They were no less than stately homes; visitors welcome, within reason. Lovingly sculptured gardens wreathed the facades of baroque bedlams just far away enough.
The learned pages of medical journals were stuffed with architectural theories explaining how external grandeur would raise the oppressed spirits of the mad.
Yet what palace can agreeably cater for thousands? From the spaceless dormitories bursting with the fetid stench of a blistered and purged humanity, the wretched spilled out into the airing courts. A hollow laughter tolled time for those marooned behind the Ha-Ha walls.
You’ve stood this side of them at the zoo: forbiddingly tall to the inmates, low enough for visitors to view unrestrictedly.
A sign requests that you refrain from feeding the animals. There are people specially trained to do that.
Raymond Miller is a Socialist, Aston Villa supporter, and faithful husband. Life’s been a disappointment.
You can find more of Raymond’s work here on Ink Pantry.
A strange glance from my right, the benches that frame this monument leak bodies sat upright, static in this heat. Their brows are reflective, but without thought, as magpies rattle and dance in trees too thin to cast shadows.
This stone pillar, a crude reminder of those ravaged by a lack of cohesion; just another product of a time which refused its clocks to stop, if only so it could recoup and strengthen its path, to open its eyes productively.
The faces carved into inappropriate places fail to resonate as intended; the grass hill like a dandelion sprouted on a derelict pavement. A hundred bodies lay under its foundations, unaware of the lack of progress that turn their graves to mere memories.
Late summer heat allows us this lazy observation, to avoid absorption of the remnants of this landmark. We move drunkenly back towards the city, as the last passing dog of the evening slavers upon its steps.
The Broken Bar
Shattered glass frames the feet of aging yuppies shuffling in Birkenstocks, the walls absorb the clink of ice cubes in glasses and hands. A barrage of bad politics masquerading as “opinions” rides over any conversation that would otherwise heighten this more than lowered tone.
The tiny speakers that spew forth this music never threaten to fall, and hang like badly carved gargoyles, they remain as blank as these faces, that attempt pensive expressions but only manage to execute bovine grins, that answer each question with the same depletion of substance.
Their reputations as stale as the two-for-one drinks that fuel their afternoon; broken laptops and cufflinks pile high in their thousands as the final bell tolls in this shattered bar, as they take the last sip of their grime filled nectar, they finally retreat, if only to replenish their funds.
Jonathan Butcher has had poetry appear in various publications including The Morning Star, Mad Swirl, The Rye Whiskey Review, Picaroon Poetry, Sick Lit, Cajun Mutt Press and others. His fourth chapbook ‘Turpentine’ was published by Alien Buddha Press. He is also the editor of the online poetry journal Fixator Press.
disarray bustle as they group slide off bus treading quickly holding useless bundles spouting too many words to register as real carrying reasons unrelated to time as is into blend of light rain and cars too loud
a laugh or shout or scowl binding a pinch as truth unfolds while spilling into veins of pathways and roads for next attempt at situation that could easily go unnoticed in body mass of many separating in light
and me in my after-covid fog no better clutching at strongest black coffee found relishing seat at too wobbly outside table trying not to return to thought of sick bird flapping in my overgrown back garden
another bus stops and out they fall again and i become locked in why happenings the corner fight between two meth-heads my partners kind eyes when concerned and has bird already been killed by cat
a guy asks me for a cigarette and i jump and instead of sorry mate or i don’t smoke i nod a feeble decline and he mumbles off while i gulp coffee aware of small pleasures crowds on buses and a dying bird’s plight
Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s had 20 plays produced with many published by Australian Plays Transform. He’s received several international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts, and an Asialink India literature residency. He’s had two chapbooks published by ICOE Press Australia: ‘real and unreal’ poetry and ‘The Ajoona Guest House’ monologue. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely.
Proud and professional, these beds thread proud blooms of mystery, give back a long, lingering orb to every schizoid smile. Bright, glossy, fay, charms on their backs, they come to rest on every ward: all streeted slab minds are visited.
The nurses strewn midst warts and brogues or children running from the trees past cells and wimpled swingers seize each wild and whitened face that tops each champing blanket; momently, as madness matters swathe and marry:
And sense now the rolling scentedness that cries beneath all dreams made blue, and for a second greet the high soul, so healthful, mad and fucking true. The patient wards conceive. ‘My, My’ they whisper at their own dismay.
For formed away in some deep wound may flow the insane yell of lust round lonely living so near death’s end, and what was revered in its dead crust amongst blind tears, the wrangled rend of familial mummy dadas, there
At last time starts to heighten. Far from the constraints of christs that lie unreachable inside life’s tombs the doctors fart and let sex fry through closer things than what has come, and thrill to mind-mess all men are?
Recusancy and After?
How recusant, the departure of good minds down alleyways, or watching the lean doors opening past the milk-white strain of ashes, rising and falling.
Mad-man or soldier? both are fazed to dream; and, oh, they simply get married or content themselves with killers mourning… Whipped beds of sex deem so explosive that
Men note melodeons appear praying, or the tiny decks of water cloying and spraying, or, on late evenings, watch cross-hearted waders washed in lime?
Like new stored clothes, the huge decisions spread out like feet and invent a new way of treading; this is the random wake of minds, the
Close call of the murderer running. Here subventing each wade and rote, the stolid brain suffuses and closes right away.
We Cannot Hear the Sleep of Words
We cannot hear the sleep of words Under the seas, under the flowers, under the tides of out lots And the bustling over sheets in skies depleting Or our infinite whispers unheard. How Inevitable silence whisks us is the tune That, like the spires of monks, grows tired with the trends And, dreaming about the text, Shies into the fire. Words Are as remote as the stars and their staring dawn, As perceived as God. Does This quiet sleep of words hide schemes, hide fears? Does the last lash of the wind and the failing wing Outwardly spiel an end? Let us listen, Open the mind and listen For a sigh, a sign Of speaking unadorned. There is No cry, there is only The one weathered night whose wakefulness stings and Hoots the Word over and over Until the speaking dies.
Through a Glass Darkly
And no-one can deny That love is more tedious than lies Seeing the mirror of the third When fearing time’s cries Creates behaviour a mind can’t stir
I have slowed in my swagger to find That death cannot ever ride The waves of its occidental sea The nut-strewn road and its cavalry Refine lust and its plans.
Coins in hands work for a life And regal banks are sworn Dead by a majesty of man-and-wife This thurible holds intense Incense; so too, starved tears
Weep from their command A mute space sears the bent Cities are altogether shent And no-one can deny That love is more tedious than lies
The blind fo’csle inside this brain Must swear till death dies.
I Neglect Nothing
I neglect nothing – Your furled scent, the bitter tea, The merciless maxims spurting Diamate into the fire.
I conclude us both, like a Will – The one impressed is me, And you are filigree wrought, Your stare as kvetch as desire.
(Now you must own no friends – With your head howled back, Like a sightless toy, like A figurine, you must seem closed.
Childless, your mouth is contorted, Splintered, epileptic – mine Is an ovum, disposed As an idol on a grave).
You placed a cigar to my lips – I, laughing, put out the fire, Congruous and calm. Yes, I recollect babies and flowers: A slap about the face of death..
And then you quietly rocked From side to walled side and moaned Like a gale of sadness starting.
A Kind of Decalogue
Item, an animal, and how it changes shape, Now a slick leopard, then a white air Of tigress, ape or lemur. The forms won’t take One simple pattern for long. Item, the crow
And then the simple blackbird, gathering up Hunted petals. Item, a demesne of guns Hotly presented to a potted face, A shaft of holly leaves, darkness begun And flapped astray. Item, motors without grace, Churning the fair aside. Item, the bones
Of reservations, now Plot One, Plot Two Purveyed by engineers. The hunters are half-conscious of their Deeds And cackle. Signs are made, sometimes honed,
And then the silent Blue?
Jim Bellamy was born in a storm in 1972. He studied hard and sat entrance exams for Oxford University. Jim has won three full awards for his poems. Jim has a fine frenzy for poetry and has written in excess of 22,000 poems. Jim adores the art of poetry. He lives for prosody.
Sometime before midnight, he walks out onto a balcony. He climbs onto the ledge and stands there — on the tails of an old year, inching precariously toward the new. He spots me below, on the other side of the street. He stops. It has been raining all night. The road holds reflections of the city skyline on the ground, like a dazzling kaleidoscopic painting on a wet canvas. Water drips into the drains, reflecting lights like electric fire. He climbs off the ledge; his eyes remain fixed on me. He smiles but looks embarrassed. Across the road from me, he is two floors up from a tree-lined boulevard. He disappears back into his apartment. I return my attention to the street again. Most of the snow has melted during the day, and now a glossy sheen covers the roads. A small group of revellers come into view, giggling and swigging drinks. They kick and throw what’s left of the snow at one another. Later on it becomes busy. People are rushing hither-thither, I guess from one party to another, before the midnight hour strikes. He has returned to the balcony, now brandishing a flute of champagne in his hand. As the clock strikes midnight, I hear cheering from the cafes and bars. He raises his glass to me and mouths “Happy New Year”. Somewhere fireworks go off. I watch their dazzling colours reflect in the apartment windows in front of me. I scan from window to window, stealing delight from celebrations never intended for me. He remains out in the cold for another hour or so before waving goodbye and returning to his apartment.
spring
Life has returned. People on the street look fresh and rested from their winter hibernation. It’s as if they too are sprouting the first shoots of optimism for what the year has in store.
One hazy morning I am forced forward with a violent strike. I’m stripped—my clothes torn away with impatient hands. An overweight woman huffs and puffs as she picks up my scattered clothes from the floor. She leaves. I’m left naked. A few people in the street notice me, but no one cares. Later that morning a young store assistant walks over to me. With gentle hands, she slips my arms into a white crepe shirt. The two top buttons left undone. She lowers me onto the worn carpet to get a pair of tights on me. This is something she hasn’t got the knack of. It takes her a long while to get them on; she has to wiggle my feet about to get them over my heels. It gives me a chance to look around the store. The other models are poorly made, and some are downright grotesque — missing limbs and decapitated bodies. I try not to judge, but some of the clothes they wear — good heavens! None of their outfits matches. Once I am back upright, she pulls a knee-length blue pencil skirt around my waist. The look is complete with a matching blazer. A business suit! I feel power and authority hum through my plastic body. The young woman repositions my arms before leaving. I now stand with authority, arms folded across my chest—the ruthless stance of the modern business age.
He says he wants to be my boyfriend. He tells me he loves me. Maybe he does. In the evenings I usually see him. He once told me this is his favourite moment of the day. I want to be a good girlfriend, so it is my favourite moment of the day also. When he first came into the store, he was nervous. It was only a couple of days into the new year. On a meandering journey towards my window, he stopped several times. He pretended to look at clothes on a rack or to look at his watch. When he stood by my side, he introduced himself, almost in a whisper. He often glanced around the store and touched his face when he spoke. He told me he felt the need to explain his actions from New Year’s Eve. He said it had been six months since he last spoke to Maria, his ex-girlfriend; we don’t like her or her new boyfriend, Kenny. He tells me they had been through difficult times before and assumed they would get through this one. They had a fantastic social life, both together and separately. Then one night, she left without warning. She phoned him two days later to explain that she’d met someone else. My boyfriend imagined Maria and her new boyfriend celebrating New Year’s Eve together. Maybe on some exotic beach — drinking fluorescent cocktails and giggling under a warm sun. He said that night in his apartment; he could hear their laughter echoing around his head. He said he would never have gone through with jumping. He tells me he is dependable.
summer
The endless days and humid nights can mean only one thing: summer has finally arrived. It warms the street, igniting the weeds and grasses that grow in the cracked pavement.
Customers now fill the store daily. They rush about, caught up in the heat and frenzy of the long days. Gone is my business attire. The young assistant has given me a beautiful cotton dress and matching sandals. My legs feel the warmth of the morning sun shining through the store window. I also have a new posture! It’s the pose of someone who should be carefree and ready to embrace the world — a hand on my hips, one arm flying in the air and a twist in my waist. The dress and happy-go-lucky demeanour do have their downsides; the men on the street leer at my breasts and hips and partially exposed legs as they walk past the window. My boyfriend never leers. When he tells me he loves me, I can see happiness on his face. There is no reply. My lips do not move. My face remains static. None of this matters. For the first time, he visits me during the workday. He should be in the office, but he is ill. He suffers from hay fever and has taken two days off. He comments on my new dress; he likes my new look. My boyfriend has more confidence now. He no longer appears awkward. He stands up straight. One day he says, ‘I got you this.’ He puts a thin silver bracelet on my wrist and beams. When he leaves, I hear the women from the department store snigger. They call my boyfriend a ‘weirdo’ and an ‘oddball.’ He sometimes talks about all the little things Maria said that upset him. He has a long list. I think this is why I appeal to him. Outside, people’s responses are unpredictable, frightening or demeaning in his world. Wrong reactions seem to upset my boyfriend. I give him a predictable comfort; I have never said an unkind word to him. I cannot offend him by being aloof or giving him an upsetting look. Our relationship is sterile but clean and free from the usual strains.
autumn
The nights grow darker, with the last of the summer fruits eaten. Leaves lay glossy on the rain-washed street.
I have a seductive bedroom look, a sensual bodysuit with a strappy open front and keyhole crisscross-lacing back. It’s made to thrill, complete with a bold red robe. My hand has been placed across the top of my chest, with the other resting by my side. It is a beautiful pose to bring out my desirability and femininity.
My boyfriend is taken aback the first time he sees my new look. He is nervous, like the first time we met in the store. After a few more visits, he gains confidence. When no one in the store is looking, he tenderly strokes my leg. Sometimes he holds my hand as he tells me about his day. His palms are always sweaty. He is thoughtful. He always asks me questions like, ‘Are you warm enough?’ He never looks at others as he walks over. His passionate eyes are permanently fixed on mine. Does it matter if I’m not real? It doesn’t matter to my boyfriend. When a man stares at a naked woman, is it her personality he is interested in? Is a woman’s personality not something that some men wish to escape from? One time his phone rang while we were together. He pulled it out and scoffed at it. ‘Now she calls when I’m finally happy again.’ He hangs up and replaces the phone into his jacket. I heard today he might be going to Hong Kong next month for a business trip. ‘It’s up in the air right now, but if it does happen, I’ll bring you back something nice.’ His gaze goes down my body before he looks back up at me and caresses my cheek. ‘It’ll only be for a week… Absolutely not, work only. I have no intention of visiting those places.’
winter
The bitter wind outside reminds us that winter is approaching fast. I observe frost glistening on the pavement in the morning half-light. Within the apartment block across the road are every child’s Christmas dreams.
A new store assistant dresses me. She is middle-aged and has a large face with plump lips and a thick mask of makeup. She handles me firmly but not with malice. She turns around as she removes my lingerie. I inspect the other models — they’ve not had a good year. Most have cracks in their skin, and all have scraggly hair. When the assistant is finished, I am back, staring out the window. I’m wearing a beautiful vintage-inspired mint-green winter coat, a perfect antidote to any winter blues. Made from luxurious, soft materials with a detachable hood and faux fur trim, she has even teamed my outfit with a pair of matching gloves and a cosy knitted scarf.
Snow begins to fall. I watch as cascading flakes dance on the wind. My boyfriend is walking down the street; plumes of his breath rise into the slate-grey sky. I see him approaching behind me in the reflection of the store window. We look like a washed-out photograph. When he does turn to face me, he still has snowflakes in his hair. He tells me he likes my new coat and says I look ‘homely’. Then he explains that he turned down his business trip because he couldn’t be away from me. The way my boyfriend looks tells me I should be happy, so I am happy. He reminds me it’s been almost a year since we first met. He tells me he has a particular question to ask me tomorrow. My boyfriend looks excited.
When the store is closed at night, a middle-aged store assistant talks to some men; I hear them say I will be relocated to a new flagship store in a big city. I take a last look across at my boyfriend’s apartment. I guess I am also capable of betrayal. I wonder what he wanted to ask me tomorrow. I’m escorted to a van. As I am driven away into the winter night, I guess we’ll see how much he really does love me, as he said he does.
Thomas Paul Smith is a writer from London, England. He works as a radio show producer in Dubai.
Bound to North Not home nor far Made by escape, A hope to fight
Trust lantern lost Believed or touched Fade made by dark, And light by light
When cold turns warmth And prayer divides Be either sail in storm, Or spark from night
Made Up in Laughing
Frame half-open windows Slip out of billows Stomp on the sunlight stamped in the sidewalk Dry and kind
Call off a shadow Tripped up in meadow The sere breath is casting, made up in laughing Holding all chance others left behind
When day drops to fair-low Return not its sparrow Its echo’s in moonlight, verve in the clockwork Draped in the caul of what we can’t unwind
Port of Call
Damp stains Beneath a starlit sky
The gutter is calling For all memory; it’s time
Let go The winds already fled to leave behind
A world not falling Port of call and not again
The Pronation of Shangri La
Bellowed to the threat of any falling leaves Softcore Shangri La is gone but far from freed Caught in the tired idea that petrichor is wrong
Upended by some heathen in the scattered steam A valley that’s been dried out yet not quite cleared Cross-eyed, unremarkable garden forms a path
Retreaded by many so-and-sos just like me To the beacon of kingdom con and its seams Whatever’s being kicked up stains twice, and
there’s no going back
Trading Post at the Edge of Known
Empty more mistaken pearl to curl fate
and find oneself
somewhere with no stars and no fear, no knots and no ends
The varied cost not haggled, just peaked and tipped
Traverse naught and koan, and trust the seed into the flame
leaving only an epitaph of sand
Go without stars Go without fear
Joe Albanese is a writer from South Jersey. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have been published in 12 countries. Joe is the author of Benevolent King, Caina, Candy Apple Red, For the Blood is the Life, Smash and Grab, and a poetry collection, Cocktails with a Dead Man.
I’ve picked up skills from unlikely sources Some starker than others The strongest lessons coming from those With challenging circumstances
I’ve found it difficult to learn from anyone That never had to face adversity Didn’t have to hustle, at some point To keep food on the table, or a roof overhead
Those that didn’t have to wonder if things would ever improve
I want those in the liminal spaces That navigated the underground That know how to see in the dark And can find light in the most unlikely places
Those who speak the truth And give voice to the silenced Finding strength to keep moving forward Even when hated by the the bandwagoning masses
Skaja Evens is a writer and artist living in Southeast Virginia. She edits It Takes All Kinds, a litzine published by Mōtus Audāx Press. She’s been published in Spillwords Press, The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey Review, and The Crossroads Lit Magazine.
I turn another page. To an article. About the beach. Specifically, how to walk your dog. At the beach. Okay. This I know. Not about walking dogs. But the beach. That’s what I know. Now. But not always. When I left my husband. Ten years ago. When I got in my car and began to drive. Through one state. And then another. And another. And another. Driving, driving, driving. I finally reached the ocean. And that’s when I stopped. Not that the ocean was my destination. It wasn’t. There was no destination. Just escape. I stopped because I was driving a car. Not a boat. And cars don’t float. Actually, I’d never seen the ocean before. Or the beach. I mean, there isn’t an ocean or beach in Kansas City. And that’s where I’m from. But now I’m at the ocean. On the coast of North Carolina. Far away from Missouri. And my husband. (Thank God!). So I decided to stay. Here. In Wilmington. But just for a while. Not long. Just a little while. I found an apartment. And a job at a beachwear store. Selling bathing suits to tourists. Selling tacky souvenirs made from seashells. Selling t-shirts. And I still work there. Ten years later. Believe it or not. Selling beachwear to summer tourists. Selling golf paraphernalia to winter tourists. What can I say? I like it. It’s a job. It’s fun. And it pays the bills. Speaking of beachwear. And the store. We received a shipment of t-shirts this week. Lots of new designs. And one is a Chihuahua. Really cute. I’ve been pretending it’s Max. My imaginary dog. I should use my employee discount. Get some of those Chihuahua t-shirts. In different colours. One for every day of the week. Just for fun. To wear. To work. I mean, why not? They really do look like Max. And he’s such a good dog. My Max. My imaginary dog. Now I can pretend I walk him on the beach too. Thanks to this article. In this dog magazine. But okay. Enough of that. Enough pretending. My lunch break is almost over. Got to get back to the store. And selling, selling, selling.
Laura Stamps loves to play with words and create experimental forms for her fiction and prose poetry. Author of 43 novels, novellas, short story collections, and poetry books. Most recently: CAT MANIA (Alien Buddha Press 2021), DOG DAZED (Kittyfeather Press 2022), and THE GOOD DOG (Prolific Pulse Press 2023). Winner of the Muses Prize. Recipient of 7 Pushcart Prize nominations.
Louder than the island’s traffic cicadas’ shake a tinder percussion from long, straying grass.
They are as unseen as a writer, who years away, will tap at a keyboard
and listen to a printer scuttle over paper in the hope of recapturing the fizz of you and me waiting
for a bus amid buzzing cicadas -burning with songs more ancient than lyres joking about the bus being as mythical as Pegasus or Persephone
before scrunching the poem of it back into the blankness of letters hissing as they flicker out – incompleting a neon cocktail sign outside a city window, while miles away
your hand is still tightly holding mine as we clamber aboard a bus and pay drachmas for our tickets.
Trauma
She has no words in school today. To match, I make mine tiny, firm stones; imperatives placed next to pictures to round their requests,
balancing the real on a surf of swaying meaning. She responds, tracing sounds to her own.
Reading opens and closes its booked meanings. She decodes words into elephants, heavy, andante, stepping sense slowly from the page to something new from thumbed pages.
Her body folds beneath a uniform of crumpled grey polyester, as she hunches at the desk, skin prickling with webbed scabs, self-scratched; still raw, still red.
The bathroom’s razored blur smudging at the back.
Jenny is a working mum and writes whenever she can amid the fun and chaos of family life. Her poetry is published in several printed anthologies, magazines and online poetry sites. Jenny lives in London with her husband, two children and two very lovely, crazy cats. You can read more of her poems at her website.
You can find more of Jenny’s work here on Ink Pantry.
