#i opened a document and just painted a giant shape of colour

[liberty-and-art]

[ You’re my brother and I love you. That’s it. No punchline. ]

[tilltheendwilliwrite]

Cat Got Your Tongue

Chapter One

Master List /  Series Master List

A/N: This series is set in the same world as Bare In The Woods (a one-shot were-bear Henry Cavill story). This series will be cross posted between Tumblr and AO3. As Tumblr has no way of preventing minors from reading the smutty bits (and there will be smutty bits) those chapters will only be available on AO3.

My archive work is available to Register Users Only. This means Yes, You Must Have An Account with Archive to read my work. If you'd like more information on how to acquire your Free archive account, please see this post. All you need is an email address to sign up. That's it. Just do it people.

Read on AO3 here!

Summary: The community of Salvation holds many secrets, not the least of which is the diversity of were-folk who call it home. Ember Porosha is one resident for who Salvation isn't just the town's name but her saving grace. After outrunning her past, she's resigned herself to playing surrogate to everyone else's children and never having her own. A mate was not in her future, and she was learning to live with that. Until he walked through the door of The Last Book and Brew.

Thomas Loki Hiddleston wasn't going to be in town long. Here for the naming of Henry and his wife's baby girl and presentation to the weres of Salvation, he planned only to stay a few days. A small town like this could never offer him the outlet he needed for his cat's dark desires, nor could he hide what he was for long. His nature would eventually need an outlet and Salvation held nothing for him. Or so he thought. One wiff of Ember's unique scent and he knew he'd found a long thought lost to him future.

But when she doesn't fall at his feet, and proves more stubborn than a mule, can he resit taking her in hand long enough to win her heart? Or will the bond between true mates not be enough to tame this wild hellcat.

Series warnings: Were-Creatures, Cats, Bears, Smut, Shameless Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Language, Dom/sub, Blood, Blood Kink, this one could (will) get kinky

***

When the sleek black car drove through town, Ember gave it only a passing glance. It was odd, sure, but anyone who drove a Jag was so far out of her league they were playing on a different ball diamond altogether. The car screamed money, something she cared little about.

Sure she needed it, everyone did, but Ember was content with what she had, and in this sleepy town cradled lovingly between the mountains, she didn't need much. She had her sweet yellow cottage, her bookstore, and a community of friends when she desired company. And now, with the snow falling thick on the ground, she would have another singular pleasure. 

Ember's little snow leopard heart leapt at the thought of running through the high passes and sliding down the long slopes, her wide paws keeping her above the snowpack instead of sinking in while her thick coat kept out the cold. It had been too long since she'd last played in her were form, and was looking forward to going out to the ranger station in a few days to visit with Henry, his wife, and their little cub. 

The sweet baby girl already had Henry wrapped firmly around her finger, and Ember couldn't help but laugh at the goofy smile that perpetually graced his face when he looked at his family. 

If a pang of jealousy jabbed her heart, Ember didn't let it show. She'd resigned herself to a lonely life a long time ago. 

The bell over the door of her little shop gave a merry jingle, and she placed the last of the new James Patterson novels on the shelf before dusting off her hands and stepping out from behind the bookshelves to smile at Lorraine, the town's most gossipy raven.

If she was fluttering into The Last Book and Brew, then Ember was about to hear an earful.

***

Tom swept into the charming inn and forced himself to smile at the woman behind the desk. He'd spent a miserable six hours on the road, driven through a blizzard, and killed his cellphone when he'd dropped it in an icy puddle two hours prior as he'd filled the car with petrol. But there was no alternate way to get to Salvation, buried deep in the mountains, except to drive. 

And Salvation was where he needed to be. 

His old friend, Henry, was celebrating the birth of his first cub, and Tom dropped everything to come and see the little darling Henry was blessed with. And to meet the woman who'd tamed the giant bear after all this time. Sadly, he'd been unable to attend their wedding, but he refused to miss the welcoming of a new were into the community, whether he belonged to the Salvation clan or not.

That didn't mean he wouldn't give Hen the gears for choosing to live in some backwater nowhere even if it was beautiful here. 

Still, Tom preferred the city for its indulgences and entertainments. No, he couldn't fall on all fours and run through the concrete jungle he called home, but he'd long come to terms with his destiny. It wasn't as if there was a panther out there waiting to run under the moonlight with him. 

He was going to be a lone cat, a bachelor. He'd resigned himself to it, for no matter what anyone said, no one - were or human - had ever submitted wholly to his dark desires and chosen to stay in his possession afterward. They were all far too soft for his liking, ending in no more than a one-and-done.

At least, he could stalk the clubs and play with those unaware of his darkest needs and wants in the city. Tom was not a Dom to be denied, and those who gave in to the allure of his pretty face soon learned all about the devil underneath his Gucci suit.

"Hello, darling," he purred to the desk clerk. "Thomas Loki Hiddleston, checking in. I believe I have a reservation."

She blushed to the roots of her hair, sputtered, and nodded. "Of-of course, sir. If-if you'll sign a few things and put your card on file, I can get you situated on your back- In your room!" she corrected, staring at her hands. 

Tom couldn't hide his smile, but he swallowed his laughter. It was always the same. The sweet little birds flocked to him, but they had no idea a predator was stalking them.

He went through the incidentals, signed her documents, collected his key and listened intently when she told him about the room, breakfast, the restaurant, spa, and pool. His ears perked up at the last. He did enjoy a refreshing swim. 

"And if you fancy something other than regular coffee or black tea, there is The Last Book and Brew just down the street. Ember makes the best scones and tea."

"Does she now?" he murmured, eyeing Irene - her name on a little plaque pinned to her chest - as she handed him back his credit card. "Perhaps I'll check in on it. A cuppa does sound delightful." The drive had been long, and tea might be just the pick-up he needed before calling round to Henry's. 

He nodded to Irene and headed for the stairs instead of the elevator. Three floors were nothing for his long legs, the exertion minimal, as he hiked to the third floor and down to the end where he fit the old-fashioned key into the antique lock and pushed open the door. 

Tom was pleasantly surprised to find a mixture of well-kept antiques and modern furnishings decorating the space. While the bed and mattress were new and covered with clean, white duvet and sheets, the dresser - upon which sat a television - was a heavy mahogany buffet with curved Queen Anne legs. The bathroom was a revolution of modern plumbing though a cast iron tub stood on clawed feet beside a glass shower big enough for two. Gilt framed mirrors hung above dual vanities into which water poured from brushed gold fixtures. 

It was all very romantic with its old-world charm though the inn was showing its age. Wallpaper lifted at the edges, millwork was chipped and rubbed in places, and a few of the lovely old tiles on the floor in the bathroom were cracked. But with the likely age of the building, it wasn't so surprising. If the gorgeous stone building weren't at minimum a century, he would eat his scarf. 

She could be an absolute beauty with effort and enough money. Yes, he would be comfortable here for a time. The Salvation Inn would suit him.

Tom made his way to the windows that looked out on Salvation's main street. The road was a mess of dirty snow, sanded and salted for ease of travel, but the thick white flakes floating down turned the quaint replica gas street lights into white-topped monuments of winter. Storefronts glowed with welcoming light, still running their Autumn displays, creeping toward American Thanksgiving. The commercialization of Christmas had yet to appear, giving everything a cheerful, colourful cast he found pleasing to his senses. 

Cars moved without hurry, mimicking the people coming and going about their business. Everyone was bundled up, but no one seemed to mind the cold and the snow. To be expected, he supposed. They lived in the mountains where snow fell early and lasted late. 

As his gaze traversed the lane, his attention landed on The Last Book and Brew and caused him to tilt his head, intrigued. Unlike the other traditional storefronts with their brick faces and colourful awnings, gold filigree writing on wooden signs, the little bookstore had a distinctly different feel to it. 

The door, window frames, and brickwork that accented the front of the building were painted a shiny, deep black. There was no awning but three stunning lanterns hung above the windows on wrought iron arms, beautifully curved like the elegant lines of a woman's body. A sign in the same black iron hung perpendicular to the door. Shaped like a shield or some family crest, the words The Last Book and Brew glowed crimson outlined in gold, while a raven of the same black iron sat guard, casting judgement on all who entered. Red velvet mounded in the windows, lovingly cradling the displayed books like sacrificial offerings. 

Someone knew what they were doing, for that was the sexiest storefront Tom had ever seen.

Utterly enchanted and desperate to see if the interior matched the exterior, he left his leather valise unpacked on the bed, pocketed his key, and headed for the door.

Irene looked up as he passed her, but Tom paid the clerk little mind. He was on a mission, a hunt now, needing to discover the answer to the mystery of just who this Ember of Last Book and Brew was that she could create with such aplomb a store so alluring. 

There was no wind when he trotted down the inn's exterior stairs and out into the snowfall. Traffic was light, so he crossed mid-street, avoiding puddles and snowbanks in an attempt to keep the Italian leather of his shoes dry while large flakes of falling snow collected in his dark ginger locks. He reached the door and admired the ornate handle before opening the door into another world. 

Tom stepped inside and stared in amazement. He'd never thought a bookstore could be moody, but this one certainly was. The floors were highly polished ebony wood that led into dark railings which spiralled past the sunken first-floor cafe up a short flight of stairs toward the bookstore beyond. 

He admired the cobblestone floor in the cafe, again shiny with polish, sealed he suspected to make cleanup easier. Upon them sat a virtual Mad Hatter's Tea Party of chairs, all shapes and sizes separated by wrought iron tables topped with glass. And though the chairs were unique in shape, they matched for colour, upholstered as they were in the blood-red and black brocade that turned them into a sexy indulgence he prayed were as comfortable as they looked. 

And hung above it all, like a lady's magnificent fascinator, was a chandelier worthy of the name. Clearly electric, it appeared to drip ropes of black jewels and crystals as long as his palm, lit by three dozen candles that flickered with faux flames. It was spectacular.

Beyond, the cafe counter, like a walnut dream, appeared to be a repurposed and rehabbed saloon bar where elegant scrollwork on a pristine chalkboard announced the daily specials. He could see the cakes and pastries in their glass case, and while his stomach rumbled to remind him of the last meal he'd eaten, Tom was too enthralled with the decadence of the store to allow himself to be led by his nose when a small sign at the foot of the stairs requested no food past that point. 

Another small sign asked him to wipe his feet, which he did without thought, before heading up the short but wide curved stairwell to the second floor into the fantasy world of someone's most magnificent mind. 

He felt guided by the hand of a fae as he wound his way through ebony bookcases over hardwood floors, beneath more hanging lanterns and delicate chandeliers. The soft white of all the lights allowed him to read titles and leaf through pages without feeling as if the overhead lights would eventually dry out his eyes or buzz their annoyance through his brain. Every so often, he came upon stands of lightly scented candles, or soaps, or lotions made with all-natural products and tingling with the lightest touch of were-magic, causing Tom to look at the store with deeper senses. 

The corners and cardinal points of the space had crystal wards, he realized, and the soft pulse of benevolent magic left him at ease. Whoever this Ember was, she bid all who came to her sanctuary welcome. 

Even more intrigued than before, Tom found his way toward the counter where voices spoke in hushed tones, intent on finding the owner and congratulating her on the sensual, slightly erotic nature of her store. It left him breathless in a way that was hard for him to come by, and yet even as it pulled at his dark, seductive nature, he knew a family could come into such a place and find it magical, like falling into the rabbit hole of a dark Alice fantasy.

"That's nice, Lorraine, but I don't think Henry would approve of you gossiping about his friend."

Tom stopped in his tracks. Warm brandy and velvet bled over his senses, stroking straight through him to the soul of his cat. The panther purred and preened, wanting the owner of that voice to pet him and whisper words of seduction in his ear. 

"Poppycock! Some big-city fella isn't going to care if we mountain folk talk about him."

Ugh, raven. He'd know that grating tone anywhere.

"Besides, he's some fancy lawyer or something," the raven, Lorraine, continued. "I'm sure he's used to people talking about him."

"It is still impolite."

Tom shivered, eyes half-lidding. He had to roll his head, stretching his neck to keep from sprouting fur. What he wouldn't give for one night with the owner of that voice. 

Never one to hide in the face of scrutiny, Tom glided out from behind the bookshelf and smiled at the two women. "Actually, I run hotels."

The raven eeped and jumped, spinning to face him. She was older than he'd suspected, her dark hair thoroughly saturated with grey though her eyes remained clear brown orbs. The other, oh, the other, he could not help but stare.

Her face was the kind that would make angels weep with sharp, classic features, high cheekbones and a pointed chin like a sweet little fox. Her big eyes widened in surprise, showing off the shocking green, so pale and light they were almost neon when the light caught them. The heavy fall of thick curls that slipped from her shoulder left his mouth dry with the desire to sink his fingers into the mass that started black at the root and faded into tones of silver and dark grey, hinting at patterns like small rosettes. 

A sleek, lithe body lovingly caressed by a sweater of raspberry wool and leggings of black knit glided out from behind the cash desk, her steps silent in small silver ballet flats. "Mr. Hiddleston?"

"Indeed," he purred, accepting her hand when she offered it. He captured it between both of his rather than shaking it as presented and held it lightly. "Thomas Loki Hiddleston, at your service, love. My friends call me Tom."

"Ember Porosha. Welcome to Salvation and The Last Book and Brew." She tilted her head, causing all that lovely hair to slide to the opposite shoulder. "Henry speaks highly of you."

"Mm," he chuckled, adjusting his grip to lightly press his thumb into the palm of her hand as he brought her knuckles to his lips. "Brags, does he?"

"Terribly," she agreed with a smile.

Tom smirked and pressed his lips to her skin. He inhaled and went rigid. That scent, the sweet smell of pine and snow somehow laced with the delicate notes of summer dreams, drowned him, flooding his lungs until he was sure he would never be able to breathe again without breathing in Ember's delectable fragrance. 

She tried to retrieve her hand. Tom growled, low and deep, more a purr than a reprimand, and opened eyes he knew would glow green with his cat. 

"Well, hello, pet," he smiled. "It seems I was wrong." He wasn't destined to be alone after all.

Sharp claws latched into his hands. "I've no desire to start anything with you, true mate or not."

He dropped her hands and brought his to his mouth to catch the blood seeping from the minor wounds. "We will see about that."

She hissed at him. 

Tom threw his head back and laughed before gliding into her personal space and threading his fingers into her hair. "Spit all you like, little kitten. I always get what I want."

"I think it's time you left, Mr. Hiddleston," Ember growled, her hand on his chest to keep him at bay. 

"Tea first," he smirked. "I'm gagging for a cuppa. Haven't had a decent one all day!" He stroked the silvery strands before letting them fall through his fingers. "Is your coat just as soft, Kitten?"

She glared daggers at him. "Leave."

He chuckled but stepped back, practically able to see her tail flick in anger. "Until later then, Ember."

***

He turned on his heels and sauntered away, leaving her seething behind him. How dare he. How dare he! How dare he assume such liberties when they'd only just met. When it was clear he was only passing through and would leave nothing but devastation in his wake.

"How dare he!" she hissed and stormed toward the back of the store to her office to calm down, forgetting Lorraine was still there.

Ember didn't slam the door, knowing he was still in the store, and she'd be damned before she gave him that much power over her. She would not be brought to heel like some… some… Kitten!

She growled a low sound and clenched her fists, determined to get control of herself and that snow leopard rolling like a damn hussy inside her.

She'd smelt him the moment he'd stepped beyond the books—dark spice and leather, mandarin and rosewood, with notes of cinnamon and vanilla. Ember's mouth watered with the desire to taste his skin and see if he tasted as good as he smelled.

"No," she said firmly. Her cat scoffed. "He won't stay here. He's a big city panther, and we will never go back." She was determined to live alone, be alone because she was safer that way.

Salvation was, well, their salvation. When she was most desperate for a new start and a place to hide from her past, Salvation was there with open arms, and an established were community.

Her cat settled down with the reminder and left her alone to pick up the phone.

Ember dialed the number by heart and waited for them to answer. "Hey, Henry, it's Ember. About tonight. Something has come up… I'm… not going to make it."

Next Chapter

[vankoya]

Saviour of the Good Days.

➢ A Christmas drabble series based on this list!

Genre | Sense8 AU.

Pairing | Jung Hoseok / Feminine Reader.

Conspectus | Even the worst days can have some good in them. That good, always, arrives as the same person. The one that your entire body and soul is inexplicably entwined with.

It has been a very, very bad day.

Indeed, it has been one of those days where you wake up and have an overwhelming feeling that you should most definitely not leave your bed, because nothing good will come from it. And although you eventually roll yourself to the edge of your mattress and lethargically drag your limbs into an upward position; although you think it can’t be that bad, just get on with it; the whole world unforgivingly crumbles to shit around you, and you get caught in the rockslide.

It was a case of one bad thing after another. A pile of small inconveniences that built and built, slowly becoming more unstable with every new weight added to the mountain. First, there was realising that you forgot to buy a new jar of coffee granules yesterday afternoon, and so you could not make yourself a cup of liquid adrenaline the instant you awoke. Then, there was knocking a half-full glass of water over important documents during your nine-to-five at the office. Later, there was your card declining when you tried to purchase a Christmas gift for your best friend, and the sudden flash of remembrance that rent money came out at midday and, to make it worse, you still do not get paid for another three days.

Now, your car has broken down on the side of the road in the middle of a small snowstorm, which is terribly classic because you abso-fucking-lutely despise snow in general. This right here is the breaking point; the collapse; the crush of your body beneath the weight of all the shitty things that have occurred today. This right here is the cherry on top of the shit cake of shitty shit things, and like a flooding riverbed, your barriers break down and you sob the frustrations out.

“What the hell,” you furiously whisper through a sniffle, forehead resting against the steering wheel of your car as snow pelts down on the town outside. “What’s up the world’s ass today? Is it ‘poke fun at ___’ day?”

“Want me to fight the world for you?”

The voice, while more familiar than the back of your own hand, nonetheless makes you jolt in your seat with a short squeal. Some sensates say that you never get used to it. Having a group of people in your head who share all of your senses, your skills, and can mentally materialise right beside you, although their real bodies remain to be separated from you by thousands of miles. Others express that it takes time. Rather than living as individual people, you learn to be a cluster of minds that coexist all at once, and the intermingling of your lives becomes as natural as before you became connected by the souls.

You are at the midway point of the spectrum.

“Depends,” you say, voice still a little choked with your emotional outburst. “Will fighting the world revive the documents I spent hours working on, only to ruin them completely with my damn elbow colliding with an misfortunately placed glass of water?”

He makes a contemplative sound. “Maybe not. But watching the world get punched in the face by my fists might make you smile, at least.”

At that, there is a watery curl of your lips, and you lean against the headrest of your seat, tilting to the side to face him. Jung Hoseok, who you have mentally, physically, and emotionally been connected with for little beyond a year now, is already watching you with an adoring smile. A South Korean mechanic from a city called Gwangju, who towers over you in height with messily styled hair the colour of the night sky at its darkest; juxtaposed by his bright, sunshine-like features; doused in gold. Even the dreary weather cannot suck the honey from his skin. He remains to attain a soft, pleasant glow that you swear brightens every time his mouth shapes itself into a waning moon, shimmering like sunlight on a calm ocean.

Perhaps, the visible radiance is just your imagination. Then again, you cannot necessarily trust anything you see in your head, these days.

“There it is,” he coos. The thick, fur-lined leather jacket that he wears gives a muffled squeak when he reaches over the gear stick to pat your thigh. Although he is all in your mind, the touch feels as real as ever; sets warmth aflame in your cheeks. “Now that seeing your pretty smile has been ticked off my to-do list, what’s happened here? The car has broken down?”

You wipe at the silvery tracks on your face with your mittens, inwardly hoping you do not look as much of a wreck as you feel. “Something like that. There was a bang, and by the time I pulled it off the road, it had completely stopped.” Hoseok goes to open his mouth, but you swiftly cut him off, already able to see the question he is going to ask by the playful twinkle of his eye. “And no, I haven’t run out of gas. I still have half a tank left, smart ass.”

Hoseok chuckles, directing his gaze out the windshield where the road is being painted white. “Well, my next best guess is that you’ve popped a tyre.” He twists so he can face the backseat, eyeing your spare black parka. “I’ll need your help. Can we use that to keep ourselves shielded in this mini storm? Wait, do you even have a spare tyre?”

“Yes, and yes,” you confirm, already pulling the parka into your lap. “The jack should be in the trunk, too…” Your voice trails off when you take in Hoseok’s attire of the leather jacket, combat boots, blue jeans, and a thin sweater. Most certainly not suited for snow, nonetheless a snowstorm. “Are you sure you won’t be cold?”

“I’m not literally here,” he reminds you with a smirk, unlocking the passenger door. “As long as you’re warm, I’m warm too. I’m feeling what your senses are feeling, right now.”

At that, your feeble heart stutters, and you avidly attempt to not focus on the thought of him feeling something a lot less innocent than the cold weather. “R-Right. Okay. Let’s get to it, then.”

The pair of you stumble into the already calming storm, heading straight for the trunk. Hoseok pulls out the spare tyre and the jack, while you remain huddled close to him with the parka pulled around your bodies in a feeble defence against the assaulting white. It is rather fascinating to observe him changing the tyre; the concentrated, determined frown of his features; the deft movements of his bare hands as they skilfully work. Under his breath, he mutters to himself, as if vocally making his way through the steps. His tousled fringe falls in his eyes, and he keeps having to blow it back with short, slightly irritated huffs. You know that you are ogling like an idiot, but you cannot help it when everything he does is just so… insanely attractive.

Hoseok seems to catch onto this by the time he has completed the job, and you are darting your eyes away from his face where they had been embarrassingly burning holes for the past ten minutes. He notices how closely you are crouched beside him; the parka-shield surrounding the two of you in a cosy cocoon only serving to force your body-warmth to share the space. Around your huddled figures, the storm has completely relaxed into peaceful snowing. Out the corner of your eye, you can see the way his expression softens, melting like butter.

“T-Thanks. For this. I really appreciate it, Hoseok,” you mumble in a pathetic attempt to cover up your ridiculously intense staring. When you go to drop the parka away, no longer a necessity, he softly catches your elbow, halting the action. You pray to every deity that he believes your watery gaze is due to the icy weather.

“No need to thank me, I’m happy to help,” Hoseok says gently, squeezing your elbow. The warmth of your face ignites into that of a pot reaching boiling point. His own cheeks light up in a rosy flush, and you wonder if that is your own senses reacting with his own, or if they are solely his, making him blush completely by themselves. “If it makes you happy, I’m happy.”

There, you realise how near his face is to your own. There, you think that you could move forwards three inches, and you would be able to kiss him. There, Hoseok seems to understand the same idea that is running its dangerous course through your mind, because he slowly, incrementally, leans, and leans, and leans–

A car door slamming shocks you out of your intoxicated daze. You physically fall backwards from your crouch, collapsing into the snow with a surprised shriek. Almost immediately afterward, a flustered, middle-aged women wearing a pink beanie with a giant pompom on top is offering her hand to you.

Hoseok is nowhere to be seen.

“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry for frightening you, darling!” She says in a high voice as she helps you back to your feet. “I saw you all by your lonesome on the side of the road, and couldn’t help but worry. Did you pop a tyre? Oh- Wow! You changed that all by yourself? How impressive of...” 

The woman continues to ramble on, but your attention has been snagged elsewhere. Still stunned from the almost that was finally about to occur; that was yanked away from you at the last second, like teasing a dog with a bone. And then, suddenly, all you can focus on is a familiar hand gingerly curling around your wrist.

A pair of silky, warm lips pressing to your cheek.

“Merry Christmas, ___,” Hoseok murmurs into your ear, planting another soft peck on the lobe, drawing fire in its wake. “I hope your day gets better.”

“... Gee, I remember when my husband nearly drove us into oncoming traffic when I– Honey, are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen Big Foot!”

Note | Sensates are a ‘cluster’ of human beings who are mentally and emotionally linked, able to sense and communicate with each other, as well as share their knowledge, language and skills. Please watch the show. It is phenomenal.

All Rights Reserved © Vankoya. No translations, reposting and/or modifying of the material is allowed without my direct permission.

[natsuhikoshidou]

Life Cheating Game - Chapter 6: I Wonder If It’ll Rain Tomorrow?

Chapter 5: Part 2  |  Epilogue

‘Tomorrow, Ruma will kill you. Don’t protect Maki-chan.’

I can’t stay here anymore.

I decided to leave my grandparents’ house.

I’m scared of the future of tomorrow. I’m also scared of death. However, I’m also scared of bringing misfortune to those important to me.

So I’m running away. To a place where people close to me, won’t be wrapped up in my misfortune.

 Momiji and my grandmother remaining at the hospital, I returned home temporarily.

The time is around 7 pm. If it was like normal, it would be time for us four to gather round for dinner, but inside my house fell coldly silent.

Going up to the second floor, I prepared to leave my house.

Taking a shoulder bag out of my closet, I crammed in a minimal amount of clothes. Except winter clothing, which is bulky. I probably have no choice but to endure the cold with a coat. In terms of the other things I take with me, there was only my wallet. I had my phone on me.

Putting on the coat, lastly, I took the card out of my school bag, and put it in my pocket.

Even though it’s this late in the game, I haven’t let go of the card.

After that, I opened the locked drawer in my writing desk, and took out my bankbook. The fortune and insurance money my parents left behind was set aside, untouched. The pocket money my grandparents gave me was also basically untouched, and put in the same account.

Opening the bankbook and checking the balance, together with my hanko in the same drawer, I put them on the living room table downstairs. I didn’t forget the memo with the pin number written on it either.

(*A hanko is a stamp of your name. It’s used to sign legal documents, like a signature)

That should be enough for grandfather’s medical bill.

Standing stock still in the living room, for a short while, I thought about the seven years I spent in this house.

I can’t thank my grandparents enough. Because I was supported by lots of people, not just Sora, I’ve been able to live to today. Not repaying for that favour, and instead rubbing off misfortune, I’m pitiful, embarrassed and haven’t apologized.

Running away like this is in order to protect people important to me, I can’t say anything like that no matter what.

Betraying everyone, I’m running away for myself.

Going to the entrance hall, I put on my shoes and carry my bag, I put my hand on the sliding door.

Several seconds, hesitating, as if to shake off my memories, I opened the door.  The cold December air blew in, like it condemned me.

Going outside and locking the door, I walked out, my back to my house.

Without turning around once, I walked intently.

  ◊

 Without a destination, I just continued walking, trying to get far away from the city I was used to living in.

At an intersection, I bent down a different direction than usual. Completely unable to get around in the night, I walked down a path where I heard perverts come out. Only wanting some unknown scenery, I just walked.

I didn’t mind getting on a bus or train. I didn’t want to go where people were. Because if they have even a little bit to do with me, any of those people might experience misfortune because of me.

--- I wonder what Momiji’s doing about now.

When I stopped walking at a red light, that thought passed through my mind.

--- She might find it strange that I didn’t go back to the hospital.

--- Since she doesn’t have a phone, what about when she gets home, and she finds the passbook in the living room.

Shaking my head, I drove out those thoughts. And then, I walked off.

When I’m simply walking and only looking forwards, I end up not thinking of anything.

I wonder how much time has passed. Before I knew it the city traffic became far away, I walked down a lonesome path, scarce with streetlights. When I look down the ground wasn’t asphalt, it was patterned brick. Only the sound, jijiji, emitted from the nearby city lights could be heard awfully loudly.

“…?”

Feeling uncomfortable, I raised my head.

There was something coming down this path. In the spread out brick-coloured pattern, I remembered it.

I looked around me. New resident houses on the side of the road were lined up, on the opposite side to them was a wall. The upper part waved, a wall with fairy-tale designs carried on somewhere.

And then, looking up above me, I saw that.

“…Hahaha”

Without thinking, I laughed wryly.

Even though it was in the dark of the night, it was a large shape that I clearly remembered.

It was a Ferris wheel.

Kitahiragawa City’s landmark, the giant Ferris wheel from Kitahiragawa children’s amusement park.

Unexpectedly, or maybe unconsciously I chased after the shadow of the Ferris wheel, I came to the place of my memories with Sora and my parents.

The path I was on now must be a public footpath surrounding the amusement park. Beyond the wall, the closed and unlit amusement park was dead silent, the difference to the light music that’s played in daytime, felt kind of ominous.

Sighing, I looked at my watch. It’s around 11 pm. Since I left my house, only 3 hours have passed. Conscious of the passage of time, as soon as I continued walking my legs felt heavy.

11pm. That’s the time the prediction of tomorrow appears on the card.

I took the card out of my coat pocket. It was an almost reflexive action. Checking the card at this time, has already become part of a habit.

On the card I saw reflecting in the street light, this was written.

 ‘Tomorrow, Ruma will kill you. Don’t protect Maki-chan.’

 The prediction of death didn’t panic me this time. But, I felt a question.

“Protect, Maki-chan? …Ruma?”

Ruma. Ruma-chan. Something that Maki-chan was searching for.

She’s going to kill me? Why? Even though I don’t know Ruma at all? Protect Maki-chan, that means, Ruma is going to try and kill Maki-chan?

“It’s no use… I don’t know.”

What I understand, is the fact that Maki-chan will appear again.

And when she does, the fact that I cannot protect her no matter what.

Confirming only those two points, I returned the card to my pocket.

 “------“

 It suddenly appeared.

Without a sound, without a trace, as if to say just like it was there from the beginning.

I felt like it emitted some words.  However, I really couldn’t make it out.

“……?”

Holding my breath, I turned around.

The thing that appeared before my eyes, was the body of a girl.

She must be about middle-school aged. Black robe-like clothes covered her whole body. Her hair was white in contrast. Also, it was so long it seemed to be touching the floor. On her face, neck, arms, legs and on her body exposed from her robe, her skin was so white she looked sick. All of the white parts stood out in the night’s darkness, only her face, arms and legs looked like they were floating in the darkness.

I was unable to take my eyes away from the girl’s face.

She had a good looking face. A beauty, like she was artificially made.

However, she looked just like a dead person. The whiteness of her skin, her completely lifeless eyes. Her eyes, like they were only smashed around with black paint, her expressionless face, like everything in the world was hopeless, I couldn’t believe she was a living person.

Weird. Something’s strange about this girl.

In definite discomfort, I took one more step back.

The girl’s staring half open eyes looked up at me.

“What are you…?”

With a voice like I was suffocating, I asked the girl.

“I am—“

The girls voice was childish as she answered, but somehow, mechanical.

“I am a thing that grants people’s wishes. Simply, a thing for that.”

“Wishes…?”

“Yes. So, I must grant his wish.”

Speaking with a face and voice that held no emotion, the girl gently raised her right hand.

Her white right arm extended directly from her shoulder. At the end of it, a small dainty right hand. It shook. Looking like it blurred for just a moment, in the next moment, she held a white pole in her right hand.

“His wish. That is, retribution.”

At the end of the white pole, which was about as tall as her, a blade was attached.

Arcing, a blade like a crescent moon.

It was a huge scythe. A scythe, prepared by a Shinigami, to reap the life of a person.

“The appropriate retribution, for all humans. The appropriate rank, for all humans.”

While she muttered, the girl took a step forward.

The distance between me and the girl was about 5 of her steps. At a breath away, a distance suitable for jumping at my neck with her scythe.

“Did you come to kill me?” “Yes. I have come to kill you.”

I wasn’t surprised at her emotionless affirmation.

The appropriate retribution. This girl must have come to give me that. Sinful me, who sacrificed others for the sake of my own happiness, must have become so much of a sinner that my life will be taken in retribution.

This girl must really be a Shinigami, I thought.

“Good with good, bad with bad, retribution, by death with death.”

The girl took another step forward, she pulled back her right arm that held the scythe.

If she swings that scythe, and it hits my neck, my life will definitely be reaped.

I shut my eyes calmly.

It can’t be helped. It can’t be helped that I’ll be killed.  I’ve killed many people. Because of me, people that shouldn’t have died have died. That sin will, surely, like the girl said, be paid for with my death.

When I thought that, though my eyes were closed.

--- No. I don’t want to die.

Underneath my eyelids, the bodies of my deceased parents appeared. The body of my teacher that was crushed to death also appeared.

My own body overlapped with them, the thought ‘that’ll be you’ raced around my head.

“Ah…. Aaah…..!”

In tremendously swelling fear, I was paralyzed, and fell down on the ground.

Immediately afterwards, the scythe that the girl swung skimmed the top of my head. The scythe, that made the sound of rushing wind when it swung, hit a streetlamp next to me, and easily cut through it.

The streetlamp that crashed to the ground, made a large noise, shards of glass scattered.

“Hih…… Hiih……..!”

The girl looked down at me. Emotionless black eyes. However, they were like she blamed me, like she despised me.

---I don’t want to die.

Sweat was jetting out of my whole body. Both legs trembling.

---I don’t want to die.

Once more, the girl swung up her Shinigami scythe. The white blade, glistened in the moonlight.

--- I don’t want to die!

“U,Uuh…. Uwaaaaaaa!”

I stood up desperately, and ran off in a panic to escape.

Tossing my heavy bag, while I cried, I ran with all my power to the promenade. Ominously, I felt just like they embodied death itself, her face, arms and legs looked like they floated in the darkness.

Without thinking of deciding to get help from the neighbouring private houses, I ran.

Before long, down the path, I found a part of the wall that became a little lower. Not thinking of the consequences, I set about frantically clambering up the wall, to take refuge in the amusement park grounds.

When I fell off the wall my stricken side hurt, not caring, I ran.

It was pitch black inside the amusement park. The figures of the equipment that stopped moving laying in the darkness, cast shadows like huge bizarre creatures.

At any rate I ran through the darkness. I was thinking ‘I have to hide’. Not allowing her to pass me, the Shinigami girl was like death itself, pursuing me in retribution. Though I considered that if I ran for a while I could find somebody to save me, I was pretty slow. When I turned around, the girl easily jumped over the wall, and followed after me, only looking at me.

“Help me… I don’t want to die… somebody…!” Mixed with my rough breathing, words begging for help leaked out of my mouth.

Slipping through the sides of the spinning teacups, going around the merry-go-round, I ran earnestly.

The girl behind me, without the sound of footsteps, gradually closed the distance between us. She was so fast I couldn’t believe it. This thing isn’t a human after all.

--- In that case, what is she?

When that thought crossed my mind, the Ferris Wheel was before me.

The large circle with carriages hanging on it looked like a stop-sign. A memory of Sora resurged, when I remembered that the person that killed her was me, the thought that Sora wouldn’t try and take away my hiding place crossed my mind,

“…Ah!?”

I tripped over, at the base of the Ferris wheel, fell over violently.

“Uuh…. Guh…….!”

My severely hurt legs hurt, I groaned out.

Unsightly tumbling to the floor, the girl carrying a scythe, slowly came closer to me.

Death, slowly came closer to me.

“No… no….!”

Like I was running away from reality, I shut my eyes tightly.

 “I finally found you~. It’s been a while, hasn’t it Ruma-chan?”

 When Maki-chan’s voice came out, I opened my eyes.

Her reddish short hair, strange black and white clothes, the self-proclaimed God Maki-chan, who gave the card to me, was standing between me and the girl.

“Maki, chan…?”

“Ah, Natsuhiko. Hey, she was close to you after all.”

Turning around and speaking, Maki-chan pouted and made a dissatisfied expression.

It was hard to make out because it was dark, but the world had become monochrome. It wasn’t just that, the wind had stopped. Looking at my wrist watch, the second hand didn’t move. Time had stopped.

In the black and white and standing still world, only me, Maki-chan and the girl, were colourful.

“Ruma-chan… you don’t mean…?”

“Right. Let me introduce you. That girl is Ruma-chan. The girl that I was looking for.”

Maki-chan pointed at the girl.

Ruma-chan. Ruma. That girl is her. Well then, the future prediction that I saw earlier wrote that that girl is the Ruma that will kill me.

“You are… the thing that created me.”

The girl – Ruma’s lifeless eyes looked towards Maki-chan.

“Then you are also, the thing that obstructed his wish.”

“Obstructed? Meee? ...Aah, right. The card that I gave Natsuhiko. Then Ruma-chan’s power couldn’t surpass it?”

“I have to remove, the thing that obstructs the fulfilment of his wish.”

“Eeh. Ruma-chan, you mean me? How interesting. Was that also his wish?”

During the conversation, though Maki-chan’s facial expressions rapidly changed, Ruma didn’t even blink. What moved were only her lips, and her body that changed into an alert stance.

“I am a thing that grants people’s wishes. I will do everything necessary in order to do that.”

“Hmm. That’s kind of boring. Even though you were created by me, I think you should be more interesting.”

Lying on the ground, I wasn’t in the conversation. It wasn’t the right mood for me to cut in.

“Natsuhiko, you think so too, right?”

“Eh… no, I…”

Suddenly being brought into conversation, I didn’t know what was happening.

“I mean, if you finally made her, you’d want her to be interesting, right? Like parental love?”

“…Did you create that girl, Maki-chan?”

“Yeah. Because I wished for her. I wanted her.”

“Huh…?”

“I told you, because I wished for her. Even though nobody remembers it, I wanted ‘a thing that grants wishes’ like myself. So, Ruma-chan was created.”

Maki-chan chuckled.

Ruma simply watched her, with emotionless eyes.

“Is Ruma your copy or something, Maki-chan…?”

“No no. It wouldn’t be interesting if she was created the same as me, right? While she has the ability to grant wishes, apart from that, she’s the complete opposite from me. Her personality, and the way she thinks, and the way she speaks. Aah, also, she looks the same as me though.”

“The same? How?”

I compared Maki-chan and Ruma. Their clothes and hair are different, they don’t look like they bare even the slightest resemblance of one another.

“Hmm… Ruma-chan’s a little dark, isn’t she. If she cut and dyed her unfashionable hairstyle, and if she grinned just like me, she’d probably be a splitting image of me.”

“Trying to resembling you is meaningless to me.”

“Eeeh? Saying boring things agaaain… We should try and be twins. C’mon, let’s switch clothes.”

Muh, an expressionless Ruma, to pouting Maki-chan.

No matter how you looked at it, they weren’t similar.

“Accomplishing his wish. That is meaningful to me.”

Ruma re-positioned her scythe. It’s point, obviously aimed at Maki-chan.

“Hmm. How brave.”

Even though she faced a dangerous weapon and intent to kill, like she didn’t particularly care, Maki-chan tampered with her bangs in boredom.

The similarities between Maki-chan and Ruma are, in any case, the fact that Ruma was created to grant the wishes of humans, for that sake, she now aims for my life, I understand the fact that in order to kill me she will try to remove Maki-chan. However,

“Who wished for that.”

Standing up, I looked at Ruma. The girl’s dead eyes didn’t reply with anything.

To say that I have no knowledge of people that would wish to kill me, would be a lie. If you consider the fact that I pushed death onto people around me, I can’t complain that anybody could hold a grudge against me.

However, in terms of the people that knew about that…

--- No, it’s not him.

The face of my only friend, who knew about the card, appeared in my mind.

“Maki-chan, do you know?”

If it’s the girl that calls herself a God, would she know about somebody who wished for me to be killed?

Standing in the space between Ruma and I, Maki-chan turned around, and spoke.

“Do you want to know?”

I nodded at her, who smiled mischievously.

“Well, let’s have a Three-Option Quiz!”

“…..Huh?”

“Among these three people, which is the correct answer!? If you get it right, you’ll win a luxurious trip to Hawaii! Woah, amazing!”

She’s incomprehensible.

Suddenly sticking out her hand with 3 fingers raised, her whole face smiled.

“First! Natsuhiko’s little sister, Momiji-chan! Second! Natsuhiko’s friend, Akito-kun! Third! Natsuhiko’s senpai, the board –game club’s Buchou-san! Fourth! The old lady living next to Natsuhiko’s house, who’s actually alive! C’mon, which one is it!?”

“No, that was Four-Options…”

This is all a joke.

Maybe she was implicitly trying to tell me she didn’t care, or maybe that’s just her nature.

“Hey hey, only ten seconds left!”

Contrary to me, dropping my shoulders, hurrying me with a face-wide smile, Maki-chan.

Behind her.

Behind Maki-chan, I saw, a white figure danced.

“Ma, Maki-chan! Behind you!”

“Heh?”

Maki-chan turned around.

Before her eyes, Ruma approached, swinging up her huge scythe.

“I will grant his wish. For that, I will remove all obstacles.”

I heard Ruma’s mumble awfully clearly.

Maki-chan, like an idiot, didn’t move.

The white scythe glistened. Aimed at Maki-chan’s thin neck, it swung downwards.

“----------!”

I felt like I shouted something.

Though I thought it was someone’s name, I really don’t know.

Before I knew it, I had both arms stretched in front of Maki-chan.

The scythe aimed at Maki-chan’s neck changed its trajectory, and tore into my stomach.

Fresh blood splattered.

  ◊

 --- Why did I do that?

I saw everything in slow motion. The spray of blood that whirled in the night, the movements of the scythe that cut me, Ruma’s long dishevelled hair, like the world had sunk under the ocean, all movement was slow.

In them, only Ruma’s facial expression, didn’t move.

--- Why did I do that?

Right, I thought over again.

And yet, I should know. The fact that if I protected Maki-chan I would be killed.

Future predicting is absolute. Even though if I was scared of death, I should have obeyed the card.

In the world where time flows by sluggishly, I slowly fell to my knees. My neck shook with a jerk, I saw the black and white starry sky, and the brick covered floor one after another.

--- What did I shout?

I’m sure I felt like I shouted Maki-chan’s name.

Because I tried to protect Maki-chan, that would be the most normal.

But in my heart I shouted a different name.

Probably, Sora’s name.

I couldn’t protect her, I thought.

Grabbing Sora’s hand, who was about to fall off the platform, and assuming I fell instead, I wanted to save Sora.

---Aah, right. I wanted to atone.

Even if I saved Maki-chan, there’s no way I can pay for the sin of letting Sora die.

I’m so stupid. Really, so stupid…

While I fell to the floor, the world regained its speed from earlier.

“Wai-, Natsuhiko?”

Maki-chan’s voice, full of surprise.

I saw Ruma retreat lightly.

“….Aah…….”

A sigh leaked from my mouth.

I felt like a large amount of blood was flowing out of my abdomen, torn by the scythe. But, strangely it didn’t hurt, I felt heat from around the wound, there was a sensation of numbing and tingling.

“Woah, no way, Natsuhiko.  Did your guts come out?”

“Don’t….. say that….”

Together with Maki-chan pointing stupidly, I pointed out the obvious to her.

I realised I was so calm it surprised myself. It didn’t hurt, but I wasn’t sure if that’s because it actually felt light.

“--- Retribution had been granted. However, he still has a wish.”

Ruma re-stanced her scythe.

Still more? She must have another purpose.

“The cause of her death. Also, the thing that will potentially obstruct his wishes from now on, I must not leave that be.”

“Huuuh? Does that maybe mean Maki-chan?”

Squatting next to me, poking the innards overflowing from my abdomen, Maki-chan was forced to stop playing, and spoke will standing up.

“I get it now. Something annoying happened, didn’t it? I mean the the card’s power hindering your retribution.”

Ruma didn’t answer.

“…How boring.”

A dull light dwelled in Maki-chan’s eyes, who talked like she spat.

Before I realised, in her hand, she held something that looked like a chess piece.

“Even though it took so long to meet you again, and I thought we could play much more…”

The black piece in the night, grew huge in the blink of an eye, and changed its form.

“Playing with a boring girl like you, it would be boring, though.”

The piece changed into, similar to the thing Ruma held, a huge scythe.

However, it was obviously different.

Much bigger than Ruma’s, the handle and blade were jet black, delicate carvings like a work of art were engraved into it all over, but above all…… it omitted a visible, sinister aura.

It appears to hurt your eyes from just looking at it, and appears to corrupt your mind just getting close to it.

The aura, floating like miasma, wrapped up the scythe, and also Maki-chan.

“Hey… Ruma-chan?”

Her tone of voice was like a different person’s. A cold voice, like her heart had frozen.

Ruma retreated a few steps. I heard her footsteps for the first time. Though her face was expressionless, at the sudden terrifying change of Maki-chan and her scythe, I knew she was trembling.

“’The appropriate reward for all humans’… How cool. Well then, are you going to give it to me too? The appropriate reward.”

Expressing a fascinating smile, Maki-chan licked her lips.

“Give it to me, Ruma-chan. My reward.”

“….!”

Ruma quickly jumped backwards.

Maki-chan swung her scythe up. However, paying no attention to that, like when she appeared, Ruma disappeared like she blended into the night.

“….Aww, she left. Even though I was just getting the hang of it….”

Making a disheartened face, Maki-chan lowered her scythe.

When she did, the ominous scythe returned to the piece from earlier without a sound, and vanished into thin air.

“Ha…. Hahaha…”

I couldn’t help but laugh at Maki-chan’s difference, but because my stomach was ripped up, I didn’t laugh properly.

“Hm? Natsuhiko, you’re still alive?”

Saying something heartless, Maki-chan crouched down next to me.

Once more, she poked at my insides. Even though her black gloves were covered in blood, they didn’t change colour.

“Hey, Natsuhiko…”

Maki-chan looked at my eyes.

“Why did you want to protect me?”

“… I don’t really know, myself…”

Half was a lie. Half was the truth.

The atonement for Sora. I didn’t hold the belief, that those were my true feelings.

“Weird. Even though you could just leave someone other than yourself alone.”

Maki-chan tilted her head, and made a curious face.

Maki-chan doesn’t understand the importance of others. That’s probably entirely true.

As a God, Maki-chan doesn’t need others, because God is perfect without people.

“…People, can’t live, by themselves.”

My throat was hot. The blood that rose from deep in my stomach, spilled out of the corner of my mouth, I formed words.

“At least, I, couldn’t live by myself… I was supported, by lots of people… like my family, and my friends… and also, my girlfriend”

“But it was imperfect. So you wished?”

“That’s what, I thought. …But, it wasn’t just, about, important people.”

“There are things important other than yourself?”

“Yeah… so, when I lost them, it was, hard…I was sad, and lonely, so much that I could never comprehend, so, I… misunderstood…”

“…Natsuhiko regrets wishing with me.”

Maki-chan declared like she read my mind. No, maybe she might really be able to read something like people’s minds.

“I’m sorry…wishing with you, Maki-chan, wasn’t what I really wanted… just being with people important to me, makes me happy… I was, too scared of losing those people, so, I misunderstood…”

If I could start over again, I thought.

I want to return to before I wished with Maki-chan, resetting my life.

I want to disappear from here, I thought.

I want to live without having to be with others, my body disappearing, just when I brought misfortune to my surroundings.

I had a few wishes. However, all of them were, probably, incorrect.

There was only one thing, I honestly should wish for.

“I…. want to be happy…”

I lived in peace every day, but that didn’t mean that I was happy.

Although I learnt only that, I sacrificed a lot.

After pondering for a short while, like she was bored,

“…I still don’t get it.”

She said, after a while.

Maki-chan’s expression when she said that was weird, I laughed a little.

“Natsuhiko. You’re gonna die soon. Are you ok?”

“…Yeah. I don’t know, if I’m ok, though…”

Like Maki-chan said, I felt my consciousness become distant.

Though I heard that on the verge of death, people rethink their events in the past, I didn’t remember anything.

“The card’s gotten dirty. You can’t use it anymore.” The card that Maki-chan pulled out from my coat pocket, was covered in my blood, you couldn’t distinguish what was written on it.

Nonetheless, it ended up so that nobody was brought misfortune. Instead, misfortune befell me.

While Maki-chan peered at my face, she said.

“Do you wish for something? To live again?”

I did wish for that. However, gazing at the death that should have been terrifying before my eyes right now, I had no fear in my heart, just a single wish remained instead.

“…I want to see, Sora…”

In my fading consciousness, I heard Sora’s voice.

 “I wonder if it’ll rain tomorrow?”

 I expressed a smile at her dear voice, and answered in my mind.

 “Hey, I don’t know what will happen in the future.”

 I felt like, Sora smiled.

    Interlude: Our Retribution Policy

His wish was granted.

The boy who killed her, died.

I killed him with my own hands.

 A laughing voice echoed from the living room. He was laughing.

When I reported the details of what happened, he was incredibly happy, and said we should have a toast.

For some reason, at that smile, I felt anxious.

“Well done. You did a good job…”

Drinking from a sake cup while he praised me, his face had become red.

“Hey, you can drink some too.”

I tasted the transparent liquid he poured. I realized it was made of alcohol.

Even though legally he should be the prohibited drinking age, he didn’t care.

“The appropriate reward for all humans. Aah, what a happy ending…”

Letting me sit next to him for the first time, I stared at his smile

 I wonder if he’s glad at this.

I haven’t made any kind of mistake, have I?

I wonder if he’s really happy.

I worried about those anxieties.

I granted his wish.

I accomplished my role.

That’s the result. I want something more than this.

…Want?

No, that’s not true. I don’t want anything. I don’t wish for anything.

I’m not a person. I’m a thing that grants people’s wishes.

Because killing that boy was his wish. There’s no other reason.

There shouldn’t be, another reason.

I was aware that I was in confusion.

Even though I shouldn’t be affected by the influence of alcohol.

Maybe I’m broken.

 “Really, you did a good job.”

Putting his sake cup on the table, he touched my cheek.

Gently touching it. Unlike when he hit me, I felt his warmth.

“Let me thank you, Ruma. …So…”

He took the sake cup from my hand, and also put that on the table.

Then, he politely lay my body on the sofa.

Hanging over from above, I could only see his body. I could only see, his face.

His hand touched me. My cheek, my hair, my arms, my legs.

Bringing his face close to my ear, he whispered to me.

“I’m counting on you tomorrow, too.”

At that alone, my anxiety disappeared.

I’m glad he said that, I thought.

I haven’t made any mistakes. From now on, I also won’t make any mistakes.

I will continue to grant his wishes. I will continue to accomplish my own duty.

Just that is fine.

It’s fine, if I just think about that.

Wrapped up in his arms, wrapped up in his breath, I believed that.

 He doesn’t love me or anything.

And also, I probably don’t love him.

Yet, I wonder why I did that.

In this moment right now, I don’t feel any anxiety.

Without thinking anything, without feeling anything, I am simply a thing.

This isn’t my ideal form.

 I am a thing that grants his wishes.

Simply, just a thing for that.

Epilogue --->

[limejuicer1862]

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

© Don Beukes

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

© Don Beukes

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

© Don Beukes

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

© Dai Fry 4th May 2020.

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?

#6

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

-© Dai Fry 8th May 2020.

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

©️ Dai Fry 10th May 2020.

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

©️ Dai Fry 12th May 2020.

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

©️ Dai Fry 13th May 2020.

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

Go

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

©️ Dai Fry 14th May 2020.

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

©️ Dai Fry 15th May 2020.

*

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..

[jeremystrele]

Polly Borland · ‘Monster’

Polly Borland · ‘Monster’

Art

by Elle Murrell

Polly Borland ‘s latest body of work, ‘Monster’, is on exhibit at Murray White Room until December 21st. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

‘Mouth’ 2017 reversible tapestry, 64x53cm. The reversible tapestries of Polly’s photographs are created by prison inmates in the UK as part of the Fine Cell Work rehabilitation program. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

‘Gag’ 2017 reversible tapestry, 64x53cm.Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Polly perfecting the install. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Sarah Ritson, Associate Director of Murray White Room, pictured with Polly at the gallery in Melbourne’s CBD, with a lenticular print by the photographer in the background. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Books and exhibition postcard by Polly, including ‘Bunny’ her hardcover of photographs documenting a ‘real-life giant woman called Gwen’. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

The exhibition is a fascinating exploration of the play between physical and emotional constriction and restraint. Photo – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

‘Her Majesty, The Queen, Elizabeth II’, 2001, Type C photograph. Photo – Polly Borland courtesy of Murray White Room.

‘Untitled (Nick Cave in a blue wig)’, 2010, Type C photograph. Photo – Polly Borland courtesy of Murray White Room.

‘Untitled XXI’, ‘Untitled III’, and ‘Untitled XXXII’, all from the series ‘Smudge’ 2010 (chromogenic prints). Works from this series currently adorn the walls of Melbourne restaurant Kisumé. Photos – Polly Borland courtesy of Murray White Room.

‘Untitled XXXIII’ from the series ‘Smudge’, 2010. Photo – Polly Borland courtesy of Murray White Room.

Polly’s portrait of Monica Lewinsky. Photo – Polly Borland courtesy of Murray White Room.

Yesterday, we found ourselves more than a little star-struck to turn the lens on one of Australia’s most iconic photographers, Polly Borland. If you don’t recognise Polly from her picture or by name, you’re likely to have seen her unforgettable glitter-backed portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. (No, it’s not photoshopped – this is the real deal!)

Based in Los Angeles since 2011, the photographic artist’s attention is now firmly on more anonymous subjects for her personal projects, rather than the VIP portraiture commissions for which she is best known. This week, she was back in her former home of Melbourne to open her latest exhibition, ‘Monster’. The two-part body of work brings together ‘straightjackety’ photography and corresponding reversible tapestries created by prison inmates, in a fascinating exploration of physical and emotional constriction and restraint.

Contemplative yet sincere, Polly afforded us a chance to learn more about her new ‘abstracted emotional mindscapes’, and reflected on her multi-faceted career – from high school cupboard dark room to daring world-leader portraiture, and beyond…

Can you tell us a little about your background and how this led you to becoming a photographic artist?

I studied photography at art school at Prahran College, which merged with the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA), which has helped me along the way.

Before that, I did art history at high school, and in those days if you did art history you had to do a practical subject. I didn’t feel I could draw or paint and my art teacher was a bit of a hippie so he said, ‘Why don’t I build a darkroom in the cupboard?’ He did that, and I’ve been taking photos ever since!

So that’s 40 years now, but obviously now it’s not just taking photos – it’s expanded into art practice; It was always my intention to pursue my personal work. I modelled myself more on the Diane Arbuses of the world, that was the sort of photography on my radar. But there wasn’t such a distinction then between art photography and other types of photography – you might do everything. I was doing editorial, portraits, fashion, reportage, and I was doing my own personal work.

How would you describe your work and its influences?

My art is very existential. I’m dealing with abstracted emotional mindscapes. I use figurative abstraction to reduce body parts to shapes that hint at this psychological interior or allude to existential crises.

As far as influences go, I like the work of Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, Larry Clark, Diane Arbus as I said, the Australian painter Tony Clark, and Howard Arkley. From an earlier generation, I look at the work of John Brack, Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd. Then there are filmmakers – film is a huge influence on my work – so there is Pasolini and Fassbinder, among others.

You’ve been in Melbourne to open your latest solo exhibition, ‘Monster’ at Murray White Room. Can you give us some insight into this new series.

The new work is in two series – nine new photographs and nine new tapestries. The title of the show is specific to a particular photograph of a giant figure in red.

Across the series, it’s all very fleshy, with round balls a definite motif. One with a ball in the mouth is called ‘Gag’, for instance. There’s something quite foreboding about the new images, and there’s always a slightly on-the-edge connotation to what’s happening in them. I’m exploring the play between physical and emotional constriction and restraint. It feels a bit ‘straightjackety’.

The tapestries are a kind of multimedia – I’ve drawn coloured shapes over some of the images and then they’ve been turned into tapestries. That work is done by prison inmates in the UK as part of the Fine Cell Work rehabilitation program.

My new photographs are of two different people, Bella Heathcote, an Australian actress who lives in LA, and Ava Berlin, who is the co-founder of How Many Virgins?, a limited-edition art publication.

Can you take us through your creative process, including how you generate your ideas?

Just by living life. The works mainly come from my imagination and I draw on life experiences, film and art. The tactility of analogue photography is important in the sense that there is an element of surprise when you’re shooting film and it’s not as contrived. So that’s important.

The other important thing is texture and form. I’m creating sculptural forms within my practice so there is an element of making my own fantastical figurative visions. There is a tactility to it and shooting on film is a part of that.

My main inspiration remains my own internal barometer and emotional mindscape.

Over your illustrious career you’ve created some truly iconic pieces. The one that comes to mind for many people is your bold portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. Can you tell us about how the concept to shoot The Queen in this way came about?

It was the Golden Jubilee, so the gold tinsel backdrop had a logical sense to it. The Palace had agreed to it and I already had it set up, but the Queen didn’t know about it before she arrived. There was no hint that the gold one was going to be an issue, but then there was a floral one too, and she did react to that. I think she thought that was a bit ‘loud’. That one was never officially approved, though later it was used as the cover of the Sunday Times magazine, with the heading ‘the unofficial portrait of the Queen’.

I’ve read that during this shoot you were a bit panicked and it was all over quite quickly. How did the shoot unfold, and what was that experience like for you?

Yes, I was totally panicked. I managed to take one roll of photographs in the first set-up and then another roll in the next set-up, and that was it. That was it, two rolls of film! I was telling the Queen to smile, which because she doesn’t like being photographed didn’t come that easily, and I wasn’t being very funny because I was so panicked. Then I pretty much broke all of the protocols because my instinct was almost to physically position her for the shots. And that broke the ice. She burst out laughing, she was chatty, she was friendly – but she was in a hurry.

I don’t mind talking about it, though sometimes I’m not in the mood. When I meet people, they want to hear the whole spiel. It was once funny, but I can’t really tell it unless I’m in the right mood to be funny with it!

Across your career, who else has been a memorable subject?

I used to love doing politicians, so I did Silvio Berlusconi in the presidential palace in Rome – that was amazing. I also did Donald Trump in the Trump Tower in the ’90s and that was pretty interesting. I loved photographing men, or people, in positions of extreme power and the reason I liked that was because I find it interesting in people who are drawn to power, how it corrupts and subverts them from human decency in a lot of ways. I liked to witness that up-close-and-personal, but now I’m quite disturbed by that sort of thing.

In the documentary Polly Borland: Polymorphous (2013) you explained that you don’t like taking photos for people in general as you’re always terrified that they won’t like them. Has this changed?

I don’t generally photograph other people as jobs anymore. Though I did my first job recently for British Vogue and I was photographing Nick Cave after 15 years of not photographing him. I did this shoot because Nick and Susie asked me to and I thought it would be interesting to do an editorial shoot after not doing one for so long. I did it as a favour to them and also it was British Vogue and I was very happy to be in the magazine.

When I know that I’ve done a good job then I don’t have the fear that people won’t like the photos.

My personal work is purely for me and if people like it, they like it, and if they don’t, they don’t. It’s all collaborative and obviously I would like my models to be invested in what we’re doing but – unless it’s about that person – I’m not there to please or to serve them.

In that same documentary, Nick Cave said, ‘If you sit down and talk to Polly, you walk away kind of reeling away from the conversation, and thinking that you’ve given away way too much information.’ Do you think taking the time to get to know a subject has been vital to your iconic portraiture work?

Well, in the old days, if I was doing an editorial shoot and I didn’t know the sitter then I didn’t have much time. With Queen Elizabeth II I had five minutes to shoot her. That was, again, part of the limitations to that way of working. But I’ve had greater satisfaction, for example, from being able to shoot Nick Cave over the last 40 years and revisit that, because we’re friends and it becomes a creative collaboration.

How do you feel about the more instantaneous direction general photography (and even art photography) is headed in, with the rise of iPhones and Instagram?

I think the internet has ruined everything. It’s devalued things, particularly with music, photography and now film. For starters, no-one has copyright. It doesn’t really exist anymore and artists are providing free content to the internet and someone’s making a shit load of money, and it’s not us.

For me, it’s the death of culture. I’m on Instagram and I still like it because it’s visual, but really, it’s as my 16-year-old son said, ‘A popularity contest, Mum.’ And it’s not that interesting, because it’s just about how many followers and likes you’ve got.

Who are some Australian creatives you find inspiring at the moment?

Tony Clark  is a beautiful painter and there’s an incredible sensitivity to his images, which are breathtaking at the same time as being both emotional and intelligent. They’re packed with just so much stuff and they’re sort of punk rock.

I think Constanze Zikos is incredible. He’s really speaking to his cultural background within an Australian, or particularly a Melbourne, context. His work is just meticulous and it operates on both an aesthetic and a conceptual level.

Eliza Hutchinson is probably one of the most important artists of her generation. She’s an incredible conceptualist and the real deal.

All the artists who I’ve mentioned should be celebrated more than they are. I think there’s this strain of kitsch show-art that’s taken off in Australia, which is just not interesting to me.

What will you be focusing on next, heading into 2018?

The image ‘Monster’ is a segue into my next body of work, which I’ve already started on. I’m going even further in my reduction of visual language, so there is even less bodily detail; it’s less identifiable in its humanness. It’s pushing into a realm of preconsciousness. I’m working on a major project but I can’t reveal the details yet!

‘Monster’ by Polly Borland November 14th to December 21st Murray White Room Sargood Lane, Melbourne

[pwylldavydd]

All the Realms

The Gods

I was fortunate to be present for the reunion. Or reconciliation, as it was intended. While a recent arrival in Toronto – and only twenty-three years old – I’d ingratiated myself in its society of booksellers, writers, and scholars; although the events I experienced, or persons I met, often found me out of my depth. Not unlike my first exposure to Buddy Ebsen, as Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies. I was only twelve years old then and didn’t know he’d been a song-and-dance man in the movies and vaudeville. (He was going to be Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz no less, but he couldn’t tolerate the makeup.) Barker Fairley, one of the two desired to be reconciled, was himself less famous than his depth might recommend. A poet and painter, he’d written a landmark study of Goethe, and was friends with members of the Group of Seven and other distinguished persons in the Arts and Letters Club circle. He’d painted A.Y. Jackson in 1939, and Fred Varley had painted him in 1922, when he was thirty-five. By the time the launch for his book of poems was being refashioned for rectification in 1977 he was ninety. Everyone thought the two had better patch things up, because they weren’t going to live forever and people ought not go to the grave with things unresolved. In fact, he didn’t die until 1986, at the advanced age of ninety-nine. Thoreau MacDonald, the one from whom Barker was estranged, also had many years still to live, passing away in 1989 at the age of eighty-eight. He was and is among Canada’s most distinguished artists. His preferred medium was woodcut illustration, and he’d decorated and lettered poems of Barker Fairley’s in the 1920s. But they’d had a falling out and hadn’t spoken for forty years. It was Thoreau who got up from his chair that evening at the party. He walked over to where Barker was sitting and leaned forward slightly on his walking stick. “Hello, Barker,” he said. “Hello, Thoreau,” Barker replied. Then Thoreau turned and walked back to his seat.

Demigods

You could spot the men and women who travelled with the company, as opposed to the local hires. They were deeply tanned. Seasoned. Vaguely dangerous. They had their own train! Which you could see parked on a railway siding beside the fairground while the show was on. At its peak Royal American Shows was the largest carnival company in North America, which after the War included a number of city fairs in western Canada where I lived. You’d often read in the newspaper back then how people wanted the midway cleaned up, or modernized. Little was changed or updated over the years, and by the late 60s the Royal American train was a rolling anachronism, loaded with the artefacts of an already-bygone era. Today, exhibition midways are mostly amusement rides and games of chance offering plush toys for their hapless winners. In that earlier era, carnival operators had those things, but they also had sideshows, announced by hand-painted banners, hung in rows like huge lettered sails. There was Leon Miller’s Club Lido, a burlesque tent that travelled with Royal American. Blaze Fury! The Human Heat Wave the banner announced, famous for twirling flaming tassels. The company was also renown for its girl-to-gorilla illusion, a must-see, portrayed on one of these colourful flags. Next to that, a banner for Serpentina, the Reptile Queen! in the Museum of Mystery. At bottom, it was this everyone wanted “cleaned up.” The freak show. The circus tradition of parading shocking medical anomalies and persons of peculiar talents (such as contortionists and sword swallowers) in a sideshow tent came to trouble public conscience. Not so for the Wall of Death, though, where daring motorcyclists rode stunts on the inside wall of a carnival motordrome, like a giant wooden barrel 16 feet high and 30 feet across. We watched from the spectator platform around the top edge above as they entered the arena floor below, waving up at us as they started their stripped-down Indians and Harley-Davidsons, the roar of the engines engulfing our applause.

Humankind

1930 was not a good year to be born in Tibet. In your late twenties, as you reached your prime, your home and culture and country would be smashed by foreign military forces. You would likely be imprisoned and tortured, and your mother and father would be brutally murdered in front of your eyes. On the other hand, 1930 was the best year ever to be born in the west, especially in Canada or the United States. Too young to serve in World War II, you enjoyed the buoyancy of its patriotic mood in safety as a child; then had many veterans’ benefits available to you when it was over. A time of terrific waste and excess, you suddenly and relentlessly mowed down vast forests, raped the great oceans, and burned huge quantities of petroleum. With these assets, you enjoyed stunning economic and technological prosperity, never before imaginable. And jazz. You had jazz music. Especially swing. Swing was a big band sound for dancing, full of primal rhythms. The best of swing were the bands of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. For me, their finest moment was Sing Sing Sing, written by Louis Prima and made famous by Benny Goodman. Born in 1954, I was too late for the original passage of all this, although enjoyed the tidewater of its prosperity later. But as a teenager I scorned the jazz singers, like Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, and Ella. And scorned my dad for loving them. Which, when I got to my forties, suddenly flipped to a powerful lesson of just how wrong you can be. My dad was gone so I couldn’t tell him I’d come to this realization. Although opera was my first love then, not jazz, and I woke up to CJRT radio at 6 am for the classical program. One day in a mood of mischief, the announcer played Sing Sing Sing at 6 am for his still-sleepy classical listeners. While I lay there in bed listening to the huge chorus of brass, and Gene Krupa pounding his drums, this seemed to me the very essence of the entire possibility of living.

Animal Kingdom

My supervisor explained that people noticed I was always staring at the shapely young women who came in the shop. I replied I wasn’t looking at all of them; and besides, I wasn’t staring, I was just trying to comprehend them. Besides that, he wasn’t really my supervisor. I was supposed to be working in the back, doing cutting and collating and other bindery jobs for the document printing and copying the others did out front. But I always seemed to drift out to the retail counter, where the supervisor was, where the men and women were, and where I thought I could be more useful. Although, there was the guy who came in one day and grabbed my shirt, saying he’d have killed me if I’d been there in the meeting when he handed out the misfed photocopies I’d done for him the day before. I explained it was really up to him to inspect the work, that the machines weren’t completely reliable. What machine could be! The accounting girl wasn’t my supervisor either, but she caused some trouble when she shooed me out to breakfast one day. There was a restaurant next door where I often had an omelette in the morning, but I was kinda late that day and my boss said “no,” that working hours had started; but a little later the accounting girl said “go ahead,” and I did. But my boss came into the restaurant for his coffee and saw me there and took me back to the shop by the throat, which I thought was excessive. When the new shop expansion opened there was no counter to stand behind, but my boss was still never happy with me, although I was there working even when he wasn’t. It was not unlike how one day a customer came in with a short story to copy. Behind the counter we stood about nine inches higher than the customers down in front, which gave me a sense of superiority to them, but not to this man. I was reading his story and it was moving to me. Like my boss, the character in the story was not happy. He’d become traumatized after he’d seen a bumper sticker that said Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you’re an asshole.

Hungry Ghosts

The soles of my shoes were squeaky on the mat my office chair rode over at work, which kept its wheels from grinding the carpet. She said they must be sticky with muck from the raisins I’d mashed. Well, I ate lots of raisins, but I hadn’t mashed any on the plastic mat. But then, only about ten minutes later, what do you think? I mashed a raisin on the mat! Under my shoe. I hadn’t said anything, but I think she knew I couldn’t imagine myself mashing a raisin under my shoe, but then I’d just gone and done it! As though some part of my subconscious brain just had to go and prove I might indeed do the raisin squashing. I remembered how once when I was working at University of Toronto Library I noticed I’d never goofed up my lunch break, going at 12.00 instead of 1.00, say, if I’d been scheduled at 1.00 that day. (When later I first started at the record company my boss said he wanted me to start at 1.30, but he meant $130 dollars a week, not 1.30 in the afternoon, which confusion was awkwardly resolved.) Anyway, the very next day I went for the wrong lunch! Nobody was mad at me because I was usually so reliable and they knew it was just a mistake. But it was as though my mind sought the experience I believed I’d never have, even though when I missed the lunch I’d already forgotten the thought I had the day before. But when I realized my mind would do this, I started thinking, Oh, I’d never see that girl naked! when I went by a beautiful woman on the street, or Wow! An Austin Healey 3000! I could never, ever own a car like that! Everywhere I went I was thinking about the things I’d be so unlikely to have happen. There was no lottery then, or I’d surely have considered that the most unlikely thing of all. But, hey, if I rescued the son of an oil sheik in front of the Ritz Hotel in London, he’d certainly reward me, although it was so improbable I’d be on the spot right at the crucial moment, and would be modest even though I’d have been injured.

The Hells

The air changes when it falls below -40 degrees. Too cold to hold moisture, it becomes dry and still. The air was cold and dry and still every winter in Alberta before the 1970s, when the warming began. A young child then, I didn’t realize there were places elsewhere in the world where winters were mild. I’d seen photographs of tropical islands in Life magazine, abundant with hibiscus flowers and pretty young girls, but I didn’t know they had mild winters, or no winters at all. That they’d never seen sun dogs, or knew the air could be as cold as that. That they didn’t know the sun only shone six or seven hours in a midwinter day, and had never once seen the northern lights. I took our winters in graceful stride, knowing no other life. I knew how to protect myself outside, and how to warm up coming in. How to avoid swollen hands and ears and cracked lips. I don’t know how we could possibly have had jackets and gloves and hats and boots warm enough, but I do remember being upset with my dad for bringing home a new jacket for me, a faux-furry jacket, which I thought was effeminate and I was embarrassed to wear. My friend Grant Hagen didn’t have to wear a girls’ jacket. Grant and I were school patrols on December 15 1964, in Grade 6 at Crestwood Elementary School, the day it was colder than it’d ever been before. The radio announcer didn’t say ‘Crestwood’ reading his list of school closures, so we went on our way, fulfilling our charge at the 96th Avenue crosswalk along the way, unaware that thousands of beef cattle were that moment freezing solid in their shelters. The blizzard raged with heavy snow, high winds, and bitter cold. I saw on the front page of the Edmonton Journal that evening, delivered by another boy indifferent to the crisis, a chart showing the windchill temperature of -92 degrees F. Back then the transit bench by the crosswalk on 96th Avenue was painted with the slogan Rest and Read the Journal, but there was no one relaxing there with the newspaper that day.

[limejuicer1862]

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

© Don Beukes

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

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.

-Anjum Wasir Dar

Born in Srinagar (Indian occupied Kashmir) in 1949. My family opted for and migrated to Pakistan after the (1947)Partition of India. Educated in St Anne’s Presentation Convent Rawalpindi.Graduated with Distinction in English Lang. & Literature in 1968 from the Punjab University. Won the All Round Best Student Cup.1968. Obtained a Masters Degree in English Literature/American Studies Punjab University P.G. Diploma in TEFL from Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad and a CPE from Cambridge University UK (LSE British Council)1991 Developing Educators in Pakistan Training Course sponsored by IFC & Bradford University 1999.Bronze Medal Poet of Merit Award by International Society of Poets & http://Poetry.com USA 2000 7 Times Winner NANOWRIMO, (National Novel Writing Month) Adventure Novel ‘ The Adventures of the Multi Colored Lead People’ in the printing process. Educator Writer since 1990 Editor College Magazine Creative Writer English at Channel 7 Pvt Ltd Islamabad.National Education Award Winner 1998 for Research & Publications.

-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 x social worker and a present poet. Image is all but flow is good too. So many interesting things… Published in Black bough Poetry, Re-Side, The Hellebore, The Pangolin Review. He will not stop.

Twitter                  @thnargg

Web.                       seekingthedarklight.co.uk

Audio/Visual.       @IntPoetryCircle #InternationalPoetryCircle Twitter #TopTweetTuesday

-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/

Welcome to a special ekphrastic challenge for May. Artworks from Mary Frances, James Knight and Sue Harpham will be the inspiration for writers, Alex Mazey, Ankh Spice, Anjum Wasim Dar, James Knight, Samantha Terrell, Dai Fry, Carrie Ann Golden, sonja menskin mesher, Rich Follett, Don Beukes and myself. May 1st. May 1 ..looks like you are drowning.. part one looks like you are drowning & hope i am wrong.