Our grandson, starting high school, Wants to be sure he has the right book bag. I think back to the salt & pepper sports coat In which I went off to college, Random flecks of this and that Against a background I recall As a vaguely purplish blue. Mortifying. I paid to have the pleats Removed from gray flannel slacks, That useless belt and buckle Appended to the back. (This was 1955, As you perhaps have guessed.) When I finally got myself A proper muted brown Herringbone jacket, It was from the wrong store.
Recognitions
At his college The reunion was commencement day, Steps in different directions: The newly degreed and their kin Exchange congratulations, With old alums, A pleasantness instinctive, spontaneous, Someone’s plan.
At his fraternity, Rife with the debris of Last exams, last parties, They found his class picture, An off-hand, unsought kindness. Rows of young men With dark, severe hair, dated, Is this you?
At the banquet He recognized people Who did not recognize him, Which had also been the case In nineteen fifty-nine.
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.
This is Mitteleuropa. Guns are a merchandise. Have special privi- lege. No retail tax or any of the other taxes, no broken contracts. Everything in its place, & nothing left over. Let things remain as they are. A perennial extension of fran- chise to continue one’s labours. The
words rattle. Surely we have heard this before. The bodies so flamed in the air, took flame. Flames flowed into sea. For three days now as if snow cloud over the sea. & for three days, & none after.
A line from Margaret Atwood
This talk of films made in the early 21st century, as if it was so very long ago, is making me thirsty. But then I’m more concerned with some
different points of view, working on something done a century earlier, 1913, de Chirico’s The Uncertainty of the Poet, with its strange foreground,
a bunch of bananas, poised against the shadowy background porticos. So much was going on in it: but now, with a 90° rotation & the use of much erasure I’ve
reduced it to unlinked islands of activity. Have kept its focus — though with the certainty of a poet have retitled my piece A Last Banana for Giorgio de Chirico.
geographies: Chorley
Sometimes the Bolton & Preston Line of the Lanca- shire & Yorkshire Railway Company goes swimming
in the Chor. Sometimes, when the rain is heavy, the reverse can occur. Neither bears the other any ill will.
Cursive script
I sit in a chair in a room lit only by the lost light of late evening
eating dried fruit from a mini- pack made of a dull paper that stamps its own taste upon the contents
& think about moving to a house in the country where the words don’t have to be summoned
but come of their own accord when they’re ready to be milked.
Mark Young’s first published poetry appeared over sixty-two years ago. Much more recent work has appeared, or is to appear, in The Sparrow’s Trombone, Scud, Ygdrasil, Mobius, SurVision, NAUSEATED DRIVE, Unlikely Stories, & Word For/Word.
You can find more of Mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Deep below the lake’s murky surface, there sits—in tact—a house. A two-story structure of Carpenter Gothic details like elaborate wooden trim bloated to bursting. Its front yard: purple loosestrife. Its inhabitants: alligator gar, bull trout, and pupfish. All glide past languidly: out of window sashes and back inside door frames. It is serene, and it is foreboding. Curtains of algae float gossamer to and fro. Pictures rest clustered atop credenzas. A chandelier is lit, intermittently, by freshwater electric eels. And near a Victrola, white to the bone, a man and a woman waltz in a floating embrace.
Change of Plan
Every time he checks the blueprints, something’s different. When he questions the architect, he sneers, as if to demand “What are ya talkin’ about bub; you were on board with the designs – just yesterday.” But upon today’s examination, the roofline has taken on a monstrous fortress-like appearance. Worse yet, each day, it continues to grow in strangeness. Now, as the house is complete, he does not question its organic shapeshifting. He lies in bed aware—as walls fold and floors slide around him. The house lives, takes on new forms, and against his will, locks its doors and windows.
Connecting Stars Like Dots
When I was a kid, I would sleepwalk. I remember having a recurring dream. Today, it seems to be such a mature dream, intuitive and analogous, for a boy of about eight years old. I dreamt I would slice an orange. And nature would whisper to me that when one slices an orange it displays 13 sections. Always 13. Only 13. But the orange I sliced had one section more—or less.
I would begin to sleepwalk, the gauze masking Lazarus’ eyes bound tight around my own: making me maneuver the furniture in our house as if by radar, blindly gliding past hard corners and pointy objects.
My siblings, Mom, Dad, were use to my meanderings. I would find a presence, sense a group of my brothers and sisters as they sat watching Johnny Carson, hee hawing at his stand-up comedy routine. I stood there, too, mumbling, asking them for help in a language only the desperate can understand. “Why,” I’d ask simply, pleadingly. “Why is my orange different? Why am I different?”
I would feel an arm drag me to the side or a kick in the butt almost take me to my knees.
“Go to bed, Keith!”
“Stop blocking the TV.” “Mom, Keith’s at it again…”
A hand, assuredly my surrogate mother, Kathleen, gently guided me on my precarious walk back to the orange grove and the knowledge even then, on some subconscious level, that all was not right with me; something was wrong, because my surroundings told me so. I was witness to Mom’s beatings on Kathleen. Just a kid, I was already sensing the dread to be caught up in Mom’s manic moods. I had begun wetting the bed and being punished sarcastically by Mom on each occurrence. And the dream came slice after slice after slice.
One night, it took me to the place of the big “orange ball” we kids played with… when around two in the morning, my twin Kenny awoke and went looking for me, finding me standing at the free- throw line staring blankly at the basketball hoop in our backyard.
I would surely shoot and miss.
I relate still to this image, me standing outside in the dead of night, head cocked slightly upward, blind eyes unlit by a phantom moon, while my mind connected stars like dots, hoping to map out the answer to my riddle through some astrological means. I could sense the half-horse, half-man archer, Sagittarius, lull me in my trance with the moral principles and laws of the universe… pointing his bow and arrow in the direction I was to follow, however far, however near.
Keith Hoerner (BS, MFA) lives, teaches, and pushes words around in Southern Illinois, USA. He is frequently featured in lit journals (75+ to date, including decomP, Fiction Kitchen Berlin, and Litro—to name just a few). He is founding editor of the Webby Award recognized Dribble Drabble Review, and his memoir, The Day the Sky Broke Open, is a recent Best Book and American Writing Award Finalist. A collection of short fiction and poetry, entitled Balancing on the Sharp Edges of Crescent Moons, publishes later this year.
Gustav Holst Considers a Pebble While Composing ‘The Planets’
He cradles its convexities in the palm of his hand, feels its significance, weighs its bulk.
Striated it could be Saturn, whose drawn lines are deeply scarred from hard-earned experience.
Pockmarked with craters, it could have been Mars.
Cold, it could be Neptune.
Its sudden jollity is the playfulness of Jupiter.
Broken open he hears music
How did it get inside?
Rivers in the Dorian Mode
In that see-saw Margery Daw ocean of a morning, red poll bullocks near a barbed wire fence steer clear of the flood – all that collective improvisation driven by the height of tides – not the happy-go-lucky flow you sometimes see in summer – but one that shifts into a faster pace – an orchestral outburst of tidal manoeuvres surging up from the Channel – so we listen to fenders shielding blows that, and the willows weeping.
Coln St. Aldwyns
In 1953, ‘Gardener’s Question Time’ with Franklin Engelmann came here. The programme was recorded in the Village Hall (now defunct) by the BBC.
I was two years old.
I have a shrub that doesn’t want to flower. (but not all shrubs do!) How do I identify my soil type? (clay, silt, peat or chalk?) How can I get rid of slugs? (you never will). Is it safe to move my peony? (yes, but it won’t like it). Can you suggest some plants that will grow in the shade? (snowdrops, dog tooth violets, hydrangeas, hostas and the hart’s tongue fern). How can I attract bees? (foxgloves)….
Between the Norman church and the cottage gardens these same questions are asked and answered year after year.
Neil Leadbeateris an author, essayist, poet and critic living in Edinburgh, Scotland. His short stories, articles and poems have been published widely in anthologies and journals both at home and abroad. His publications include Librettos for the Black Madonna (White Adder Press, Scotland, 2011); The Worcester Fragments (Original Plus Press, England, 2013); The Loveliest Vein of Our Lives (Poetry Space, England, 2014), Sleeve Notes (Editura Pim, Iaşi, Romania, 2016) Finding the River Horse (Littoral Press, 2017), Penn Fields (Littoral Press, 2019), and ‘Reading Between the Lines’ (Littoral Press, 2020). His work has been translated into several languages including Dutch, French, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish.
You can find more of Neils’ work here on Ink Pantry.
once i buried some of my pain but years after after i thought it was long decayed it broke the surface & stretched into a tree of pain each blossom a bouquet of bayonets w/ boughs full of razor-blade leaves & on many a sleepless night i hear its poignant pointed music beneath my skin this terrible tree my twin skeleton swaying & jangling like murderous wind-chimes
one for mrs. t.
in second grade i used to imitate arnold horschack from the tv show “welcome back kotter” when the teacher asked a question i’d stab my hand up thru air & yell , ohh! ohh ohh! ohh! it was a brief period of acting out i was usually quiet it probably had to do w/ my grandmother dying in my room while i was moved up to the unfinished attic full of exposed insulation & incoming nails & a third-hand bed from one of my cousins & my brother getting arrested for burglary & all the fighting & screaming but anyway mrs. t. always sent me to “the timeout nook” where there were big soft pillows a shelf full of books & colourful curtains around the whole thing my classmates thought it was a punishment being away from others but i felt like a prince we didn’t have books at home so i read & lay on pillows i didn’t feel the need to be in the group or answer questions or imitate tv show characters i was my true self & i miss that nook today & mrs. t.’s kind punishment
snouts
i don’t get writer’s block b/c each cell in my shape is a bloody screaming wound a misfit achilles heel chorus of haemorrhaging snouts that i translate one-by-one into the blackest of ink
my wish
i want my deathbed to be a far off forest floor no walls or roof no voices or hands just a whippoorwill song while across my upward palms the light of the milky way
‘I never thought I could meet you again like this,’ Lu said to Mr. Ray. Her voice tried to control her agitation.
They both continued walking on a cemented pathway, heading to the community park. At a distance the Gumamela flowers greeted them in their full blooms in red and pink rooted on the side of the benches. It was the blossoming season.
‘At a certain point before this moment, I thought I must not see you,’ Mr. Ray replied. ‘I mean, as much as possible, I was of the opinion we must refrain from any crossing of our paths,’ his voice was steady.
‘I understand,’ Lu said with a sigh, ‘but at least let me tell you this. I’d like to express my deepest gratitude in favor of the people and the children you helped in my community. In the end, you stood beside them,’ her voice near to breaking point. Mr. Ray looked up at her intently.
‘You owe me nothing and the community. I just did what I needed to do,’ Mr. Ray replied firmly.
She continued, ‘I thought you were one of them. Those despicable business owners who only care for their greedy interests.’
Lu’s eyes, expressing humility, fixed on Mr. Ray.
They reached the benches and sat on one of them, silently for a moment. A huge Talisay tree provided a magnificent shade as the sun basked them at ten in the morning. A soft wind roused the leaves and the twigs to stir lightly.
‘I could have done that a long time ago, Lu. If that was what I call for and if I only pay attention to my interest.’
He paused for a moment.
‘Our family owns this place from way back in the Spanish era. And we have all the papers to back it up. Fortunately, I grew up in this place too,’ Mr. Ray said in a clear, light voice.’
‘Yes, you did,’ she said pensively. She stared at the Gumamela blossoms. Her memories flew back when Mr. Ray would fancy giving them to her when they were young.
‘I had a charming childhood in the community. I loved the neighbourhood, the people, the children, and the camaraderie,’ Mr. Ray recalled. His face was shining.
‘And I respect their tenure in this place. Most of all, I love your vision with them. That library and the little park. A little ideal Eden of yours, but I share with your vision, Lu.’
Mr. Ray smiled at her. Lu smiled back.
‘I thought your company already sold them to a new investor. That is why there was a threat of demolition against the community. And you were one of them. A notion I had before your cousin confronted me and urged me to encourage you to take your side with them. If not, the future of the community and my family will be most unfavorable,’ her voice rose mildly. She sighed and stared evenly at Mr. Ray.
Mr. Ray stood up and took a step from the bench.
‘It was the workings of other greedy relatives,’ he continued, ‘My cousin told me about your meeting with them. They said you were firm against your views on the community conversion into a highly commercialized area.’
His eyes were gleaming with admiration as he gazed at her.
‘Yet, instead of a feeling of displeasure with you, my other relatives became impressed and saw a refreshing and meaningful perspective about your vision,’ he expounded.
Lu recalled the engagement with his relatives. It was indeed intense. Yet, it unfurled her significant discovery and realization of the true character of Mr. Ray.
‘I never thought of that. I just wanted to say what I had to say. That very moment there was a great realization I discovered about you,’ Lu said. Her eyes bared with wonder as she glanced at him.
‘Yes, it gave me hope, Lu. I thought if you had turned down my interest with you, you could have told them about your disinterest in me. Told them you do not care about whose side I was with.’
He beamed and sat comfortably beside Lu.
They were a picturesque image of two contented souls.
Children came to the park.
Lu and Mr. Ray were jovial as they watched the children about to play hide and seek.
Lu envisaged the kids’ laughter seemed to revive the congenial wind to budge the branches of the trees and enthralled the Gumamela blooms surrounding the park to dance gently by trailing the rhythm of the wind.
Zea Perez lives in the Philippines. She writes children’s stories. But only now did she dare to share some of her writings. She has some pieces published at Flash Fiction North, Literary Yard, and soon at TEA. She also writes reviews for Booktasters and Goodreads.
Yu can find more of Zea’s work here on Ink Pantry.
In a thunder storm, the skies slowly darken. Thunder explosions fill the sound waves, first from a distance then closer and louder; closer and louder. Flashes of lightning paint jagged danger signs on the moving horizon. There is a drying sun coming if we can just be patient.
Anonymous Confidential
You permeate my heart like infectious nuclear pheromones. When you glisten from the sun, my olfactory balance overloads in knee bending compliance. Your arduous tease glances trigger kaleidoscope pulse sensations that shiver shake nerve endings. And as of this date, I don’t even know your name.
A Climatic Courtesan
whose cumulus cerulean eyes can scan simple calculated lies like soaking rain swept skies establish immediate sighs allows the moment to crystallize.
Her breath like the pace of sunrise arrives as a bold chromatic surprise. Her kiss, a sweetened dew disguise, holds my pursuit with no need for replies.
R. Gerry Fabian is a poet and novelist. He has published four books of his published poems, Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts, and Ball On The Mound.
You can find more of Gerry’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Despite his friends’ warnings, he fell in love with a red-haired girl. He took his feelings outside in the open, beat up a kid who said she had cooties. And was suspended from high school for his troubles.
The red-haired girl is in tears is at the funeral of her grandmother. The old woman’s hair was also red before it went white. A kid was sent home for defending her honour. But the news hasn’t reached her yet. Besides, she’s moved beyond the awkward years. She’s staring at the end of life.
She Was Eighty Seven When She Died
There’s a walk-in closet It’s empty within. Stale perfume flutters out like the wings of a moth.
The four-poster bed leans to one side. The comforter is faded. The pillow cases yellowed.
A small cameo with a rusty pin rests on a lace doily atop a dressing table.
It’s watched over by a black and white photograph of a young woman in theatrical dress, her face half-bleached.
The room struggles to be who she was but the hug, the kiss on the cheek, are missing.
And more than that, it doesn’t even know I’m here.
Whatever Happened To Freeform Radio
Driving through the Midwest, I’m struggling to find a radio station that isn’t talkback, or isn’t programmed by accountants or country or religion or doesn’t play the same songs over and over.
But, on a straight road, across a flat land, every station is straight and flat.
On a Stretch of Arizona Highway
Behind the wheel, straight ahead, sixty miles an hour, I see myself there in the distance, as far as the heat haze that blurs the foot of the mountains, until, somewhere in that purple crag, I disappear completely.
The Carved Giraffe
Should I buy the carved giraffe? It will impress the folks back home that we have indeed been to Africa. And the workmanship is adequate.
Sure everyone in the marketplace is selling the same rhinos, elephants, buffalo and zebras.
But I don’t see the words ‘Made In China’ anywhere. And I did look. This really is African wood. So should I buy the carved giraffe? Two continents await my answer.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head, and Guest of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline and International Poetry Review.
You can find more of John’s work here on Ink Pantry.
I once lived in Sydney, the Venice of the very Far East, where boats glide on ancient waters that mirror a kaleidoscope of things, some yachts, aeroplanes and fairie dwellings, all basking in coves and bays of tranquility.
There was one particular bay I haunted that had a house so close to the beach with a wooden seat, where I sat fantasizing about being part of that unattainable idyll. My bedroom would be the one that faced the sea with the waves my lullaby every moon-lit evening. My eyes would greet the sea-born sun every sunrise and before it sets in, and all the shells that deck the sand would remain where they could inhale the brine of the deep, no holes to puncture their hearts, no strings to imprison, no roofs to cloister their singing.
When I was a child
When I was a child, I came to the rescue of ants by ferrying them across puddles on tree-leaf rafts, and prepared a funeral for those that perished in the aftermath of a storm that had no rainbow or a covenant-pact. One of my brother’s matchbox cars served as a hearse. Flowers were placed where a hole was dug and a solemn face served as a prayer for the newly interred.
When I was a child, every object I beheld instantly came to life. I was able to commune with stone and pine trees were my confidantes.
Because I could no understand the sky’s native tongue, she scribbled messages to me in the form of clouds, the alphabet of the skies, which I was able to imbibe.
The stars, the blessed souls of my departed pals, kept a watch over me and shed tears, falling lights, when I for the irretrievable pined.
Schooling and the religious establishment instructed me to strangle whatever beliefs I held before they became poisonous to my mind and faith. And when I could not prove to my friends that those objects were not inanimate, I intimated to them in later times that man was more capable of being insensate.
I dread the hour
I dread the hour when I shall learn of another inevitable betrayal to come in this never-ending, treason-driven turmoil.
It’s in the way you lower your furtive eyes, mobilize your lips to force a smile, then shuffle your feet to assemble a departure that evades the encounter, for the Judas kiss is not a part of this forecast.
I dread the hour when I shall feel your poison seeping into my veins like an invisible disease to contaminate my streams with the venomous filth of treachery.
Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.
Susie’s first book (adapted for film), Classic Adaptations, includes Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Looking under the bed for what’s not there Dreaming of, climbing the Maypole Drinking juices of the Olive Press Kiss is the dark plot White Rose scent, passion silent wearing a Blindfold Making friends with a crying Robot Alabaster silent dark woman smile Violet stars but one, white star
Without half trying
Looms of sea moon light on Halloween Making friends without half trying to work Limp as a wet rag nobbling at her beer puzzler Turned up trousers and a white alabaster shirt Red stone nose rag old sloppy eyes guzzler Like holding water in her hand not dirt The moon sets before the clock’s muzzle
Pink Storm Kiss
Pink articulated lips, storm kiss of a Queen Double dark increasing vaster Moon Roses by a Bee was stung at noon Said over her shoulder drinking perfect caffeine Misty English steams of coffee from her canteen Tide sheeting the lows of the Blue Lagoon White rose ivory fur, sea cold eyes of a raccoon Deep velvet looms of sea on Halloween
Couth erg
Washed away somewhat Minitel scarcely mold Hostel forget-me-not Ireland’s west-ward cold Under illuminated spot Shriven Mass-old Couth erg irk not From out of the White Fire foothold
Yum Yum Gin
The Shepherd’s hour discipline Fliting Trip overhaul Sea-birds screaming at night fall Rhoda den feminine Penance for their broken chin Breathing slumbers snowfall Drunken women’s brawl Yum Yum Gin
Terry Brinkman has been painting for over forty five years. He started creating poems. He has five Amazon E- Books, also poems in Rue Scribe, Tiny Seed. Winamop, Snapdragon Journal, Poets Choice, Adelaide Magazine, Variant, the Writing Disorder, Ink Pantry, In Parentheses, Ariel Chat, New Ulster, Glove, and in Pamp-le-mousse, North Dakota Quarterly, Barzakh, Urban Arts, Wingless Dreamer, LKMNDS and Milk Carton Press.
You can find more of Terry’s work here on Ink Pantry.
