Two Poems by iDrew

iBirth

last week i gave birth
to the apprehension
that everything in the garden
wasn't rosy when you stopped
bringing me flowers
the way you used to do every week
you said the florist had closed
and you've yet to find another

(it seemed to me
you were starting to get good
with excuses)

the other night i gave birth
to the thought
you was losing interest
when you fell asleep
undressing me
you said you'd been doing
double shifts

(i think i now know what that means)

last night i conceived
another notion
you've been seeing some one else
an idea i couldn't abort
as it grew and grew inside me
so like in the film alien
this foetus was ready to explode
desperate
i sent a text to every girls' name
in your phone

you never said
you had a sister
who's now convinced that
you've got herpes and something else
grossly unpleasant

(now i'm giving birth to pups
that you'll walk out saying you've had enough)



iPang

i run to tell you i love you
but you chose to escape on wings
into an imagination
a nonchalant expression
a side step
so i crashed into the wall
head on

i told myself
be strong girl
wrote to the fairies
for guidance
all they just gave me
other people's teeth

so i used them to devotionally
eat your soul your thoughts
your pulse your fingers
until i'm full of you

and i want it all
to occupy me
in the silence of a dream where
i too am consumed and we
smile at each other across
a candle lit table


Writing under the name of iDrew to co-ordinate with her titles, Essex girl Drew has previously been published in various magazines both on-line and in print.  She is also a Pushcart nominee.  She enjoys shopping, boys and clubs but claims these are all merely research for her writing.  She is also one of the founding members of the Clueless Collective and can be found at:  www.cluelesscollective.co.uk

A Poem by Richard Schnap

Domestic Dispute

His storm trooper voice
Bellowed downstairs
As she meekly cried out
For some miracle of mercy

I cowered in my room
As outside the sky
Filled with the darkness
of black-hearted clouds

His anger seemed endless
As I heard the dull thud
Of something thrown against
The thin, brittle wall

While the frail, little nest
In the tree near my window
Was seized by the wind
And helplessly blown away


Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally, and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

Two Poems by Sarah Flint

Missing

It hung there
Invisible but palpable:
The bit missing.

The absence of a warm touch,
A glance, a thought spun out
And captured in our hands.

My thought.  Your thought.
An imperceptible similarity
That knitted and knotted us together.

Now the thread hangs and swings
Empty, weightless and cold in the sea breeze.
The absence of your presence is like

Peter Pan's cut off shadow against the cliff
But I need it sown back on
Like I need a hole in the head.


The Book

He's a closed book.
A hard back cover of control
Hides his story
Until a grin flashes across his face
Like lightening
And I hear the pages rustle.
A deep salty kiss lets me taste
The text with my tongue.
Later
In the sweet sweat of bed sheets
I gently prise open the cover and
Start to unstick the pages
His gift:
He lies wide open for me to read.
But it's a short story:
I hear the slap of the book closing
Before I reach the end.

Sarah Flint lives in the West Country of the UK and for several years has written about diverse interests including gardening, cooking and climbing.  At present she likes to write poetry.  She enjoys playing with words and tries to put them in an interesting order.  Her poetry has been published by The Pygmy Giant, Message in a Bottle, and she has been runner-up in the Mountaineering Council of Scotland poetry competition.

A Poem by Shawn Aveningo

black widows & divorce

tiny teeth, sneaky even.
pain so slow to announce its arrival,
it wasn't until days later
           a palpitation, a tightening,
           an ache that rode in like a surfer
           catching the final wave,
did I realize something
           was wrong.

twenty four years is a long time.
I guess I needed more Bactine
            to continue to numb the sting,
or valium.

they say she's territorial,
waits patiently for her prey.
but her mark
            undeniably sinister
a permanent scar.

eventually the skin toughens.
that final wave goodbye
doesn't cut
            the flesh
nearly as deep as you thought
it would.

Shawn Aveningo is an internationally published multi-award-winning poet who founded the Verse on the Vine poetry show.  She has authored five poetry books and has performed in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Sausalito, Sacramento and St. Louis.  Her work has been published in over 50 anthologies, literary journals and e-zines, includinge Pirene's Fountain, Nefarious Ballerina, Convergence, Poetry now, Tule Review, and Haunted Waters Press Quarterly.  She's a Show-Me girl from Missouri, a Summa Cum Laude graduate from University of Maryland and a very proud mother of three.  And she absolutely loves shoes -- red ones! (www.RedShoePoet.com)

A Poem by Paul Tristram

Doubtful

I watched a grey squirrel
in the park
scamper and jump around
like a lunatic
trying to shake off
yesterday’s shadow.
The poor thing
really seemed
to be in a bad mood.
“How curious!” I mumbled
quietly to myself
as I left by the side gate,
into the back lanes
to avoid you.

Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.

A Poem by Brenton Booth

For Her

 

This is not a poem

it’s a seahorse

       a mountain

       a stone tablet screaming

this is not a poem

it’s a cigarette butt

       a barking poodle

       a flag at half mast

this is not a poem

it’s a rainbow

       a Sunday afternoon

       a resurrecting needle

this is not a poem

it’s a white shirt

       a dancing caterpillar

       a careful whisper

this is not a poem

it’s a summer day

       a rubber tyre

       a frozen memory

this is not a poem

it’s just a succession  

of words before I say:

I’m sorry.

 

 

 

Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry and fiction of his has appeared in many small press publications including Van Gogh's Ear, Scissors and Spackle, Thunder Sandwich, Luciferous, 3:AM Magazine, Regardless of Authority, Dogzplot, The Kitchen Poet, Gutter Eloquence, The Stray Branch, Black Listed Magazine and Storm Cycle.

Three Poems by Joanna M. Weston

Never Again Hand in Hand
       
from the fir a whisper
the click of the answering machine

the mutations of a glacier
his girl wore running shoes

tangled spears of grass hay fields
wind takes the veil from her head

feathers strewn across the carpet
these letters written years ago

we are better strangers than friends
initials carved on a fence post

a crow drops twigs on the roof
phone call from another continent



What We Can Forget

a hammer to the mirror
and our memories shatter

five-finger exercises sharpen
her broken nails to pencils

eyes shaded from seeing
the way kindling fails fire

the scream of seagulls
with no candle-lit dinner

cuts stitched and bound
after anger’s evening

kisses piled into bins
our caresses written in dust



We Made Winter

out of spring
churned cold words
in the room

lit fires
stoked them
with angry logs

heated
against the chill
of our hearts

felt ice on skin
and walked
into the blizzard

JOANNA M. WESTON. Married; has two cats, multiple spiders, a herd of deer, and two derelict hen-houses.  Her middle-reader, ‘Those Blue Shoes', published by Clarity House Press; and poetry, ‘A Summer Father’, published by Frontenac House of Calgary. Her eBooks found at her blog: http://www.1960willowtree.wordpress.com/