Each day an instrument plucked or blown on the wind from inherited depths. The agony of all that’s left. Echo of waves in the sweep of ink.

Monday. Turn of the violin. Whisper of shavings that brush on the floor. Gleam of sunlight in tune with the grain.

young girl’s eyes
as she follows the bow
lark rise

Tuesday. Flute  Bone. Run of small perforations that ripple her fingers.

busker’s notes spiral
in sync with snake coils
his empty bowl

Wednesday. Ancient conch. Hornblower’s lips embrace at the tip.

score of thousands
years before time
the past resounds

Thursday. Drum. Tightness of skin on the rim of the frame.

beat of his heart
to the pounding of fists.
distant sirens

Friday. A gap in the place where the piano one stood.

afloat from her dream
his settings of her poems
vibrations of silence

Diana Webb

I‘m thinking about making a new will; pandemics do that to you. Father of course has to get in on the act; dead for 30 years, but I just have to close my eyes for a rest and there he is. In this dream, he’s actually just died and, with my brother being deceased too, I’m left sole beneficiary in his will. Mr Wishart, the family solicitor, is giving me a solo reading. It transpires that I’ve inherited a house, savings at a moderately life-transforming level, an armour-plated SUV, a gun cabinet, a useful address book and his favourite scythe. Plus a modest number of feuds.

Guns? Scythe? Feuds? He hands me an envelope. Inside there’s a list of family vendette, with an account of their origins and ensuing collateral damage. A few decades down, my brother is on the damage list. This is all news to me. I say, am I on the front foot or the back foot with these? Wishart says, good question. With some it’s your turn to go strong, with others I’d advise the bunker and bodyguards strategy. Opportunity, threat, don’t worry, you’ll know what to do; after all, it’s in the blood. I do hope you’ll enjoy your new life for the longest time. Remember to keep that scythe sharp and oiled. And just one more thing: have you considered remaking your will?

father’s footsteps
but look at
the state of his shoes

Alasdair Paterson

I don’t know anything
she knows. I know
she knows something,
but she can’t know
what I know.
I don’t know anything,
and she knows that
I don’t know anything.
And that’s the point:
she knows something
even if it’s nothing,
and I don’t know anything.

the sweet spot
a fine line between
burnt and toasty

Bob Lucky

You did not see because you did not look.
You weren’t as bad as some, perhaps,
Yet priceless treasure you forsook.
You did not see because you did not look.
With Nazi friends, you burned the books,
You charred your heart, your chances lapsed.
You did not see because you did not look.
You weren’t as bad as some?  Perhaps . . .

graveyard gargoyle—
the doorman waits
to receive you

 

(image source: https://streeter.ca/leaside/views/column/mount-pleasant-gargoyle-builds-a-mystery/)

 

Anna Cates

The telephone call from my father reignites a memory from twenty years ago. I’m walking up the tree lined avenue of The Miltown Institute on my way to a lecture. It is mid-May but unusually cold. In an instant, everything changes.

pink cherry blossom
heavy snowfall
where am I going?

‘Where are you?’, my father asks. He sounds anxious.
‘At home’, I say, just watching television. You okay?’
There is silence as he thinks about what I’ve said. This is his second night in the rehab unit and I am guessing he dozed off for a while and now can’t figure out where he is.
‘I don’t know what’s happening’, he says. ‘What am I supposed to do? I’m lost, I’m lost.’
It’s nearly midnight and I can hear how quiet it is there. ‘It’s the middle of the night’, I say. I tell him to go back to sleep and I’ll talk to him in the morning. But it takes time and a lot of repetition to reassure him. Eventually he tires and goes to sleep.
But I cannot sleep. I ruminate on the fear in his voice when he said: ‘I’m lost, I’m lost.’

in our tin house
rolling over the roof
this ancient wind

Sean O’Connor

My wife and I are strolling through the world, making note of what needs to be fixed. We don’t agree on everything, but we do believe in the necessity of imperfection, without which there’s not much point in hanging around. What would she do without me?

full moon
I drop my drawers
in solidarity

Bob Lucky

Candyfloss went up the blocks to score some gems and came across Deno and the lads in the alio under Rachel Divers’ flat. She was pissed on her couch with some blueys in her and thinkin’ of shooting up, or maybe chase the dragon.

Someone said to one of Denos’ lads that Candyfloss knew who nicked the powertools outta the Gormans shed. Who the fuck would do that, rob from the fucking Gormans?

Anyway, Candyfloss was all strung out and flashin’ cash at Deno gummin’ to score, but Deno wasn’t havin’ it. He was mad to get in with the Gormans and started diggin’ at The Floss to name the fuckers, but Candyfloss, all uptight, started dissin’ Deno back.

Divers could hear the commotion below. She heard it when Deno smacked Candyfloss’s pink head off the wall. The vibrations went up the concrete and she could feel it through her floor. It was quite a bang, so she thought: whoever that poor fucker is, he’s fuckin’ dead now. She was rattlin’ with shock and went for another bluey to take the edge off it. When she saw her works in the drawer, she went for that instead.

death by overdose –
lying all night in darkness
her crying children

Sean O’Connor

In days of yore, a king and queen
grew sick at heart and longed for more
than wealth can bring.  “A girl or boy,”
they both prayed quietly—then rushing
past their joy, inside a witch’s hut,
let tarot cards decide their luck.
Skies grew dark then lightning struck
that aged oak beside the witch’s hut—
for fate falls hard on those who pluck
forbidden fruit.

Pan came without spring, his song a taunt—
Danced with dry leaves, on hoof, with lute—
That hateful tune of rose’s briar—
That dreadful tale in cloven strides—
Bushy limbs nimble to the lyre and gyre.
And the owl’s eyes grew wide with seeing,
weary with seeing, till the spell took root,
and forests conquered kingdom and castle,
and the old wings flapped off to the moon.

crumbing castle . . .
in a closet, in a shoebox,
glass slipper

Anna Cates