THE LIGHTS STILL ON, MOTHER
Majena Mafe
l
(and the broad pain in her chest / stop’n her still, seep'ns through her and sinks into her lap unfolding a great breadth of darkened bright warmth and a sweetness which fills all of her immediate. In her rising, falling drops through her knees to the ground of her floor and curles around her brown toes lapping there like too much honey is right) ... no further
... a broad pain
ll
(and in approach'n her still'n / her fingers grow ever long. and spool words. that lay in her lap upturned across valleys of dull wool, skirting up and over the rise of her thighs they swell’n and wheel’n from her palms out and over the space that is still inside her. their whiteness milks all the aglow a glow and lisps at the gasping shift between the no wall and her. stumble and still they pour on pouring. words. till the whole of around her is fold. their eternal moistened cupping the dark and the smoke and of her and her. all of her. quietly throbbing. elongating. moving out and out)
lll
(and she reaches into her folds / then and parts them and from elbow deep within her pulls there out something so bright she falls back as shadow, the beast / the straw floor / the stone wall all still. all reek'n with the aglow of her iron blood and the birth breaths of moments never repeated. her tongue rises to the rafters of height and hangs here eternity blessing possibilities. outside old men piss themselves and worry about tomorrows. and the whole of her eyes fill with the bright/bright and her arms nestle, her own milk and the lapping of lips. and dew and down. and kiss when she kissed it, the burn seals her lips and the awash there inside her is here.) here.
Majena Mafe is an Australian writer and artist living in France at the base of the Pyrenees Mountains. Her work comes from a base of the fabulous. She write hybrid texts with unnatural narratives with an interest in championing women's voices and the frames of storytelling that are our roots. She has completed an MPhil on Gertrude Stein and mysticism, and a PhD on the notion of love in Gertrude Stein’s generative language. Her work has been published in Shampoo, Gargoyle 50, How2, Delirious Hem, Cloe Outskirts Journal and Enoagh Journal.
In the Hour Before Silvery Dawn
Jean Janicke
Staring into the darkness from the white rocking chair
in the hour before the silvery dawn traces the trees,
no sign of humans but my reflection in the window–
the birdsong said the darkness is not empty.
I thought the pieces could not be put back together–
not enough glue, and one missing shard.
The waves of song changed the equation
from one part loss to two parts life goes on.
Now every spring when the first note sounds
arrival from their long journey north, I add
a simple incantation, “they’re here, they’re here,”
in gratitude for the songs in the dark.
Jean Janicke is an economist, coach, and writer living in Washington, DC. Her work has appeared in MockingHeart Review, Green Ink Poetry, and The Orchard Poetry Journal.
TripTik
Kathy Whitham
I followed the roads.
Made up more
to swaddle me.
Roads too tight
to cradle me,
numbed me invisible.
I’ve traveled all this way
to get to the beginning.
Used up all the gas.
Collected coats of dust.
And maybe
I was always
just a spider hanging
from a thinspun thread
alive and here
with time to spare
as moonlight splashed
like milk across my face.
Kathy Whitham is an active member of the Boston writing community, having worked with leading teachers in the area, including Barbara Helfgott Hyett, Tom Daley and Eric Hyett. A registered nurse turned Parenting Coach, with a focus on non-traditional families, her poems explore human connection in its myriad forms. She recently finalized a chapbook collection, Drawing The Big Dipper, and current work has appeared in What the Poem Knows, A Tribute to Barbara Helfgott Hyett. She can be found at parentingbeyondwords.com.
Grief is wider than the sky
by Lesley Rogers Hobbs
I drove to California to bury my failures
in river soil surrounded
by the world’s tallest trees – sequoia sempervirens;
my troubles wilted in Hyperion’s shadow.
I prepared each abandoned dream for private
burial, tucked one in the hollow of a dead oak,
drowned another in Klamath River and left
the largest at the shore for the crabs to devour.
For three days I waked my spent desires
among sea stacks, caressed anemones
quivering in secluded tide pools, watched
brown pelicans dive between waves.
Each evening, I attended the haze-shrouded sunset,
a whisper of orange warning that darkness approached.
When I left, I drove east expecting sunrise and found
nothing but endless redwoods kissing the gray dawn.
Lesley Rogers Hobbs (she/her) is an Irish poet and artist living in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and service dog. Her work is inspired by long walks, the human condition and all things Celtic. She loves popcorn, sunshine, Pink Floyd and the ocean. Her poetry is (or will be) published in The Hyacinth Review, Querencia Press and Cirque.
Gray Sky
by Marianne Brems
The gray sky swells and recedes,
sways in a dance of its own
as it darkens then lightens then back again,
with or without rain.
It withholds and releases showers
at whim,
a game with no rules,
no predictability,
timing occurring on the fly
with no concern
for picnic plans
or laundry hung
or even levels of groundwater.
Marianne Brems is the author of three poetry chapbooks from Finishing Line Press: Sliver of Change (2020), Unsung Offerings (2021), and In Its Own Time (forthcoming in 2023). Her poems have also appeared in literary journals including The Bluebird Word, Front Porch Review, Remington Review, and Green Ink Poetry. She lives, cycles, and swims in Northern California. Website: www.mariannebrems.com.
morning
Emily Freeborn
bones sigh
as thoughts rise
with time-lapsed vigour.
the black vines of night die,
and angels stand
side-by-side,
hot-wired by light.
Emily Freeborn lives, works and writes in the New Forest in Hampshire, England. Her poetry explores the wilderness in all its forms, peeling open the everyday, the overseen, to reveal something more brutal, more beautiful, more eternal. Emily was long-listed for this years’ Cinnamon Press pamphlet awards and is currently working on a collection of poetry which explores the surviving aspects of witchcraft in local horse husbandry.
Decluttering
Carol Despeaux Fawcett
My new cleaner says it looks like
a teenage girl lives here—pink sparkle lights,
purple lava lamp, dolphins, teddy bears.
Thanks, I say. It’s only taken me
four and a half years to find myself:
6-going-on-16-going-on-60.
I tell her it took that long
to sort through all your things—
polo shirts with pockets for your
gadgets and reading glasses,
floatation tank that died the year before you did,
the fedora I gave you for Christmas
that you never got to wear,
jeans too big once the cancer
started eating you up.
Birthday, anniversary cards,
love notes I wish you’d dated—
as if numbers could make you real again—
stored in an art box, along with promises
of future adventures.
I even saved the words you spoke.
Filed them away in a secret room in my heart—
words that built me up, others that started
when you found out you were dying—
bitter, lashing words directed
at me but not for me.
Left with the ghosts of your words furling
and unfurling like sails, I live in this place
where longing and relief
have become uneasy roommates.
Carol Despeaux Fawcett lives in the Pacific Northwest and earned her MFA degree from Goddard College. She is an award-winning poet published in 34 Orchard, Isele Magazine, Birdhouse Magazine, Jeopardy, Between the Lines, Exhibition Magazine, Pitkin Review, and other journals. Her memoir and her poetry have won first place in the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Contest and her work-in-progress, a fantasy novel, was a finalist. She received a poetry grant from Return to Creativity and published her first book of poems, “The Dragon and The Dragonfly.” Learn more about her writing at www.cdfawcett.com. Her interests include paddle boarding, camping, the mystical, and orange cats.
windswept
Elizabeth Cohen
who gave you permission to run
around the house like this
go up on the roof, yelling
destabilize the woodpile
take apart the forest
grab all these sticks and leaves
stir up the loose skin
of the mesa, turn the river red
and confuse the dog
leave her trembling and confused
there is that sound that is the sound
of things bending and cracking
how is that ok?
you unleash
the world, loading this river
with plastic bags
who invited you to come over
and pour yourself a bowl
of Albuquerque
top it with elm seeds
all the pollen that makes people
miserable
but the dunes by the airport
fancy-swirled
and the clouds above, similarly
fashioned
when “windswept” becomes artisan
ornate. bespoke. ridiculously
sweet
those places where you meet light
and explode
so many teensy diamonds
of shiny, invincible
sand
Elizabeth Cohen is a writer, editor, journalist, mama, and dog person who hails from New Mexico. She is the author of five books of poetry, a memoir, a book of short stories, and a co-authored book about the first Navajo woman surgeon. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia and recently retired from her position as a professor of English from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh to work on her writing and as a full-time book coach. Her newest book of poems, Martini Tattoo, was published in the fall of 2022 from Alien Buddha Press.