Lost and Found
Editor's Comments
About six months ago I was re-reading one of my favourite poems - Elizabeth Bishop's 'One Art'. Every time I read this poem I find something new that I hadn't noticed before. That is one of the marks of a great poem. I wondered how other poets would treat the subject of 'lost' and it's antonym 'found' hence the theme for this issue. I hope you enjoy this submission from the hundreds that were submitted.
Sally Long
Poems
Snowdrops
Years have passed since you left,
Yet here I am,
Once again blessed
With the rise of the snowdrops.
They appear overnight
Silently offering beauty, peace,
tranquillity,
A white blanket covering the land-
A sea of delicate bright petals.
The weight lifts off my shoulders,
Replaced with a sense of familiarity
A distant voice whistles around me
‘Look at the Snowdrops’.
Aisha Lama
Love Song
III
I never
understood
how that
line from the Song of Solomon --
his left hand is under my head,
and his right hand doth embrace me --
could actually work logistically
until last night,
when somehow we fit together
better than we had before.
I think I fell asleep
as your right hand traced its line
again and again around the back of my skull,
around my jaw’s left side,
and the feeling of it was like cascading light,
like thousands of white stars falling.
Esther Brazil
I’d like to believe it means something,
the pale blue egg I found on the sidewalk
wreathed with brown speckles circling
the widest end. I dreamed up meanings
for such a smallness. Miracle, a breakthrough,
a letting go. But finding it, here, misplaced,
from a weave of twig and leaf, seems an odd
misfortune, bringing to mind unborn truths.
A secret drawer in my grandfather’s desk
that I dared not open, but did. And the glass
eye
at the vintage store wedged in its leather case
that I had no need for but placed in my pocket,
the weight of it growing over the years
out of proportion to its meager size.
I stoop to inspect the untouched egg.
A life curls within the delicate shell, dreaming
the colors of fire like Salvador Dali as he
turned
in the womb gathering memories of orange, red
and blue. Oval lingers, like that, like a
mystery,
that gives shape to the shape of my mouth: O.
Sandra
Fees
There is an ache of August
There is an ache of August,
That lies inside the sun creased
Pages of a book, I left on the lawn,
It seeps between the tiles of
The outdoor swimming pool.
And before I have the
Chance to escape,
It finds me- Sitting.
Hands outstretched, watching
The last days of summer
Drip through my fingers,
For I cannot hold them.
It finds me lying in the waves,
Overly aware that I am made
Of water- Not knowing where
I end and where the ocean begins.
For the taste of my sorrow
Is the same as the salt
That flows through my hair.
It finds me burying the body
In sunbaked leaves, leaving
It to decompose- And to be
Washed away by the rain
That seeps into the dirt.
It finds me but I am quiet
About it. I rearrange my
Room without a sound and I
Go for long walks by myself
Without a sound and I get rid
Of clothes too small without a
Sound-
I let it consume me, but
Confine it to my chest, cage it
Behind my teeth. Holding still
And silent- Waiting for this
Feeling to pass.
Emily Roys
Losing
Think theatre gown and how it
feels on route to ‘Imaging’
where now is who you are
and former selves are
shed along with street clothes.
Read the walls in waiting rooms,
poster after poster of
points on a pain scale,
a gallery of mysteries:
Learn More About Dementia;
Alzheimer's Hotline.
Think imagery of
everything we can’t see:
computerised tomography,
its oracle of ghost clouds.
Think inkblot hippocampus,
moth wing cerebellum
and whatever lies within -
a thinker’s thoughts,
thinking gone astray, like yesterday
somewhere in silver grey.
Paul McDonald
Laetitia Prism
did not wear her scarlet coat
for it was the first fine day of the year.
The sky was a little tent of blue
dotted with dancing clouds of silver-sails.
She wanted to be a bit wild, so before
the railway station, five and nine ready in pocket,
she strolled along the prom
by the light and laughing sea.
She drank the air, sun, the imagined accolades.
She'd been earnest in her writing -
plot, beats, three-act structure.
It was the definition of fiction, she said,
for the good ended happily and when published,
perhaps even Lady W. would be a fan.
The Worthing ticket office was packed.
Her heart began beating thick and quick.
She checked she had it for the umpteenth time
and boarded the carriage.
At least, she had something sensational
to read on the train
and no little darling had been lost.
From her third class seat, she heard the whistle,
marking her departure.
She was to become important.
On the platform, a porter rushed to the signalman
and watched with gaze the dull amaze.
"It's a baby. Found where?"
Jill Vance
Owning The
Wave
She shares
the wave
holds it,
knows the song
they weave
through:
the lick of
salt on their tongues,
scherzos of
moments edging waves
that curl
over and over,
a rondo of
sharing.
Call it love,
this desire to hold,
sealing days
in a glide of hours
seamed
together,
the
tremendous wave held
within a
miraculous sweep
dissolving
together, melded
into the face
of the wave.
Katherine Gallagher
Apostle Spoons
Spoons split between sisters,
six in each drawer. Of yours,
one has been lost to a brown sofa,
one left in a field after a picnic,
one taken to school for the Christmas
party,
labelled with my name.
The last three we found to stir our
sugarless tea,
two of these have gone now,
as if we laid them in your caskets,
though we didn’t, did we?
I feel the final spoon is somewhere,
but where, where?
Janet Dean
Keys
In the drawer of the front hall
table a jumble of rubber bands
pens receipts pennies paperclips
and old keys, a dozen or more
of them. Keys to padlocks,
keys to bike locks, what looked
like front or back door keys,
but when we tried them, they
were
not for our house. Some day they
might be needed, we had thought,
but that day never came, until,
at last, we found their best use—
to open the doors of letting go.
James
H. Schneider
end
refrain
The
answer has to be in one of these
books
on my bookshelf. I probably left it
on
the rocks in Corsica, back then
when
holiday snaps were kept on Kodak
cameras.
I didn’t get the answer
in
the sermon I attended Sunday,
although
the preacher did get pretty close.
I
left the room when it got too real.
The
answer I’m looking for is not too real.
I
heard the answer is another question.
I’ve
heard the end of it, I think,
on
the radio... on the radio
it’s
mostly adverts, news and people talking
but
sometimes in the silence between things,
if
you close your eyes, if you hold your breath,
the
answer might cut through the static
(and
its wings are buzzing, and you buzz too)
but
it only ever stays for a short while.
Simon
Alderwick
All in the Fullness of Time,
Julian
for Julian Stannard
You were there – remember? – the evening Fleur
mislaid her glasses, when something in the walls,
the new carpet tiles, the air-con, something
stifled her voice. A coughing fit,
she couldn't read her poems.
So you stepped in, half apologetically
and, switching the scene to Genoa, you revelled
in the mercato orientale,
relished the Via Antonio Burlando,
your personal ‘via dolorosa’.
You squeezed the words through gritted teeth,
spitting pips,
signed us all up to your severed life,
its luxuries and limitations.
You see-sawed, swayed, knees bent,
stomach clenched,
swilling each syllable on cigarette breath
and gum, tasting its zest on your tongue –
you were revving like the hollow rasp
of a red Lambretta,
Fleur’s spectacles still clasped in your hand.
Stephen Boyce
Inheritance
We
were very sorry to hear of your tragic loss,
the child who, had he lived, might have
shone a light
in this dark world where strangers
briefly cross
each other’s paths, thinking only of
their own delight.
We were saddened to learn of the
untimely death
of your teenage prodigy, buried by the
scrum,
awkward, ungainly, running short of
breath,
till all his fragile nerves and wits
grew numb.
We
remember that bold young man of twenty-seven
ready to make his mark among his peers
as scholar and idealist: now only
bright heaven
knows how he might have lived his
golden years.
And
in this time of mourning you must also grieve
for a lost father and a devoted spouse,
a cousin, a benevolent uncle; and then
leave
space in your heart for the rest of
your noble house.
Now in these sad days of your ageing
you recall
the scions of your distant and sacred
kin,
wondering how many more still remain to
fall
as time insists you must shed another
skin.
For each of these dead was just a
previous you,
killed by the fear of confronting the
unseen:
each photograph, each letter is a
clue
to what you were and what you might
have been.
But these are not family. It is those
who merit
your kindness and your capacity for
giving,
the many you saved and cared for, who
will inherit
your love, your joy in the simple act
of living.
Jeff Gallagher
Trimming the Wistaria
If I hadn’t spent time
trimming the wistaria
that February morning,
I wouldn’t have swept up
the withered whips,
nor would I have spotted
the silvery gleam
next to the green bin
and brought you joy –
the earring, one of a pair
your granddaughter
gave you for Christmas
and which you feared
you’d never see again.
Mantz
Yorke
Failure
And
to Adam he said...
"Cursed
be the ground because of you"
—Genesis
3.17
Without guilt
How different everything must
look.
How wonderful the taste of each new
food.
The smell and color of each
flower.
How exotic and mysterious each
sunset,
How joyful each dawn.
Deucalion, how I wish I were you.
To have the luxury of making proud
children.
The freedom of firsts without
entanglements.
You have the world,
While I have lost everything.
Marc Janssen
Sassafras Cinnamon Honey Tea
Her hands are gnarled with arthritis
and slightly tremble at times.
Placing the roots in the boiling
water,
she adds a cinnamon stick.
“The aroma is almost as good as the
tea.”
She is making the tea especially for
me
because this is how she shows her
love.
Removing the boiling liquid from the
stove,
she uses a coffee filter to strain
the deep dark liquid into the
pitcher.
Immediately she adds three honey
stick dollops.
An almost smile turns the edges of
her mouth.
This is my departed mother’s mother.
She does not hug or kiss.
Farm life has worn her down.
The tea is the best she has to offer.
For me, it is more than enough.
R. Gerry Fabian
Beyond the final stanza
GB
Who will read our books when we are
dead?
We’ve worked for years to get them
off the shelf,
ridiculously grateful when they're
bought and read
by anybody other than ourself.
A poet friend fell ill and though he
was no older
than I am, lost his fight and, sadly,
died this week.
He published widely, kept a
competition folder
and recently enjoyed a winning
streak.
This news was sad, but left me
wondering why
I was taken by surprise to lose a
friend
when it's so obvious that even poets
die.
If only I could contact him, I'd send
a carefully crafted message to imply
that his best poetry might well
survive his end.
Alwyn Marriage
Vetch in the Spring
Love comes back like vetch in the Spring
You knew it was there, but it’s still a surprise
The flower is lovely, but wildly unwise.
Love comes back like vetch in the Spring
You keep pulling it out but you’re never free
You think it’s gone, but it won’t ever be.
It just comes back like vetch in the Spring
Love’s just a thing.
Robin Helweg-Larsen
Out-Mused
Those famous bards of yesterday
In modern mags would have no say;
Their famous quotes would hold no sway
Especially if they dare gainsay
The modern esoteric.
Rise up, ye bards, and once more strew
The rhymes and rhythms that we knew
Dismiss the free and prosy stew
That litters mags and journals too
With puffery hysteric.
Bob Nimmo
We had the last remnants
Of the old religion to
Pick through – scraps
Of bone and gristle;
The meat is still hidden to
Most, I fear they shall
Never taste it, or recognise
That nourishment can still
Come, suckling on the
Hard hopes abandoned
With the last meal.
Thomas Larner
The Good Man
Anniversaries were the hardest;1 his birthday,
Valentine’s Day, but the worst was Christmas, he loved Christmas; made
puddings, salted hams, ordered elaborate centrepieces for the table. The first
year his children each took a tradition2 to carry on; one made
the cake, smothered it in frosted peaks, another the puddings with enough
brandy in the brandy butter to blow your head off just as he liked it, another
ordered meat, learnt how to fillet salmon3 and they all
decorated the tree. On the day, they sang Fairy Tale of New York at the tops of
their voices, toasted him with Guinness and whisky and tried to forget that
he’d left them provided with everything – except himself.
1 a
calendar of enemies;
waiting in ambush
2 cradling
small fires
3 carefully
attempting to remove
the bones from their throats
Ilse Pedler
Contributors
Simon Alderwick's
poetry has appeared in Magma, Ink Sweat & Tears, Frogmore Papers, Berlin
Lit, Anthropocene, Dreich, and elsewhere. His debut pamphlet ways to
say we're not alone is forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books in February
2024.
Stephen Boyce is the author of three
poetry collections, Desire Lines (Arrowhead 2010), The
Sisyphus Dog (Worple 2014) and The Blue Tree (Indigo
Dreams 2019). He is co-founder of Winchester Poetry Festival and lives in north
Dorset. stephenboycepoetry.com
Esther Brazil is an American-born poet and
Anglican priest, and has lived in the UK for nearly two decades. She is the
overall winner of the 2020 Cuddesdon Creative Writing Competition, and was
shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2020 and 2022 and longlisted for the Fish
Prize in 2021.
Janet Dean was Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize 2022, and won second prize in the Yeovil Poetry Competition 2021. She was commended in the Poetry Society Stanza Competition, and her poem Callin’ is featured in the Northern Poetry Library’s Poem of the North. She is widely published in anthologies and magazines in print and online.
R. Gerry Fabian is a published poet and
novelist. He has published four books of his published poems, Parallels,
Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts and Wildflower
Women as well as his poetry baseball book, Ball On The
Mound.
Sandra Fees has been published in The Comstock Review, Moon City Review, The Shore, Nimrod, and Crab Creek Review, among others. Author of two chapbooks, The Temporary Vase of Hands and Moving, Being Moved, she lives in southeastern Pennsylvania and is a past poet laureate of Berks County.
Jeff Gallagher’s poems feature in Rialto, Acumen, The High Window and The Journal among others. He has had numerous plays published and performed nationwide. He was the winner of the Carr Webber Prize 2021. For many years he taught English and Latin. He also appeared (briefly) in an Oscar-winning movie.
Katherine Gallagher is an Australian North London poet living here for many years. Her most
recent collections are Acres of Light (Arc Publications,
2016) and Carnival Edge: New & Selected Poems, 2010) also
published by Arc.
Robin Helweg-Larsen, Anglo-Danish by birth but
raised in the Bahamas, has been published in the Alabama Literary Review,
Allegro, Ambit, Amsterdam Quarterly and other international journals. The
Series Editor for Sampson Low's 'Potcake Chapbooks - Form in Formless Times',
he blogs at http://formalverse.com from
his hometown of Governor's Harbour
Marc Janssen has been writing poems since around 1980.
Some people would say that was a long time but not a dinosaur. Early
decrepitude has not slowed him down much; his verse can be found scattered
around the world in places like Pinyon, Slant, Cirque
Journal, Off the Coast and Poetry Salzburg also
in his book November Reconsidered. Janssen coordinates the Salem
Poetry Project- a weekly reading, the occasionally occurring Salem Poetry
Festival, and was a nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate. For more information
visit, marcjanssenpoet.com.
Aisha Lama is a recent graduate, and keen poet. Her
poems mainly tackle climate and social anxiety, and she loves exploring eco and
ekphrastic poetry. She is currently working on her first collection of poems
that explore these themes, and has high aspirations for future publication.
Thomas Larner works as an archivist in
Bedfordshire. He has been published in the Crank, Littoral and Canon
Poetry Magazines, and the online journal Poetry Cove and was highly
commended in the Coverstory 2022 Poetry Competition. His favourite poets
are R.S. Thomas, Edward Thomas, Christopher Smart, and Lawrence Raab.
Paul McDonald taught at the University of
Wolverhampton for twenty five years, where he ran the Creative Writing
Programme before taking early retirement in 2019. He is the author of 20 books
to date, which includes fiction, poetry and scholarship. His most recent poetry
collection is 60 Poems (Greenwich Exchange Press, 2023)
Alwyn Marriage's
fifteen books include poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Her latest poetry
collections are Pandora's pandemic and Possibly a
pomegranate. Formerly philosophy lecturer and CEO of two international
literacy and literature agencies, she's Managing Editor of Oversteps Books. She
gives readings all over Britain, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. www.marriages.me.uk/alwyn
Bob Nimmo, although living in New Zealand, has had poetry published in
magazines throughout UK, Asia and the Caribbean, including the Inclement, Fire,
The California Quarterly, Aspire and the SN Review. He has
authored three poetry collections, has a lyrical presence on Twitter, Instagram
and has his own blog.
Ilse Pedler's first
collection Auscultation was published by Seren in June 2021.
She works part time as a veterinary surgeon in Kendal. www.ilsepedler.com
Emily Roys
is a 17 year old student in Limerick, Ireland. She has been using poetry to
write about her life and her experiences since she was 11. She is previously
published in two journals of poetry and prose The Storms and Paper
Lanterns as well as multiple online magazines.
James H. Schneider has published poems in various online and print
journals, including Verse Wisconsin, Abraxas #49, Third Wednesday, Amsterdam
Quarterly, Mobius magazine, and Cafe Review. A poem of his was read
on Maine Public Radio’s “Poems from Here” series. He lives in Brunswick, Maine,
with his wife.
Jill Vance is a poet
and interdisciplinary artist. Her work has appeared in Truth Serum Press,
Pure Slush, Dirigible Balloon, Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis, Full House
Literary, Forge Zine, The Alchemy Spoon, Celestite Poetry, Overtly Lit
and Green Ink Poetry.
Mantz Yorke
– a scientist by training – lives in Manchester, England. His poems have
been published internationally. His collections ‘Voyager’ and ‘Dark Matters’
are published by Dempsey and Windle.
