March Full Moon Special
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Choices
Morgan |
In shadows cast by whispered fears,
Where echoes of despair draw near, A tale unfolds, a complex weave, Of lives entwined, of hearts that grieve. In chambers dim, where choices loom, A silence thick as heavy gloom, The pen shall dance on knife’s edge fine, In fractured prose, and verse divine. A criminal act, or necessity’s plight? In blood-stained corridors, wrong meets right. A mother's heart, a child’s first breath, In the balance hangs, the weight of death. A genre spilled from pages torn, In anguish born, in sorrow worn, For every choice, the echoes ring, Of love, of loss, the pain they bring. In quiet streets where shadows creep, A mother’s vigil, her secrets keep. With trembling hands and haunted eyes, She weighs her truth against the lies. The clinic doors, so stark and cold, A sanctuary of stories untold, Where lives converge like rivers meet, In this murky realm of bitter defeat. Fiction bleeds into the real, The heart’s raw wound, the soul’s appeal, A tapestry of voices clash, In prose that cuts, in stanzas thrash. The poet’s pen, a dagger drawn, To pierce the veil of right and wrong, In every stanza, a heartbeat’s thrum, A symphony of grief, where shadows hum. The guilt that festers, the shame that binds, In every choice, the past unwinds, A mother’s lament, a child’s lost dream, In the murky depths, a silent scream. Yet here lies beauty in the pain, In every tear, a drop of rain, A genre bending, a truth laid bare, In the space between despair and care. Each voice a thread in this tangled skein, Of love and loss, of joy and pain, Unsettled hearts, intrigued by the fire, Of stories born from the depths of desire. Let not the labels confine our thought, For in every battle, a lesson is wrought, A blend of genres, a fusion of styles, To illustrate the journey, to traverse the miles. For art is not a single lane, But a winding road through joy and pain, Where every heart can find its song, In the chaos of right and wrong. So call forth the poets, the dreamers, the bold, To speak of the stories that need to be told, Of choices made in the dark of night, And the flickering flame of a fading light. In this tapestry woven with care, Let’s embrace the truth, the beauty laid bare, For literature’s heart, in its wildest flight, Resists easy categorization, seeks the light. In blending the genres, the styles, the voice, We find our humanity, we make our choice, To evoke an emotion, a stirring response, In the depths of our being, let the darkness ensconce. For in every life, a story resides, In the choices we make, in the love that abides, And through the complex, the tangled, the raw, We embrace the tumult, the beauty, the flaw. So let us gather, the voices anew, With courage to speak, to question, to view, The criminal nature of choices profound, In literature's arms, let true compassion be found |
February New Moon Special
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Boy
C.D. Girard |
I.
Boy oh, beautiful boy a loose curl draped delicately out of place positioned by Michelangelo himself purposely amiss uniting Nashira and Algedi. Your overgrown ivy threatens the peacocks who suffice to hide as the northern lights flicker through the long grass dancing in an imaginary wind. The vine has yet to reach toothbrush painted cheeks with rose burns masking a delicate sensuality confident metrosexuality. Shy David bloom for me delicate porcelain soften your gaze and forceful smile let me admire you, In The Cellar Window through film daydreams of encounters vulnerable empathetic power. Is it love or pain that spills on concrete or shoulders? Waves threatening a delicate ecosystem as people watch on in black and white technicolour. II. Boy tell your sister talent runs deep in the family; water traveling through fissures of ancestry. Thank your mother for sowing seeds of ambition; vines dancing towards sunbeams. Worship your grandmother’s spirit; sing life into perfection and courage. How does it feel to be that family? Talent lost in my blue waves of wisdom your body is a monologue of and in itself demanding attention as it progresses across stage an alluring frenchness freshness. Dispatched vulnerability causes shakespearean admiration. Future glimmers in your eyes visions of greatness reflects in shallow voided pupil. Take a second to talk to your younger self. Take a minute to listen to your older self. Take an hour to understand your current self. And breath. Don’t annul yourself. III. Boy I want to yell your name hello, hello, hello. Can you hear me? Do you recognize my voice? Screaming echoes against empty walls loud ricochets of my heart reaching out to you. Whisper names into telephones cords tied tightly round and round around pacing feet. Hello, hello, hello, resonating murmurs in crowded rooms out of place. Don’t run off replacing me like hand-me-down china. Remind me again that happy endings are dull and perfectly flawed. Hello, hello, hello. Lay me down next to you and gently stroke my hair one and two and lie to me about your feelings. Look me in the eyes with an obsidian gaze a small sadness written in your eyes. A tilt of your head a furrow of your brow; hold me longer just one more night in this cold embrace of jealousy |
February Full Moon Special
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Bone Broth
Jamie Cubper |
In the dim light of the kitchen,
a pot simmers, amber glistening, the scent of thyme and garlic, an embrace that swells, like a heartbeat, tender, the gentle crackle of skin, the soft surrender of flesh, the rhythm of a ladle, stirring warmth into the marrow. Outside, shadows stretch and twist, the sound of splintering wood, a snap, a crack, the hollow echo of brittle bones, the air thick with something bitter, a different kind of heat, one that scalds, that breaks, an uninvited shiver slithering down the spine. I pour the broth into bowls, golden nectar, soul’s elixir, each spoonful a promise, each sip a soft reminder, of safety wrapped in savory, the way love rises in layers, like the steam that curls, a hand on a shoulder, the warmth of a shared moment. Yet in the corners, the knife glints, sharp and knowing, a tool for carving both comfort and chaos, the duality of creation, where tenderness meets terror, a surgeon’s precision, or a fist that knows no mercy, both wielding the power to nourish or to shatter. I watch the chicken boil, skin pulling away, as if shedding secrets, the broth deepens, darkens, infused with the whispers of bones, the soft surrender of old wounds, mending and breaking, the fragile dance between what heals and what harms. |
January Full Moon Special
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Part Two: The Echoing Void
Wren Ferris |
In the echoing void of night,
a voice rises, fragmented yet whole, piercing the stillness with questions, that twist like vines around the consciousness, seeking answers in the spaces between, where silence holds its breath, and the weight of existence presses down, heavy as a stone, yet light as a feather caught in the wind. Here lies the absurdity of humanity, the dance of power, where the puppet strings tangle in a knot, and the marionette sways, caught between the desires of the crowd, and the longing for liberation, a paradox that reverberates, through the halls of history, echoing the cries of those forgotten. The surreal creeps in, like shadows in the twilight, twisting the mundane into the extraordinary, a child’s drawing of a sun with eyes, a reminder that reality is but a canvas, an interpretation painted with the brush of perception, where the bizarre collides with the familiar, and laughter mingles with tears, in the delicate dance of existence. We walk these thin lines, between what is known and what is feared, the trauma etched in the fabric of our beings, the resilience that sprouts, in the cracks of our armor, each scar a testament, to battles fought in silence, each wound a story waiting to unfold, in the embrace of vulnerability, where the heart can be both shield and sword. So we gather, in this space of discomfort, where the unsettling becomes the norm, and the narratives intertwine, each voice a note in a symphony of chaos, resonating with authenticity, inviting us to listen, to engage with the stories that challenge, that provoke, that linger long after the last word is spoken, echoing in the chambers of our minds, a call to embrace the complexity, of what it means to be human, to exist in the margins, to dance in the light and the dark, finding beauty in the struggle, and truth in the surreal. |
December New Moon Special
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Part One: The Fractured Mirror
Wren Ferris |
In the hush of a crowded room,
voices intertwine, a tapestry of breaths, each whisper a thread, fraying at the edges, as laughter erupts, sharp and brittle, like glass shattering under the weight of unspoken truths. They gather, a kaleidoscope of faces, their eyes reflecting histories, narratives woven in darkness and light, each smile a mask, a fragile facade, concealing the tremors beneath. The clock ticks, a relentless reminder, of moments slipping through fingers, and the silence that follows each joke, rests heavy, a weight too familiar, the punchline hanging in the air, its absurdity lingers, a ghost, haunting the corners of recognition, where identity blurs, and power plays hide-and-seek, in the glances exchanged, the unyielding grip of expectation. Outside, the world spins, oblivious, a carousel of routine, while inside, the surreal blooms, a garden of contradictions, where trauma whispers in the dark, and resilience rises like a phoenix, not from the ashes, but from the jagged fragments, of what has been broken, reconstructed in the quiet moments, when vulnerability becomes an offering, a raw, bleeding truth laid bare. Here, in the crevices of laughter, the unsettling dance of reality and fiction, the narrative weaves its way through, a tapestry of the unexamined, where discomfort resides, and the heart beats in tandem with fear, as the mirror reflects not just faces, but the shadows lurking behind, the stories untold, the lives lived in the margins, each one a universe unto itself. |
December Full Moon Special
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Wait Till The Clouds Roll By
Damien Kelly |
“Aye, yeah, I know your face from town,” Essie says to Jennie when they were introduced to one another that day up in Deerpark Day Care Centre. Of course she did. Sure, weren’t they reared together. Even though it must have been seventy or so years since them days, they hadn’t changed that much, had they. The two of them were like twin sisters when they were young ones, with their matching grey pinafores and their little black bobs. They went to the same school together, where Essie - whose family were the more well off - used to share her bread and jam sandwiches with Jennie. Now she was letting on that she didn’t know or remember her little friend.
Jennie’s mother had run off to somewhere in England when the children were only young. She was a tall and glamorous lady, like a model, and her husband - a bag egg if ever there was - used to get quare jealous with a few drinks in him and would go home and kick her into the legs until she was left black and blue. So poor Jennie, who must have been only eleven or twelve at the time, ended up rearing the three younger ones. In the finish up, anyway, Jennie was eventually let court one of the Halloran chaps who worked up in the sugar factory; they got married in time and then, after all that, she went on to rear another family when she had nine children of her own. Essie had it different, as such. She finished all of her schooling up to the inter cert and when she was eighteen or so her father got her involved with an older, widower friend of his who was a big noise down in Simmond’s seed merchants. It wasn’t long after that that they were married and, before it was almost too late for Essie, she went on to have a child of her own - a little boy. Straight away, it looked like Essie had an issue with her little friend when they met again after all the years. There seemed to be a look on her face that said - Who does she think she is? - as she watched Jennie mix with the others. You see, Jennie was so funny, and quick as a flash, her mind was still like a ricochet. She loved having the craic and everybody loved that warm way she had about her, always joking and telling stories - like the one about the American man who came over to Ireland and bought Saint Patrick’s skull. She had great sport with Marek, a young foreign chap who was doing a bit of volunteering at the Centre; they just clicked with one another. “I bet you that eejit thinks that that fella fancies her,” Essie was heard saying one day when she saw they were laughing and joking together. Jennie got into painting on account of young Marek, and he got a hold of some brushes and things for her to use. She had a knack for it even though her poor auld fingers were crippled with arthritis. She said she was sorry she hadn’t picked it up years ago. She was over the moon, though, when she finished her first picture; it was of six big white and yellow marguerites planted in a kind of a watering can. “You are a natural at this, Jen,” Marek said to her one day as he was looking for a spot to hang it. This set Essie off for some reason. She went for Jennie bald headed another time and cornered her saying something like: “You think you’re it, don't you? With your black ringlets. How were you able to keep your hair black, and I wasn’t? Look at you…you’re hardly able to walk anymore, anyway,” while pointing her wizened fist towards Jennie’s face. Mind you, Jennie would have been well able for Essie’s brazenness in times past, before her hips were done, but all she could do was sit stuck to her chair with the fright of it. You could see Essie watching on as some of Jennie’s daughters and sons, even some of her grandchildren at times, came to collect her, while she was left by her only son to be carried around in the little minibus belonging to the centre. Jennie soon started to go missing from the Centre though. Essie must have thought she had frightened her off. There was a kind of an attitude of - I sorted her out - coming off of her whenever Jennie was mentioned around the place. Jennie was missing from the Centre more and more. It started to feel like the good was gone out of it, everyone was of the same opinion. Jennie’s visits came to a complete stop. Word got around that she had been in hospital. Cancer. She wasn’t given much more time. “Oh, poor auld Jennie,” Essie said, in that sweet mouthed way of hers. “And do you know,” says she, “that we went to school with one another, you know? We were great pals, altogether. But eighty-nine, you know; it’s a great age.” Then one day word came that Jennie had passed away. We were no strangers to this type of news at the Centre, but there was a terrible sadness hanging around the place that time. There was a great turn out for her funeral. Jennie was well known and well liked around the town. Her family came to it from all over: England, Australia, you name it. The little ones, who must have been great-grandchildren or even great-great-grandchildren, were a credit to Jennie as they brought some of her little mementos up to the altar: her tapes and her paint brushes and things - but no sign of her lovely painting. Essie was watching all the sad faces in the church as a Silvermint spun round her mouth in vexation. She had her eyes on a framed photo on top of Jennie’s coffin in front of the altar; it was taken at the centre months back, where Jennie smiled with her new pals, wearing the Easter bonnets that we had made. Joe Dolan was played as the coffin was carried out of the church. Wait Till The Clouds Roll By; it was Jennie’s song. She used to hum it to herself at the Centre when she was painting. How I shall miss you, my darling. D’ya know, hearing something like that at a funeral, something that you know means something special to that person, can bring out this terrible feeling of sadness in you; it can really bring a tear to your eye. It was no different for Essie. Up at the cemetery mass the crowd stood around the grave - quiet and respectful. Something came over Essie. She asked the priest if she could say something. Nobody knew where to look when she began to cry and bawl into the microphone, “It’s not fair, God, it’s not fair…it wasn’t her time to go. Take me…I want to go.” And God forgive me for saying it but there wasn’t a single tear. When she had had her say the priest put an arm around her as if to comfort her, as such, and took the microphone out of her hand. *
Declan called around to Es’s house for a visit a few weeks later. It was only the second person who visited her since the funeral. He’d heard about what had happened at the graveyard; he must have been a tad concerned about the carry on of his poor mammy.
“Did you not bring little Aaron over to see his granny,” Essie says to him. “Little Aaron is down in Limerick, now sure,” says Declan. “Oh lovely, what has him over there?” shashee. “Little Aaron is a twenty-year-old man now, mam. He’s been in college there the last two years.” “Oh, that’s great to hear,” says Essie, “I must give him a little something for his digs; I’ve got something upstairs for him.” Up she went, up the stairs as quick as her little legs could manage in those auld slippers of hers. Declan was seemingly stuck for time - it always seemed to be a short visit with him, he always had someplace else to be. He let a roar up to her. “What is it you’re rooting around for up there?” he asked her. “Just something I did at the centre,” shashee back to him as she started to make her way back down the stairs, as careful as anything. “You can tell him his granny,” were the last words Essie ever said because what came after was an unmerciful scream out of her followed by five loud bangs. Then there was nothing but silence. Her son, God bless him, ran out into the hallway to her, only to be met with the sight of his poor mother’s body lying there at the foot of the stairs; and lying on top of it, all the life gone out of her, was the framed painting of the six white daisies. |
2nd November New Moon Special
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Echoes in the Attic
Elara N. Veil |
In the attic of whispers, where shadows confide, / Lies a trove of reflections, where bright colors slide, / Between lines of the ordinary, the strange will collide, / And the echoes of heartbeats will waltz untried.
A clock in the corner ticks softly in tongues, / While the weight of the world on a spider's thread hangs. / Each tick is a venture, each tock a rebuke, / From the marionette puppets with delirious gags. The chorus of laughter, a thin veil of fright, / Bubbling up under ribs in the dim of the night. / With a flippant bravado, the gallows tease speech, / In a banquet of truths that the sane cannot reach. Beneath the veneer of our well-shined delight, / There swirl hidden sentiments, loathed yet polite. / So we lie, and we chuckle, and sip bitter wine, / As the narratives lurk where our wild thoughts entwine. What is the taste of a wound, once it’s dressed? / Is grief merely bitter, or sweetness expressed? / Like children who fumble, for the light they can find, / We dig through the ashes, our souls intertwined. In a melody fractured, the ballad of fate, / Where the hero's resilience meets echoes of hate, / Identity dances on the razor’s sharp edge, / Under starlit confessions, we balance on ledge. Half-dreams kaleidoscope through the rooms we avow, / As curtains unfurl with a whisper, a vow. / In the scrum of romance and chaos they twine, / Resilience a specter, with specters aligned. The stones we throw scatter in ripples untraced, / Imprisoned in glamor, our lives are misplaced. / Yet within the absurdity, flickers of light, / Illuminate shadows that shift in the night. We’re an orchestra tuning, with strings made of sorrow, / Performing the symphony of discords tomorrow. / In glimpses of darkness, raw truths take their stance, / While the murmur of chaos invites us to dance. For here in this space, where the real and surreal / Collide with their whispers, our hearts learn to feel. / Let’s gather the fragments, let our stories merge, / In the corner where laughter and anguish converge. So we wander through hallways of haunting allure, / Where discomfort breeds courage, our minds drift and soar. / Embracing what lingers, unmasked and unshy, / In the theater of silence, our spirits will fly. |
November Full Moon Special
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Kidney Beans
Pauline Aksay |
My sister had a rare disease
From drinking jugs of anti-freeze She needed a brand-new kidney But waitlists were too long, you see So I checked if mine matched her needs Results came back positively I went through with the surgery And gave her one of my kidneys A new scar symbolized my deed My sister was now fully free To live life happily, healthy But late that night, at half-past three I saw her take Mom's card, Dad's keys Drive to gas station #63 Buy more jugs for her to eat Then come back home and fall asleep She woke up at ’round 12:30 To Mom, Dad washing her cups clean Paying for the purchased ’freeze Their smiles full of anxiety Yet still, she drank more anti-freeze My parents watching her each week Becoming a more yellow-green Her breaths were laboured, shallow, weak And my sister, with her disease From drinking jugs of anti-freeze Needed another new kidney Only after a couple weeks But I couldn't spare my kidney And we were out of family I had to find some different means To get her what she’d truly need… The waitlist was a good Plan “B” But a web search, Plan “A’d” reveal Markets where people sold “fresh meat” With poor judgement, I'd gone to see One, was shown things that made me squeam My head froze as my spirit screamed The “fresh meat” was simply “not clean” I ran as fast as I could flee Tripped, fell in a press factory Dazed, I fashioned ads quickly “Got a spare kidney? Then call me” Was kicked once complaints were received And landed in a French piscine Kidney shaped, it taunted me Because I hoped its whirlpool’d be An antidote to a sick body It spun, flung me to an alley I landed by trashed kidney beans they howled, said “You'll never succeed!” But by this time, my rage broke free I threw them in the French piscine As the whirlpool spun rapidly A beanstalk grew so suddenly With kidneys sprouting from its leaves At last, the right size, finally!
I found my sister’s new kidney Climbing up the stems of beans Kidneys rained down on the streets… I woke up from the surgery Felt lighter than I'd ever been Suddenly, it'd dawned on me What happened ’fore I went to sleep My sister and her rare disease From drinking all that anti-freeze Had needed two brand-new kidneys And I’d given mine both for free So now she can do what she pleases And drink all of her anti-freeze To take my parents’ hope, money And live life happily, healthy. |
September Full Moon Special
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I Speak for the Moon
JD Jentri |
I speak for the moon
as luminescent beams whisper on desert floors leafy treetops and emerald grass on golden savannahs and crystalline seas I speak for the moon my older sister and demure mother the pregnant wife and lonely lover with dimpled face of distant splendor I speak for the moon my secret-keeper and discreet companion solitary and proud gracing the night sky my twin above as I dance below I speak for the moon |
September New Moon Special
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Tranquil Ruler
JD Jentri |
ghastly pale it hangs above
mysterious and still silence is its only voice the secrecy a thrill for those who caper in its light surmise the calm’s a pass to do what pleases evil men the workings of the crass yet still it gazes from on high and passes no decree for languid solitude it seeks until it too must flee but until then it rules the night steeped deep within its lore with distant stars the heavens share and liquid pewter pours devoted worshipers below petition blessing vast yet all it gives is silent gaze upon the weakened cast and when the dawn invades night and brings with it uproar the rising dawn, chaotic day the passion and clamor the tranquil ruler of the night relinquishes the throne for in the darkness absolute it governs on its own |