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limejuicer1862 · 4 years

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Acknowledgements

Thankyou to Jane Cornwell for designing the front cover.

May 1

..looks like you are drowning..

part one

looks like you are drowning & hope i am wrong. i can see the struggle the turn about in water.

i have done that too pat says that i have paid the price but i wonder

i hope you survive come clean bare your feathers.

fly high

if not i will lay a petal and think of you

as i think of the others that drowned before you that had no feathers

part two,

it looks like you are drowning again shall I jump in to save you and maybe sink myself or shall I wait to see to lay a flower at our feet

part three

maybe you are not drowning really that I made it up and you are dancing like the others

while people die and we lay flowers in memoriam corona

part four

you are floating maybe; I did that for hours went spongy, now face reality and I still think that you are drowning like the others.

-sonja benskin mesher

concrete reasoning

gray day: i am out for a walk when a sidewalk camellia begs myriad questions:

runaway bride?

garden club mishap? rejected proposal? hothouse runaway? centerpiece rebel?

confronted by the unexplained, the human drive to make order from chaos is relentless.

whatever the story, the end is the same: beauty appears and we can only wonder …

with a schedule to keep and no answers at hand i press onward, feeling the inner bloom of nascent gratitude.

-Rich Follett

MF 1

Every time I find clay in the garden, beneath a rosebush, say, I find slate too. This is just something I have noticed over the course of a year. It is not necessary to mention these things, especially now, I suppose. I am not happy unless I’m pouring something – tomato feed. I am Philip Levine’s Burial Rights, I recall Bei Dao. These days, I feel the trick to a good carpark, to feel anything, is my proximity to this flower arrangement.

JK 1

A story of three fish might be fish bones in a field for birds. Koi feeding, koi feed in a garden centre, at the next junction. Fish bent back over backwards, in blue paint. Scattered to the water’s edge a handful of dirt, to a handful of colour, blue scales at the centre of the field, a water mark, a stone left unturned.

-Alex Mazey

The Life of Petals

We use flowers to mark occasions– Weddings and funerals. The petals linger only briefly, But the sentiment still hangs Heavy in the air, years after Like pollen That settled over and over again On our patio table and chairs, All those long Midwestern summers When heat robbed our lungs of breath. And Wildflowers, not cut-storebought ones, marked a different time, Of an everyday type. Now, cut flowers feel gluttonous to me. And petals bless us with The gentleness of how life ought to be.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/petals.m4a

-st

Utopia Burning

Warnings ignored from many a social self appointed warlord Echoes of dissident discord striking a high-pitched off key note As hungry flames lick and lash causing an apocalyptic molten urban and suburban foretold mess Whispered by familiar oracles their verbal miracles documenting their fiery cautionary chronicles Of systems slowly imploding temperaments exploding fake veneers and smiles exfoliating as ignorant masses squawk for a helping hand from those witnessing their demise and burning squirming shedding acid tears for Utopia burning…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/utopia-burning-mp3.mp3

Still Silent

No sound, water jelly flat, so still it hurts my ears. Even sun slides silently into autumn’s metal light.

All jamboree, clang and din now far away in time. Even breath is offensive here, in case of ripple and slapping rocks.

I cannot read or turn a page lest a mumble or paper scrape, escape and shatter the loch. Like a breaking glass to a rousing cheer, as all that knowledge gets out.

So I stare at reflections in late day waters reliable quiet, but maybe their heat is not that hot.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/still-silent.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 30th April 2020.

The sweet flower’s heart Wilting on the cold, hard slab My love’s final gift

-Carrie Ann Golden

Camellia

You lay beautiful and gasping alone on Tithonian stone. A sudden fall from grace, petal broken angel: forage for sweeper winds.

Transient as summer days. Temperate these forevers soon fade to winter grey. Dog-day memories cannot abide short-day cold.

What are you, I wonder? A love certified in Bacchus’s dance or a loved one certified and boxed in tears and brown ale.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/camellia.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 30th March 2020.

The giant fish takes back the myth

The morning before she was to become a story the sea was baited quiet, the kind that silks

all desire down to swish. To decide to leap from one cool world to another just for breakfast

is to bare your colours to the scaling knife of the wind, and she did – her fireback beacon launched

for the brief protein of flying legs. How often we fail to see that dark hull waiting, we beasts so full up

with the rush of living for our risks. And the shape of the poised hero held no meaning, to a fish

but oh the shimmerhook, like all the moons her eye’s nightcoin had ever purchased

from deep beneath the water, and there is the lust, the swish- -and want. The glowworm crescent to silver her belly.

We all want to shine in fullness. Only heroes are given names in these stories.

For her need she was translated into an island, and I am running the delicate gasp of her jaws

in the shape of this coast, forever straining for the hook and still called only fish

even with all we have made of her. Every time I desire to transcend my quiet water, I forget the heroes

and leap from her skin, and hope that landing empty

but with one eye fixed on the moon every night after this will be enough.

-Ankh Spice

Beheaded Camelia’s

delicate red petals last longer on the less travelled path. Flash of disappearing red lace, paper thin survival. Unbroken in bright sunlight, bright on grey stone. Destruction stays at home to avoid destruction.

The red wing is allowed space to revolve reflect in water. “Temporary” like the word “soon”, a duration undecided.

-Paul Brookes

May 2

..scratching..

quiet now

we can hear the birds no problem one lorry on the road essential travel

then

we hear the scratching

when dark comes comes the scuttlings

flutterings outside

bats fly round our houses

inside others live and die

the fly

the moth comes lovely soft and tasteful

nothing distasteful

we saves them lifts them out the bath a dry flannel as assistance

remember that fly in the room you wanted to swat for annoying. left alone it went quietly away

night came full of sounds

mice scratching enough to leave

marks

enough to leave marks

the fly does

buzz when it flies buzz as it dies

zzzzzt

-sonia benskin mesher

Inclined to mention the halo of a mountain, somewhere I am fourteen years old. This is a mountain behind a house where I still remain, in this thought-process, every child chews spearmint gum. It is definitely spearmint gum, and the mountain is only a halo, now, this time, elsewhere. Like, I don’t know, like Mark Fisher says, this stasis has been buried – ‘the inventor of the term, a frustrating thinker’.

In the summer’s taped shut windows, without seeing flies in years.

Hit mosquitos against the wall, once observing blood left behind.

-Alex Mazey

Geyser

Soul rumbles as grumble dark bellows push their boiling fist. Hot drops, boiled rain.

Angry fats splatter into faint signs, streaks of early mournful light.

Fire waters bubble and churn chained by conventions, damned by convection. In breaking songs of earth’s heat, brash displays of prorogued grief.

Water crouches, fluid evasive. As pain it cannot be broken. Desire free to flow, hurt a haunt of generations.

So strictures die and violence will be a multiple of passing times.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/geyser.m4a

-©️ Dai Fry 1st May 2020.

In memory of those left behind : 9 December 2019

Sun’s first sleep-breath sweets the dropped shoulder of te puia whakaari, her bones

in early mistlight, are all grace and delicate pickings, gulled clavicles of a hard dancer, stilled. Coiled tension, resting.

It is hard to recognise a haunting, in the rose-gilt of sunrise. Do you know her name? When you recognised it, did you forget to exhale? Release your living now to cloud

the pane we do not see – watch deep scratches creep across this vision. The guardians are always here, and the light oh the light may change any moment.

-Ankh Spice

The Yellow Forest

Awakening – Dry mouth burning eyes skin burn, breathe. Pin point vision echoing mission failed fission, inhale. Heavy feet slow reaction no connection – A siren a siren! Wake up stand up react retract, breathe.

Forest Walk – Dislodge move seek react engage stop! Burning embers leaves glowing eagles falling feathers floating, breathe. Listen observe – A lark hark the warning A flash a flash, breathe. Eyes open sight broken, breathe.

Chokehold – Black river dead fish foul odour slow down, Breathe. Soil on fire charcoal roots sprouting rotten fruit – Stop smell retreat, breathe. Dead of night presence sucking remaining air laboured breathing heartbeat slowing – Find the opening, breathe. Look beware – Run!

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-yellow-forest-mp3.mp3

The Gamdroela

Far beyond the Hottentotshuisie Mountains, a mythical creature awaits to reward the chosen one – Elected by the Bokmakierie Korrelkop, a strange elusive soothsayer, traditionally enshrined to make a wise choice – A new ruler for the remote Belhar nation to once again wear the sacred crown of Sekueb Nodmai, she whose voice still echo from deep within the Bolemakiesie marshlands – A treacherous journey awaits the young Tandpyn, Prince of the Bloekomboom tree nation, whose Lands have nearly been scorched bare by the Fiery blizzards of Macassar – Now charged with the ultimate sacrifice, crossing the Moddergat fynbos wetlands to eventually reach the steep trail leading up to Fluweeltjie – Lair of the ancient Gamdroela , a kleurvolle Colourful but powerful oracle who will Decide on the worthiness of the young Tandpyn…

-Don Beukes

The Dream

I had a dream last night Of walking thru a forest-like place Filled with earthy illuminances

I could barely make out the sharp Round edges of branches and limbs Bathed in a heavenly glow

These trees, so strange yet so familiar These giants, so murky yet so real Their aromatic odors filled my essence

And for the briefest of moments I believed to be back home among these ancient pines Until my eyes opened to the sterile white walls

-Carrie Ann Golden

Fly Away, Dream

When television broadcasting Ended after late night news And comedy shows, yellow, blue, magenta hues

On test patterns Would send humanity To bed, to fly away wistfully,

As on insect wings, To a place of dreams And endless possibilities.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/fly-away-dream.m4a

-st

flaiku

what to us is dross is a rainbow to the fly perspective is key

-Rich Follett

Her Splash Of Veins

flutters, is still, proboscis twitch. Flutters, is still, twitch.

Splash of wheat in fields, Flutters as flywings.

Strands of wheat flywalk skin as she passes she swats the touch away.

Till as she treads down more stalks into the unmade bread of the field bunches of wheat stroke her thighs and she smiles at the bright sun of it all.

Snatches a stalk, lets it hang from her mouth a proboscis tremble in the gust of her dreams of flight above the ready to be harvested grain rises toward sun blaze newly risen

warm bread a splash of veins in full colour, breathes in her baked youth like goodness.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/her-splash-of-veins.m4a

-Paul Brookes

May 3.

.severn bridge.

it was a long journey

well you do don’t you. you travel .

you do what you has to do with love

even if things are difficult.

I feel it was just before the bridge

later they changed the name of it

there was this tree in a garden and I guess still there

through april we saw it bud as we passed going down

bloomed as we returned

later petals fell

then the reason for the journey failed and

left

yet

when I see a magnolia tree I remember

I remember sultry days in the long grass dried over

by cuckoo woods over there

catching them, dry creatures singing

looking them over and gently placing them back

the woman on the corner watched, looking over

the back

one arm missing

I remember a lot of things

-sonja benskin mesher

To be as impressed with flowers, as other people, is to achieve something worthwhile. Here, Pentti Linkola – deep ecology, disappointment, hands, prying open a bird box. Dead mammals, the small bones of a petal, inside, the entire remit of clichés involving death. Yes, another listy death poem, another regression. Another impressive notion of right and wrong. Cats underwater, drowning, observing these flowers in my hands, the branches, etc.

To be as impressed with bugs, as other people, is to achieve something worthwhile.

-Alex Mazey

Tears For Lichen

On the flat stone she wept her thousand regrets. Wax petals, a mother’s confetti of pink tears.

This was a song a descant to winter-tide. Of lighter months, not to the stone of dark grey lands carrying lichen kisses.

And as the lichen looks, death’s breath rattles and waxed tears wash abandoned to stoney seas.

A flower’s shower a softer form of rain. As the tree reaches out, tentative fingers touch her children’s clothes.

Ancient fruits that grew before first flight arced, beetles climbed these trees: ancient crawling bees.

Mitochondrial Eve, as magnolia flowers breathed, oxygen rich and rot from the seas.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/tears-for-lichen.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 2nd May 2020.

Lullaby of the Cicadas

The Flood – Stuck in mourning darkness every twilight sadness for loved ones lost, I weakly attempt to bravely to bravely attempt my inner flood walls but then despair breaks through, Threatening my brittle fading halo, so I let it seep a little- Just to taste the pain once more but as always like before, I allow a faint chorus to penetrate through the dark cavities of my soul as I listen to a lullaby of cicadas calming me healing me comforting me shielding me – Saving me.

Chorus of the Nymphs – We come from dormant Slumber to share our essence with you. Allow us to numb the melancholic hum in your soul. Let us gather notes of eons ago echoing from ancient forest trees to deliver a new symphony – Hoping to set your mind free from recurring soul-eating melodies.

Emergence – The mornings seem to radiate brighter into these faded streets of my mind, where dagger smiles are replaced with hopeful eyes, willing me to turn back into a brightening awakening aura, beckoning my new tomorrow, so I willingly follow the faint strange welcoming sounds of a new song – Joining the throng of lost souls eager to emerge Renewed, healed. Fading sadness penetrated by a lullaby of cicadas…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/lullaby-of-the-cicadasmp3.mp3

We Are the Wildflowers

Wildflowers and weeds Bear a striking resemblance To one another, Differentiated mostly By the kindness of time and Human trials. What one calls A weed, another calls a perennial. And, garden walls meant to Contain them are Only masquerading as effective barriers. Aren’t we all held back by Human hands that pull and grab, or Allowed to thrive, By the grace of the benevolent?

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/we-are-the-wildflowers.m4a

-st

Tanka for the last of the magnolias

Long smooth clouds bloom high sugar-pink tower turrets domes open to wind fall reborn – coracles sail lichen archipelago

-Ankh Spice

southern descent

sweet magnolia summer storm wind-strewn petals on lichen and stone

feather-soft gentility belies a core of tempered steel

southern by grace— survivor by design survivor by

-Rich Follett

A Locust

In our oral tales others see us as plague. Let us starve to feed their children.

I don’t swarm.

I contemplate sat on the viscous membrane of this water.

Oppose my senses:

To avoid mirrors. Fly around them not into them as death will be your final image.

I only see an image of myself.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/a-locust.m4a

-Paul Brookes

May 4

.shrink.

the child psychiatrist and oh how we can spell that lodged up the stone steps at the clinic the air was nice that day and she was shown blobs said they were butterflies watched the dolls act and said that was junk really

that father had just run off with another woman that was how they talked then he probably walked maybe hurried to get away

declared sane at eleven left at half past with the gift of a bible kept for the ages

thought that was rubbish too

she was small in that place

shrink

-sonja benskin mesher

So many people give birth to nothing. This line is extremely unimpressive, but knot ties, in some small way, to something tangible, outside of the self, like this painting, like this person, not waving nor drowning; Linkola’s cats, Murakami’s cats, the cats in a Studio Ghibli animation, like the girl-witch from Kiki’s Delivery Service, like the fading behind Mark Fisher, a fisher man, a fisher man like Pentti Linkola, dying in 2020.

I am not all that impressed with the technological ability to view, with intricate detail, the delicate impressions of a wing. It seems eyes can form, into the deoxyribonucleic acid, into many things. Enthusiasm is not located in a scientific word. It is not so fascinating – really.

-Alex Mazey

Quiet Please

I take my bow, it is really yours. Proud bends the back of the master. Semaphored arms embrace acoustic gold.

The tenants appraise, heads in silenced rows. Bodies rustle, anticipation is subsumed into soft cough and quiet creak.

All is submission as a pin of fallen angels sprawls across the floor. Equations their silent recitals while music sits patient as an obedient hound.

So now… To elevate a multitude of trailing notes. Spinning of helicopter leaves in a brass breeze. A syncing of vibration and desire pitches each point perfect, till buttercup soft lit hard and sharp, under home’s dull light. Sour as summer lemon trees. Then boom-dark crash, as water calling dead souls to the combe.

And all this while in a discomfort of seats, ears make ready to meet the brightling core that sits within.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/quite-please.m4a

-©. Dai Fry 3rd May 2020.

The Speech

Shadow Nation – We exist in cold shadows where our fading echoes are drowned by your bulldozers in the name of progress – Yet in the dead of night you stalk us hunt us to delete us silence us mock us bury us until we float away as ash a hush – Outcasts

We, the Mothers – We gave you life but your journey crossed unknown paths, bowing down to greedy gods sucking your soul dry but you welcomed promised riches licked bitter molasses with gravy train false preachers, Forgetting your inherent good essence resulting in your Foretold death sentence. Our grief is no relief our warnings Faded into nothing as you left us broken, eternally hurting…

Vision X – Your world is no more. You are here but in another sphere another existence an alternative reality because of your foolish insistence to enact nuclear annihilation, depleting all nations. You stare at me but your voice is muted as you attempt to explain your existential burning pain still searing through your perforated punctured soul – How you willingly participated in a man-made selfish senseless final war to claim the ultimate earthly prize – Ruling the global village, oh how wrong you were! Thinking you would last your nuclear winter but you melted each other deleted each other destroyed your earthly legacy by your insatiable hunger for power.

Well, here you are – Stuck on Planet X, destined to find no eternal rest whilst dead stars of eons ago further darken this existence and the light of exploded suns now blind your new vision…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-speech-mp3.mp3

In This Place

Wings do not fly. Mirrors do not reflect. Arms raised ask for folk to lie face down on the floor.

Decay is praised. Illness is needed. Death is requested.

Life is despised. Nurses are criminals. information is disinformation.

Paranoia is wanted. Conspiracies are welcomed. Demands are never met.

Government advice must be ignored. All advice has a use by date. Use by dates are decided by us all.

Control is freedom. Take back control.

-Paul Brookes

inside my name

dream state, Monday, 2 AM mothwing Navajo vagina; Georgia O’Keeffe portal to an alternate universe; Rohrschach montage of feminine puissance with Bette Davis eyelashes and cheerleader breasts

transfixed, i plunge into its pulsing core emerging in grade school where I wrote my name in conté on clean white paper folded and then opened— wrote so carefully, never crossing the midline— then just as carefully colored in the loops and angles, folded the paper back again (folded it like a prayer) and rubbed it with a block of wood

we were told to expect other worlds when we opened that fold again— told that secrets would be revealed

i did not see other worlds i saw only what seemed to be sidewalk chalk art marred by sudden summer rain

i have waited five decades for this morphologic grace— this mothwing Navajo vagina; Georgia O’Keeffe portal to an alternate universe; Rohrschach montage of feminine puissance with Bette Davis eyelashes and cheerleader breasts

dream state, Monday, 3 AM i wake with grateful tears, having seen at last inside my name …

-Rich Follett

Lockdown scored for one instrument

After noticing you have gritted your teeth (these days contain all we cannot bite gone) choose a tuning shape. Knot yourself closed, or petal out your limbs towards the constant poke of the world. Either way you annotate a rest. Either way you are not how you began, and you may hear the breath drawn at the beginning of the stave. Music is always quivering somewhere in the darkness of a body; in a chamber of polished wood in the auditorium of bone (that same clench heavying shoulders). Tune your knot. Turn your wood. Poise the humming star of your frame and play, unbowed or wound, just play until your last string breaks.

-Ankh Spice

Entrapment

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal” –Matt. 6:19

Trapped between Window and pane, Moth wings open and shut Like pages of a book. Dust

Flutters forth From the cover Between which words, too, Are trapped, unable to do

Their work, live and breathe, Seek and find, call forth action, Convey the power to believe. I am a moth. Set me free.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/entrapment.m4a

-st

The Artist, for Day Four, Part One

An artist’s mind Unlike the rest of the masses Is a visionary kind Reality to him May be pretend to others He bends on a whim

-Carrie Ann Golden

My goal in life is the destruction of 5G masts. I cut my sandwich into triangles as a lower-middle class pretension. Back outside, my window, one time, a cream room, a view of the street’s antenna. The problem with David Lynch is how he makes too much sense. Back in the simulacrum, a boy, my age, rangers in North America, first as tragedy, then as… ironing out our balaclavas, filling out our milk bottles; backpacks unattended on park benches, on the bus.

A page of Baudrillard, hides the truth to view witnesses fraying little by little into ruins, discernible ruined empire, rotting carcass of the soil double ends simulation, this fabled second-order no longer that of a territory, no longer saturated, a hyperreal map one must

return without origin, shreds unusable a questionable sovereign difference – the charm abstraction, the coextensivity of poetry, the representation produced no imaginary. Operational, in fact, no longer memory radiating synthesis, no space without atmosphere, no worse

curvature. Imitation, nor duplication; leaving room for simulated liquidation.

-Alex Mazey

.the title changes.

there is too much interference things could be left alone things were alright anyway

the battery is low yet plugged in the radio buzzes.

things are distorted

so i did what he says, whilst running up and down the stairs.

source to av, only there aint no av, not on that one anyhow.

press my scart lead, that is probably it.

press the sky button, the sky does not respond.

we still has television snow.

mine are bifocal and can distort gently if i concentrate poorly on the centre i have had help a while grateful at least that i can see unlike some of my family

yesterday I watched a documentary about monkeys

-sonja benskin mesher

The new starboard

Our larvae split their skin in the signal-fry, warmed over by the wire-witched currents of one filigree moon in a hundredweight sky

and if we no longer see the stars how do they counsel a chart for a new grub, or pull a blood’s spirit-iron toward the dissolving north

and if we no longer feel these waves how may we know our own water, what deeps us for the giddy bubble of this sailing. And I know

there are rocks here still, they make chimneys of it to vent everything we can’t burn railing sparks against the sky- silver that meshes none of our tides true

and it will rain hot tonight, the sizzle pelting the new hatchlings

-Ankh Spice

Of Forest And Stick

Foe forest, faux forest fee-fi-fo forest. Where giants hurl their broken stories from broadcast heaven to stone cast ground. Real, this least of things.

Inarticulate metal arms pluck down your dreams, to place within the flakes of soul slow dying desiccation.

Sick insects wave. These metal poles sway clamped to roof and breast.

All point as one, their martyr fingers show. As minds walk psychotic in their circular days.

To stars and planets that orbit our night sleep late night drunk deep on their celestial milky ways.

Antennae wave hello. Behind smudged glass walls as we sit and stare into this aquarium hell of our own making.

As we spread across our furniture of forked cartons, plastic and messy despair We start to take on our corrupt story.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/of-forest-and-stick.m4a

Reception

Quiet the cluttered airways. Listen. Too many voices reaching skyward, Clamoring for reception, Propelling selfhood upward,

Destroys collaborative Synergy. And interference causes failure. After all, Man-made towers were only Ever meant to fall.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/reception.m4a

-st

Every Stem Is

an aerial, antennae whose signal carries an image and a sound of growth and bloom.

Leaves are directors, flagellum, reach out, test the air and vibrations.

Listen can your hear the messages, or is it distorted,

image overlaid on image, sound overlaid on sound?

It processes fake news, phishing and cyber attacks. discerns real from false. scents and trails.

A filter bubble, an information sceptic decides what diminishes it, what makes it grow.

what makes it turn towards warmth, towards brightness.

More than a conduit.

-Paul Brookes

effluorescence

concrete flowerbed: aluminium amaranths dream of fecund earth

-Rich Follett

These gray structures loom Like a dead alloy forest A mill’s epitaph

-Carrie Ann Golden

The Arrival (EEN)

Blue eclipse sudden shudder silver vibrations strange sensations mauve hues silent screams shattered dreams rainbow screams black void bleak skies pink cries identity hides no way out seek beware who goes there wait stop where no here why there marble hush turquoise crush hide smile cry illusion confusion static wailing connections failing conscience melting blood moon a light alight powder dawn seek destroy rebuild regenerate no rescue failed sight emerald night pyramid flight incoming yellow tongue purple feast horrible sightings a drone atone leave us alone lavender glass chards charge cut chaos comet rush – Reverse

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-arrival-een-mp3.mp3

The Arrival (TWEE)

Falling earth new birth cosmic boom blast break away descend evacuate take position brace brave pathetic beast eject object reject investigate attack no way back hold blinding strobe light up get up move no room fire storm go swerve dive testing resting make haste chase erase record a face strange days delete reboot reverse rethink incoming homecoming survive surrender sharp solar bursts the thirst implosion ration succession orchestration new nation sinking earth toxic rebirth black hole tar soul screeching silence severed signals strange sour suns

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-arrival-twee-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

MF6

I run my hand over my past,

Where did the time go?

How trite to ask. How human.

I want to feel where a picture

Made by a child must’ve been

Until adolescence tore it up.

I want to see where a head

Chipped the paint.

Where did the time go?

how I remember mama:

recumbent with cucumber slices

hot stuff on a blazing beach

between her lover,

her life, and others;

that would be her children,

playing ball discreetly

In the lathering surf

with a Portuguese Man of War

-Elizabeth Moura

Abstractions

Making sense of abstract pale green The mind reads as moss Which proliferates into vegetation. Hen and chicks begin again In repurposed terrariums From some old Mother’s Day, Signifying children and growth; Elders and death; Soil and air Until abstract greys and greens Are life force made concrete.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/abstractions.m4a

-st

Yellow Mars

Stretched beyond any story, outside of organic memory. Time lives without passing. It’s life: a slow definition of measure in stain.

When I was young I saw a bright yellow lichen near the sea. I wanted to lick it to sense and to taste it. This bright, lives there still.

Yellow as gorse flower orange as rust. Lichen covers our world.

On the ISS they breathed the vacuum and survived. One day they will turn Mars yellow.

Then: On a clear night you may see a lichen star.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/yellow-mars.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 5th May 2020.

Shift

When what was left of the mountain heaved the men were stroking the ground with their tillers and to the worried horses, whose ancestors had been told for three hundred years that men knew what they were doing it seemed the infant was soothed, that the tired-out dirt had simply sighed and turned over. And so they nodded the great brushbrooms of their blinkered heads and stepped forward onto the grey scree, between the lines of unmade earth, and the unmountain wept as she received them into her hot belly. And swirling with their blades the motes of dust that were only sadness, floating the men said to each other ‘but why were the horses so stupid?’ and the trees, the only wild green left in miles and miles and miles of neatly turned fields shuffled close on the ridge, hiding completely the great wave roaring in, that water briefly the same shape as the mountain’s memory of herself

-Ankh Spice

..faceless ..

faceless

from nowhere, no name nor eyes yet we saw the bloodied halo

angel power and dominion

swept through silent almost biblical if you #readthat note how the layout is columns, numbered stanzas unlike other books tied away in cupboards

here was black and smudges then carefully we drew her out all tidy with reason, wearing us down

wearing the kimono corona wearing the coat corona whatever you wear corona

faced away

only stone set before set like fire in empty barns

#readthat

the social worker was a bitch back then

#didyoureadthat?

gongbi guise

painted silk or weathered stone? where vision ends imagination begins

artist’s paean to nature or nature’s paean to art? perfection neither asks nor answers

-Rich Follett

Tenalp Htrae

Earth Whispers – Light years have passed since leaving our blue planet, only white noise echoes remain of a world imploded by human negligence of a fragile natural existence meant to sustain maintain billions of our former human species but our ancient predecessors plundered misused abused neglected and rejected what Earth had to offer – Yet they were destined to suffer for ignoring existential warnings of natural resources depleted excavated extracted annihilated – To the point of meltdown. Now all we see are the historical images shown to new generations born in a new world a new existence a new consciousness.

Bleeding Earth – Any hope of ever returning to our ancestral home is slowly burning as eons of efforts to detect new life has come to an abrupt end – New footage reveal a dismal reality of a tired planet bleeding it’s waters evaporated by swirling fire tornados rocks melting fauna and flora now long gone fossils – The life-giving atmosphere now a toxic choking layer, So we still mourn our forced lonely new daily dismal Dawn on planet Tenalp Htrae, light years away…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/tenalp-htrae-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

The Many

clocks of her face tick as the world decays and rusts.

Some say to her your clocks have no hands. Some say to her you’ve no idea of time.

Your timing is all over the place, clock arms, clock lungs, clock legs, clock heart but no clock face.

Knows her blood and breath tell the time, beat precision and control her faces watch the world’s decline.

Knows within her time is a rhythm without clocks, a body that tells time every month, her hidden scars and bruises show time passes.

-Paul Brookes

The clause in a tenancy agreement states that party B must wipe down the walls – otherwise they begin to resemble shoeboxes. Faded, yellowing entropy. Decay reminds us of those things liberated from the passage of time. Melancholic disposition reminds us to be fun at parties. Back home, alone, right now, wipe the walls, watch a Studio Ghibli animation, at least you had Kiki in the other one. I have photoshopped her in – there.

If Baudrillard referred to a liquidation of all referentials – then this must be a liquidation. I should rewrite all history with my profound, transcendental sense of right and wrong.

=Alex Mazey

psychic caterwaul

one dimension away Hieronymus Bosch’s housecats frolic beneath a papier-mâché moon howling and miaowing in a demonic felid mardis gras

here on earth, a fair trade toyshop window— nothing to fear and yet …

-Rich Follett

Act like you were never for sale

Those were the days in which we felt our flutter hard and bright as a burning, painted thing, and those were the days when we painted our feelings on each others’ faces with pure sugar and unguent-of-anthers, and those were the days when faces would touch cheeks intimately, brief and baked electric with proper unsaids, and those were the days when the electric that moved us moved us in that little pond of footlights like a swirl of young eels, so slender, such good teeth, and those were the days when company meant we played together well and no-one forgot their lines or missed a step, or when they did the painted faces laughed kindly, and not like they had smelled blood in the water or finally seen the glass, the tags, and some of that last part is a lie. But a pretty lie, sticky with fertile anthers, and we bite into it again and again, this cake so sweet we know it only makes us sick

-Ankh Spice

.mouse.

are you dancing there you tiny creatures and are you happy with this music

should I cut it straight and hard in layers or leave it to grow?

are you dancing there together to your own tunes and remarkable tangents

or will you advise on the steps to take while moving ahead

most people’s hair looks gentle natural

there is no need for masquerade or pantomimes we cannot have the gatherings these days

you know he cut my hair for years and we became good friends . visited charleston together the farm house not the jig though the style would have suited the era so the mouse

keeps dancing jim

-sonja benskin mesher

A shop window like Hunter S. Thompson, at eleven o’clock, on a week day. A medium to large dose of LSD that I have never tried. In Mark Fisher’s Ghosts, Burial never went to a rave in the 90s, which informs, the apparition, the residue of what’s left. People have a perverse interest in windows, shop windows, specifically, glass operating as both a means of access and exclusion. This is the Baudrillardian analysis.

Impressed with the circulation of the body

my entire outlook becomes the deconstruction of the human being

into a clockwork machine.

-Alex Mazey

Little Gods

Artists and scientists are Little gods who make the World make sense, make Things fit together, or do not– At their discretion. Chaos and order, Macro and micro, Beauty and disgust, Must meet, hold hands Like humans used to Before we were all Forced off the canvass, Becoming scattered pieces instead.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/little-gods.m4a -st

Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

Patient quiet shadowed, still. Not blink, but glide wet eyes. My whiskers sing electric song and muscles ripple, as claws give flex, in deep forever breath.

A present, payment for my board. Fresh meat for the clumsy, They that cannot hunt. While I eat flies and wasps that sting.

Pain is fine its just a thing. So busy grooming, hunting and holding my lands. I sleep where I want and how I please. I have no master.

Under sun, on soil paper or wool, its all the one to me.

And to those too big to hunt and kill, I spread my scent. This meat is mine.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/pussy-cat-pussy-cat.m4a

©️ Dai Fry May 6th 2020.

The Gamdroela

I roam this galaxy alone searching aimlessly for signs of my origins with only infinity as my reality but I yearn to touch a dead star maybe even lick the frozen remains of an ancient comet long gone – I sometimes hear the echoes of far flung cosmic explosions and I can feel the empty of nothing expanding yet I am not swallowed up into black holes transporting me to other dimensions –

I once felt the touch of a solar flare kindling my whole being as I absorbed its embracing aura, so I kept it hugged it caressed it, if just to confirm I am not really alone – You might look at me most curiously even curse me with pursed ignorant lips but allow me to gently kiss you and share my multi- colored nature with you then maybe you can realise who I really am but that is not meant to be as I am not destined to be relevant in this reality – Not even in your fantasy, so I roam this galaxy alone,

I came from nothing – Forever waiting…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-gamdroela-mp3.mp3

Chorus of the Haters

Playground Show – Quick look have you seen what she is wearing oh my – Wait, what? Never, no! Surely not? Aw, hey look at that – You’re kidding me! Is he really wearing trainers? Oh yeah, I heard his mom had to sell his shoes so he could have something to eat this morning, jeeze really now! Sorry what? Who gave you permission to squeak? Let me go! He asked for it. Let go of me!

Stranger Danger – Hey, you! Let go of his arm! Uh who the hell are you? You what? Check this out guys, I – What the… Ooh look at ow! I told you so! Let’s get out of here. We’ll get her later, ok? You gonna have your chance later. Why so gloomy? I guess I’m okay but what do I say to my mom? Just tell her the truth. Don’t worry, now hurry! I cannot always save you. You can let go of my hand now. Will I see you later? Got something to say to you…

Backstreets of mind – I wish we could move again but I felt something today. I hate it here though. Those bastards never accept me. I need to be free, To be me…This is not healthy for me. I am slipping but I have finally connected to someone. A warrior a friend – A saviour.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/chorus-of-the-haters-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Petite

abandoned, lives in discarded boxes and bags, bigger, savage males she seduces so they don’t injure, don’t bite wounds, break her delicate bones,

washes and cleans herself, anoints herself brings them live prey, breathing for play. Lives on cold pizza, crisps, rainwater.

Never lost her lioness head, knows ancestors bred for mummification, how worship becomes mass slaughter. Small does not mean less wick.

Chooses who lives with her, whom she dances, who wraps her fur around, curls up in a lawnmower grass box, brings live gifts into her house as presents.

=Paul Brookes

fajar

silver yew bows to war-torn stone and brick patchwork— alhaya renews

-Rich Follett

Ash-coloured trees, a forest, a liquidated referential, perhaps against the valley wall. There’s a thousand-year-old olive tree, somewhere, in a mountain town, where a child serves coffee, and burgers. Outside, grandmother’s goat stew – blow it first, child, with a cold spoon, intricate handle, intricately handled. There are some parts to this world we will never understand. Ash-coloured trees in the night are like, I don’t want to say it.

A page of Baudrillard is a fatal strategy avoid meaning indefinitely, bore them with a senseless finality – reverse evil. Poetry as ecstatic object, secret qualities, sworn to extremes and quiet synthesis, the visible to the hidden, more hidden metamorphosis, (Kafka as a lonely man

laughing at the still living, the digitalised still life – still born). Illusion plays speech instantaneously – the nature of seduction, nostalgic slowness as a merry-go-round. Silenced once; the silent dialogue of signs. Fashioned vapid character, aesthetic form, immoral form, fragile, sentimental desire

shapes superlative power, the objective; an achieved attraction, our only passion.

-Alex Mazey

..albert & Victoria..

how to tell a picture in words? egfrasic & I cannot spell it only in placid moments.

do we describe what we see or maybe tell the tale inside

albert and victoria a safe place now yet round the corner on the wall are the bullet holes while in dublin the same on a statue

blood shed they killed horses too when they fired their guns, dropped the bombs what then oh butterflies wing?

I can spell ekphrastic here but not up there

today there is no image nor a recording of the voice just look at the holes in walls.

-sbm.

Life after all

This is where it happened.

You weren’t there, not that you were ever there

whenever I needed you there.

I’ve often dipped my fingers in the hollows grief makes.

Here is where it happened.

We climb, but our feet slip, we don’t fall, but we dangle.

How I needed you there, to save me from being myself being there.

Whose life was it, after all?

-Elizabeth Moura

Walls Are

Bed bent wall bound, less human now as broken into this square.

Run five fingers feather light, to feel walls behind these closed eyes.

A stony glance holds a soul eternal captive, hate an emotional geometry.

Stone four squared. Secrets whispered ear to ear. Shed tears, wet straw. Awake, a greeting of dawn light under the door.

Dream in winds and creaking trees, a soul free to run and run, until breath is not sufficient.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/walls-are.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 7th May 2020.

The Institute

White noise cracking in my headspace

Phantoms in their nightly forced circus

A horse dancing on a rainbow beckoning

Me to follow – I just want to lie my head

down and crawl through my safety tunnel

where I can hear myself think maybe whistle

my favourite tune – Where I choose the paths

in the backstreets of my mind, master of my

own symphony unlike the invasive unwelcome

poking into my private psyche room where

my mental defences are muted by unstable

needy self-elected pharaohs enacting random

healing punishments – I am so done with this!

Dear Self

I am slowly drowning in this mental haze choking

me repeatedly – I need to hear your voice

again even just a faint whisper to remind me

I am still here. Here comes that choking red

Mist again, darkening my vision – My existential

Failed mission no escape… Are you there?

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-institute-mp3.mp3

The Trees are Dead

Sour earth neglected responsibilities

toxic oxygen the result of inaction by

Clueless wise men waving their untested

theories yet ignoring increasing revelatory

fatalities from untested remedies meant to

heal nations – Our mortality affected by

inept irrational policy makers hoping to

gain one more vote but we are all in the

same boat – Frantically trying to stay afloat

but worrying cracks are deepening our

livelihoods darkening, so we gather en masse

to finally protest along a charred boulevard

hoping in vain but it is of no use when the

guilty refuse to attempt to reverse recalculate

regenerate for future generations all nations

so we keep the faith even though the trees are dead.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-trees-are-dead-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Take Me Around Again

Carousel horses, Are all your circles meant to comfort, or to mock? And, where will you take me today? To that bustling park In West Endicott, Near the house we almost bought?

Or maybe, all the way back to my childhood dinner time, When everyone else had moved from home, And you were three sad napkin rings, Trotting repetitively around the lonely table. You know Your steady pace marks time perfectly, while I’m distracted by the bright colors and scenery, Until I’m caught between once, and today.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/take-me-around-again.m4a

-st

For #1 of Day Eight:

The Shaft

Within the mine’s walls I hear the dead’s calls As my feet pound these halls Blinded by charging fireballs

#2 of Day Eight:

I remember as a child an elder spoke of a ghost town deep in the mountains where a single wall’s all that remained Its crumbling façade brimmed with untold stories Of former residents trapped within the wailing barrier

-Carrie Ann Golden

My Olive

tree is a horse whose mane of leaves shakes in a gust, whose bark whinnies when she moves. When I press myself into her flanks she is the oil that brightens my meals.

I am calm under her canopy of mane. Her favourite place is beside the pitted wall. A Roman wall with close knit red bricks and stone. The stone is sculpted by round ammunition holes, but has not fallen. They did not break through here.

I look down at my horse, the olive tree beside the wall from my balcony. History is always here.

-Paul Brookes

There’s an office, twelfth floor, in Shenzhen, I have stared, many times, I think, looked as far as the South China Sea. These are not the branches of a cathaya forest, three conifers, from this window. I cannot order a happy lemon in the mall, cannot recite Matthew 4:9 in the people’s square in Chengdu. Some days, I read Leo Tolstoy at the back of the public library, III times translated, first to English, then to Russian, and so on.

Two eyes appear from a bug detecting misanthropy

forming the same colours as the Khmer Rouge.

-Alex Macey

Mobius musing

those who inhabit cubicles and those who dwell among trees have little in common but there can be no doubt each is necessary to reflect upon the other

-Rich Follett

Pantoum for an isolated princess

In her glass coffin, what had flowed in the bone set sail alone Beyond the bright vault the tree-crowds nodded And meshed their long toes around the bubble That carried the fallen log on down the stream

Beyond the bright vault the tree-crowds nodded The wind stirring branches and passing the message That carried the fallen log on down the stream From synapse to synapse until every leaf knew her

The wind stirring branches and passing the message Threw leaves on the glass to crew up the ship And synapse to synapse, every leaf knew her So the sky caught her name, turned her glass to a star

And the leaves on the glass who had crewed up the ship Of her glass coffin, where what flowed in the bone had set sail alone Saw the sky catch her name, saw her glass as a star And fell to the earth to drift deep in the wound

-Ankh Spice

Gamma-Alpha-Light

Under glass I stretch, out life, not to smell tree sap or leaf. Or breezing wind. Catch rain that drops on tipped toe tongues.

No horizons lead crystal walls. And beyond, tangled imaginations, a hunger of beasts.

I see my knees and look in vain, for the grazing of a life not lived.

Under glass, dry tears, await night’s shadow to take the trees away. Now danger only song in this apocalyptic dark.

Hunters eyes dwell beyond the confines, of my glass walls. I read and watch, food bottled and tinned.

I gather up fear, a glowing landscape into which I can never venture.

Soft song, sang a requiem. Last of my line.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/gamma-alpha-light.m4a

Objects of Reflection

Reflections in windows in our hearts Bring us closer to the pain of Mirror images in those panes Until, noses pushed against glass,

Seeking so hard to see, With the steam and the strain, We lose the imagery Altogether, viewing

Only what’s inside. Of course, it’s not what we were looking for. We’re forced To turn around, and find

The truth Was always In the object, Not its likeness.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/objects-of-reflection.m4a

-st

Hum of the Drones

Society now an alternative reality

long adapted to forced acceptance of

a new dimension a stoic domination

of a higher order with murderous

intentions controlling a lockdown human

nation – An evolved consciousness

advanced through carefully engineered

experiments so with the arrival of these

deadly drones spying listening all-seeing

recalculating scheming deleting controlling

a fading tired humanity.

It happened gradually, unseen unheard

Their walls came down surrounding

Major cities concealing a doomsday

Countdown with the intoxicating deadly

Hum of the Drones…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/hum-of-the-drones-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

parakeets in the park, wild now holds up his hands and they fly to take seed

clearly reflected while we stop while we take coffee while we breathe

deeply thinking

of the things we have seen whitworth

it came with fire with ferocity depth that left me floating isolating isolation from the other scheme of things. it was red very very red

he said it was his favourite colour I have never seen him wear it

-sonja benskin mesher

I peered through the glass And saw all these evergreens Guardians of souls

-Carrie Ann Golden

Windows

are single eyed. We move the back projection, make clear the eyes corners. What lies ahead, what lies in wait?

Enter house with hollow eyes Inside its eyes fragrant as bad breath, a dead leaf delicate structure crinkly soft, and wet wallpaper peals like unheard bells.

Doors are mouths, mothers polish, lovers hump over, by which decisions enter or leave, from which dead leaves are brushed aside.

-Paul Brookes

orange it came flaring while I was minding my business as always looking at to sea hoping for a boat

on the horizon I got this thing whizzing round my face warm emulsifying, wreaking havoc with the serenity buzzed my ears and stayed there until defeated I moved to the wall and sat there a while

undeniably tracing honesty in air with one finger pointing

it came clear later

-sbm.

Most people have a penchant for rocks – dry stone walls with spiders inside. I once shook the leaves by a wall to see what fell out, and every night, when I came home, picked handfuls on my way, breadcrumb leaves to tear, carefully, like prayer beads once blessed by spit, by piss, by rain fall. Nobody knows why they do these things, least of all, tear leaves, and tear, and scatter leaves away.

I have always imagined / galaxies shaped like / the inside of a pomegranate fruit. / Authenticity interspersed with a tragic sense of irony. / Why do we write / like this?

-Alex Mazey

The Dream

I plunge into the depths of

nowhere, of empty uninhabited

space glowing like s beacon almost

beckoning like an empty womb ready

to cocoon new life – Expectant

nourishing, life-giving.

I fall further reaching unexplored cavities

of my questioning mind, witnessing

memories not even born yet, of

revelations still to come – I hear

faint whispers of familiar voices guiding

me teaching me protecting me.

My vision now clearer as I enter the domain of forever – My former melancholy turning into a joyous cacophony of encompassing love. I breathe again. I laugh again. I live again…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-drea-audio-day-10-1.mp3

Memories of Us

I still sometimes hear the echoes of our laugher as we reminisce of our shared happiness – Our joy of creating new planting borders Of days languishing in the sun until the moonrise beckoned daily reflections of love in various sessions, of togetherness of silliness of happiness.

I feel such a fool not having shared more thoughts with you, or not having told you I forgive you for misinterpreted heated arguments, of hating my foolish pride but I cannot linger on anything bitter as I still feel you with me in poignant memories of us…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/memories-of-us.mp3

-Don Beukes

Wild Imagination

Yesterday I walked down a path in the woods And spied a crumbling cornerstone of a building Lost to past floods Hidden in its base was a hole Nearly encased in the shadows of hardwoods Unsure if it was created by some mole I moved near the edge and spotted a thick coiled string Most of it vanished in the dried mud Vivid images of mystical places down below Filled my mind to the point that was maddening With a headache I reluctantly returned to my neighborhood

-Carrie Ann Golden

Shiva’s Dance

All stones, a conglomeration of illusion and desire. All dawns, pre-set to rise and fall breathe and grow and yet… all are followed by a drowning sun.

Not a stone story or tellers myth. For souls so bound in greed and gold. My house is as opium dreams… in these whispers of life.

No movement, in still darkling corners where life and dust move so slowly that luxing shadows, low and subdued, can hold a spirit in sleeping deeps.

So dance the ring of fire without question, for being must flow in these meriel seas and shaded rivers. Apocalypse and creation my coin. You my currency.

Your hair is made of flowers and death, your breath mud baked yet star sparkle sweet. Your compassion always greater than your parts.

So dance your dance on life’s highest mountain, in low dead seas. No choice no chance All else illusion’s flattery.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/shivae28099s-dance.m4a

©️ Dai Fry 9th May 2020.

colloquy

chestnut and stone wall speaking of patience and time passersby know naught

-Rich Follett

Interstellar Connections

You are a small planet, Unique in every way. I reach out the solid branch Of my being, as far as I can To see if I can touch your greatness, Learn more about the mysterious

Known and unknown parts And the pre-existing orbit Of my earthbound heart, Causing me to overcome all fears, To cross the void of space and find What happens when we collide.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/interstellar-connections.m4a

-st

Ishigaki music (the ballad of Rat and Cat)

Each day of that hot summer the stonemason let the river sing to him as he ate his noon meal, the moonsweet rice the pink auras of salmon and ginger and from his front hedge of rushes crept sleek black Rat with his shinobue tail and from the temple’s gap-toothed wall ambled marmalade Cat with her koto miaow and for a few grains of lunar rice Rat conjured a rill of silver notes from his flute and for a sliver of translucent spirit-fish Cat would wail her strange ghost’s vibrato and the inkbrush river shushed its rhythm onto the clean white page of each day. For a whole season the stonemason laid every rock with songs in his head and his hands and his heart and should you visit the temple you will see the black Rat and the ginger Cat who live forever in his tendered wall and should you put your ear to the sweet stones all placed just so, the music there in the neat grains of them will build and build inside you a thousand years of comfort.

-Ankh Spice

Stars

Stars, are they the lost group of family? Mists as memories, I long to see their faces The navy sky lit by a sparkle of joy ancestors in their glowing blessings looking down, as the perfumed night air wafts gently. A rare manuscript, an album of belonging Generations bound by dna blood sweat and tears A remembrance this darkest day of November I turn the pages of love and belonging a feeling of euphoria before the melancholy sets in clinging like the frost on a rose bud remembering ancestors, the stars in my eyes.

-Leela Soma

My Night

is a bag of nerve dripped stars under lit lamposts.

Silence is a window strummed by shadows.

Stone is a cloud announced as married to dizzy soil.

Walls are rainbowed unicorn skin and bone petrified by virgins.

Sugar is a grumble made by galaxies seen by cardboard homeless.

Darkness is the locked door of a whisper you cannot fully hear.

-Paul Brookes

Leela Soma

was born in Madras, India and now lives in Glasgow. Her poems and short stories have been published in a number of anthologies and publications, including the National newspaper The Scotsman, The Grind, Visual Verses, New Voices, Gutter, Bangalore Review in India and Steel Bellows in the USA. ‘From Madras to Milngavie’ was her first poetry pamphlet. She has served on the committee for the Milngavie Books and Arts Festivals and on the Scottish Writer’s Centre Committee. Her work reflects her dual heritage of India and Scotland. Author of ‘Twice Born’, ‘Bombay Baby’ and ‘Boxed In’ Available on Amazon and Kindle. Her website is http://www.leelasoma.wordpress.com

Here is a link to my interview of her: https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/04/20/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-leela-soma/

eleven is ten continued..

I sat on the wall a while further up a guy was painting a cat I watched him clever I heard a small noise to the left turned found the bloody orange thing was back fussing around colouring up the air smelling slightly warm and damp

mid sucking noises the face appeared black and white

from the bloody orange thingy.

-sbm

Murakami is my favourite Japanese writer, I remember vaguely, a time when he did not show his face in public. Showed his face as a series of cats. Some days, it is like cats are the loneliest animals on the planet. I think, again, of a book, by an author I cannot remember. I think, again, of a time beyond myself, of these dead things, side roads, memorialised, beyond face value; it’s more than we know.

-Alex Mazey

Journey to Fluweeltjie

The secret Map – It has been passed on by generations of Meesters, protectors of their families and heirs to the kingdom of Tiervlei. An existential secret map showing the way to the land of Fluweeltjie, where essence of an eternal life force would only be accessible to a worthy young warrior, who would survive the treacherous Kaapse Vlaktes – an underworld marshland filled with exploding vrekwarm flames from below the sunken city of Fluweeltjie – There to collect essence of the revered Bitterbessie, ensuring longevity for all who deserve it –

The honour of collecting the precious bitterbessie was bestowed on Sekueb Nodmai, heir to the kingdom of Tiervlei. He followed the ancient path shown on the map, and made his way to the secret entrance only he knew – In the distance he spotted a lonely figure hovering just above the ground, guarding the entrance. Sekueb noticed that he hovered just above the ground, waiting.

Battle of the Kaapse Vlaktes – As soon as he crossed over he was confronted by a sonskyn soldaat, ordered to prevent any attempt at entering the dreaded Kaapse Vlaktes. As donderwolke clouds exploded in the skies above, the soldaat suddenly hurled a tokkelos at Sekueb, a fierce creature which could instantly melt him, however Sekueb only had to throw dust of poeier into its eyes to avoid certain death. That opened the path to the gateway to to the borrelende land of Fluweeltjie – What he did not know was that he had to swim through the lake of souls, they who have suffered the curse of failed missions – Looking to welcome one more, as the water started to boil and stir…

(to be continued)

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/journey-to-fluweeltjie-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Hunters

I savor the rainbows on wet streets, and the pigeons without sense who peck at nothing. The streets are empty, dehumanized. As it should be, as it is. I feel the rumbling not of wheels or thunder; it is the precious honey bee, another hunter as effortless as myself. It’s hunting in unkept lots the modest dandelions. My feet dance over faded chalk; I fear nothing.

Elizabeth Moura

Koi feeding

You save the stale crusts from the good brown loaf. On your early walk through the city gardens, there is a round mirror

to crumble them into, and in it an unfamiliar creature, folded and loose in his aspect. He watches you from the water.

You have never met his eyes, although you sense they are kind. This morning autumn has nodded at the trees

and the ember of the squalling sun catches a plume at his throat, and he blushes bright ¬— young

with newborn flame. The wind arrives to spread the blaze outwards in ripples

from the man standing with his hands full of burning bread, and when the fish surface

their mouths make round holes in his body. In one tiny circle after another

the fire goes out. Cool water ¬— O O O ¬— welling dark and smooth. It was always the truth.

What feeds on us that steals our fire. What we feed to remember what we are.

-Ankh Spice

Identity Crisis

Colorful patterns Etched into Our lives, Reveal truths We often try to hide.

Denying reality Doesn’t cease to Make it so. Call a cat a turtle. It won’t hurt his ego.

But it does cause confusion. Then, while we’re all mixed up Arguing over semantics, Inscriptions become clear – Our identity betrays us.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/identity-crisis.m4a -st

Stripe’s the given name Latched on anything ‘till me Now Clingon’s your name.

-Carrie Ann Golden

Practical Cats for Gen-Z

Sandburg’s cat did not have neon feet— time passes; things change.

Kodachrome bas-relief kitty’s impress:

JPS – just pussy-footing silently … but

is neon ever silent?

as it is with humans, so with felines: we always wish against our nature.

Eliot’s three-name theory would not seem to apply here unless loud, louder, loudest are on the list …

so, is kitty a success or a failure?

impossible to say until we know his aim— his ineffable, effable (f***in’ ineffable) deep and inscrutable singular

aim …

-Rich Follett

Of Cats And Gods

It is told in the oldest book that all cats must have two dreams. The second a tale of the fertile crescent, land of Nebuchadnezzar. A place of long ago.

Only to leave, for reasons of their own. On a great adventure. Maybe they first travelled on Abraham’s road to Canaan.

Before they became gods, and tellers of riddles, on the banks of that north flowing river.

“Where one gives birth to the other, who in turn gives birth to the first”

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/of-cats-and-dogs.m4a

Cat Called Nothing

JPS calls me Nothing.

Catness carries being at its heart. I am condemned to be free. If I tremble at the slightest noise, if each creak announces me a look

This is because I am already in the state of being-looked-at.

Catness haunts being. Hell is other people. Catness lies coiled at the heart of being like a worm.

Consciousness is a being, the nature of which is to be conscious of the catness of its being.

-Paul Brookes

Visions

A cataract blackens my right eye, the one I used to look at the sun; no one is left to ask why, because you are lost in dust, and our friends are lost with you at that final beach-mob outpost. Looking into the sun, then at you spread out, lovely and moist, all I could see were black dots on your face as it smooched air, and on your knees, now way too hot raised up, like dream castles, there were lines and arrows instead of your smooth knobs, smoothly red.

-Elizabeth Moura

equanimity

on the cosmic timeline humankind appeared minutes ago— aeons later (by our reckoning), like one primeval furrowed brow or the disappointed jowls of a disgruntled mage with a bumbling apprentice, earth sighed …

-Rich Follett

#2:

My heart

Is like a vast desert

Since you left this world

No amount of water

Can revive

My soul

Wanders an endless wasteland

Hopeless and lost

I don’t want to be found

I don’t need rescuing

I just want to sink in this endless abyss

Of your sweet embrace

-Carrie Ann Golden

13. some folk are superstitious some are not some thought that tomorrow would come different

did not look to see

so some may be disappointed that the orange terror remains

like the alien in some 1950s film or tv show talking pictures

some listened to journey into space on the radio, imagined such things scared themselves silly from behind cushions

this thing can suck the life even from those hiding in soft furnishings

so they may go live underground war of the worlds

I saw it live

-sbm

Out of this grey-peak mountainside, I did not always realise, that animals, like dogs, might comprehend another language. There are only so many times. Only, so many times, a boy can talk in different languages, hoping to find the right one – would you like a sandwich? St. Bernard, only here for the tuna. So, what? – an owner appeared, as beautiful as I imagined any person could be. Hallo, guten tag, blonde lady… gut, danke.

-Alex Mazey

A Desire

I walk your edgeland desire lines. Your fingers daylight a xenotopia in me. A riverwalk into your heart’s sussurus.

-Paul Brookes

Weeds

A plant’s wrong ways, take shape on chancing breeze. Anarchy rises to sap at butchered lands.

Outsiders, friendless purpose unknown. Immigrants from the without.

We are frightened, held rigid by the different beauty of their strange song.

These alien ways like a wild yeast that comes to a baker’s call. Fresh, different much raised in our estimations.

Re-wilding gods, stand to let the ground grow as it will. A flower meadow not a lawn. Bees see it, twice as sweet.

Flown, travelling seeds on wind blown songs. Till the loam of a stranger’s town. Taking the balance of a natural palette.

And soon we will have a place of rare delight. Watered with joy and tears, cooled by butterflies.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/weeds.m4a

Hold the river

You told me you haven’t been outside in 57 days and tonight the river is a dropped ribbon, limp and lost and the sharp stones of the trail as I begin to run become the sound of something chewing. The faster we go, the faster we’re eaten. You are moving, in the lines of your confinement, so slowly now you have become a painting in my head – static – existing not to be touched. And in the guilty, lucky air down here we’re starting up the engines and on my knees in the soft mud I can hear the first plane for months, idling beyond the water. I’d wish you were here, but the wind is whipping up cold, and the coming dark is frantic with sudden birds, woken startled from their neat new nests along the runway.

-Ankh Spice

Searching the Depths

” Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” -Matt. 4:19

Seven worms Squiggle out from the depths After rain Seeking sunshine, Not too much. Unwittingly, They crawl into Small hands Making ready To make a meal Not of them, but Creatures from different depths. “Get to the truck, Daddy’s got the poles!”

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/searching-the-depths.m4a -st

The Institute (Part Two)

Dear Self – I am drowning in this blinding haze of red, Locked in this current state, ‘ shut up! Leave my headspace or I will end you! Are you still there? I cannot go on like this. Last night another one made herself known to me taunting me, mockingly. I can hear her in the walls of my deepest most private secret space – ‘A voice, a voice! No, I refuse to submit to you! Stop this ridiculous lie you knit every chance you get!’

Flashback – I am back in my childhood room, thirteen again. I hear my parents bang the door down. I struggle to breathe. I feel my dad forcing my fingers open as I clamp them Tighter around my throat… ‘Good morning Mr and Mrs Sullivan. No need to look so sullen. Rachel will be treated with the utmost respect and care here at Clarence House. My name is Ms Marsh. You have nothing to worry about. Are you ready Rachel?

The Confrontation – ‘Ow, You’re hurting me! Where are you Taking me? Shut up you spoiled brat! You will soon find out how we heal misfits like you. Let me go you old hag! Now you listen to me you pathetic little creature. You better get used to me. After all, you have been placed into my care, so don’t you dare! You will soon realise you’re not that special at all. The others will reveal themselves to you soon. You better get some rest my dear. No need to fear, I promise.

Dear Self – I feel so lost. I heard it again last night – A faint tapping deep inside my head. Someone also tried to reach me but it was a faint whisper. What is wrong with me? What is this place? I’ve got to get out of here. This spiral prison is making my head burst. Please show me a way out! ‘Hello?’

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/part-two-the-institute-.mp3

-Don Beukes

Right before the fall

A heartbeat before the slide you know you’re going down A monkey brain knows when the branch is about to crack And a kid feels the birth of the tiny split in the ice spreading from his last footstep We learn to fall before we know the promise we make by beginning to walk which is to keep on doing it, even knowing the ground will fail beneath us some day And they say you time-travel just a little before the cold takes you, the years all that good footwork stamped into you go for a wander under your lids, maybe just trying to escape the inevitable. Did you know what takes us under is not spared? This pass through the mountains where your car went over once lingered her beat, slicking sediment-ghosts just before the blast split her. And that glacier down south, undermined by a warming sea shimmered with Pleistocene spring just as her heart went to holes. Oh but wait, that one went alone. The bones she holds too deep to see the sudden blossoms spiriting the ice.

-Ankh Spice

yūjō

cherry trees blooming in unexpected places cheer world-weary hearts

-Rich Follett

I recall vending machines in a small side street, someplace I’ve not yet been, maybe in a dreamscape, anyway. Someone will take me to Mt. Fuji, one day. Someone will take my hand through Aokigahara, the Sea of Trees, and we will buy iced tea in a carpark vending machine. Have I told you the trick to a good car park? They will say – yes – it’s in the flower arrangements, the peeling memory of bright sakura trees. I will remember this.

-Alex Mazey

..fourteen..

it starts at thirteen, moves forward

teenage years spinning

some,

a few stimming later we watch the trees spinning going about in a muddle going down in trouble

those years

asked if there was a maypole it was suggested to have a roundabout

it is all a gift

-sbm

Blossoms

In my memory a late snow had dried, -leaving no trace- though it still flaked eggshell brittle from the damp cellar walls.

I recall the deer park. Richmond in early April, probably a lifetime ago.

The pink and white a growing bloom, was joy within.

Did I dance the blossom under ruck sacked back and in leather shoes?

Dappled tree shadow, as petalled canopies filled the obscured skies.

A morning, those trudging ways. And everything was white and pink. I loved the pastel rain. It made me cry.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/blossoms.m4a

The Institute (Part Three)

The Revelation – Dear Self, I finally woke up to my reality, As that wretched red mist cleared, my surroundings were finally revealed. At first, I became aware of an annoying hovering buzz – Invisible but audible. As my eyes adjusted to where I was, I could swear I saw a cluster of microscopic drones leave my body! ‘Oh, you are awake!’ I heard a familiar voice say. I instinctively realised where the voices in my head originated from and why I thought I was going crazy. Next to me in similar pods wherein identical bodies like mine were attached to, one of them spoke directly to me! ‘I tried to warn you but you were too stubborn to listen. We’ve got to get out of here before dear Marsh returns to command more drones to replicate me’ – But who are you? I don’t understand. ‘What do mean?’

‘It’s me, my name is Rachel.’

What? Impossible! I am Rachel!

‘Calm down dear – We are all Rachel…’

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/part-three-the-institute.mp3

The Pink Forest

Cream screams ruby dreams Strange happenings White skies blood cries Yellow wailing soul Destroying – Hark the pink Lark spreading false truths Growing strange fruits Falling on sour earth burning Barren soil to reveal new growth Where strange sounds can be Heard – A fluttering of falling birds A spluttering of green rain fauna and flora in pain – Get out go back retreat attack leave retrieve collect reflect. You are not needed here – This is our new sphere. No, go! A broken nation shattered moral Compass – You could have prevented this…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-pink-forest-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Heated chambers roil with entrancing little bugs, creeping out the little ladies who refuse to look because their mascara will collapse like tar. Whipping off my myopia, I alone am delighted. If I could crawl through to dance with the motley harbingers of the abnormal, I would squeeze myself onto the slide, no regrets, and wave to my companions, who aren’t looking at me; me, happy at last, fitting in, dancing on a glass yacht.

-Elizabeth Moura

Finding Your Place

Paint peeling From ancient walls Reveals nothing of note. But the preserved picture, Of three parallel trees, once bespoke

By some Now unknown admirer Of the arts, Leaves behind enough, perhaps, To inspire a new start.

Finally, The patron, artist and Onlooker may know The unparalleled merit of Their respective roles.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/findingyourplace.m4a

-st

Frailty

is the strength to put one foot in front of another against the gust.

is endurance of pain you inhale and exhale as you catch your breath.

is a tree growing on ground known to dissolve beneath the roots as a short life is lived.

is the sharp, severe loss of mam and dad as your bones ask for a hug from the disappeared.

-Paul Brookes

Tanks

Lilies, petal wrapped, their colour smiles in water’s drift.

A summer’s dreamer, her flowers are purple rain catchers.

Tanks: ancient reservoirs, lilies far as sight permits.

Under chlorophyll isles drift tangled fronds where swimmers weave their cool green, hydraulic dreams.

Elephants drink here and stick legged avians break journeys. To stand pensive, in these time worn water fields.

Marvel at floating leaves, whose island dreams and water songs, play rippling gently.

In the distance where lilies meet sky: A white chalk bright Stupa topped with Buddha head spike, pierces the unbroken blue.

Once neolithic mounds to hold our dead, now giants of brick and stone… who bow their heads to passing flowers and greenway archipelagos.

To drink a deep fill, a quench of lake water.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/tanks.m4a

Da doo Ra Ra ran

cowardly sun god sperm cell suffers performance anxiety; flees from opportunity — future world goes dark

-Rich Follett

I will remember lily pads. Each floating universe resting on time, itself, water like time, like the streams of an eternal reoccurrence. Every poem is permitted one act of being unnecessarily outlandish, every life is permitted one or two acts of being unnecessarily outlandish. Outlandish is not the word I am looking for, here. There are other words, of course, words like lily pad, to describe what I am seeing. ( , .)

-Alex Mazey

Established

As children, weren’t we all beguiled by water lilies? I was sure the little rafts were stepping stones for traipsing Across, Sufficient to Support my weight.

Although they are well-established, Rooted deep Beneath water bodies, on the surface They are delicate creatures, It seems.

You once asked if We wanted to keep trying To put the tent pegs in, Only to have them continue to Slip out again.

I’m grateful I learned the difference between Solid and superficial, and that we, too, can be fastened Tight to the ground, More securely established Than I might’ve imagined.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/established.m4a

-st

the lily pond.

go down along the coast through the village and up the hill

find the lily pond miles from anyone

you will find creatures among the plants and reverie

some are tadpoles come recently

while others spawn later

this is the magic that some have forgotten with all their money and sexual innuendos

the small plane still flies over most days

-sbm

The first escape

We were lucky, when the fire came for us. A murmur of orange, mumming grey dust – in the night-ashes from the grate, their bucket on the porch. The bloom must have been beautiful, I thought, a thing come to life when our eyes were all closed. In the morning, one wall of the house was croaking with blisters, toadskin paint still slick with the rain. With persuasion from a disobedient finger, they popped, and the stink of the fire was alive inside each one. Even at five, I set free a lot of near-death. Tiny craters left behind, none yet satisfied with a sacrifice.

-Ankh Spice

The Institute (Part Four)

The Prequel – ‘ Welcome back Mr and Mrs Sullivan, I finally have the news you’ve been waiting for. One of our cloned samples has survived the delicate procedure. However, it will have to grow here until its fifth birthday, Just to ensure total success. After all, we owe it to you to return a perfect specimen. Have you decided on a name yet?’ Ah yes, her name will be Rachel. We trust that you will do your best, doctor…

Dear Self – It’s me, Rachel. You don’t know me yet but I somehow know who you are. I saw you in a memory not even born yet but quite significant to my survival. I finally left that strange place, after getting rid of my overly attentive nurse – A bit too keen for my liking! The more I insisted for her to leave me alone, the more she repeated, ‘There, there my dear child, Nurse Marsh will take very good care of you, after all we will be together for five years!

Homecoming – Dear Self, I am in my new home. The Sullivans are weird but I cannot complain. Five years is long to wait for a new home. I made sure my new mother understood when I jabbed my finger deep into one eye and just giggled about it – It felt good, even though father had to call for help. Are you still there, hello?

-Don Beukes

Of Man Of Dust

Buses are butterflies all blue and gold Blind Mary and I catch one to the black glass wedding

young, dead Lozzy comes walks on water down the canal bright and shiny like a new kitchen surface

the man’s landrover is a poisonous lily packed with dust of death climbs out of the lily dust flying like red flour

politest of men. Pardon me, young Lady to Blind Mary who coughs, overcome by dust

lozzy, my poor dead son a vacuum cleaner with severe asthma inhales the man of dust and knows what it means.

man of dusts’ minder of water floods the vacuum cleaner lozzy coughs splutters.

Blind Mary’s wedding gift, a carved coal elephant inhales.

sprays water over his back, as if having a wash

black dust billows. black mingles with red dust.

lozzy vacuums up the man of dust disposes of him in the Place of No Breath

and if the dust meets breath,

life. dust waits.

-Paul Brookes

Cento

The small plane still flies over

tiny craters left behind rooted deep beneath water bodies.

A summer’s dreamer, her flowers are purple rain catchers.

walks on water down the canal bright and shiny like a new kitchen surface/

heart of stone

all through the millenia all egbert wanted was to play with the other statues

-Rich Follett

.pensive.

a quizzical look grey frowns the brow wrinkles

did it do wrong neutered into submission wandering lost the way

she said she will trap it send it away her aggressive with the lockdown

envious of solitude exploding with anger

red threads could bind us

-sbm

Who Are You

A life of consequences. The whole thing a slight of hand… I cannot see me, doubt anyone can.

Never to know my name, or purpose hidden behind. Mendacity my gift and I my own victim. My light is not the illuminating kind.

A life spent hide and seeking, the deeper I look the darker my lairs.

I nearly met on one or two occasions, not yet being quite there.

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/who-are-you.m4a

I recall a dark room at English Heritage, a documentary showing an eight-to-ten-minute introductory guide to big castle, wherever. This is, perhaps, a simulated experience, curated with panoramic cinematography – available in the gift shop for nine-ninety-five. Every time, I find these dark rooms – showing a documentary, I sit there for eight-to-ten-minutes, thoroughly enjoying the space, imagining my life as an informative documentary; a screen wipe.

-Alex Mazey

The Walk

Few find the shrifted forest – a wanderer feels their gait well weighed by trees and rock to find how great the need for succour-paths. If your feet, as heavy as they are, will carry you for another week, a day, an hour through the loosened sharps of the vale some trivial thing will call you to your walking-on. When the wet green hands of sentinels wing a creature through this breach its count of given steps was done and done. And we could do much worse than to stop it here we beasts who have been treading so stilted since first we fell. Far worse than to drop to our knees on this cushion of needles beneath an unsuspected kindness of stones. Sometimes you don’t see how much they love you until their face is watching you leave. The last walk done, and I’ll go laughing, all thin- skin shiver in the warm wet breath of the rock that has turned these bones, has spun us on and on, every day since we arrived. She gave us milk from the dirt of her body. Every day opened the door to the walk. You mourn your pets like family.

-Ankh Spice

The Spectre

You see me as a hideous invasive enemy oddity but I see you as an existential anomaly hoping to remain free but it is not meant to be – Your insatiable sensational lust for self-gratification revealed your selfish nature neglecting your intended function to willingly and selflessly nurture but you have proven time and time again your expected failure to prove your worth as a temporary fleeting organism on a planet only meant to temporarily tolerate your inherited generations –

Your neglect of each other and your dismissal of of obvious signs and revelations in your darkest dreams and ruby screams did not deter you from darkening your absorbent soul as you hunted for monetary riches, damning those who you deemed unnecessary in an existence you craved to have total dominance in unable to foresee you failed legacy.

This is your final hour as your essence will be ended – You do not deserve to be awarded this precious Earthly existence so forget your expected inheritance…

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/the-spectre-mp3.mp3

-Don Beukes

Release

Looking at the red sky All I see is you The ground trembles as I try To hug the earth like glue Closing my eyes struggling not to cry Your angelic face fills my view As I let go, my body wants to fly and search for you in the heavenly blue

-Carrie Ann Golden

#MF 16

The nightmares and dreams of children are carved of the same stone; they are massive. Even the friendliest glower, because of their weight. All through their lives, these stones follow all the children who ever were. As adults, the stones loom, smaller in size, but heavier, pressing down on hearts and minds which don’t believe in dreams or nightmares, but are certain of death.

#16

American bullet, barreling out, like an asteroid racing to a pre-mediated hit. It is red hot. It knows its way. A finger has shot out before it. It points. Like a diseased god, it chooses.

-Elizabeth Moura

Draw me to the eye Center us down together Stillness in your storm

https://thewombwellrainbow.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/day-16-haiku-st.m4a

-st

The heart of a tree is a crack in time.

A glimpse across galaxies linked by wormholes in xylem.

This giant is fallen: a window on eternity exposed,

though the roots still live. Here – delicate in rotten bark – sapling.

Time is the crack in a tree’s heart.

-Yvonne Marjot

The Lion

I am Hunger and look for a prey. No animal, big or small, as far as I can see.

I find a big cave, There must be some animal here. If so, come evening it will return I will hide myself in the cave and when it returns, pounce on it and have a good meal.

Sun begins to set, I hear a voice “Hello cave, I am your friend here.”

I do not reply “Hello cave, don’t you remember the arrangement we made? I have to shout when I arrive and you will ask me to come in. Without your green signal I do not enter the cave. Since you are silent, I will go to some other cave.”

Ah, there seems to be an arrangement between the cave and this animal. Let me get him into my trap. I will shout back a welcome to him and he will walk in happily.”

I roar, “Hi jackal, come in. You are welcome.”

Nothing happens. Nothing happens

My stomach is an empty cave full of echoes.

-Paul Brookes

Cento

You do not deserve to be awarded this precious earthly existence so forget your expected inheritance… Stillness in your storm

Bios and Links

-Alex Mazey

(b.1991) received his MA (distinction) from Keele University in 2017. He later won The Roy Fisher Prize for Poetry with his debut pamphlet, ‘Bread and Salt’ (Flarestack, TBA). He was also the recipient of a Creative Future Writers’ Award in 2019. His poetry has featured regularly in anthologies and literary press magazines, most notably in The London Magazine. His collection of essays, ‘Living in Disneyland’, will be available from Broken Sleep Books in October 2020. Alex spent 2018 as a resident of The People’s Republic of China, where he taught the English Language in a school run by the Ministry of Education. His writing has been described as ‘wry and knowing,’ with ‘an edge that tears rather than cuts or deals blows.’

Twitter: @AlexzanderMazey

Instagram: alexmazey

Here is my interview of Alex:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/12/18/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-alex-mazey/

-Rich Follett

is a High School English and Creative Writing teacher who has been writing poems and songs for more than forty years. His poems have been featured in numerous online and print journals, including BlazeVox, The Montucky Review, Paraphilia, Leaf Garden Press and the late Felino Soriano’s CounterExample Poetics, for which he was a featured artist. Three volumes of poetry, Responsorials (with Constance Stadler), Silence, Inhabited, and Human &c. are available through NeoPoiesis Press (www.neopoiesispress.com.)

As a singer-songwriter, Rich has released five albums of independent contemporary folk music. His latest. Somewhere in the Stars, is available at http://www.richfollett.com. He lives with his wife Mary Ruth Alred Follett in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he also pursues his interests as a professional actor, playwright, and director.

-Ankh Spice

is a sea-obsessed poet from Aotearoa (NZ). His poetry has appeared in a wide range of international publications and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He truly believes that words have the power to change the place we’re in, and you’ll find him doing his best to prove it on

Twitter: @SeaGoatScreams or on Facebook: @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry

-Carrie Ann Golden

is a deafblind writer from the mystical Adirondack Mountains now living on a farmstead in northeastern North Dakota. She writes dark fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in places like Piker Press, Edify Fiction, Doll Hospital Journal, The Hungry Chimera, GFT Press, Asylum Ink, and Visual Verse.

-sonja benskin mesher

born , Bournemouth.

now

lives and works in North Wales as an independent artist

‘i am a multidisciplinary artist, crafting paint, charcoal, words and whatever comes to hand, to explain ideas and issues

words have not come easily. I draw on experience, remember and write. speak of a small life’.

Elected as a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy and the United Artists Society The work has been in solo exhibitions through Wales and England, and in selected and solo worldwide. Much of the work is now in both private, and public collections, and has been featured in several television documentaries, radio programmes and magazines.

Here is my interview of sonja benskin mesher:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2018/10/16/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-sonja-benskin-mesher/

-Samantha Terrell

is an American poet whose work emphasizes emotional integrity and social justice. She is the author of several eBooks including, Learning from Pompeii, Coffee for Neanderthals, Disgracing Lady Justice and others, available on smashwords.com and its affiliates.Chapbook: Ebola (West Chester University Poetry Center, 2014)

Website: poetrybysamantha.weebly.com Twitter: @honestypoetry

Here is my 2020 interview of her:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2020/04/08/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-samantha-terrell/

-Don Beukes

is a South African and British writer. He is the author of ‘The Salamander Chronicles’ (CTU) and ‘Icarus Rising-Volume 1’ (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, editor of Scarlet Leaf Review for the ‘Best of the Net’ in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology ‘In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection’ in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second ‘Cape Sounds’ in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing). He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’/Thus Passes the Glory of this World’ is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.

Here is my interview of Don Beukes:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/11/02/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-don-beukes/

-Dai Fry

is an old new poet. He worked in social care but now has no day job. A keen photographer and eater of literature and lurid covers. Fascinated by nature, physics, pagans, sea and storm. His poetry seeks to capture image and tell philosophical tales. Published in Black Bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore Press and the Pangolin Review. He can be seen reading on #InternationalPoetryCircle and regularly appears on #TopTweetTuesday. Twitter. @thnargg Web seekingthedarklight.co.uk

Audio/Visual. @IntPoetryCircle #InternationalPoetryCircle Twitter #TopTweetTuesday

-Elizabeth Moura

lives in a converted factory and works with elders. She has had poetry, flash fiction or photographs published in online and print publications Human/Kind Journal, Rose Quartz Poetry Magazine, Hawk & Whippoorwill, The Cormorant, Radical: A Lit Zine, Chrysanthemum, Occulum, Flash, Paragraph Planet, and Flash Fiction Magazine. On Twitter @mourapoet, Instagram mourathepoet and mourastudio.wordpress.com.

-Yvonne Marjot

is a lost kiwi, now living on a Scottish island. She has been making up stories and poems for as long as she can remember. Her first volume of poetry, The Knitted Curiosity Cabinet, won the Brit Writers Award for poetry in 2012. She has published four novels and a book of short stories. Twitter handle: @alayanabeth

-Paul Brookes

is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). The Headpoke and Firewedding (Alien Buddha Press, 2017), A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Port Of Souls (Alien Buddha Press, 2018), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), Stubborn Sod, with Marcel Herms (artist) (Alien Buddha Press, 2019), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). Forthcoming Khoshhali with Hiva Moazed (artist), Our Ghost’s Holiday (Final book of threesome “A Pagan’s Year”) . He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews.

-Mary Frances

is an artist and writer based in the UK. She takes a few photos every day, for inspiration and to use in her work. The images for this project were all taken in the last two years on walks during in the month of May. Her words and images have been published by Penteract Press, Metambesen, Ice Floe Press, Burning House Press, Inside the Outside, Luvina Rivista Literaria, and Lone Women in Flashes of Wilderness. Twitter: @maryfrancesness

-James Knight

is an experimental poet and digital artist. His books include Void Voices (Hesterglock Press) and Self Portrait by Night (Sampson Low). His visual poems have been published in several places, including the Penteract Press anthology Reflections and Temporary Spaces (Pamenar Press). Chimera, a book of visual poems, is due from Penteract Press in July 2020.

Website: thebirdking.com.

Twitter: @badbadpoet

Here is my interview of James Knight:

https://thewombwellrainbow.com/2019/01/06/wombwell-rainbow-interviews-james-knight/

-Sue Harpham

is an admin worker, currently not in work Married, 2 sons. Loves poetry and words. She considers herself a writer of scribble rather than a poet. She has written a novel and is using her spare time to finally get it published (self-publishing) which has been an ambition of her for the last 10 years.

The Collected Special Ekphrastic Challenge for May 2020. The First Sixteen Days. Artworks from Mary Frances, James Knight and Sue Harpham the inspiration for writers: Alex Mazey, Ankh Spice, Samantha Terrell, Dai Fry, Carrie Ann Golden, sonja benskin mesher, Rich Follett, Don Beukes, Yvonne Marjot, and Paul Brookes Acknowledgements Thankyou to Jane Cornwell for designing the front cover. May 1 ..looks like you are drowning..

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