He tries to come, in vain.
He jerks me off
as if I were a tired
personal object. I imagine
the rest.
I’d like to come on your face, he said.
Did he want to humiliate me?
What was he thinking?
After that, for two days
my eyes were inflamed.
(Translated by Michael Castro and Gábor G. Gyukics)
Kinga Fabó is a Hungarian poet (linguist, essayist). Her latest bilingual Indonesian-English poetry book is Racun/Poison 2015, Jakarta.
I try not to think about exactly who you are
as you sprawl unzipped in front of me
pore over my strip of homepage dignity:
the words Dirty Slut typed out in bold
between my legs
Gillian Mellor lives in Moffat, Scotland where she writes and sometimes works in the bookshop.
I miss scattering pages over the
bed to work out some finicky little
line or rhyme. Now I have to settle for
scattering the constituent parts of
my iPad, oodles of wiring spill out.
I take my vigour from these intestines,
not the dullard murky heart that sung long
ago. If you dig down deep enough you
can make out traces of dinosaur bones,
just smudges in the oil. Blinking lights are
my muse, I shrink a grey thunderstorm to
a pinhead, a pilgrim of processors.
If I type on these ruins of light I’ll
roam with Adam’s unashamed nakedness.
Grant Tarbard is internationally published. His collection As I Was Pulled Under the Earth, published by Lapwing Publications, is available now.
Blot-out clouds censor silver scales
over the apartment block hills
whilst the Zodiac gathers
to overseer the olive groves.
Corfu truly is a place for astrologers.
In Kassiopi
the young Corfiots
drink expensive continental lagers,
the Local Mythos on draught
and imported bottles of Heineken.
So it is incumbent upon me to witness
Zeus drape his lightning mantle
across the shoulders of Seranda
whilst pissing into the sea.
My piss is a yellow cable,
the lightning a digital flash,
Seranda briefly
a bleached jpeg
of invisible Albanians.
Chris Stewart was longlisted for the CYCLOP International Videopoetry Contest 2015. He is winner of the 2015 Read Our Lips filmpoem competition. He is an Apples and Snakes ‘Public Address’ alumnus. He is anthologised in ‘Break-Out: A Calling Card From the Rising Stars of the Teesside Scene’ (Ek Zuban, 2013). You can tweet him @SideBurnedPoet. You can find his filmpoems here: http://www.youtube.com/zorki28
Alan Catlin has a new book of poetry out ‘American Odyssey’.
We really dig Alan’s work over here at Your One Phone Call
and this book is certainly going in our shopping basket,
if you’ve got any sense it’ll also be in yours.
I have fled the violence in the home
I have fled the bully in the school
I have fled the war-torn countries
I have left the boat on the shore
and walked to look for food.
What is this need from hand to mouth,
to search in soil, to grow the wheat
to see the mill beside the water turn the wheel,
further down the stream, the stepping stones
children play and families watch
eat the picnic, bake the bread, life gets good;
I have a home, a car or get the bus
I have a boat and go back to water,
I have understood the bully
I have tried to understand the war
to see if I can liken it to the violence in the home
but I have memory and better choice
I have the truth to create debate, make believe
all this for hunger.
Johanna Boal and I live in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire. I work as a librarian for the local council and in my spare time I love to read and write. I have been published by Ink, Sweat and Tears, Poetry Space, Open Mouse, Worktown, Bolton, Literary Review, Limerick and much more. I Had my first pamphlet, titled – Cardboard City, published by Poetry Space, Bristol 2014.
must have brought forth a gasp
(and a round of applause)
when the architect
kicked away the supports
the angled stones
taking their own weight
floating, above the spectators
who had never imagined such a thing
under an arch
built to the old method, is where I sit
translating
the language of bees
I would like to share
the noble practicality of the mason
buy him a beer
call him brother
words
are the folly of an idle man
an arch
another hard days work
meaning
the bond of the keystone
Gareth Writer-Davies was Commended in the Prole Laureate Competition in 2015, Specially Commended in the Welsh Poetry Competition and Highly Commended in the Sherborne Open Poetry Competition. Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Erbacce Prize in 2014, Highly Commended, Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize in 2013 and 2012. His pamphlet “Bodies”, was published in 2015 through Indigo Dreams. http://www.indigodreamsbookshop.com/gareth-writer-davies/4587920255
Soaking in the tub, hot water holding her still
Eyes closed, relaxing within the rising steam
Listening to the tapping of the outside rain
She’s floating
Rising slowly until she stands, slick wet
Candles flickering around the rim of the tub
She reaches up and unlocks a high window
Letting it in
Wind and rain spraying her face and breasts with cold
Awakening back to what she wants but won’t admit
Candle flames twisting into the teasing shadows
Her deep sighs
She swishes a foot through the heated water remembering
Closes the window wishing someone would grab her
Pull her out into the storm where she could act surprised
Lightning illuminating her
Rain dancing until the morning drips from her bed
Candles melted and bent like a line of finished lovers
Memories lasting long enough and hard enough
Until the next storm.
Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write in the middle of the night with a grin and grimace and flame in his heart. He is the editor of Dead Snakes at deadsnakes.blogspot.com
Look at me smiling in greeting,
hand outstretched to welcome you,
I’m a cunt.
I’ll sleep with your wife, your sister,
your family.
I’ll pick up the pocket shrapnel
that falls out of your trousers in the
back of the taxi and use it to buy
a round of drinks after you’ve left.
I’m a cunt.
But look at my suit, my cigarette lighter,
the arrogant, perfect woman upon my arm,
I am God.
You are nothing, behave and follow
my direction or drop back into the
gutter which you crawled from.
You Cunt.
Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories, sketches and photography published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight; this too may pass, yet. Buy his books ‘Scribblings Of A Madman’ (Lit Fest Press) http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1943170096 ‘Poetry From The Nearest Barstool’ at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326241036 And a split poetry book ‘The Raven And The Vagabond Heart’ with Bethany W Pope at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1326415204 You can also read his poems and stories here! http://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/
I would have stayed
in that icy world
where forlorn gulls
circle and swoop,
and watery sunlight
splinters through clouds
edged in pewter,
but it’s better that
I disconnect,
pass through this
transit lounge
between two lives.
Way below
through velvet depths,
clustered lights
defined countries,
but my edges blur.
I’ll need to find
a new way of hoping,
of knowing.
The final days are
already obscured
by the hours
since embarking,
so why does the sun
make me wince like that?
and why do I feel most lost
when they say welcome home?
Jane Frank’s poems have appeared in Australian Poetry Journal, Writ, Uneven Floor, Yellow Chair Review, Antiphon, The Lake and elsewhere in Australia and the UK. Jane teaches a range of writing disciplines at Griffith University in both Brisbane and on the Gold Coast in south east Queensland.
Your One Phone Call 