East End
miles davis thru
stereo speakers
brasy honeyed
jazz tho muted
morose leached
of potency only
a treacly syrupy
glibber of notes
those saxy lines
swelling upward
from a coupé's
dark low-wound
window butting
the balcony like
raunchy baubles
bumping off into
the ozone on a
fuzz of glamour
girl champagne.
Thom Sullivan
Praying
Praying near some long grass
I saw
what I had looked at
and not seen —
a praying mantis.
Chlorophyll-green,
it glowed the same way
as a grass stalk
when the sun
shone through its body
Even its structure —
one blade
emerging
from another.
Having been seen
it stayed so still
it took my breath away
disappearing
back into the grass
it had already become.
Cathy Altmann
Middle age
Everyone his own Hamlet when young.
Struggling, but sure power dwells within;
a river of nobility to drown the unjust
who would poison our ears. Tourniquet
of rapt youth dissolves any stinging venom.
Hamlet never made it to be fat and forty,
crucified by relentless, quivering justice.
Falstaffs on Harleys, hoggishly free
we chuckle and clown, farting over hills,
helmeted by our thicker, stretching skins.
P. S. Cottier
Immortality
A small boy sits on a tea-towel.
The sky is the colour of wet cement and just as cold.
Perhaps, he thinks, I could scratch my name in it.
Michele Peterie
Magi
And when at last we braved the ways
Of that cold, insisting star,
And came to the stable,
We paused at the brink
Of that warm and breathing place,
Where embassies of birds
Were roosting in their pious eaves,
And the scent of snow
Was rumoured on the music of the wind;
And fell upon our kingly knees,
Discomposed of kingliness,
In this place of small entireties,
Before a child
Whose eyes so vastly knew
The light of royal possibilities
Within the dusk of every heart.
Grant Fraser
Body Language
I hang my head
Between my knees
As a crutch to support me
So I won't see reality.
My arms, like a protective mother
Shield me from biting love
And getting attacked by savage lust …
Stops those coming to me
As a woman. Wanting me
Because I sit as a child.
Although my brain beats
With head breaking sadness,
I am encompassed by a dome of withdrawal.
Yet love is shining its eye
Through the crevices of my body
Making sure I don't drift too faraway
Kerry Ridgway
mining, the moon and whisky
along a lonely
stretch of river
smoke escapes from
a short chimney
overhanging rock shadows
the dusty quarry
hills stained with
rust and scars
chipped deep wounds
long dark tunnels
blokes under the
light of moons
bruised here tarnished
there warped with
dents cracked and
peeling in corners
long cold nights
same old company
whisky makes it
worth their while
Jodie Hawthorn
sun
in the just
past the mid
afternoon sun
which struck
your face
you were able
to close your
eyes & breathe it
a crocheted rug
pulled to your chin
Rory Harris
Kabul
concealed in her skin,
the girl does not belong
where marriages are revoked
the decency of the burqa
covers her — but
---all day
---men glimpse
---her silver nails
---and understand
Ann L. Healey
Saddam's Neck