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We begin with sad news. Martin Grampound, the Editor of Zimmer-zine magazine, died recently, and this poem is included to celebrate his life.
Gerald England has set up a tribute page :
Friday 13th.
79 days, since our first kiss.
Her boss won't give her a holiday.
This morning she spent 19 minutes on the toilet.
I found the dog licking her naked toes.
Over morning coffee, blind Bill talks about the delicate rays of cypress leaves!
He used to be one of the local hells angels before his knees gave way.
The birds singing outside remind me of her voice;
how her shadow fell across the window and the scaffolding.
I have a headache.
My income tax check bounces.
Bill says he has to have a black cat.
He dreamt that he woke up beside one of his ex-wives.
You wake up for this!
He asked me to join him for lunch.
Onion stew
© Martin Grampound
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One Easy Answer
Before us sparrows curve into the sky
like ashes tempted by wind, flying from bones
of another fall. My children wonder
why our road is dirt, why we live so high
on this hill, why stones interrupt our walk.
I cannot deny the small deaths that brought me
here. Desires sown but untended: three loves
left on a vine, two secrets borne, one promise
to return, unkept. We are here because the way
is up, our road unpaved to atone for holes
unfilled, our path rough to remind me the journey
is long. To them I reply, here is home.
© Julie Damerell
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Euphrates
Here where the meadow and the forest edge
run down like rain to river beds set fair
for killing, once the armies all get there
and actions aren't mistakes -- when what is said
can take effect outside the talking head --
response a Brownian dancing in the air
like insects in the glen for those who share
the eating of them. Nothing ends more dead
or less for it. The light ephemera of imagoes
progenerate the cool causality
of form and content as it comes and goes
like wine, summer and the military,
here where the River As Always flows
and lightning plays across polarities.
© Peter Richards
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O'Malley and the Golden Dawn
Due to his bout with gout, Archbishop Costa
had switched from port to Scotch. He poured
himself an ample glass of Vat 69 as they sat
in noon shade on the tiled patio of his palace.
Dialling the Pope's phone number as they say
in Sligo, O'Malley thought as he enjoyed
a cool glass of Negra Modelo beer. "You'll have
heard of the devastation from the Los Peta
volcano, Father." An iridescent jay landed
landed on the birdbath and eyed Costa's crucifix.
"General Madrigal tells me ash buried the main
camp of the insurgents. Wiped the curs out!
The emergency is over, Padre, we can breathe
again." A bead of Scotch gleamed on his lip.
Celebrating Mass in the Mestite village,
O'Malley raised the wafer, conscious
of the finger lost to the guerrillas.
He dreamed of hands reaching out to him
as ash rained down.
© Christopher T. George
( O'Malley and the Golden Dawn : Editor's Choice of M.A.Griffiths: ' I enjoyed the rich texture of this poem, its vivid details and compressed narrative. It's a poem that transports the reader to a new location.and says so much in a brief span. - a wonderful read, in short' )
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A Short String of Sausages
The Rossendale Sausage
The infamous Rossendale sausage
is saucy and emanates courage.
It comes flying over like bluebirds in Dover
But fatter and flavoured with borage
The Cumberland Whopper
Munich and Frankfurt and Essen:
each thought their wurst was t' best'n.
but each came a cropper to a Cumberland Whopper
and were taught a formidable lesson.
Rasputin's Sausage
The sausage of choice of Rasputin
had toad-skin and ear-lobe of newt in.
He was living proof of that ancient truth
"Be hard on yourself - put the boot in!"
© Philip Burton
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Closing Time
I know the creech of cats,
it slits the evening's heart;
feral amo's, amat's
-- high-pitched blackest art.
Begats beget begats;
cats flaunt their wildest parts
in lethal lovers' spats
and spit in evil darts.
Oh, I know the creech of cats,
for it slits the evening's heart
and their babies squeal like rats,
when Toms rip them apart.
© Nigel Holt
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Biographia Literaria
(Samuel's Sarahs)
Sarah Coleridge nee Fricker
Sara Hutchinson (Asra)
Sara Coleridge b. 22nd December 1802
"I speak not now of those habitual Ills
That wear out Life, when two unequal Minds
Meet in one House & two discordant Wills "
(Letter to Sara Hutchinson, April 4, 1802 - Sunday Evening.)
What sparked his sudden outburst, who can tell?
Bad sex perhaps, a botched attempt to patch
things up, a pointless row, familiar hell.
All night he writes to her. You try to snatch
some sleep, then watch alone, in misery
the strange, psychotic moon devour the old.
"Maybe he loves the other more than me?"
You dare not ask, for fear of being told.
Next anniversary: the final twist,
you're now with child, he's published and been damned,
"It's Asra he adored", critics insist.
His genius left forsaken, a door slammed
shut. Their daughter, Sara, survived the wreck:
her father's famous name hung round her neck.
© Alan Wickes
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The Apartheid Show
"You were interested in art?"
He remembered sketchbooks.
Eggs she drew with the clarity of porcelain.
Clear spaces giving cream pages dignity.
An H or 2H pencil carved them clean.
They had to be coaxed from her schoolbag,
opened shyly. Briefly showed, they had
no shadow or context. "You got straight As,
yet you do not mention drawing.
What made you then consider
the woodwork option?
Where you grew bored with making serviette rings?"
Perhaps she did not remember. She tried to look
away as she did decades before when they
visited the apartheid show, the photographs
she could not read. Separateness there, already.
© Martyn Halsall
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The Night Emile's Mistress Turned into a Cat
She raised one arm above her head.
That was the start of it, a smooth
stretch of muscle, a lengthening of bone.
She was resting on exhausted sheets,
fingertips touching the wooden bedhead.
He heard the scrape of nails.
He lay beside her, drowsy with coming,
and drifted into dreams, her rump spooned
in his belly, firm against his soft sex.
He awoke to a narrow vacancy,
her furrow parched and empty.
The mattress ached.
She left a ghost of warmth
and three golden hairs on the pillow,
glowing like marmalade. Sometimes
he hears a serenade in the lane
beneath his window.
Queans sing when they disengage,
briefly, bitterly, then they lick, clean,
clean, forget.
© M.A.Griffiths
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Miguelito
It's a full moon night, Miguelito,
in this city with its concrete heart,
veins of steel, whose pulse
knows nothing of our rhythm.
How cold it's turned:
you try to conjure up visions
of suns that have long set
on Jibacoa beach.
You never forgot how to smile,
mi corazón, as if I still wore
the pink dress with floral print,
my eyes full of unplucked stars.
Sing for me once more,
like Ibrahim, that other boy turned grey,
Ay, Candela!
See, Miguelito,
see how I burn.
© michaela a.gabriel
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Dancing Lesson
You take the fragile fingers of her hand
and lift an arm, complete the pirouette.
She trips and falls inside a baby grand
before the band completes its second set.
You clamour to her aid, replace the lid.
The band stops playing, yet you're forced to shout,
"Are you okay?" She manages amid
the din to say she is. You hoist her out.
Her dress is badly crumpled but her smile
triumphant, beams between her blushing cheeks.
She wants to stay and dance a little while
although her full recovery may take weeks.
"You want to land upscale? See that piano?"
You nod, maintain your tenor, shun soprano.
© Les Wolf
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Passing
A wash of winter light turns Delft to darkness -
our flat and furrowed land where windmills reached
beyond the point an eye could find.
We walked here once, on summer nights
when men, sat at their sills, would chat across the street -
old Dernison who mended shoes,
the carpenter who'd set the world to rights,
my Opa. And always, by each window ledge,
the August gladioli - they seem so tall and strong
and then they're gone.
© Christina Fletcher
( Passing : Editor's Choice of Helena Nelson: '.When I first read this poem, the last line struck me with a shock-- like static electricity. Then I read it again and it did the same again. And it continues to do that. It is carefully poised, hauntingly sad. The simple monosyllables of the last phrase, after the line break, seem to say everything about love and loss.')
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For All the Years
(on reading Harry Potter)
For all the years, I still recall those rare
clairvoyant boyhood moments when my world
was new, and I glimpsed magic as it swirled
and scintillated in the morning air.
Grave young sorcerer, you make me smile
with broomsticks, spells and potions. Every charm
defies the darkness, shields your world from harm
and conjures up my childhood for a while.
Time can't touch you. Even so, take care
to keep your youthful confidence and grace.
I will remember how your spirit shone
so bravely in the shadows of despair;
a talisman to ward us when we face
this grown-up world with all its magic gone.
For T. K.
© David Anthony
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Fourth Grade Recess at Our Lady Queen of Hope
Mary Angela sails above our sea
of pixie cuts and Peter Pan collars,
the flap of her ribbons matching
our chants. With Double Dutch and flying hands
we beg her to tell.
White fear tucked tight
as blouses in plaid jumpers,
we want the facts
between slaps of rope
and Buster Browns on blacktop,
make her jump until she spills
the bloody words.
© Julie Damerell
( Fourth Grade Recess at Our Lady Queen of Hope : Editor's Choice of Charles Cornner: This poem had a simple set of images which all carried multiple shades of meaning. I really was attracted to read and re-read. A fine work.' )
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Judiciously
The Court considers senior counsels' pleas
judiciously each morning right at ten,
then student lawyers rise on trembling knees
like Daniels stepping to the lion's den.
These servants of the aristocracy
must advocate positions with respect,
indentured to the gerontocracy --
"M'Lord, my client prays.", and genuflect.
With fear careening round the oval track
within his mind, a student stumbles through
responses to a Judge's keen attack.
He gropes in vain for rules he thought he knew.
This wretched victim stands before the Court
oblivious that Judges like their sport.
© Peter Gilchrist
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Kitchen Homily
One day, the last of the four wedding toasters
leaped madly from the counter in a trail of crumbs.
No one saw it coming, not even the silverware,
who usually take pride in knowing everyone's
business. The trembling saltshaker watched
as the toaster swung from its cord, pendulous
and heavy in the early morning dark, wall socket
sparking with blue fire. The small appliances,
already nervous by nature, ground, pureéd, cut,
and otherwise opened various sections of air
until the circuit blew, and they stopped, cold
and speechless. It's all come to this: the fridge's
heavy shiver into silence, the microwave's dark
on dark freedom from the tyranny of green digits,
the solid, final thump of the toaster on the floor
milliseconds before the cutlery assume control.
© Steve Mueske
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To Die For
Aunt Bessie has a talent: when she bakes,
the flavour drives you wild. My cousins say
their father Tim, a regular gourmet,
married her for love - of chocolate cakes.
Poor Uncle Tim was feeling far from well -
in fact, was on his deathbed - when the scent
of baking half-revived him. Off he went
to find the source of that seductive smell.
Each step was painful as he tottered down
to taste the treat. At last his feeble hand
grasped hungrily. Bess slapped it sharply, and
dismissed him with an irritated frown:
"Clear off to bed, and put the buns back too.
I made them for the funeral, not for you."
© David Anthony
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Acknowledgements:
Fourth Grade Recess at Our Lady Queen of Hope previously appeared in La Petite Zine.
Kitchen Homily previously appeared in Three Candles.
One Easy Answer previously appeared in Bellowing Ark.
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Author's contact details:
David Anthony.....................