Seven Poets 2021 September POETRY & WRITING liveencounters.net - Live Encounters
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
2010 - 2020
P O E T R Y & W R I T I N G
Free Online Magazine From Village Earth
September 2021
Seven Poets
Mini Edition
Cover Artwork by Emma Barone
2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
LIVE ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE
P O E T R Y & W R I T I N G
September 2021
Support Live Encounters.
Donate Now and Keep the Magazine Live in 2021
Live Encounters is a not-for-profit free online magazine that was
founded in 2009 in Bali, Indonesia. It showcases some of the best
writing from around the world. Poets, writers, academics, civil &
human/animal rights activists, academics, environmentalists,
social workers, photographers and more have contributed their
time and knowledge for the benefit of the readers of:
Live Encounters Magazine (2010), Live Encounters Poetry &
Writing (2016), Live Encounters Young Poets & Writers (2019)
and now, Live Encounters Books (August 2020).
We are appealing for donations to pay for the administrative
and technical aspects of the publication. Please help by donating
any amount for this just cause as events are threatening the
very future of Live Encounters.
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om
Mark Ulyseas
Publisher/Editor
markulyseas@liveencounters.net
©Mark Ulyseas
All articles and photographs are the copyright of www.liveencounters.net and its contributors.
Young participant at the Pi Mai (Lao New Year) parade, Luang Prabang 2017, Laos PDR, No part of this publication may be reproduced without the explicit written permission of
photograph by Mark Ulyseas. www.liveencounters.net. Offenders will be criminally prosecuted to the full extent of the law
prevailing in their home country and/or elsewhere.
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
P O E T R Y & W R I T I N G
September 2021
Contributors Kate Ennals
Edward Caruso
Richard W Halperin
Mary Ellen Fean
Peter O’Neill
Jose Varghese
Karen Mooney
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
PATHWAYS TO PEACE KATE ENNALS
Kate Ennals is a poet and writer who has published poems and short stories in a range of literary and on-line journals (Crannog,
Skylight 47, Honest Ulsterman, The Moth, Anomaly, The International Lakeview Journal, Boyne Berries, North West Words, The
Blue Nib, Dodging the Rain, The Ogham Stone, plus). Her first collection, At The Edge was published in 2015. Her second collection,
Threads, was published in April 2018. Kate runs At The Edge, Cavan, a literary reading evening, funded by the Cavan Arts Office.
Blog www.kateennals.com
Too much Pressure for a Young Man
I overheard him say it was too much trouble.
What is, I asked, when I got the chance.
Going out with a girl, he replied, it’s a hassle.
Really? I said, what is the problem?
Well, he said, it’s would hardly be restful.
I’ll have to do things I don’t really want to.
Like what, I queried, give me examples.
She’ll make me go places, like the zoo,
art galleries, the cinema, shops, visit her parents.
She’ll make me plan holidays, take weekend breaks.
I’ve seen the length of time a girl can take.
Tell me, what are you doing that is so precious?
What’s so important that she will interrupt?
Stuff, he informed me. My gaming, my life-style
My freedom to do as I please when I want.
I sighed. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a partner?
Someone with whom to share your troubles?
He shot me a withering look. Mother, he answered,
There’s no stress in my life. I am single.
I nodded, smiled, as if enlightened
And through gritted teeth, I inquired
Darling, will you ever want children?
He frowned, pouted his lips, hesitated, said, yes,
Probably. I’ll review it when I’m older
not as busy, in my forties, I guess.
Kate Ennals
© Kate Ennals
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
PATHWAYS TO PEACE KATE ENNALS
Pathways to Peace
Syrians, Somalians, and Eritreans Would it be better to be raped
risk the Med or traipse the Balkans imprisoned, murdered here, in my own home
Afghanis trudge from the East by my own, in a place
forging ahead with Algerians. where I’m supposed to feel safe?
But I have a responsibility, a moral duty
Boys from Senegal and Morocco To protect my children and myself.
tramp from the North.
In between, lies a path used by women I’ll contact Pathways to Peace,
and children from Cameroon an international UN agency,
to see if they have any advice.
If it was you, what would be your route? I read on their website that it has been
‘actively making peace a lived reality.’
After packing my backpack with essentials I wonder what language that is
(phone, change of clothes, a cup) Or if such a place exists.
I would walk the Dublin Road from Cavan
And head towards Killiney Beach
Assuming someone there
(for they are rich and enterprising)
would have set up a smuggling business
to get me out of here.
Then I’d walk the UK land bridge to France
My final destination.
Already, it seems mad…to say the least
all the borders, seas, police
immigration, questions, different customs
raised hackles, suspicions.
I’d have to sleep rough. It would be dangerous.
© Kate Ennals
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
PATHWAYS TO PEACE KATE ENNALS
Short Lived
I stop, glance sideways
a vibrant green bud
at the tip of a bare branch
Is about to burst its sepal
yield its glow. Its petiole
bubbles with vigour,
sheds a tiny glimmer
at the edge of my dark wood
swarming with bark beetles,
pine needles, dead leaves.
A leaf will soon unfurl
And when I pass tomorrow
I will not recognise it at all
©Mark Ulyseas
Photograph by Mark Ulyseas.
© Kate Ennals
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
CANVASES EDWARD CARUSO
Edward Caruso is based in Melbourne, Australia. He has been published in A Voz Limpia, Australian Multilingual Writing Project,
‘La Bottega della Poesia’ (La Repubblica, Italy), Communion, Meniscus, n-Scribe, Right Now, TEXT, Unusual Work and Well-Known
Corners: Poetry on the Move. His second collection of poems, Blue Milonga, was published by Hybrid Publishers in January 2019.
In August 2019 he featured on Radio 3CR’s Spoken Word program.
Vista
From a train window,
rear carriages in view.
Early morning fog,
the Tiber’s elevated bank.
Creepers blanket a solitary elm.
Foliage, silver light.
Edward Caruso
© Edward Caruso
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
CANVASES EDWARD CARUSO
Canvases
Two bicycles abandoned by a river of glass, A wisp of hair in a drawer …
the owners, hand in hand,
gaze at clouds, a song of roses. His mother’s companions,
he’d take their mantle
Somewhere there’s an older canvas. with future lovers,
Childhood vignettes. mother long gone.
A male face the painter no longer recalls, Those who unearthed the shadow of a man
his mother closing herself away with him, who could never find himself,
two cigarettes side by side. despite the self-portraits he lived with
and the people who sought him out.
A white gravel pathway. They were all outcasts.
An estate’s fields lined by poplars. His a world of wild rigging
stranded in uncompromising surf.
He’d work with his brushes and canvases,
the talcum powder voice of his mother’s companion
distanced, as he’d lose himself
in his own landscapes.
Strands of plaited hair,
fine red clothes with folds and lace hems.
The inviting skin of a wife to come.
The world, one of impressions,
different perfumes
and bottles of wine kept
in his mother’s room.
© Edward Caruso
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
CANVASES EDWARD CARUSO
Trains
Through pastures and towns
barely recognised, but within,
the sun emerges,
also within.
Pines,
the humming of a distant song
and silence of a single voice,
follow, follow.
There isn’t a moment without movement,
seconds that outlast thoughts.
Consolations that open
one’s life, definitions or pages
that have to be rewritten
or abandoned.
If anything is ever
wasted or tossed,
the clear light of a discarded sky,
landscape in bloom,
whatever remains,
lives or horizons,
moments survived
long after their vanishing.
©Mark Ulyseas
Photograph by Mark Ulyseas.
© Edward Caruso
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netMATUTINAL PALETTE RICHARD W HALPERIN
Richard W. Halperin has Irish/U.S. dual nationality and lives in Paris. His most recent collection for Salmon Poetry, Cliffs of Moher,
is Catch Me While You Have the Light, 2018. People in a Diary is listed for 2022. His most recent shorter collection for Lapwing,
Belfast, is Summer Night, 1948, 2021. His poem ‘Snow Falling, Lady Murasaki Watching’ is on permanent display at Hawk’s Well
Theatre, Sligo. Readings scheduled in Ireland for 2020 have been deferred to late 2021 or to 2022.
Matutinal Palette
‘One is an artist, he is living at home.
One is a musician, she is living at home.’
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, James Agee
Shiny things come from that.
Every home has an odd one.
Although everyone in the home is odd.
Oz comes from an odd one.
Salvation comes from an odd one.
An Sylvia comes from an odd one.
Wars come from very odd ones.
For some reason, that is allowed.
Every day begins with one shining second.
Then everything that can possibly happen to it
Happens to it.
In The Portrait of a Lady
Isabel Archer goes back home knowing
It is not home, no, not at all home.
She goes back to it because responsibility
Is at least as luminous as happiness.
Most poems are sad. Most songs are sad.
Even An Sylvia.
I am an artist, I am living at home.
I am a musician, I am living at home.
Richard W Halperin
© Richard W Halperin
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netMATUTINAL PALETTE RICHARD W HALPERIN
Summer Night, Dublin, 2021 A Ballet for Martha
Outside my hotel window, two young people There they were and I, too, I
Continue to talk past midnight. At a table in A child so I did not recognise them
The hotel garden. Murmurs. Soft laughter. Crossing streets, on their way, Graham,
The heavy air carries it into my room. I wish Copland, others, a New York that was,
That they would stop, but my soul wants them Traffic, noise, art – ‘Appalachian Spring’
To continue indefinitely. Very young voices, A bubble blown by sophisticated people
One may be a girl’s, or a boy’s whose voice About unsophisticated people – marriage,
Hasn’t changed yet. Two brothers, I think. House-building, faith – vanished before
They speak Danish, a language I can recognise They existed, never existed except
But which I cannot understand. In dance. Quaker tunes which whirled
Them all away, Martha, Aaron, my mother
They are we. As we were, and for decades Jeanne, me, Bonwit Teller’s, vanished, vanished.
Thereafter. We would sit outdoors, talking
Quietly in the quiet, in a language which was
Our own, sometimes until dawn. Love –
Familial and of every other conceivable kind –
Rubs the edges off words. The soft knot of being
Together. The soft knot of being together
At the same time in the same place.
© Richard W Halperin
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netAFTERNOON MARY ELLEN FEAN
Born in East Galway, Mary Ellen Fean’s work has been published in Cyphers, The SHOp, The Clare Champion, Revival, broadcast on
Clare FM radio, and she was shortlisted for the Desmond O’Grady poetry prize. She has read her work widely at, for example, The
Forge at Gort Literature Festival, Whitehouse Poets (Limerick,) and the Galway Arts Festival Fringe.
Brothers
Wild honeysuckle brought
From the island separates
Their houses
They stand either side of it,
Each by his own door
Batting the breeze
Sometimes silent, gazing
Out over the bay, to the place
They were raised
Tall men, rugged build
Years of following
The work
These days they grow
Herbs in old
Lobster pots
Harvest the fruit canes, watch
Long days draw in, slipping
Easily into the mother tongue –
Leitirmor, Leitirmullan
An Ceathru Rua; places held
In the heart.
Mary Ellen Fean
© Mary Ellen Fean
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netAFTERNOON MARY ELLEN FEAN
Afternoon
Often in the dead hours
Of a summer afternoon
We went to the village library –
You aged four, swayed
By an ice-cream promise
A rarefied house of books
Cool air, blades of the brass fans
Turning slowly
Took your interest, hummed
You to sleep; while I randomly
Turned the pages
Of some travel magazine.
Mostly I just
Watched you sleeping.
Even then
I knew these moments passed.
©Mark Ulyseas
Photograph by Mark Ulyseas.
© Mary Ellen Fean
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netUNSEEN ELEMENTS IN VAN GOGH’S PAINTING P E T E R O’ N E I L L
Peter O’Neill is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently Henry Street Arcade a bilingual edition, his first, with translations
into French by Yan Kouton published by Éditions du Pont de l’Europe, 2021. He has also published a book of translations The Enemy
-Transversions from Charles Baudelaire (Lapwing, 2015) and the hybrid prose work More Micks than Dicks – a satirical dig at the
current world of Beckett studies (Famous Seamus, 2017). He has just finished curating Baudelaire 200 Years! an online festival for
the Alliance Francaise, and a new book, again inspired by Baudelaire, Ideals and Spleen is due out in the summer.
The Poet’s Garden
For
Beale MacKenzie
Diogenes tub-weary hurling a superb turd at Plato
While he traverses the marketplace on his way to the
Acacademy as my old professor, Dr Cyril
McDonnell, dreams of a career in stand- up comedy.
Yet, while maintaining all of the rigour of radical
Empiricist philosophy, continuing on Hume’s tradition!
Also seated there invisibly, Raymondo Chandlereque
At the moment of the birth of his most superb fictional
Creation – Sir Philip Marlowe a conglomerate of parts;
Reaching from the extent of Christopher –
Author of Tamberline to the Knight of the sonnets.
Also to be included, a burlesque of broads with silver wigs,
Pints of rye, monocles and Charlie Chan moustaches.
And just barely audible - Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata.
Peter O’Neill
© Peter O’Neill
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netUNSEEN ELEMENTS IN VAN GOGH’S PAINTING P E T E R O’ N E I L L
Aristophanes A Musical Education
On the outer spine, the image of the grapes In the morning you listen to Debussy;
Impregnate the air eyeward, Reflets dans l’eau. Mornings are Good
The langorous Gironde, current a posible For impressionism. You wake up gently,
Constrictor, yet on this day gently unwinding. And to the aroma of the first coffee, which tastes bitter.
Like a great palm, releasing us its children At noon, you have already graduated to Beethoven;
Into the Godhead of the river. Some sonantas, variations or bagatelles.
Grapes to the current, the charge of cold And, if you are really struggling - the Triple
Onrushing up through the thighs and chest Concerto in C Major, Op. 56 No 2.
And smiles of the summer on the Banks No coffee there, as you’re already on the beer!
Where I stood before you almost naked, From there? You can only mellow,
You who could already see so far Ahead. Or otherwise face the inevitable meltdown.
Blameless that you were, in the summer of your years, Miles Davis Kind of Blue.
For are we not but the playthings of the Gods, Now, you should be thinking also of food.
You and I, that concept now, like a dead fly upon a window pane. That’s it, go and pour the wine now!
© Peter O’Neill
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netUNSEEN ELEMENTS IN VAN GOGH’S PAINTING P E T E R O’ N E I L L
The Ancients Politics is Concrete
Grammar bleeds into the child’s brain, Black lives matter.
Followed closely by algebra and the theorem The case of the exception is the rule.
Of Pythagoras. The Muse comes, wearing The case of the exception is the rule.
Her jumpsuit in black latex, and also bearing her scourge. The case of the exception is the rule.
Behind Her, there’s Heraclitus & Democritus. Women’s lives matter.
The former is weeping while the latter cries with laughter. The case of the exception is the rule.
A fool then in the theater with two masks; The case of the exception is the rule.
The face of comedy and tragedy! The case of the exception is the rule.
Even in our sports, destruction is inevitable. Jewish lives matter.
Learning defeat and living with the very public Humiliation. The case of the exception is the rule.
This is your learning. This then is your school! The case of the exception is the rule.
Don’t worry, you Will come to Love it, in time, Gay lives matter.
When She sticks your face right in it, The case of the exception is the rule.
Urging you to suck it up. Your day is just beginning! The case of the exception is the rule.
© Peter O’Neill
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netA VEILED LIFE JOSE VARGHESE
Jose Varghese is a bilingual writer and translator from India. He edits Lakeview Journal and Strands Publishers and is the author
of ‘Silver Painted Gandhi and Other Poems’. His short story manuscript ‘In/Sane’ was a finalist in the Beverly Prize and his second
collection of poems will be published in 2021 (Black Spring Press Group). He was a finalist in LISP, a runner up in the Salt Prize,
and was commended in Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His works have appeared in Joao Roque Literary Journal,
The Best Asian Short Story Anthology, Dreich, Meridian, Afterwards, Summer Anywhere, Unthology 5, Unveiled, Reflex Fiction,
Flash Fiction Magazine, Chandrabhaga, and Postcolonial Text.
A Veiled Life
Shifty eyes, a quaver in your voice,
faltering feet and fumbling fingers
reveal yourself
as much as they fortress
your secrets. A faint smile might
light up the serpentine path
leading to a
cloistered courtyard, but
the flowers in your garden
are never in full bloom. You might
invite the guests indoors, but
they’ll have to be cautious,
with each step they take,
of the trapdoors that might
open and close in the fraction
of a second. You might
offer food and drinks, but
they’ll consume them only in
small amounts,
scared of the effects
they can have later. You might
show off your art collection, but
they’ll wonder whether
they were
acquired illicitly. You might
even show them photos of
your family trips
to exotic locations, but
they’ll worry if the invisible family
was purchased on credit as well,
like the holidays. You might
tell them you’re an open book, but
they’ll excuse themselves
Jose Varghese and refuse to read even a page.
© Jose Varghese
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netA VEILED LIFE JOSE VARGHESE
A Moment Before Rain Claims a Life Restraint
The rain falls They will not allow those eyes
on his head, to steal their silence
turning his mane where windows speak more
to wet strands to buried urges.
of silver and charcoal
that stick to his When their bones creak, and
temples and neck, a prayer forms within
but he doesn’t move those rooms that are thirsty
from where he despite hopes, the sun
sits hunched shines bright on the hymns
in front of a shop. of widows and orphans
that last through their chores
The market is till the dusk’s death.
almost empty.
Even the pigeons They should perhaps think of
are flying away a smile that could’ve
with their killed the clocks to save them,
share of the last bits but they never do that.
of discarded food
from the rubbish bin,
leaving behind
a couple of cats to
clear it between
useless fights.
People pass by
in a hurry
and fail to notice
the drenched
currency notes stuck
to coins spread on
the cardboard
in front of the man,
as a weary breath
departs, to
stop his shivering.
© Jose Varghese
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netA VEILED LIFE JOSE VARGHESE
After the Swirl Storm After the Calm
Some days the room upstairs waits Indigo swims down
like a canvas, and the colours are ready a luminescent white cloud to spread
to dilute in a dash of turpentine, in a gray over the amber sunset.
mix with one another,
migrate to the tips of brushes, and dance. An eagle soars
above the tallest tree in the valley.
The hands that guide them Sparrows, parakeets and mynahs
are guided by visions from above, flit about lower below
and though they try to reach with unique calls
above the murky lands to places that that slice the air and patch it.
exist beyond wild dreams,
they’re fatigued after a whole night out. Frail flowers sway in the breeze
and spring back upset
The feet would then retrace by their own ghostly reflections
the steps downwards like a hushed pet, on the darkening lake.
impatient, longing for Their white and purple souls
the next treat in vapid waiting rooms. refuse to smudge,
and wait instead for eyes that are
ready to engage with
the beauty of drained hopes.
An impatient car speeds past like
a bullet, its silver-gray
metallic glow, noisy engine, and
whiff of fuel spreading
an eerie disquiet that atomizes
a mindscape where these
hues and sounds
had stayed for a moment too long.
© Jose Varghese
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netA VEILED LIFE JOSE VARGHESE
A Microphone in Search of a Prodigy
The child has restless fingers People forget even to breathe
that need tiny superhero figurines as his voice swims through me.
to keep themselves busy, We become one rare
pressing and rubbing, musical instrument filled with
wrapped around them like tentacles the mysterious designs
in sweat-filled uncertainty. of stars and planets.
The heat of his palms
passes through me when His voice absorbs
he leaves them for a while the hidden waves of despair
to get ready for the audience. within me, as it dawns on us
that I’m the one
He shifts me from one hand to to which he is meant to flow.
the other, enjoying the cold
contours while clearing his throat.
He hates to talk,
to answer questions, to respond
to jokes, before he sings.
He has to forget me,
and everything else – what
he’s going to do, how
he’s going to do it, and who
he’s going to impress.
His hands stop trembling, and
fingers flow over me in
kind caresses, as he sinks the hall
in a voice that belongs to
the celestial world
where no divisions exist.
© Jose Varghese
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netLAST RITES KAREN MOONEY
A career in human resource management provided preparation for Karen Mooney’s current activities; cats and words. Some-
times they hide, reappearing unexpectedly; sometimes they scratch, sometimes they purr. Her words have appeared in online
publications and Penned In, co-written with Gaynor Kane published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. Her own pamphlet is due to
be published later this year by The Hedgehog Poetry Press.
Last rites
The world would come crashing in around us
in as many days as it took to make
when you return to the care home, conscious
of our presence, attending your own wake.
You perform a rehearsal one evening;
we gasp at what we think is your last breath
then you rally to sit up, eyes gleaming,
ordering breakfast - your last before death.
One by one, folk call in to pay respects,
sit in silence or give a knowing nod.
You aren’t fit to speak, yet touch does affect,
as one lady proved and how I applaud
her cradling your face in pillow-soft breasts;
prompting memories, you smile, feeling blessed.
Karen Mooney
© Karen Mooney
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netLAST RITES KAREN MOONEY
A close shave I shaved a jumper today
I smile at the buzz of the electric razor, Knots and bobbles caused by wear and age;
knowing that you like to be clean-shaven; so unsightly that I take one of your razors,
feeling proud of having pieced it together draw it carefully across the garment
after you cast it across the table, declaring it fucked. in mind-numbing strokes, thinking of your
Until I catch your stare. This cuts deep. once smooth scalp, before the bumps appeared.
Anything mechanical intrigued you, The woollen fluff gathered by the blade
rarely defeated you leaves me strangely satisfied. And yet
but today, you wear exasperation I run my hand across the surface, checking
like a dry shave with a blunt blade. that everything has been removed
whilst I wait… for your surgeon to call.
Lessening dexterity thwarted once skilled tools, Wondering if she, too, got it all.
your hands. Hands that could carry hold, lift,
repair, protect and even attack; shovel-like
and calloused now soft with lessening use.
Your attitude would soften too; in time.
But now, as your grip on the day lessened,
you bristled against it, so I applied the balm,
moving in the direction of growth.
Flipping open the casing on the shaver,
I flick out a spring, close it over,
check that it is silent and say
Yes, dad, you’re right. It’s fucked.
© Karen Mooney
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.netLAST RITES KAREN MOONEY
Waning Gibbous Reduction
It’s just a phase, you say, unique provenance well-seasoned concentrated
withdrawing, hump faced, on high heat lid off simmering reduced
darkening my nights, yet packed with flavour smacking of life’s
leaving me to turn in, experiences just a small portion now
to find my own light. it doesn’t go far the spread across
the plate curtailed condensed by
I, too, can change, life age ill health distilled
rid out negativity, to extracts of what matters
throw open windows, creating a memorable
clean, clear and sage aftertaste leaving
the corners to let go us wanting
of fear; knowing more
that someday soon,
I’ll meet the new you.
© Karen Mooney
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net2010 - 2020
P O E T R Y & W R I T I N G
Free Online Magazine From Village Earth
September 2021
Cover Artwork by Emma Barone
© liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th AnniversaryYou can also read
