I hunker down on the wobbly chair, away from flak and chat about manure. I’m worrying over Sis manoeuvring sprouts
around a plate that smells… like those daffodils, the ones wilting in New Nan’s vase. Green is the camouflage…ammo on our plates.
After the crime of food waste in a world of starving refugees I pick a scab and hide the fallout in toilet tissue to flush with…manure?
I retreat outside with Sis while New Dad makes peace with chat. Sis skids through the slick cowpats of No-Nan land. I thumbs-up
to the camouflage splatter…a darker green than the sprout grenades! The cows are beer-bellied like…and stare like…they know…about a roast.
New Dad has had enough and tanks the van down lanes and around bends as if there are no potholes or landmines or tractors hauling manure.
New Mum air freshens my trench. My jeans surrender on the washing line. I Blu-Tack the report: crayon a cow and cowpats. I add a Sis. Why not?
Bin Life In Our Kitchen
I’m red and tall and impressively made of stainless steel, superior as well because all my stink inside is so much much more than the recycling lesser stuff. My pride gases up and spills over the rim. Carers must dig their deepest pit. I fill. I win.
I smell all that quality stuff and admit to being plastic, grey, just okay in height, but then Carers manufactured me not to brim or spill. Besides, and this is fact, my stink inside will be reborn again to more stuff. Just like me. This makes me immortal and sane and totally superior.
I’m smaller, much smaller than those two and green. Not prim, I whiff plenty. Carers empty me a lot. My stink inside goes all icky and yucky and mucks up to a stuff for growing outside. Carers declare I am the most superior. This brims me stinking pride. I’m big enough.
Bottled
I need to haste. I know, the knowing mouth replies, a bottled fact that loudly mocks my bloodshot eyes. Always at awkward times she shares the car and shares her lucid mind. Turn left. Turn right. Turn tight. And never drift. She persists to gear and steer the driving script, insists on dating fate, her lipstick on the mirror crayons fast and faster and more faster. I clutch to be more slow and slowly be gone, that I’m a breaking plonker, not her lover. She empties another kiss. I drink the dregs and throttle up. She blanks the speeding clock, my motor squeals, the skidding wheels will lock! Revenge? Revenge! Revenge? For being dry? I close my inner eye. This is too real. The bottle bottles up and grips the wheel.
Phil Wood was born in Wales. He has worked in statistics, education, shipping, and a biscuit factory. He enjoys painting and learning German. His writing can be found in various places, most recently in: Byways (Arachne Press Anthology), The Fig Tree, The Shot Glass Journal, London Grip, The Lake, Kelp, The Ink Pantry.
You can find more of Phil’s work here on Ink Pantry.
The seed of inspiration germinates Beneath the weight of darkness Bearing down upon the shrivelled complexion Of the cracked surface Striving slowly towards the light Proving such strength and determination From those slight tender tendrils That easily snap once exposed to the exterior Before finally breaking through- A wisdom tooth of truth Sprouting into a stem of an idea Nurtured into something that will blossom Then displayed with affection Left open to the elements To be shared and enjoyed by others Inclined to peer over the fence.
The Jazz Age
How those twenties roared With Rabelaisian rebellion Partying out the prohibition With the dapper and the flapper F Scott and Zelda F Sauve and sophisticated Defining the language Through loquacious speakeasy’s Fluid with illicit liquor Drinking to excess Smoking to intimacy With dancefloors jumping To the timeless modernism Of the Duke and the King And Pop’s doing his thing Beneath the Art Deco architecture A grandiloquent delinquency Through a decade of decadence Before the hangover of the Great Depression set in.
Woodlouse
Louse, I save you from the Sisyphean sink And you play dead! I stop your confining orbit, Place you on another path So that you can find you own way, And you lie still, Waiting for me to disappear into the darkness When you can move on Before I discover you’re gone.
Anthony tends to fidget with his thoughts in the hope of laying them to rest. He has managed to lay them in a number of establishments, including Shot Glass Journal, Jerry Jazz Musician, CommuterLit, and Dear Booze.
You can find more of Anthony’s work here on Ink Pantry.
A poem is a thought of flowers near frost, dangling stiff, bitten by the vampire teeth of late fall, hanging desolate near dusk from a pot on a patio porch a yellow light bulb beaming conspicuously outward over-chilled yellow green glazed grass. Snow now, the Aster deep purple, falls last.
A Migrant’s Empty Cup
This quiet Sonoran Desert. The sun is going down, touching my burnt cow leather skin for the last time, with death-piercing final touching. There is no water in this migrant’s cup. Ideate the power, the image of my soul. The only mystery that remains. Decamp me from this lasting hell. Hear that Turkey Vulture cry, carrion flesh mine— My intelligence was once vital now lapses into last fantasies of red blood-covered in guilt scenarios. My stolen Niki sneakers from Salvation Army, Chicago, multi-colours— traveled multi-states. So many meaningless miles. Ashamed, I bloat, decompose bones to stone. Memories: Venezuela, Chicago, New Mexico, California, and Arizona.
Night- time Glitter
I have seen through the nighttime glitter of wild women, the ways of their words, the deception of their actions, the slang of foolishness, toned down monetary voices. Chop suey, 24-hour restaurants finish the nights.
Those late-night bars, cosmetic faces, early morning kitty calls. Touching the males on the high thigh plain places as a starter plan, chopped through the thicket hairy brush, of privacy reflected on my journey briefly and thrust straight forward, mask of fools, no jewelry simple smile, subterfuge face of a clown. A night journeyman working in the trade.
Lady Melissa, all those who fell flat before you praising your prayers, my joys. They follow fool’s gold, the folly. The lack of worth in the secret cave. I have grown fond of the closed-in tunnels where darkness resides, moisture drips, and cave walls drop in. Our minds, those minds, their minds, are catalysts.
I’m no longer the private collector of midnight trash. No trophy, man of lady undies, tucked jacket pockets on my way out.
I no longer see closed mine shafts, dreams of clouds, those deceptive prospectors, gray beards, gray hair, ageing, lonely, and poor. Drop into an undeclared cave of poetic wonder only to find iron pyrite. Come join me, ex-lovers. The rivers of my mind leave the gold panning behind. Torch my guts open again with Valentine’s Day. Confectioner’s sugar celebrates the night.
Hunter of Deep, Calinda
You, Calinda, of wood and metal, are an oyster pearl of the Greek sea. You are a drunken disco dancer of beauty with charms around your neck. You are a solo storyteller on the platform of ocean waves. Your stained imprint leaves crossword puzzles on the performance of strangers. You only show your dynamic hula-hoop movements— shapes, curves, when fishing boats pass by. Calinda, you took your sensuous sex nature, barbed, cemented in the skin of sailors’ testicles. Then comes the morning purge. Your salted tongue wedged in the wounds of every victim. Then you wonder why, wonder why again. In half silence, you cry.
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.
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.
When the poet loves the moon becomes pregnant with the autumn pollen the stars laugh with Pitagora’s theorem the sun receives rays of love tsunami become the poet’s words Lora is immersed in the block of salt. When the poet sings adorns the world with the smell of love he gives the mountains Beethoven’s symphony the rivers are enjoying Mrika’s* work the sea of poet’s feelings and Lora falls asleep on the wedding stone a living metaphor in infinite verses
(*Mrika is the first opera in the Albanian language)
METAMORPHOSIS (Lora of New York)
Lora asked me to imitate Odysseus, not to listen sirens of the deep, nor the poet’s erotic verses in the rocky waves of the sea.
In New York he studied Pythagoras, the language of mimicry read the unspoken word wrote it in saltiness, where life is a dream and the dream becomes life.
The epic words underwent a metamorphosis, the seagulls danced over our heads, deep sea conception shivers run through, air in New York I missed the thrill of life.
LORA FROM PRISHTINA
The Goddess descends into memories Lora took into her arms the blessed silence an eye she gave to love a song to the sun to evil she gave the smile her lips enchanted me embracing the dream of the poet…
Again with Lora of Prishtina we often meet on the boulevard looking at the shadows of the rocks beauty walks courageous in love as the meteor of words rain with arrows in sight her lips put ash on my tongue where the unspoken word slopes the missing halt during the white sleep Lora of Prishtina – gives a song to the sun.
Lan Qyqalla, Republic of Kosova,graduated from the Faculty of Philology, specializing in Albanian Language and Literature, at the University of Prishtina in the Republic of Kosovo. He is currently a professor of Albanian language at a secondary school. His literary and critical writings have appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines, radio and television platforms, and digital media. His work has been translated and published in multiple languages, including English, Romanian, French, Turkish, Arabic, Italian, Greek, Swedish, Hindi, Spanish, Korean…..
He has published more than 19 literary works to date—including poetry, short stories, and plays—in Albanian, French, Romanian, English, Turkish, Swedish, Spanish, Polish, and German. He has received several national and international literary awards and has been featured in numerous global anthologies of poetry and fiction.
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/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
