Jennifer’s Wish
Continue reading “Two Poems by Guy Elston”
JULY UNDER THE BRIDGE
on the shore the mock orange turned brown spent;
ochre heads of yarrow replaced them;
almost the way a man
swaps out one wife for another.
a protest, not my ex-husband!
but a husband.
thongs & sand
some days I wake
up hot & he
regrets he’s not w/me
& I turn &
drive & I won’t
tell you about my
drives for then I
would have to show
you
Tim’s Amnesia
Tim writes a stork down, the gulls,
and -‘I met a woman by the littoral line.
She played throwing with her dog, claimed,
“I hate everything except cats.”
I saw the waves revealed a skeleton.
Whose spirit did empty it there?
The sweetest thing
Sweetest thing
that could happen
this day
a real reason to cry
Before Sunday Dinner
My brother scrubs hard
the yellow
from his two smoking fingers
until they blush
like mortified teenagers
who scream, don’t look at us!
Niall M Oliver @NMOliverPoetry is an Irish born writer who lives in London with his wife and two boys. He takes inspiration from his roots and everyday life, and has previously been published in The Lake Poetry, as well as a couple of anthologies but has yet to meet anyone who claims to have read them.
Banner Image “Siblings” by Robert Frede Kenter. Tweets at @frede_kenter.
how did we get here
Content Warning – Childhood Sexual Abuse
Continue reading “how did we get here -A Flash Fiction by Stephanie C. Odili”
Resurrection
Again I come
To the dark room of my heart
From where I form the light
I am a spirit hovering
Several Truths and a Lie
I lost my name.
I lost my name in the mouths
of children. I lost
my name in the briars
with wolves, their teeth
like mower blades. I lost my name
Conflation
1.
Yesterday at the riverfront, the water
rose so high a man washed
his socks from the rubble placed along the bank
to guard the walking path. His socks
were filthy from slogging through the Quarter
during the morning’s flood. As hot
as it was, those socks must have felt
divine on his feet, like a river of cool breeze
carrying him to his next shady spot. He did not
rush the washing. He had no need
to leave any of the river behind.
From where the birch takes the sun
Peter Maier waits in his back yard. He paces the patchy lawn, from where the birch takes the sun; from where he sits in summer to read. Or in the crook of the linden, further back, behind the vegetables. He follows the brick path, and remembers every time he’s helped his father turn the soil, plant the carrots, the potatoes. Just like this, wandering, unsure where to stand, where to go, what to think about what his mother calls the ending. He can hear the artillery a few kilometres away. They’ve been warned – later today, or tomorrow.
Continue reading “From where the birch takes the sun — A short story by Stephen Orr”
Rare Treats
When my grandfather asked me to buy cigarettes at a local convenience store in front of our house one Saturday afternoon, I remembered what Teacher Gladys taught us in school that week.
She said cigarette smoking is bad – for the health and for the environment. I was eight when I couldn’t weigh which was worse. I didn’t want anything bad happening to my family, most especially to my grandparents.
Continue reading “Rare Treats, a Flash Fiction by Angelo Lorenzo”
The Doll and Me
I hate the doll, its plumpy head,
its brunette swirls, its itsy cheeks,
its pout, its lashes, the uptight clothes,
marrowless arms, nerveless teeth,
its squeaking, the mess
it makes on the floor.
I want to detach the twee wee feet
and hammer it to the fence, drown it,
skewer it to the door, to say ‘this is what
has become of us’. Even naked
it makes me angry and afraid.
Mirages
A house is not a terrapin
or a sailboat
or a maelstrom
The sunstorm that swindles
at midweek
sycamore green embossed on the heart
like sequins or worlds
No (New) Man’s Land
His is
a life in fluid drawn,
pushed through
scar tissue, muscle yielding.
Pull. Plunge.
Inject. Extract.
New man by
needle-born in flush
of mid-life puberty,
bending forty
years of life.
Burying facts that
fail to fit.
A Childless Father Speaks to Himself
“Let us make man in our own image…”
Continue reading “Two Poems by Andres Rojas”
shame
it’s dark inside
which suits me
it hides my imperfections
the guilt upon my skin
the dread in my eyes
as they size me up
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 