New Poetry by James Walton

Crazy, Crazy Love on the Seniors Card/

Sideways Steam Train

Delay the departing train

down at the rail head,

the heart has four chambers

but only one fully ticketed love.

So spin the cylinder with gentleness

place the antique snub of it with care,

you want this geyser single life to blow

a detonation and aftershock of lyrical candela.

Run run over the drenched platform

slide slip and screech to a rattling tin sky,

turn around the face at the blotting window

chant it breathe it grasp it at the handle.

Make the rusty trigger from the taste of cinnamon

get there scramble by the step up,

in you go trip over the stranger’s stare

open the scrapbook at things that should have stuck.

Tell her things falling apart are beginning again

of how quicksand is not a way to be cleansed,

the lone shot was all that was ever needed between you

and you still feel its mad career taking you beyond destination.

- James Walton 2016

James Walton lives in the Strzelecki Mountains in South Gippsland, Australia. He has been published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers, and many journals and anthologies. He has been short listed twice for the ACU national Literature Prize, is a double prize winner in the MPU International Poetry Prize, and Specially Commended in The Welsh Poetry Competition.  His collection ‘The Leviathan’s Apprentice’ is available. He’s been a Librarian, bred Salers cattle, and was a public sector union official for many years.

New Poetry by Jonathan Beale

The old woman

The old woman that lives at the end of the lane

As she has forever

Eternally stamped and as dishevelled

As the sea washed seafront

Youth subtly avoiding her 

As she, hangs her washing on the line.

Ignoring the winds kiss.

The ceramic walls

Of the home she decorates in her evening wishes

Cheroot’s plastered over the floor

Along with the oils and colours

Of paintings she creates

Her time split between

Incessant loquaciousness and monastic silence

In this cul-de-sac

Of forgotten dreams she labours

Against times idling thumb twittering.

And as the wolf whistles

To the girls into the night

She stares blankly through the gin and cigarillos

Within the antique décor

She lives by breathing the briny air

The turquoise and white as her eyes

Her life is slipping by like the quayside ropes

Of the leaving ships

Her grammar of life, now no longer understood

Her anger, raw as the marrow, red as paprika

Glowing life pressured of the lost leaves of her life

The rickety old rocking chair goes on – just.

The world unseen through smoke stained glass

- Jonathan Beale 2016

Jonathan Beale has 450 plus poems published in such journals as: Decanto,  Penwood Review,  The Screech Owl, Danse Macabre, Danse Macabre du Jour, Poetic Diversity, Voices of Israel in English, Miracle-E-zine,  Voices of Hellenism Literary Journal, The Journal, Ink Sweat & Tears, Down in the Dirt, The English Chicago Review, Mad Swirl, Poetry Cornwall, Leaves of Ink, Ariadne’s Thread, Bijou Poetry Review, Calvary Cross, Deadsnakes Review, The Bitchin Kitsch, Poetry by Birkbeck alumnus, The Dawntreader, I am not a Silent Poet, Pyrokinection, Festival of Language, Festivalwriter, ‘Don’t Be Afraid: An Anthology to Seamus Heaney’, Ygdrasil, The Four Seasons Anthology, The Seventh Quarry, Van Gogh’s Ear Anthology, The Curly Mind, The Beatnik Cowboy, Dali’s LoveChild, Storm Cycle Anthology (Best of Hurricane Press 2015) and The Jawline Review.

New Poetry by Brenton Booth

THE STRAY CAT

My tap danced heart

spurts blood again

in requiem of

summer:

stomach pinched,

sitting on my

window ledge—

watching a group

of teenage boys

play soccer

in the park

below,

they are laughing

and alive:

I’d like to join

in

but I don’t know

the game well enough.

- Brenton Booth 2016

Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry and fiction of his has appeared in over 100 journals around the world. His book “ Punching The Teeth From The Sky” is available from Epic Rites Press. brentonbooth.weebly.com

New Poetry by Karen Pape

Winterlude

She has written her way out of the dark.

Dazzled by the sun, she wants to run

Hiding is not an option any more

Building words into art is digging dirt

Tearing nails and hands, understanding

She has written her way out of the dark

To some purpose.  Apprentices find work

At a master or mistress’ hand.  When

Hiding is not an option any more

she finds her tools already forged

by her journey underground

She has written her way out of the dark.

Like Persephone she will return

To winter, seek quiet in dead ground.

Hiding is not an option any more.

Even cold, she will remember lessons learned.

Her talismans the book, candle, pen.

She has written her way out of the dark.

Hiding is not an option any more.

- Karen Pape 2016

Karen Bingham Pape is a teacher and writer.  Her poems have appeared in small press publications such as Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and Maverick Press and in on-line journals such as Big River Review, Red River Review, Words-Myth and Perigee. She has read her work at conferences such as Southwestern ACA/PCA Pop Culture, ASU Annual Writers Conferences in Honor of Elmer Kelton, and Fort Concho Literary Festival.

New Poetry by Irsa Ruci

The other’s self

I am scared by the winds blowing in this unclear time 
Living in the mist 
Without asking “Why?”

Seeking the cause at the other 
Strange happiness 
Strange suffering 
Strange betrayal 
Myself mentioned in formless form 
Borrowed from suffering!

I am scared of what my eyes witness everyday 
People drowned in rancour 
Pulled from the vanity of greed 
Formless, vicious.

Oh… with words I will break down barricades: 
Enough already! 
Give your life the chance 
To find happiness in the air 
To fight for freedom with feelings’ strength 
To glory of being 
HUMAN!

Fate is destined by Zeuses 
Low, very low beings are dozen 
Daubed with the poverty’s mud 
Without a sound, 
Without a single sound?!

Meanwhile beyond the fence rest the poets 
Who into dreams rebel to other’s self!

- Irsa Ruçi 2016     (Translated by Silva Daci)

Irsa Ruçi is an Albanian Writer, Speechwriter and Lecturer. She was born in Tirana (Albania), in 1990. Her books of poetry include “Trokas mbi ajër (poems and essays), 2008 and Pështjellim (poetry), 2010. She has been published in anthologies: Antologji, 2007; I kërkoj agimit vesën, 2008; Antologji poetike “Kushtuar dashurisë”, 2014; Antologji poetike “Udha”, 2014; Antologji poetike, 2014; “Malli dhe brenga nga distancat”, 2014; Antologji poetike “Qyteti”, 2014; Poeteca, 2015; and her works has appeared in a number of print and online national and international magazines, including Sling Magazine, Issue 5; Ann Arbor Review, Issue 15; Poeteca Magazine, Issue 35; Aquillrelle Anthology, 2015, Aquillrelle Anthology, 2016, Metaphor Magazine Issue 5, The Commonline Journal, Issue 4/22 A New Ulster poetry anthology, april 2016 etc. And Among many awards, she has received the first prize in poetry, in competition "Anthology 2007", as the best poet in Albania.

New Poetry by Michael Lee Johnson

I Regret Grinder, but, No Remorse

I have no regret, no grinder of remorse, nor memory of the dental chair.

I have no feeler of sins lost in sand dust with golden teeth, diamond over lay of lies.

Do not dance, play checkers, between the lines of memory-black/white.

I am a sinner wild with elbow muscle, flex right to left.

Dental floss is my Jesus, purple robe, violent-victim.

The cheeks of God whisper fools of toy tot decay, hanger on a cross-victim.

I was an outcast of hell with flames hanging from my behind.

What age of flowers is a whisper into the colors, fool enamel solid white.

I wild elbows flex from right to left, dental floss violent-victim.

I am owner of the cheeks of sunken bones.

What left is decay open space, mouth, tongue, cavities.

Christ never liked the sound of a drill, only aging of flowers, whispers from toy toots.

Lost in the blur of the blue heron I toss my gambling cards, fold.

Back to the farm fields forever and the sounds of wheat in the wind.

Jesus is the stop point, remorse, joy, where the sounds end.

I am an abstract artist, setting black outline in a dental chair,

false teeth pending white, waiting for second coming


- Michael Lee Johnson 2016

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. He is a Canadian and USA citizen. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, small business owner in Itasca, Illinois.  He has been published in more than 880 small press magazines in 27 countries, and he edits 10 poetry sites.   Author's website http://poetryman.mysite.com/.  Michael is the author of The Lost American:  From Exile to Freedom (136 page book) ISBN:  978-0-595-46091-5, several chapbooks of poetry, including From Which Place the Morning Rises and Challenge of Night and Day, and Chicago Poems.  He also has over 91 poetry videos on YouTube as of 2015:  https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos  Michael Lee Johnson, Itasca, IL. nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards for poetry 2015.  Visit my Facebook Poetry Group and join https://www.facebook.com/groups/807679459328998/

New Poetry by Richard King Perkins II

Flesh Reverie

I don’t remember what you said that first night—
tenuously in light extinguished,
the curving pleasure of incalculable intimacy.

I’m learning to enjoy the soft rain
and the tenuous tresses on my skin
as you fill my lungs with color and gratification.

The dissonance of our carillon
splinters the metaphor we thought we were—
strains of human moonlight swooped upon earth.

But this is only the other side of something blue.
We’ve become a distortion of understanding,
advocates of a ruthless love begging mercy.

You tell me that you think we deserve a testament
filled with burgeoning powerful clarity like we found
last night in the flesh reverie that could only be now.


- Richard King Perkins II 2016

Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL, USA with his wife, Vickie and daughter, Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee whose work has appeared in more than a thousand publications.

New Poetry by Ramon Loyola

SOME PARTS

Some skin are meant to be brown

To trap the sun blindly, unknowingly,

And make for an easy friendliness

In a sea of blue eyes and sunlit faces.

Some voices are meant to be high pitched

To herald pieties and free camaraderie,

Despite the brown skin almost yellow,

The pocked skin not quite smooth and fair.

Some skin are bound to be touched,

Caressed with the warmth of wonder

For what is between black and white,

Neither kin nor foe towards the lone light.

- Ramon Loyola 2016

Ramon Loyola is a Filipino-Australian writer of poems, fiction and non-fiction. He is the author of three books of poetry and a short story chapbook. He lives in Sydney and works as a lawyer.

New Poetry by James Babbs

The Color of the Sky

sitting at home

alone

feeling kind of lonely

and months have passed

since the last time

I was in love

summer has come and gone

and fall has started to

give way to another winter

the mornings just a little colder

the color of the sky seems different

and the light doesn’t last as long

and I keep asking questions

that have more than one answer

and sometimes none of them

are the answer I was hoping for

almost dark again and

I lean forward in my chair

before getting to my feet

and I understand the broken things

can’t always be mended

sometimes

it’s better to throw them away

and start over again

- James Babbs 2016

James Babbs continues to live and write from the same small Illinois town where he grew up.  He has published hundreds of poems over the past thirty years and, recently, a few short stories.  James is the author of Disturbing The Light(2013) & The Weight of Invisible Things(2013).

New Poetry by Brandi Kary

Beast

When my father tells the story

the punch line is always

about the size of my hands—

How small and perfect they were

 in just the right moment.

And he sits there

on the recliner

in his gray sweater

talking like a cowboy.

The story goes like this:

 My mother was gone somewhere

and I had come outside.

It was late in the season for a birth.

And the pack of men were all standing around

And our cow had half of her calf

hanging out of her.

 No one knew what to do,

but cows are money

And it had been too long

And they both were going to die.

So somehow I walked over there

Driven by instinct or luck or something --

And I got it out.

Like waterfall the calf  

ripped into the world

Still it a perfect sack

The placenta,

Unwrapped like a gift.

No one believes the story at first,

but it is true,

And I am afraid of it.

 See when my father tells it,

He always leaves out the details:

Like the way needle grass, sugar bush,

Brittle brush, and wild rye

were taller than usual that year.

The low hum of the cicadas

could be heard for miles.

 Or how the men drank sixers

 and shoot bee bees at the trunks of trees

 while I carried that sack

far out to the field.

I dug a hole with my perfect hands

And neatly tucked it away.

You might be wondering

 if something beautiful happened after that.

But life continued.

The placenta in the field

a meal for the coyotes,

the pill bugs,

a feast for my family

legend.

Such beasts we hope

one day unearth themselves-

Our stories,

our fictions,

our bones

our birth.

So that  

someone with

perfect hands

can dig it up

somewhere,

far out

in the field.

- Brandi Kary 2016

Brandi Kary is a mother, educator, and writer who lives in Pacific Grove, California.  She currently teaches English and Creative Writing at Monterey Peninsula College and Cal State Monterey Bay. Both she and her anthropologist husband enjoy dragging their kids all over the world to gain inspiration.  Her poetry has recently appeared in Homestead Review, The Voices Project, and  Flutter Poetry Journal.

New Poetry by Valli Poole

Danae

Talking to herself, the air

a bag lady wears a moth eaten hat.

Funeral – clothes – threadbare, smell of

something spoiled, forgotten, a

rotting corvus bird.

She will tell you,

if you let her,

how once she was a pole dancer

and she will dance for you

gyrating to an imaginary pole.

Skirts lift, her hand

strokes her crotch.

The fetid air gathers around

her as if throwing

contemptuous copper coins.

- Valli Poole 2016

valli poole is an Australian poet. Her work has been published in Australia and Internationally. valli runs a small press in australia called blank Rune Press. Her books include A Box of Hummingbirds (2013), Aeons (2013), Bog Boys & Unquiet Graves and Folie A Quatre: An anthology of Love Poems (2016).valli is currently working on a suite of poems for publication.

New Poetry by James Croal Jackson

Like a box of chocolates

Did you know what you were going to get, strolling

through the supermarket handpicking chocolates,

deciding between pecan bon bons, truffles,

and white chocolate shells filled with fudge?

We did not yet know the salt of incandescence,

your caramel smile on the roof of my mouth,

blind with each other’s taste, the lavender

some sickly rose blooming.

We melted together in the sun not worrying

about how our distinct tastes would smelt and swirl

around in our greedy mouths how our tongues flicked

and explored until we were almost satisfied but

every good thing melts the way autumn crumples

at the peak of its most swirling sweetness.

- James Croal Jackson 2016

James Croal Jackson writes poetry and occasionally music. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, USA. Find out more at jimjakk.com. 

New Poetry by James Diaz

Monty IV

Cold hands how do I say

go before me

lay everyplace

you've been

on my body bone

thigh-offspring crawling

crystal clear

water heart gushing

at the edges

screaming 'last night

I loved you so bad

I thought it would not end'

bending toward your oak

and acrylic fingertips

water willows

you don't understand

I write because

you are death-spirit

and I am compact

like a lover

from out of the woods

a compass pressed

into your breast bone

inking three thousand names

for 'enduring' and 'getting through'

and 'walk it off, kid'

that I cannot ingest you like air

that so much of you escapes me

that my filament, my soul bruise

burns in the aftermath

gathering your crumb trail

weapon of love cut out of paper

these words won't do

but I'll say them anyway

I love... (...)

- James Diaz 2016

James Diaz lives in upstate New York. He is the founding editor of the online literary arts journal Anti-Heroin Chic. His work has appeared in HIV Here & Now, Foliate Oak, Chronogram, Indiana Voice Journal, Pismire, Epigraph, and Cheap Pop Lit. http://heroinchic.weebly.com/

New Poetry by Faith Pomeroy

Writing Process

As usual it is not beautiful,
but only scribbled words against a white blank rage. I
cry out for  my petty injustices and
dread the 2 a.m. bell toll that
explains the difference between intent and consequence;
fragility of bone is no excuse to
give misery a poetic line.

Heavy on tongue and tooth
I leave the writing desk for
jasmine tea, replace an embrace for a
kindred spirit in chipped porcelain.
Loving me is not effortless.

Men throw rings away like tea bags,
(Nothing about this is poetic), they

Open legs and leave lust lying like
partially structured paragraphs
quietly clawing at margins and footnotes. It’s
redundant to write the same thing over and over.

Short of breath and breadth, I
type routine  into conversation, I
utilize absence  for coping, I scratch
Vinyl against  needle and pray it has more meter than
women begging for rings.

Xenocide bleeds in every line and
you think that makes it
zealous poetry. 


- Faith Pomeroy 2016

Hello! My name is Faith Pomeroy and I am a graduate from James Madison university in Harrisonburg, VA where I studied English with a concentration in creative writing. I have been writing all my life and feel like it is something that I use to express myself as well as think things through. Specifically, in this poem that I am submitting I tried to pinpoint the exact process I go through mentally and physically each time I begin a new piece. I also played around with the form of the poem; each break begins with the next letter of the alphabet. I believe that poetry speaks very loudly of ones heart and I have hope that this poem is speaking loudly for mine. 

New Poetry by Kip McMillan

Gloria

can you learn how to place an iv

hitch hiking an emergent vet visit

on your way to San Diego

his teeth spattered

raindrops wrapped in

a tourniquet blanket the size of family

you raised him

alone

run with your thumb out

sobbing catheters

trying to save a dead dog.

- Kip McMillan 2016

Kip McMillan is a bilingual poet in Spanish and English living in Boone, North Carolina. She is a student of nursing and Spanish at Appalachian State University. She hopes that nursing can cure things that poetry cannot and vice versa.

New Poetry by Margaret Holley

Lilies of the Valley

And then everything blooms. 
Snowdrops dot the hillside, redbuds blush dark pink,

and one morning the scent of lilacs
steals in through our window.  My husband has purchased

a second cane, this one with a leather-
wrapped handle and handsome wood shaft, more elegant

than the drug store version we started with.
He walks in very small steps now . . . “for balance.”

For two days I’ve been trying to recall
the name of our handy kitchen slicer, without success. 

And the name of that white-flowered bush . . .
gone for good?  I imagine my words like petals, one

by one letting go of their little twigs.
I’d rather not remember that all these blooms – fireworks

of forsythia, the blood-red tulips –
are incarnations of ice and the slush it became. 

One December my picture calendar promised,
“The new bread sleeps under the snow.”  For now, we are

the new bread – hyacinths, lilacs, lilies of the valley. 
Then we are snow.


- Margaret Holley 2016

Margaret Holley’s fifth book of poems is Walking Through the Horizon (University of Arkansas Press).  Her work has appeared in Poetry, Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and many other journals.  Former director of Bryn Mawr College’s Creative Writing Program, she currently serves as a docent at Winterthur Museum.

New Poetry by Don Thompson

T&R Farms

A brisk, self-confident wind

touches the brackish pond—

a sludge green that broods

and broods until

it becomes almost black.

Nothing happens: Sometimes

the wind has to move on

without moving the water.

- Don Thompson 2016

Don Thompson was born and raised in Bakersfield, California, and has lived in the southern San Joaquin Valley for most of his life.  He has been publishing poetry since the early sixties, including a dozen books and chapbooks.  For more information and links to his publication, visit his website San Joaquin Ink (don-e-thompson.com).

New Poetry by Abigail George

The theft of George Botha’s silence

Comrade, elsewhere
there’s progress in a distillate
that can’t be erased
from public life. “Man for all seasons”.
After silence I’m
caught between the wires of
the rise and decline of apartheid.
The decline and fall
of an empire. Tidal.
Its aftermath windswept
with integral bridges.
Out there cities plural,

it’s a landscape of graves.
The brilliant gone long
before their time. Comrades,
countrymen, countrywomen.
They’re welcomed
into eternity even
though they’re more
ghost than ash, dirt, clay, earth, soil.
Afterwards, I feel
a kind of emptiness inside.
As if I’ve been hollowed
out with fingers.

He's an atom. He's an angel
whose sins have been
washed away. His
hands are clean as
snow. He’s wind
and sky and rain
without a soul. The
forecast says that
he’s a weathered particle with velocity.
Listen, he’s a symphony.
A Masai warrior feet
in the dust. He’s independent
of the river. I can taste
his truth. Its light. Salt.


- Abigail George 2016

Abigail George briefly studied film at the Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg. Some of her poems have appeared in and are forthcoming from Birds Piled Loosely, Hamilton Stone Review, Literary Orphans, The Writing Disorder, Toad Suck Review, Vigil Pub Mag. Some of her stories have appeared in and are forthcoming in Spontaneity, Hackwriters Magazine, Ovi Magazine: Finland’s English Online Magazine, and Africanwriter.com. She is the recipient of grants from the National Arts Council in Johannesburg, Centre for the Book in Cape Town, and ECPACC (Eastern Cape Provincial Arts and Culture Council).

New Words by Rob Walker

Generic Trump Speech

Wow. UN. BELIEVABLE. UN. BELIEVABLE.

We have amazing people. I’m self-funding. I’m putting in my own money. I’ve made millions and millions of dollars. These people are so stoopid. We’re gonna win in Florida. I gotta tell ya. I’m a non-politician. We gonna win Big League. Yuge. I have to say. Wow. We have a number of – and I’ll never forget it – we’re gonna make America great again – I love you too darling – I LOVE Oklahoma I love your football team yeah let’s hear… hear it for that football team and by the way we are going to build that wall and who’s gonna Pay for that wall? That’s right, the border’s become a very big deal a very big deal this is important we’re gonna have to send these people back we don't know where they come from they have no paperwork see that guy in the old days I’d punch him in the face everyone’s too politically correct nowadays were all going to Hell. It’s disgusting. Everyone’s stoopid but I’m very smart you know remember what I said I love waterboarding. I think it’s fine. Standing ovation. We gotta build up our military our military is depleted we gotta take care of our vets they are important so important and I’ll tell you what so I came down that escalator and it was about borders it was about trade it was about the military and it resonated and I’ve been number one in the polls since that very first day. Number 1. I have to tell you. Aren’t those debates ridiculous though? The networks were forced to have these debates. How about I don’t do the next one? No I’ll do… I like this guy – stand up! It’s all about turning this country around rapidly and beautifully we have countries you haven’t heard of making a fortune out of the United States by the way I love Hispanics I have thousands working for me I will be the greatest jobs president that God every created that I can tell you that I can tell you we’re not gonna get ripped off any more. I’m a very good business person I built an amazing company and by the way you know with the tax returns? You don’t learn about – I love you too – look at her, thankyou we have got the dumbest tax policy by a factor of twenty. It’s a tremendous problem. Our leaders are dummies folks, major major dummies. We gonna replace Obamacare with . . . something terrific. You know I love my supporters. I love them. I love the people in this room and it comes out in every single poll and they’re better than – every single poll said like Trump can do anything. They love Trump. I love them. And the numbers are staggering and I’m like 98% and they’re like 10%. Were gonna save so much money so much money. Win against Chinah, the Japaneese… nobody can do this stuff better than me. Nobody. Nobody. We have something so special going on. Something so special going on - it’s a movement. It’s a movement. It’s a movement to take our country back. And it is. And that’s what it is. A movement to take it back. I can promise you that.  It’s gonna be so beautiful and that’s what we’re doing. It takes guts to run for president. Not easy. I’m self-funding my campaign. I can’t be bought. That I can tell you.

We’re gonna do something that’s so amazing. We are gonna start winning again. We’re gonna kill ISIS. Folks call me and thank me so I’m gonna say get out there vote make America great again folks. Thankyou. I love you. Thankyou.

- Rob Walker 2016

Born Robert John Walker (26 June 1953), Rob Walker has lived in Adelaide or the Adelaide Hills most of his life. He attended Cowandilla Primary and Plympton High Schools and trained as a primary school teacher at Western Teachers College (later University of South Australia.) He has worked as a primary school educator, particularly in the Performing Arts area. In addition to poetry he writes occasional book reviews, articles, essays and short fiction. He currently divides his time between Australia and Himeji, Japan. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

New Poetry by James Walton

Here and Now/Then and There

Love walks out of the same door
it came in by,
the aperture between heart and mind
be grateful for that.
How the rooms grew in adrenalin rush
and the most simple of things
a sofa for instance,
where you hugged over family life and death
held in the turmoil of it all.
Wallpaper moments that look back at you
open windows that let sighs waver,
laughter doing the washing up
whose turn it was to cook in that lousy oven.
The speeding world settled
in scattered books and music,
fur balls and muddy paws
or a child’s sudden end of the world sob.
So close the panel tenderly,
turn the handle as though you’re touching a rib cage gently,
this place was the centre of something.


- James Walton 2016

James Walton lives in the Strzelecki Mountains in South Gippsland, Australia. He has been published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers, and many journals and anthologies. He has been short listed twice for the ACU national Literature Prize, is a double prize winner in the MPU International Poetry Prize, and Specially Commended in The Welsh Poetry Competition.  His collection ‘The Leviathan’s Apprentice’ is available. He’s been a Librarian, bred Salers cattle, and was a public sector union official for many years.

New Poetry by Robbie Coburn

Night Walk

I am not thinking, or walking for any reason

though I calculate these steps.
the madness in me
is breathing

in the silent hours
I see the air 
does not belong to anyone, lost
against the freezing skin
I am still not tired enough 
to sleep.

and if my blood runs 
it is not accidental 

from where I am standing 
the damage is immeasurable

no one on the road at 4am 
listening 
to the cars approaching.


- Robbie Coburn 2016