moon

Was from early, unruly earth, relegated to the object of dream,

 

The strain of ocean upon shores, our ovulations, to desire. Dream

On is an order than says you’ve failed, darling, and cry

Me a river has lost all ordinary sense, faced with the moon

And her waterless, tranquil seas. Any exile who rose

Up and demanded to return to her first love

You would understand better than me, my eyes made of pearl

 

Layered, removed, anomie sustaining me. What pearl

Do you not put in a lined case? What I now dream

Of, the dark cetacean noise of my own heartbeat, all I could love

Since I have been here, much closer to nothing than you. My cry

Is the sound across the deep that creates. The sun rose

To my ululation and if I turn away, only the battered moon

 

Remains, a bitten pearl. My soul has no refuge, no moon

Asteroid caught, or expelled with a mother’s cry, her long, labored dream

Laid in her arms like roses. I am all, all I have left to love.

 

Daisy Bassen is a poet and practicing physician who graduated from Princeton University’s Creative Writing Program and completed her medical training at the University of Rochester and Brown. Her work has appeared in Oberon, McSweeney’s, Smartish Pace and [PANK] among other journals. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.

 

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SYLVIA FREEMAN

 

Virgin and Child with Saint Anne

a painting by Leonado da Vinci now in the Louvre

 

Leonardo intended to finish it

but busy with other projects left

Saint Anne looking at her daughter and grandson

expression on her face saying

You have to let your children go

What else did da Vinci intend for this painting?

perfect the way he left it

beautiful line created by placement of figures

single tree representing spiritual strength

colors of mountain crags in background

subtle in quiet intensity repeated in Mary’s robe

as she stretches her arms forever toward the child

the babe forever reaching for the sacrificial lamb

 

 

a number to measure tragedy

 

after the number nine everything

goes back to one

begins another sequence

uniting one and zero

 

ten          Pythagoras’ perfect number

number of wholeness          harmony

an angel number          ten petals on a Passionflower

ten commandments          ultimate law

the way a contented baby grasps your finger

with his perfect ten

 

but on a scale of ten

how do you measure grief

a never ending cycle

scattering debris of lives

the way earthquake and tsunami

destroyed a small village in Japan

ten years ago          one man lost everything

home          history          son

I lost my son the same year

understand why that man went back

to the rubble and stayed a decade

to rebuild his life          fill the void

end          beginning         

moment          eternity times ten

 

Sylvia Freeman’s poems have been published in Story South, Galway Review, Muddy River and many other anthologies. In 2018 she won the Randall Jarrell poetry prize from NCWN and best overall writer prize from FCAC. She lives in Durham NC

 

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NEIL FULWOOD

 

Why i don’t write erotica 

 

Right then. Bit of scene setting to start with:

shadowy room, no windows, shag

pile rug. Even the furniture looks sleazy

like it was picked up cheap as a job lot

after a French brothel closed down. 

Everything’s bathed in red. 

Pantone 185C. Fire engine red!

 

There’s a cupboard at the far wall,

doors open to reveal an array

of whips, riding crops, gags and handcuffs

(proper carpentry job and all - none

of your IKEA flat-back crap here)

and just to ramp up the kink a bit more, 

there’s a length of chain bolted to the wall. 

7mm grade 80 short link chain, tempered

alloy steel, proof tested to 2.5 times

the working load limit. Righty-ho:

 

let’s get some participants involved.

Paragraph or two on things being

unzipped/unhooked, things being parted

like a padlock snapping free 

and a set of yard gates dragged open. 

Clothes curling to the floor 

like a burr spinning off a metalwork lathe.

Soon everyone’s as naked as the brickwork

the grade 80 short link’s fixed to

and things are revving up. It’s Fifty Shades 

of Myford, Venus in Halfords, A Spy 

in the Workshop of Love and we’re about 

to get to the right mucky stuff,

 

the stuff that’s going to tax my literary skills,

the stuff where I have to sidestep 

the obvious crudity of “going at it

like knives,” “going at it like rabbits”

or “going at it like a butcher’s dog,”

not to mention the rhythmic technique

of a fiddler’s elbow. The stuff that involves

thrusting and pistoning and hammering away

and I’m buggered if I can make any of this

sound the least bit sexy even though 

I’ve done my research and bookmarked 

a dozen pages in the Machine Mart catalogue.

 

 

Beer Garden

 

Not a straight angle to any of these benches

or the brewery-logo’d umbrellas poking up

through them. Take a good slug of your pint

before you set it down otherwise you’ll slop

 

an inch of beer to the ground. The dog

lazily eyeing you, hoping for a slurp

of something with a bit more volume

than its tepid bowl, looks disappointed.

 

A shade after midday in a quiet village.

Saturday. The post office closed, the pub

just open. A weekend break. On the estate

there’d be a grumble of activity now,

 

hedge trimmers whining, the boy racer

obsessively waxing the paint job, radio

thumping out something predictably shit,

the back-and-forth “fuck you” of a couple

 

reanimating last night’s drunken row.

Here, a well-heeled dog-walker tips you

a nod and a friendly word. A girl clops

by on a horse, the mud-striped Land Rover

 

on the other side of the road obligingly

slowing to a crawl. Everyone knows

everyone else. Doors are left unlocked.

Every garden conforms to the big push

 

for next year’s Best Kept Village award.

Signs for the wrong political party 

are latched to every other fencepost. 

You spill some beer, make friends with the dog.

 

Neil Fulwood was born in Nottingham, England, where he still lives and works. He has two collections out with Shoestring Press: No Avoiding It and Can’t Take Me Anywhere. His third, Service Cancelled, is due for publication in July 2021. 

 

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MARGARET GALVIN

 

America

(i.m Pate and Molly Coughlan, Kilmacthomas)

 

When my aunt Molly turned her face from the spoon of brandy

held to her lips in the hospital ward,

she thanked God that she drank enough

of it when she was able.

And the neighbour, wrapping up

the noggin bottle in a newspaper,

remembered her sipping the fiery concoction

as Elvis sang on the jukebox

in ‘The Bally Inn’ Kilmacthomas.

The publican, Leena Walsh puffing a Sweet Afton

from a long slick cigarette holder

and my uncle at the bar assuring everyone

that they had ‘America at home.’

 

 

My Father’s Greatcoat

 

Woollen, grey with slippery lining: his Sunday overcoat

hung on a wooden clothes-hanger on the back of the door,

holding its shape from one week to the next.

He spruced it up with the clothes-brush before he cycled to mass

returning with the newspaper and a bar of fruit and nut.

On wet days his coat was an animal’s pelt steaming to dryness

on two chairs before the fire.

Other days it gusted freshness into our house.

 

I wiped my tears in it once, I recall the small damp patches,

the quiet shuddering, but I don’t recall the particular sorrow

that brought me, that day, to crouch behind the door

and hold the sleeve to my face, tending to myself in private:

burying whatever grief I carried

in the folds of his one good coat, trusting

in its warmth and protection, relying on it, as he did.

 

 

A Good Dinner

 

Not two weeks since the Guards came

with news of the body, washed up,

I find her in the kitchen

seeing to the dinner.

 

‘It’ll be easier on the others,’ she tells me

‘to come in and find the food ready,

the table set.’

Not that they’ll eat much of it

but a mouthful might stir the heart to appetite

or a spoon of custard slip past the lump in the throat

and line the gut for the doctor’s pills,

the pink ones that numb and stupefy

but are hard on the stomach,   

routinely prescribed for the bereaved and traumatised.

 

Margaret Galvin is an Irish poet whose work has most recently featured in Stix, The North, The Honest Ulsterman and The Bangor Review.  Her collections include: The Waiting Room (Doghouse Books), The Scattering Lawns (Lapwing).  She has recently edited Around Each Bend a collection of poetry and prose from 48 contemporary writers from county Tipperary.

 

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MAREN O. MITCHELL

 

The problem with the present

                                    -for Rupe and Zomer

 

is I pretend it does not slide backwards

at varying personal rates on the up escalator into the past,

does not elongate ahead, a reverse shadow lengthening

toward the end of a winter afternoon into the future.

 

Fragments of past mix: my only spanking tempered

by my father’s tears; the liberating jolt

when my first poem emerged; the novel honor

of being carried on the back of another species.

And my perennial surprise at the span of your shelter.

 

Fragments of present mix: my most recent lie;

seeing a squirrel wield its tail; the touch of water.

And my ongoing discovery of the stretch of your shelter.

 

Fragments of future mix: tomorrow’s dinner plan

of greens and reds dressed with olive oil, comfort roots

and baked bird; my soon-to-be unimaginable death;

opossums, tardigrades and viruses re-inheriting this planet.

And my never-ending revelation of the sphere of your shelter.

 

The blooming sunflower that was, the blooming

sunflower that is, the blooming sunflower that will be,

all bloom in the same time.

 

I have no problem that the future consists

of the past pointing a quivery finger to it.

I expect to step into the circulation of time minus time.

And never the same again.

 

 

Two is the ideal

 

number in a close relationship,

one more and balance is lost;

 

one less, there is no relationship

and loneliness gels;

 

it is the best number for a conversation,

the easiest number for a business agreement.

 

It is the year of terribleness for children

when they begin to grasp some idea of all

 

there is to do and to have, and begin

to realize their limitations.

 

Can be the same sound to tell the way

to get from someplace to Paris,

 

whether or not directions are correctly given

or able to be followed by the traveler;

 

is the addition of anything to anything,

changing the originals: sugar to egg,

 

word to note, thought to action;

and, possibly too,

 

the sound of inclusion, unprejudiced,

no questions asked. 

 

Maren O. Mitchell’s poems appear in The Antigonish Review, Poetry East, The Comstock Review, Hotel Amerika, Tar River Poetry, POEM, The Cortland Review, Pedestal Magazine and Chiron Review. Two poems were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She lives with her husband in the mountains of Georgia, US.

 

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FIONA SINCLAIR

 

Old enough to know better

 

We thought the real dividends of those sisters’ struggles

would pay out once we were un-yoked from childrearing.

Admittedly a little pang at the odd chum whose youthful beauty

like a rose in winter blooms on, but no time for menopausal angst 

 

when in scarecrow couture, we show more concern

for havoc wreaked by weather on our plants, than on our faces.

Become Fun Granny teaching grand kids to play poker and swear

or dye our hair a raffish blue and do the rounds of summer festivals.

 

Then it seems the secret of eternal youth is out, and we must sand skin

to a shine, pump up lips like linos, tattoo eye- brows drag queen arch…

And those of us adamant that, ‘’You won’t catch me-’, still find our spirits

sagging with our skin at the thought of finding ourselves déclassé.

 

But sisters should be savvy enough to know, there is no fixing the clock on

hands, neck, decollate, where gnarling, crumpling, creping

contradicts their face’s new youthful façade, and always at odds

will be their eyes, whose seasoned expression cannot be expunged.

 

Fiona Sinclair's collection Time Traveller's Picnic was published by Dempsey and Windle in March 2019. She is the editor of the on-line poetry magazine From the edge.

 

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J. R. SOLONCHE

 

The Girl Who Answered the Phone

 

The girl who answered the phone

at the plumbing contractor said

I sounded like a happy person, and she

liked that. “Well,” I said. “I’m happy

that you think I sound like a happy

person and are happy about it. But

I have to tell you something. I’m not

a happy person.” “Really?” she said.

“How come?” “I’m a poet. Poets

aren’t happy people,” I said. “I don’t

know any poets, so I couldn’t say one

way or another. But you do sound happy.

You really do.” She laughed. “You sound

like a happy poet.” “That’s an oxymoron,”

I said. “What’s an ox-ee-mor-on?” She

stopped laughing. “An oxymoron is

a phrase with an adjective and a noun

that don’t agree. They contradict one

another,” I said. “Jumbo shrimp is a

good example.” “Or a sad clown? Is that

an oxymoron?” “Yes,” I said. “That’s

a really good one.” “Well,” she said.

“I still think you sound like a happy

person, or poet or whatever you are.

And I still like it.” “Me, too,” I said.

Then I made the appointment for the

plumber just like any happy person would.

 

 

We Were Talking About Movies

 

We were talking about movies.

Soon it got around to movies about

poets. Beautiful Dreamers is one

about Whitman. Bright Star about Keats.

A Quiet Passion about Dickinson.

Tm and Viv about Eliot and his wife.

Shakespeare in Love is about, well,

Shakespeare, but we agreed that he

doesn’t count, and we agreed that poets

don’t make good subjects for movies.

They’re boring. Frost wouldn’t be

good although he did threaten to kill

himself with a pistol at breakfast.

That would be a good scene. Stevens

wouldn’t either despite the fact that

he was knocked down by Hemingway

at a cocktail party. Another good scene.

Bishop?  Sure, she was a lesbian, but

not a good subject for a film. Boring.

Byron would be perfect for a movie.

He died in Greece fighting for their

independence. And that club foot of his.

A real challenge for Brad Pitt. Or Leo.

Bukowski did make a good subject.

An exception. An interesting movie

about a poet is Paterson, which is about

the hometown of William Carlos

Williams more than it’s about him,

and about a bus driver in Paterson

who’s a poet and whose name

is Paterson. Interesting but far

from the best. A really crazy movie

about a poet is The Libertine with

Johnny Depp as John Wilmot, Second

Earl of Rochester. Nothing if not

boring, especially the part where

his nose falls off from syphilis.

Speaking of Johnny Depp, wouldn’t

he be an absolutely great Poe?

My favorite movie about a poet has

to be If I Were King, starring

Ronald Colman as Francois Villon.

And my favorite line (screenplay by

Preston Sturges) has to be this: “No

offense. Poetry is its own worst enemy.”

Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?

 

 J.R. Solonche has published poetry in more than 400 magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s. He is the author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions), Won’t Be Long (Deerbrook Editions),  Heart’s Content (Five Oaks Press), Invisible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by Five Oaks Press), The Black Birch (Kelsay Books), I, Emily Dickinson & Other Found Poems (Deerbrook Editions), In Short Order (Kelsay Books), Tomorrow, Today and Yesterday (Deerbrook Editions), True Enough  (Dos Madres Press), The Jewish Dancing Master (Ravenna Press), If You Should See Me Walking on the Road (Kelsay Books), In a Public Place (Dos Madres Press), To Say the Least (Dos Madres Press), The Time of Your Life (Adelaide Books), The Porch Poems (Deerbrook Editions), Enjoy Yourself  (Serving House Books), Piano Music (Serving House Books),  For All I Know (Kelsay Books), A Guide of the Perplexed (Serving House Books), The Moon Is the Capital of the World (Word Tech Communications), and coauthor of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in the Hudson Valley.

 

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RICHARD ALLEN TAYLOR

                                                                            

Charleston Visitor’s Guide                                                                  

          After “Italian Phrase Book” by Richard Jackson

         

We are pleased to offer you the most

comprehensive vacation guide available.

 

I’m here for a day—so little time 

to comprehend the hum and history.

The parking fee is ten dollars. 

No one warns me hot-humid August

is not the best time. These streets,

once paved

 

with cobblestones used as ballast

in colonial sailing ships,

 

blister the feet, the heat penetrates

even substantial shoes. The ships

arrived empty or partly laden

from England, off-loaded

ballast stones to make room

for rice, tobacco, and cotton.

 

Visit the historic Market  

 

where farmers once sold fresh

vegetables. Vendors and artists

swipe my credit card, sell jewelry,

hats, T-shirts, crab boil, candles,

baskets, paintings, and prints. 

 

The Market has outlasted tornedoes,

hurricanes, a major earthquake

and bombardment from Union warships.

 

My historian friend says

losing the Civil War

was the worst thing

and the best thing

that ever happened

to the South.

 

Enjoy our sweet tea and southern hospitality. 

 

Not far from here, the slave trade

once thrived. The visitor’s guide

does not say if ghosts still wander

the streets, looking for their children,

who were sold in this

 

family-friendly city.

 

I escape the heat in an ice cream shop

and remember reading that DNA research

proves that white people are black people

who left Africa and lost their color

in the refrigerator of Northern Europe. 

 

Steamy summer weather calls for a visit

to Waterfront Park.

 

The Cooper River meets the Ashley

in Charleston Harbor where fish leap

completely out of deep water,

a feat few men have accomplished.

 

Jesus did it. Gandhi, Lincoln,

a few others. The rest of us

struggle to leave the pond

we were born in, or never try. 

 

“Shrimp and grits”

is not just for breakfast anymore.

 

Richard Allen Taylor (Charlotte, North Carolina, USA) holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. The author of three poetry collections, most recently Armed and Luminous (2016) from Main Street Rag Publishing Company, Taylor co-founded and, for several years, co-edited Kakalak, an annual anthology of poetry and art. His poems, articles and reviews have appeared in many publications including The Pedestal, The Main Street Rag, Rattle, Comstock Review, South Carolina Review, Iodine, The Writer’s Almanac and various anthologies.

 

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DAMARIS WEST

 

My father's hands

 

His were the most attractive

Hands I ever saw:

Philosopher’s hands - lean,

Ascetic, masculine.

Two fingers had tobacco stains;

A third one wore a slender

Wedding ring of war-time

Gold, pinkish with copper.

 

Two dickie-birds perched often

On his fingernails.

His thumb would poke out,

Wagging in the pulpit

At its prayers.

One finger had been

Savaged by the fish

That got away.

 

I watched those hands twist worms

Onto fish-hooks, fasten laces

So they’d never come undone,

Polish the yew-wood

Table that they’d made,

Shuffle cards, click deadly

Chessmen down on sly

Trajectories I hadn’t spotted.

 

But who could guess his hands

Would change because of illness:

The nails curve, the fish-bit

Little finger stay

Bent from the crushing

Of his unturned body,

His strong grasp drop

The soup-spoon as he fell asleep.

 

Damaris West lives near the sea in South-West Scotland. Her poems have appeared recently in a number of magazines and anthologies including Writers' Magazine, Snakeskin, Shot Glass Journal, Shorts Magazine, Eye Flash Poetry and inScribe. She is a novelist as well as a poet and has a website at www.damariswest.com

 

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SARAH WHITE

 

Mozart’s Friend 

 

One day, the great composer heard

a Speckled Starling sing

its variation on the now familiar

theme from his Concerto

in G Major for Piano.

 

He whose ear was never wrong

found sehr schoen  the starling’s song.

The two musicians

met. Three happy years ensued

as they jammed

and billed and cooed,

 

hummed motifs,

invented riffs.

With little money, they at least

had pastries (Viennese)

with grapes and cheese.

 

Yet Time’s cruel march

caused all their delights to end.

An avian illness felled the friend

of fond Mozart

whose household was made to mourn.

Hair was shorn, veils worn. 

 

And Amadeus plucked a feather

from the tiny tomb

to keep beside him in his room

until the solemn moment came

when his Friend would sing again

 

bringing kyries,

amens, and dies irae—

(all except the very end)

of the great d-minor requiem.

 

Mozart transcribed in a notebook the Starling ‘s version of the third movement of his Concerto number 17 in G (K453). The Starling put a pause over the G in the opening measure, and sharped the second and third G’s,  which made them better leading tones for the A in measure 3.

 

Sarah White's most recent publication is Iridescent Guest, (Deerbrook Editions, 2020).  Fledgling, a chapbook of sonnets, is forthcoming from Wordtech Publications. She lives in New York City and divides her time between poetry and painting.

 

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RODNEY WOOD

 

Linen Lifters

 

Houses are shielded by timber,

chain link fences, privet, forsythia,

lilac, laurel or even a shed or garage

but a few show washing lines They know

hanging clothes outside reduces wear

and tear, gives them a fresh smell

and uses less energy than a tumble dryer.

 

Lines are also handy for teaching

young children maths (counting,

pegging items in order or sorting

by colour, shape and size).

 

There's been no PhD treatise

on washing but there is a manual

available from Amazon but

the advice is make sure you leave

space between items so they dry quicker,

hang tops from the bottom and bottoms

from the top, fold sheets and blankets

in half then pin them up by the open ends

to stop a harsh crease forming

(also use a couple of extra pegs in the middle

to stop it sagging or blowing off in the wind),

and hang socks in pairs held together

in the middle with the leg holes open.

 

Underwear is divisive like wearing a mask

or hating football clubs with the letter U

in their name. Some think intimate items

should be kept hidden away but others

believe they should only be dried

in direct sunlight to prevent elastic

from becoming loose or tears

forming in the fabric of the fabric.

 

All the neighbours bedroom windows

are filled as they point disapprovingly

at my washing line where boxers, pouches,

lacy or crotchless knickers, push up bras,

cosplay uniforms and lingerie

are having an orgy of uncontrolled sex

where you can’t tell who’s doing what to whom,

let alone how and why.

 

 

A Variety Of Nude Poses

                       Titian, Diana and Actaeon, 1556-1559

 

My neighbour is not a fabled Greek goddess.

She doesn't have 6 nymphs attending her 

 

and certainly not a snarling lap dog,

although she did have a cat but that died.

 

I've never hunted with bow and arrow,

still less a pack of black and grey hounds

 

or surprised anyone naked by a spring

and as for being turned into a stag....

 

I've been warned not to see her sunbathing

in the garden, nude like Diana but wearing

 

flesh-coloured knickers. Perhaps she

remembers her chased/chaste youth

 

when eyes, breasts and skin were sought

after. Now she’s an embarrassing old woman.

 

But it’s her body, her garden. Let the sun caress

and give her moments of happiness and radiance

 

in her forest where the wind caresses her

and the sun plays its sad music once again.

 

Rodney Wood lives in Farnborough, UK, co-hosts the monthly Write Out Loud (Woking), is a stanza rep and is widely published in magazines.

 

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