the Wal-Mart artist by Karl Koweski

I purchased the water color set
on clearance at Wal-Mart
a twenty dollar gift set
of paints and brushes and pencils
for the low low price of four dollars

I intended to paint landscapes
like the horse meadow view
from my kitchen window
or the nearby Depression era
sheds and barns, dilapidated,
anonymous by proximity

but when I finally set
brush to paper
it’s only to paint a comic strip
called "Sucking Hind Teat"
chronicling the misadventures
of a luckless factory worker

just as my poetry
devolves into comedic anecdotes,

profundity eludes me
and
I’m left with a big smiley face


Karl Koweski, Alabama, USA

Wing Crazy by Casey Diem

You rescue another bee from pavement.
I rescue you from behind the glass wall,
You take an axe to the darkness around me,
We produce light between us and
Our wings grow like crazy.


Casey Diem

(Casey Diem is the name used for collaborative poetry written by Kevin Cadwallender and Deborah Murray)

haiku by Joan McNerney

What does this cat think
strumming his tail with such ease
to fugues of Bach?


Joan McNerney, New York, USA

Val Fleuri, Mougins by Gordon Mason

Spiders crawl on the laurels.
on the withered path a lizard

meditates. A furrowed face.
The leaves are nervous of thunder

crunch. An old man lifts tiles.
A warm geography on his outhouse.

His hands are fans of fine thin bones.
Clumsy thunder spaces out rainballs.

Paper thin coins mint on the footpath.
Strands of white rain chase a red squirrel.

Grisette the cat crawls through a window.
Her clogged ears retain birdcalls.


Gordon Mason, Scotland and Spain

The Ascent of Magic by Colin Will

On Suilven’s summit ridge
I’m a four-year old, climbing
a spiral staircase too big for me.
The treads are fine but the risers
are a stretch too far and facing out
on a thousand-foot fall
too easily imagined.

Still, having traversed that
there’s the domed grassy top
and a cairn, but the peak experience,
the real triumphs, were below:
the switchback bog slog, the scramble
up to the bealach, and suddenly -
a projection of wonder,
as the whole of northern Scotland
changed from map to photo
in an everlasting instant.


Colin Will, Scotland, UK

Acts Of Kindness

The sun burns a hole
into the sky's heart
everyday,

every night
the moon fills it
with clouds,

kisses it
goodnight.



Amir Elzeni, USA

Moonless by Amir Elzeni

The ceiling
was acoustic
white tile,
the lighting
bright fluorescent,
and the feeling
of life being pulled
right out of us:
seemed piped in
through the medicine air,

as we wondered
how the hell
we got here,

why they wear white
in such a bloody environment,

how this is the last place
we should be worried
about money.


Amir Elzeni, USA

La Versanne, Mougins by Gordon Mason

North of seven hundred moons,
they have tended their garden

like fussing birds their nest.
The garden shrinks, the hillside

grows wilder. Pines have become
crowned draughts. Death neatly

arranged. She gathers the last
pinefall in a hand shovel.

In mulberry gown and blue socks.
Eyes silver and stained. In a hand,

crisp as an autumn leaf, he brings
her a forest flower. Moonfall

lit by a taper of birdsong. Not
a patch of voice escapes his mouth.



Gordon Mason, Scotland and Spain

In Elgin by Fiona Dunn

A wisp of purple
Flashes in a practised bend,
As the twist of a nut-brown wrist
Unfurls and curls,
Plucking with a brisk tear,
The weeds that greedily encase the single flower
That seeks her nurture and care.

Her dark and placid eyes
Absorb this alien land,
That breathes -
With a light and space
That beckon to -
Another age, a musk-laden place.

The watery sun receives
The incline of her smooth-haired head,
Cinnamon-smoke-echoes
Whisper through her mind,
As East meets West
To a steady beat within her breast…


Fiona Dunn, Kent, UK