Packaged
Stiffed over a couple of continents,
you arrive, a strange-patterned flatness.
My six pairs of vacuum-packed socks.
A minimal method to post merino,
knitted-up bits of running Greek keys,
orange chevrons and lined tiny fish.
One dozen ribbed ankles all drill up one side.
Flip over for overlaps of bright toes.
Sealed-in little labels offer real heat.
But, I must burst your pristine rigidity,
pierce your unbubbled tight wonder,
turn you into soft, just workaday wear.
Homing hairbrushes
In appreciation of Douglas Adams,
who first noticed where biros go.
Hairbrushes have now joined
biros and socks as sentient life forms
with an irresistible homing urge –
watch them wriggling through
those ladders in time’s fabric,
catching their bristles
on filaments of space
off to their ideal planet
where every surface
is as smooth and bald
as a billiard ball.
After a misspent youth in libraries and museums, and some time in between, Sarah has finally achieved her dream job in Lichfield working for the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum (and book shop). She writes for fun and enjoys swimming.
I Thought I Would Be Invisible
I was at the pharmacy and I buzzed the clerk to unlock the vitamins case. I asked him for the Centrum Silver. “But that’s for women over 50!” I said, “I’m old enough.” “You don’t look it,” he said. The extra padding in my cheeks from Covid weight probably makes me look younger. I still get hit on even with my extra pounds. A cool dude downtown kept repeating, “I’m trying to get your attention!” A man in my uptown neighborhood stopped me to ask for directions and then he said, “Can I ask you out for a drink?” My downstairs neighbor who is subletting from coop owners stopped me on the street and asked me to have coffee with him. The next day when I came back with coffee after six am he opened his door without a shirt on. He was so disappointed I already had coffee. I thought that I would be invisible by now. It would be nice sometimes.
Karol Nielsen is the author of two memoirs and two poetry chapbooks. Her full-length collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her poem, “This New Manhattan,” was a finalist for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize.
A Practical Woman
She used to sigh
throw eyes to heaven
push feet, irritated, into slippers
at first comedic bars of Yakety Sax
when nurses in scant uniform
came on, to buzz and bend
in frantic rhythm round
the suspect wheelchair patient,
pursue in tottering, mindless
swarm, the masquerading nimrod
in the fleeing doctor’s coat.
While we guffawed merrily,
in a fashion then acceptable
for dullards and buffoons
she made toast and tea for us
noted contents of the cupboards,
rinsed cups and spoons,
pushed home the bolt –
used Page 3
(if one snuck in)
to light the fire
in the morning.
From Galway, Ireland, bern butler’s work has featured in Force 10, Ropes Anthology, Galway Review, North-West Words, Abridged, The Ireland Chair of Poetry, Dodging Rain, The Madrigal, Gnashing Teeth, Cuirt New Writing Showcase. She holds an MA Writing from NUI Galway.
On taking a poet to bed!
A big decision, I take my time
savouring lines images moods
metaphors. Considering palette.
Soft greens, vivid blues
maybe some orange zest
no red-hot lines or purple prose.
Yeats on tranquillity
Bee loud glade
leafy islands, flapping herons
drowsy water rats.
I’m partial to the waters and the wild, ready for dripping peace
Mind you, I like the muscularity of Robert Bly.
He’s nocturnal a walker like myself.
His lines about unknown dust waves breaking on shores
Energetic, maybe too much activity for night.
In the morning, I’m weary from pondering and wandering.
More drowsy water rat than graceful heron.
Ah, solitude, a book!
But I ‘m aware of the perils of eating alone
the benefits of sociability
I’ve read about long lasting Ikarians.
Morning rambles, herding sheep, coffee at three.
Aperitifs at 5.00.
So I ask Shamus Heaney to stop digging
to join me for an Irish fry-up.
Before you can say rashers there’s Jimmy Joyce
and Sam Beckett at the table.
Insisting, if you please they’ll both have eggs Freud!
Rona Fitzgerald ‘s poetry is published in UK, Scottish, Irish and US,
in print and online.
Recent publications include Dreich Number 8, Season 2, April 2021, Littoral Magazine 2021, The Brown Envelope Book, 2021, The Arbroath Anthology 2021, Marble Broadsheet September 21, Fixator Press September 21, Dreich Season 4 no 3 2022, A Fish Rots From the Head, Culture Matters 2022.
The Bonxies
They are the bad boys of the north,
nobody is safe when they’re around,
ready to mug you at a moment’s notice.
They’ll steal your lunch as soon as look at you,
don’t care a toss about your hungry kids
waiting at home to be fed.
They’ll swoop down, stab you, stick the boot in,
grab your stash without a moments thought.
Happy that you’ve done all the work.
Thugs. Pirates. No moral conscience at all.
Off they’ll fly, your fish in their beak,
taking the spoils back to their young.
————————————————————————
Bonxie is the Scottish word for the Artic Skua
Tonnie Richmond has, since she retired, spent her time either doing archeology or writing poems. As the digging gets harder, she finds writing a slightly easier choice. She has had several poems published and is currently working on a collection of poems about Orkney.
ENGLISH SPELLING
Practically since the dawn of history
English spelling has been a mystery.
And everything you ever learn’ll
Not prepare you for the r in colonel.
Do not expect a tidy law
To explain the end of Arkansas.
Spelling is just a rough mnemonic
And not reliably always phonic.
Sarah Lawson lives in London, originally from Indiana, educated in the US and Scotland; has published poetry pamphlets and two collections; translates from French, Spanish, and Dutch; has also written one play, one novel, and two memoirs.
Insects
We applaud the little ant
for its strong community;
we venerate the bee
for its firm autocracy.
We might commend the wasp
for it also has a grasp
of the above.
Alas for it, its sting
makes us want to kill the thing.
My name is Gill McEvoy, previously published by both Happenstance Press and Cinnamon press, now with Hedgehog Press. I won the Michael Marks Award in 2015 for my pamphlet “The First Telling” (happenstance Press 2014. I currently live in Devon which hasn’t been a bit warm and sunny of late. Probably a bad choice!
The Correspondence Promotion
Having quickly fallen out of favor,
he steadies his guard
and keeps his chin tucked in.
Somehow, life goes on.
He becomes office dust
and scatters himself
into various nondescript places.
He knows the broom closet
will soon need
a new fluorescent bulb
and thus draws a parallel
to his own dilemma,
The water cooler
begins to growl
and sputter
and he sees
that no one pays any attention.
The carpeting is pulling
away from the wall
in such a manner
that people curse it
each time they trip.
Secure in this area,
he secretly sends emails
to the home office
until he works his way
to executive vice-president.
Summer Pastoral
The weather was so good that I left
a poem unfinished on the desk,
swapped slippers for dancing shoes
and stepped out onto the street.
As I did, every door seemed to open
in sync, disgorging a series
of flawless figures, just about recognisable
as my neighbours, dressed uniformly
in chiffon and silk – greys, blues
and powdery pinks – falling
into geometric formation.
A man passed me a parasol
and I sashayed into the swell,
toes and heels in perfect time
to the lush music that enveloped
the scene, every movement
choreographed to a jaunty rhythm,
smiles appearing on even the cloudiest
faces. When we reached the end of the street
we twirled and bowed in concert,
hats and caps erupting into the sky
as the music crescendoed and started to fade.
Conversation turned to the rumour
that a famous musical director
had bought a house on the road
and we wondered would he really fit in.
A past winner of the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland and Poems for Patience competitions, he published his debut collection, ‘Growing Up in Colour’, with Doire Press in 2018.
Curator of the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies site, his Pushcart-nominated poem, ‘The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work’, was the title poem of an anthology published by Hibernian Writers in 2015.
