That line, that grey smudge, in the sky—like a shadow of something moving out beyond the world Was it a passing ship? A sail wide as limbo The mind reels at the distances, knowing they can only be fiction, that only the self is real
Lost now (because a petrified forest is really just a field of rocks) I sit down in the shadows of the palm fronds reaching over me with dagger fingers What am I—but a sinking wetlands, methane-rich refuse rotting into usefulness? Or really I think I am the output of some formula—a reductive algorithm Definitions slip through the cracks between their own words, eel-slick and mucosal It’s June now, and this too must pass, this uncertainty Things do, pass, always
Richard Helmling is a teacher and writer living and working in El Paso, Texas.
A morning shower barely has left a print on dry earth
& now a bright breeze dances joropo around us, around
Mónico playing mandolin his aged-mahogany face wrinkled in a tranquil smile Around cuatro & guitar caja drum & maracas
A bottle of cocuy passes ’round an anciana sings, her cinnamon hands clapping Women chat, adjusting costumes a child cries & is comforted
Rosa the singer & Luis the spoon-player begin to dance amidst us Fine soil billows ’round their steps & twirls
joropo – traditional music & dance of Venezuela, originating in the llanos region cuatro – a four-string instrument like a small guitar caja – box cocuy – an alcoholic brew of a cactus plant anciana – old woman
Golfo de Morrosquillo (Tolú)
Full moon rises above tejas & thatch roofs The gulf rolls evenly around the breakwaters onto the grey sand A crab flees from the rising tide
Families take a dip in the night-darkened waters stroll on the seawall, the beach Three boys play kickball with a plastic bottle
Along the malecón scented by grilled foods people eat & drink Bicycle taxis pass & horse-drawn carriages, the clop of hooves lost to Music blaring from restaurants & discos Vendors spread their cloths with jewellery, incense under streetlamps Women yet corn-row hair with quick molasses- coloured fingers Sunglass salesmen walk café to bar
& the musicians still wander accordion ’round neck, caja drum, guarachaca stick in hand
Magdalena Sunset
(Mompox, Colombia)
Waterlilies float swiftly by on the river’s current. Bells clang for mass at Santa Bárbara church.
In front of a colonial house on the river walk speakers blare music, Inside, amidst balloons & streamers children sing a birthday.
Dressed in vivid paisley, shoulders stooped with passed generations, doña Julia sits on the steps to the río, talking to herself.
Two Scottie dogs laze in a window niche of their ochre home trimmed melon & jade. One rests his muzzle on the wrought-iron grill.
With a splash of water, a man jumps from the jetty. Dulled light of almost-evening sheens on his tanned skin.
The boats have abandoned this narrow channel of the Magdalena & this terminal stained white concrete & brick flaking, vacant windows staring.
In the cool evening sung by gecko, toad & cricket, a boy sends his kite aloft. Families chat outside in caned chairs, a foursome plays Parcheesi on an iglesia patio.
The disappeared sun paints loud indigo & purple reflecting in the swift water. Shadow-treed banks reflecting waterlilies still floating by.
& some other church clangs its bells for mass.
Enter Iris and Luna, Stage Front
In a momento the town is plunged in inky darkness.
Scattered whistles & cheers echo down the streets, echo the groans of men, their TV soccer game disappeared before their eyes.
These lanes fill with families & couples who watch the
Stars emerge, now freed from the glare of streetlamps, sparse clouds brightened by the full moon.
A chubby-cheeked boy points at her, Look, la Luna has an Arco Iris!
Surrounding her, a moonbow paints this chill night, auguring rains to come before the dawn.
La Boca Summer Day
I. On the Caminito
Corrugated tin of ex-convetillos is painted in a circus of colors.
Artisan stalls umbrellaed beneath the clouded sun.
Tourists sip wine at café tables.
A couple is packing their jambox & CDs. Slight wind flutters high split skirt, caresses her legs, fishnet stockings.
II. Behind the Façade
Along the cobbled streets the tin of shacks is anemic. Crumbled balconies, rickety steps, eaten bannisters. Doors with missing slats open to the breeze off the rotted Riachuelo. Glimpses of cramped rooms beyond curtains.
Upon littered walks sit families at card tables, bottles of beer & mates at hand.
In an empty niche of the Bombonera, a man sleeps on a broken vinyl couch, zipper open below his bloated paunch. A caked glass set on a crooked table.
Across a high-weed lot, boys kick a soccer ball & there yonder a group plays volleyball over a frayed net.
On this humid summer day in La Boca …
La Boca – a working-class neighborhood of Buenos Aires; birthplace of the tango
Caminito – “the little street,” name bestowed by a tango song; now a tourist hub, frequently portrayed in photos of Buenos Aires
conventillos – tenements with small, cell-like rooms in which late-19th / early-20th century immigrants lived
mates – a mate is the container (often made from a gourd) from which yerba mate (Paraguayan tea) is sipped through a bombilla (a metal straw with a strainer)
Bombonera – “the candy box,” the nickname of the home stadium of Bocas Juniors, the world-renowned soccer team of LaBoca
Wandering troubadour Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 250 journals on six continents; and 18 collections of poetry – including On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019) and Escape to the Sea (Origami Poems Project, 2021). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. In March 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honored her verse. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful travel companion, Rocinante (that is, her knapsack), listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
i wait on the stairs for the police to come they arrive and take a statement from me
they don’t seem concerned or shocked and say there is nothing suspicious about it
it happens daily with foreigners and locals and at this guest house all the time
and that there is a batch of gear in Delhi from Pakistan that is extra strong and cheap
two young guys died in the tunnel before and last night a tourist in a five star hotel
i ask them if i can leave the city now that i was heading off when i found him
the two cops look at each other and one says it will be easier for me if i help them out a bit
he puts out his hand and i know what for i pay the baksheesh with a fifty dollar note
they thank me genuinely and wish me luck i pick up my bag and walk down the hall
the guy’s body is being taken out on a stretcher Om Namah Shivaya i say and walk away
at the train station i wonder about the guy’s life and if anyone will tell his family he’s dead
i reflect on the two times i smoked heroin decades ago at the same Delhi guest house
i never touched it again as its power grabbed me and i knew continuing it was wrought with risk
magic
he smiles
i smile float my eyes into his
he walks to my table amongst the people and booze clutter doesn’t say anything when he gets to me taps my shoulder gestures me to stand i do
and heart banging follow him mesmerised into a small room off the back of the bar where an overhead fan clicks
we don’t speak a magic sits in the silence between us a mouse scampers behind the sideboard he ignores it and turns the key locks the door stands still looking at me steps into me stares into my eyes
we are joined by an unseen force
his phone gives a church bell chime he says a few words into it in his language clicks it off
touches me lightly on the shoulder unlocks the door
we go back out to the bar
crowds separate us in a flood of bodies and voices.
Stephen House is an award winning Australian playwright, poet and actor. He’s won two Awgie Awards (Australian Writer’s Guild) , Adelaide Fringe Award, Rhonda Jancovich Poetry Award for Social Justice, Goolwa Poetry Cup, Feast Short Story Prize and more. He’s been shortlisted for Lane Cove Literary Award, Overland’s Fair Australia Fiction Prize, Patrick White Playwright and Queensland Premier Drama Awards, Greenroom best actor Award and more. He’s received Australia Council literature residencies to Ireland and Canada, and an India Asialink. His chapbook real and unreal was published by ICOE Press Australia. He is published often and performs his work widely.
Not a single child about, just this single tyre swing hung from tree, one of those thick ropes that you only see in school gymnasiums that burn the palms of those forced to climb them, and the base of the tyre overflowing with two days of fresh rain, a couple old gutter leaves and the word “Bridgestone” still legible in smudged off white lettering, the tread worn down, but not as much as you would think, a littering of fresh acorns and pine needles I smell before I ever see.
Steps
One way up and one way down, ants in the cracks like a brazen tactile army forever on manoeuvres, a long railing in the middle of the steps for faltering balance, fashion before walking shoes, and at the top some say the best views and at the bottom no one says anything, elbowing past one another on the way to melting ice creams and dirty fryer grease; more steps, but not the ones everyone came so far to climb this time.
What I Need
What I need is nothing from you, what I want, more of the same, to flounce the wooden hall out of its spine-creaked incipience would be a non-starter, the way the man with the pistol calls all the runners back to their blocks, numbers pasted across sinewy thighs, a crowd for cheering’s sake; you can always tell the pleasers, the panderers, the one-night standers – I enjoy the quiet and for that no one is required, only their absence and maybe mine for short stretches, one quite noticeable, the other a stalking jaguar through meaty rubricate mangroves.
Acetylene Torch
The oxygen is important, your tired lungs could have told you that, but sometimes it takes an acetylene torch behind heavy boxcar welder face to cut through the metal-precious way a man can climb on a city bus and think himself Tarzan of the Apes or your never best lover; all those sparks that burn right through the pant leg and cause journeymen Jim to jump right out of his grunts: runaway unibrow, steel-toed clunkers, a few pints on the weekend… that numb is important, the way we chase it like a man-eating tiger just out of stripes – fall into beds imagining jungle-thick waterfalls that swallow down all the screams you never once offered.
Missive
I did not write because I felt no importance in such grand gestures that link a chain with lengthy missive, the ink still wet and already a reply, harebrained in both posture and sentiment; I wished upon silent anomalies, constructed a wall of figs for seed dispersal although I failed to ever entertain such fruitful bounties as my sense would not allow for such churlish diversions – have you seen the way the elderly grow crippled well before their time, housed and snowed and pampered into the afterlife? I am alive as this gangly spider of a soup here brought to mild simmer, a dash of pepper to pry the door, balls of tissue lying around like snotty little opium addicts weaning off the big sleep, at least that is what the scoop of scoops is told; that thick oily newsprint man trying to keep up with the times which I would hardly recommend, to you or anyone else.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Setu, Impspired Magazine, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
Lying under the duvet as cosy as a dormouse, toes snug within the solitude house.
Silence settles slowly along the wishing line: forgiveness needs to be kind, is nestled blind.
The carpenter and friend
The oldish chap naps, a gentle snore, no more than that; his rocking chair the other chap made.
When the oldish chap wakes, they play a game of chess; idle some chat, agree a draw. The other chap naps.
A Bricklayer Retires
This wall has legs. The coffin tread of bricks on grass is a stubborn stain. But walls do stumble, grass does grow. Your smile will trouble any wall.
I hear your dancing steps across the landing floor. I grip my wall. The humble grass is greening doors. Your smile will crumble any wall.
Phil Wood was born in Wales. He has worked in statistics, education, shipping, and a biscuit factory. His writing can be found in various publications, including: Fevers of the Mind, London Grip, Snakeskin Poetry, Clementine Unbound, Miller’s Pond, Allegro.
You can find more of Phil’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Our daughter and her husband Came up this year To help open the cottage And by the time we arrived Had done things we used to do: Got the kayaks from the guest room Down to the dock, Swept up the thick yellow pollen Left on the porch By a New Hampshire spring, Discarded the paper and mothballs In which the furniture had slept.
We are older than my parents were The last time they drove north.
We will pay to get some things done— Pine straw off the roof; Other things—the high windows That face the water—may not get done. I save for myself one task—I must: Putting up our sign At the head of the lane, our name, The metal loon looking down Toward the pond.
September
Our daughter came back up To help close the cottage. We sat down and watched her Wash the refrigerator.
82-year-old bones ache From cleaning, packing, lifting, From the subtle vibrations Of two days on the road.
We stood one cold morning By the side of The Third Connecticut Lake Wondering which would be The penultimate trip north.
Back at Golden Pines We are trying this morning To remember how things work, The TV, the toaster, Computer, coffee maker.
Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.
You can find more of Robert’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Leaving Manhattan, we hopped on the ‘7’ as the moon reappeared through the autumn of branches.
Ensconced in the smoke and the steam, your mid shelf cologne and acoustics of wheel clanking
screeches through the twilight of tunnels, we rode the downtown.
You got off on 3rd, leaving me hauling this vintage of books and the harvest of veggies we bought at that fair, plus you took my umbrella.
Leaning in for a kiss, I brushed back with a hand gesture, and knew the first date, would not have a follow up.
Betty’s dirty martini
Her last months, plagued with pain, tubes all in ties, and a myriad’s maladies, Betty, next door, now in hospice, whispers she’s ‘ready’.
Requesting a couple of beach days, 80 degrees, no wind, no clouds, sitting on shoreline with a dirty martini.
“Please water the lilacs on our mutual lawn, hon,”
“ and feed all the strays that frequent the cul-de-sac.”
She says she will signal when she arrives there, wherever ‘there’ is, with three yellow leaves on my porch steps.
The power of knitting
“Knit one, pearl two,” she clicked on the needles in repetitive rhythm and rhapsody, making those sweaters, afghans and baby booties.
When her hands grew arthritic and eyes clouded over, she vowed to to complete all her knitting, before her condition would doom her.
You had your first child. He went home in a blue and white cable stitch. I watched as you wrapped him in Grandma Kate’s blanket.
That super cone on the marquise
Pop says it’s the last time. It’s a three hour drive and they don’t need the aggravation. Mom says to ignore Uncle Bob; she visits to see Aunt Lenora.
They’re fighting up front, while me and the skinny sis are ignoring each other, with not much in common, ’til the big wheels roll by and we make
silly faces at them, unbeknown to her in a couple of years, we’ll we winking instead.
Dad pulls in for custard; a big super cone on the marquise, shouting in silver fluorescence.
Back in the car, the sis and I snicker, knowing too well, we’ll all be right back here again, in four or five Saturdays.
Letting go of the broom
It’s the third time it happened.
I spilled orange juice on her cherrywood floor, and she said not a word.
No sponge, no frenzied mop, no berating me to be careful.
Before that, I left fingerprints on her grandmother’s mirror.
I looked at my mom; she’s missing some beats, for the last month or so.
Six months before, she’s be on her knees, on the floor, scrubbing it silly with her tonic of brillo, bonami and bleach.
As it starts to sink in; she’s moving away from herself, as the years stop defying and become the conventional.
And maybe she is, but I’m not quite ready, to let go of that image of her and her pail full of prowess.
When not writing poetry, Emalisa Rose enjoys crafting and drawing. She volunteers in animal rescue, and tends to a cat colony in the neighborhood. She lives by a beach town, which provides much of the inspiration for her art. Some of her poems have appeared in Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Spillwords, Origami Poem Project, and other special places. Her latest collection is On the whims of the crosscurrents, published by Red Wolf Editions.
your circle is a triangle this is my pile of moons
the unified heaven the name of the silence
the machine is boiling the numbers this old owl is the lantern
in the marigold half-pipe on the morning of the crying
the sound of the furniture of the brook (wear a new cape)
the slipping book of vowels is not moving thru the window the letter of the moon when I am the calm apple
a new apple for the paris & the london & that old world of the channel I become the clever alien when I see the street level world of the pines
I was the laughing huck of the old island we are here in the sweet dust of the something
another time is the layer of salt to feel a hundred more the french bread is the weather of the cardboard name
the grass in the gandalf rays
in the pines I saw a meteor shaking a glass I won a news trumpet
is that the worm of the winter dust? is that the paper of the doll?
to see a measurable nothing the breakfast of the cloud
why my copper is in the doritos that nectar could slow the earth
why it hums
J. D. Nelson (b. 1971) experiments with words in his subterranean laboratory. His poetry has appeared in many small press publications, worldwide, since 2002. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Cinderella City (The Red Ceilings Press, 2012). His first full-length collection, entitled In Ghostly Onehead, is slated for a 2021 release by mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press. His work has recently appeared in E·ratio, Otoliths, and Word For/Word. Visit Madverse for more information and links to his published work. Nelson lives in Colorado, USA.
I’m ten, trying to sit still but my blinks grow long. I’m following crumbs from pew to balcony, dropping bulletins to watch them spin. The exhale of noise and rituals of hymnals begin.
I’d rather be zip-tied to the ladies room sink pipe. My Sunday nylons with toe seams make my feet squirm in my flats. I’m thirteen, hung over, my eyes too full of sun. There’s smoke in my hair like a stale hat.
Is God out the window in the parking lot? His voice in the foyer in the missionary map, on the lobby wall lined with colourful tracts? Sometimes God lives in my head, there last night when I snuck out and boys surrounded me, when I threw up in my sister’s bed.
Toss My Pics Like I Don’t Exist
Father, these years of silence I prefer to your vaults of verses and violence, words from your rotted tongue rip me for my faults off the family tree.
You scissored my form from the Xmas portrait, I took husband and sons with me.
Edges of my baby album are wavy with age. The cover’s mother duck pulls a train of chicks. I’m the one she dumped out and ditched.
Two lifetimes ago, Catherine Zickgraf performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. Her work has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Pank, Victorian Violet Press, and The Grief Diaries. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Aldrich Press.
The mist hangs heavy on the sodden fields, A shroud cloaking the world in soft grey muslin. Charcoal trees hold their bare branches up in supplication And each blade of chilled grass drips diamonds. A far off river of cold traffic is muffled thunder But all else is silence under the dead white mist; Only the sound of wetness seeping out and Stillness loitering under the trees, wrapped in cloud. Underfoot the mud is black and stiffly oozes, Half released from its armour of hard frost. Beneath the sharpness of jagged blackthorn twigs The green of returning spring flowers has faded grey And the grass shrinks back from the dark nakedness Of the tyre-ravished path and hoof-trodden mire. Only the tips of bluebell leaves and of arum lilies Stand green below the weeping hedgerow. A solitary robin hops from the blackthorn Picking its breakfast from the livid green moss And a chaffinch shouts his warning call from the ash tree. Piercing the misty shroud with the sound of light.
Sadly, Jan de Rhe-Philipe passed away recently. As a fellow student of the Open University, her poem was chosen for the first Ink Pantry anthology, back in 2012. We send our deepest condolences to Jan’s sister, Fleur.
