Monthly Archives: February 2016

Prayer by Phil Wood

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by in poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Prayer

This mushroom bloom of bliss
the sky’s moon-bold breeze-free
and all those bones beneath
the stones begin to kiss.

We’re not afraid to drown
into the rasp of rain
into the wave to clasp
a river’s swirling crown.

Beneath the mother tree
seeding a leafy prayer
and all our skins bead blue
in tattoos of filigree.

Consume an ancient brew
to bind in keening whisper
to climb above the dell
and all with moon-eyes flew.

Beyond the water’s verse
that dance of bone with stone
that flutter of bold leaf
embrace our wanting thirst.

Phil Wood works in a statistics office. He enjoys working with numbers and words. Published work can be found in various publications including: Clear Poetry, London Grip, The Lampeter Review, The Black Sheep Journal, The Open Mouse.

Princesses: Where are they now? (Part six: Aladdin / Jasmine) by Sarah Thomasin

27 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in flash fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

CN: sexual abuse referenced in this flash fiction

Princesses: Where are they now?
(Part six: Aladdin / Jasmine)

She was 12 the first time Jafar tried to force her father into betrothing her to him, and though she knew well enough it was power he was after, the way he looked at her: mocking, arrogant, acquisitive, made her want to scrub her skin raw. By the time she was 15 she’d felt more than his eyes on her body. She tried not to be alone in the palace, got out when she could. That’s where she met him. A boy almost her own age who saw her as a companion, not a possession. No wonder she’d been smitten.

She wonders now if she didn’t move too fast. An irrational fear that Jafar might somehow come back had made her keen to marry, to be off the market. When the infatuation wore off, she realised all she wanted from Aladdin was friendship.

Their sex life foundered early. It was hard for her to relax, to trust. Flashbacks left her sobbing in his arms. To his credit he was patient, hid his frustration. Tried not to pressure her.

Now he’s Sultan, he’s taken a second wife, Arzoo, a sweet, light-eyed girl with a sex drive that matches his. She’s happy for them both, and enjoys their closeness. Sometimes they snuggle, all three together, and read stories, eat sweetmeats and laugh all night. Other nights she curls up alone in her chamber, happy knowing they’ll keep each other entertained till dawn. She loves them both a lot.

Arzoo is filling out, she’s noticed lately. She hopes the baby will be a little girl. She knows Aladdin always wanted a daughter. And if it is, Jasmine will keep her safe, make sure she always has a refuge in her second mother’s chamber.

She won’t let anyone harm a hair on her head.

Sarah Thomasin is a performance poet living in Sheffield. As well as saying poems out loud at every opportunity, they have had poems published in Now Then magazine, and in two English Pen collections, three Pankhearst Slim Volume anthologies (No Love Lost, Wherever You Roam, and This Body I Live In), The Sheffield Anthology (poems from the city imagined) and Poems For the Queer Revolution. They were also commissioned to create a limerick quiz about gender which appears in Kate Bornstein’s My New Gender Workbook. You can find Sarah online at www.sarahthomasin.com.

The Piper Took the People by Jane Burn

26 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by in poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

The Piper Took the People

Old man, he calls them to the path of light.
Hurdy-gurdy music counts them in, tine
by metal tine; the grinding clockwork calls
to a vanished throng. Shoulders hunched beneath
a blanket skin - exposed to scribbled air.
Here in the shadow, he mutters the tune
to unlit doors. Be wary of the sun –
the Piper took the people, the houses
lean to listen for their laughter; hear the
vanished echo of the voices. Gone
to the end of never, gone to the end
of the road; gnarling on the handle, who
will listen - will fill these windows with faces?
Call for cheer in the taverns, bring boot-steps back
to cobbles? Who will open up and sing?

Jane Burn is a North East based writer and artist. Her poems have been published in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies. Her first pamphlet, Fat Around The Middle was published in 2915 by Talking Pen. She also established the online magazine The Fat Damsel in this year.

zeus by Anne Mild

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by in poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

zeus

you rolled into my life like
late-summer thunder
tossing my hair
and breaking my limbs

shocking me with the suddenness
of your smile

i wanted only to cut a lemon,
squeeze its sourness on
the ragged-cut edges of the leaves
to keep the world from turning brown.

but tomorrow kept stealing moments from us
and you were gone
just as sudden as you came

leaving only the rising scent
of blacktop after a heavy rain
and me,

wishing you would have been here
for my spring.

Anne Mild is a twenty-something student with too many notebooks and not enough quiet. She likes alpacas, her pug, and space. In her spare time she works towards earning a graduate degree in History and making the perfect soup.

Ariadne in Married Life by Stephen Bone

21 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by in poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Ariadne in Married Life

The spiral, serpentine,
the classic unicursal. Since Crete
he’s grown a passion for such things.

Each evening finds him silent
at his board, an endless perfecting
of blind alleys, falsely hopeful paths,
his dog Daedalus – in the name of Zeus! -
curled by his feet.

While in my corner – all lovesickness
cured – I embroider with my flashing needle
the dear bull beast as I remember him. Snap
silk thread between my teeth.

Stephen Bone has been published in various journals in the UK and US. His first collection In the Cinema was published by Playdead Press in 2014.

Princesses: Where are they now? (Part five: Beauty and the Beast) by Sarah Thomasin

20 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in flash fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Princesses: Where are they now?
(Part five: Beauty and the Beast)

She’s aged well, the village gossips tell each other. Kept her figure too. Still lives up to her name. Such a pity, really, that she doesn’t make the most of it. So sad it never worked out with that lovely Prince. Or Gaston! Whatever happened to him? She had her pick! And now look! Still in her papa’s old tumbledown cottage (although it does look considerably smarter than it did in his day), still tinkering with his ridiculous contraptions (although the oven timer and shut off switch she sold the baker has cut down on accidents, and that what did she call it? Combine Scythe? She designed for the farm makes light work of harvest. In fact hardly a house in the village hasn’t got one of Belle’s inventions making life a little easier.

Oh, she’d loved the Beast, perhaps the way a captive loves her captor, just at first – nobody was calling it a healthy start to a relationship. But she’d come to love his roughness, the way his massive arms encircled her at night. The musky smell of his fur. His blazing eyes. When the spell was broken, and a pallid, blond youth stood in front of her… Well, it was safe to say the magic died.

He didn’t grudge her going. Their love had been real enough, while it lasted, to break the spell. For that he’d always be grateful.

She still visits the castle every now and then. More often than not to borrow a book.

She’s a funny girl, the village gossips say, because although her chestnut hair is streaked with grey now, to them she’ll always be little Beauty: the willful, bookish inventor’s daughter, who didn’t know a good thing when she had it.

Sarah Thomasin is a performance poet living in Sheffield. As well as saying poems out loud at every opportunity, they have had poems published in Now Then magazine, and in two English Pen collections, three Pankhearst Slim Volume anthologies (No Love Lost, Wherever You Roam, and This Body I Live In), The Sheffield Anthology (poems from the city imagined) and Poems For the Queer Revolution. They were also commissioned to create a limerick quiz about gender which appears in Kate Bornstein’s My New Gender Workbook. You can find Sarah online at www.sarahthomasin.com.

Cnut Raises His Hand by Marc Woodward

19 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by in poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Cnut Raises His Hand

Henry of Huntingdon, the 12th-century chronicler, tells how Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes; but the tide failed to stop. Cnut leapt backwards and said “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.” He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again.

There at the blowing edge of land
pushed forward in hope, they brought me
enthroned in gold on trickling sand.
The broad sky decreasing; the infinite sea.
Wind whinnying over the Marram dunes
its cold, striating, whiplash tunes.
I raise my hand to the thoughtless sea
where grey waves curl, collapse, build;
come back voracious, oblivious to me.

My throng at last stand quiet and still.
I lift my head, my eyes, I drop my hand:
No sea has stopped at my command.
A wooden cross will wear my golden crown,
while I before a truer King kneel down.

Epona by Kathryn King

17 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by in poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

Epona

When the kitchen is empty
and I sit alone
the gates open outward
the deadbolts are drawn.

I start like a grouse at the crackle of feet,
or a fox taking flight from the hound.

I ride a dun mare cross the mowing
high into the lavender hills,
where the song of the hermit thrush
melts through the trees,
and Scota waits, languid and low.

I am huntress,
I look to the stars.

Hours grow pensive
when I’m not alone-
my forest stands shattered;
my castle goes cold.

The old dog lies dreaming
while rain gathers full,
and chickadees quiver;
the dun mare is blind.

Kathryn King is a sometime artist and poet living in south-central Vermont. The natural world in all its various expressions is probably her greatest love, and the intricacies of human nature one of her greatest fascinations. She carries a short list in a shallow bucket – mostly it reads, ‘Shouldn’t you be outside?’

Rhiannon by Catherine Blackfeather

14 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by in flash fiction

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Rhiannon

All I see are my feet, as I slip and stumble on the mud-caked cobbles. My burden is heavy. I never look up. The hem of my queenly robe is soaked and heavy with mud. I don’t try to lift it up. I deserve to be here, a beast of burden. I, who once stepped through the mists between worlds, reining my King into myself, leading him by the rope of my own majesty.
To do my bidding.
The ground shifts under me and all is changed. How did I give myself away so easily? Taken and possessed, I am broken. My swift feet no longer fly effortlessly ahead of all who would have me, I am yoked to earth, and mud, and mocking laughter.
I killed my own gift that I birthed from out of myself. I taste the blood of my spirit-child on my lips. I am cursed.

But I will hunt for my stolen child. I will track him down. And when I face the afanc that snatched him from me, in a spell of drowsy unawareness, I will face it. I will stare into its eyes, and see myself looking back. And the chains will drop away. And I will fly free.

 

Catherine Blackfeather was born in Canada but grew up in England. She is a dancer, live storyteller and poet. With degrees in Theology and Welsh, folklorist Catherine Blackfeather shares folk-tales from around the world and writes her own new folk tales for 21st century audiences. She performs in her local community and as Dubhna Rhiadra in the virtual world, Second Life. She set up Storywrights for creative writing and storytelling workshops and regularly led multi-media performances of stories as part of a women’s performing Arts Festival in West Wales. Her book The Darkling Child and Other Stories will be released by Three Drops Press in September. Visit her online here: cathblackfeather.blogspot.co.uk

Princesses: Where are they now? (Part four: The Little Mermaid) by Sarah Thomasin

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by in flash fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Princesses: Where are they now?
(Part four: The Little Mermaid)

Ariel has now spent more of her time on land than she ever did as a mermaid. Even swimming with what her relatives see as her strange bifurcated tail hardly seems strange anymore. She does think of the speed and power she had as a mermaid. She can barely hold her breath more than a minute now, and her gills closed up long since. She knows her sisters still shake their heads and sigh over her – why would anyone choose a life like that? Choose to change their body, at such great risk? Especially anyone with the great good fortune to be born a princess of the sea! She can’t explain to them that she always knew where she belonged.

As queen, Ariel has made it her business to ensure her human subjects all know how to swim. She visits all the schools regularly to impress the basics of water safety on classes full of chattering children. Her own son, to his grandparents’ relief, takes after the leggy side of the family. (Although she was delighted to find, behind his little ears, tiny gill flaps.) Sebastian – named for a long dead friend – regularly swims down to visit his mother’s family. And though the mermaids laugh and tug his feet, he keeps on going back. Ariel knows the feeling of being in the wrong element. She’s ready to let Sebastian leave the land forever. But as the heir to the throne, she knows there’ll be a row with his father. She finds herself wondering if it’s not too late: another heir would solve the problem.

But oh! How she wishes she could still spawn like her mother had! Human pregnancy was not something she’d factored in. Mind you, for her husband, she’d still go through worse.

Sarah Thomasin is a performance poet living in Sheffield. As well as saying poems out loud at every opportunity, they have had poems published in Now Then magazine, and in two English Pen collections, three Pankhearst Slim Volume anthologies (No Love Lost, Wherever You Roam, and This Body I Live In), The Sheffield Anthology (poems from the city imagined) and Poems For the Queer Revolution. They were also commissioned to create a limerick quiz about gender which appears in Kate Bornstein’s My New Gender Workbook. You can find Sarah online at www.sarahthomasin.com.