Press. Excerpts from Seasons in the Sun. Winter’s Breath 3 Poems by Annest Gwilym

Days like this to be read as honey

For the child I never had
    I would give you: the honeydrip of low sun on the horizon; a cold that sugar-coats mountain tops, collides cells and atoms; all the tree-lined hours of your dreams; a moonsuck and sunstruck clock stuck at youth; four seasons in a day. In my witchery I would line up jars of bright starshine on your windowsill; conjure Caravaggio days, raining pomegranate seeds; trap it all in amber. And if you ever lived, you could live it too.
First published in the PK Project Quixotic Travellers, December 2018. Also published in Caught in the Net, November 2019. In the Immensity of Night
    Things with invisible hands unlatch the doors unseen Creep on silent feet around my floating bed Tap their long, strong nails on my wooden headboard Whisper poetry in my sleep which evaporates at dawn A crinkle of leaves gathers at the base of the bed While the sea laps at my front door lost and miles from home Baby crabs with tiny pincers knock, want to enter The herons are watching as gulls tear candy-floss clouds Outside is dangerous, static-filled inside is better I pull the duvet under my chin I think I’ll stay here
Winter’s Breath
    Winter’s breath is snow-dust prophecy, humus and moss-scented ache of leaf mould from autumn on the floor. Under the cold, clear fire of stars its wind corrugates the sea’s iron in the silent meadows of the night. Winter’s woods are antlered, dark, fox-sharp, full of long, wolfish shadows that follow you home. Its eye is pale, glaucous; air salted with frost, whose sharp proboscis probes every crack and crevice. Winter is a black and white country. The old know this: it strips flesh from trees, flowers, bones.

Click on Image to view large:

https://carreg-gwalch.cymru/seasons-in-the-sun-3008-p.asp

Annest Gwilym is the author of three books of poetry. Surfacing (2018) and What the Owl Taught Me (2020), were both published by Lapwing Publications. What the Owl Taught Me was Poetry Kit’s Book of the Month in June 2020 and one of North of Oxford’s summer reading recommendations in 2020. Annest has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies, both online and in print, and placed in several writing competitions, winning one. She was the editor of the webzine Nine Muses Poetry from 2018-2020. She was a nominee for Best of the Net 2021. Her third book of poetry – Seasons in the Sun – was published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch in September 2023 and was Poetry Kit’s Book of the Month in November 2023 as well as being one of their Christmas reading recommendations. She has been nominated for the Wales Book of the Year Award 2024/Gwobr Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2024. Seasons in the Sun is available from Amazon and other places. It is also available from all bookshops in Wales.

The Kingdom of Chaos Poems by Scott Thomas Outlar

Silver Primroses & Golden Strigiformes Planted by the Curb

Carrying your own 
          dead body
                back to its grave
      in a dream
                 then happening upon
          an expired owl
                              stricken & smashed
                        in the street

Ominous signs
        along Five Forks Trickum
            birth into
                patterns of indigo 
                                  & scarlet wildflowers
                       
Spirit animals
             taking a dive
       before rush hour fevers
                        commence
        
    learn to sip
              from the parched throat
        of roadkill brunch

eating the 
        organs
   of our own
               totem


Stomach Lining

I came to eat the lies you coin

and serve them back half bitter
across the divide of tables turned

I didn’t ask for this evil eye

it was forced down my throat from the jump
been begging for a bulimic leap ever since


Spells of the Stoic Pewter 

& I will
        set you (free) here
    to be made safe by the wizard / window
                                                 (fly, birdie)
               black obsidian
                     gray of mind & beard
             wise & dangerous
                     streaked/laced down the middle
                                    balanced of accord
                                           (harmony 
                                                  & likewise
                                               rhythm)

you are the melody of a soft glow


Lament of Prey

Hello to all the hawks
who have yet to have their fill,
& the vultures, too,
waiting for what’s left over.

Spoiled minds & spoiled hearts
lead to spoiled guts,
but it seems to be
that’s what nature intended
in this twisted realm
of divided time & space.

Dog eat dog
isn’t even the worst part;
it’s flesh unto flesh
in the fire.

Goodbye to all the dreams
that forgot how to conquer,
& the visions still
yet to crystallize in cancer.

Rotten bones & rotten marrow
flow in rotten rivers,
but that’s the taste
acidic blood delivers
when signs of sickness
flash neon & electric in the night.

Tail chase tail
isn’t the end of the story;
it’s a snake that never sheds
the fade to black.


Kingdom of Chaos

We don’t want your money,
just your soul
on a silver platter
served to order
for our warm feast
while we spit out your raw famine.

We don’t want your respect,
just your energy and time,
just your mind
numbed
to the frequency
of propagandized pestilence.

We don’t want your love,
just your heart
bled dry
as every vein
withers in the winter wind
while our chalice remains
ever full to the point of overflowing.

We don’t want your vote,
just your faith
that such a course of action
can actually influence
the order in which our puppets
dance to a song of chaos
upon the public stage.

We don’t want your salute,
just your obedience,
just your hands
kept where we can see them
while your feet continue marching
to the drumbeat of our wars.

We don’t want your laws,
just your land,
just your culture,
just your customs,
just your heritage,
just your traditions
snuffed out
beneath the global kingdom
collectivized
at our command. 

 
 

 
 
Scott Thomas Outlar is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. He now lives and writes in Frederick, Maryland. His work has been nominated multiple times for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He guest-edited the Hope Anthology of Poetry from CultureCult Press as well as the 2019-2023 Western Voices editions of Setu Mag. He is the author of seven books, including Songs of a Dissident (2015), Abstract Visions of Light (2018), Of Sand and Sugar (2019), and Evermore (2021 – written with co-author Mihaela Melnic). Selections of his poetry have been translated and published in 14 languages. He has been a weekly contributor at Dissident Voice for the past nine years. More about Outlar’s work can be found at 17numa.com

Earth Puzzle,St. Petersburg in January,You Celebrate Your Birthday While I Have a Religious Experience, 3 Poems by James Croal Jackson

Earth Puzzle


We think completing the jigsaw 
depicting Earth will complete us, but 
4 AM we float in half-consciousness,
hoping to realign our orbit, still aimed 
into vastness, a jumbled mess on the
floor. Even the dog snores. Earlier, 
Disco ran across our tarot cards, shuffling 
a wrangled meaning into fate. The Hermit. 
The Star. The Hanged Man. I try to string 
together half-correlations. I want to drink 
more. I open the window and inhale.
I look into the dark and wonder 
how we can piece it all together.


St. Petersburg in January


maybe it is not seeing-eye dogs training 
in the grass I pass or the street vendors
selling sunglasses tamales and watercolors
or the waves that touch a difficult nerve
which snap me into a more relaxed reality
or the toaster-oven croissant at the French
bakery on Ocean Avenue but the cranes
that lift off skyscrapers in the heavy wind
that make me want to punch real estate
developers in the jaw or somesuch non
sensical violence bear trap tourist trap
somewhat Floridaesque my happy life
on blast it is dynamite at a luxury
construction site this weekend


You Celebrate Your Birthday While I Have a Religious Experience


Learning how to swim– 
can’t say I haven’t
counted hours stars 
float in the night infinite 
darkness I cannot claim 
sanctity within us. You point
to Orion like a familiar
neighbor like I would point 
to a passing thought or ripple 
believing it significant 
as the moment passes. 

James Croal Jackson works in film production. His most recent chapbooks are Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press, 2022) and Our Past Leaves (Kelsay Books, 2021). Recent poems are in Stirring, White Wall Review, and Vilas Avenue. He edits The Mantle Poetry from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)

Mapplethorpe, Lethe, via crucis, Poems by Krystle Eilen

Mapplethorpe

after Robert Mapplethorpe’s Self Portrait, 1980

half youthful, half emaciated,

he reflects the epicene
and the languishing.

his head is all shock and flurry;
his mouth a toothless brevity.

half Madonna, half Antinous,

he reflects a decadent flower
both wilting and transcendent.

his eyes suggest a having seen,
two eternally startled interims.

a princely pauper
whose aspect reflects that of
a parched orchid culled
too soon.

published in Hive Avenue Literary Journal


Lethe

i am a winged thing flailing,
driven into my bovine body, and
back into my savage infant soul.

in the beginning, nature
conceived another deadweight,
and i find myself stillborn.

i am forever waiting to
open my welkin eyes
and outwit the brute.

i want the earth wrested from me;
i want no longer to acquiesce to
the stranglehold of gravity.

i am forever looking forward to
eclipsing the round
seared by fantasy.

published in Hive Avenue Literary Journal 


via crucis

            i.

to behold paradise
god must be heaved up,—
for to become seraph
is to gouge the eye out.

            ii.

always at one remove
is to be found divinity,
otherwise effaced
by twin identity.

            iii.

riven apart
by mimetic sparagmos,
man is condemned
to die on the cross.

            iv.

to shed the serpent’s skin
is but to reiterate its meander,
for conquest precedes
the bind of surrender. 

 
 

Krystle Eilen is a 22-year-old poet who is currently attending university. Her works have been featured in Dipity Literary Magazine, BlazeVOX, and Hive Avenue Literary Journal, and are soon to be published in The Orchards Poetry Journal and Young Ravens Literary Review. During her spare time, she enjoys reading and making art.

Where Have all the Fishes Gone?& Further Poems by Fabrice B. Poussin

Where Have all the Fishes Gone?

Sitting atop the cliff overlooking
the ocean vast
we hold one another
in awe of its innumerable mysteries.

The sun sets calmly for us
rises with deft determination
on the other side
of a blue horizon.

Not a sound
emerges from the deep waters
clean of all lives that once were
ancestors some say to our kin.

Where have they all gone
why extinct so soon into fossils
imprints per chance left in the stone
that tell of so distant an evolution.


Welcome to the World of Nice

The world nearly came to an absolute stop when
the wizard suddenly halted his incantations
the fires he had set ablaze reflecting upon his pale brow.

For centuries he had roamed the planet
a weathered wand in his mummified grip
his face oozing with the harm he could cause.

Another in a glorious evening grace
ambled like royalty among the populace
sizing each one of her kin as a victim.

Tall above armies of humble servants
she made them dependent of every whim
she might have dreamed up in her solitary chambers.

She too paused when the child cried
for this Amazon who had never known pain
her frame near collapse she let go of her aim.

The thousands assembled for what they expected
was to be yet a list of grievances and threats
looked in amazement at these meek creatures.

Never had a soul caught a glimpse of pain
in the eyes of those unforgiving executioners
until the tear of a child fell upon their feet.

The giants stepped down from the pedestal
greeted by embraces never imagined of those
who still bore the scars of their millennial tortures.

While the poor wake in a pool of chagrin
no one knew the few in satin and pearl
could weep and fall to the yoke of a babe.


Suffering to Rest

She can tell the throb will persist
Into a night of pleasant slumber
feeling a tug at her secret fibers.

Contemplating the past hours
when glee echoed through the halls
attempts to calm still fail.

Into a slanted mirror an image
seeks to smile at this solemn reflection
subdued by the numbing liquid of her pain.

Docile as with every passing dawn
something has changed in the blood
shed again upon the dusk of a precious hour.

Soon again she will share her pleasure
when the day’s memories turn to dust
and her flesh finds rest in the thin night.

Hard to Be 

Merely standing hands upon the wooden rails
staring into a background of dense forest
he might find rest on a Sunday’s morn’ when

his thoughts quickly move to the millions
like him who contemplate the world
considering how little they can see he holds 

a cup of a dark brew in hand, early smoke in the other
his desperation grows as he longs
for the visions others cannot share and

he imagines so many there with him
gazing into the same surroundings 
their perception so different from his he

considers the one who inspires him 
if only he could be within her as she takes all in
become an intimate part of who she is for

he feels so much missing from his being
lost smaller than a speck of minute dust
while an infinity of interpretations exists yet

only this microcosm of the infinite belongs to him
so insignificant as he must remain until at last
he might be freed from this temporary prison and

become like all those before him
a piece of the universal puzzle
the matter of all that is the cosmos. 


Feeling the sounds.

Upon a saunter as is his common dominion
he pushes through the brush of a dense forest
after the storm left its gentle coat
on every living thing like a shroud of life.

Nothing speaks, everything rests yet
awaiting reassurance that it is safe again to be
and he continues, puzzled by the uncanny silence
looking for a sign that all is well still.

And there it is, a murmur brushes against his flesh
an eerie sensation of sound, of sight
of scent, touch and even taste
from whence it is born he cannot tell.

It must be her at last in the late hour
since darkness will soon prevail
and she always visits him in his sleep
when his dreams become real as the present.

She surrounds him with an infinite coat
made with all a soul can endure
he hears the voice of her wholeness speak
without a word, but it is to be eternal. 

 
 

 
 
Fabrice B. Poussin teaches French and English at Shorter University. Author of novels and poetry, his work has appeared in Kestrel, Symposium, The Chimes, and many other magazines. His photography has been published in The Front Porch Review, the San Pedro River Review as well as other publications. Most recently, his collection “In Absentia,” was published in August 2021 with Silver Bow Publishing.
 
 
 

Beyond the Limit & Tyne Cot. Ekphrastic Poems by Jan Theuninck

 

BIO: Jan Theuninck (born 7 June 1954) is a Belgian painter and poet. Although born in ZonnebekeBelgium, and a native speaker of Dutch, he writes in French and occasionally English. His painting is abstract, falling somewhere between minimalism
 and monochrome expressionism.

Teetering Toward Sattva & Further Poems by Kalpita Pathak

Teetering Toward Sattva

My friend’s mother would tell him, I created 
you and I can destroy you, as though, like Parvati
with Ganesh, she had literally made him
from a mixture of earth and her perspiration, brought
him to life with her breath. Śaivasampradāyaḥ believe 
Shiva is the creator, preserver, and destroyer
of the cosmos. Does that mean mothers

are his avatāra and children their miniature
multiverses? I wouldn’t know. I’m not a mother. Mine
may have been a god to me when I was little
(it’s likely she was) but I remember her 
as my universe. One I destroyed over and over
with the choices I made, huddled and weeping
and bereft, my days-old sweat a blend of scotch

and cigarettes and dirt from the alleys where I
crouched for decades. Now those years have passed
and so has she. Neither creator nor destroyer,
she preserved her dreams for/in me and I live them 
with her hands, callused, dry-darkened
at the knuckles, soft, cool. They wash away the grime
so I can live for today. So I can live for us both. 
So I can live.


Anteyesti
to Anay


Your body burns
as your mother weeps
her son into a letter.
I read it, edges 
fluttering in the summer 
wind like wings, like the ashes 
we scatter
in the canyon’s river. She asks
why you wanted to melt
into memory, fleeting 
desert snow beneath
the sun of our hot grief.
And in that brutal 
light, she begs 
for rain to swoop down
and flood her cracked earth.


(… As We Know It)
  Reset: Kritayuga Begins Again


When the apocalypse
comes what becomes
of the astronaut who floats
in the space station and sees
the sun as it really is – a silvery
white flare, incandescent
as fireworks arching over
our greening blue Earth? 

Kalpita Pathak is an autistic poet, novelist, and advocate with a passion for research and sensory-rich details. Her work tends to explore the perseverance of hope in a sometimes despairing world, with a little dark humor and magic added to the mix. She received the James Michener Fellowship for her MFA in creative writing and has taught at both the college level and in school programs for kids from three to eighteen. She has recently been published in Mediterranean Poetry.  

The Rain-Wet Rats. More Poems from RW.Haynes

1]
The Rain-Wet Rats
 
She bathed in cold fire which softly sterilized
Her fitful thoughts circling constantly
Back to what gets lost, what set free, 
Gently startled, but not at all surprised.
The cold front rattles in with peevish rain
Concealed by darkness in the morning chill
But nudging at the mind as hostile specters will,
Cold drops rattling like a fatal chain.
 
Can she be easy regulating the fates
Of two dozen dirty peasants with staring eyes
And rusty pitchforks, furious at lies,
Shrieking in the rain outside her gates?
 
Is risk or safety the best choice to make?
The rain outside keeps rattling like a snake.
 
The rafters of civilization broke that day,
And all the rain-wet rats nimbly raced
Away like greyhounds, all order displaced,
And she ducked aside to hide out of the way.
Thunder crashed, as it were, and she
Smiled secretly and thought of my face
Aping consternation ludicrously.
 
2]
Symbolist Gunslinger Purges His Vocabulary
 
Lovely ladies, decked with smiles and flowers,
Dissolve all war and ugliness generously,
Gently repudiating suspicion, hostility,
Disarming all the cowboys’ macho powers.
Let sunshine warm where desert heat once dried.
Let kindness soothe the pain of outraged minds
And cool the excessive heat that burns and blinds.
Let understanding leave rough men satisfied.
For this is a magic, a witchcraft you yield,
Medea, Medusa, Miranda, Antigone,
Criseyde, Duessa, at times ferociously,
And Judith, and the fair witch I once met
Upon the meads, whose ring I wear within
My blood-curdled heart, and will wear when
Chariots descend to collect my fatal debt.
Lovely ladies, let the world spin away
Its grief, let conflict fire our blessed sunlight,
Let the right simplicity be ours today,
And the right words bless our witless dreams tonight.
 
3]
Jukebox Catullus Hums and Strums
 
I can’t stop playing Banquo’s ghost,
And blood runs everywhere each time I twitch,
And somewhere my corpse is bleeding in a ditch,
And you’re still indifferent to who loves you most
Despite this commitment, this dramatic dedication
Here on these boards where happy endings hide
From murdered noblemen with broken hearts inside
And no luck in erotic conversation.
May I venture an aside, though I should leave the stage?
Let no ghost be dishonored, or his staring eyes
Will plunder your heart in midnight surprise.
Enough.  The mad Queen calms the murderer’s rage.
The curtain never falls for the players in this trade;
We wait to spring the traps the poet made.
 
4]
The Right Reply for Second-Hand Fear
“Now time’s Andromeda on this rock rude…”
			--Hopkins
 
A delicate matter prevented her revenge:
Madame Alving was, at that time, at least,
(Delicious pause) Andromeda waiting for the beast,
Long-legged bait a gate to unhinge,
A passage of a champion of the stage,
Sic semper tyrannis the cry of the day,
Cooing doves flapping wings to fly away,
And the old monster’s dilapidated rage,
Bursts forth though in need of upholstery,
Roaring his regrettably wheezy roar
To remind us what monsters are onstage for,
And everyone fake-quakes, all but she,
For she smiles somewhat palely with that fire in her eyes,
And waves a hand defensively without fear,
For she knows who and what is scary here
And what is God’s truth and what the Devil’s lies.
That steady fire grows, its intensity stays,
However much your maudlin monster weighs.

 

 
R. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, has published poetry in many journals in the United States and in other countries. As an academic scholar, he specializes in British Renaissance literature, and he has also taught extensively in such areas as medieval thought, Southern literature, classical poetry, and writing. Since 1992, he has offered regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, as well as seminars in Ibsen, Chaucer, Spenser, rhetoric, and other topics. In 2004, Haynes met Texas playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote and has since become a leading scholar of that author’s remarkable oeuvre, publishing a book on Foote’s plays in 2010 and editing a collection of essays on his works in 2016. Haynes also writes plays and fiction. In 2016, he received the SCMLA Poetry Award ($500) at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference In 2019, two collections of his poetry were published, Laredo Light (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape (Finishing Line Press).

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