An Orangery # Claine Keily 135

There was an orangery
filled with lemons
a little wine
and fire

The flood held out
enough for me to walk there
between stampedes of horses
fraught with love and moon

Orphaned again, bereft even
I went there
to speak with friends
before a move to a desert
now made green

Tug Dumbly - Insects Fold Arms Like Pharaohs in Death

Insects Fold Arms Like Pharaohs in Death

Insects fold arms like pharaohs in death,

a three-tiered lotus of yogic resign,            

hydrolics retract like carrier jets,            

six limbs to praise the short kingdom’s reign.      

Hieroglyphs writ in the skin of a leaf,       

a priesting breeze for gossamer songs,  

creature cortege and mortician sun’s          

memory embalmed in bellies of ants.

Fired to life from the shell of a tomb

some Ra animates and patterns their day’s     

scissoring wings quick flit, glint and blaze

to craft a corpse for a grass vestibule.      

After breath, last rite unsurprised,   

no snow white stalin under leaves of glass,

but a green race memory of how they’re to lie,

unprised, unprayed, their gentling parts.

With two limbs to praise their short kingdom’s breath,

Pharaohs fold arms like insects in death.

Kit Kelen #1123 - Amnesia Day

1123

Amnesia Day

26^th of January, 2019

and forget where I am

how I came, who to be

forget myself

I’m sorry for it

has to be the heat

(I write this poem every year

never the same again)

peg out the washing

it’s dry

bring it in

is it a holy place?

a shrine?

forgetting has been a tradition for me

and I know that this is the day for it

still Santa and surfboard

abounding in gifts

that must be my nature

I guess

rejoice

drip with sweat from the effort

there’s beer in the wilting

that’s what I remember about it

of us

gold in the soil!

let me remember breeze

let me fall for the rain

and do the baby brindle business

with plausible denial

don’t remember what the medal is for

but I drew a line in the sand

leapt up

dug till I could dig no more

did what I was told

I’m landing again

I might go native

most would be happy with what we’ve achieved

aren’t we all of us winners, in mufti?

I know

I know all sorts

before you say a thing again

let me just say

I know

I mightn’t even be here at all

the place and the name are a trick

this day again and we forget

but now as never before

how we’re here

and who was then

and why

and what’s it for

with manners of a savage

lived in a bottle for a very long time

can’t remember how I got home

a tower gleams

how’d that get there?

let’s say it’s Emerald City

pray for snow on a day like today

ear to the ground must have made me a mouse

and beat my chest in time

built this that

scratched at

I could have been a leaf in the forest

and here’s a campfire strumming of nomads

all of them bound for Amnesia

bibles of them, on the way

talkback implanted

how fiercely all they must agree

and bash more wives

than bombs are thrown

you see there are the things to gloat

and I remember

all sorts that cannot be

what do you believe again?

someone was left in the car to cook

who was that?

and what’s my name ?

who’s on my team again?

forget me, won’t you?

then I can come home again

I never lifted a finger

hear the saws, the engines

see the forest down

the creatures go to time

and what were their names?

I call them

they won’t come now

am I staked boundlessly

fish belly up?

is there a rip takes me out?

welcoming waves

turn the stars

ours as well

another year

or I suppose

missed the wake up call

it’s here’s this sun again

let me tell you who I caught by the tail

and locked up too

and hung till he behaved himself

like it said on the tree

I have an island for it now

not me!

I’m denying again

they say that this could last for a while

saluting a hole in the sky

in our heads

with roar of sport –

that’s watching

I can’t have been here before

tell me true

I’m nobody – so who?

let’s say a cenotaph and see

you worship you

I’ll worship me

so solemn

solemn

at it

whatever it is we all are here

I’m still becoming one

and you – you’re cute

you really are

this could be just the beginning of things –

do you think we could have a date?

Tug Dumbly - Think You Got it Bad?

Think You Got it Bad?

Picture the scramble of turtle hatchlings

down a beach, in a tasty batter of yoke,

sticky pinball flippers going for broke,

trying to beat the crabs and skirling  

gulls to the punch. It’s like a machine-gun

making a lazy sweep, with lottsa time

to reload. Gotta love a lunch that climbs

right in your mouth, fresh takeaway that runs

straight down the hole; magnetically sucked

like a car wreck to the sky. Their’s not to reason

why. They got no axe to grind, those broken

little metronomes who don’t make the cut.

Not everyone’s designed to find the water,    

and someone’s gotta fill the butcher’s order.

Rob Schackne #877 - Senryu (25)

We will wrap it up
and leave it on the roadside
with twig and feather

Gillian Swain - #54 - almost happy curiosity

He's thinking about the end and
all the endings that are
arriving   all the last times
or will it be?
Remembering to remember
to savour   to notice
He's thinking on
the end   you can see it
written all over his face   his pages
taking stock   echo of sentiment   and a thin
matter of fact ness   it's a good reminder to 
not take it all   too seriously
though he is   deep down
little slips   reveals   a kind of curl of sadness and
surrender   an almost happy
curiosity   may as well
it's the only way to go

Kit Kelen #1122 - he passed / she passed (paint it black you devil)

1122

he passed/she passed

funereal mutterings

(but not for mine, please)

so solemn said

with air of dread

‘he passed/she passed’

they could have been just anyone

and were

and now they’re gone

a feast it was

and now they forever fast

this unknown Jill, this John –

sage sorry nod to say

he passed/she passed

what post (?)

I ask

ashes to ashes

and it’s a bust

in certain aches

you get an inkling

of bucket kick penalty

daisy upsy push

the six foot trip

(and don’t forget the ferryman’s tip)

‘Elysium’, my ticket says

with asphodel for extra

because I had a plan and plot

to be the somewhere now I’m not

(all Real Estate is speculation)

‘avast!’ your hellish demon says

to tell how deep the pit

and even here there’s one word missed –

can you think of it?

after a lifetime of idle larks

and little application

(I’m reading this off the report card now)

nevertheless

you passed?

oh joy!

then blessed is best

or down you go

you fool

you could have, at the last, confessed

or on the other hand

‘you gotta get hot to play real cool’

now no more wake-up calls

hello?

you get a well earned rest

who was it and the quick?

to a better place

above? below?

scribble my tombstone

so everyone knows

life was a blast

and now…

I passed!

then here’s a glory bask

cut flowers

weep but a little

in Teary Vale

think of me now beyond the pale

existence was a merry jest

here’s the old punchline

so fly the flag half mast

and over the mortal bits mutter –

‘he passed/she passed’

so they could read the will at last

and divvy up among the cast

but can we be so sure

they’ve passed?

and given up the ghost

been issued each with harp

and joined in heaven’s host?

could there be a come-back with Lazarus tricks

and even in the gloaming still hit the ball for six?

or else return as your low opinion?

(though angels soar up on their pinions)

no pulse, so prudently we say

he passed/she passed

get over it

towards the end

the voice, mere rasp

now his/her suffering is past

that bullet had some name on it

a tissue and we all fall down

or else your number’s up

you passed

(and this is the final inspection)

but actually it’s the whole of the class

up on the podium

the ghoulish principal beams over them

(more age has wearied her or him)

someone wore the black cloth cap

though there was no crime

and here’s the reaper

set to plague

or else it’s Old Man Time

them what a lovely coffin fit!

and that’s the way to go

we’re all off now for the Isles of the Blessed

no traveller returns

life must have really been a test

I say this out of superstition

wishful thinking too

he passed/she passed

posit an elsewhere

and all believe

throw away the crutches, sticks

out of that chair

and fly at them

come in, spinner!

no lying down with the lion now

it won’t matter how much of a glutton

at this late stage, we’re all mutton

last sprint through the ribbon

everyone’s a winner

how glorious to have passed

and made it!

it might have been half full before

but surely this is the empty glass?

those results

(and soon enough there’ll be no paper)

none of us ever get to read

or ever feel this unnameable state

(there, that must be the upside)

then

good night

sweet prince

sweet princess

the rest of us clean up

your mess – all bling

while flights of angels sing

and euphemize in time –

in a minor key

in duple meter

simply –

he passed/she passed

of all the weasel words for it

this one the most half arsed

Rob Schackne #876 - "Me too"

                                   for Peter Walford

Me too, I used to be the slime
but now I sit in a rented cave 
that overlooks the valley
and keep the rascal bats
& wretched hagfish out
birds are quiet, sunset comes
I move to a desperate ledge
almost find my breeze
fool myself into poetry 
and sometimes wonder why I'm dead

Kristen de Kline #247 Five lines before midnight

1. I dream of snow

2. Kurt Cobain offers me a cup of Pennyroyal tea

3. You bring me pink frost and a heavy heart

4. We sing: dance me to the end of time

5. Those damn nuns - they're still blowing smoke rings on the pier

Clark Gormley #84 A New Way

While I was cycling

a driver warned me once

“the road is for cars”

delivered in the tone

that a klansman would drawl

“we don’t like your kind round here”.

I looked around and

realized he was right.

Cycle lanes are an afterthought.

Shoehorned between large

parked and moving vehicles

propelled by internal combustion

life is dependent on

a combination of luck

and good grace.

But hear me out.

I have a solution.

Look at a map of your town.

There are unused paths.

Stormwater drains,

flat, paved and empty.

Well, 98% of the time.

And what would you rather?

Contend with a bit of water,

or a motorist with

if not murderous intentions

then a blithe disinterest.

They run not alongside

but under the roads.

No more tests of nerve

at intersections where

you know you have the right

of way but lack the respect.

Yeah, okay

I hear the militant faction say

this is just segregation.

But it’s what we want

what we need

what will deliver us.

The revolution continues

in our wheels

and as your spokesman

brothers and sisters,

I declare that it is only

when we are down in the gutter

that we will find our road

to Beulah land.