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.
She waits at the gate, a raven on her wrist. A wanton look lurks in her eye, though her lips have never kissed.
She bids the travellers follow, along the rutted track. She knows they will not falter and never once looks back
across the wide flat fields, where crows peck all around. The sky rides high and silent and sheaves of wheat lie bound.
She leads them to a cottage and opens wide the door. The travellers reach to touch her hand, but then are seen no more.
Slow The Dark Wind Blows
In the field a lone boy stands, a knot of thunder in each hand.
The cart comes rattling slowly. Slow the bone cart comes.
Cold lightning clenched behind his eyes, as in his head the wild geese fly.
The grey horse hobbles slowly. Slow the old horse groans.
The sky cracks wide, a dance of fire. His feet root deep into the mire.
The hanging air sways slowly. Slow as silent stones.
Lost voices twist his bitter tongue and will not heed the distant drum.
The dry dust rises slowly, and slow the dark wind blows.
Soon We Will Be Bones
Soon we will be bones. This robe of flesh will fade away, no more to dance in forests green, to taste the kiss of hidden streams, to wander lost in misted hills, to suffer fever, loss and ills – but still walk on
to lie again in languid sun, to feel the touch of sudden rain, caress the joy of other’s flesh; until at last all this is done and only bones lie quiet, alone.
Waiting For The Rain
We wait for the rain to stop falling. It came to us just before dawn. We wait for the first light of morning and the blackbirds to start up their song.
For here it must always be raining; the faces that pass pale and long, as if they all know nothing’s changing and no-one remembers the sun.
For my dear, we will always be waiting, now that the storm clouds have gone. In the courtyards and taverns we dance with abandon, then wait for the sweet rain to come.
It was over now. The moon had gone, back into the shadows where it hid.
The girl walked down from the top of the hill. She had been dancing all night with the hares and the ravens and all who came.
The low stone walls were dusty silver as she threaded her way along the lane and back to the silence of her cottage. She lit a candle and watched the thin line of its smoke rise slowly up the chimney and away to join the darkening clouds which rolled along the valley. They would bring rain soon enough and the rain would bring tears for the girl who had not cried since the last moon came.
She climbed the stairs to her bed and there she dreamed. She dreamed of the dancers out on the hill – how she’d seen them all coming, slipping out of their houses – and how they’d joined hands in a ring as the moon rose above them and seemed to shine, brighter than sorrow, out through their eyes.
But one boy did not come. He never came. He stayed in his cottage, locked behind the door, while thistles choked his garden and dull grey pigeons pecked at the thatch of his roof.
The girl set off down the lane to find him. Owls swooped low through the trees and dark water ran in the ditch.
She knocked on his door. She could see him sitting there in his room, the moonlight spilling through the window. He was weaving shadows between his fingers as if he was a spider.
She called out to him. She rapped on the glass with her knuckles. But he did not hear. He did not stir, just kept on weaving, twisting the shadows.
She climbed down the chimney. He did not turn his head.
“What are you making?” she said.
He looked up then and tried to smile, but his lips could not move. He had stared so long at his weaving, his face it seemed to be frozen.
A sea of shadows flowed from his fingers. The girl reached out to touch, but he waved her away. His lips moved slowly then and a sound came out, like the voice of a raven.
“The moon is full,” she explained. “You should come with us. Come to the top of the hill.”
The boy stood up. He let go of the shadows and the cloak he had woven slipped to the floor. The girl picked it up. This time he let her. She smiled and admired his handiwork. As the boy turned away, she gathered up the cloak and draped it around his shoulders.
He opened his mouth again and let out a great cry. Then he flung the cloak to cover them both, so that they were folded together.
And then they rose. Out of the cottage and along the lanes. Along the lanes and up to the hill. Up the hill till they stood at the top with all the dancers gathered around.
The dancers fell silent as the girl and the boy stepped from the cloak which slipped to the ground and blew away on the wind which parted the clouds – and there was the moon, staring down at them all.
And then it was gone. It was over now. The boy went back down the lanes to the darkness where he hid.
The girl walked back to her cottage and lit a candle. As she watched the thin line of smoke rise slowly up the chimney, she smiled – for she knew that next time the full moon shone, the boy would come again.
her iron tongs grab frackers, drillers, extractors
by their stock options. She hammers hot metal
with the intensity of all the teenage Gretas
whose voices sere the ears of Wall Street financiers,
of politicians who ignore crackling ice, drowning
islands, dying phytoplankton, gasping seals.
At Kildare her flame burns bright with creation—scent
of hope fighting for breath even as carrion rules the day.
Killer whales’ whistles haunt the Irish sea, barn owls scream,
a school of herring darts under her wing.
Nan Lundeen has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction at, among others: Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Steam Ticket, Illuminations, Yemassee,ThePetigru Review, Evening Street Review, patheos.com, and U.K.’s Writing Magazine. The retired, award-winning journalist lives in southwestern Michigan and holds an M.A. from Western Michigan University.
You can bleed out in the heartland and never find a pulse, turning dials on odd contraptions that almost turn themselves, dustbowl feathers for the screeching Thunderbird of myth, this sorry welling of brackish bail water, silly corn maze competitions where no one ever wins and this homely bramble bush woman standing by a long-cracked window, her hair up like a personal laundry line, that lumpy oatmeal cold of an unshared bed, dripping faucet from adjoining bad breath hovel – falling out of love, out of tow job repo cars dragged out of this dying garden.
Commensurate
All this talk of proportions and not a single usable scale in sight; not coral-worn under the glance-a-lot sea nor forsaking this long grand laze across galloping lands – if I were a betting man, I would lose it all to the house and move in under an assumed name, charge everything to a room that is really just a view with mini bar, sit up on hind legs like a skiffle band of nerves and polyps; the tar for the feathers and everything gone birdie up, a tear in the awning so that you know nothing is on the mend: moth-eaten haberdashery, bumper car lisp, this dusty lint trap fire in waiting.
Bust of Revenge
Move the plaster around all you like – this bust of revenge, the hair falls away like everything else you never really had, the blood squawk of distant crows across cold winds, shake shake booty trees bare as coming into the world; force the hand, rub sleep from tireless eye, build cheekbones high as ever-prominent mountains, a valley cleft chin to sooth the sayers: show the sweat, no one ever sees the sweat involved, the wine of thinning lips, these many hours of compromise; build the man into a city you can call home, if only in the mind, count these many gardens that refuse to grow.
Quartz Parking Lot, Ontario Street
Just tiny pieces in the mix, but I find them, take my time as if making fluffernutter out of the marshmallow horizon, in that quartz parking lot of the Scotia Bank along Ontario Street, across from the Soliel Dental Center that overcharges for shoddy work, kicking stones against the curbing as old timers come and go, drive off in cars that will outlive them almost 2 to 1, the windows rolled down like dollar store parchment paper while I feel my belly for a tricky hunger, for growths that could be the end of me.
Getting Loose
Does the tiger lament its enclosure? You bet your stripes it does, but I’ve been getting loose for hours, this bottle here beside me like a tart purple warrior who couldn’t give two samurais what you think about swinging dicks in the field or anything else, the most obnoxious music the ears could find; you can keep your bloody date nights and company gas card, I can feel the great unwind; no filters, no fees… just this Joan Jett cherry bomb getting off as off as off!
Eye Flusher
Everybody knows about the careless man, how he throws himself around like a ledge jumper, a midnight automat leg pumper, every five-and-dime eye flusher dreaming fountains back into spout – I always wanted to die for as long as I can remember, never because of the dead, but rather this blotted untenanted living; that empty refrigerator way everyone slams the door, but never out of a serious lasting hunger… Don’t be so dramatic! says a handsome sandstorm of Ideaologues, but it has always been there, right behind the eyes like a bucket of stinking chum, like a building with a rooftop waiting for jumpers who bought what I always bought: that the inconvenienced store never stays open; those many long-haul miles the sleepy midnight truckers know so well.
Over the Hill
Just traversed, a simple cow town hill, more mound than Everest, really and stopping a few feet away on the other side I look back, not out of any misplaced sense of accomplishment, but simply to settle an unsteadied breathing; the affairs of the deceased stuck in probate, the living fighting over the dead as though no one wants to be stuck with the cost of the casket – if there was any love to be felt, I would want to feel it, standing on the other side of the precipice, hand on hips, watching the clouds in the sky and the sputtering rust wagon cars in traffic pass me by.
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, Ink Pantry, Impspired Magazine, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
You can read more of Ryan’s work here on Ink Pantry.
