Pulsar Poetry Webzine - Poems 2024

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December 2024 (113 editions in total)

 

61st edition as a webzine

 

Poems listed in surname alphabetical order

 

To view Pulsar Poems from earlier years, refer to Home Page, for listings

 

***

 

Poem Index – December 2024

 

Pulse, poem by Nicholas Battey.

 

The Smell of Old Books, poem by John McLoughlin.

 

Contortion, poem by David Pike.

 

The Matryoshka, poem by Clifford Andrew Rogers.

 

At the Gas Pump, poem by David Sapp.

 

Relative Stranger, poem by Fiona Sinclair.

 

Trousers, poem by Fiona Sinclair.

 

Midnight Diner, poem by Dr. Roger G. Singer.

 

An Eternal Parable, poem by Anthony Wade.

 

The Final Destination, poem by Anthony Wade.

 

You must not fear, poem by Melinda Walker.

 

Quiet morn, poem by Wendy Westley.

 

*

 

Pulse

 

In the complicity of night

a drip-drip on the edge of sound

a small ticking unputdownable

behind a new stud wall, wound 

in a hidden pipe I thought at first 

an electric sound but turning on the shower

its frequency changed, as the cresting peaks

which break now 

with the day

as a

breeze

 

from the south blows up the fretful sound

silent there through the dirty windows

of my place, where crows blow lazily

and patient shelducks hoover the ooze

at low tide, curlews burble a pitch,

elastically rising sound which 

hovers and is gone. 

                             All night they seem

sometimes to call, or the owls take shifts;

mine are these dark and haunted hours

when I hang by

the threads of 

those who

don’t

 

forget me, the absence I became.

At first I thought it a vibrant sound,

listening to myself, but then I saw

it hardly changed and mere charge

poured out of this bleak and fading

pulsar: little

sign of life —

only

waves.

 

Nicholas Battey

Clamoak, Devon

 

*

 

The Smell of Old Books

 

I have a copy of Heaney,

District and Circle:

it smells of vomit.

Not boozy student puke

or gristle-brimmed decay

but the vomit of children

and pleasant mothers holding buckets.

A conjuration just as visceral

as ‘juiced up inner blades,’ concrete

as a ‘barrel chested-chest plate,’ a smell

to remember half-sicknesses,

days off school, sink bowls, and Loose Women,

and Mum soon back from work.

Still streets, wary

before the ringing of the school bell

and subsequent ringing

of the garden gates

with penalties and heads

and volleys.

 

John McLoughlin

Cardiff

 

*

 

Contortion

 

He looked down the street,

took a while,

then looked up the same

a lamppost at a time,

to see if the road

looked different,

up or down

or following a particular line,

but no advantage

could be ascertained,

not a jot, either way,

causing his brain

to contort in a frown.

 

David Pike

Camelford, Cornwall

 

*

 

The Matryoshka

 

Burdened by the widows’ shawl,

she cracks a painted-on smile,

eyes locked on spectral romance,

memories slipping into one another.

 

She feels a little within herself,

teardrops falling a rich rouge,

staining melanated wooden cheeks, 

bleeding into her weary selves.

 

The right words evade her lips,

strangled en route to the air,

spluttering into a dead silence,

understood but tethered to the nest.

 

Carved from the forest’s tallest,

for spite, she’d reorder the grain,

wilfully burn down all of the trees,

babushka’s had a bellyful of herself.

 

Clifford Andrew Rogers

Small Heath, Birmingham

 

*

 

At the Gas Pump

 

After too many

Inconsequential gray

Frozen days

Alone shut in

It’s snowing again

At the gas pump

The affable guy

With the red pickup

At the next pump

A neighbour I suppose

Or just anyone

Passing through

Ventures offers up

With a genial grin

“Can’t believe it

Got to five below”

I reply with

Something amenable

Confirming his declaration

“Hard to take”

“Whatayagonnado?”

Nod and smile

Nod and smile

We’re both gratified

With the brief camaraderie

This is enough.

 

David Sapp

Berlin Heights, OH 44814, USA

 

*

 

Relative stranger

 

A foundling photo,

difficult to age

but baby beaver teeth,

suggest pre-brace, so 6 or 7.

Formal portrait commissioned

by nana no doubt.

The sole survivor of my childhood,

others shed like leaves over

intervening years.

 

I study this image of a stranger child.

Only the eyes perhaps,

genes shuffled and dealing out

grandmother’s brown.

And the look,

no faking for cameraman’s command,

but mischief, life’s still a lark.

Staring long enough, a treble exposure,

mum’s merriment,

gran’s glee.

 

A Sibylic knowledge of this little girl’s future,

but powerless to prevent snarling fate

putting pay to that expression.

Still an instinct to mother her, myself.

I carry the photo in my purse

like the child I never had.

 

Fiona Sinclair

Boughton under Blean

Kent

 

* 

 

Trousers

 

I never recall grandmother wearing trousers.

We would often argue their case –

Even coax with expensive pairs from M and S.

But she would dismiss as ‘unladylike,’

opting to wear tweed skirts for outdoor pursuits.

 

Yet found photos reveal slacks were

the war time livery of her 18 hour days,

that forfeited femininity, thieved prettiness.    

Certainly no land girl glamour for her,

with their cinched in uniforms, siren red lipstick.

Grandfather often caught in their company

sharing roll ups and off colour jokes.

 

Her days were reveille of double

summer time; straight out to the farm

where her tasks waited tapping their fingers.

Potato picking, bent double all day 

as if bowing to the despotic land.

In the hop gardens, squatting or kneeling,

her female fingers nimble from needlework,

ideal for the fiddley business of encouraging

shoots to curl around the strings.

 

Whilst the men enjoyed a second breakfast

and a Churchillian power nap,

she scurried home to shoo daughters to school,

sling a casserole in the oven.

Returning to chivvy twin plough horses.

Her furrows one plain one pearl neat.  

When the stallion played up,

she would tip toes reach up

catch his lower lip, twisted it like a Chinese burn, 

forcing his head down to her 4 ft 10 ins 

eyeball to eye ball ‘Behave you sod’

until he blinked first.

 

Clocking off at natures’ blackout

grandfather read the paper

whilst she ‘saw to dinner.’

Afterwards down to the 3 horse shoes

for cribbage and his ‘usual’ until closing time.

Her days second shift then,

keeping the cottage’s dust, dirt, damp under,

then bed and the final wifely chore-

 

No wonder at liberation

she demobbed herself from trousers 

that would later become the uniform

of a different conflict for women. 

Today we are free to be strangers

to skirts and frocks, instead opt for slacks,

sartorial symbols that apparently,

we both wear the trousers now-

 

Fiona Sinclair

 

*

 

Midnight Diner

 

fogged windows

low lights

strangers in and out

 

wooden booths

aged vinyl

cigarette stains

on tables edge

 

unmatched silverware

yesterday’s coffee

paper towel napkins

ketchup fingerprints

on the menu

 

the waitress

torn hairnet

stained apron

name tag

upside down

 

it’s a harbor

for the lost

and alone.

 

Dr. Roger G. Singer

Englewood, Florida

 

*

 

An Eternal Parable

 

When the bar radio warns

of the storm’s looming,

all wise sailors stand,

go draw their boats up

to sail the sturdy shingle,

aware of tomorrow’s needs.

The foolish resolutely stay seated,

unmoved by all inflated scares,

leaving their boats to ride

the anger of the waves

as if the fast horses

of a fair’s carousel.

In turbulent times

loud voices claim

the wisdom of elders

but pride in dismissing

the black swans of  reality

risks the fate of foolish virgins.

 

Anthony Wade

Rostellan, Midleton

Co. Cork, Ireland

 

 

The Final Destination

 

Christmas shopping time,

when so many acquire so much,

as though afflicted by a condition

that devalues the old

and over-values the new,

that seems to render people

unable to count

the much already accumulated,

only what is still lacking,

and many thus feel poor,

discontented,

dissatisfied,

resentful,

angry, even,

for stuff that

in the fullness

of time

will join them

in landfill.

 

Anthony Wade

 

*

 

You must not fear

 

You must not fear

that you’ll

forget the sensual kisses 

of your lover. 

Time differences 

and distances could 

not erase the memory of kisses and eyes and tenderness  

that opened us beneath the warmth of a Scorpio Sun. 

New blossoms are already on their way

and all we have to do is gather them up.

 

Melinda Walker

Faversham, Kent

 

*

 

Quiet morn

 

 I can see the canopy of clouds

And the glittering sun

Squint through

The needle hole

Of white cotton.

My window opens up

The promise of the day.

I sip my aromatic coffee

In anticipation of

The tapestry of

Friends and family

And busyness

Of both the mundane and of life itself.

I pause before the start.

Precious quiet.

Scent and savour,

Silence.

I sip

My scalding

Cup of morning coffee.

 

Wendy Westley

Solihull, West Midlands

 

Click: Return to Home Page

 

*

 

September 2024 (112 editions in total)

 

60th edition as a webzine

 

Poems listed in surname alphabetical order

 

To view Pulsar Poems from earlier years, refer to Home Page, for listings

 

***

 

Poem Index – September 2024

 

Love poem to Gilbert White, poem by Julie Berry.

 

I Gave You, poem by Holly Day.

 

Cinema Screen – Cinema Screen, poem by Stephen Philip Druce

 

Beached, poem by Alan Hardy.

 

Fair Warning, poem by Joanne Holdridge.

 

Why Would Anyone Want to Be Remembered, poem by Joanne Holdridge.

 

Speak I’m Listening, poem by Michael Jennings.

 

Down the Line, poems by Mike McNamara.

 

Reflection, poem by Robert Nemet

 

Digging (the Insatiable Knowingness of Know), poem by David Pike.

 

Ghosts, poem by Gordon Scapens.

 

*

 

love poem to Gilbert White

 

Can I dig you up without getting caught

are there enough hours in one night

how far down did they bury you

the idea of hiding under your bed when Miriam locks

The Wakes* up for the night does anybody

check that footage

will I be satisfied by the bedclothes, your reasons

for birdsong & the ferruginous light of 1783

your ridiculous patience –

                                           everything

is crammed inside this heart

so long & violently massaged

by the twenty-first century –

                                             oh crush

of mutually assured destruction

 

for you, Mr. White,

I’m kicking the knick-knacks off my shelf 

lining them with bones, stones & shells

 

* the name given to Gilbert White's home in Selborne, Hampshire which is now a museum

 

Julie Berry

St. Thomas, Ontario,

Canada

 

*

 

I Gave You

 

I expel my complaints in clouds of black ink

determine to blind with my helpless anger. The ink

floats around me in a cloud, obscures the view

of the sink full of dishes, the bills stacked on the table

toys that refuse to move from where they were dropped

 

messy handprints on everything. I long

to escape through the drain, through the tiny cracks in the floor tile,

slither behind the stove where the mice make noise

find freedom in the dark parts of the yard

beneath the floorboards of the basement.

 

Holly Day

Minneapolis, MN

USA

 

*

 

Cinema Screen – Cinema Screen

 

Cinema screen - cinema screen

let me dive in, I'll be big in the movie

and I'm lizard-like thin,

 

cinema screen - cinema screen

the leading man is dead, I've got

the face for the space in the

leading lady's bed,

 

cinema screen - cinema screen

let me dive in, the projectionist is

sleeping and the lights are dim,

 

cinema screen - cinema screen

I'll dive like a bomb, my suit is fitted

and my make-up is on,

 

cinema screen - cinema screen

don't let them gatecrash, the popcorn

rowdies and the dirty mac flash,

 

cinema screen - cinema screen

let me dive in, the trailers have

finished let the movie begin,

 

cinema screen - cinema screen

don't let me go home, back to

the life of an actor unknown,

 

cinema screen - cinema screen

let me dive in, I'll be big in the movie

and I'm lizard-like thin.

 

Stephen Philip Druce

Shrewsbury

 

*

 

Beached

 

A bit of time.

Again.

Which I can pretend to treasure,

as if not given shitloads.

Opportunities.

To voice,

at any point,

my summation.

Register myself.

Pretend, with a body-wiggle,

I can juxtapose myself next

to the nightmare-bits.

Wash myself up on the shore,

like, on my side,

wide-eyed in darkness,

those moments I feel

should be meaningful

at the end of the day,

which drift off

into

sleep.

I can blame the horrors,

like in wartime

lying awake at night,

before sleep.

The resting-place

on the sand

is not enough

to validate existence,

the resolve to save a grain or two

before it slips through fingers,

in those becalmed moments

like creatures dragged by the tide to

bleach out

and die

on the beaches.

 

Alan Hardy

St. Albans, Herts

 

*

 

Fair Warning

 

When you’re this far north

this far up

and the trees turn runty

scrubby looking

like writhing shapes of wind

 

you’re just about to come out

above tree line, if it’s winter

and the wind is already

thrashing and thundering through

those scrappy trees, this is it

 

what you’ve been hiking

all these miles toward  

last chance to make any

accoutrement adjustments

before the full blast 

 

slams into you, searching

for even the tiniest gap

in your labored over

carefully constructed layers

who are you really

 

Joanne Holdridge

Devens, MA, USA

 

*

 

Why Would Anyone Want to Be Remembered

 

Paul V-something’s been asking around for you

my brother mumbles into the phone

not wanting his wife to hear

says you used to work at Marie’s together

sounds like he was really into you

I couldn’t remember which one he was

 

Anyway, I’m just calling so you’ll know

to stay away from the Rodeway Inn

used to be the Matterhorn

he’s working there now, I hear he’s divorced

and wants nothing so much as to

start in on you again  

 

I’ll watch out, I say, dropping the phone

noisily to the floor, as if it had suddenly

turned into a rattlesnake in my hand

slithering around my neck

noose of bad memory

tightening its grip

 

Joanne Holdridge

 

*

 

Speak I’m Listening

 

He always thought he knew

How the cards would fall.

No calculation was involved,

a feeling, that was all.

 

Mostly he got it wrong,

it seemed a dubious technique,

but now I think perhaps there was

some attribute he had, if not complete.

 

Some small, attenuated skill,

neglected, only part alive,

which with nurturing and use

could grow and thrive.

 

Not in a game of cards

but in that side of life that’s deep,

where intellect has no role to play

some inner voice can speak.

 

Michael Jennings

Keyworth, Nottingham

 

*

 

Down the Line

 

The media cabal 

And the writhing of others 

On social platforms

Lulls you into a false sense of severity. 

In the kingdom of the fearful 

Intrepid oafs are king.

Homeostasis

 

Whether through negligence or malevolence

We cannot be sure but

Somewhere down the line

The truth will out. 

 

 

Back at the asylum

After 50 years

A man with a distended stomach

Sucks on a vape

Presses the buzzer. 

And waits. 

 

 

In wishful thinking a pattern emerges;

After the melee a blithe quietude descends. 

Mary Hopkin sings

Voyage Of The Moon. 

Musically, 

Visually,

Scriptorially 

And culturally 

All of Wales and the rest of the world-

Every living thing that once sought the light-

Will slip easily into 

A waterless estuary pulsating with a welcoming,

 

A certainty. 

  

Soothed by a soft bright

cradle of stars 

Gently, gladly

we s

          .

           .   . 

            . 

 

           ..

 

          i . 

 

             . . 

                  .

 

               n 

                     .

 

k

 

Mike McNamara

Newport, S. Wales

 

*

 

Reflection

I dreamt about you
in the most vivid dream I’ve had in years.
You talked to me a lot,
I’m sure I could hear
your voice as if you were here
with me, mocking me for my accent.
I woke up confused, almost
calling your name,
understanding slowly
I was alone.
Your presence sensed
ceaselessly, haunting me
in my bed in the morning,
on the sofa in the afternoon and
sniffing around when I
was cooking dinner.
You were a lost soul, fluttering
around, a tall and skinny
smiling spirit flapping
the curtain in the summer heat.
My nerves were on high alert
expecting you to
appear out of thin air.
Only the alcohol-infused night
could push me into thoughtless salvation,
suppressing my neurons and blinding my brain.

 

Robert Nemet

London

 

*

 

Digging

(The Insatiable Knowingness of Know)

 

They have to know the gist,

the whys and wherefores, 

things hardly noted, part rendered

or half missed,

information stumbled upon

belongs to be disseminated and reiterated

to other snouts,

even be it

instilled ramblings,

chuntering

listened for utterings

scratching below,

to see what lies beyond

the crux and hypothesis,

neither believed, dismissed

or left alone

lingering to be assessed

as input

no matter how vague,

raised to be analysed 

under the jurisdiction

of gossip, however tenuous,

innuendo to fill a hole

in the carapace,

always transmitting, probing

receiving, passing on,

to the invisible ones

in the knowledge

of a bit, byte, something

or nothing dodgy, or legit

to remove the lid,

words, half heard

ruffle the velvet fur

and large claws of the informing mole,

burrowing three miles below, due south

near an ivy strapped house,

not linked to

Delabole.

 

David Pike

Camelford, Cornwall

 

*

 

Ghosts

  

Restoration-group open day,

we were welcomed to the theatre,

now passed off as a bingo hall,

where she bewitched applause

almost fifty years ago.

 

Like a child nothing was missed,

backstage new to me,

a harvest of memories for her,

and I took the posed photograph

in the old dressing room.

 

Everywhere the old posters,

encapsulating the time, the names,

of entertainment before TV

and her movements were threaded

by music in her heart.

 

We sat in the Gods,

high enough for dizziness,

looking down on the stage

where a group of actors resurrected

old tunes, old costumes

like a handful of ghosts.

 

They were not necessary,

she had brought her own.

 

Godon Scapens

Penwortham, Preston

 

Click Link: Return to Home Page

 

 

June 2024 (111 editions in total)

 

59th edition as a webzine

 

Poems listed in surname alphabetical order

 

To view Pulsar Poems from earlier years, refer to Home Page, for listings

 

***

 

Poem Index - June 2024

 

A Small Town in November, poem by Liam Aungier

 

We Should Be in Miami, poem by Salvatore Difalco.

 

Lunch Break, poem by Richard Dinges, Jr.

 

Driving the old Afghan Trail, poem by John Grey.

 

A Short Visit to Your Childhood Home, poem by John Grey.

 

Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner, poem by Maëlle Leggiadro.

 

Now Damaged, poem by David Pike.

 

The Evening News, poem by Brett Reid.

 

Untitled, poem by Mykyta Ryzhykh 

 

Blitz Years , poem by John Short. 

 

*

 

A Small Town in November

 

The rain blows in your face

And you don't care.

 

Your back to the harbour,

You are walking along the beach,

 

Shoes sinking into the rain-wet sand.

Late autumn and the sky

Is a symphony in grey.

 

The holiday makers

In tee-shirts and fake tans

 

And their rumbustious kids

Have all returned to their lives.

 

A padlock rusts on the gate

Of the rickety fun-fair.

 

And you are content.

Your town is itself again:

Sullen, introspective,

 

It's cobbled alleys 

Rained on; it's river

 

Restless in it's bed, gurgles

Under a concrete bridge.

 

The "Imperial Hotel" 

Lies under a cloud, and nothing

 

Is finer now than this rain

Falling on a small town in November.

 

Liam Aungier

Co. Kildare, Ireland

 

*

 

We Should Be In Miami

 

 My thumbnail, purpled by hammer,

is doomed this winter morning.

The sunshine deceives, the air

out here will seize-up your nose.

 

Sitting on chairs of snow, we know

we are far away from Miami,

its chameleons and monarchs,

burnt orange dusks and blow.

 

We sit nodding, snug as grubs,

on a Sunday in mid-January,

smoking the air, or slapping

our thermal mittens together.

 

Give thanks to life, for giving us

this moment, frozen in time

as it were, but we aren’t talking.

We are thinking of Miami.

 

But aren’t you glad we’re alive?

It could be otherwise:

black-curtained windows,

a Clydesdale-drawn hearse.

 

My thumbnail aches 

in its thumb-sleeve tomb.

Alas, I have never claimed 

to be a fucking handyman.

 

We are sitting out here in ten

below zero centigrade, so

pissed off we can’t express

our peeves, our deepest bones.

 

We should be in Miami

bronzing on the beach or

drinking Margaritas from a fish tank

and singing Jimmy Buffet tunes off-key. 

 

Salvatore Difalco

Toronto, Canada

 

*

 

Lunch Break

 

Throttled by shopping

mall words and

spattered by spit

from a flap of lips,

then scarred by a set

of sharp white teeth

camouflaged as a smile,

I sit on a bench

to rest my feet,

close my eyes,

listen to stories

entangled in a slow

drift, a click of heels,

a shuffle of soft soles,

I doze my hour

on a hard slab of wood

and then awaken to

my own story

still half-told.

 

Richard Dinges, Jr.

Walton, NE, USA

 

*

 

Driving the Old Afghan Trail

 

On a flat stretch

of nothing but red dirt

and occasional spinifex,

 

where the distance

is taken up

with rock formations

and the occasional watery mirage,

 

the near –

in fact the road ahead –

is clogged with four wild camels.

 

Despite much honking and shooing,

those creatures refuse to budge.

 

One even looks in our direction,

lowers its bottom lip

in a kind of comical sneer.

 

The Australian outback

has its eccentricities.

 

Even the easiest of going

is not guaranteed to go on forever.

 

Stubbornness can set down

just about anywhere.

 

John Grey

Johnston, RI

USA.

(formerly from Australia)

 

*

 

 A Short Visit to Your Childhood Home

 

The bed seemed out of place,

like it didn’t belong in the room you slept in.

 

But maybe it was the room that was out of place:

the pennants, the posters, the yearbooks,

the two-shelf bookcase stacked with fairy tales.

 

Most likely, you were out of place:

your body three inches longer than the mattress,

your arms hanging over the side.

 

You were glad to reach the airport early,

The plane couldn’t come soon enough.

 

You longed to spread out,

to reconnect with your life now.

 

On the flight home,

you were squeezed into a middle seat.

 

John Grey

 

*

 

Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner

 

London rushes me outside

I get carried away by goals

That were never mine

Every minute is precious

I got accustomed to holding my breath

And forgetting to look up

I watch the shadows in the street

When walking home at night

I have double-booked weekends

And buy tickets for unnecessary events

I get flowers delivered to my door

And count my blessings before bed

I believe in signs but I don’t have time

To stop and seek any of them

We earn just enough to cover the rent

It costs five pounds to leave the house

And we speak of flying somewhere South

When we don’t even bother

Seeing our friend who lives across the river

London is railways, beeping sounds,

“Unmissable” plays in the West End district

Where no one can afford to go

Fake eye-lashes, the secret services, café neros

The greatest show of the year

And angels weeping on churches’ doors

It’s the most beautiful and painful city to live in

And every Londoner feels a twinge of pride

In calling it home.

 

Maëlle Leggiadro

London

 

*

 

Now Damaged

 

‘There’s no easy way to approach this,’ he said, kicking the door of the garden shed off its hinges.  All-in- all his reaction was poor and didn’t take prisoners.  If it didn’t work or fit after cajoling and shoving it for a bit, then he’d explode in a comedy of violence and expletives. “Patience is a virtue,” some unremembered guru once said whilst waiting at a bus stop for a bus that never arrived.  So, our person, (we’ll call him a person), would let rip, feel the better for it and then contrive to put the door back where it had hung before, albeit now structurally unsound, damaged and a poor fit.

 

Perhaps that’s the answer, kick the door before it kicks you, then make a run for it.

 

David Pike

Camelford, Cornwall

 

From DP’s new book of poems, Avoiding Potholes, release date late 2024.

 

*

 

The Evening News

 

With no clear intent

I took a slice of slate

from the beach at Baltray.

Fast forward a year, I hold the slate

not to my ear but pressed tight

against a pane of winter’s blear light.

In a split second I’m thrown

by the silhouette

to a lounge floor in 1967,

where I watch up close

Sir Donald Campbell’s boat.

Nose almost touching the grey screen

I see a man for all his life’s worth

living a boy’s dreams

of speed and engines,

in a race to be the fastest in the world

before the last of that day becomes night.

Then it flashes white.

 

Brett Reid

Auckland, New Zealand

 

*

 

***

 

We slept with you in the crack of a cut hand
Not a single air bothered us with its presence
All clouds and trees were covered with a veil of nakedness
The weapon itself also hid in the anal slits, apparently there it belongs

Finally you raised your finger up and I realized that I was dreaming
I wake up in the silence of the graveyard hidden under the bed
I wake up I sleep I fall asleep I invent your finger
Thrice tied to the lord I come up with a finger
I teach my brain to live again.

 

Mykyta Ryzhykh

Tromsø, Norway

(Formerly from Ukraine)

 

*

 

Blitz Years

 

She used to tell me often

of the war, only twelve

and that nightly blitz,

how they’d scramble inside

an Anderson shelter

submerged at the garden’s edge

all except her brother,

nonchalant in bed

snoring while bombs fell

on the Websters just nearby.

 

Dad had his stories too:

some old bloke down their way

who landed intact, unscathed

in the middle of the street.

That one never quite convinced

but it’s true he was evacuated

to Holywell, north Wales

where he learned the language,

scraps of it at least, rolled

out at family parties to impress.

 

John Short

Lydiate, Merseyside

 

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***

March 2024 (110 editions in total)

 

58th edition as a webzine

 

Poems listed in surname alphabetical order

 

To view Pulsar Poems from earlier years, refer to Home Page, for listings

 

***

 

Poem Index - March 2024

 

Glitch, Nikos Chrysikopoulos.

 

Above the Wispering Pines, Joanne Holdridge.

 

More or Less, David Pike.

 

I Teach Adult Eduction Classes - Brandon Robshaw.

 

Fools Aftermath, Gordon Scapens.

 

No Rain, Daniel P. Stokes.

 

Feigining Sleep, Daniel P. Stokes.

 

Fissure, Peter Venable.

 

Claws, Thomas Zimmerman.

 

***

 

Glitch

 

in this critical moment

when you expect me to explain

 

my thoughts are too fluid

to find words to step on

 

and the words are too jagged

for my few baked thoughts to rest on

 

the fan of my brain starts and stops

gasps of breath not transmuted into words

the fear extending its half rime on my palate

 

between honesty and self-preservation

the algorithm of my brain breaks down

into algos and rhythmless silence

 

Nikos Chrysikopoulos

St. Gallen, Switzerland

 

*

 

Above the Whispering Pines

 

The perfect metaphor can’t be caught

like a bass with the just right colored lure

coaxed like a child with the promise

of ice cream later if she’s good

can’t be kidnapped for ransom

swum after and held up like a prize

for a race quickly won

won't appear when you go out

wearing your rain slicker and hat

umbrella clutched in your right hand

or when you’re searching

between damp cobblestones

magnifying glass out

peering down at your feet

  

They dance out on the open  

plain, where you don’t know

how you could have not seen them

light dazzling, expanse wide open

and you’re on a hill

looking down not a tree

or shrub in sight

 

but like chasing after the sunset

in a boat planed off

and heading toward

that sinking sun

it’s only when you stop

chasing and head away

from what you seek

 

that your life

a perfect metaphor

will come and find you

 

Joanne Holdridge

Devens, MA, USA

 

*

 

More or Less

 

He was beside himself

with rage. When I say

beside himself I mean, close

but farther down the page

than you at first

might have expected.

So, there he is

or was

glowering, incandescent, howling

for all he was worth

which wasn’t a lot,

half man, half something else

100 percent clot,

shouting the odds

making a show of a show,

beside himself

but farther down the page

as I previously explained,

than at first you might know.

 

David Pike

Camelford, Cornwall

 

*

 

I Teach Adult Education Classes

 

 I teach adult education classes

and look the part, with my tweed jacket, beard

and glasses. History of Ideas: art,

literature, science, philosophy.

We meet in shabby run-down parish halls

with pallid flickering fluorescent lights 

and walls of peeling beige. In midwinter

night falls by four. Drizzle patters 

on the windows. Outside it’s bitter cold;

in here the radiator’s on full blast. 

Every head is grey. I’m sixty-two

and I’m the youngest in the room. 

In twenty years or so we’ll all be dead. 

Meantime, we consume tea and plates of

hobnobs, and we feed our hungry minds

with Plato, Dante, Darwin, Hobbes, and Hume.

 

Brandon Robshaw

Walthamstow, London

 

*

 

Fool’s Aftermath

 

A swarm of wasps

are questions in my head,

a pavement tries hard

to hold me upright,

a spent night

wonders where I’ve been,

and you are nowhere

to be seen.

 

That clock with no hands

is telling me lies,

a roundabout

ignores my pleas,

my way home

needs the kiss of life,

and you are nowhere

to be seen.

 

There are words lying

where you left them,

there’s an excuse

that cannot be excused,

there’s a life running

headlong into a whimper,

and you are nowhere

to be seen.

 

And if there’s no you

I don’t want to be

who I think I am

in the morning.

 

Your face

will forever be

the speech I didn’t hear.

 

Gordon Scapens

Penwortham, Preston

 

*

 

No Rain

  

I check the window.

The ocean slaps the wall below

and clouds are scudding. 

But there’s no rain.

Out the door and down the path                             

my brute and I go marching.

Inside, as I typed, he lay                                                           

and brooded. Outside alone,                                                    

fields vying for inspection,                                    

he skulked about the yard                                                          

and eyed the door.                                                             

But now we’re off together                                                        

and he’s prancing, bucking, whirling                   

his approval. I’m infected.

Reflection, speculation                                                                are suspended. We’re                                                

freewheeling. He’s on                                             

a trail of smells that must be tested,                                 

I’m stepping in the pawprints of his quest.                              

This ridge that’s under snuffle                        

spans the headland. The ocean,                                        

on my left hand, melds with sky.                 

We’re down the other                                  

towards a fern-fringed lake.                                   

He, voracious at the sight                                                              of so much water, laps and slavers.                         

A gallon later, we shuffle                                                            

up a rise to meet the sea                                           

upon the other shore.

His eyes are gunsights.                                 

This water’s not for drinking.

It’s a target. He jounces                 

belly-high in seaweed,

around a rotting hulk and,

after splashing anything nose-worthy,                         

scrabbles back. At the ditch

I snag him by the collar                                        

to let a car by, the driver

lifts a finger in salute.                                                    

And here’s the quay - a squawk              

of gulls, bewailing our intrusion,

as he, unscrupled, smiling

on the seawall leaps and war-whoops,                                 

keeping them in flight.

A glance across the bay affirms                        

The Bens are watching                     

                                           

and with the self-same gusto we return.                                      House in sight, he rushes up the drive                                          as if he never wished to leave it.

brushes by me indoors, mauls                   

his bedding, and, uninclined

to write a word about it,

slips to sleep.

 

Daniel P. Stokes

Dublin, Ireland

 

*

 

Feigning Sleep         

 

The mornings you get out of bed before me,

feigning sleep, I watch you dress

to gauge how you behave

when no one’s looking.

And as you waddle round the room

attacking drawers, I focus,

fascinated, on your fork,

your breasts, your buttocks

as if I’d never seen them.

 

We’ve linked our aims

and fused our flesh

and know we’re better paired.

Still… having to concede that you exist

outside of my conception

and create a universe that overlaps with mine

with perceptions that don’t pertain to me

and dark matter I can never sound

nor work my will on,

leaves me frantic to find out what I can.

 

But even as I curl here, concealing

my intent to see what you’ll reveal,

I’ve half a notion you’re aware

intuitively of being watched,

instinctively amused by my poor ruse

to find insights in your undulations

and artillery in the manner

you pull on your drawers.

 

Daniel P. Stokes

 

*

 

Fissure

 

Every autumn grandpa hunted bobwhite

Castle Hayne NC. At dinner,

he always warned “Bite slowly”

but at nine years old, holster

and cap gun strapped to my hip,                                

chipmunk-cheeked with mashed potatoes and biscuits,                

gravy odor filling my nose, I chomped into the spicy meat

 

in rapture—eyes closed—

 

bit on a birdshot, chipping

and cracking an incisor down the middle.

My tongue found it, spit it out

on great-grandma’s Royal Albert China plate.                        

It rolled up the edge and back by a pea.

Gramps shook his head.

 

I let out a cry a neighbor declared

she heard half a mile away.                    

Sixty years later                                                      

my tongue still probes its worn cleft,

that metallic aftertaste

tainting every buttered biscuit,

 

birdshot embedded in every bite.

 

Peter Venable

Winston Salem

NC, USA

 

*

 

Claws

 

Just trimmed your nails this morning. You don’t need 

them to remember that we all have claws.

Reminds you of a conference years ago:

a poet told you, “There are claws around us.” 

Then, “How long have you been writing?” This

before a curt dismantling of your work. 

Your miniatures lay there scratched and chipped.

The poem the poet liked the best was one 

about your death. Just sayin.’ Why not sample 

it: “Streams nibble behind my knees.” That night,

the poet read a poem you loved. About

kids playing hide-and-seek. At dusk, the parents

cry, “All in! All in!” A fine refrain. 

Evading claws. Or entering their clutches.

 

Thomas Zimmerman

Ann Arbor, MI, USA

 

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