Category: # Issue 40

Grandmother’s Kitchen Held the spoon that fed meA pound of pepperCould buy her fame Her dishes so curriedThey amber the plates She taught me to ladleMyself full of food These are the hands that seasonedThe first of every of my tastes There is no returning to the cinnamonToast-scented school mornings.   Bio Ramesh Dohan hails from […]

Being Young, 21 Being young, 21, is everythingFor wisdom does not come with ageOnly tired bones and fadeAnd maturity means accustomed toThe crumbling of a once great temple, youInvisible now, featureless, facelessThat’s the rub of the wrinkly skinnedWho live in seaside towns, with mothballs twinnedAnd all this whilst the beautiful peopleRun like gazelles, screw like […]

I’ve overcooked lunch The pasta is whispering to me that it’s done, but I don’t hear. I know the pasta whispers when it’s done, I really do. But I’m not paying it any mind, the sound isn’t wiggling the cilia in my ears. Or maybe it is, and I just don’t know. Do you think […]

Flawless You werethe flawless ballerinawith a Lite-Brite life,pirouetting in arabesquein an open music box,twirling til the comb plucking the nubs on the drum slowed,til the key needed to be turned,while hundreds of colorful light-up pegs aligned in childhood perfection. Sock-clad, we glissaded acrossroasted chestnut-finished parquet floors, skipping over red kitchen tiles past the basket-lined wrought […]

A Child’s Fear My fear of the darkbegan on a winter eveningat the age of eight, when I walked down the creaky wooden stairs of my childhood homeheaded to the kitchen for an apple. When I looked to the snow-filled yard, under the full moon,my eyes caught a clown-like figure. With onyx dots for eyes,a […]

Fit For Purpose Compression, he said, speaking of mechanicsand half-suspicious even then that I’d go and apply itto poetry. I wonder did he have an inklingthat I’d never quite master it, the art of compression –that I’d always get carried away by the length of a line,the sound and rhythm and flow of the words,the […]

Lackluster Lackluster, one of those words yoked from two disparate terms.A century ago it was used to describe eyes, their brilliance taken by the hard daily chore of living, a child’s vision leadened by poverty, a woman with more miscarriages than childrenand more children than fingers,a man who plowed as his own horse,but now most […]

Maurice’s Night Mornings are worstwhen you are most awarethe deep reaches of your unhappiness most apparent.Did ye sleep? your mother asks.Your back aches, your lungs ache, your limbs ache.The whole of your consciousness aches.The day is a desert ahead of you. Well, I can’t think what’s got into ye, says your mother.You haven’t slept for […]

A String of Pigeons I count them on the power line:one, two, three, four, five pigeons,plump, grey, grumbling curmudgeons,with the occasional coyish coothat helped me througha pandemic void of company,a string of them, comical and pearly.Just before sunset, a window in the tumbling cloud, accompanied by a loudclap of wings, they explodelike fireworks that have […]

It was me. it was: me,walking out of a barbershop.it was: me,my hair a little too short. my handsin my pockets;this leather jacketI wore quite a lot at the time. leaves on the pavementscuttling with a light breezelike frightened crabs. a storm coming – the river, a grey creaturewith somewhat ruffled fur. it was: me, […]