Living Poets

Volume II Number II

Edited by Sean Woodward

First Published
June 2005 Era Vulgaris

by

Dragonheart Press
www.dragonheartpress.com

11 Menin Road Allestree Derby DE22 2NL England

 2005 Dragonheart Presss

 2005 Individual Poets
All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Layout and Graphics By T3KTON EUROPA

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No part of this electronic journal may be reproduced in anything other than its original form other than for
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Contents

Lotus Eater Dr Charles Frederickson

Jump-Started Heartbeat Dr Charles Frederickson
Paradise Rumours Dr Charles Frederickson
Steady Gaze Dr Charles Frederickson
A High Protein Affair Geoff Stevens
Each Morning Light Geoff Stevens
The Problem Solver Pete Lee
Swallowed By Illusions Gordon Scapens
Credo Gordon Scapens
Himalayan August I – Blocked In Ashok Niyogi
Himalayan August II – Photograph Ashok Niyogi
Himalayan August III – Morning Tea Ashok Niyogi
Himalayan August IV – Ayin Ashok Niyogi
Himalayan August V – Market Street Ashok Niyogi
Necromancer Michaela Owsley
Riding With Demons Sean Woodward
Fredericksburg Sean Woodward
Ioannes Sean Woodward
Numbers Tattooed On My Wrist Ben Wilensky
A Wedding Toast Ben Wilensky
Terminal Ben Wilensky
Dying Ben Wilensky
Angelic Flight Ben Wilensky
The Cursing Of The Jews Ben Wilensky
As She Puts In Her Face Reena Sharma
Yesterdays Woman Toay Reena Sharma
Dreams Reena Sharma
To Be An Indian Reena Sharma
Death Reena Sharma
The Final Charter Reena Sharma
Loved Ones Reena Sharma
Merits Of Education Reena Sharma
Evolution Reena Sharma
Lies Reena Sharma
Clothes: Reena Sharma
Father Time: Reena Sharma
Splendid Isolation Reena Sharma
Offer To Treat Reena Sharma
Prayer For A Friend Reena Sharma
Dances Of The Night Reena Sharma
Betrayal Reena Sharma
Commitments Reena Sharma
Words Christina L Johnson
Good-Bye Christina L Johnson
Family Photograph Gillian Bence-Jones
A Girl’s Hair Gillian Bence-Jones
Picture In The Mind Shop Gillian Bence-Jones
Forgive Graham Foster
Divorce Graham Foster
In Memory Of My Father Fergus Hilton
Travaille Fergus Hilton
Liturgy Fergus Hilton
Rosebud Fergus Hilton
Mysterious Ways D Parrott
Schrodinger’s Other Cat D Parrott
Poor Old Rene D Parrott
Mystic Moon James Deeney
The Way Nigel Greenslade
Ripples Nigel Greenslade
The World Inside Nigel Greenslade
This Wind Nigel Greenslade
The Dawn Chorus Mike Deamer
Valentine Mike Deamer
The Fly Mike Deamer
My Love Mike Deamer
Witch Mike Deamer
In Memory Of The Untitled Mike Deamer
Glass Shelves Bobbi Sinha-Morey
The Temple Of Light Alison Edwards
Dolphin Tantra Alison Edwards
The Fisher King Alison Edwards
Liberty And Justice Gene A Picotte
An Enlightened Maturity Gene A Picotte
Dark Birds Gene A Picotte
Neon Orange Megan Willis
Junk Mail Megan Willis
A Rapa-Nui Walk Jennifer Yaros
Reflections in the Witness Room Jennifer Yaros
Used To Be Shy Billy Internicola
Donne’s Was A Sparser Age Jamie Cavanagh
A Buzzing Crowds The Sky Jamie Cavanagh
I, And The Sky John Binns
Cease John Binns
Rubies, Sapphires & Emeralds Simon P Jones
I Plunged Simon P Jones
Lotus Eater
IGNEOUS SKELETONS OBEISANT STRETCHED SKIN
FINE FEATHERED DEVOTEES PROMISORY OVERHEARDS
REFRACTORY POUCH CALCIFIED ANCESTRAL BONES
EMACIATED GILDED RIBCAGES PARADISIACAL BIRDS

BRICKKILN CRIMSON CLIPPED WING FOLDS

SANSKRIT-ENGRAVED IMAGE FLUSH WITH CREATION
SULTRY SUNLIT HEARTS TRANSPARENT FAITH
RAW SEE-THROUGH FLAMES ILLUSORY TRANSMIGRATION

BRONZE KNUCKLES UNDERSCORING FINGERTIP RIDGES

STIFF JOINTS SUFFERING RIGHT-OF-WAY YIELD
DANGLING CHAIN OF UNMOMENTOUS EVENTS
AMULETS SERVING AS PROTECTIVE SHIELD

LONG NUBBY STEMMED WALLFLOWERS WILT

PEDESTALED OFFERING INTRICATE SILVER FILIGREE
FORCED OPEN PETALS EYELID NAPKINFOLDS
GENTEEL INNOCENT SPIRIT FLOATING FREE

ORANGE BEESWAX TAPERS INTENSE AFTERGLOW

DRIPPING TEARDROPS SCENTED CANDLELIGHT MELTDOWNS
AXIALLY EMBEDDED WICKS CRUMBLY EDGES
BEATIFIC EVERYDAY SMILE NEVER FROWNS

JUMPING THROUGH SMOKE RING HOOPS

WAFTING CURLICUES RESURFACE FOR AIR
FRAGRANT BUNDLED INCENSE PICK-UP STICKS
UPLIFTING TRAJECTORY TRAILING FERVENT PRAYER

BEATEN THIN GOLD LEAF APPLIED

FACING UNCHOSEN DESTINY MURKY FATES
RADIANT LORD BUDDHA STELLAR COUNTENANCE
PREORDAINED ENDINGS NOBLE PATH CONSUMMATES

Dr Charles Frederickson
Jump-Started Heartbeat
LIMPID STEMS BATHING WONDROUS RADIANCE
SHADOWLESS CROWN CASTING GOLDEN BEAM
PLUCKED HOLY SENTIENT TRACES SALMON
BUDS FORCED OPEN FORGING UPSTREAMS

LOTUS POSITION CONTEMPLATION PRISTINE MIND

CRYSTAL CLEAR PERCEPTIVE THOUGHTS ABIDING
COGNIZANCE AT HOME WITHIN ITSELF
CLINGING SECRET DESIRE IN HIDING

SECLUSION FILLED WITH HALLOWED EMPTINESS

REVERBERATING ECHOES FORMER SELVES STRIFE
EACH PRAYER ENSURING SAFE PASSAGE
CHIMERICALLY LED INTO NEXT LIFE

BOUNDLESS UNIVERSE OVERLOOKED BY ENLIGHTENMENT

SWIRLY INCENSE CELESTIAL SCENT BETRAYED
PETALS FALL UP AND DOWN
LOOKING BACK ETHEREAL ILLUSIONS FADE

FAINT DUSKY GLISTEN WHISKED AWAY

STRUCK BRASSY GONG REFUSING SET
VAIN ENDLESS SUFFERING NIRVANA SEARCH
TRANSFORMS WORLDLY TROUBLES SANS REGRET

Dr Charles Frederickson
Paradise Rumours
RECLINING BUDDHA VENERABLE SACRED RELIC
BRAIDED WHORLS SPIRAL TOPKNOT TWIST
RIGID CONTEMPLATION GOLDEN DHARMA TRUTHS
PROVEN PERFECT GEOMETRIC EQUATIONS EXIST

HUMBLE BOWED SUBMISSION PATIENCE STRETCHED

STALKING ELBOWS PROPPED ON LAPS
UPLIFTED BOOKEND PALMS CLINGING TO
TRADITIONS FOLDED UNDER ACHY KNEECAPS

STAR CHANTS WARM BREATH INKLINGS

SUDDEN AMPLIFIED EXTERNAL WORLD INTRUSION
WOODEN CLAPPER CRACKING FORGED BELL
SQUINTY LOBES SLACK EAVESDROPPING ILLUSION

FIVE DIRECTIONS OBSERVED AT ONCE

ALL-SEEING THIRD EYE BLESSED FACE
MACROSCOPIC GAZE SOFTENING CAT’S-EYE MARBLES
MOLTEN HOLLOW INSIDES REGENERATIVE BASE

FOLLOWERS BECOMING THEIR OWN VOTIVE

LAMPS ETERNAL FLAMES INCANDESCENT FAVORS
SOLIDIFIED RED SEALING WAX AFFIXED
PRAYER WHEEL GRANTING FORTUNE WAIVERS

Dr. Charles Frederickson

Steady Gaze
LOOKING WITHIN CLEARLY OBSERVING NOTHING
SPIRITUAL MERIT PUREST BEING RETREAT
CROSS-LEGGED ELFIN DEVOTEE GIANT OVERSHADOWED
GOLD FLAKED EYELIDS INCONSTANT HEARTBEAT

FIXED STARE ABOVE AND BEYOND

BATHED IN SUNLIGHT NEBULA AWHILE
CORNERED LIPS ALMOST IMPERCEPTIBLY UPTURNED
UNKNOTTING INTIMATE HINTS BEATIFIC SMILE

STRETCHED LOBES REFLECTIVE PIERCED EARSHOTS

TICKING SILENCE ATTENTIVE LICENSE REVOKED
LISTENING AS DESTINY HOLDS ITS
BREATH HOVERING INCENSE EXHALES SMOKE

LOTUS POSITION THRONE BLOSSOMING INGOT

LAYERED TIERS DHARMA WHEEL WHIRLS
DRACONIAN CANOPY ARCHED LIKE EYEBROWS
INLAID SPIRAL CROWN CONCENTRIC SWIRLS

CAST-IRON GESTURES PRESENCE CALMING ABSENCE

BACK-BENT WRIST CRACKED BRONZE KNUCKLES
MEDITATIVE HAND CRADLING WEIGHTLESS SOULS
BEYOND CONSCIOUSNESS BLESSED EXPERIENCE BUCKLES

HAPPENING QUICK AS LIGHTNING AFTERTHOUGHT

SEEING PERHAPS BELIEVING CONJOINT DOUBLETAKE
IMPOSSIBLE ACTUALITY LORD BUDDHA BLINKS
GLANCE RESERVED FOR LONELY NAMESAKE

FLASHING LASER BEAMS SELF-POSSESSED DIVINITY

STAKING ETERNAL NIRVANA HEIGHTS CLAIMED
INNER PEACE FASTING UNTIL ENLIGHTENMENT
ENDLESS SENSE OF WONDER PROCLAIMED

Dr. Charles Frederickson

A High Protein Affair
Lovers
Butchering each other
With sex

Each a side of meat

Hanging on a look
Showing all the ribs

Her brain chops one off

It contains a kidney
He weighs up a breast

She wraps testicles

Licks a pencil
Writes the price for it

On a piece of paper
Lists liver for the cat
A piece of polony

Says that big marrow-bone

A pound of lard please
He gives her tongue

Asks for a slice of action

A piece of ass

Geoff Stevens
Each Morning Light
Naked, you are as complex as calculus
And yet so easily differentiated
Because it is nakedness
That I have come to know,
So that my mind calculates the area beneath the curve
Without but a thought
And tells me in the darkness
That it is you.

Naked, you are the coast of my intentions

My passport to abroad withdrawn
My heart confined to house arrest.
Statements that I make
Are vetted by my love for you
Yet prisoner of conscience
I am provided with all the comforts
Wished from life.

Naked, you say you love me.

It is a statement without clothes.
It smells of your skin.
It throws its arms around my neck.
It is as warm as your body.
I stroll around it all my island day.
And after the lonely tide of sleep
It is the sunshine finger writing in my sand.

Geoff Stevens
The Problem Solver
Why do you always end up
identifying with the killer
in serial killer movies?
The brilliant detective

after all, has problems,

too: the job-related scars,
the unhealthy compulsions,
the dead child and/or spouse
who haunts him or her…?

For the same reason (you deduce)

you don’t deign to call them “detective movies”-

there are problems,

and there are problems.

Pete Lee
Swallowed By Illusions
There’s no doubt he’s a winner.
You can count the cracked cheers
In the stories he fills,
See doors friends have opened
And closed behind him,
Spot the nerves in his eyes
That deliver a punch line.

It shows in the tiredness

Of a big house with drawn blinds,
By the stubbornness of fists
That knock on the door,
By time that’s not owned,
By the tripwire of his name.

Peeping through yesterday’s window

The prize had an obvious face
And swallowed like a whale.
Now he sees its shadow
Slinking off to a revised game
With rules that pull strings.

Craving is a flying signpost

With the grace to be tailored.
He knows the road ahead,
How small it is to live on,
And he knows he’s still running.

Illusions wait
Like unpaid bills.

Gordon Scapens
Credo
Recruiting my talents
To the grand dream,
Life has forgiven me
The face I wore
On the way up.

I’ve learnt the language

That absolves steps
Made from colleagues,
A cloak that suits me,
A uniform tailored
By measured intentions.

The end of the path

Seeks my name for a trophy.
The game is a self orbit
That fixes my position
In a home-made sky.

I fit, therefore I am.

Gordon Scapens
Himalayan August
A Series of Five Poems

Blocked In

Rockslides in front of me
Take the road away,
Mud and uprooted trees
Take the road away,
Just round a bend
I have crossed.

Suspended above a gorge

Between river a mile below
And sky miles above,
Driving rain,
Clouds eat up pines.

Puddles form and run away

Between myself and me.

Photograph

Nothing between
The sun and me.
Sheep stewarded
By the man and his dog
Across the road
And up the next incline,
After the last straggler is gone
I will be alone,
Standing just where I am.

I must move on,

Wash my face
By the mountain stream,
And enter the interplay
Of light and shade,
Primordial canopies
Of ancient trees.

Purgatory
Shaped by a designer God,
Heaven
Is above the snowline,
Now blinding,
Now hiding in opaque cloud.

Nicholas Roerich,
A pencil sketch will not do,
You need color for this.

Note: Roerich, a famous Russian artist and painter who

did a lot of work in the Himalayas.

Morning Tea

Sculpted into a wall of ice,

Gods of malignant device
Blight cherry orchards
With early frost.

Prematurely gray,
This mountain dawn
Moves westward
Like a locust swarm,
Silent plunder
Of my peaks in black.

Drops of dew
On blades of grass
Await fulfillment
Of insatiable lust,
Glitter with the morning ray,
And then burn away.

In my rose garden
Bees have arrived,
I contemplate
This erotic interplay ---

Wake my dogs,
And sip at tea
From porcelain cups.
Ayin

In ten million years

They will approach
Middle age.
Wind, rain,
Sleet and ice,
Mountain streams
And waterfalls,
And humankind
Will etch wrinkles
On their face.

Ravines and rapine,

Sodomy
Will leave quarried stone
On post-menopausal
Riverbeds,
And I will dig
For wriggling worms
In lecherous mud.

They were born

And will be Ayin,
For they were born
Of the Ayin.

Tectonic plates
Will recreate.
The peasant man
Will be at work again,
Cutting terraces
Out of mountainsides,
For his one measly crop.

Note: Ayin (God) is borrowed from the Kabbalah and literally means ‘nothing’. I find the
concept rudimentarily common with the Hindu philosophy of Advaitavad, which worships an
eternal formless entity.
Market Street

Market street,
Dimly lit
In the gathering dusk,
Teashops,
Tired vegetables
And fruit,
Camouflaged by the gloom,
Fabric stalls
With printed flowers,
The river is sound
Only sound,
People walk
To the bus-stand
Across the bridge,
Temple bells,
Conch shells,
Devotees leave
Shoes on the doorstep,
In descending cold.
Electric bulbs
Define the hillside town,
The evening meal.

Where is the liquor shop?

Ashok Niyogi
Necromancer
Do you remember how we danced together at night?
With a sheet opacity between us?

Millions saw you as the Ouija queen,

Killed by the fair hands of your Ouija king.

How I laughed at that assumption!

That white light had been dulled long before

He got his hands around your throat,

The thought of a man snuffing out that flame was preposterous!

We both knew it was ourselves that did each other to death,

It was us that wiped our bodies clean of handprints past and present.

It was us that reclaimed our record at the hospital,

Our tiny footprints and blood long congealed.

It was from no other entity that the wind had come from
That flung us head first into the pit of misery.

You once asked me from the grave:

“How does one register a life when one is already dead?”

And I replied:
“How does once emulate such brilliance in death, when one is still very
much alive?”

A morass of misery we never quite figured out.

Michaela Owsley
Riding with Demons
Having trafficked with demons,
Intelligences, ghouls,
And the sullen constructs

Of Alchemists, your punctuated attempts

To appear aloof, unaffected,
In control of every situation

Have no meaning

Are like the screaming never heard,

Atrocities lying undisturbed
In the Sudan,

In Bosnia, Chetznia and

The whole damned world.
Every man is the same

Blinding himself blameless and free,

Riding with demons,
Cutting down the spirit’s tree

Blind as only young souls can be

To the enormity of their actions
To the creaking

Dying, drowning body after body

Turning on the Wheel
Feeling this last moment

For the eternity of the Bardo.

Having trafficked with daemons,

I know
How they love so to sew themselves

Into the skin of a man,

Into the skin of a woman,
Torn and scratched and withering
Never quite hiding,
Burnt with all that riding
All that turning on the Wheel.

Sean Woodward
Fredericksburg
Night comes wet to Virginia,
The alchemist trees adept
At stealing colour

From the shiny depths

Of every drop.

Shivering in the Halloween wind

They wrap a cloak of golden leaves
Around their soaking shoulders

And dream of soldiers

In the trap of the Rappahanock,
Sliding between worlds

Called by the cannon wheels

To the land of night
Called by the riflemen

To the sleep without light.

I hear their voices

Echoes huddled on the horizon
Crouched beneath the trees

Hidden now by Interstate

By Re-Election campaign pleas
Conversing with the Generals of the Fall

Those forests of ancient strategy

Standing now so proud and tall.

Night comes wet to Virginia

Carrying with it
All these moments

That linger.

Sean Woodward
Ioannes
Running across St Peter's Square
In the depths of obelisk shadow free night
I see a single light

In a single window
Now shuttered tight

In anticipation

of conclave’s white smoke.

In surprise my single tear

Screams from a bleary third eye
Tries to shout at the injustice of life

That folds itself away

White Visage Veiled
Into the hidden light of mystery.

The phrases of Eastern Orthodox patriachs

Now echo in this universal ark
Of prayers and praise

And I try to raise myself

Above the prejudices of preconceptions
Try for one second

To learn the lesson of Ioannes’

Sean Woodward.
Numbers Tattooed On My Wrist
Now cry the seven, six, the little deuce, the four, followed by two more
Mythical numbers tattooed on my wrist, mystifying one, trey with glinting
eye,
Forged into an awesome sum of higher meanings.

Scratched along the veins in shape and form of a biblical tell,

Kept live, nascent, by picking at the tissue of the skin,
Compressed air oozes from this mausoleum with a hiss of gas,
Memorial hyperbole.

Summoned by the oompah bands and blitzkrieg waltzes,

Wee tykes were herded into boxcars heading east
To the clickety clackity smack of metal sparking metal
Until most of us died of shock.

My meticulous tribe printed me to be a dot on the map,

A speck added on to final solutions.
Ordered East to Untermenshentown with other printed
Boys and girls clutching dolls and sucking thumbs,
We journeyed on in jellied terror, constant piss,
Screaming for our mommies.

In those centuries long ago, little Jews believed the relevancy of numbers,
How many constitute the name of god, how many threes and fours
Enliven us with mystery. Numbers do not lie to us,
They edify. And now we had these new ones to obey.

Computing energies the way an alchemist transmutes dross into gold,

I demanded dear God reveal to me why I did not die
With all my curly friends from Talmud Torah. A Jew is dead, I cried,
And God has lost a son.

Someone is making fun of me.

There are no more children on this train.

Slithering through cul de sacs, vast hiding places,

God commissioned me to rub the feet and rub the hands of the still and
silent
For signs of life, signs of breath.
Gamblers call it a “tell”, a giveaway.
Scarecrow in an Ike, see me shivering in a dead Kraut’s shoes,
Sick under this crawling combat coat,
Stench coming from my crotch worse than all the corpses
Piled in front of my face.
My tribe enjoys a felicity of order, and so bones and mangled bodies
Were properly aligned, spliced into jigsaw puzzles
Fifteen cubits high.

A boy, they say, gets used to filthy things, and does so quickly, stoically,
and so I did.
The dead were often dirty, often shards of fat, camouflaged
By rags, rope, shaped by pieces of string that kept the mass from
shimmying,
The way a butcher’s cord binds and ties the evening roast.

When light sank into the sea, lice emerged to hack into cavities.
Not a single corpse protested,
Or ever helped me finish daily chores.
I worked in silence, shame.

Boy of five, enclosed by walls of cunts, tits,

I fantasized what lies below the waist in nudity,
Squinting into crevices,
Vulvas squeezing in and out,
Beckoning me to plunge into their holes and fructify,
Red, raw, radiant pink,
Big fish swallowing little fish,
Gaping in a giant maw,
Yearning for a suck of milk,
Pussy hair, crotch, deep black pubic patch,

Pricks of every size and shape,

Fumbling in male humiliations, grotesqueries impelled by outer forces
To erect, propelled by noxious gases to explode,
Shooting sperm fifteen cubits high
In stubborn copulation.

Dear God, I prayed,

Do not show me daddy doing dirty.
Keep me blind.

It never goes away, this smell of sour rye,

Blue cheese, newborn babies frying in gasoline,
Rank, but bearable
Oddly bearable, exotic,
As if one were sniffing the creations of a cell,
First defecation of a child,
A hiss of gas, hiss dying away,
A faint pop of life, then jugular shit.

See me with my caved in chest, paranoic,

Trembling under the bright lights of interrogation,
Shivering rat slicked with mud, dying to sit,
Soon to faint, held aloft by the gloved white hands of the military police,
Who shook my shoulders, and asked my name
In six different languages.

Wie heist du? Who are you?

As if I owned a past.
As if every nodule of my future life could b predicted.

Bugs were chewing on my testicles,

A starving corps de ballet.
I answered them in the only way I could answer them.
Ich bin a sieben! Ich bin a vier! Ich bin a drei!

There is rage in my old age, a bloody justice shall I pursue,

But for the life of me, I am still a reflecting Jew, demanding sanity,
Especially now when cranky, crabby, far from photogenic,
Who will ruminate on my cancerous face, such a sullen, pockmarked face?
Recall the rasp and racket of a smoker’s cough-catarrh?
Wie heist du? What is your namen, your tribal number?

I grind my teeth at night

Grind as I await visitations,
A flickering film, a chemical boil.
Dig, and rub my tell, pick pick the skin,
Until sores concede to pain.

Not a model for the human race.

Say I do not shine, barely exist, say.
Say that numbers record my past, my pedigree: six, seven, little four,
Stuttering trey, followed by a few insignificant others.
Call me “Jew Antique”. Call me “Reliquary”.
Only Nazi numbers record my provenance, my identity.
Printed on a piece of paper, these numbers are placed
Into the centre of my phylacteries, and when I pray,
I liberate them, send them tumbling into space, but with strings attached,
Otherwise, they would run away, leap
Into a pot of boiling permutations

To be chewed on, sucked off,

Swallowed by other voices. Rudderless,
I would lose perspective of an incoming death.

In the first light of every waking morning hawk my rising seven,

Six comes flying, birdlike trey, crooned
To Yankee chicks when born alive and pecking through the outer shell
I helped to pick and pierce with formidable beak,
Sacrificing righteous skills and hard earned monies to back their play,
Their new world numerologies.

To this day, my prayers resound with Mother Goose and Grimm

configurations,
Imbalanced by my out of body croaking and my gruesome expertise.
Jaws slack, teeth swim in a jar, far, far away,
Chattering at the water’s edge, making jokes in tri-lingual
pronunciamento's.
Mouth dry to tinnitus in my ear,
Right knee jerks in defensive prayer, other stutters backwards
Into disbelief, both knees squealing in banana savagery.

Deprived of grace, mobility, forced to summon up

My own epiphanies, forgeries,
My dice investigate a possible hope and piece for aynickle, grandchild,
Jew to come,
For any form of life after death, should I will it.

Somewhere, a photograph authenticates my lineage.

Somewhere, a civil service document exposes tri-lingual puns.

A five year old me crawls on hands and knees through clouds of smoke.
Fingers scar, and tissues burst in flames,
Uncovering burnt offerings, blue vase containing ashes, names scribbled
in a book.
A Jew is dead. God has lost a son,
Squandered sensibilities.

Floating in this homeless, anal heat,

High above the shtetl spires,
The moon relights a maiden portrait.
My mother is a full balloon.

I coax her down, momma, come into this hazy, hokey kitchen fire,
Slow descent, illuminated by the blaze of candles,
Hugs me to her bosom, shimmering ghost, severed from her moorings.

A black pot boils on her kitchen stove.

Inside the pot is a chicken boiling in its own fat,
Along with carrots, nuts, chopped apricots.
Streaked across her apron are the black tracks of pepper
Heading east towards Untermensch shentown.
I sniff three ducks sizzling on a spit, exploding like a pistol pop,
And as she holds me to her chest

I see the numbers tattooed on her wrist.

I need my specs to see
This hackneyed Shoah pain,
Kike horror in all its duplications.
No sign of daddy anywhere, and even in my own collusions,
Who is making fun of me?

I have a child’s vision of what shtetl light should be.

There are no more shtetls and no more shtetl Jews,
And so I make them up, in the finest forgery, from magic, and creative
loss.

Push through the swinging doors into the past,

Into cobwebs trussed with flies, cabinets filled with ancient dust,
Peppermint, lace, spices pressed against the face,
Inhaling women singed by fire.

Drunk on wine, whiskey, I see iconic creatures gleaming in the night,

But I do not see their numbers, do not
Know their names, cannot identify biographies. If I knew them, even now,
I could recast, reshape identities, preserve my mother as a saint,
Press her fingers to my cheeks and then mercifully,
Do myself a favour, and put myself to sleep,
But there is no provenance here, no authenticity.

This is what abides:

Vulgarities abide, sentimentalities abide,
Followed by the k-k-knock of squishing hearts,
Yiddish clarinets,
Forgiving sins too vile for me to comprehend,
Absolving answers too dim to be of service anywhere.
My memories do not wash! They do not fit!
“You Fucking Yids, Hitler should’ve nailed you to the cross!”
“This time around we’ll do it right! Verdampte Scheisse!”

I woke this morning smelling gas.

I awoke this morning on my train heading east,
Pissing on my bed, pissing on the sheets,
Piss dripping through the floor boards,
Dripping on the tracks.

An old man, a boy of five,

Crawls through burning bushes sifting evidence,
Piles of teeth,
Jawbones of a golden ass.

I pick, pick pick around the edges

Until blood leaks onto my bed,
A plum dark, kosher wine.
I have never given up on comedy,
Or remedy.

Now Cry the deuce! Cry the four! Immutable trey!

Sing out for Little One! O you Great Six! You Fallen Seven!
We are stumbling into space with a toss of the dice.
A raging heat drives across aynikle, Jew to come,
Shattering life after death should I desire it.
As clouds part and stars shine, this is what abides:
Here come Snake eye’s!
Here come Boxcars!
Here come Craps!

Ben Wilensky
A Wedding Toast
Millions wed this day and millions more tonight,
Conceiving keys and locks that open onto paradise.

Here to dig foundations in the earth,

We will fortify this house with structured steel and silver mesh,
Then artfully, dutifully, stretch layers of skin across this universe.

We are here to watch this baby grow and say I remember when history
began.

You two are going where we have gone before, but you go further,
Bearing hard core memories of another place, another war,
The usual perversities, family luggage.

Aim high, aim straight,

Like batteries of missiles ploughing through the outer gate.

When you write of us in years to come,

Sing of bitter bread and eccentricities,
How we willed you to succeed and how you laughed all the way to the
bank
Wearing a pair of new shoes.

God bless all here and those who are not.

You who are dying, or growing old, getting fat,
Losing hair, losing more, I ask you to rise.

And you who are fit, you there, muscular, beaming in your tux,
Get the hell up, along with your grinning brats.
Actually, they’re good kids. I held them in my arms when they were born.

Feel the awkwardness in a ceremony like this, a fear,

The possibility of marital distress. To break the ice, all here
Turn right, inhale your neighbour’s scent, the intimacy
Of a lover’s heat. Forgive amiable gas.

Autos crash, trucks spin, we jack-knife on the highways out of control,

Spewing greased and fiery rage across the televised mad, mad world,
Exposing burning wreckage on the eight o’clock news.
Married in the millions, and more so here tonight,
Expect a comic, deadly rite of passage.
As father of the bride,
Former lover to your mother,
We are ever true believers,
Because we are, and need to be.

Knees quake. Voices crack. Here come infamous tears

Rolling down my face, taunting my composure, my professional grace.
Why should I suffer alone?
All here are being photographed against communal will.
Oh yes you are! Pickled! Preserved!
Etched into the brines of this historical book.
You look like old time pioneers and root stock,
Or horse thieves facing down a hanging jury.

One more toast comes after this, but this one’s light, to the point.
It sings of happiness and nothing of the past.
I wrote this too, believing both, but this comes later, after we’re drunk,
Smitten with giddy wines and vintage friends,
Drinking newborn under the table.

God in heaven, are we young again?

Did all this happen in the blink of an eye?
Sweetheart, are you still there, holding my hand?

Draw your whiskey, beer. Pour champagne into flutes. Make it milk,
Water, anything wet, tomato juice, something to give the tongue
encouragement.

Create mantras and songs of a long dead mother,

A racy, sonofabitch father.
Gift them to bride and groom, mingling black with white,
Hetero-gay, God with not, poor folks sitting with the rich sequestered at
your table, couples
Out of joint, place, time, priests, rabbis, those we hate, love, so what!
Tonight we pray. As simple as that.
Did you think anyone escapes scot free?

Lovers, drink
And take us on this journey.

Ben Wilensky
Terminal
You who are crippled in cancerous pain,
Who don’t know where to go or what to do in blind confusion,

Forgive the living as you forgive the dead.

Memorialize who you loved and so even now,

Letting bitterness pass,

Spirits rise,

Until you hear the laughter,

And kiss the sweetness of light.

Ben Wilensky
Dying
Dismissed as cannon fodder,
Common clay,
Death lumps us into balls of shit
And blows us away.

My own approach to this rising tide

Is to swim,
Praying when the floods allow me time to pray,
Digesting clarity.

The Great Man’s razor glides across our necks

Aborting future, fame,
And time ticks on
In every temple of the world.

What we atone and choose to forgive

Are memories of insignificant lives revealed as new.

Seek comfort in this act of charity,

Forgiving failure,
Ready when you are ready.

Then curse the god damned rain, kiss it,

Until the last hissing breath.

Ben Wilensky
Angelic Flight
Androgynous, deprived of tit,
They swirl their wings in sexual confusion,
Yowling for a suck of human milk.

Overwrought, overdosed by pleasures,

Perversities sicked on them by grinning daughters of men,
They yearn for the calm embrace of mother love.

Crafted to be instruments of faith and vessels of light,

They flew the air swimming leaping with delirious joy,
Feathering each other’s tips and toes with unearthly delicacy.

Little dicked and baked without clitoris,

They lacked complexities.
Their brilliance was magically bestowed on them,
Their energy hand delivered on a silver platter.

They never ate their children or sacrificed one single feather for their
flight,
Yet higher and higher they soared without a net,
Believing angels never flame, or fall.

We gawked at their muscularity,

The strength to steal away from muddy mansions,
While down below, we slobbered through the craters of a boiling base,
Licking insects, gobbling roaches in a protein revolution.

Staggered in a mosh-pit colliseum,

Swinging out like Samson’s shaven bald, blind,
Bellowing when smacked, crying when we missed deliverance.

Created from coarse clay and tough red grit, we persevered

Through countless resurrections, the creation of a spine,
while they, hissed from heavenly moss, sheer gossamer bits
of smoke and haze, they lacked tenacity,
they lacked vulgarity and wit.

Quivering and shaking like teen-aged louts pulling on their sensitivities,

They dream of a hairy mate to make them snort and fart with passion.

When godly whispers whistled up their wings,

They plumed and fluttered in their female finery,
Swooned to their knees.

Obeisant to command and inured to human pain,

Delivered telegrams of dying compulsively on time.
Still, they dote on us, consider us sexual advisors.

On one solemn knock down day of every century,

They primp and come alive,
Burst their boundaries and bleed rebellious blood.

Firing cannons and beating drums,

They blow off steam, revelling in fashionable dissent.
They march, strut, unfurling banners, clenching fists.
We do not join delusional farce.

Wired in the image of a lusting god, a consuming god,

We rule the roost, and make the pigeons squeal for peace.

In a jizzmic, spasming spurt that rockets space,

When death diminishes and life’s reborn,
Angels offer us in bonded gratitude the mantle of their radiant robes.

Put them on, they say, and seek your destiny.

It is said we are the greedy, gluttonous offspring of a mother monster,

That we cannot slake the inner urge to chew on living life.

This sums up the nature of original sin.

We are molecules, memories, molecular families of those we eat,
And dare to replicate.

Because we must, because it suits our purposes of play,

We snag those furry, furry angles by their furry furry necks and squeeze
Until they’re red, red, puffy in the face.
Then sliding up and sliding down voluptuous plumage,
We smear our shitty bums on their pristine whites.

We are veterans of foreign wars and we grip our goddess sluts

By their short, black hairs and make them shake.
We are miners from the diamond dust and piggy shit,
Grunting truffles from a load that’s foul.

Too stunned to open up their perfumed lips and ratify,

They gurgle sobs of shock
Slink into obscurity.

Fashioned from god’s heaving breath,

We come last.

Technically,
We are top of the heap,
The best,
The centrepiece of evolution,

And learning how to fly.

Ben Wilensky
The Cursing Of The Jews
A Doggerel

“Oh You Blood Sucking Hebe!”

“You Christ Killing Zhid!”
“Mocky! Sheeny! Gutless Kike!”

Oy Yoy Yoy! Money Money Money in all my Bolshie banks!

“Communist! Capitalist! Ruler of the World!”

Curses cut into my weaknesses and whip away the fat,

Educate the wheezers, whiners, mystical martyrs, liberal lollies, radical
queers.
Nothing is left but “Cunning Rat!”

Keeps me fit, combatively alert.

Who wants to assimilate?

Naturally we run from these unpleasantry's but you pursue.

We are now your “Primal Enemy! Jihad Glue!”

Wandering the cities of the earth we prosper and we die everywhere,

Fail, and fail again,
Rise and cross the finish line, dominate the race,
While you are rooted in the mud like blind pigs,
Numbed by medieval rot,
Incapable of choosing style, or wit,

Too pissed to comprehend what it is to be

“The Demon Jew!”

See my “Protocols of Zion!”

Hot damn!

According to your Holy Writ I murder God!

I shave my beard and morph into a Jewess in a slinky dress.
Slithering through the Prophet’s tent and into his bed,
We pass the night in sulphurous sex until he is dead, dead, dead.
Even the Devil calls me “Slut!” His Demoness!”

You propagate this swill until a madness fries your brains,

Exposing meagre sensitivities.
Even now you need a Jew to make the world turn left,
Turn right, to lead you kindly toward the light.

Created by this constant rage, this constant curse,

We are central to the universe,
“True Believers!” exalted in the brights.

It’s the price we pay for being gifted.

“You Wog! Zog! Dhimmi Dog!”

“Poisoner of Wells!”
“You God Damned Jew!”

Ben Wilensky
As She Puts In Her Face
Validate me, cries her rouge
Accept me, screams her lipstick.

Yearn for me, Ache for me.

The long silky locks of hair protest.

I am the women yell her accessories.

The woman cannot be found,
Laughs the mirror.

Reena Sharma
….Yesterdays Woman Today….
Hands tied, hair tied, she stands
Thoughts chained, actions chained,
She exists.

Denigrated by conjecture
Pusillanimous and timorous,
She remains.

Castrated is her reflection,

Abused is her image.
Her masochism is celebrated and revered.
Her self-respect is berated as narcissism.

The time-bomb is set,

The explosion is impending.
Her remains will scatter and sow
Seed of a new breeze.

Reena Sharma
Dreams
Her dreams solve the qualms of her day.
Thoughts wind along the silvery stream.

As the night encapsulates,

Blankets of form.
Silhouettes alter a mirage of shape.

The qualms of the dream,

Lie out to graze

Reena Sharma
To Be An Indian –
I am the product of two cultures,
Two nations, two worlds.
The fruits and rewards are mine,
To have and behold.

The acidity and rancidness is

Mine if I choose.
The poisons and venom are there,
If I don’t.

To kill oneself slowly is torture,

Yet respectable.
To wither for a principle is,
Shameful…….undesired.

Acceptance of contradiction,
Respect for the unworthy.
These are the hallmarks of survival,
And to where I aspire.

To be an individual, is to attempt,
Social self-murder.
Better to be the reflection than
Try for the image.

Reena Sharma
Death
She touches us all with varying degrees of her sweet venom.
Her poison spreads until the pain burns through the barrier of control.
She comes at will and goes with her work complete. The darkness
That follows her like a shadow is hers alone, no mistake can be made
As to whom it belongs.
No explanations or apologies are given and so no lies or false
Promises are made.
When injured creatures howl with pain, that pierces not the
Ears but the heart, you know that she has left her calling card. To not
Believe she exists, is to not believe we exist, her truth is the ultimate
Truth.

Reena Sharma
The Filial Charter
To you my child
I give my aspirations,
I devote my dreams.

From you my child

I ask for obedience
I ask for affections
I ask for success

For me my child
I ask nothing
At
All!

Reena Sharma
Loved Ones
For the love of a lover
For the love of the mother

We love to be loved,
A deal is struck.
Legal tender is negotiated,
Invested is calculated.

Affection is ladled
Measure for measure
When the street is walked
Tis done for mutual pleasure.

Where is the Apocryphal Altruism.

Reena Sharma
Merits of Education
Capitulation smell of success
Its’ rancid odour proliferates the room
Conviction of intellect, she doesn’t possess,
Or so is told, “by those who know best”

To teach herself, she must learn.

To learn, she must be taught.
The cycle appears unbreakable,
Unless she contemplates independent thought.

Contemplation leads to agitation.

If she cogitates, she may lose her mind.
This loss is rooted in necessity,
If she dares to seek, what there is to find.

Freedom from the fear of rejection

And emancipation from self-denial
Are the tools that will ensure deliverance,
And are the rewards of enduring the trial.

Reena Sharma
The Death of a Friendship
In the twilight of the journey,
The road stops.
Abruptly yet firmly,
Stealthily yet certainly.

The common ground becomes razed territory,

Destruction by contempt ensues.
Words strike like hammers,
Where they once plucked like strings.

At which point, the road ends,

The dulcet tones mutate.
The music of happier times
Falls prey to the cacophony of animosity.

Reena Sharma
Evolution
Culture, Society, The World,
Peer Pressure.
To do wrong
In the name of conformity
Does it make it right?
Does it negate the misdeed?
How can one reconcile the conflict?

If genocide and misdemeanour

Are not outrightly condemned,
Does it automatically make it condoned?
If resistance is indicative of non-acceptance
And acceptance of non-resistance.
The query is easily appeased.

Where the Black and White merge,

They produce a spectrum of grey.
All hypothesised models collapse.
Free-thought and thinkers scatter,
Like beads of water, on an oily plane.
The stage is set, for a new society to rise.

They will think and object, even reject,

Where the agenda no longer applies,
Holy ground will be crossed,
At the expense of tradition.
It shall be the horse, and change it’s’ stick.
Old peer pressure, now gone………….?

A newer one will emerge…………..

Reena Sharma
Lies

In the name of the truth,

I tell this lie.

I shall always tell the truth

As the wind carries my words
As the birds sing my tune.

I shall always tell the truth

Even when I lie, through my
Very honest teeth…..

Reena Sharma
Clothes:
Hide a multitude of sins……….,
Yet brazenly make sinners of us all.
The human form shrouded in cloth
Loses its equality and natural form, for all.

The stitches and yarns of fabric, divide and rule.

Clothing becomes a weapon of modern day war,
No longer is the honour and modesty of form at stake,
But the display and it’s strength’s.

Under the allure and pretence of clothes

Bodies become ugly, bodies become beautiful.
Yet in essence they are all but, just bodies….

Reena Sharma
Father Time:
Time is the ultimate and true witness of all events that have,
Can and will occur.
This witness cannot be prejudiced and is not judgmental,
Just simply a bystander.

A true example of mental, physical and spiritual altruism

Within society.
Good deeds it records alongside the bad, genocide is recorded
Alongside martyrdom.

Time has no sense of correctness or tact, simply an obsession

With chronology.
Its’ presence is unwielding and it’s effect staggering.
Time does not wait nor does it race ahead, caught up in it’s
Own ambitions.
Time is the ultimate identity of existence.

Reena Sharma
Splended Isolation
When the soul cries for the heart,
The cry is solitary.
When you laugh, others laugh,
When you cry, you………………….

Your solitary cry is echoed,

Only by the indifferent skies.

The tears of anguish fall like coals,

Upon pale pink flesh.
As the charred, burnt, flesh blackens,
The world looks on.

Passers by stop and enjoy, the

Dissimilation of the soul.

Spectators rate the show on a scale,

Of one to ten.
The sympathisers shake their,
Sympathetic heads.
All the while, you cry……………..

Reena Sharma
Offer to Treat
Fuse me with your thoughts
Lose me in your maze
Engulf my meandering form
Give it shape, give it structure.

Support my loss of faculties

Explain away the mediocrity
Help devolve the citrus heart
Free it from, internal conjecture.

If you find this work too tasking

If you find the agenda to full
Take leave of me, from my garden,
Divert yourself from such travail.

Reena Sharma
Prayer for a Friend
Having lost you, I have realised you.
Having known you, I have met myself.

Your love has humbled, my assertions

Your dignity has defined a beacon.

Through your affections, I have lived

Through my inhibitions, I have lost.

When my eyes swell with tears.

Memories of days gone, break their fall.

I pray for a change in your kismet.

May the crop of time, reap you love.

Reena Sharma
Dances of the Night
As the blanket of night falls,
Her demons begin their dance.

A waltz of failed aspirations,

Follows by the rumba of lost loves.

The pace quickens, the heart pounds,

Her tears glide smoothly to the beats.

Each dance bears its’ own memory,

Each step carries a separate torch.

Rhythms of rejections co-mingle with,

Pulses of sweet emotional nectar.

Reena Sharma
Betrayal
From the depths of the heart,
Blazes the trail of sedition.
Not a mere sketch nor drama.
The aftermath litters the street.

The music of many sweet times

Resonates along barren planes.
The melody sounds distant,
And distorted beyond repair.

Denial and anger amalgamate

A potent cocktail for pleasure.
Even the old seasoned drinkers’,
Abstains from the intemperance.

As the shock takes its’ hold,

The pain grows in proportions.
Shallow graves of confidence rest.
The ignorance worse than the crime.

Reena Sharma
Commitments
Give yourself to your duty
Fulfil the prophecy of function

Allow your world to be seen

Through the eyes of necessity.

Independence is reckless and

Any such execution is selfish.

Mould yourself to a model of

Categoric demand and supply.

Reena Sharma
Words
I saw a rainbow yesterday.
I wanted to give it to you
But I couldn’t reach its middle
Or even find its end.

And when the sunset came,

I wanted to capture it
And send it to you,
But it slipped through my fingers
And faded into darkness.

I tried getting you the moon

But when I went to grasp it,
The man in the moon
Just looked at me and laughed.

So I wrote you a letter last night.

I had it signed and sealed
But I didn’t send it.
Instead, I threw it into the fire
And watched its words flutter like wings

And when the dawn came,

I could hear them
Singing in the trees,
Softly calling your name.

Christina L. Johnson
Good-Bye
When the leaves begin to fall
Please don’t look for me
For I’ll be flying
South on the ocean breeze
Chasing the autumn sun
So don’t search
Behind the tall elms and twisted oaks
That surround my vacant house
For I’ll have disappeared
With the last robin’s song
Waning like memories
Of warm summer days
Vanishing like your gentle August love

Christina L. Johnson
Family Photograph
Two girls in a goat cart.
One fair, one dark,
My mother and my aunt
Near Eldoret.
Long ago in that green garden time
For Kenya Colony.

Two girls in a goat cart

Never far apart;
Wide straw hats protecting them
From sun. Guarded girls,
Protecting spell of wealth. One married well
And both rode well to hounds.

Two girls in a goat cart.

And the throbbing sparkling
Ballroom turned to a tapping
Blackout while one nursed
The other drove a canteen
Under the roving aeroplanes.

Privilege guards but not enough.

There is so saving spell but love.
Not long ago my crippled aunt
Dragged herself upstairs,
Though the stairs were high, to say goodbye
To my mother, dying from cancer.

Gillian Bence-Jones
A Girl’s Hair
He who wins the girl I love
Will win a grove of light.
Ears of corn growing above
Poppies. Dragon fire bright.

Yellow broom of a great birch

Is this girl of Maelor;
Haloed with her silken, starry
Hair: An amber door.

If we let it down
All glowing
She’ll wear a gown
Of fine gold hair.

Gillian Bence-Jones
Picture In The Mind Shop
Some images
Like radishes
Become part of you:
Always there
On the shelves
Of the mind shop.

The Parthenon
That was ‘Our Lady of Satines’
In Outremer

Baroque Petria.
The Dome of the Rock
In it’s vast Court.

The Mona Lisa

Smiling sideways.
The hay wain
Coming out of the wade.
The coiffed girl
On the chequered floor
Cutting up carrots.

The man in the berry

Who killed men
For love of men.
The little girl, burning.
The family
On the balcony
After the war.

We all
Have our own.
A hugh black butterfly
Blazoned with wet-shine blue.
The place looking over the river
Where we sat and talked.

Gillian Bence-Jones
Forgive

You want me to forgive you?

You’ll have to think again!
After all the pain you’ve put me through,
Of wondering if I’m sane,
And doubting there could be someone
Who I could ever trust again?
You must be joking!

Why should I forgive you?

You haven’t thought of me!
I recall the ways you’ve put me down,
You’ve been too blind to see,
You’ve stood your ground; you have your rights,
But not to stamp on me!
You’ve got me choking!

How can I not forgive you?

It only brings me harm!
And traps me in a self-made cage,
When all I seek is calm,
This turmoil storm, my bitter rage,
Calls the tormentors to swarm
It’s me that’s stoking!

You want me to forgive you?

I’ve had a change of heart.
Thinking you’ll take all the blame when
I know I played my part.
To watch you wallow in shame and
Deny the chance for a fresh start!
You must be joking!

Graham Foster
Divorce
The cords of love have shaken loose,
How quickly they’ve slipped away.
We were bound together as brothers;
Am I an outsider today?
Our declaration of Unity
Is fine while we agree,
But should I begin to question,
I face division and enmity.
How could things become so hostile?
What have you got to hide?
What makes you certain?
That right is on your side?
I’m not questioning God’s love for you,
I’m uncertain of your love for others.
You seem so willing to let them go,
That isn’t right from a brother.
And that is where my pain lies;
The hurt of letting you go.
Distrust and anger now spring up
Where our love used to grow.

Graham Foster
In Memory Of My Father
Rivers and trees, and bumble bees,
And mountains and oceans, that offer devotion
To the planet of people, such beautiful people,
In the meadows and fields, the buttercup yields,
And down in Orleans, the men of great means,
Down pints of beer, their loved ones so near,
To the truth of the lord, in the psychiatric ward,
Where he patients make chains from daisies remains,
And the knight in his armour, the Shepard and farmer,
That stand by the fountain, the twelve misty mountains
So come on and sing, let tomorrow begin
To the girls and the women, and the tadpoles swimming,
For the cracked glass windows and lonely old widows
And the priest and the thief and the Christian belief
In the factory and the canyon, let good ones be big ones,
I light the fire, I get higher and higher up the ladder
I get bad and get badder, but I somehow survive,
And we all will revive the feelings of bliss,
Dear madam, dear miss, let’s make the world rock,
On heavens door let’s knock, goodbye I must go

Fergus Hilton
Travaille
Flint dusty in the canyons,
Steamroller chugging, flint cascade
Pelt the thin Perspex of the tractor’s windshield.
Men like black bears steering their bodies
Through the dust drenched atmosphere.

Their orange plastic jackets marked “Cornwall County Council”,

A last outpost of employment.
The C.C.C. has turned into “Trago Services”
And now only a handful of men,
Work the once crowded mine.

They are digging the roads

Outside Penzance, on the road to Long Rock,
They hold on to giant vibrators,
And attack the tarmac with pick-axe and sledge.
One man takes a slash, behind a hedge.

Where do these men come from?

Where do they go?
They’ve been there forever,
Like others before them,
They are working men.

Fergus Hilton
Liturgy

Liturgy Italic Dialectic,

Freemason up and latent give,
Up on smoke and bone,
Doped streaked eyes like lead,
Sequestered planet plantation,
Plankton itching in their curleas,
Tomorrow howls in my drawer,
Living in the rich quick of something,
Psychiatrist approaching,
Shit in the spent brow,
Babied through it all,
Memory from mothercare.

Fergus Hilton
Rosebud
The internal dialogue never switches off,
There are no outside forces,
What do they know of madness who only madness knows?
Trees that grow from the root,
Match the simplicity of water,
The grass sings from the hymns.
The water sips from the singing trees,
Barrel and thong rusted open by the open grass,
Descending daisy banks to the pure, potable
Trout fresh water stream.

Leaf birds flutter like newspaper,

In the branches spilling the ancient blood of chestnuts,
Distant metaphors hum breaking the shadows under the cold mustard
sun.

The internal dialogue never switches off.

She invites me to the door,
Offers me ice-cream,
But when it comes to it,
There is nobody home
Just sub-personalities.

Fergus Hilton
Mysterious Ways
I, am the one.

I am the male one,

I am the son.

I, am the sun & the moon,

I am the ying & the yang,
The going up & the coming down.

Omniscient,
Omnipotent,
Omnipresent,

Om,
Omni,
Lord.

Why did you let it happen, Lord?

The yiddisher screams,

The yiddisher prayers;
And beyond the wire
Die heilige Nacht.

And when the camp guards were taken

To their cells,
They sang, Lord;

Lord, they sang:

To you.

‘Freude, schone Gotterfunken,

Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!’

‘All men shall be kindred brothers

where you spread your gentle wings…’

The yiddisher screams:

To you, Lord,
To you.

Om.

D. Parrott
Schrodinger’s Other Cat
And my cat stares at me
And the evening is fine
Silhouetting trees
Against a darkening sky,
Merging the world about me
With the world inside me,
Plucking reality from possibility,
Making experimental worlds
To link freedom with creativity.

A moment of freedom
In which I made the first choice.
A moment of decision
Leading to a chain of choice,
Allowing other decisions,
Other selves in other worlds.
Discovering myself,
Values are found to cherish
Which give life to old concepts:
I create my world and the world of others.

It is dark now,
Though the moon shines from a sable sky
And my at has gone seeking death
In the rustling night.
And neither Tavener’s ‘Veil’,
Nor Schrödinger’s box
Will protect it.

D. Parrott
Poor Old Rene
Not even the corner
Of the newspaper turned down
Revealed her face,
There were just the bent knees
In a tracksuit bottom,
Grey socks
And a hint of flesh in between,
Erotic ambiguity:
His wife
In the shadow of his mistress
Feeling not thought
Determines whether we are;
In intense suffering
The world disappears
And each is alone
With himself.
He felt
Therefore he was.

D. Parrott
Mystic Moon
The moon’s silver light
Floods the dark night
Is it stone, is she divine,
All trapped by her shine.

Lucina, of ancient days,

Persephone, queen of shades,
(As Diana, Romans prayed)
Triune goddess, mystery’s maid.

Heroes in her radiant spell,

Blessed by heaven, cursed by hell,
In the universe none so pure,
Moon that hides behind clouds demure.

No sound on the moon at all,

For God goes by with white footfall,
By moonlight shadows – the Trinity-
Mystic joined to Self-infinity.

Godlike in her ghostly light,

Magna mater, goddess of night,
Present throughout humankind,
Auspicious sin made man blind.

James Deeney
The Way
Your velvet touch
Your answers
Fledgling love
Your italics
Your winter-lake eyes
Cold as the night
And twice as wise,
Your harmonious voice
Gold empassioned embrace
Warm as sapphire summer rain
Soft as evening’s whisper,
Where vacant stars share visions
Of the way we really are.

Nigel Greenslade
Ripples
Captured in oceans of wind
Long grasses ripple,
Your heart beats amid the waves,
No harm shall come to your dreams.
Young solar winds
Take the earth to task
With promises and goodbyes.
I wave to an invisible crowd,
But see only you
Gypsy blonde hair
And dancing there
With oceans of meaning,
Ripples through you.

Nigel Greenslade
The World Inside
And the night stretches,
We share the sleep of our children’s dreams;
The world inside you is discovery,
Where once was rubble now stands dignity,
In the ruins of an endless sea
Trees twist into enemy blue,
Oversee the calmness of the skies.

Nigel Greenslade
This Wind
In this wind I breathe success,
Every day I talk to you,
Emotions we both knew,
A voice in the arctic,
For long summer hours, I froze.
A song, a problem
In the growing gloom;
Together we stand
In this unbroken wind.

Nigel Greenslade
The Dawn Chorus
Drawn to earth by ancient words;
Bringing the birth before the birds.

Dancing my way along your bones,

Watched by trees and sacred stones.

Waking your world with cloak ‘n’ hood,

I hold the door for bad and good.

Mike Deamer
Valentine
You are the sunshine:
The only kiss.
You are the dream
And one I miss.

You are the light

Shining above.
You are my life.
You are my love.

Mike Deamer
The Fly
Caught in the black night;
Drowning, and giddy with love,
I struggle against the web.

Helpless, and tied with rope;

I cling to hope,
And the eventual ebb.

Mike Deamer
My Love
You are a moonbeam
Soft and blue
And in this dream
I am touching you.

Your skin is warm

The sky is clear
I feel the storm
As you move, near.

Bright stars they shine

Down in delight
For the hour is nine
As I hold you tight.

And the sleeping earth

As I kiss your lips
Turns on its axis
And topples
And tips.

Mike Deamer
Witch
There is a witch
I have always seen
In yonder woods
Dark and mean.

In the black sky

She sweeps and falls
She creeps around
And sometimes calls.

From the woodside

I wave and cry:
“Against the moon
you must fly!”

and turning round

she screams to me:
“For every wish
there is a fee!”

Mike Deamer
In Memory of the Untitled
The yellow eagle challenges the ocean,
Waving a pen for ministers in motion.
And roaring salute, his wings are spread
To Bosnia, and the thousands dead.

And the eagle dares to spread his wings,

To fly across a country wide.
Where the devil in a mud hut waits
To stand by his side.

Mike Deamer
Glass Shelves
Behind the glass
silk roses are
in a golden tray,
a circle of star
fire revolves in
the lense of a
kaleidoscope,
an onyx egg
sliced in half
revealing its
orange red core.
Swirled pink
and white mints
in an ivory dish,
apricot halves
crystallized in
sugar a petite
ring while the
light of a prism
captures the gleam
of a violet sky
on a dusky evening.

Bobbi Sinha-Morey
The Temple of Light
In a holy instant; the centre remains,
The quiet centre where love gains
Meaning. The body heals, through the mind,
Faith will heal and faith will bind,
A deer can follow an angel from beyond
The two worlds of darkness and light,
To a holy place where a hazel wand
Will find the centre; shinning white
There serenity dwells and the miracle
Is a pattern of quality; a spectacle,
Of telluric spirals beautifully wound,
In dedication beneath the ground,
One spiral within another,
Has a formula and a rhythm,
As in the flow of creation all is forgiven.
Seasons re-balance; new beginnings relate,
For the indwelling spirit to pursue it’s fate
And touch the frequency of light to evolve,
As original energies in their spirals revolve,
Turn inwards then, to the power that empowers,
The halls and courts, the majestic towers.

Alison Edwards
Dolphin Tantra
Breathe to the rhythm of chi,
Soul rhythm; blues of the sea,
Plunge and leap in the spray of the ocean,
To let the waves release emotion,
Feel the lunar pull of the tide,
Let the dolphin be your guide,
Deep in Atlantis, the sunken city,
That sank in great calamity,
Are voices of stars, verses of rhyme,
Sung to the universe in the records of time,
Gentle spirit of the new creation
Bring to us the light vibration,
The manna of life, the pattern and weave,
Being of air; teach us to breathe,
You are the essence of integrity,
With your innocent spontaneity.

Alison Edwards
The Fisher King
There is a dark moat before the castle gate,
Cross the perilous bridge, sharp and ornate,
Though your fingers may bleed,
Press on; knowing the need,
Enchantment has lain the land to waste,
So search for where the lovely damsel is seated,
And lift the golden cup to taste,
So this desolation is not repeated,
Enchantment must be undone,
And our grievance overcome,
The wounds of eternity will heal,
Within the halls within the wheel
In the courts of joy we shall sing,
For the reclamation of our sovereign king.

The moon in shadows is feminine,

And healing can begin,
When you relinquish your mask.
The quest will set the task,
Become free and wise,
For truth needs no disguise,
The hideous will transform,
The darkest hour is before the dawn,
Nature is the beauty of the whole,
And a link between earth and soul,
The loathly lady foretells
The freedom of the voices of the wells,
And as the wasteland heals,
The revolving wheels,
Declare the sovereign bride,
Who will be your guide

Alison Edwards
Liberty and Justice
The One who flung this ball
And all the other balls of earth and fire and dirty ice
Out into the void
Elects to stand away, displaying
No concern for us as individuals,
Indifferent to our pain and pleasure,
And uninvolved with which of us
Is cursed or favoured with the power or impotence,
The plenitude or poverty,
Begot through random fortune that
Contains no shade of justice.

God loves a happy giver,

We are told, yet, if we give,
We die, most commonly,
Receiving no part of the Scripture’s
Promise, and if we do not give,
And only take, we stand as good a chance
As any other of dying in a bed
Of wealth, surrounded by our loves,
Like princes of old Naples, or
A spate better if fate, the arbitrary
Ringmaster, has picked old Rockefeller
As our paternal grandsire.

Still, there is certain fairness

When capriciousness is at
The very root of actuality,
And everything and everyone
Designedly are equally committed
To insufferable inequality.

If the dealer, without malice,

Casually throws a full and honest deck
Into the air and lets it tumble
Haphazardly around the table,
Then each of us perforce, and honestly,
Should play whatever hand we’re dealt.

Nonlinearity and insecurity,

Ironclad uncertainty and
Unpredictability of future things
Are the sure foundation of that
Libertarian autonomy for which we begged
The father on the first day of creation.
When we made that supplication,
Did we realize no justice can exist
Where freedom is, except that of
The Chooser? That only gods are free,
And they are answerable only to themselves?
At any rate, he granted our petition.

Thus, god has proved his love of us.

Thus, he did unpin us from
That awful garden where no prizes
Could be won, no creation, no triumph
Could be called our own.
At long last answering our rebellious prayer
To know and choose between the evil and the good,
He stranded us, alone, alive and free,
Out here among the strewn stars.
In victory we shall be glorified,
But if he Serpent overwhelms
And swallows us, be forever lost.

Gene A. Picotte
An Enlightened Maturity
Age unassailable
Hobbles my nimbleness
But does not dull the sharp,
Disagreeable thorns
Of my disposition.
Now it is far too late
To set right any wrong,
If that could ever be.
Now time and adventure
Are stretched out long behind
And tersely short before.
Time now for mellowness?
Should I opt to mutate,
To soften and assuage,
Dispense judiciousness
And kind sagacity?
Folk wisdom has it that
The streets and highways,
Parks and moneyed towers,
Hospitals and rest homes
Are full of affable,
Benign and sweet-tempered
Reformed, unruffled oldsters
Who lead halcyonian
Pre-death existences
Repenting; redressing
Rude and unimportant
Little offensive lives.
I’ll have no part of that
Malarkey, will not warp
And slobber platitudes.
Whatever folks may say,
Common sense says and knows
A bastard getting old
Becomes an old bastard.

Gene A. Picotte
Dark Birds
Dark birds fly with me
Across life,
Hanging right and left
With whispering wings
Just behind my vision’s edges.
Herding me? Guarding? What?
Turn to look at them and
They are gone,
Yet as I drive ahead
Come back and fly my flanks
Always.

Gene A. Picotte
Neon Orange
First it's heard.
Screaming out law-enforced obscenities:
How dare you! Watch the road, moron!
Then it's seen.
Shock on morning-dulled eyes:
Striking as spots on poison frog backs.
Then it's felt.
Quick from adrenaline-fueled nerves:
Brakes both four wheel and four artery.
Then it's smelt.
Scorching up long-burned tar:
Murdered rubber seeping into the sinuses.
Then it's tasted.
Afterflavor of already-chewed toast:
Buttered with annoyance and slow recovery.

Megan Willis
Junk Mail
Slithering discretely out of normality
In the wheat-stalks, tall and brown
Where a harvest of chatter awaits.
A serpent, a monster, an ugly joke!
A quick click of the scythe kills it,
But then˜two more! Twice as big,
Hissing its hideous song:
Loans! Drugs! Male enhancement!
Severing its writhing necks in vain
Now double, triple, quadrupled;
Until it is impossible to distinguish
The harvest from the hydra.

Megan Willis
A Rapa-Nui Walk

I walk the rim of the earth’s navel,

awake and in my dreams,
alone and in a quiet hush of swaying palms, the swelling tide.

Gazing out to meet spirits that once wrestled azure waves,

I bend to kiss the loam and destiny settled beneath my feet:
landscape chiseled by the divine.

Lips taste of eucalyptus and an ancient rain cloud,

granting a spectrum to the hungry sky.
I find shelter as the ground erupts into mystery, so lost,

misunderstood by those viewing from the surrounding sea.

I approach, allowing my hand to float over fallen stone,
and imagine the moai, soaked with wind,

using mana to make it feel like breath on my neck,

when I roam in the backdrop that is home
deep in my waking and nighttime sleep.

Jennifer Yaros
Reflection in the Witness Room

She walks into the witness room,

accompanied by her certainty that vanity will mask all sin.
Circling a bleak, synthetic table,
running her hand along the frigid surface,
absorbing the institutional shock and smell of the barren room,
she declines a seat and retells her tale to those listening
in the here and after.

Confidence propels her to pause before dark, mirrored glass,

just like the people on popular television shows.
Inspecting her razor straight platinum hair and posture,
checking the seams of her makeup,
pressing moist lips together to replenish crimson,
her right hand middle finger skims across glossed lips,
first the top, then the bottom, smoothing the already even shine.

Flashing pearly whites, a room is exposed behind the reflection,

space that is empty to her.
She doesn’t see the sallow eyes peering from the other side.
She doesn’t see the bodies working sheets of malleable plastic,
shaping it to fit faces that have cracked,
concealing yellowed, dingy skin, teeth broken and stained,
casting smiles because they resonate beauty once again.

Naturally satisfied, she continues,

narrating her story to the Man at hand, the witness.
He takes notes knowing that the desolate room echoes her soul.
He listens, knowing that, only maybe, when the
Frankenstein screws pop from her forehead, stitching unravels,
and once tight skin sags and blinds,
will she depart, alone, and embody her true semblance.

Jennifer Yaros
Used To Be Shy

We didn’t let our feet hang over the edge of the dock.
They didn’t cool off in the water
as we stared into nothing, slyly sitting Indian style.
There was mist
and the gaudy lights of the passing tourist boats
allowed us brief Van Gogh-glimpses through the dark.

Something flew by us.

We heard funny noises.
You said “I think those are bats”.

The warm giddy joy of a rare summer night off

The way your face got more pink as you kept laughing
The two dollar photo booth and the noisy arcade
(you beat me at every game).
Later,
you and that night
would seem to me
like the fast beating of tiny webbed wings,
dryly racing
less than an inch above a midnight lake.

You said it first,

but I, with my heart wrapped up
and tamed of its usual fervor,
am staring back into those waters,
trying
to stop wondering

if those really could have been bats.

Billy Internicola
Donne’s Was A Sparser Age

The age of tolling bells has passed.

Outside my window
Stands a pond
Where it’s said
God’s come to bathe.

All the moaners are moaning again

It’s a hell of a life.
Just do it. Sharpen the blade;
Gather the pills; roll
The towel against the door.
Don’t stop to write a poem
About ending it all.
It means nothing to me.
Besides, I could use the space,
And quiet.

Outside the window

Some kind off gull
Stands by the pond
Waiting for a hint of movement.

Jamie Cavanagh
A Buzzing Crowds The Sky

Once boulevard
With carnival lights
In every window,
And waxed identities
Parked next to next,
The road narrows
Like the eyes of the mean
Eternally suspicious.

Here where the wallpaper peels

From the paper beneath,
Here where every step is measured,
Here where the ribs poke through,
Here where silence is precious,
Here, down in the dimness,
The ambulance is a garbage truck
And the air bursts busy with flies.

Leeches bleed light from the stars.

Streetlamps grow scabs on their eyes.
Hands clutch and unclutch.
Masks peel from masks beneath.
The life of success no longer lures.
In unbreakable code writes the dawn.

Restless darkness presses its weight

Into the creases of ritual.
Girl child makes her nightly walk,
Demands the money up front,
Knows everything of promises.
Gateless hopes rust cinderblocked.
The air sags laden withb wings.
All the gods are deaf as time
Here down in the dimness
Where the road ends.

Jamie Cavanagh
I, And The Sky

I, well I am high
On cider and love
Still I, and the sky
Have one thing alike
We ride up on no bike.

John Binns
Cease

Well, oh by the way,

(Drop down dead, Ted!),
And leave us alone,
So cease to cry out
For succour
You bitch
With no brain

John Binns
Rubies, Sapphires & Emeralds

We are all enigmas and veseels of importance,

Even that junkie that you are so wary of,
Who sits on the back of the 53, on her way to Asda,
To beg and pick up dimps.

We are all worthy of compliments,

Even you, who feels so allergic to love,
Even those who don’t love anyone,
Even those who hate their lives so far,
And walk around this grey old town,
Feeling at war with their own minds,
And weary of all those painful frowns.

So, when you feel that your pride is getting too hard to swallow,
And you wish you could fall through the floor,
Or you wish you could fly away,
Like the blackbird and sparrow,
Hold your horses, sit back and take a look around.

Because you are so much more,

Than a label that doesn’t contain any positivity,
You are as beautiful as the Morning Star,
And as precious to God, or whomever you look for,
Like rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

Simon P Jones
I Plunged

I plunged, head-first into a crystal pool,

Preoccupied with forever I was
And interested in the souls of the so-called lost,
I walked, head-long through this concrete jungle,
And was amazed with the things I saw.

They play pool and try and make some coin

They talk about God’s Kingdom on Earth,
While expressing their love, peace and painless happiness.

I looked out of the window,

At the silver leaves, reminiscent of the sticklebacks,
That populate this crystal pool.
Life is all about learning, if only a little,
So let love rule and be careless of the fool,
But careful of the hearts of the wise.

I plunged ....

Simon P Jones
Biographies

Dr Charles Frederickson is a pragmatic idealist and a longtime resident of

Thailand. He has travelled to 206 countries. His qualifications include PhD
(Loylola), Post-Doctoral Visiting Scholar (Columbia), MENSA, International
EMMY, CLIO, SAG, Student Accademy Awards and New York Awards
Judge.

Geoff Stevens is the long time editor of Purple Patch poetry magazine (29
years). His latest collection is The Phrenology of Anaglypta from Bluechrome
Publishing.

Pete Lee works as an office manager in a geographically isolated town in the

high desert. His previous occupations include US Army sergeant/counter-
intelligence agent, federal intelligence operations specialist, private
investigator and newspaper reporter. His poetry has previously appeared in
Cresote, Other Voices, Score and Wind.\

Gordon Scapens lives in Preston, UK.

Ashok Niyogi was born in Calcutta in 1955. He was schooled all over India
in Irish Christian Brothers' Schools and graduated with Honors in Economics
from Presidency College. Ashok spent 30 years in the world of International
Commerce,15 in East Europe and Russia and the CIS. His work has taken
him all over the world and he now divides his time between California where
his two daughters live, Russia and India. He is currently unemployed because
writing poetry is not considered gainful employment, but does have a timber
plantation in Goa, India. Ashok has two books of poetry in India -
'Crossroads' and 'Reflections in the Dark' (both from A-4 Publications) and
one book of poems from the USA - 'Tentatively' (iUniverse). He has been
published extensively on line and in print in the USA, the UK, New Zealand,
Australia and Canada in magazines and Anthologies ( search engines like
google or yahoo should give a reasonably updated list of on line work, not
including work accepted but not yet published).

Michaela Owsley has previously appeared in The Rialto, Acid Angel and the
Daily Express.
Sean Woodward has been described as a New Renaissance Man and is a poet,
painter, photographer, publisher and musician. He splits his time between the
UK, USA and Far East. 2005 sees the publication of the latest volume of his
Collected Works (Dervish Days, Dragonheart Press), a selected spoken works
audio anthology on CD and an exhibition of his abstract acrylic on canvas
paintings. Further details can be found at seanwoodward.com, Dragonheart
Press www.dragonheartpress.com and at T3KTON Europa, t3kton.com .

Ben Wilensky has been a merchant seaman, soldier, new reporter, radio
announcer and arft teacher. Interests include fine wine and scotch. His recent
publications include Shipwrecked Off The Coast of Malta, The Argonne
House Press (Washington DC), 2002 and The Psalms of a Sailor Jew, Mellen
Press, 1999.

Reena Sharma presents the perspective of a young British woman of Asian

descent, with a strong feminist influence and flavour of ethnicity that she
believes to be lacking in the poetry sector.

Christina L Johnson has been published in over 56 American, Canadian and

British poetry magazines including The Parnasus Literary Review, Feelings,
The Plowman, Tale Spinners, Scars and The Piedmont Literary Review.
When not writing and work she likes to spend time travelling through the
United States and Canada.

Gillian Bence-Jones lives in Ipswich, UK. “To A Girl’s Hair” is based on a

15th Century Welsh poem translated by Glynn Williams.

Graham Foster lives in Walsall, UK and is a winning entrant of the 2002

Dragonheart Press Poetry Competition.

Fergus Hilton lives in Dawlish, UK.

D Parrott lives in Wiltshire, UK.

James Deeney lives in Ireland.

Nigel Greenslade has published over 60 poems in magazines and a local

newspaper.
Mick Deamer lives in Shepshed, UK.

Bobbi Sinha-Morey is an archivist, secretary, and a poet. You can see his
poetry in places such as Isis Rising, The Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris, Portals,
Aoife's Kiss, Shemom, Illumen, Snowbirds in Cloud Hands, and Beyond
Centauri, among others. His latest book of poetry, Tears Of Light, can be
seen at ebooksonthe.net.

Alison Edwards lives in Glastonbury, UK.

Gene A Picotte is an Attorney At Law in the United States.

Megan Willis is approaching her 21st birthday. Her main interests include
writing, drawing and a combination of the two. She spends her time creating
animation and comics. She has only recently begun to write poetry and find it
educational. She lives in Southern California, where the weather is (usually)
wonderful and the rent terrible !

Jennifer Yaros has been continually moved by life to write poetry and has
recently received an honorable mention in ByLines Autumn Poem and Winter
Poem contests.

Billy Internicola is a 27 year old married schoolteacher, living in upstate New

York. His poetry has been published in MidWifery Today, Red River
Review, Capital District Poetry and Chrongram.

Jamie Cavanagh remarked that “comments will not be entirely ignored”.

Recent publications include Edgz, Fire (UK), Poesy, Nexus, River King,
Obsessed With Pipework (UK) and Boookpress.

John Binns lives in Leeds, UK.

Simon P Jones lives in Manchester, UK. He began writing at 19 and many

years later has found it to be a powerful form of therapy, self-expression and
outlet for awkward emotions.
Colophon

This issue was waylaid, distracted and made invisible for an aeon by Black
Label Society (London Chapter), Mighty ReArranger, Rammstein, Ankor
Wat, Hard Rock Café Hotel (Pattaya), Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Red Bull,
Slovenia, Sabriel, His Dark Materials, Winsor & Newton, Samsung , Nikon
Coolpix 5200, Star Wars Battlegrounds, Dr Who’s 9th Incarnation, Battlestar
Galactica, New Captain Scarlet, Xcalibur and The Heart of Gold ship. Finally
made manifest by virtue of Aaron’s invaluable assistance, OSX Tiger and the
Ghost of a Crow come knocking at my grave.

Dedicated to my muse, Angela, without who there would be no poetry.