If I could spend one day with Virginia Woolf, I would sail to St. Ives in her lovely boat, alight at the lighthouse which she cherished most and contemplate the waves of her literary shores.
If I could spend an evening with Virginia Woolf, I would go to Oxbridge to consume some gorgeous food, then saunter with her on the turf that was once denied to her foot, without hearing a single, admonishing voice.
If I could ask a favour of Virginia Woolf, I would entreat her not to fill her pockets with heavy stones, not to interrupt the streams of consciousness, that connect the masses with literary gold.
Star Seeds
With webs of nerves attuned to the spheres, they see multiple numbers on clocks and screens, and think of themselves as missionaries.
Estranged from human beings and milieus by outlandish traits, they are considered by most people as lonely freaks.
Telepathic, with myriads of Déjà vus, they also see dreams that always come true.
Intractable
Like a frantic wind that is unsure which direction to take, my little dog whimsically zigzags its way, sniffing the scattered refuse of residents and pedestrians – be it a rotting chicken bone, a poisoned mouse, or the carcass of a bird that was not lucky enough to obtain a burial place- straining all my muscles in the process of arduous feats, and trying the utmost of my patience.
This is how each morning begins, with a repetition in the afternoon and early evening, a battle of wills, in which I always give in.
DrSusie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a PhD on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.
Susie’s first book (adapted for film), Classic Adaptations, includes Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Lynda Plater lives in Lincolnshire. She has been writing poetry for 40 years and has had work published in Stand, Verse and Rialto among others. Her first collection, Three Seasons for Burning, was published by Wayleave Press in 2015. Last year she was the recipient of the coveted Frogmore Poetry Prize for her poem ‘The Revd. Michael Woolf on his way to a parishioner in need’.
Saving Fruit, her second Wayleave pamphlet, moves along familial lines by focusing on various members of her family who worked as cockle collectors and market gardeners on the Lincolnshire coast and marshland during the first half of the twentieth century.
The collection opens with a portrait of her great grandmother washing sheets in a lean-to with white-washed walls. Washing sheets in 1908 was hard work compared to today. One of the many strengths of this collection is Plater’s depictions of just how hard work was in those days:
Wringing out water made the skin of her hands flayed. Muscles ached with mangle turn. The clothes line drawn down sagged with the weight of sodden linen which dripped down the nape of her neck.
In the next poem we are introduced to her great grandfather who is raking cockles at a sand shelf. Reading this poem we get a real sense of a man battling against the elements, pitching himself against the vast horizons of the North Sea while his horse ‘sleep-filled, / sandfly tired, utters snorts’ waiting for his master to load the cart with cockles.
‘Midsummer harvest, 1911’ describes a photograph which is itself a snapshot in time. Several of the poems in this collection have dates in their titles which helps us to set them in context. They are also printed in chronological order running from 1908 through to 2018. There are, of course, many gaps in between. Most of the poems at the start of the collection cover the period from 1908 to 1921.
Many of the poems are centred on domesticated rural life: fruit preserving, a great grandmother gathering samphire near the shoreline, cockle selling, ploughing, bread-making, lessons in sailing.
Several poems depict the changing seasons. In ‘Turning’, we are reminded that not only the soil but also the planet is turning and that autumn is sliding into winter. The vast open spaces of the county are summoned up in the final stanza:
The tractor turned in a long landscape and flakes of gulls turned with it. The old man watched, felt its coming, knife-edged furrows meeting in the gather of earth for fallow. And on its passing he was with gulls between their flight; saw the ploughshare steeling straight.
In this collection, the natural world is all around us. In ‘Sailing lesson’, a heron, startled by a sudden close encounter rises out of the reed beds; in ‘Jar of clay’, curlews ‘break soft molluscs / in rising light’ out on the mudflats and in ‘The ring ouzel, November 2018’, the small bird ‘slow-grey eyed’ with ‘a white collar like a pastor’ catches the poet’s attention as the season rolls on and the theme of migration takes hold.
Whether she is writing about rooks in winter, a murmuration of starlings, outdoor labour in frosted fields or time spent in the service of the Lincolnshire Yeomanry in Egypt and Palestine during the First World War, Plater’s vivid descriptions pay tribute to her family by taking us back into the past and giving us a glimpse of how life was lived a century ago.
The cover image, ‘Apple’, a watercolour by Lynda Plater, is the perfect fit for this collection.
There is a poem in my heart a stop-gap love that cancels the chamber beats. I can’t dismiss the cane I walk with or the heavy, pounding heart, missing breath. There are prayers of my past etched in abuse that I delete pictures about— my brain recycles ruminations. I can’t delete beats or add them. I’m waiting for the final fall— when the gym whistle around my neck from grade 8 basketball class squeals out an Amber Alert for a dying old man.
They say I’m a poet, a word dabbler dripping sap from an old maple tree— tin can worshiper catching leftover sins. I face the world left, head-on. A shot of cheap vodka drained from an 80 Proof-1.75 Liter— lemon and lime juice mixed in reminds me of Charles Bukowski’s mic and desk beers lined up for consumption elongated in order, on the table— those L.A. Street whores, bitches, fantasies of men past 60.
I can’t delete past swear words, rearrange old events, distinguish melody from harmony notes at the Symphony Orchestra echoes of poor past performances.
Let me gamble what’s left: aces, spades. Joker is bankrupt, my crucified self. Silence over spoken reflects quietness nibbling of self.
Candle of My Night
In the candle of my night I see you blinking your eyes, pink with a magnanimous a vocabulary of mythology, a Nordic star, shy, shining in blondness, resorting, shuffling back and forth like a loaded deck of cards, lead-weighted- your lost teardrops through the years, your esteem. Quarter plugger dollar player jukebox sing-along, you’re but a street slut, musical bars and chairs. You stretch your loins over the imagination of penises like a condom. Protected, fruit preserved on your spreading branches. You wake up with sun tone memories then the darkness, those mythical tales and lost poems of the Poetic Edda or Marvel comics. You urinate morning dreams, thoughts, remnants away. You aren’t my first memory— candle by night.
Chicago
I walk in a pillow of cinder. Flames apart from this night still ignite. I am still determining where I live in a yellow mist, muddled in early morning white fog. I lost my compass in a manhole, dumped, dazed in thought. The L trains still flow on decrepit tracks. I toss ruminating imagination into Lake Michigan. A loyalist at heart, Chicago will have no mercy, memory of me. I will decry my passing and die like the local city Chicago River rats, raccoon divers, and smog. Mayor Daley hardly remembers his own name, less mine. I lie to daybreak in shadow grass. Sins stick on my body like bee honey. This old Chicago, Chi-town, grungy streets, elderly brick buildings shagged out. Apart from the moors stapling down luxury boats in the harbor, let’s not be fooled on any night, Al Capone still rules this town.
Closure
With age, my room becomes small— roots gather beneath my thoughts in bundles— exits are few. The purr of romance. The bark of leaving lovers, fall leaves in distress. Animals in the distance deer, wolf calls, birds of prey, eyes of barn owls those coyotes. I see the bridge, the cross-over line not far away. When this ticker stops, livor mortis purple is dominant, all living quarters of the heart. From here, the dimmed light of dawn twinkles takes on a new meaning, not far.
Anticipation
I watch out my condo window this winter, packing up and leaving for spring. I structure myself in a dream as Moko Jumbie, masquerader on stilts. I lean out my balcony window in anticipation. Dead branches, snow paper-thin, brown spots, shared spaces. A slug of Skol vodka, a glass of cheap sweet Carlo Rossi rose red wine. I wait these last few days out. That first robin, The beginning of brilliance— crack, emerald dark, these colours.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 313 plus YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 46 countries, a song lyricist, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for 7 Pushcart Prize awards, and 6 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 653 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member of Illinois State Poetry Society.
You can find more of Michael’s work here on Ink Pantry.
My Flesh and Clothing Have Been Torn for the OAC gang
There is a house on stilts, deep in the piney back- woods just off HWY D, outside Cooper’s Hill, Missouri, where there are also 8 or 9 broke down cars and trucks and other farm implements, including most of what must have been a tractor. And my loyal guide dogs abandoned me a long time ago, and my flesh and clothing have been torn by bramble vine, and I swear I heard whispering.
Scenes From 39Th St., Pt. 1
The Poet with The Hole in His Throat was busy soaking copies of Black Like Me in gasoline, shouting I told you crackers what I’d do the next time I saw one of these things! And the Eastern Academic Elitist Poet (from (eastern-most) Hoboken) was attempting to set Tennyson’s Charge Of The Light Brigade to jaw harp, tone box and oboe. And the ferocious Celtic / Valkyrie Poet was feasting on the still-beating hearts of all the fallen poets foolish enough to have fallen for her Celtic siren song. And God’s Angry Poet was casting out the undercover Homeland Security Man with Lilies of the Field and various lyrical incantations and the street preachers were ladling snake oil from a fifty-gallon drum while some faintly unwholesome character claiming to be the latest incarnation of the Bodhisattva was saying to everyone and anyone on the street HEY, PULL MY FINGER! PULL MY FINGER! And then the ten-thousand myriad archetypes became strangely quiet and still, the stars all stopped, momentarily, in their places and the angels and demons ceased their square-dancing on the heads of pins and ten-penny nails, everywhere. And still the Lonely Backwoods Bukowski- Wanna-Be Poet sat there in a dank sub-basement corner of his imagination, mindlessly ringing wind chimes made from throwing stars, winding and re-winding the ancient mechanical cricket of his art.
February / South-Central Missouri
A two lane black-top twisting through the trees and hills of February in South-Central Missouri like a river of tarmac, cracked and potted, here and there.
Um, Goldman Sachs?
It all started with a BANG, BANG, BANG at the door and it’s 7 o’clock in the ? morning on a Saturday, which, I only do, these days, for $30 an hour (or more) but really would prefer not to do at all when 8 or 9 or even 10 is such a more reasonable and civilized hour to haul one-self up from the deep wishing well of dreams, like you were some kind of recently reanimated corpse that must have been violently dispatched and hastily disposed of only the night before, now rudely disturbed to find what can only be described (kindly, of course), as a gaggle of dowdy and bovine old gals standing on your porch, asking you, (free of irony): Sir, do you know who rules the world?
Soon to be Forgotten
A faded pick-up truck (what once must have been something between powder blue and sea foam green) sits out another season by the edge of the field, nearly over-taken and claimed for one of their own, by the wood’s ever-expansive layers of saplings, soon to be forgotten by the outside, busy-body world of people, money and the witless passage of time.
Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is Fence Post Blues (River Dog Press, 2023). He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe and part-time sand wonderful woodland critters.omewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.
You can find more of Jason’s work here on Ink Pantry.
a simpler time a grim picture of our stilled lives. sitting underneath words, yet moving. there is still a gap created by the human need people suspect that the good outweighs the bad, it doesn’t look that way. by late summer they rule the garden.
Finding light in the beautiful sea Even when we’re far from home
June is dawning down on me Even when we’re far from home Me and my truth, sitting in silence Still all the colours, vivid for you Safe to take a step out Even when we’re far from home
Nostalgia
This is where the adventures were made Where little girls went up and down slides Grounds into lava and the sky into space
This is where my favourite meals were cooked The sight of my mother’s back with an apron The scent of eggs and spices filling the room
This is where everyone would shop for their groceries A small market with a warm lady Greeting each customer under the yellowish light
This is where all the kids would run to after school A tiny shop filled with cheap toys and rainbow notebooks Children running to get their hands on the newest snacks
This is where all the big kids with big backpacks go Big rooms and aligned desks Whiteboards with numbers and shapes This is where we would hide on a sunny day Fresh watermelon cut into cubes Grandma brushing her fingers through my hair
This is where we jumped ropes The ground covered with chalk The sun caressing our backs
Pages of the Past
The gardens of fairytales A pastel scenery with sour sweet scents Colourful tulips and butterflies hence Truly, where all the magic begins Memories left to reminisce
Sally Lee is a student at an international school in Seoul, South Korea. Immersed in a multicultural environment, she draws inspiration from the diverse cultures and experiences around her. She is currently working on her writing portfolio.
I looked at the window of my villa and it was midnight. The brown cat meowed. He is the guardian of many blissful melancholies. He is the crimson memory of philosophers. He is a signpost for golden-hearted poets. I am tender ancient sage. I am the poet of time. I am a becharmed friend of the dawn.
I looked at the aperture of my home and it was meek morn. The black cat purred. He is the protector of the soft, eternal treasure. He is silver recollection from dazzling nature. He is a sign of an ancient charming culture. I am a primeval charm. I am a lyrist of spell. I am a companion full of hearts.
I looked at the casement of my habitat. It was time – Blue Hours. The fawn cat drank milk. He is the custodian of musing, Dionysian legends. He is the golden remembrance of philosophers. He is an indication of the Golden Fleece. I am prehistoric thoughts. I am a bard from wizards. I am familiar of Plato-cave.
May three cats be shrouded forever! – thus in the tenderness of the stardust, fallen in love with amaranthine-celestial Gods, in afterglow of amazingly tender druids.
Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Siemiatycze in Poland. He is poet who lives in Bielsk Podlaski and writes tender poems, haiku as well as long poems. Paweł has published his poetries in many magazines. He writes in English and German.
You can find more of Paweł’s work here on Ink Pantry.
It’s dark out It’s cold out Any moment now the sun might come out But i can still hear the sound of people moving The sound of people struggling The sound of people trying their best to live in this harsh society I thought i wasn’t getting much sleep these days These people don’t sleep at all I lay in my bed My body devoured I lay there staring up to the ceiling I think to myself It must be freezing cold outside How can those people have the motivation to go out at this time I feel a chill down my spine Somethings not right but i don’t know what I think eating a snack would solve the problem I stand up and go look for some food I sit down with all the food i scavenged A tuna can, some leftover chicken and some ramen Todays hunt was successful i thought I will make it my mission to finish this as fast as i can I dig in quickly I eat ’til there is nothing left except the last chicken leg After this i can finally go to bed with a full stomach I pick it up And I.. Beep beep beep… wake up
Injury to insult
The only time i insult someone is when I get insulted, that’s why you should Add injury to an insult You have to stand up for yourself When you insult them Make sure to injure them as well And don’t just minorly injure them Permanently damage them So they don’t have to come to school So that they don’t have to all this nasty homework I wish I don’t have to come to school anyways I’m not sure about you But personally i was taught to never take any disrespect from anyone Me personally, i would have to add injury to insult
School
I wish that it ended. She keeps talking and talking. I’m not listening, who is? Nobody listening there, all sleeping. School is such a waste.
I wish that time stopped. I never thought it was fun. Schools should host more parties. We stayed there until 9. It ended in a flash.
I wish that he didn’t. Throwing that beautiful ramen away. I’m inside the school starving. While he wastes that ramen. My poor beautiful delicious ramen.
Andrew Ban is a student attending an international school in South Korea. He loves writing in his free time, and his other hobbies include cross-country and bike riding. He has recently published in Inlandia: A Literary Journal, Dunes Review, The Elevation Review, Rigorous and Mortal Magazine.
Eyes reflecting the flickering of the lanterns waiting for the ringing of the doorbell and the tapping of heels. The white tail swirls, catching in the branches, while snowflakes dance outside, flying in the wind. raindrops drumming a lonely tune on the splintered wood.
Enchantment
Frosty December evenings were filled with whispers of Santa’s sleigh, cutting through the midnight sky as I looked out the window, eight years old, convinced I could see the shimmer of Santa’s sleigh streaking across the stars, hearing the jingle of the bells outside our window. Red stockings were hung with glitter, presents wrapped in green. “Children see magic because they look for it.” I looked for magic in the half-eaten cookies and a thank you note from Santa written in loopy script, hope for a jolly man in a red suit to arrive and for red-nosed reindeers to whisk me away.
With every year the sparkling lights become a decoration; I no longer force myself awake, straining to hear the sound of sleigh bells on the roof. Instead the spark remains in the laughter of the children, gifts being unwrapped, and the sound of Christmas carols lightly whispering childhood enchantment. Magic is never gone; it is hidden beneath red carpets on silent, starry Christmas lights, waiting to be found again.
Midnight Sky
cutting through the dimming stars as we looked out to the open, searching for hope in the cold air and dark sky and the sound of cheerful tunes lightly whispering for innocence Dreams are never gone; they are hidden beneath the grass on silent, starry summer days
Lanterns flicker over the Han River market, casting pools of beer across the dancing stalls.
Fresh-baked hotteok and grilled mackerel accompany the vendor’s yells.
Karen Lee is a high school from South Korea and currently attending school in Virginia. She has an unquenchable passion for both writing and drawing. In preparation for her future academic endeavours, she is diligently compiling her writing portfolio and has recently received an acceptance to Iowa Young Writer’s Studio, a distinguished programme that identifies and nurtures emerging writing talent.
Earlier, my village lane, Accompanied by the gentle breeze, Was the haven, For the tired traders and tillers To resume their chores.
Earlier, the lush green field, Bordered by dahlia blooms, Was the seat For the crying, lone lads To attain stamina, smile for play.
The shades of sal-trees, Dancing with the chirping mynas, Provided shelter For the overburdened parents To barter their traumas for new errands.
But now the lane, The green field and the sal-trees Brood for sheltering The honest statesmen, administrators To adopt corruption and dishonesty.
Bimal Kishore Shrivastwa, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of English at Degree Campus Tribhuvan University, Biratnagar, Nepal. An anthology of his poems is published from Litlight Publication, Pakistan. Other poems from Mr. Shrivastwa are published from the UK, USA, Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. Besides teaching, Mr. Shrivastwa loves indulging in anything creative.
Rejoice or dislike, detest or love the way this world works, You can think whatever your internal soul says. No matter even if the absolute reality is denied by everyone, It will remain the same and doesn’t need fabricated support.
Agree or disagree, whatever you want to do, Here, the arena is highly rooted in fabricated relative reality. Fabricated reality supports fabricated epistemology, And fabricated epistemology brings delusive humanity.
Fabrication dilutes the reality of changing absolute reality, For what it strengthens its inner monarch— To create an even more practical yet delusive understanding of the world.
Many dark souls are likely to be hidden within this fabricated world, This world— where the golden sun emits the black rays. But the world with absolute reality that we merely have time to dive in, is unbound in our fabricated relative reality.
And this world, with fabricated realities, May be shielded by the computer assimilation. Or a dream of somebody else’s, from where we can never come out, Because we might not actually exist.
Rajendra Ojha (Nayan) is a Nepalese poet, philosopher, social researcher, social worker, and EU-certified trainer. He also served as a citizen diplomat for three months under the ‘Ministry of Population and Environment’ in 2018 in Switzerland for the diplomatic program of the Minamata Convention, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland. Poems and philosophical writings of Rajendra Ojha have been published in various national as well as international literary journals from Nepal, the U.S.A., India, China, Russia, Spain, Myanmar, England, Greece, and Pakistan in both Nepalese and English. He has also published two anthologies, ‘Through the World’ (a collection of experimental poems) and ‘Words of Tiger’ (a collection of philosophical and psychological poems), in 2011 and 2019, respectively. Mr. Rajendra Ojha has been honoured by two major prestigious awards named ‘Asia’s Outstanding Internship Solution Provider Award 2020/21’ and ‘Dadasaheb Phalke Television Award 2023’ respectively for his work as a ‘Social Researcher’ as well as a ‘Social Worker’ (activities related to social responsibility), respectively in 2021 and 2023.
