*

Abbot

Go ye north

one day and one night

with fair wind and full sail

to isles broken by narrow sounds

swarming with sea-fowl.

Beach thyself

turn the boat for shelter

take mussels and sweet-water

ye shall remain forty months

observe thy vows.

Forget northern raiders

who care only for ale and gold

be as the high sun

who hides a little in the night

and the west wind

who scours the land clean

save for great stones that rear

many hands into the sky.

*

Buzz Lightyear

Samuel Stephens

changed his name

by deed poll

opened new bank accounts

continued his job

as a business manager

and ran marathons

for a cancer charity.

Applying to renew his driving license

he was refused;

issuing a license

to a fictional character

would bring DVLA into disrepute.

Buzz appealed and won.

*

Message in a Bottle

Marianne Winkler

Retired Postal Worker

found a bottle

on a beach in Amrum

the North Frisian Isles

108 years 4 months

and 18 days after

George Parker Bidder

Marine Biologist

threw a bottle

into the North Sea

with a message

in Dutch and German

return to sender

for the reward

of one shilling.

She returned the message

to him by post

at the Marine Biological Association

Plymouth Devon

Bidder had died in 1954

but they sent her many thanks

and a shilling

they bought on eBay.

*

Biography

Paul has won a series of prizes for poetry in England, Scotland, Ireland and the USA. His debut collection of poetry, Latch, was published by Lagan Press in 2010 and was chosen by The Ulster Tatler as their Book of the Month.

Paul has been published widely in journals and anthologies.

He also co-hosts The Squat Pen, a regular series of literary events that take place across the island of Ireland.

www.pauljeffcutt.net

*

I’M ON A RUNAWAY TRAIN

I’m on a runaway train

Was violently shoved aboard

Had been studying the ‘you are here’ map

Attentively outside the station

I’d just drunk a warming tea

Vaguely stirred with my pencil

Woken from a daydream

Swaying vacantly somewhere else

I’d dreamt in storyboard sketches

Overlaying the vibrato of my life

With handrawn improvements

Tentatively begun on tracing paper.

Tentatively begun on tracing paper

With handrawn improvements

Overlaying the vibrato of my life

I’d dreamt in storyboard sketches

Swaying vacantly somewhere else

Woken from a daydream

Vaguely stirred with my pencil

I’d just drunk a warming tea

Attentively outside the station

Had been studying the ‘you are here’ map

Was violently shoved aboard

I’m on a runaway train.

*

ARCHIVAL SKIES – LANDSCAPE WITH A GIRL CACTUS DANCING

She went to the archive of skies

not knowing quite what she was hoping for.

She searched ‘painter’s skies’,

(like those with the expectation of a storm)

and immersed herself in the virtual reality

of her random chosen sky.

Technically brilliant, thin

and invisibly thin brushstrokes – a burnt orange sky bled

into a burnt orange desert. Inside this landscape,

she felt a quiet expanse, as if

she had tiptoed into a nuanced loneliness.

Here, there were so many things her body could do with gravity.

She could dance.

In the thrum of grainy orange, her limbs reached out

like cactus branches while the inside of her body became

hollow and weightless. She moved, tested the possibilities

of her dancing cactus-limbed body. And while dancing

she found the join between

the burnt orange sky and

the burnt orange desert.

And could see

she was a tiny figure

very distant, a

conical body and

its long thin shadow

a smudge

in his landscape.

*

Biography

Jane R Rogers began writing poetry as a student on the Open University Creative Writing distance learning course (and was lucky enough to be tutored by Katrina Naomi), and has now been writing poetry for six years.Jane is a member of the Greenwich Poetry Workshop and the Magma Poetry Magazine team where she co-edited the July 2016 Magma issue 65 with a theme of ‘Revolution’. Jane’s poems have been published in print and online – appearing in Prole, Long Exposure Magazine, Obsessed with Pipework, Picaroon Poetry, Three Drops in a Cauldron, in Greenwich Poetry Workshop’s anthologies and in the Tate Gallery Website poetry anthology 2012. Jane lives in London but misses the West Country.

*

The Proof

after Marine Richard

In the loneliest moments

I will my body

to crumple, fold itself up origami-like,

do it so exquisitely

as to shrink and shrink

and finally vanish, pierce the chink

in the armour of physical law.

The city caused me heart palpitations

and nausea and migraines

and I could take no more,

so I left it behind,

came to a converted barn

with no electricity

in the mountains of southwest France,

where those cellular towers

are far off, where

an electromagnetic signal

hasn’t any business.

There are no emails out here

needing sending, no one asking

for a password for wi-fi,

but I miss Toulouse greatly,

the hubbub of its streets

teeming with people,

the urgency

and impatience of that life,

all its swirls of noise and colour,

all its little validations.

If I go to my door and scream,

no one is going to hear me.

I’ve done it plenty.

Nothing at all will stir,

the wind’s whistle

won’t even flinch.

Each day I go to the mirror

to see that I still exist,

then pass the night

convincing myself

the reflected image

of my body

is the proof.

*

Biography

Edward O’Dwyer has poetry published in journals throughout the world, such as The Forward Book of Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, The Manchester Review, A Hudson View Poetry Digest, and Even The Daybreak – 35 Years of Salmon Poetry. His debut collection, The Rain on Cruise’s Street (2014), is published by Salmon Poetry. The follow-up will appear in April 2017.

*

Shapes

His first venture was in a square.

It was such a thrill to explore,

meeting people, drinking beer

until one day he hit a wall.

It seemed then all learning was done.

He took experience to a circle.

The people there thought he was square,

so he set out, knapsack on back,

to see the world, but hit a wall again.

After months of soul-searching

he followed the light of an inner circle

of smaller perimeter, journeyed

on and on endlessly, gathering

the fragrance of spring, the sweet

wine of summer, until one day

he came to the house of fun, where

he took time out from contemplation.

Slowly the radius of stars, the order

of spheres, the vastness of thought, fused

with the harmony of flesh, the beauty

of music, the luxury of taste.

When he left he was ready to face the end

ready to face the beginning.

*

Biography

Tom Dredge is a member of the Boyne Writers Group and Bealtaine Writers Group and lives in Kildare. His poetry has appeared in Boyne Berries, Revival, Ó Bhéal Five Word, Skylight 47 and the WOW Anthology. He also received commendations and was third in the Frances Browne Multilingual Poetry Competition.

*

Home for Stars

Every star

needs to fall

into a constellation,

the blessed union

of imaginary lines

crafting a framework

of belonging;

the lattice,

the cradle,

the makeshift bed

to find contentment in;

the persistent home

resistant against

all comets,

a corner of the sky

to call home

and be called to.

*

On Mistakes

I make my drawings

in permanent marker.

I draw fast,

lopping arcs of pendulum ink

swing across the page.

A line goes out of orbit.

You work with your mistakes,

blend them into the whole,

another word in the silent poetry.

You cannot erase,

as art reflects life,

little chance

for corrections.

Hold the artist accountable.

Let the canvas be my guilt.

*

Biography

Colin Dardis is a poet, editor and freelance arts facilitator based in Belfast. His work has been published widely throughout Ireland, the UK and USA. He was a 2015-16 ACES recipient from Arts Council Northern Ireland. A collection is forthcoming from Eyewear Publishing in 2017.Coline also co-runs Poetry NI and is the editor for Lagan Online.  www.colindardispoet.co.uk

*

threw you out of the car

i didn’t want to netflix and chill

was having a difficult

night,

and i just wanted to walk

out all this

depression;

i felt—

but you insisted that i needed to take

a trip to your room

where

you proceeded to try to put the moves

on me and i resisted

trying desperately to watch a movie

i wasn’t even interested in if it

meant escaping the kiss

you tried to put on my lips,

and as if that weren’t

crossing enough

boundaries that you ought not have;

you forced me to touch your

dick—

i was so shocked that i couldn’t react,

but i was and am and forever will be

angry that there are men

like you in the world;

trying to take advantage of vulnerable girls

who simply want someone to talk to

in their time

of need—

didn’t want to be the casuality of

a hit and run so i threw you

out of the car.

*

Biography

Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. Recently her two chapbooks A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press – June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon – January 2014) were published. Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. Her third novel Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016. Her poetry collection Sing Your Own Song is forthcoming through Barometric Pressures Series.

*

The Devil You Know

A familiar shadow

follows you room to room

dark from keeping

your secrets.

Like a dog

that won’t stop barking.

A dog that growls even in its sleep.

But only you seem to notice this best friend.

There’s no escaping that kind

of loyalty. You locked every door.

 *

Museum of Night and Day

Life isn’t meant to be lived

in silence, looking only

straight ahead, squinting

to read the fine print

of exhibit descriptions.

Or so said the painter a little too tightly

wound up in his latest canvas.

Then, with no warning and using just his teeth,

he sent brushes flying out a nearby window.

None of us made a sound.

*

Biography

Brian Beatty’s poems and stories have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including The Bark, Conduit, Dark Mountain (England), The Evergreen Review, Forklift Ohio, Gigantic, The Glasgow Review of Books (Scotland), Great Walks(Australia), Gulf Coast, Hobart, McSweeney’s, Midwestern Gothic, The Moth (Ireland), Opium, Paper Darts, Phoebe, Poetry City USA, The Quarterly, RHINO, Seventeen, Southern Poetry Review, Sycamore Review and Word Riot.

Beatty is the author of the collections Coyotes I Couldn’t See (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016) and Brazil, Indiana (Kelsay Books/Aldrich Press, forthcoming). He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.