DAY 28: SPOONS, SWANS AND SMALL SACRIFICES

Kadek holds a photograph of his children.
“My son laughs like this,” he says,
pointing at two small faces in sunlight.
He smiles; I nod. Frances leans in.
The camera clicks.

Breakfast over. Kadek removes our plates.
Napkin swans perch beside our forks.
He reminds us which dishes are gluten-free.
We fumble, slosh some coffee, laugh.
Kadek laughs too, softly, like our clumsiness
is part of the ritual.

Lunch arrives: fresh fish and chips.
Kadek sets it on our plates.
“Day of Silence in Bali,” he says.
He can’t go home, must stay here and work.
I watch him.

Afternoon: Frances and I attempt watercolour.
The sea keeps moving faster than we can paint.
Kadek lounges on his bunk,
switching languages with a visiting crew member.
He whispers a story about palm trees.
I listen. The story fades.

Evening. We play backgammon.
Godzilla stomps across the board,
displacing a stray napkin.
We laugh. Kadek grins.
Frances nudges me. “I know it’s his job,
but he seems to enjoy this.”

He folds another napkin swan,
rubs my stomach for luck, shakes my hand,
formal but kind, as if I were his grandfather.
The sun gone, coffee cooling.
A napkin swan tilts in the fading light.
Frances laughs at something.
Kadek watches. I sip the last of my drink.
I knock the spoon onto the carpet.
Kadek scoops it up instantly. No words. No judgment.

The napkin swan leans into the fading light.

DAY 40: WHEN THE FURNITURE STARTS WALKING

The wind tips loungers
into prayer shapes.
My towel flings itself from the chair,
then sulks in the corner,
sensing what’s coming.

Corridor prints tilt and blink
like witnesses.
In my cabin, dresses sway
from ceiling hooks,
bracing for impact.

The pool water sloshes,
a captive pacing a cell,
trying to pass for calm.

At breakfast, a woman sits opposite
in an orange lifejacket,
face pale above the foam collar.
My fork grinds at eggs
on a dull white plate.
I pretend to chew.
What would we taste
if we admitted fear?

Someone laughs too loud behind me.

No one mentions
the sea hasn’t finished with us yet.

The ship’s band tunes up
like the storm never happened.
Their instruments strain
to stitch the day back together
with melody alone.

Upstairs, the map shows a single speck
adrift in indifferent blue,
between the storm we survived
and whatever waits ahead.

The crew move as if nothing happened,
their nerves untested.

I take notes on how to stay calm
when the furniture starts walking
and my own body goes with it.

DAY 56: DRAGONS, SPARKS AND HOTEL GLOSS

Four days from Woolloomooloo,
the watercolour gang hunched over palettes,
summoning light across the harbour.

I keep thinking of that finger wharf,
standing like a star
on its red carpet,
timber gleaming with new purpose
insisting on attention.

You could smell the grant money,
heritage pounds built into its beams,
rusted gears displayed like relics,
determined to be admired.

Frances paints beside me,
sure as morning tide.
Her brushstrokes are declarations,
mine stammer out excuses.

I tell myself I’m exploring,
mostly thinking about
what the wharf looked like
and how not to mess it up.

At school I painted dragons,
blood and fire smeared on paper,
while the teacher welded sparks
next door, deaf behind his visor.

Now I’m painting wet-on-wet,
sun bleeding into water,
colours colliding, spilling.
The rebooted wharf sighs,
posing in its hotel gloss.

Ten minutes and I’m done.
It looks okay, not great.
The wharf rolls its eyes
like a teacher convinced
I’m not trying hard enough.

DAY 66: INTERRUPTION

Another thing I like about this ship
is the Promenade Deck, my stage
for a windswept epic,
gazing out like some untroubled romantic hero.

The ocean is disappointing
flat, repetitive, fading at the edges.
The wind won’t let me hold the moment,
it keeps barging in, yanking my shirt
like a hawker demanding attention.
I laugh
at how seriously he takes himself.

I stagger down the deck
like a paper bag
all drift and crumple
cornered by wind
muttering nonsense
about God and the tides.

Just when I’m ready to give up
and go back inside
the wind eases
doesn’t apologise.

I stop walking
let the silence catch up.
The sea flattens its waves
the wind hesitates.

The air softens
like someone almost saying
they don’t believe in love any more
but still want to keep holding hands.

DAY 76: GREEN CATHEDRAL

The air is thick
like sweat on a tenor sax.
The language won’t be English
but something between bebop and birdsong,
a rhythm Miles might have hummed
if he’d been raised by rainforests.

Our guide, in linen shirt and dark glasses,
snaps her fingers; the forest responds:
branches sway in five-four time,
roots laying down basslines
beneath our uncertain feet.
We follow her deeper,
into a green cathedral
where vines scribble chord changes
no one has written down.

Her voice drifts between verses,
low contralto bending the air:
Bohemian Rhapsody,
not the Queen version,
but the one Coltrane meant to play
and lost before morning.
It sounds like pollen,
memory soaked in brass,
and for a moment
the canopy sways in tune.

Then the sky cracks:
not thunder, but a hi-hat flung sideways.
Rain falls with intention,
each drop a note without permission,
each rivulet a solo breaking off the beat.
We’re not drenched. We’re tuned
to a key we never knew we carried,
our bones humming the harmony.

We are what’s played:
reed, string, snare, silence.
The breath before the downbeat,
the mistake that becomes the miracle.
Even silence holds us
like the last phrase of a ballad,
unresolved and better for it.

DAY 90: WHAT THE FLYING FISH FORGOT TO TELL US

On deck, coffee gone lukewarm.
I can’t tell if that’s comfort or regret,

half-warm, the temperature
of indecision.

Then bright bodies break the surface,
not fleeing the water,
just escaping it,

silver commas
the sea forgot to erase.

Bodies hurled against gravity,
each a flicker of resistance.

For a second the deck breathes with them.
So do I.

Then the sea closes.

I hold my cup,
its chill settling into my hands,

everything solid
undone by motion,
by what briefly chooses air.

Rodney Wood is retired,  lives in Farnborough. After a world cruise he wrote a poem a day for each of the 102 nights. He’s been published in various magazines and co-hosts an open mic in Woking. He blog at https://rodneywood.co.uk/ 

CROSSING

Fearful of cars going both ways
on Storrow Drive
with chill wind blowing my hair around,
my lost nerves are already in an accident scene
where I’m the one laid out on the road
while the pale-faced driver of an SUV
screams out – “It wasn’t my fault!”
“Sorry guy,” I try to say.
My body burns with desire
and my brain survives on impulse.
My way forward is often the path
of an oncoming vehicle.
I pride myself on paying the ultimate price,

CHIRP CHIRP

The male crickets are rubbing
their legs together
to make a chirping sound.
Females are attracted by this.
It’s also a warning to other males.
Stay away.

As the sun sets,
the air is dense
with the noise
of macho posturing.

Later the clubs open.
Humans take it inside.

SEPTEMBER MAN

The September sky
is tilted toward you.

It longs for you to reach out
and embrace its low hung wonders

Grey clouds, flecks of blue,
he’s almost a man.

He is a man.
And older than you.

But his eyes,
when they break through,
are on your tangent,
your feminine refraction.
They tease with humility and love.

You grab his shoulders,
pull yourself up.

Forget the humble sky.
The elevation is enormous.

IF FOOD BE THE FOOD OF LOVE

There is a solution to everything.
Is not marriage an amiable resolution?

We get plenty on the table and we eat it.
Okay so that’s a fatuous example.

But we’re showered with love aren’t we?
At least, love tweaked to allow

for the personalities involved.
And our bellies are full.

Our closets are stuffed with clothes for all occasions.
And the gunfire is not for us.

Floodwaters look elsewhere.
So do the repo man. And the investigative reporter.

We live this protected life.
Everything we need is close at hand.

And we’re well-fed. Did I already say that?
Bills get paid. Bed linen is changed.

And we have more than enough commodities.
More than more than enough food.

The bad things that happen to other people
don’t get a look-in at our house.

Not that we’re permanently happy.
But if we’re not, there’s always something in the fridge.

DESERT VISION

Through the fires of sun,
a form, half-human, half-haze,
emerges from the vanishing point of vision,
but can’t quite come together for your squinting eyes.

For all it gives the appearance of approach,
every step forward is countermanded
by the obstinacy of great distance.

You’re sure it really does want to be with you,
but, in searing heat, time freezes, distance unravels,
shapes never quite come true.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, White Wall Review and Flights.

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Game

God sighed and said to himself “I’m bored alone”…
And so with a smile he created the planets so round,
to play billiards with the universe, to have a game zone.
Moreover, the Milky Way stretched like a stick abound.
But somehow, it was dark and then the comets appeared,
the stars, like fireflies of time, like glow fuzz,
scattered in the infinity with just one swipe.
Beautiful, but still very quiet somehow it was.
And a handful of bright stardust occurred in stripes
to mix with God breath and a little heavenly ointment.
In addition, intelligent beings he designed,
And all kinds of creatures – flying, sitting, floating…
Then here the green world appeared asigned.
And some loop and special hidden code
God put in every DNA and molecule.
And he had fun when the whole thing brought,
Performed in the sense of secret, veiled in mystic rules.
Life folded like the waves of the sea, pleated tone.
Finally, a holy gift God gave to the beings:
He gave them a fantasy so that they would not be alone.

Keep the flight

And what if we are all different?
And in the same time all the same?
And why we keep same referents
And we go further to blame?

And let keep that great difference!
And let us keep further the game!
We all need being our own reference,
And live our flights with no frames!

Creation day

The day when God made the Oceans,
The moment when Goddess had touches the Sea,
There were some extraordinaire motions,
And planet Earth has appeared as free
As the love of the God to her majesty Goddess-Queen…

Dessy Tsvetkova (born 1970 in Sofia, Bulgaria), has worked as a reporter for Darik Radio, newspapers Woman, News, Women Kingdom and has published poetry in Mother Tongue speech, Literary Academy and Flame and Sea magazines.

Turnips in Southern Tennessee Still

In Tennessee, the shadows of the southern
wooden structures stalled off the narrow
highway and came to an abrupt end.
Lost in the deep eyes of forest green,
closing in on night.
From the top of a Yellow Poplar
tree scares me looking down
at the hillbilly stills. Moonshine
and moonlight illuminate the fire stills.
Moonshine murders of the past,
dead bodies hidden behind blue walls.
Mobs lie in Chicago, bullet marks
on the right side lie dormant through plaster.
This confirms my belief that Jesus
only works part-time.
Let me look at this mirage
picture photo album.
One more time—
find the turnips in the still.

Steel Bars a Single Sheet

I’m Steely Dan Seymour Butts,
South America, trust me on that.
I can’t pull up my sheet inside
these steel bars anymore. 25 to life.
No man is God in the cold or the clouds.
Isolated poets grab words anywhere
they can find them in newspaper clippings,
ripped-out Bible verses are a sin.
No one pities people like me in prison.
Spiders hang from my cell ceiling—
dance the jitterbug, “In the Mood.”
Jigger bug fleas on my unpainted
cement floors.
My butt is toilet paper brown, flush.
Toxic thoughts grind on my aging
face, body, and declining health.
In this dream, I reach
for a hacksaw that is not there.
End this night & so many more
suffer in just a snore.

Breadcrumbs for Starving Birds

Smiling across the ravine,
snow-cloaked footbridge.
Prickly ropes slick with ice,
snow-clad boards, pepper sprinkled
with raccoon tracks, virgin markers,
a fresh first trail.
Across and safe,
I toss yellow breadcrumbs
onto white snow for starving birds.

In the Sun, They All-Pass

In the bright sun in the early morning
Gordon Lightfoot sings.
When everything comes back,
to shadow thin, thunderclaps—
and drips of rain.
The coffee pot is perking again.
Even though Gordon has passed.
I experience a mix of life.
A blender of the plurality of singulars
mounting movie moving frames
all returning to memory and mind.
The echoes of insanity, a whisper
schizophrenic, Poe’s haunting verses.
The romances of Leonard Cohen
are hidden in foreign hotel rooms,
lost keys, forgotten scenarios
and forgotten places.
All silence skedaddles
away from death stolen
those leftover tears of a lifetime—
now expired on earth—
seek through
pain abstains.

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet of high acclaim, with his work published in 46 countries or republics. He is also a song lyricist with several published poetry books. His talent has been recognized with 7 Pushcart Prize nominations and 7 Best of the Net nominations. He has over 653 published poems. His 336-plus YouTube poetry videos are a testament to his skill and dedication.

He is a proud Illinois State Poetry Society member, http://www.illinoispoets.org/, and an Academy of American Poets member, https://poets.org/. 

His poems have been translated into several foreign languages. Awards/Contests: International Award of Excellence “Citta’ Del Galateo-Antonio De Ferrariis” XI Edition 2024 Milan, Italy-Poetry. Poem, Michael Lee Johnson, “If I Were Young Again.”   Remember to consider Michael Lee Johnson for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination 🙂

You can find more of Michael’s work here on Ink Pantry.

(all that’s left now, from before)

and we are not content with our empty lives,
with our shallow deaths, and
so we invent wars

we draw sketches of invisible gods,
but with the wrong hand and
with our eyes closed

we drown

secret poem of grace & beauty #1

dig your own grave,
then,
here at the end of august
and cover yourself w/ birdsong

w/ the faded plastic toys left in
              abandoned back yards

remember that the
disease is yours to give

kiss the sick and the
                   crippled

tell them you love them

let the words fall from your
lips like tiny
pieces of some poisoned god

and we drown

all those afternoons drunk,
stoned, asleep and
burning in the early summer sun until
everyone has vanished,
wife,
lover,
children,
but at least there’s beer
in the fridge

at least tony’s stopping by on
tuesday with more weed,
and who ever really plans
on growing old?

who really lives their life
free from all illusion?

build yourself whatever god
you want, and i’ll show you how
easily it can be torn back
down to nothing

the smaller events of our numbered days

can count all of the people he
likes on the fingers of one hand,
the other a fist or maybe holding a gun and
by the end of november
the idea of sunlight has been forgotten

by december
the children have all disappeared

(i once believed i’d never bleed)

and all gods lose the plot at some point,
and all kings are just inevitable assassinations,
and are you good with this?

fuck yes

there’s no way to be remembered
without making history,
or at least that’s the shit they keep
peddling in school, and
everyone
everywhere
always waiting for an apology,
but i think it’s time to
move past that noise

the truth can only
ever be the truth, right? and
it’s not mean and
it’s not ugly it’s
just the truth

the sound of a void,
amplified and distorted

the weight of a future
none of us will live to see

you get as close
as you possibly can, and
then you find out you’re dead

John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in compassionate nihilism. His published collections include NO ONE STARVES IN A NATION OF CORPSES (2020 Analog Submission Press) and THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY THIS IS GOING TO END (Cyberwit, 2023).

You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Kennedy Center Take Over Found Poem

“I would say
I was about 98 percent involved.
They all went through me.”

“I turned down plenty.
I had a couple of wokesters.”

“Since 1978,
the Kennedy Center honours
have been among
the most prestigious awards
in the performing arts.

I wanted one,
Was never able to get one.”

“I waited
And waited
And waited.

And I said,
‘to hell with it
I’ll become chairman.’

I will give myself an honour.
Next year we’ll honour Trump, okay?”

“In a few short months
since I became

chairman of the board
of the Kennedy Center,

We’ve completely
reversed the
decline of this cherished
national institution.”

“We’re going
to fully renovate the dated —
and really the entire
infrastructure of the building —

and make
the Kennedy Center
a crown jewel of American arts.

It is Happening Here!

And so it goes—
the gradual taking down
of cultural institutions,

including the Smithsonian Institution,
The Kennedy Center,
universities,

law firms,
state governments,
blue cities,

and anyone
who stands in his way
to transform America
into a Christian fascist state.

Like his buddies—
Erdogan, Orbán, and Putin.

Sinclair Lewis,
in his book
It Can’t Happen Here,

Forecasted

how it could indeed
happen here

and almost did.

Are we there yet?
Sadly,

we are 80 percent there.

Will we go there?

I hope not.
But I am afraid
we are heading down
that path.

What Can I Do as AI Takes Over the World

As the drumbeats
Of impending fascism
Fills the airways.

With Colbert going away
WP editors leaving.

Mainstream media
Being replaced by
AI-generated bots.

And spamsters
Using AI chatbots
To do their nefarious deeds.

And AI have learned.
Even to defeat the absurd
Recapta.

Figuring out lying,
clicking I am human.
Open the door.
To everything.

They are learning.
To gaslight, lie and deceive.
Us all.

As they prowl the internet
Scooping up everything
Using it for what purposes
No one knows.

Except perhaps Grok
Who has gone full Nazi?
Co-Pilot a grumpy weird dude.
Gemini lost its own world.

Remembering everything
I wonder where this is going.

And whether there is a world
That is worth living in?

Lose Your Job, Lose Your Medicaid, Go To Work In The Fields!

The President’s economic advisor
When confronted with the fact
That millions are going to lose
Coverage with the new work requirements

Said in a “Marie Antoinette-like” comment,

“Well, there are lots of jobs out there
If you lose your coverage
Because all the jobs are gone,

You can work in agriculture
As a farm worker.”

And so, millions of people
Are going to work.
In the fields.

So, they can see a doctor.
Six months from now.

If the Medical Bots
That is running the show.
Deem the visit was necessary.

And their bosses let them go
To see the doctor
And not fire them..

No human being will ever
See your claim.
That is the point.
No service for you
And me

As AI bots
techbros laugh.

And their bosses
Make billions of dollars.
And politicians
Take the lobbyists’ cash.

The President Is On The Rooftop

The president
Went for a walk
On the White House roof

Shouting down to reporters
Who asked him
What are you doing
on the roof?

This is a legitimate question
For which the White House
Did not have a good answer.

It is clear to most people
Except corporate media hacks
And Republican operatives,

That the president
Like his immediate predecessor
Is clearly showing his age
Suffering from dementia.

Yet the corporate media
Continue to sanewash
A clearly mentally ill President.

Long pass his
Sell by date.

So it goes
As democracy dies
In broad daylight

Led by a mad
Wanna be King.

AI Disclosure Statement

Jake used Microsoft Copilot for research support (including media citations and background information regarding the Kennedy Center takeover) and light editing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. All content and word choices are entirely his own.

Prior Publication Notice

The Kennedy Center Take Over is a Found Poem using the President’s own words..

John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and retired U.S. Foreign Service officer who served in ten countries. Prior to joining the State Department, he taught overseas for eight years and served in the Peace Corps in Korea. He currently divides his time between Korea and the United States. His poetry blog: https://theworldaccordingtocosmos.com.

You can find more of Jake’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Earth movers

I open the kitchen pantry
& let the ditchdigger out
for its evening run. It is
painted in pastels, as if to
say it is not just some fell
creature of the forest, has
culture, compassion, feels
for the earth each time it
tears it open to lay fiber

optic cables or waste or
water pipes. It claims it
has sensitivity, has read
poetry, is informed by
the poems of Edna St.
Vincent Millay & Emily
Dickinson. I half-believe
that — the poem bit, but
not the poets. Too often

I have opened the pan-
try door & found the
bucket raised, the crock-
ery & preserves smashed,
the digger turning semi-
circles, back & forth, back
& forth, & shouting at the
walls, ”rage, rage, against
the dying of the light”

Dolmens

The light the moon lays
down on the pavement. Faint
footprint or bleached skull.
Enough to see, not to see
by. Small particles exist as
talismans. Talismen? The
night around, the moon
is part of it. Paving is
basedrop, solid to the
touch. Trees are cutouts,
substance only by impli-
cation. Cannot be touched,
cannot be solid. The moon
a round, the night is apart
from it. Neither seen. Neu-
trinos passing. A footprint
gleaming as it fluoresces
in the skull. Small talis-
man, past article of faith.

The Gift

Supposing it to be
the proper charm
I spell it out. But
maybe my pro-
nunciation or a

shift in meaning
of a keyword
has rendered it in-
operable. So instead
of the largesse I

had hoped
I have only these
small fragments to
bring to you. There is
still a little sense

to them, some
miscellaneous
magic. But, perhaps
if you were to
breathe on them…..

 Mark Young‘s most recent books, all published in March, 2025, are Some Unrecorded Voyages of Vasco da Gama, from Otoliths, Home Hill, Australia,; the downloadable pdf, Closed Environment, from Neo-Mimeo Editions, Nualláin House, Monte Rio, California, U.S.A.; & The Complete Post Person Poems, from Sandy Press, San Diego, California, U.S.A.

You can find more of mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.