Mark Belair, Settling In

The Imprint

Long ago, a boy, tempted

by wet sidewalk cement, stuck

the heel of his cowboy boot

in it—the shape unmistakable—

the hardened crater

now holding water where

sparrows—even days after a rain—

can gather to sip.

An imprint

so old the boy

could now be a man.

As it could be

that so many sparrows

have flocked there that

its place-memory

has become sparrow-ingrained.

And if the birds arrive

one day

to find no trace of their 

treasured pondlet

in the finally-

resurfaced sidewalk, they may

nevertheless

return time and again, the fledgling

generation, never having seen

the crater, watching

them peck—

with conviction born of ancient belief—

at the flat, dry cement.

Further details

Daniel Hinds, New Famous Phrases

The Crying of the Gulls

Between the shadow line on sand of your parasol

And the lapped slush beside the salt threshold

Her hunting ground moves

With the light and the tide.

Her dark painted nails dip in the white pool

Of Mr Whippy’s spilt beach bleach

Like livid pupils, small in the sick waters

Of her mascaraed eyes.

Sometimes the swaying of the black fans

Around her pink legs catches a man’s eye.

But not even the most tremulous twitcher

Looks for long at her yellow lips, marked

By a red beauty spot,

And the long grey bruises of her arms.

The thick muscle of her neck undulates,

Jaw unhinges, and untouched by the waves

Of arms, she lets the slick suntan grease

Ease the passing.

Between the beach’s squashed chips and faded newsprint

She plucks and swallows a knotted spotted handkerchief.

Further details

K. S. Moore, What Frost Does Under a Crescent Moon

A Welsh Thought

A Welsh thought is songbird,

warbles mutations —

sound beads strung mellifluous.

I once wrote a poem in Welsh —

Ceridwen hustled the clouds

to voice, they pattered a rainbow

to rival her potions

from coch to fioled,

bardd to cerdd,

the colours were written in slopes

while in her cauldron

the bubbles rose, reflected

the spectrum, reduced to three drops

absorbed by Gwion, carried

through forms —

hare to fish to bird to grain.

Even consumed

he continued

evolving,

each limb a line of new verse. 

coch – red,  fioled – violet

bardd – poet,  cerdd – poem

Further details

Annie Stenzel, Don’t Misplace the Moon

How to tame a tarantula

First, a question: must you even try?

Wouldn’t you rather

leave your tarantula right

where you found it,

hustling across the pot-holed road?

You could still call it “your” tarantula,

but it would belong to itself, picking

its own meals from crickets and voles.,

choosing for itself when to take

the many hours it requires of repose.

Another question: are you willing to commit

to 20 years with your tarantula?  The females

can live that long. But remember: she won’t

do tricks, she isn’t keen on being petted, and even

a small fall may be fatal. She’s that fragile.

Before I tell you how to tame

a tarantula, I’ll ask you one more time:

why bother? All those legs will always

want to run off without you. Plus

you’re a daytime person. She loves the night.

Further details

Sue Wallace-Shaddad, Once There Was Colour

Lady Liberty (Alaa Salah)

April 8, 2019

Dressed in white, she stands

on a car in the middle of crowds

protesting. Her arm raised,

finger pointing, a woman

making her mark. Kandaka,

they call her, chanting voice

of the Sudanese revolution,

a symbol of defiance,

not to be forgotten. I’ll carve

her form in alabaster,

gold earrings gleaming,

her toub falling in folds

from her shoulders,

draped in classical pose.

Those heady days of protest

are long gone, the country

riven with splits. I want

to breathe my sculpture

into life, release the power

of her gesture. Every woman

stand strong, call for peace!

Footnote A 22-year-old student, Alaa Salah, became a symbol

of the 2019 demonstrations in Sudan when she was

photographed leading protest chants (photograph by Lana

Haroun).

Further details