Scrittura Magazine Issue 16 Summer 2019

Issue number 16 Summer 2019

Scrittura Magazine © Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved.

Scrittura Magazine is a UK-based online literary magazine, launched in 2015 by three Creative Writing graduates who wanted to provide a platform to showcase new and exciting writing from across the world. Scrittura Magazine is published quarterly, and is free for all. This means that we are unable to offer payment for publication.

Submissions information can be found online at www.scritturamagazine.tumblr.com EDITOR: Valentina Terrinoni EDITOR: Yasmin Rahman DESIGNER / ILLUSTRATOR: Catherine Browne SOCIAL MEDIA AND EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Melis Anik WEB: www.scritturamagazine.tumblr.com EMAIL: scrittura.magazine@gmail.com TWITTER: @Scrittura_Mag FACEBOOK: scritturamag

In This Issue 06 08 09 10 12 14 15 16 17 22 23 24 25 26 29 30 31

You Always Were an Angel Valentina Terrinoni Joining the Dots Lynn White Cassandra Jack D. Harvey Nonchalance and Alarm Peter George Dead Poets Lynn White This is a Poem Jeremy Gadd Destinations: Origins Ian C. Smith Waltz Louis Gallo Good Fences Make Good Neighbours Molly Quell Family John Baverstock How to Float Lynn White In Praise of Water Peter George Lessons in History Ed Blundell Night Sky James Bell Odour of Libraries Ian C. Smith Pratchett DS Maolalai Scrambled Egg John Baverstock

32 33 34 37 38 39 40 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 54

Small Town Living Howie Good Spooks Ed Blundell The Circular Line Lorna Roberts The End Howie Good The Panic of Truth Jack D. Harvey The Wait Annie Maclean The Yellow Crane Pavilion James Bell In Praise of Morphine Peter George To All Jeremy Gadd Value Louis Gallo A Working Class Suburb DS Maolalai The Womb of Heaven Geraldine Douglas No Refuge for Jamie’s Dream of Food Peter George Washed Out Ed Blundell Mediaeval Poem of the Figments of Hell Peter George The Toreador’s Waltz Neil K. Henderson Wizardry Poets John Baverstock

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A Note From The Editors Welcome to the Summer issue of Scrittura Magazine!

Issue 16 marks four full years of Scrittura – how time flies! When launching the magazine back in 2015, I don’t think any of us would have predicted that we’d still be here, heading into year five, having published and showcased so many fantastic pieces of new writing from writers across the world. Enormous thanks to all of our contributors past and present, we hope you will continue to allow us the privilege of publishing your work, and of course our readers for your continued support. Here’s to year five!

This issue is a particularly personal one for me as it opens with a poem I have written in dedication of my beautiful mum, who I recently lost. As I’m sure my fellow writers can relate, the only way I felt I could really express how I was feeling at this difficult time was through my writing.

We’re all writers here at Scrittura, however we agreed never to feature our own work when we launched the magazine. The Scrittura team have allowed me this exception, so I thank them for that and dedicate this issue to my mum, who was and will eternally be, my biggest champion.

On a second personal note, my extremely talented co-editor Yasmin is celebrating the imminent launch of her debut novel, ‘All The Things We Never Said’. From studying our degrees, and then MAs, together, to seeing her incredible success (though I had no doubts, she’s an awesome writer!) I’m incredibly proud and inspired by Yasmin, and wish her the biggest heart-felt congratulations from the whole team, and I’m sure, our wider Scrittura family. And if you’re a Young Adult Literature fan, be sure to check out the novel when it releases on July 11th!

With those two side-notes complete, on to this issue! I’m always excited to introduce the magazine, having usually worked on it for a couple of months before it reaches your eyes.

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Unfortunately there isn’t enough room in this note to introduce every piece, but here’s a flavour of what to expect from this fantastic issue.

If you fancy a humorous read, check out these short poems: ‘Spooks’ (pg 33), which should be relatable to many cat-owners – myself included, and ‘Washed Out’ (pg 48), which is sure to make you chuckle. On a more serious note, ‘Scrambled Eggs’ (pg 31) depicts the debilitating effects of depression, while ‘Family’ (pg 22) examines the regrets of allowing a family feud to go unresolved. If you fancy a longer read, our prose piece, ‘The Circular Line’ (pg 34), is set amongst the backdrop of a horrific day in recent history, and offers a perspective of its lasting effects. For a final pick-me-up, give ‘How to Float’ (pg 23) a try, which reinforces the power of believing in miracles.

Thank you to all of our wonderful contributors for sharing your writing with us this issue; if you’d like to submit work for consideration for our Autumn issue, the current deadline is July 31st 2019. As always, big thanks go to both Catherine, our brilliant designer for another stunning issue, and Melis our Social Media and Editorial Assistant, who’s doing a wonderful job promoting your work on our social platforms.

We hope you enjoy this issue; please continue to let us know your thoughts via email or social media!

Valentina

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You Always Were an Angel Valentina Terrinoni You always were an angel A shining diamond light Leading us through darkness Guiding us through life You always were my angel Standing tall and strong Waiting full of comfort Whenever things went wrong You always were our angel And knew just what to do No matter what the issue You’d help us see it through You always were an angel Blessing us on Earth Now you fly with wings A miraculous rebirth Now you are an angel Shining in the stars I feel you all around me Although you seem so far You’ll always be an angel Living in our hearts Guiding us forever This is just the start.

For my mum, Margaret.

Every day I miss you more.

‘God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers’ – Rudyard Kipling

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Joining the Dots Lynn White

She saw the night sky as a join-the-dots puzzle.

She was an expert far better than the adults who could never work them out.

They told her that these formed a plough shape and those a bear, well two bears, Great and Little.

She couldn’t see it.

They were quite wrong she knew the stars were glittering cairns pin point sharp marking the pathway to the moon, to Venus, to the sun and beyond.

You just had to join the dots and follow the paths to find your way to paradise.

Cassandra

Jack D. Harvey

Scrittura Magazine Mystic the moon-pools of your willful soul, those secret eyes buried in your skull, the skill to see, looking beyond the first light.

Dawn doth float above the uneasy sleep that God forgets; heeding the call, the littlest things, the very worms, like Cadmus creatures of another breed, wriggling out of the earth turn to dragons.

You know it before it happens; nobody listens.

Alone we two fain would be; the forests of your fair eyebrows knit; you see it all.

Outside the drawn curtains the placid lawn takes a breath; stepping forward in the east the rosy, the hourless, the enormous sun starts up, showing the rim of its everlasting eye.

Midnight, my cry sounded up and down the bedroom, you were gone, gone your second sight; I lay wounded, terrified, despondent.

Impossible in this dawn, in this day arising, if you came to me

there would be less delight in your sweet presence than knowing the future; forget, forget, at noon I work spider spinning, industrious.

Onward the sun on course, dropping down the heavens towards night; across this land comes twilight slowly, then dark and then the real lights of heaven come on, tiny and distinct, and here on earth the false ones.

You see it all, clear as the neon signs we see, the future speaks to you, impossible burden, and you tell us the tragic end of all our labours, our mighty strivings.

In your prophecies, your visions thrown to the winds, your truth for us just as clear and useless as broken glass.

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Nonchalance and Alarm Peter George

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Rivals for attention, Big cats and computers, Put us to the test in our extreme state of mind.

But then whatever dear people think Has always been at the cutting edge of grief.

Weapons clash with the shielded foe hitting back.

And people march and roam.

They traipse and meander.

And, yes, while big cats and computers Occupy our massive television screens, Sore wounds hurt the incontinent, And hospitals moan and flash and bleep.

Grief’s empty lot, Grief’s empty lot, Need I repeat the phrase?

Need I emphasise the explosive vacancy of grief, By mentioning the shrinkage Of the kingdom of big cats Lot by lot?

Computers finger our information With fingers that are not felt by the fingers at the keyboard.

OK, tiger. OK, lion. OK, leopard. OK, cheetah.

Extra smart computers Embedded amongst their dumber kind Feed and feed and feed, Upon what the unfelt fingers grasp, While big cats roar with astounding violence, And big cats roam their shrinking lot.

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Dead Poets

Lynn White

Outside, the night was filled with stars, a sky full of dead poets if van Gogh is to be believed.

But he was inside now and all he remembered was the red curtain coming down over his eyes.

Red first and then black.

So black it turned everything black.

They told him that he had died for a few seconds, or was it a few minutes?

Then he was back looking out on the starry night.

He wondered how long it took for a dead poet to become a star.

Was a few seconds, or even a few minutes, sufficient?

And now, now that he was back, was he still shining undead, living up there with all the dead poets?

Unless the raising of the curtain put out his light.

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This is a Poem Jeremy Gadd

This is a poem for the poor huddled, hands outstretched, outside the door.

This is a requiem for life filled with wonder and with strife.

This is a song for all the sinners – more than many have had hot dinners.

This is in praise of all the seeds that will, one day, grow into great deeds.

This is a recall for poison pens, to be, anonymously, returned, not spurned, before being crushed and burned.

This is a fervent prayer for the ill, their cross to bear.

This is a problematic paeon long, short, short, short – to those caught stealing from those who bought and those seeking signs or healing from toxic lead painted ceilings.

This is all poets have to give, for no-one has long to live.

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Destination: Origins

Ian C. Smith (Life’s brief span forbids us to enter on far-reaching hopes.

Horace. Odes 1.4) Transported to Australia, a mistreated, alienated child, outlook infected, now adult, I want to discover the whys and what fors behind our English hurt, emigration, the hurl of this. Don’t we each need to know the truth about ourselves, conundrums conflicting geneses?

I pass ceramic cows at the entrance of a vast housing estate, a maze of lookalike accommodation.

This, after the frisson of arrival at Heathrow, first time back. I knock on my father’s half-sister’s door. Shuffling sounds, coughing, icy minutes dragging by, so I rap harder. An irritable voice behind the closed door tells me to wait. Late sleepers. Halfway around the world I spin out there, catch chintzy curtains astir.

Arthritic, leaning on two canes, overweight, she clatters framed photos, tea, to the table, proving her beauty once, a stage actress calling me – aghast at what may lie ahead – by my father’s name, seeing a facial likeness, changeling fantasies blown away. She jokes of her mother’s desire for her to marry a conductor, which she did, referring to the shadowy figure treading his trouser cuffs just out of sight, a former bus conductor with bad nerves puffing up a screen of cigarette smoke, tempering the urinous smell, their heating ramped right up.

She expects me to have arrived in a good car, drive them some place, backpacking me in worn trainers and jeans. When she starts on a recital of her pills, their various colours, adding the drama of bad health to bad luck, I wonder, eyes prickling, thoughts a pizzicato of wrens, if my precious air ticket should have taken me to Venice, or the south of France. Is our yearning part of genetic make-up?

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Waltz

Louis Gallo

On that sluggish, dismal day I took a nap and dreamed that we were Fred & Ginger, but not Fred & Ginger, we were a god and goddess, you wearing a bejeweled silk flapper dress and I a white tuxedo and we were doomed to a dilapidated, woeful, moldy warehouse where hunched, shadowy, hooded figures, ghouls draped in ashen cloaks, apprised our every move.

When the music began, an ultra-famous Strauss waltz, not the Blue Danube nor Emperor, but one equally famous, the name of which escapes me, though the tune still ricochets in my mind, a fabulous, joyful piece which I cannot find on YouTube but know, I’ve heard it all my life, a nearly sublime melody that alchemized us into air, lighter than air, as we swirled and looped and flew across the dingy floor, no ritzy Fred & Ginger set, but it didn’t matter— we were elegance, poise, beauty, dance, we became pure formality, we glowed, we ignored the seedy interlopers and danced as we stared into each other’s eyes, we, stylized passion, could not be stopped, we danced on, we never stopped, not until the dream ended, as if we danced out of the dream itself and back into the shoddy misery of that broken-down place and the still dismal day, still gray, still raining, raining endlessly, and here I am still ransacking my brain for the name of that ethereal waltz, suspecting that perhaps I composed it for the dream, knowing that I didn’t.

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Good Fences Make Good Neighbours Molly Quell

He looked up at her through the window; she was watering the plants on the windowsill of what he assumed was their bedroom. He hadn’t been further than the entryway of the house, so he couldn’t be sure, but it was always the room with the last light to go out. He pressed out his smoke and walked back into his kitchen.

It was a few weeks later when he realised someone was home during the day. It had to be her. The husband left at the same time every morning, but she didn’t seem to have a regular schedule. His own wife, a nurse at a local hospital, was at work. He decided to go over to see if she had any eggs, a neighbourly enough request. He knocked first on the door, but she didn’t answer. He could hear strains of music from inside the house so he knew she was there.

He knocked again, then rapped hard against the window. Finally, he heard footsteps.

‘Hi,’ she said brightly, through a crack in the door. He answered with a hello and moved forward to enter, but she didn’t shift the door open any further, so instead, he stumbled back awkwardly. She said nothing, only watching him through the narrow space between the door and the frame.

‘I was wondering if you had a few eggs.

I, uh, need them for something.’

‘No,’ she replied, still smiling warmly.

‘No?’ he asked, surprised.

‘No, we don’t.’ She emphasised the word we. ‘I need to get back to work now. Have a good afternoon.’ She shifted to close the narrow crack.

‘Could you maybe check?’

Her smile didn’t waver. ‘No, I know

what’s in the fridge. The store around the corner probably has some though. Have a good day!’ Her voice ticked up at the end. She shut the door.

He thought she was probably watching him through the crack in the curtains so he turned away from his own house and walked the block and a half to the corner store, where Mr. Lee, who owned the bodega, happily sold him a dozen eggs.

They were working together in the garden.

The husband must have chosen the music, some bland rock mix like something his own son would listen to. She always picked pop music that she would sing along to. He popped his head over the fence that connected their backyards.

‘Good weather to be working in the yard,’ he said.

She looked him directly in the eye. ‘Yup,’ she said before lowering her head to return to her weeding, her dark ponytail flipping upside down.

The husband straightened up and walked towards the fence. ‘Yeah it is. Hey since you’re here, quick question.’

He didn’t want to talk to the husband. ‘I forgot something on the stove,’ he blurted out and strode back inside his own house, letting the back door close with a bang and leaving the husband’s face peering over the fence behind him.

His kids came that weekend, with their kids in tow. The grandkids ran around the yard

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spraying each other with water guns, while the adults complained about their jobs and taxes. He spent most of the afternoon surreptitiously glancing up into the windows of the neighbour’s house, but the curtains stayed drawn.

The doorbell rang one night, just after his wife had finished clearing the dishes from the table. He was watching TV and got up to answer it. It was the husband.

‘Hey Paul.’

‘Hey.’ ‘I just wanted to let you know. The fence between our house, it has some rotting wood and...’

‘Yeah, I know, I’ve been meaning to get to that but…’

‘No problem,’ the husband smoothly interrupted. ‘The fence is on your side of the property line anyway. I just wanted to let you know that we’re putting in our own fence, on our side of course, but it will be a bit higher than yours. I got a good deal on some ten-foot lumber.’

He wasn’t sure what to say.

‘Paul?’ the husband prompted.

‘Yeah, uh, sure, but maybe we can talk about repairing this fence and seeing…’

‘No no, no trouble at all for you. We’re just talking about getting a dog and we want to be prepared. Anyway, sorry for interrupting your evening. Have a good night.’ The husband turned and walked back to his own door, waving while he put the key into the lock.

A landscaping crew showed up on Thursday morning. She must have let them in. They made quick work of the fence and brought along with them three large evergreen trees, which they spaced out along the fence as well. They returned on Friday morning and left early Friday afternoon. He then ventured out into his own yard to inspect the addition. The fence was several feet over his own head and the trees peaked above it, easily another foot or two. He walked to the back corner of his yard and looked up. The trees blocked most of the view into the bedroom window.

He was angry, banging the door as he came in from the yard and kicked the side of the couch.

His wife shouted from the bedroom to keep it down. He went out the front door and banged that shut for good measure. He walked the several feet to the neighbours’ door and knocked hard. Then again.

Then again. No one answered. Then again, louder and shouting to open up. Ms. Jansen across the street opened up her door and shouted, ‘Paul, what are you doing?’

‘Mind your own business, Ms. Jansen,’ he shouted back.

‘I will not. Go back inside and keep quiet or I’m calling the police.’

He banged the door again before storming back to his own house.

He’d calmed down later in the evening when he went over. The husband would be home. He knocked and the door opened, leaving a small gap. ‘Hi Paul.’

Instead, it was her. He could smell the scent of her soap, or shampoo, or perfume. Something faintly powdery and enticing. ‘Hi. I stopped by earlier and you didn’t answer.’

‘OK,’ she replied and met his eyes evenly.

‘Well, I’m not too happy with the fence and I think we should talk about that.’

‘It’s on our property.’

‘Maybe I can come in and we can discuss it. Is your husband home?’

‘There’s nothing to talk about, Paul. Have a good evening.’ She smiled that bright clear smile again and shut the door.

He considered pounding on the closed door, but he heard a noise behind him. Ms. Jansen had opened her door to let her cat out and was watching him. ‘Fucking bitch,’ he muttered and went home.

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It would be weeks before he saw her again. He occasionally saw the husband arriving home in the evening, but she was nowhere. One evening, his wife arrived home after working a double shift. He was sitting on the couch, watching baseball.

‘Hey,’ she said, tossing her keys in the bowl by the door.

‘Ey,’ he replied. When the game switched to a commercial, he looked up at her from the couch.

She was fixing herself dinner. ‘You seen that girl next door lately?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Hey, you lose your hearing or something?’

‘I’ve had a long day, Paul. I’m tired.’

‘I didn’t ask you how you were feeling; I asked if you’d seen the fucking neighbour.’

‘No, I’m not the one home all day.’

‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Just that I’m not here a lot so I wouldn’t have seen her. Why do you care anyway?’

‘Cus she’s our neighbour and I ain’t seen her. I don’t trust her husband.’

‘You’re just pissy because they put up a wall so you can’t peep in on her.’

‘I didn’t peep.’

‘Oh come off it, Paul.’ She stirred the noodles again and then took the cup with her upstairs.

It was over a month later when Paul, returning from his weekly softball practice, spotted her in the window upstairs. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, his gym bag sliding off of his back.

The curtains were open and she was looking down at the windowsill. Paul assumed she was doing something with the plants, but he couldn’t see from the street. Her hair curled around her face. Further down the street, a car honked and the noise made her look out the window. She saw him standing there and backed away from the window. Then the light went off in the room. ‘The husband must be a total control freak if she’s that skittish about seeing her neighbour,’ Paul thought.

‘I’m gonna fix the fence tomorrow,’ Paul shouted upstairs to his wife when he got home.

‘What?’ she shouted back.

‘Turn off the fucking TV and you might hear me,’ he yelled.

‘You know I can’t hear you up here, Paul.’

He dumped his bag on the floor and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

The following day, he headed to the hardware store to pick up wood and a few other supplies. Back at home, he set up the saw horses just on an angle where he could see a bit of their kitchen window.

Taking his time, he cut the fence planks. The project took the entire day, during which he didn’t see any movement.

He tried to be nice to Ms. Jansen when he bumped into her at the bodega the following week.

‘How’s Harry doing?’ he asked.

She was a stout woman, in stockings and orthopedic shoes. ‘My husband has been dead for seven years, Paul,’ she replied, placing two cans of tuna fish in her basket.

‘I meant your cat.’

‘Her name is Sherry.’

‘Sorry I didn’t know the name of your cat.’

‘Excuse me.’

‘I said, sorry I didn’t know the name of your cat.’

‘You’re in my way. I need to get some pasta.’ She pushed past him glaring. Some kinda cunt she was, he thought to himself.

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‘Hey you seen the neighbour girl lately?’

‘The one that you’re drooling over all the damn time?’

‘What? I am not.’

‘I’m 72, Paul. I’m not blind. I know you smack your wife around too sometimes. I’m not one for getting in a family’s business, but the whole street can hear you smashing half your plates and has seen you drooling over the new girl. Now, my grandson is a police officer and you say another cross word to me and I’ll make sure he gets into you real good.’ She grabbed a bag of pasta and tossed it into the basket. Standing behind her was a guy in a suit, carrying a leather bag. It was a tailored suit, cuffs just resting on the tops of his polished shoes. He looked over at her outburst.

‘Hey, man, are you harassing this lady?’ He pushed out his chest a bit and stood taller.

‘She was yelling at me, mind your own fucking business.’

‘Yeah, the old lady started it. Get out of here.’

‘This ain’t your store, asshole.’

‘No, but it is mine,’ shouted Mr. Lee from behind the counter. ‘Go now.’

‘What the fuck?’

‘The man said go.’ The suit’s nostrils were flaring and his eyes were slightly glassy. He’d probably stopped by the pub for a few drinks before heading home.

‘Fine, you’re all a bunch of assholes.’

‘Don’t come back in here,’ shouted Mr. Lee as the bell to the door chimed behind him.

Paul stormed down the block towards his house, cursing loudly and was so enveloped in his own anger that he crashed into the husband. ‘Watch where you’re going you fucking asshole.’

‘Now that’s not very nice, Paul.’

He turned to look. The husband was standing there, facing him, his hands hanging by his sides and his expression calm.

‘What’s not nice is you fucking crashing into people.’

‘Perhaps watch where you’re going then.’ The husband stared at him. He couldn’t remember his name. Matt maybe? Mike?

‘I was watching, fucker.’

The husband smiled. ‘Have a good evening, Paul.’ He turned down the block.

‘Hey, where’s your fucking wife?’

The husband turned back around. ‘That’s none of your business, Paul.’

He decided to report it to the police. The next morning, once he had seen the husband go to work, he called the city’s non-emergency number. He explained the situation to the woman that answered.

‘Have you ever seen the husband hit his wife or threaten her in any way?’ the woman on the other end asked.

‘Not directly, no.’

‘Do you ever hear shouting or banging in the house?’

‘My wife listens to the TV real loud so I don’t know if I would.’

‘OK, Mr. Granger, I’ll have an officer go around and do a welfare check and we will see if anything is going on.’

‘And you’ll let me know, right?’

‘Of course, Mr. Granger, an officer will call you.’

He waited for two weeks before he phoned again, this time asking to speak to a supervisor.

‘I still haven’t seen her,’ he said. ‘And that’s not right.’

‘Thanks for your concern, Mr. Granger. I’ll see what I can do,’ the woman said before she hung up.

Scrittura Magazine His wife was working an overnight shift so she wasn’t home when the doorbell rang. He could see, through the frosted glass, the outline of two people in blue uniforms wearing caps. When he opened the door, it was two police officers.

‘Hello, Mr. Granger?’ said the first one.

‘Yeah, that’s me,’ he answered.

‘You mind if we come in for a moment?’

‘No, not at all.’ He stepped back and led them into the living room. ‘You want something to drink?’

‘No, we’re fine,’ the same officer said. They were both young, clean-cut men. Both wearing the issued uniforms and similar black boots. All three stood in the living room.

‘So, Mr. Granger, we’ve just visited your neighbours.’

‘Finally,’ Paul said. ‘I called weeks ago.’

‘Yes,’ the officer looked at his notebook. ‘Three weeks ago, you called to report suspicious activity at your neighbour’s house.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘You said that you didn’t see your neighbour, Mina, for several weeks at a time and you were worried her husband, Michael, was abusing her,’ the officer went on.

‘I know what I said.’

‘We’ve spoken to your neighbours and they tell a very different story.’

‘Of course they do. He’s not going to come out and say he’s keeping her prisoner.’

‘They are very concerned about your behavior.’

‘I’m sure he did say that. What’s his name again? Michael?’ Paul asked.

‘Is it fair to say you’ve taken a bit of an interest in Mina?’ the officer asked.

‘In her welfare. Where are you going with this?’

‘Well, sir, the neighbours had a list of incidents. You’ve been spying on them through the windows…’

‘Looking in your neighbours’ windows isn’t a fucking crime.’

‘For an entire day? You’ve also repeatedly pounded on their door, you’ve yelled at them, you threatened Michael.’

‘That asshole ran into me.’

‘You need to stay away from them, from both of them, sir.’

‘They’re my fucking neighbours. How am I supposed to do that?’

‘Don’t go over there, don’t peep in the windows, don’t try to borrow any eggs, don’t ask the other neighbours about them. Look, this is just a conversation, we wouldn’t want this to turn into something more serious, right?’

‘I think you should get out of my house.’

‘That’s alright, you have a good evening Mr. Granger, we’ll see ourselves out.’

Paul heard the front door shut as he cracked the tab on a beer.

He could see Ms. Jansen peering through her blinds when he left the house. He turned right, walking past the neighbours’, looking deliberately at their closed curtains before looking back at Ms. Jansen.

She wasn’t in the window anymore. He cut over a few blocks, not heading towards Mr. Lee’s but to another bodega further down the street. He hadn’t been back in Mr. Lee’s since the incident with Ms. Jansen. He got two packs of cigarettes and a six-pack. There was baseball on tonight. As he rounded the corner of his block, he saw someone in front of the house. Of the neighbours’ house. He stopped and watched. It was a woman, dressed in a trench coat and heels, affixing a ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard.

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Family John Baverstock

Haven’t seen my brother lately?

Seems like a thousand days, Told him shan’t talk to him again, Till he mends his ways,

Mum has been in a state, Were married forty years, Be strange going to funeral, As not seen her for years,

Not spoken to me dad?

Since he had that go, When I mentioned it to me mum?

She didn’t want to know,

Our Tommy will be there And my sister ‘Chelle, All rest of family too, As we say our final farewell,

And my sister, not seen her, Since she started seeing Ray? Last I heard from a mate, He had got her in the family way, Sometimes I think about my family, Wondering how they all are, Often think about calling in, When passing in the car, Been years since last saw them, Heard my dad had died, Wish I had made up with him, A strange thing that is pride,

Wish I had made up with him, Can’t remember what was said, No chance to put things right, Not now that he’s dead, Strange that word family, And just what that word means, Especially when they fall apart, Over such silly trivial things, Alas life is short, And you don’t get a second bite, Maybe pride should be swallowed, For that chance to put things right.

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How to Float Lynn White

They told me a stone would never float.

I didn’t believe them so I threw it carefully on to the water.

It stayed there on the surface, a miracle!

So I threw another carefully to land on top and then another and another.

Now a stack of stones was floating on the water.

They told me a stone would never hang in the air.

I didn’t believe them so I threw it carefully upwards.

It stayed there in the air, a miracle!

So I threw another to land underneath and then another and another.

Now a stack of stones was hanging in the air casting its shadow on the water.

Believe in the miracles you can make.

Don’t believe what they tell you.

Cast a long shadow.

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In Praise of Water Peter George

Josephine, My dear mother, would close her eyes.

She did not believe she could walk.

She did not try to stand At the Lodge where the people Had lost their sense of jigsaw puzzles and checkmate.

Josephine May George Believed the ridiculous and the dumb, And the rich and the poor dears Should be fed richly and sweetly.

Even when she was on the saline drip And ate and drank nothing at all, She might have smiled. At least, once she did.

For once she had welcomed children, Strangers, dogs, spiders, and birds.

I cried Mum and Dad in a kind of fit At the black and lettered granite slab.

How great thou art I sang For the bubbles and the rocks, And the water that is drunk, And passes through the kidney’s home Of urine, bile, plastic skin, and the embodied ghost, Water rhythmic with the soul of dust and pain, The soul of light and dark, and colours on the screen, And the imperfection of my words.

Acute discomfort and extreme distress, My gift for being stupid, I made my mother feel them all.

I am the man who must accuse himself, Who is glad to say she never knew the worst, The spider in the crack, The spider lurking in the brain.

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Lessons in History Ed Blundell

The junk we cluttered in our heads, History just old bunk in dust.

Names of Prime Ministers to learn, The dates of battles, reigns of kings, Bad things done in the name of good, Colonies coloured on a map.

We sat in rows at wooden desks, Initials scratched into their lids By previous boys as bored as us, Recording for posterity That AK once was seated here And SN felt he loved GT. So, all the sum of human toil, The struggles since we left the trees, Greatness and glory, epic times, Human anguish, misery, grief, Text booked, dull, dreary, buried deep, Like Ozymandias in the sand.

Each generation comes of age, Ignoring what was learned before.

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Night Sky James Bell

went outside to look at the stars and found a splinter of dark cries a haze of heat off a wet road a phase of pipistrelles a document of leaf rustle a monument of distant cloud a hood of heavens a prickle of starlight a lickspittle of stones beneath my feet a dream of shadows a promise of next times a magnitude of shivers a spine of myths and tales in a week’s time I will find a beehive of stars

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Odour of Libraries Ian C. Smith

He enters a university library at thirty-five feeling like an imposter, rougher-hewn from suffering than most students, wrapped in an aura he thinks religious pilgrims experience shuffling along echoing naves of Gothic cathedrals, sombre, joyous. On this undergraduate group’s familiarisation tour he gives up trying to embed library terminology in memory to embrace personal discovery, spaces perfectly hedged by the order of books, books as landscape where the swarming mind could fall in love, this awesome new-found sanctity.

Enrolment, the first of his generation in a widespread clan suffering from the aftermath of war, the belief that only money is worth garnering, his childhood a war in itself, steers him to safe harbour in the stacks squirreling away knowledge of a ravelled world unfolding before his eyes, stupendous centuries of language, history, art, or anything else starved senses devour as books gradually displace fragile friendships.

He can’t know years from now he shall mull over a kaleidoscopic life journey, events jostling for room to replay their roles in a failing memory; can’t predict the clamorous ache to step again from the advertised world’s cunning greed, the bastardry of betrayal, into cool shadows, that first sanctuary, breathe in the sensuous whiff of recorded life, the satisfying odour of libraries, do it more thoroughly.

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Pratchett DS Maolalai

I doze.

I dream I am reading a book – it’s a new one

by Pratchett – he had another one in him, I’m sure. this is before his brain turned to mush, of course, so much so that he accepted a post (honorary) at my own college.

I could have met him once – he was there, speaking to a crowd and did a signing – but I didn’t go. it was right after my birthday and I was hungover instead, sleeping it off in my parents’ house in a room where now my brother sleeps. probably I wouldn’t have gone anyway. my grandmother has alzheimers too – at that time I didn’t want to see anyone handling it.

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Scrambled Egg John Baverstock

Psychological thoughts, That go around in your mind, Some thoughts could well be alarming, So often two of a kind,

Once described as being bawdy, Now your confidence has taken a dent, Not considered the force you once were, Instead more like one that is spent,

A feeling of unworthiness, Makes you start to question the word worthy, It might be down to a turn of events, That has left you jumpy and nervy,

More and more irrational, Withdrawn you start to become, Analysing every thought, Thoughts, you can’t share with anyone,

Help may well be available, From people on the end of a phone, But so often your state of mind, Say it’s something you prefer to deal with on your own,

Depression is yet another word, That can have many different meanings, It barely ever touches the points, Or understands your feelings,

Doctors are all too quick to prescribe, Some form of medication, Handing out leaflets and offering pills, Because of such a revelation,

So, this makes you think again, Better keep it to yourself, Try to bottle up those thoughts, Then put them on a shelf,

Only you know that they are there, It’s the only place to hide them, But they become more too visible, Which then actually adds to the problem,

Your brain permanently on overload, Which further complicates the mind, The questions that it continually asks Make the answers harder to find,

Like looking at a plate of scrambled eggs, Resembles how you picture your brain, That’s why you may choose to write down those thoughts, Because they are so hard to explain.

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Small Town Living

Howie Good My heart is a town so small it doesn’t have a doctor or a cop or a priest, doesn’t even have anyone on standby to plow the roads in winter or fill in the potholes in spring, and maybe that’s why people say all those teeth-rattling, bonejarring things about me, but you ignore what people say and undo your buttons and unpin your hair, and then it’s like daylight at night, the light streaming in on a soft slant, poking at the black seeds in the corners and the weeds in the flowerboxes, stirring the town back to stunned life.

Scrittura Magazine

Spooks Ed Blundell

Sometimes, suddenly a cat stares Into empty space at nothing, With baleful, bleak intensity, A blank, unblinking feline glare, Sensing something in the dark, Watching, tense with edgy caution.

You peer at shadows, nothing there, Nothing at least that you can see.

The cat sits rigid, gazing still, As if in deep hypnotic trance.

A silence hangs upon the air, Cold, menacing and threatening.

And then the spirit passes by, The cat returns to its grooming.

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The Circular Line Lorna Roberts

Although Eilidh might have only used it once as a child, she has a vivid memory of using the West Park Glasgow Underground station. The vivid orange livery was like a ribbon around a present. She was visiting her father and his family from the large Hebridean Island where Eilidh lived. Being used to cars and ferries, the descent down the stairs onto the tiled platform was a unique experience. As they waited for the train, she would fidget and leap around in her chocolate brown woollen duffle coat until the pinpricks of the headlights could be seen in the pitch-black tunnel. At that, she would cover her ears with her pink mittened hands as the train roared in, the air buffeting her face.

The whole experience was so modern and industrial compared to playing on beaches and in abandoned crofts. This was the way of life Eilidh yearned for before she even reached the age of five.

She wouldn’t see another underground station for twenty years. Escaping from her island at age seventeen to a university in Aberdeen, she returned home after graduation for work quickly feeling trapped by an invisible weight of isolation.

Eilidh’s best friend from university had moved down to London for postgraduate work so she decided to visit. Her first time using the tube and being in such a massive city, she was a timid mouse clinging to Isla’s sleeve as they plunged through the herds of tourists outside the Houses of Parliament. The tunnels seemed like a warren. She couldn’t understand how you could know where you were. Being in 2004, and before she owned a mobile phone, Eilidh carried a piece of paper with her address on it in case they were separated and she could be returned

‘to sender’.

It only took a few days back home for her to decide to move down beside Isla for good.

She’d had a tiny sample of being among the big city. She wanted it all to be hers.

It was 2004. She found an office job in central London and ended up living in Highgate to the north as it was on the direct line to where her work was located. It the last stop at which you would be guaranteed a seat.

Daily, as the train sidled south, it would fill up with city commuters, school children, students and early-bird tourists. Her work outfits were cheap polyester from Dorothy Perkins but she invented a game for herself where she’d try to spot the expensive cloth of the men’s suits then see if their shoes and shirts were similarly expensive. City workers and their money were a novelty.

Then, as they’d approach Euston Station, the speed of the train felt that it grew faster and faster. It would swing around the corner like a slingshot. At the same time, the driver would apply the brakes, which would scream, ringing in Eilidh’s ears. No one else’s face betrayed any worry but she’d feel her grip on her handbag tightening and would pray that they wouldn’t derail.

Although increasing prices would force her onto the buses for her commute, the tube would grow in its importance in her personal life. It was a quicker way home in the evening when she was tired and felt safer to her than taking one of the rarer night buses. Eilidh had grown in confidence living in London and wasn’t going to waste the many opportunities she’d dreamt about before moving. She took evening classes in art, Spanish and drama. For

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these precious few hours a week she could pretend that she was a ‘real’ art student as she cleaned out her brushes in the Andy Warhol-esque paint splattered sink of the City Lit. At the same time, there was a weekly listings magazine called Time Out which you could buy in every corner shop in London. To Eilidh, it was a magical tome of wonder which laid out all the opportunities for entertainment and education- festivals, films, concerts etc. that were happening. And that’s where she discovered the stand-up comedy scene.

Some of the acts stayed with her – the magician who had a show on kids’ TV. The scary comic who screeched, ‘Pigeons, eh?!’ repeatedly at a slightly resistant audience, his eyes swivelling. He reminded her of a particularly thin, skanky bird himself. The awkwardness of this act was thankfully swept aside by the gentle soul up next who came in wearing a 1970’s brown suede suit and kipper tie who had them all doubled over as he pondered the moistness of cake. Another time, there was a tall, dark haired, bearded man. He stepped onto the stage with a tea towel on his head and made a crack about Magritte. Later the same evening he would try to bale out of the first floor window before being physically restrained.

It was on these nights that Eilidh would feel the most alive. The tube would take her down to Tottenham Court Road and she’d stalk up the narrow streets of Soho, through the throngs of drinkers spilling out onto the pavement on warm evenings. The gay pride flags would flutter proudly. Dodging the black cabs zipping to and fro, she’d skip up the stairs and take a seat at the back and lust silently over the compere, an attractive young, bespectacled man named Samuel. His sense of humour, looks and tap dancing skills made him irresistible. Afterwards, she’d head back to the now quieter tube station replaying the acts in her head, glowing, giggling, regretting another missed opportunity with Samuel. She would make her way up the road from the station to her house merrily swinging her bag.

Eilidh’s self-confidence was such that she even dipped a toe into the dating puddle. Using a personals ad in Time Out, she had a friendly phone conversation with a guy named Paul. They arranged to meet at Leicester Square Station one evening. She did her best to make an effort. She put her black curly hair partly up, wore a pink floral dress and suffered a pair of heels. Eilidh arrived and waited. She got a text to say he was running late. Then another to say he was nearly there. Then nothing. She waited for maybe fifteen more minutes, watching hundreds of people rush by her in opposite directions. Then she ducked out to the better reception on the street. Under posters for the latest theatre show, she received a text saying she wasn’t his type. He’d taken one look at her and bolted…

Her landlady gave her a hug and a tissue. Eilidh managed to bounce back and go on a few slightly more successful dates in the future. Unfortunately, this unfettered sense of self-discovery and wonderment was not to last.

The day started normally. She’d arrived at the office and hadn’t been at her desk long when she got a phone call from her youngest brother who was still in Scotland. Any phone contact from him was rare at all as he worked on a fishing boat but at during office hours it was unprecedented.

‘There’s been a big electrical outage on the Underground,’ he said.

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She quickly fired up the BBC website and read the same. However, this quickly turned stomach churningly to the news of the 7/7 bombings of 2005. Each new incident gradually coming to light including the bus at Tavistock Square whose upper deck looked like a massive tin opener had been deployed. The rest of the day was spent stuck in the office following various news websites. They’d be in lockdown until an email from management let all staff away.

There was a terrific heat and bright sun that afternoon. There was no transport bar the odd taxi so she joined the caravan of office workers trudging their way home. Her feet blistered in the new shoes she’d decided to wear that day.

The next morning she was mortally afraid of catching her regular bus. She forced herself on but she was descending into a nightmare she wouldn’t escape. Every twitchy young man became a potential terrorist. Every backpack balanced on a lap a potential bomb. She started to do a bit of praying while on the way to work from then on. As if not bargaining for her life several times a day would be the end of her.

The tube was worse. Many stations had interchanges of long, round corridors connecting lines.

She would imagine a potential massive fireball, raging down the tunnel behind her, consuming her and others, burning them to charred skeletons quickly but not before inevitable indescribable pain. Again, a random black suitcase on a carriage floor made her try and shift out of the immediate blast zone until she could pair it with an owner. The failed attacks five weeks to the day later only served to reinforce her deepening paranoia. She didn’t stop taking the tube altogether as sometimes it wasn’t practical. But the deeper she descended into the system, the further from safety she’d feel. The one time she travelled under the Thames to reach a leaving party, she knew that that was the ideal spot for a bomb to rip through the train, damaging the tunnel above, sending billions of gallons of water cascading into the tube system and killing thousands of people.

Around this time, she’d also started getting neurotic about tripping or being pushed into traffic as she walked to and from work. She’d feel the sensation of falling forward like a ghost in her brain.

When she was on the tube, she’d stay away from the edge of the platform, leaning her weight on her back leg to help counter a push, deliberate or otherwise.

Commuting became a daily emotional strain. Eilidh would spend her time in public spaces and museums constantly assessing escape routes in case of gunmen. At home she was spending evenings in bed, watching DVDs, too tired to move. Used dishes with scraps of food slowly turning mouldy piled up on the bedroom floor. Her growing depression culminated in a breakdown. She returned home to Scotland to rest. This soon became a permanent move and she found myself back in the ‘sticks’.

Nowadays, back on the island, her only experience of using the underground is rare visits to Glasgow. She’s rarely too anxious to travel to places now but she doesn’t have the chutzpah to go anywhere on her own anymore. She feels like a drained battery. Usually, it’s just her and her mother.

Her father died five years ago and her siblings all live on the mainland so she doesn’t see them very often.

Compared to London, she finds the Glasgow trains ‘cute’ now – small and old fashioned.

There’s only one circular line going clock-wise or anti-clockwise so you can’t get too lost. The orange livery hasn’t changed though. Nor has how her heart beats faster when the digital sign shows a train approaching. As the noise increases, she waits to see what might emerge even though she knows the answer. Then the whoosh of air pushes through as it makes its appearance and she takes in the smell of diesel as the carriage comes to a rest in front of her. The child in Eilidh hops on board.

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The End

Howie Good The doctors say anger can give you a heart attack or stroke, and anxiety can give you cancer. I’m often angry, and when I’m not angry, I’m often anxious. Rivers of darkness are expanding and spilling, and a mass shooter has tweeted, “If you see me, weep”. Dazed mothers wander through a bombed-out city with their dead children draped over their arms. This could be just one more sign that the end is about to begin. While we wait, some demand proof, some wear hazmat suits, some only sigh. I’ve painted my beard blue and stuck gold stars on it.

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The Panic of Truth

Jack D. Harvey

They call me strong and fierce, but I’m afraid of even the rain; me they call the scourge of women, but a loose bodice, a lipsticked come-hither smile, and my reputation dies like a dog.

Sir, you prince in my senate of friends, be resigned to my failings; you can’t make a silk purse from a pig whose coarse ears stick up like sentinels, betraying his state, his shortcomings, his lack of a heroic fragrance.

Heaven and the fates are well aware of this manner of existence and this wisdom is not for the sapient vulgar alone.

What’s available, all the beauty and power of this fantastic circling world, seen one way or another, glorious and luscious, is attainable only by the chosen few

is the trophy we all want, is the meed of fame, in triumph held above our shoulders, or like a movable fane, carried reverently, slowly, by our train of followers.

Tell me, can this be understood by the ruck, the farmyard of humanity?

The stone-faced rows of onlookers?

Those who provoke no breasts to glow with desire or fury know best of all the value of this kingdom and by never entering, feel the distant pulse more keenly, like a man standing by the shore of a mighty sea.

So let me be, like an ape I mimic my betters; like a slight obscure god let me think my failure is titanic, my decay divine, although the light of dying beauty is not there.

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The Wait Annie Maclean

I think of her. I dream her name to anchor her and hold her down.

Was I so careless with the signs she offered when she was awake that I missed watching her becoming old?

Oh, mo cailleach...

Mo cailleach beag...*

She’s as precious as parchment, as dried out and bleached.

Her transparent skin feels like dust, like powder on a fading leaf.

I see her on an evening tide.

Papa waits beyond the mists.

She knows he’s there – just out of reach.

A life could end beyond the edge.

Her journey seems so effortless.

Daily, I watch her spirit wane.

The waves are still, and still she’s searching for the darkness gathering out of sight, heavy with portent. So slow and hopeless.

If I listen, the air begins to breathe, to whisper and exhale a warning.

So I wait to catch the spark of light that illuminates her life dissolving.

* = ‘Oh, my old woman.../ my little old woman...’ an affectionate Scottish Gaelic phrase pronounced ‘Oh, mo kal-yak... mo kal-yak bake’

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The Yellow Crane Pavilion James Bell

Scrittura Magazine

after Cui Hao and Lai Baī (Tang Dynasty poets) light on the river as the sun sets their boats moored in slow waters the fishermen drink much rice wine before they begin to talk about the yellow crane pavilion – still afloat on their separate boats some slide back for support on cane and straw creels – one already sleeps – somebody will light a lantern soon under hangyang trees – their visible emotions are the mass of their leaves – alembic – ascend and fall in shadows where what is shared needs only whispers as night becomes black – a lantern is lit illuminates this intimate circle on water the quiet chatter fuelled by wine is fluid with confidence on the river drunken voices are like water will always flow and go where they want – each entertain the others with elaborations on how a sage was flown to heaven by a yellow crane and the pavilion built upon that spot in Wuhan where its seven storeys have inscribed in the wood poems that celebrate this momentous event – reflect with the last of the rice wine how good it would be to read as well as to catch fish – then to sleep with boats tied to the trees by hempen rope lest they float down the Yangtze river to Wuhan and beyond to wherever the water goes

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In Praise of Morphine

Peter George Take my mother as the starting point, The beginning and the end of the story so far.

She received the blessed pain relief That we must recommend.

For I must search and look back and celebrate The poppies in the field, The poppies in the glasshouse of eternity, And the needle in the nurse’s hand.

My mother never said that opium is the gift, That prize of the cessation of pain when the wreck Is lodged upon the bed of imminent corruption, And emptied and dispatched.

She never said that sunflowers bloom Inside eternity’s house of glass, And tubers and daffodils provided by the soil.

Once she would have understood When and where and how Her water and her waste were due to be discharged.

She might have welcomed my warm understanding, That plants, sprouting from the ideas of eternity, Had found a way to reduce the pain of humankind, With morphine granted to the brain And the fingertips that touch The body’s recollection of itself, Because the mind is there To attempt the heaviness of God.

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To All Jeremy Gadd

To all the transitory clouds, flitting across the sky; to all the losers looking up at them and wondering why; to all the dispirited men, viewing life through an alcoholic haze; to all the blowsy blondes yearning for better days.

To the poetry of motion, of Marilyn not Andrew, to the poetry of immobility, the majesty of ocean; to all the old and to the infirm, fighting to stay alive, to all the drones, busy in the hive; to all the young and vibrant, oblivious to the fact they’ll die; to all the happy swine, muddy in the sty.

To the aspirational who are yet to learn their limits; to all the Peacock-spiders, thanks for adding to our awe.

To all the lucky, whose confidence is yet to be pricked; to all the vagaries of life, even the ailment that gets you, they are all part of the process – one day the sun sets without you.

To all the unlucky, whose boats are yet to find the shore, to all the pilgrims, arriving where they began, footsore; there are no words of wisdom, there’s no blueprint for success; take happiness where you find it and live…live...live

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Value Louis Gallo

Today Sotheby’s sold a Giacometti for one hundred million dollars and a Modigliani for slightly less.

Why should any single person have so much money to spend on art when people everywhere are starving and can’t afford pork chops, buy food for their children? This is no indictment of the artists. Their work is worth the money but should be museumed so we all can appreciate.

They should not be secreted away by some tycoon, plutocrat, magnate proud of his or her investment.

Investment. That’s it. Modigliani, equivalent to stocks & bonds, real estate, your IRA. You agree? So let’s start a revolution, I laugh.

Yeah, you smirk, with what capital?

I draw a doodle on a Burger King napkin, an image of your face, the wide almost Chinese eyes, the meaty lips, the flaming hair.

Here’s art, I say. I’m putting it up for auction at Sotheby’s. Fixed price, half a billion.

Nobody would buy it, you say.

But you’re wrong. I would buy it and I cannot begin to explain how much that tycoon would pay for the real you. If they put you on the block. Then sell me, you say, and I say, no no no, babe, you are priceless.

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A Working Class Suburb

DS Maolalai in Kilbarrack it’s a strange combination – flowers like stones in gardens, blue silence surrounded by brown warmth. it’s a working class suburb, but it’s been so for sixty years – most of the workers are retired. I live here quietly, sitting in my grandmother’s house, paying rent while she molders in a nursing home. the day collapses inward, mossy as cement roads, and people’s houses meander their foundations with beautiful gardens, the streets familiar, the dogs all out and wandering and unsure of how to get home.

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Geraldine Douglas

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The Womb of Heaven

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Death summoned me that day, shattered spirit expired in space.

Breath of morning kissed my forehead, light dazzled the starlight way.

Immeasurable peace, love and fibres of devotion.

Dying was swift…

Mother Earth appeared as a crystal ball cracked a thousand times.

Bluebells weep, their waxen bells shrivel, no nestles of vine leaves, the Thrush withers.

Through Oaks of olive I saw mysteries…

A lilac scheme surrounded my being, spirit intoxicated with acceptance.

Forgiveness filled soul for this necessary journey.

Benevolent breeze rustled through a crisp meadow to capture remaining segments.

Spired Lupins wrapped in silver nets…

Butterflies rejoice in new armour, A spellbinding sentient hovers my shadow, mingles, swerves, colours interphase, twirl and curl, each pigment disperses into a dozen Doves.

No bruised Poppies in this World, or clocks that work, no ticks or tocks.

Summer runs through every month…

My cheesecloth dress spun with glass and sugar.

In the library of my mind rivers flow rapid rolling to Moroccan rugs.

Snakes whip their tales in a platinum haze.

No magic memoires…

Just a Sunflower soughting Love.

We are infused in the make-believe of Earth, a dreaded silence donated by ghosts.

Shadows smell fear, taste sour, clouds refuse to camomile melt.

Now I sing under a syrup Sun, dance within mumbling mirrors…

I’m home inhaling wisdom, revitalising perceptions of truth.

The womb of Heaven once again gives birth.

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No Refuge for Jamie’s Dream of Food Peter George

The frost had settled on the town against his mental zone.

His marriage was impaled against the hardest rock.

In Ipswich crouched against the sheet of glass, Afforded by the food-maximising shopping giant Of the crowd not dangerously short of bread starvation stark, He laughs forever at the beggar’s banquet Tossed and scattered by the dream.

The pavement teems with strangers disguising lust and fear.

They pass his only palace and post For regretting Zoe’s name upon his neck.

Yet saucepans, ovens, plates and dishes join the feast.

And knives and forks tumble and crash upon the road, At the freezing spot for begging, without a roof to match And give the dream a bed, a duvet, and a platform on the carpet Of hunger’s world that spins with dreams of food.

Confusion reigns within the palace of the dream’s escape, Chicken nuggets slipping from the grasp And flying through the air, The palace being open to the crows that dance and grab, Taking meat balls from the hands that strike Crockery, bums, facial cheeks, and tables, With gestures breaking from the poorest people with disgust.

The beggars tumble and they box.

They lurch in the palace of Jamie’s mental zone, Where teapots crumble at their touch.

And are we the rich, the overfed?

Zoe is the name of failure on Jamie’s neck.

And the dream of grasping food Belongs to where we stand and want to beg for time and luck.

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Washed Out Ed Blundell

It rained again today, the rain That we have seen for forty days And forty nights, the endless rain That fills the skies and floods the land.

It’s climate change, forecasters say, They prophesy there’ll be a flood, The world will sink beneath the seas.

I think my neighbour’s lost his mind, He took my fence down, used the wood To build an ark in his backyard.

He’s changed his name from Brian Smith To “Noah, Saviour of the Earth”.

I think the whole world’s going mad, Him buying animals in pairs, Countries still burning fossil fuels, So, I no longer wonder why, But search for rainbows in the sky.

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Mediaeval Poem of the Figments of Hell Peter George

The noise emerges from the people trapped below, People on fire with the plague, Who have never heard of microbes, America, freedom from smallpox, and bubblegum.

For we are standing mutely above the pit, And looking down, Not liking the fire of hard earned wisdom, Not liking the fire at all.

But can we dream with great profit Of dungeons and dragons, And the Black Death, When we turn our attention to the Moon, And ask the time?

Our lunar investigation Does not exclude the noise From down below.

The Earth’s greatest satellite Shines upon the figments That crowd the planet’s store Of Mediaeval rage, And Satan’s cunning, And Satan’s disbelief.

The Devil rapes the dead body of the dog.

The Devil vomits blood When soldiers shriek and stagger.

The Devil cannot always be clever and astute.

My God the fantasy boils the brain In castles, battles, poverty, and ditches.

And hunger stalks the gut.

The creature of the imagination May hide behind the Moon

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The Toreador’s Waltz Neil K. Henderson

I went to see a film once, called The Toreador’s Waltz. It was made by Toreador’s Waltz Productions and sponsored by the Toreador’s Waltz Society, so I figured there was going to be some toreador waltzing in there somewhere. Boy, was I disappointed! Two and a quarter hours of prevarication, a couple of horses and one jerky kitchen sink fumble – all badly dubbed into Spanish with English subtitles. They should have kept it in the original Pidgin Esperanto. At least that much would have been authentic. Of course, I had to keep my let-down to myself. In this part of Glasgow, to be at all interested in toreadors waltzing is tantamount to big girls’ blousery. Only Victoria knew my secret. Victoria is the landlady’s daughter. She often pops in to share the latest on what’s new.

‘Why don’t we do a Toreador’s Waltz right here?’ she gushed, after sharing in my cinematic disillusionment. Easier said than done, though – not having seen any toreadors waltzing in the film to model ourselves on. This called for further investigation. We had to postpone our experiment for a visit to the library. I looked up toreador (it’s the tight trousers, if you must know) and she looked up waltz (well, it’s more feminine, isn’t it?). I don’t know which of us had the more sheltered life, but there were blushes a-plenty at the computers that day – and we hadn’t even been shushed by the desk clerk!

Still, at least we were armed with something in the region of facts. I knew, for example, exactly what kind of tight trousers to wear, while Victoria claimed to have memorised the dance steps backward. All we needed now was a bull and a suitable ring. The abattoir seemed the obvious place to look, but once we got there the noise and the smell got a bit overpowering for our aesthetically refined sensibilities. We decided to drop in on Professor Cojones’s anatomy class for inspiration. The bull he was dissecting in the old barn round the back didn’t look very big (which might be a good thing, given the space restrictions of my upstairs bedsit) and was somewhat paler than the Esperanto thoroughbred I’d envisaged. It certainly had guts, though – just like the Little White Bull in Tommy Steele’s song.

Prof Cojones pulled and pulled with true academic rigour, and still the entrails came in great bloody handfuls. It was only when the bloke in front fainted that we got a really good look at the procedure.

Then we saw it wasn’t a bull at all, but an actual human corpse. We must have come on the wrong day.

‘Bottled out, have you?’ came a voice behind us as we left. Norton Smembelt, of course, just had to be there. There’s a Norton Smembelt in everybody’s life, just waiting in the wings to thwart their Toreador’s Waltz. ‘Not got the stomach for it?’ he sneered.

‘If you must know,’ I tried to sound casual while putting as much distance as I could between us and the bully, ‘we have seen all we require for today.’

‘Away, man!’ he yelled after me, impeded in his pursuit by the chains of his motorcycle. ‘Ye’d see more in a butcher’s window, looking at the sausage-making machine.’

We turned the nearest corner with as much indifference as we could feign, then legged it hellfor-leather to the butcher’s up the road. He was right. The sausage machine proved my inspiration and my guide. Curse that Norton Smembelt. He always was a smart-assed intellectual. But as I watched the skins fill one by one with meat as they emerged, each new sausage neatly segmented from its fellows by a twist in the gut, I saw how we could have our bull and the Toreador’s Waltz upstairs. I would make one using balloon sculpture.

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*** There is absolutely no point in being a toreador unless the bull you are going to pit yourself against (whether fighting or waltzing is immaterial) is big and beefy, at least to outward appearance. We are talking dynamic ratios here, though I didn’t know it at the time. I was still feeling my way by instinct in that regard. Anyway, this big and beefy appearance requires a hell of a lot of lung-power if you are going to replicate the beast with moulded balloons. Fortunately, I came up with a wheeze to preserve my breath. Being on the upper floor in my digs, I had tacit access to the attic. It so happened that my landlady, Mrs. Stovie, had put some odd electrical items up there out of harm’s way, which came to my notice on one of my ‘upward’ excursions. Included were some miniature air-conditioning fans, which might be adapted to balloon-blowing service.

I took them down and had a look at them. They weren’t plug-in-the-wall devices, but screwin-the-light-socket. This could be useful, as I needed my power points for... sundries. Alas, I am no electrician – or sparks as they say in the trade – so I spent a fair bit of an afternoon trying to fit the fans to my ceiling holders, hurrying before the time came to replace the bulbs for the evening. No matter how I tried, the fans kept spiralling out onto the floor. Not wishing to disturb – or, indeed, alert – the lady of the house, I made some little parachutes from her yellow plastic lampshades to reduce the noise of impact. I had almost succeeded in making a connection when a loud curse from downstairs was followed by Mrs. Stovie banging on my door. Her soap opera had blacked out. Was I using anything electrical?

The fans were there for all to see, so I told the good lady of my intention to give the flat a proper airing “for hygiene purposes”, trusting to the public health angle to excuse my helping myself to her property.

‘Give us a look,’ she said, and went and got her kitchen steps. Well, give her her due, she tried her best. Never let it be said that her premises aren’t fully aired. But no joy either. She went and phoned her pal Nettie, who came round like a shot and had a go up the steps herself, one eye on the socket and the other giving my room a good seeing to – taking everything in from the El Cordobes bedspread to the framed Fray Bentos advertising posters. Then suddenly she looked at the fitting end of the fan in her hand, and back up to the light input.

‘This is a screw-in fan,’ she announced.

‘As the actress said to the bishop!’ cackled Mrs S.

‘It’s a bayonet light fitting, Rowena. The two don’t match.’

The two of them went away then, Mrs. Stovie muttering about blown fuses while her pal tutted and shook her head. I decided to take the air for a bit, for diplomatic reasons, and was informed on my return that she and Nettie had removed all the fans from my room “for health and safety purposes”. Touché, I think the saying is (though I don’t know what it is in Spanish).

Fortunately, she seemed to have overlooked the conversion of her lampshades into yellow parachutes, and I decided to hang on to these as suitably exotic accessories for the eventual performance. To be honest, I think Victoria rather distracted her ma’s attention by requisitioning the spare room curtains for flouncy dress material. There was a fair bit of screech and counter-cackle down the stairs, with a touch of Nettie’s ‘Well, I never!’ on the side. Meanwhile, I still had a hell of a lot of balloons to blow up. I could have used some of that hot air.

But that gave me the idea to try the air pump at the petrol station, so girding up my rubber wherewithal, I sneaked out quietly past the feuding women and hit the street afresh. Well, it had to happen. Just as I was adjusting the nozzle to a balloon, along comes Norton Smembelt. ‘Is that balloons

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you’ve got there, Cardy? Surely not at your age?!’

‘Artificial insemination,’ I blustered. ‘Just testing the equipment for punctures.’

Smembelt thought about it, and I could see things not adding up. But he didn’t want to say anything yet, in case I knew something he didn’t. I did my best to stare him out, which wasn’t easy.

Norton Smembelt has a particularly stony glare. He was just coming round to a withering riposte when the overfilled balloon burst, making us both jump.

‘Thought so,’ said I, looking significantly at the dangling remains. Then, carefully stowing the rest in my pocket, I prepared to make a dignified and mysterious retreat.

‘Artificial insemination, eh?’ said Smembelt suddenly. ‘I wonder what her mother makes o’ that!’

Well, he was gone before I could make up some excuse about a vet college sideline, so I just had to head for home and hope for the best. As it happened, Victoria must have said something to calm her mother down, since she was all smiles and courtesy on my second return of the day.

‘Would you care to dine with us tonight, Cardy?’ she even went so far as to offer. ‘We’re having something that should suit you to a tee!’

I accepted in the interests of concord, and – informed the meal would take some time to prepare, as it was ‘special’ – hurried upstairs to blow the balloons up the hard way. A hesitant knock revealed Victoria, come to see “if I needed a hand with anything”. I must say, Victoria has a fine big pair of lungs in her fine big beefy body, and though it pains my budding bullfighter’s ego to admit it, she blew up twice as many balloons as I did. I was keen to draw attention away from this.

‘Your mama’s in a suddenly improved temper,’ I observed.

‘I told her you and I were...’

‘What?’ This sounded ominous.

‘Well, you know – an item. She likes you really...’

I had to change the subject back. ‘Come on, then. A prize Toreador’s Waltz team like us should be getting some practice in!’

‘I didn’t mean...’

‘But first, the bull! You take hold of this big bouncer, and I’ll twist a couple of smaller ones on, then we can keep adding and reshaping till we’ve got it how we want it.’

Victoria let herself be swept along in the wave of my enthusiasm. By the time the first wisps of savoury cooking reached us from below, we had our – albeit somewhat vividly piebald – bull to waltz to. The body was a bit of a composite, but we could take the rather lumpy intertwining to represent its complex rippling musculature. It certainly had horns, thanks to a single thin balloon twisted in half.

The legs were rather stiff-looking, though, despite our careful jointing work. As for the pizzle, I don’t know whose idea it was to put that on, but I wish we hadn’t used such a glaringly pink inflatable.

At last, it only remained to air my CD of Aaron Copland’s El sálon México (it was the nearest I could find in the charity shop) and we could really get into the swing of the thing.

‘We haven’t got a ring,’ said Victoria. ‘And besides, we don›t want to be late for Ma›s special dinner.’

‘Cold feet are not the sort for dancing!’ I retorted, putting the CD on to play. ‘After all, it was you who said let’s do a Toreador’s Waltz right here.’ She shrugged, stuck for a legitimate comeback.

‘And as for providing a ring to dance in... it’s only a question of cutting a rug, after all.’

I produced an electrical saw, which had somehow come down from the attic with the miniature fans. This thing worked from the wall socket, and it took but a moment to speedily – and not too noticeably, thanks to my turning up the CD – carve out a circular area in the centre of the room such as would provide a little amphitheatre or sunken bullring for our dance. The plaster and rafters beneath made a pleasingly rustic, if not altogether Latin, surface for our preliminary cavort. Victoria

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had slipped off to change while I had thus been busy. She now appeared in her flouncy curtain-dress, an improvised folding fan of the hand-held type (made by origami from a shiny magazine) fluttering before her, its wafts filling out the tiny yellow parachutes attached to her shoulders.

She took my outstretched hand and stepped down daintily onto the lower plane. The music was alternately sublime and...Mexican. We started off with some gentle swaying and circling in the confined arena; she doing her dance steps backwards as she’d learnt them. Then, as the hotblooded orchestra upped the tempo, I reached for the Beast of the Bent Balloons and made suitably synchronised passes with my arms in mock toreador fashion. Immediately I knew I should have got myself a proper bullfighting cape. I don’t know whether it was the heat of our exertions or the Latin flavour of the sounds. Perhaps that plastic pizzle had made me sexually reckless – I’d need to consult Professor Cojones on that – but next thing I’m leaning over passionately to where Big Vicky was sensually swaying, and grabbing a handful of curtain flounces with the intention of manfully tearing off a piece to flap at the bull.

She spun round and round like a gyroscope, while the inflatable Toro flew off upward on the air-waves of her motion. Still tugging at the flouncy dress, I made a lunge to try to recapture the flying beast. All too late the warning sound of splintering wood told me I’d overstepped the mark. With a last defiant “Ole!” I managed to assume a posture with one arm upraised and the other on my hip – just like on the corned beef posters – as we plunged through space towards the destiny of the brave.

I came to my senses in a corner of Mrs. Stovie’s downstairs parlour, my fall partly cushioned by the sizeable pile of curtain material I’d brought down, and partly by the yielding pouffe I found beneath me. Victoria, alas, now denuded of her outer garment, sat there in her underwear in the centre of the table, her beefy backside well ensconced in her ma’s ‘special’ steak and kidney pie. The parachutes had been a waste of time, after all, it seemed. That latter good lady, I am very much afraid to say, was holding up her apron and having hysterics in a most culturally and historically inappropriate manner.

‘I’ve just had Mrs. Smembelt on the phone,’ she eventually managed to blurt between her sobs.

‘Her Norton says you’ve been artificially inseminating my Victoria!’ *** Well, I was asked to leave that establishment forthwith, and things have rather cooled between Victoria and myself. I never fancied Mrs. Stovie as a mother-in-law anyway. Thus it is, the creative mind has to suffer for its art. Even one’s relationships must succumb to the pursuit of the ideal. But one good thing has come out of it all. At least I was now convinced that the Toreador’s Waltz was art. And, as such, I now believed I was as much entitled to an Arts Council grant as the next enlightened soul. To my surprise, however, it wasn’t so much a grant as compensation which I eventually received. It seemed intended to reimburse me for materials deemed essential to my craft. And I have to acknowledge Victoria may have somehow influenced the outcome with ‘supporting evidence’ of her own – possibly backing me up for old time’s sake, or for the sake of her mother’s spare room curtains. At any rate, what I finally received belonged as much to her, I felt, as to myself, though when I offered to share it with her she only laughed.

The Big Girl’s Blouse Allowance is no small sum, if you get it in a lump, so why she should say it was all I was worth is quite beyond me.

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John Baverstock

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Wizardry Poets

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Wizardry poets, With your rhyming words, A real mish mash, Of nouns and verbs, Some comic geniuses, Have their chosen subjects, Each with a style, They try to perfect, Often in their words, Could be sharing, A life experience, Can be related to by many, Like a strange coincidence, Lines delivered in a poignant, Yet sensitive way, Some may leave others, Wiping tears away, Politically correct, Does not have to be suffice, With words of wisdom, And words of advice, Then the satirical, With their amusing, Points of view, Remembering one about, Something stuck to a shoe, For some it just passes, The time of day, With words and sentences, They set out to play, Harmless comments, Without intent, Someone’s pride, Takes a little dent, A critical eye, May provoke a remark, From someone, Hiding in the dark, One thought, That may keep you writers smitten, It only takes one person, To appreciate, Just what is written!

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