Guest Poet

Coming back in the darkness
after the match
through old pit villages
with the light from newsagents
illuminating the pavements
and the lads on the bus
strike up a chorus of
‘footsteps on the dancefloor’
slamming down their boots
on the top deck
and chanting ‘heavy shoe’
The laughter, the beer fumes,
heading for home
and a night in the local.

– Jon Tait

Sleep between the leaves
in the secret dawn
of summer’s fallen shanty town.

They drowse in the clasp
of veined, watery leaflight,
in nature’s frail golden eggs,

In shells and tatters and curls
spun from the coin-washed sky.
In the quiet, cold,

Clinging to the damp walls,
red tinged their houses rattle,
turn over under the rake.

And suddenly they are trembling.
Because it is the season—
smoke swirls across the yard.

They are the meek, the helpless.
Baptized by the rain, they will not inherit.

Too small this town.

– Russell Brickey

Never thought I’d live to see
My own Octo-gen-er-ity
The daily complement of pills
Have staunched so many ills

I am the first in my line
To reach this magic time
As I stand to face
The finish of the race

Each day I go anew
To confront life’s brew
Of ache and tired muscle
Amid our diurnal bustle

I take my quotidian stand
A toast to Medicine Grand
For a long and healthy life
Buttressed by my loving wife

– Milt Montague

An orange jumpsuit
Fiendish rogues
Stung by zeal
White-hot iron
In measured
doses of pain
I hang off a rock
In a storm of stardust
My soul clings
To desert winds
No smokes
For fifty years
I crave a cigarette
Red lights flash
A siren blasts
Fingers bleed
Teeth fall out
My tongue
has disappeared
I gasp for breath
My headless body
no longer belongs to me
I’m a pebble
Kicked down a road

– Milton P. Ehrlich

There it goes,
There it overflows,
There it wanders

In a swift feather-like manner
When wind blows
Running thither

As if to be forgotten
To be the dew
Inside a book bitterly written

To moan in silence
To hurt to torn
To be doomed to an everlasting mutiny

– Ilhem Issaoui

The ocean waves,
consistent, slow,
as your dark eyes
slide down a-wash.
They touch me now,
they spin my stars,
I go from child
to woman’s roll
like running tides
becoming fluid.
From warm to hot,
a racing sea.

– Barbara Franzen

I was born to a man
Who knew no limitations
And sacrificed himself
Willingly
To the god within.

Confident what was here
Always would be,
He engraved family names
On anything
Affordable.

As rightful heir
To this immortality,
I blew the ashes
From my hand.

His death
Will include his heaven
And we—
His children—
Will burn
The throne.

– Jerry Moffitt

These walls our elders built
on hills of root and clay;
the piles mute where
watch towers wait
for consonance in light.

A tune ruminates inside,
uncanny in the cavities.
First the fossil bleed
breathes the stain back
to whitewashed whispers;

the cattleshed rattles,
bolted to the well and
a draught in the rain song
roams the drop down to
silence, waterlocked

a spell, till stone traps
it in holes again and a
low call sucks the ruin,
the crow stalks. A rumour
in the wall calls to war

now measured with its beak,
to fingers dancing darkly
on the ivory, the strain
in piano keys an officer
scales, beating vowels

of desolate air, vocals
crowding loudly to exile
from corners and crescendos
a shadow flares, entomb
the final note fall.

He lies in waxing smoke,
his tunic lead on open sky,
his rifle pointed to the night,
melody « in memorium »,
in minor

and the awful quiet.

– Blaithin

I had it in hand in my bath,
right here, the soap, the truth,
but then it escaped me, no reason.

This happens, I calm myself, be reason-
able. Lie back. When your bath
involves a search for truth,

it’s a slippery soap grope. In truth
everyone now and then takes a bath
in the marketplace tub of reason.

Truly, with reason. Bathing next, grasp this.

– Richard Swanson

Heart weeps in tribal beats
One earth, thousand worlds

A wise mind covered in moss
Shaman drowned in drug fit sleep

Sold from hair to nails,
Lack of DNA in our wires

We build fires, rain down like knives
Yet eyes so mild, promise stars

A realm of injustice, slaves and mirrors
Free will, past lingers

One dreamer, thousand ways
Eyes so wild burn with a blaze

Tear off the stolen skin, rise the drummer… rise
Run off into the forest, just run… run away

Save what’s seen before your eyes
… save yourself

– Elina Alksnite