Friday 30 November 2018


The Gardening Years

by Mary Ellen Gambutti


 Late snow piled up against the sturdy, metal-framed, plastic-covered greenhouses. March wind blustered down each row of the range numbered one through six. We four women part-timers, in our thirties, dressed for the weather. I wore a blue down vest and a wool cap—and stood at a worktable in the first greenhouse to transplant seedlings. A large kerosene furnace at the rear of our hoop house supplied just enough heat to keep the temperature above freezing for tiny plants in plastic flats lined up on the gravel floor. We worked without gloves to finesse the new growth from the potting mix into the next larger plastic cell. It was tedious work, but we amused ourselves with our own chatter and the sound of a rock station. On sunny days, the greenhouse was deliciously warm, and we peeled off layers to work in sweatshirts.

At thirty-four, I decided to pursue my love of plants as a second career. I enrolled in the horticulture program at the Temple University’s Ambler campus, which had its roots as a horticulture school for women. I took a part time job in a prestigious Philadelphia garden center and nursery, Meadowbrook Farms. The manager, whose name was John, was an expert grower; a six foot tall, wiry, wry-humored boss with an unsophisticated demeanor. He moved quickly and decisively as he monitored and recorded plant progress and directed staff. The main glass-house overflowed with decorative greenery. Impressive collections of tropical plants, giant begonias, staked lilies, and herbs thickly populated gliding benches. I was a sponge for the wealth of information John imparted in his clipped style.

When the crocus bloomed, plant orders flowed in from landscapers, collectors, and designers, many of whom would compete in the Philadelphia Flower Show. Mr. Lyddon Pennock, Meadowbrook’s resident owner, held a prominent place in the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society, which sponsors the show. John’s grand, yearly Meadowbrook entry featured double borders, boxwood hedges, a classical English garden complete with delphiniums, the hallmark gazebo.

I had found freedom in the garden and nature since my 1950s childhood, when I shadowed my Nana in her New Jersey garden. I told John I’d like to continue working that summer, and he offered me a kind of apprenticeship in the wide double borders. With a sumptuous pallet of perennials at my disposal, I got right to work. I staked the towering orange helianthus, the seven-foot tall elecampane daisy of herbal lore, the stiff-stemmed magenta asters, and the steel-blue globe thistle. I divided overgrown clumps with a sharp spade, transplanted and replaced. I worked in tiny detail with the embroidery of alpines at the stone edge. Some sweltering afternoons, I might be found pruning shrubs along the lush, shady walk, but rarely resting on the iron bench.

 Mr. Pennock appeared, and stooped to admire a plant. He produced his red handled Felco pruner from his back pocket. From a Philadelphia family of floral designers, he was tall and slender like John, but had a refined, aristocratic air, in contrast to John’s impulsivity. Mr. P.’s white hair had a gentle wave. He wore a bowtie on his crisp shirt, with the sleeves rolled up: a working artist. His well-spoken, quietly cheerful comments were motivating. “This blue lacecap hydrangea is a good as any perennial,” he noted, impressing upon me his high regard for a rare plant, for perennials in general, and, I hoped, my contribution to their care.

Patrons became familiar with me as they proceeded down the garden walk. Some asked me if I would care for their private gardens. I enjoyed exploring those lush suburban properties, pruning shrubs, grooming perennials, and devising ways to use existing plants to best advantage. I devoured colorful garden design books, both classics and current trends. I drew inspiration from Lanning Roper and Russell Page, two great landscape gardeners, and from Gertrude Jekyll, the garden artist and writer who used color gradients and large drifts of perennials. I was captivated by the style of the Dutch landscape designers, who use enormous wild-looking sweeps of ornamental grasses and perennials that change color and texture with the seasons.

I dubbed my itinerant practice, “The Cottage Gardener: Garden Design, Installation and Care.” I worked in the charming, old-world style Chestnut Hill, Germantown, and Mainline landscapes, with their stone walls and terraces, sunken gardens, reflecting pools and fountains, old trees and hedges, flowering shrubs, and all varieties of perennials. I frequented Morris Arboretum, and Longwood Gardens, and continued my horticulture training. My strength, stamina and skill grew, and my creativity flourished in the beauty of these rustic period settings.

After several years, my husband and I bought a Victorian home and barn on an acre at the upper reaches of Bucks County. We carved out our mini-farm, added a forty-foot hoop house, vegetable plots, double perennial borders, two little prairie meadows, native and exotic trees and shrubs, and fruit trees. Fancy chickens and dwarf goats rounded out the bucolic setting. One of my goals was to grow “specialty” flowers: unusual annuals and perennials for cutting. The frugal nature and hard work of my enterprise did not outweigh my sheer joy in the endeavor. I grew row after row of bright hot zinnia pinwheels and mammoth sunflowers, as well as the chocolate, sunset-hued and yellow varieties. Clouds of baby’s breath, red and pink Sweet William, and flat-headed golden yarrow were harvested in buckets with the right conditioner for the best quality. The glowing beauty of a morning’s masses of flowers was my reward for the pains of growing.

*

Returning to the garden was transformative. From office, to classroom, to work at Meadowbrook and beyond, my life has been enriched by plants. In gardens, old and new, I have learned that nothing is static; growth and change are life. As I age, my wish list of plants has become whittled down, but I cannot do without them. And less is often easier to manage.


* * * * *

"The Gardening Years" first appeared in Remembered Arts Journal, May 20, 2017. 

Mary Ellen writes about her life as an Air Force daughter in the 1950's and '60's, search and reunion with birth family, and survival of stroke at mid-life. She has been published in many fine journals represented in her memoir collection of stories, Permanent Home, planned for early 2019. Her memoir, Stroke Story: My Journey There and Back, is available in softcover and e-book. She and her husband reside on the Florida Gulfcoast with their sweet rescued Chihuahua, Maxwell. Her author blog is Ibis and Hibiscus. Ibisandhibiscusmelwrites.blogspot.com

Thursday 29 November 2018


Sibling Rivalry

by Alexis Rhone Fancher


I grew roses the size of
insurmountable odds.
Hers were bigger,
smelled sweeter.
I had a child.
She had two.
Mine died.


* * * * *

Published in Red Flag Poetry, Feb. 2018 (postcard).

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in The Best American Poetry 2016, Verse Daily, Plume, 
Rattle, Literary Mama, Diode, Pirene’s Fountain, Tinderbox, Nashville Review, and elsewhere. 
She’s the author of four poetry collections; How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and 
other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), Enter Here, (2017), 
and Junkie Wife, (2018). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com 

Wednesday 28 November 2018


OLD SCHOOL
as told to the poet by SGM

by Alexis Rhone Fancher


Its 1984. A board member at the L.A. Library Association pushes me against the Xerox
machine, forces his tongue down my throat.

Its 1977 when I watch the musical director at Lincoln Center jack off under his desk. Over
dirty martinis his assistant confides its her job to wipe up the semen splatter each night before
she goes home.

Its 1985. I’m raising money for medical research when Dr. Abdul R.H. greets me at the Saudi embassy. When my shoe catches the hem of my dress, exposing my breasts, he claps.

Its 1978. The Brooklyn Academy of Music. Six of us girls lunch at my bosss flat in the Village. Before dessert he leans back, unzips his fly.

Its 1988. My boss, notorious ladiesman James ‘Jimmy’ R., president of Cal State L.A., propositions me, my sister, and every woman under the age of thirty. Afraid of retribution, no one reports him.

Its 1971. Six of us cheerleaders at Blair High watch a man in the stands masturbate to our practice routines. Ive never seen a penis, up close, erect. What cha lookin’ at? he smirks.

Its 1985. Board member David M. asks me out in front of the entire board. His masculinity’s
at stake.

Its 1986. Dr. Abdul R. H. invites me to discuss the research budget at his L.A. hotel. His suite is filled with roses. Hes naked under the robe.

Its 1972. Dr. Lusk, university physician, palpates my breasts as part of a sore throat exam. You
have nice, German breasts, he exclaims. He prescribes a spanking, lozenges.

Its 1973. Danny hits me in the face for calling him a male chauvinist pig. Later, he holds me
outside of a moving car until I agree to fuck him.

Its 1978. I tell the president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music were all resigning as a group.
Who iswe”? he asks. I realize I’m on my own.


* * * * *

 "Old School" was first published in Diode (July, 2018).

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in The Best American Poetry 2016, Verse Daily, Plume, 
Rattle, Literary Mama, Diode, Pirene’s Fountain, Tinderbox, Nashville Review, and elsewhere. 
She’s the author of four poetry collections; How I Lost My Virginity To Michael Cohen and 
other heart stab poems, (2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies, (2015), Enter Here, (2017), 
and Junkie Wife, (2018). A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com 

Tuesday 27 November 2018


No One Wants to Know

by Shirani Rajapakse


It was only much later,
when the world had gone to sleep and
awoken many times, that they found out.
By then it was far too late.
People had moved on. Old news was of no use,
they yawned as they picked up the papers
delivered that morning to read the news
crisp and new. Someone lost a cat,
someone broke into a home.
No laws were needed for any of that, no urgent
appeals, that could wait.

But she was only five years old.

They are all silent, those people in high places.
They’ve run out of words, catch phrases they
threw out to the women in jest.

Wrong clothes, out in the dark alone
with a strange man. Of course they deserved it,
those stupid women, they said laughing
behind closed doors.
And now they are scratching their balls and
trying to come up with reasons where
reasons never existed for any of this.
But it’s too late.

Too late for her, the little girl.

Too late for her sisters in other places.
Too late for the mothers whose
daughters died a slow painful death.
Too late, too late. But no one cares.
Not theirs to care.


* * * * *

© 2018 Shirani Rajapakse, "No One Wants to Know" is from the award winning collection Chant of a Million Women (2017) by Shirani Rajapakse

Shirani Rajapakse is an internationally published, award winning poet and short story writer. She won the Cha “Betrayal” Poetry Contest 2013 and was a finalist in the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards 2013. Her collection of short stories Breaking News (Vijitha Yapa 2011) was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award. Her critically acclaimed poetry collection Chant of a Million Women (self published 2017) is a Finalist in the 2018 Kindle Book Awards. It received an Honorable Mention in the 2018 Readers’ Favorite Awards and was chosen as an “Official Selection” in the 2018 New Apple Summer eBook Awards for Excellence in Independent Publishing. Rajapakse’s work appears in many literary journals and anthologies around the world. Rajapakse read for a BA in English Literature from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and has a MA in International Relations from JNU, India.

Monday 26 November 2018


Slipping Into My True Self

by Joan Leotta


Sand dollars,
currency of mermaids,
call to me from
dead low tide where
my feet caress their outlines
in the shifting sand
until I can scoop them up,
set them on my windowsill
to watch them whiten
in the afternoon sun.
Once dried they are like porcelain,
delicate but firm
like a lover’s skin, cool against my own.
Surrounded by these totems,
even far from sea, sun, sand
far in time, in winter’s chill                                                                                                 
far in distance, landlocked still,
I slip into my true self by simply,
smoothly sliding my finger over their edges,
holding them, one by one,
like the waves that brought them,
cool, smooth against my cheek.


* * * * *

Joan Leotta, www.joanleotta.wordpress.com, is an author and story performer. Her books include Giulia Goes to War, Letters from Korea, A Bowl of Rice, Secrets of the Heart, historical fiction in Legacy of Honor Series, Simply a Smilea collection of short stories, and WHOOSH!—a picture book.


Sunday 25 November 2018


Don’t, Marie.

by Suzanne Allen


Black-eyed and necklaced in gold
she almost smiles, thinks
she might jump from the Pont
Marie or slowly descend
the stone steps to the water slapping
the quai… Don’t, Marie.

He only did it once.  Now
she carries him on her shoulders—
the weight of the world—one
of his hands blocks her depth perception.
How far is the water?  Upstairs,
inside, he drinks and toasts the purple
phantoms of his youth.

Remember, she thinks,
when our toes touched the clouds?
How it felt to sweep skyward, then
be pulled back to the tracks in the sand,
tracks without trains or veins or any other things
to carry her blood and bones away
besides the tide. 

But green is the color of healing and
things left in the shade too long, so she waits—
for rain and thunder, a crack of light in the sky
bluer than she, strains her white
eyes but can’t see
the colors, only the banister up there

in their window… His piano notes
sliding down, and all around her the wind
flicks them at her feet like little threats,
like rain. Somewhere in a room up there
she once slept, soundly—the sheets on the day,
bed the color of memory, of dreams—

but the railing can’t save them—these
notes, those dreams—couldn’t
be any less useful. She can’t see the colors,
only the black-eyed notes
tumbling, light split by the panes. 
Splitting pain.

Something she meant to say before
she shut the door.


* * * * *

Suzanne Allen holds an MFA in Poetry and is a coeditor for The Bastille (of Spoken Word Paris). Her poems have been published in print and online journals such as Cadence Collective, California Quarterly, Carnival, Cider Press Review, Crack the Spine, Hobo Camp Review, Nerve Cowboy, Pearl, San Pedro River Review, Spillway, Spot Lit, Tears in the Fence and Upstairs at Duroc. Anthology publications include Not a Muse, (Haven Books,) The Heart of All that Is, (Holy Cow Press,) Strangers in Paris, (Tightrope Books,) Veils, Halos and Shackles, (Kasva Press,) and Villanelles, (Knopf.) She also creates videos of poets reading their work, which can be found on YouTube at Vlogosophy. Her first chapbook, verisimilitude, is available at CorruptPress.net, and her most recent chapbook, Little Threats, was published just this summer by Picture Show Press. "Don't, Marie" sparked the title for this collection.

Saturday 24 November 2018


Sure

by Alyssa Waugh


I’ve never wanted kids
No natural maternal instincts
I’ve never heard a baby cry and thought
Something is missing from my life 
(The opposite actually)
I don’t swoon for cute babies 
I panic when mothers hand them off to me

And I’ve spent half my life being made to feel other
– not normal –
about it
And the other half being pressured to change my mind
and being told that I’ll regret it if I don’t

And when women say they’ve never wanted kids
Have no natural maternal instincts
Don’t swoon for cute babies and
Panic when holding one
But are “unsure”
I wonder if they’re really unsure
Or only worried by seeds of would-be regrets
Planted by those sure enough for two 
Planted by those who think they know better than you
What you want
Or will 


Friday 23 November 2018


Dopo mezzanotte!

by Marina Kazakova


Dopo mezzanotte!
Dopo, dopo!
The door pops open,
out of the dust
the ocean
unfolds
under the ropewalker’s
high gloss
black shoes.
He floats
among the buoyant atoms-
the iron nerves of muscled Brussels,
silenzio
fulfils The Place Royal -
no traffic,
only the cinema of
sinking smiles
of women,
oh, excuse me,
of “things”
behind the glass windows,
brought to the citadelle
of cultures,
oh sorry,
to the “Grand Market”
to sell the bodies -
the live sculptures
of Gare du Nord.
The Captives,
in search of lost hopes,
observed by some,
ignored by all,
the poultry
living decades of years
under
the artificial lights,
in high temperatures
of pre-Renaissance
“battery cages”,
not far from new headquarters
of Europa -
a gorgeous
post-modern
Space Egg,
built up of
thousands of windows,
recycled
and brought from every member state -
a cleaner's nightmare,
a symbol
of new life,
the victory of light -
Buon Giorno!
The door gets closed,
the ropewalker
becomes a cock
sitting among
the poultry,
eating his business lunch...
Vivo,
vivo mezzogiorno!


* * * * *

Marina Kazakova (b. Gorky, 1983) is a writer, poet and audio-visual artist in Belgium. Published internationally in magazines and journals (Three Rooms Press' Maintenant, AntiNarrative Journal, Crannog), Marina is a frequent performer. She has been shortlisted at different poetry/film-poetry competitions and was awarded various prizes. She is author of verse novel Tishe...Piano, the film adaptation of which was shortlisted for International Short Film Festival Leuven 2013, Miami Indie Wise Festival 2018, XpoNorth Festival 2018, and got ‘The Best Narrative Short’ Award at the International Film Festival behalf Savva Morozov in Moscow in 2015. Her literature works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the challenges posed both by memory and grief. In addition to poetry, Marina has written essays and articles for such publications as The Word Magazine (Brussels), Culturetrip. com, Seanema.eu. Marina holds a Master in Public Relations and in Transmedia. Currently, she is Communications Officer at ‘Victim Support Europe’(Brussels) and working on her practice-based PhD in Arts “Lyric Film-Poem. A research on how the unique characteristics of lyric poetry can be expressed in film” at Luca School of Arts (KULeuven).

Thursday 22 November 2018

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I am grateful for, among many other things, all the beautiful and honest women's voices in the world.

The thirtieth Moon Prize on today's full moon (in New Mexico it's full moon later today, not tomorrow as in other parts of the world) goes to Lola Steel's riveting poem "Polite." It evokes so many familiar moments.



Polite

by Lola Steel


I am raw,
sitting, listening, feeling
what’s inside.

there is a maelstrom
hidden from view
as it plays beneath the surface.

my thoughts burn
and tumble,
wanting - needing - to be voiced.

yet not brought forth.
they are, politely,
censored and tucked away.

they rear up,
demanding, clamouring,
stronger each time they surge.

I speak of truths,
honesty, visibility, transparency
openness. Strength. Presence.

all the while, I remain silent.
debating with myself why I leave
unsaid what needs to be said.

I am polite, nice, well-mannered.
it’s always better that I am
uncomfortable instead of someone else.

I see the edge that divides
the woman who is strong
and the one who is a bitch.

that edge is sharp
and I’m done
being the one hurt by it.

done with laughing it off
with accepting,
with allowing.

finished with being
the one cast aside,
for polite.


* * * * *

Lola is a happiest when wrangling words and crafting escapes for her readers to indulge in. The words that find a way to sneak out of her mind find their homes in her writings that range from poetry to short stories, novellas and LGBTQ+ erotica. www.whiskysweet.com is her home on the web if you’d like to stop by for a visit.


Wednesday 21 November 2018


Cold Bluster

by Oonah V Joslin


with wintry determination

I begin cold to the marrow jelly
a gust of words meaningless on the white
screen blustering. But I don't have snow shoes
nor a protective skin, so I give in
easily in the face of all this in
different face-book frenzy
like - cool
oh wow!
what next?
look what I did
and you are so so so superlatively

nothing. As if I didn't know that. As
if my blood was warm as yours as if my
mind was shallow enough to wallow in
fake friendship and faker praise.

But one of these days I'll rise up
raise a storm to keep myself warm. I'll fill
a page. I will! I'll show you. I'll blow you

away

with wintry determination.


* * * * *

Oonah V Joslin is poetry editor at The Linnet’s Wings. She has won prizes for both poetry and micro-fiction. Her book Three Pounds of Cells ISBN: 13: 978-1535486491 is available online from Linnet’s Wings Press and you can see and hear Oonah read in this National Trust video. The first part of her novella A Genie in a Jam is serialised at Bewildering Stories, along with a large body of her work (see Bibliography). You can follow Oonah on Facebook or at Parallel Oonahverse https://oovj.wordpress.com/.

Tuesday 20 November 2018


October’s End

by Oonah V Joslin


wood notes
scaling down toward sleep
lengthen in sunset mist

it’s time for plums,
the soft, sweet bruises
of summer

across the lawn neglected
sunflower heads droop
and blacken

and silver birch leaves
overturned curl up
against the chill

this house, long-dead
celebrates past silhouettes
in silence


* * * * *

Oonah V Joslin is poetry editor at The Linnet’s Wings. She has won prizes for both poetry and micro-fiction. Her book Three Pounds of Cells ISBN: 13: 978-1535486491 is available online from Linnet’s Wings Press and you can see and hear Oonah read in this National Trust video. The first part of her novella A Genie in a Jam is serialised at Bewildering Stories, along with a large body of her work (see Bibliography). You can follow Oonah on Facebook or at Parallel Oonahverse https://oovj.wordpress.com/.

Monday 19 November 2018


In the new-moon sky

by Marina Kazakova


In the new-moon sky
Mars outshines all stars
except the one – 
the Goddess, 
the second from the Sun, 
born from the sea foam,
the brightest.
In fifteen eighty-one
(before Christ) 
the Babylonians called it
‘Queen of the sky,’
much later
the Romans worshiped Venus
as Goddess of Good Fortune. 
The ropewalker is lying
on the August grass,
taking a star bath,
under the meteor shower.
They say one day on Venus 
is longer than 12 months,
the ropewalker is trying 
to envisage it: 
to live a day and night
that last eternity -
an annum.
What an adagio!
The falling space-flowers
form the garden of roses
where the ropewalker,
in levitation,
is being transformed 
into the sea foam,
into the Babylon,
into the Romans,
into the silent,
loving,
hate-free
universe.


* * * * *

Marina Kazakova (b. Gorky, 1983) is a writer, poet and audio-visual artist in Belgium. Published internationally in magazines and journals (Three Rooms Press' Maintenant, AntiNarrative Journal, Crannog), Marina is a frequent performer. She has been shortlisted at different poetry/film-poetry competitions and was awarded various prizes. She is author of verse novel Tishe...Piano, the film adaptation of which was shortlisted for International Short Film Festival Leuven 2013, Miami Indie Wise Festival 2018, XpoNorth Festival 2018, and got ‘The Best Narrative Short’ Award at the International Film Festival behalf Savva Morozov in Moscow in 2015. Her literature works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the challenges posed both by memory and grief. In addition to poetry, Marina has written essays and articles for such publications as The Word Magazine (Brussels), Culturetrip. com, Seanema.eu. Marina holds a Master in Public Relations and in Transmedia. Currently, she is Communications Officer at ‘Victim Support Europe’(Brussels) and working on her practice-based PhD in Arts “Lyric Film-Poem. A research on how the unique characteristics of lyric poetry can be expressed in film” at Luca School of Arts (KULeuven).