Category: contributors

Ordinary Graces

KNEAD each day’s dough and
DALLY in the slowing slips of time. Mine
AMAZEment from ordinary veins of rock. Mirage
IDEALs will have you blinking and next you know it’s all gone.

Empty Spaces

CEDAR chest of records in the attic:
RUMBAs, Bossa Nova, sheets of sound,
WIDOW enjoyed the listening, but her husband queued them up.
TITHE of memory has tripled, the present will soon be tithe.

Two mites make a farthing

The
TITHE the unnoticeable (except by Christ) and near penniless
WIDOW quietly dropped in the treasury box, was remarked on.
The
RUMBA the rich people made of their offering was remarked on also: CEDARs stand tall and fall heavily; the lily’s beauty outshines Solomon.  

The Interviewee

APPLY here, says the notice. I’ve already been
CLUED up to what’s ahead: the stench of
MAGMA will pour forth from the interviewer’s mouth.
STRAW man that he is, I determine not to quake.    

Confused by my own language

BILGE, I say, not even knowing what a bilge is;
GLOAT, thinking this is something a goat does;
LEAPT, which in my mind should be leaped;
PLEAT, what a lamb does, or maybe I’ll do in court.

Dazzlement

I’ve
BEGUN to engrave the full symphonic score, guzzling
BRINE that should – but doesn’t – taste like wine.
Soon the screen is littered with notes like dancing daisies in a FIELD Or seventy teams simultaneously playing cricket on a single PITCH.

Archimedes updated

WEIRD – I sink into my bath, and to my
AMAZEment discover displacement.
BINGO! I cry (the English equivalent of Eureka),
MUMMY, I shout. ‘Go get some clothes on,’ she says.       

Wedding Day

Taxing was her big day as a BRIDE: her
In-laws worked to LOWER the already
Lowered tone by REVELling in booze,
Drugs and coarse-tongued Talk – Idle Loafers Defiling the
Event.