BRYN FORTEY

JUDAS KISS

i wasn’t always the best of husbands
she wasn’t always the best of wives

but we enjoyed the good
worked through the bad
surviving our ups and downs
as most people tend to do
but most do not lose a son
in circumstances as cruel as ours


though it took four long years
of gradual deterioration
she never recovered from the loss
and at least I was there
offering love and support
when it was needed the most

i can’t help thinking sometimes
it might have been better
had we never met
there would have been no son
to die such a wasteful death
she would not have suffered 
the slow downward spiral of her end

from the first moment 
i set eyes upon Maddalena
i hungered for her lips
my last words were: “I love you”
accompanied by a kiss

our lips must have touched a million times
during our fifty-three year marriage
but did it start with a Judas Kiss
pointing us towards 
an unavoidable tragedy
embedded in our lifelines.

********************copyright, Bryn Fortey

Bryn Fortey has been publishing poetry and short stories since the British underground cultural renaissance of the Sixties. After being the guiding intelligence behind the excellent print magazines 'Target' and 'Outlaw' he published two collections of his work on Alchemy Press, 'Merry-Go-Round' and 'Compromising the Truth'. Both are endlessly inventive explorations of imaginary worlds and possibilities. We defy anyone to predict how a Bryn Fortey story will end when it begins.

JOHN GROCHALSKI

mister important

mister important
likes to come in 
during the last fifteen minutes 
of the day

he stays until closing 

because he can

he likes to let you know 

that he pays your salary

you can tell he’s mister important

because he reads the new york times

even though he lives in the part of Brooklyn

where the tour buses won’t dare to come

mister important says,

um, excuse me, 

if you turn off the lights

a minute before closing

if he sees you grab for your hat and coat

well, there’s always one more thing that he needs

mister important says

that he knows people at your main office

important people

people like him

why, he has so many friends at the main office

that he can’t even name them all

but he’ll mention such’n’such

and if you don’t know their name

he’ll give a knowing smile

mister important 

likes when we keep it clean

if the bathroom is a mess, he’ll let you know

if there’s garbage on the floor 

he’ll come over and say,

now, what are we going to do about this?

we meaning you

then mister important stands there

with his arms crossed

expecting you to get up

and start picking up garbage

before he has to go and mention 

all of his important friends

at the main office

but if you take too long to hop to it

or won’t give him the satisfaction

by acting like you just don’t care

mister important will take it upon himself

to bend over in his important polyester pants

and clean up every last bit of trash

before putting on his coat and storming out

turning back at the door and saying 

like he always does

well, we’ll see 

if somebody has a job tomorrow.

*****copyright John Grochalski

John Grochalski is a significant American poet with multiple publications. He also publishes and edits 'winedrunk sidewalk: shipwrecked in trumpland', which has chronicled every day of the catastrophic and criminal Trump presidency with poetry from all over the world.

SUSAN DARLINGTON

FOUNDLING

I know you don’t believe I was a foundling

but this is the form where I suckled my mother’s teat,

the milk rich with the secret of silence and speed.

It nurtured me while I waited for her return,

the east wind raging against my presence,

lashing pebbles at my sides to make me break cover

into the sightline of eagles that quivered overhead

and foxes that stole slow minutes across the field.

I bit down hard on my calloused fingers

to resist pain and superfluous movement

and I drew further into my solitariness with each moon.

It worked. It worked for thirty-five years

until they flushed me out and captured me,

dragging the burrs out of my matted hair

and scouring my earth rich skin in the stink of soap.

You don’t believe I was raised a foundling

but I sit and wait; I bide my time in silence

and when the chance arises into the wild I’ll hare.

*****

SCAFFOLD

The molten steel was the lightning.

The hammer shaping metal the thunder.

The spark for their monster was heated rods

being pushed through blue painted gridlines

that glimmered wetly on thigh and calves,

the interlaced struts forming scaffold stilts.

Slick with the blood of vernix-coated pain

she teetered on new born legs; a fawn

clutching at cupboards, door frames, roof beams

to balance herself as she rose towards the light.

Their screams barely reached her cloud-bound ears.

Their weapons were midges swatting into her flesh.

She blinked in the rain, felt the freedom

of occupying more space with surety.

But blinded to their fear she didn’t know

that it was a false release or that metal rusts.

*****

THE OPERATION

The operation was a success, says the doctor;

all of the affected cells were removed.

I stare ahead in a white blank,

the smell of antiseptic wrapped sheet tight.

It will be necessary to run tests, she says,

to confirm that no further treatment is needed.

I rub a hand over my unevenly cropped hair,

feel cold metal staples arc across my skull.

She shows me image after meaningless image.

Then she holds up a photos - horizon-wide smile,

a constellation of freckles painted on olive skin -

and my heart races where memories used to lie.


**********all poems copyright Susan Darlington, 2019

HELEN VERRILL

chakrina 

The election 2019 

My chest is tight, I cannot breathe,
to the left of me people starving on the street,
to the right the angry are banging their beat,
They brexit The exit, Our freedom, Complex it,
They section, Connection, The election, 
Meanwhile on phones,The government drones, Pick
over the bones,They hound us, and confound us.
They chase every penny, The masses the many,
Confused and abused, lied to and tied to,
the promises past,the things that don’t last,
Our hospitals bursting, our services cursing,
And christmas is coming, the hopeful are running,
The shiny and tiny, sweet gestures we make,
Oh let them eat cake,there’s bread in the tin,
There’s smallness to win,these arrows of pain,
Our loss is their gain, Please think with your hearts,
Please love with your brain x

All work copyright Helen Verrill.

Helen Verrill is a multi-talented artist, musician, poet, teacher and cultural facilitator who lives in Northampton. Last year at the Umbrella Fayre she had an exhibition of her art called 'Colours of my Soul'. Throughout the year she organizes 'Handmade and Unplugged', an event for musicians and crafters to showcase their work.