NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE

EW POETRY Copyright © 2018 All Rights Reserved Lauck & Dub LTD (UK)ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains materialprotected under International and Federal Copyright Laws andTreaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material isprohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic ormechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by anyinformation storage and retrieval system without expresswritten permission from the author / publisher.Cover Photo: Ashlie Allen

Special thanks to Ashlie Allen and the staff at New Poetry

MEET THE STAFF OF NEW POETRYStan Lauk-Dubitsky, Founder, Publisher, Editor in ChiefDesigner, print, web, games, Artist/Illustrator/ Poet/Translator/ Linguistician / Riddler/Mnemotechnician/PhotographerAria Ligi, Editor in Chief International Edition, layout anddesignPoet/Critic/Screenwriter/Head Hunter/ JournalistGraduate SFSUVictor Lobos, Senior Editor of Portuguese & SpanishEdition, Translator/ Poet/ Critic/Head HunterKevin Kiely, Editor of International Edition,Poet/ Novelist/literary critic/ playwright/ProfessorRina Ivanova, Co-editor Russian Edition, /Senior EditorChildren’s Edition/Poet/Blogger/ Critic/Performer/Artist/Critic/Artist/ Illustrator/ AnimatorRomain Trojani, Dormant Editor of French Edition,Poet/Singer/Songwriter/Translator/Critic

Table of Contents From the Editors’ Desk ........................................... 11 Book Reviews ............................................................ 14 A Dash of Flash from Ashlie Allen........................ 20The Artwork of Kelvin Lei ............................................. 22Robert Cole ....................................................................33 Dithyramb for John Keats: for Susie ...................... 34Susie Reynolds ............................................................... 38 BLACK PEARL......................................................................39 CITIES .....................................................................................40 LUCIFER HAS RISEN.........................................................41Lorino Trimarchi ........................................................... 42 Milena........................................................................................43 I Have Nostalgia for You ......................................................44 Now the Almond Tree ...........................................................45 Butterfly ....................................................................................46 When I think of you ...............................................................47Linda Middleton ............................................................ 48 Daguerotype.............................................................................49 First Love .................................................................................50 Signs ..........................................................................................51Ndaba Sibanda .............................................................. 52 Write Me Letters .....................................................................53 Laura’s Sunday.........................................................................56 The Freedom of Poetry..........................................................58 The Emigrant...........................................................................60

Dominic Windram ......................................................... 62 Autumn Hymn ........................................................................63 Pentecost ..................................................................................64Elizabeth Mastin............................................................ 66 Back to Eden ...........................................................................67 One Night ................................................................................69 Van Gogh’s Bedroom, Petrarchan Sonnet..........................70Manford Blacksher ........................................................ 71 Boner.........................................................................................72 Dante and the Man of Blood, 5th Nov. 2012 ......................73 Seizing .......................................................................................74Mahnaz Mohafez ........................................................... 75 Sweet Presence ........................................................................76Rick Dove.......................................................................77 A drift........................................................................................78 Anxiety of the Thought Experiment....................................79Philip Wilson..................................................................80 TRIAL.......................................................................................81 BUT YOUR CHAINS ...........................................................82James Sale ......................................................................83 Killing Pains.............................................................................84Shokoofeh Jabbari.......................................................... 85 The Postman Never Knocks Twice .....................................86 And No More... .......................................................................87 Shadow to Shadow..................................................................88

Richard Spisak ............................................................... 89 Aphrodite on the Internet Half-Shell...................................90 Up from Dido's couch ...........................................................91Andrea Laws ..................................................................95 Apparition ................................................................................96 Backyard Tale...........................................................................97Andrew Gordon.............................................................. 98 Alongside sortition..................................................................99Bernard Kennedy ..........................................................101 Swoop and dance: .................................................................102 Je suis and nous avons..........................................................103 God .........................................................................................104 Sitting & Looking:.................................................................105Carolina Fernandez...................................................... 106 Clair de lune: A bus ride......................................................107 Is this it, darling? ...................................................................109Margarita Serafimova....................................................110 Drive by the Seaside .............................................................111 February 2017 ........................................................................112David Ehrenkranz.........................................................113 The Inevitable Aftermath ....................................................114 Late Night Walk ....................................................................116 Forks .......................................................................................117Mahdi ............................................................................118 With no reason................................................. 119

Ian David Wall ............................................................. 120 ASTOUNDMENT...............................................................121 PARODYING HOMER.....................................................122 PRAHA ..................................................................................125 THE EYES OF THE SEER ..............................................126Loretta Leslie ............................................................... 132 Political Truth ........................................................................133Maharathi..................................................................... 134 Sphinx .....................................................................................135Kevin Kiely ................................................................... 136 Glendalough Hostel Revisited.............................................137 Come into my arms ..............................................................139 Postcard to Paddy Finnegan (1942-2014)’.........................140 Tree of Trigonometry...........................................................141Miles Ciletti.................................................................. 143 Hispanics in Space ................................................................144Colin Hope................................................................... 144 Last Night...............................................................................146Alan J. Blaustein .......................................................... 147 (Some Mornings…) ..............................................................148 When Synapses Synap ..........................................................149 Equinox ..................................................................................150Richard Merli ................................................................151 Coming Home .......................................................................152Sara Rahimi.................................................................. 155

Tide .........................................................................................156Yuan Changming......................................................... 157 At 68th Avenue West, Saturday Evening............................158 YUAN: The Origin of a Family Name ..............................159 The Photography of Ashlie Allen......................... 161

For Stan, whose vision and creative energy are thespark that lights the flame. 10

From the Editors’ Desk 11

Simoom: The Dawning of Poetic RhythmPoetry is not something anyone should delve into lightly, indeedit is and has always been a craft which at once eludes andintrigues those who do not understand and those who laud itsmerits. It is with this admonition, that one must caution thereader who opens these pages, to beware of this is not for thefaint of heart.There are no compasses nor cliff notes to guide you as youperuse the pages, a stranger traversing foreign lands. This isespecially so, here, where we have gathered voices from acrossthe globe to not only sample their thoughts but additionally, toinvite you into their world. For this is an international digestwhose aim to not only bring like minds together, but persuadeothers who may think differently, and whose life experience hasno parallel with theirs, to find commonalities past culture, race,gender, status, religion, to the underlying humanity that livesbeneath the skin.We are privileged to have poetry from such places as Iran,India, Haiti, Ireland, England, and Italy, to name a few of thecountries represented here. Yet, it is not so much about theregions that people herald from, as what they are able to craftwith pen, imagination, and the infusion of what they see andhear around them, as people struggling as we all do, to subsistwithin a world such as ours. For it is clear, that now more thanever, the voices of artists, poets, and writers, are needed morethan ever. Poetry reflects back to us not only beauty, romance,and nature, but the conflicts which we all share. Likewise, as has 12

Simoom: The Dawning of Poetic Rhythmbeen true throughout the ages, it can be a voice for those whohave none. It is hoped, therefore that through this, we maysurpass conflict, and find that core of empathy that lies deepwithin.Aria Ligi, Editor in Chief New Poetry 13

Simoom: The Dawning of Poetic Rhythm Book Reviews 14

Simoom: The Dawning of Poetic Rhythm Simoom: The Dawning of Poetic RhythmIn Robert Cole’s multifaceted ‘Simoom’ named after the violent Arabianwinds, described aptly as ‘suffocating’ we find ourselves taken into a worldthat encompasses history, mythology, zoology, Passion, love, a myriad ofcultures from the Muslim, ancient Egyptian and Druidic as well as odes toyouth, middle age, senescence (and the oncoming of a helplessness whichis akin to infancy) and the limits and expanse of time and space. From thevery first piece, Barbes, he notes:I’m lost in my own arrondissement/ Try couscous/ A hubble-bubble and sheep’s eyesI tread easy/ The tassel pillowed floor/ Where sunlight writes its Arabic/ We kiffsmokers retireTo a backroom to play tic-tac/ A sirocco blows/ From the heater sending out mirages.This sense of the self as lost within alien lands pervades the work, be it thedesert, or the ocean.We hear it in The Tellurians:theoretically only a relaxant for humanoids this ultrasonic music iridesces, a synaesthesiaof fuzzy reminiscences like so many neutrinos or an amniotic swim, spiraling into being,squandering itself at point of loss.Similarly, or in Space Warp:I've been reincarnated and never killed before, but that's the mock me in the mirror seehow he laughs, he doesn't deserve to live, I have the photographs to prove he's not me notme/ in the hemorrhage of the dawn, with the phlegm of clouds drifting, I'm squatting inthe corner - I'm the only one the only one left in this whole conflagration, a walkingsleeper/ I had a deathwish having destroyed the whole universe, or was it just myself,there was no one else and who were the others? replicas, walled in to sunshine I couldn'ttell with a headful of metal/ my windegg skull echoes with the eldritch cries of a newcreation

Simoom: The Dawning of Poetic RhythmYet, Cole does not allow us to sink within this to the point of delirium,thereby falling prey to lethargy, for he equally tackles the moods of thelikes of Cleopatra, Newton, Lawrence and Pound as well as, taking us intothe quixotic moods of the feline in the haunting and effective My CatMidnight:she's quizzical, has a milk-like curve that flows between the muscles of her back as shewalks in my sleep, cool winter moons for eyes, mousing eyes, drowsing eyes.../ Shecoaxes superstition into being, carving shadows by walking pastthe gravestones, brushing aside the hemlock and wolfsbane.../ Her black silken mask isa gypsy's vixen which can penetrate the thoughts and dream-read into the crepuscularcorners of my mind.And yet while versifying about the intricacies of her, as with all things, hedoes not forget to bring us back to the history of her and her kind, in oneof the final stanzas, he notes:Midnight is blood-warm with spider-lines in her coat, star glitter/ she has abarbed memory, demonic, shape-shifting/ she's been around too long foranyone to remember –Through this, she retains not only her individual self, but moreover, heranimalistic self, the spirit of the animae which permeates her sense ofbeing, and who she is in terms of her Felidae nature. My Cat Midnight isan ode to not only Cole’s cat but to the enigmatic which lies hidden withinus all.From the identification of the self with animals, he goes even further tothe correlations between ourselves and androids, such as in Android’sLove Song, to the symbiosis with the cosmos, supernovas, and particles oflight in his pithy Newton’ Bodkin in which he quips:

Simoom: The Dawning of Poetic Rhythma spectrum as he worked/ a bodkin sharp to the eye/ like an early optometrist/twisting here and there/ releasing lysergic colours. risking a dark universe/ shimmering,glimmering/ straining at particles of light.He states in Android’s Love Song,love is the slightest sign of lifeTo wit, even those wires which connect us all along the ethereal andtemporal lines of the internet, within the pulsing beat at the end ofkeyboards and the tips of fingers, are adjoined to a human heart.Therefore, in sum, even to the seemingly inert:love is re-emerging with the infiniteCole does not enumerate on the how, of how one finds their way back tothe endless eternalbut knows that the reminder, is in truth, all one needs. The connection isalready there.Simoom is a boundless work of timeless proportions, because it speaks tothe reader through a host of lenses, never digressing to speechifying inprolix tones, but more appropriately exercising the mind through the useof aphorisms, alliteration, and the subtle, tactile nuances of rhyme. Coles’use of meter is never sentimental in tenor, nor pedantic in form, yetthrough the beat which it forms, it reaches into the reader, as a handclutching the still beating heart of the reader, gently and then firmly, butalways sensate as to just how hard to grip, and when to slacken his hold.One can liken this alternatively to a harpist, who plucks the strings, withmeasure and form, not in a heated frenzy with a forced need to impress,but with tonality and an ear to the chord.Aria Ligi, Editor in Chief New Poetry

Simoom: The Dawning of Poetic RhythmA Cake Maker’s Story: A Fable of Futuristic ProportionsThe Lioness Pastry Cook is a unique tale as it is a story within a story, toldin rhyme which tackles the issues of Greed, Climate Change and society’sability to adapt or perish. La Franca handles this with a straightforwarddetermination, which uses a futuristic motif, of a family who now live off-planet in a world which has found balance. The tale of A Cake Maker’sStory is relayed thru the means of an allegorical play.The drama is in rhyme coupled with the percussion of a drum beat, whichis in itself harmonious with the iambic pentameter displayed, and in turn,symbolizes the nuances and rhythm of life. One cannot think of a perfectway to create an analogy for the undulations that at once permeate andaffect all of humanity. Yet, La Franca does not leave it there. He createsfor his heroine, Ledarose, a situation which could be comical, but in hercase, could ultimately be cause for tragedy. That at a young age, she wascursed so that she was unable to smell, and her husband was in turn blind.This sets up the not only a paradox, for how can predators hunt whocannot see or smell, but additionally, leaves open the door for ingenuity.For in order to survive, they must find a way, adapt or perish. The parallelsbetween our own current situation, and what is depicted in the tale areclear. The key is to find within ourselves, as Ledarose and her family do,alternative methods for the survival and with that to not only thrive but touse those resources for the benefit of others.La Franca does all of this, with a deftness that breathes into his storycommonalities for us all. Africa, which is finely portrayed here, is not onlythe birthplace of humanity but likewise is the mother of life. Therefore, itis fitting that it is her mightiest of creatures, the graceful and ferociouslion, who is at once, benevolent, kind and above all altruistic towards all ofthose who she sells her creations too. When at the end of her story sheasks the Lion-god for aid, it is not to benefit herself, but for her husband,and as a result for all of humanity. Her selfless request ultimately gratifiesall those around her in an act, which helps restore equilibrium, where ithad been lost.That this story gives one hope within our current clime, in which it seemsthat daily survival for so many is in peril. Though this story is allegoricaland its ideas fantastical, it must be argued that in order to overcomeobstacles such as these, they are in fact, now needed more than ever.Aria Ligi, Editor in Chief New Poetry

I came to London from Florence in my early twenties. For many years Iworked in the catering industry. At the same time, I was studied fine arts,music and the arts of movements as well as food science. After that I wenton to teach Tai chi to adults and drawing, painting, music and languages tochildren aged between 3-7-year-old. In the nineties I started to write,illustrate and self-publish on kindle a series of literary works.My first was: \"The Cat That Became a Footballer\" an allegoricalconstructive satire that looks at human society through the lens of modernfootball. The second was: \"The City of The Guardian Angels' apsychological modern tale with a touch of mysticism.The third was: \"A Cake Maker’s Story” is a work that simultaneously is arhymed novel and a musical operetta or long ballad.I write with my name and illustrate with the pen name of Pierrot, like theclown of the Italian Commedia dell' Arte. My main website iscontroversialcook.comthat has a separate accompanying blog titledcontroversialcook.wordpress.com. My other website is mneme9.com

A Dash of Flash from Ashlie AllenAshlie Allen is a fiction writer and poet from West Virginia. Besideswriting, she also practices photography. You can find examples of herwork at https://ashlieallenfictionwriterandpoet.wordpress.com/ NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 20

“Sun glasses”He always wears black sun glasses. His excuse is pathetic. “I look too sadwithout them.” One day, I tried to pull them off. He bit my hand andhissed. I wished I would have smacked him, but I pitied him too much.Today he is wearing the same pair he’s been wearing for 13 years. “Yourlook never changes.” I say. I ignore his presence and open a bottle ofMerlot. There is a sudden pressure against my shoulders, and with it, Iturn to see his naked face. “Oh my!” I gasp. “Do you understand me?” heasks as he lets me touch his empty eye sockets. “What happened?” I beg.“I was haunted by an ugly woman.” We share the bottle of wine to forgetthe depression between us. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 21

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin Lei

The Artwork of Kelvin LeiKelvin was born in China. He fell in love with painting and drawing when he wasjust a boy. He studied under accomplished Chinese artist Mr. Yang Zhi Guangwhen he was a young. Unfortunately, he never had the opportunity to attend artschool but Kelvin developed his skills through persistently drawing and paintingfrom the observation and studying all the great works of art by the old masters.Art was a huge part of his life.Kelvin moved to Hong Kong in the 80s. He started his career by teaming upwith galleries all over Hong Kong and overseas. He continued his journey whenhe moved to the US in the 90s. His works can be found in various galleries inCarmel and Palm Desert, California.Kelvin is a realist with impressionistic influences. He loves the beauty of natureand the human form. Kelvin has always been grateful for the Mr. Yang ZhiGuang's teachings. He believes everyone should have the opportunity to exploreand learn about art. He now devotes his free time in teaching students who wantto pursue art as a career. Many of his students have gone on to prestigious artschools around the country and become great creative forces in today'sentertainment and tech industry.

Poetry

Robert ColeRobert Cole was born in London in 1951 & has since lived in India &Mexico. He now lives between Paris & Brittany. His poetry is published inliterary magazines & journals in the UK & USA, including ‘Ambit’,‘Gargoyle’, ‘Van Gogh’s Ear’ (Paris), ‘The Bastille’, ‘New Statesmen ‘& the‘Observer’. His work is anthologized in Poetry Book Society, ‘Klaonica’(Bloodaxe), ‘Veins of Gold’ (University of Salzburg), ‘Interim ‘(NevadaUniversity), ‘March Hares’ the best of ‘Fine Madness’, ‘Beyond Bedlam’(Anvil), ‘Spoils’ Smiths/Doorstop, ‘as day begins...’ (Wivenhoe Books).Robert has a number of poetry collections including ‘Spool’ (OverstepsBooks), & ‘Inheritance’ (Mandeville Press). He read for Ambit atLauderdale House, French House, Soho. He’s read at the Poetry Society(Covent Garden), & recently again at Shakespeare & Company. He editedthe avant-garde magazine ‘Chimera’ for ten years.’

Dithyramb for John Keats: for SusieDamsels fit to deck their lover’s bowers was it proper to be askedquestions of poesy; Cowden Clarke, the son of the father discoursing onApollonian subjects, given time out of school, tales of Greek heroes, acanvas to expand upon Pugin, having neglected his studies and hisphysick, reading volumes one of ‘The Fairie Queen’, he would not standto be blood-let by leeches that Abraham-man, the pugilist shoulderingpoesy like a musketA Platonic cave this arbor-garden after all, back for a second trial, Shank’spony across Kilburn Fields, for a pharmacopeia of charms, no fuss orhypocrisy, Leigh Hunt imprisoned for flyting George the turd, agentleman, ready at the door of the inn, entertaining high opinion, themost lyrical runaway,Sweetly, entered the bower, a son of an ostler, on Angel Pavements,Icarus-winged, confounding the school-men, continuing education likeDonne and his night-school, misadventures on entrada, looking forEldorado from the heights of Darien, ‘On first looking into Chapman’sHomer’.A compassionate pilgrim with cockle-hat and scrip, open at the parlourdoor to an orchard.Would you Adam-and-Eve-it; his desideratum, the tomb of his brother’ssickbed, pain and misfortune, he pressed his baby-blue eyelids, broke freeof the apothecary, a sawbones.I'm my brother’s keeper, cry from the ground, in the Land of Nod, goneto America, George marching free of Mohawks and gutter-bloods,dimpled in the bow windows of booksellers his ‘Endymion’ Shapeshiftingand tripping off the tongue, forever young as the Son of Man, sharing apassion for Peace, and Percy Bysshe Hobbyhorsically nothing in his cloak-and-dagger bag but a Gothic novel, a copy of ‘The Giaour’ and a paper-crushed windflower, a demisemiquaver of intimacy falling for

A swirling skirt in the Vauxhall gardens too brief to avail himself. Truthand Phidian shades,Stygian coins for his eyes, a fragment of a drachma, an obol left by acourteous stranger, Charon. He had lost his brothers, and the memory ofhis mother, crippled, shriveled, his heart enlargedBesieged by pestilence, sentiment besides, they'd died, nothing to help, asystem of education, sunk Dkeep in the Bard, without leaves. The rose begets a cankered heart, ascarab-cafard, crepitates, disease publishing his fury at the corrupt state,the agapemonde colonies, utopia; the toadstool’s imperfections Neglectedfly-agaric, opium; it's only human nature, the greater dream, throughsuffering breeze.Summer nights listening to the singleness of melancholy, whatever makesmen merry binding together.The broken limbs, iambs stretched to Cockney from Sunday-school,Shadrach, Meshach &Abednego.A Daniel in the clutches of tubercular dim lights, adumbrations, sketchedthe candle-power of his Sacrifice. He crossed the Styx, his wealth, hishealth, out on the Heath above the Wen, an abstraction.Of Socrates denouncing his hemlock, a taintless pleasaunce climbing tothe top, his opiate intimacy Quoting Homer, Milton on his pilgrimage toAyrshire to the tomb of Burns, opening the door.On the Aurora Borealis, shapeshifting witches, Ovidian at his fingers endsUltima Thule, listening to the Aeolian harp of Coleridge at his meditationmade him inwardly bleed maps of the Golden Horde, secretly conductinghim to Pilate in reverse, Ecce Homo his ‘Christs entry Into Jerusalem’more Aeschylus, Greeks deride the marshal show since Darius’s Parthian-shot;

The Babel-towers of Illyricum, in Heliopolis, Inferno, hope flightless was adirty word, Pandora's box,Lazarus at gate beautiful, legion, a Minotaur, metempsychosis, Psyche’schrysalis triumphing over death’s kiss; unravelling the clue-thread of thelabyrinth, Hyacinthine hair broke out in skull-Shattering lamentation, war,while wool-gathering without portfolio, the sacrificed, sent into slavery,The enclosures, Trumpet at the Walls of Jericho. The fury of his passion,inflicted cocks, a crowing out of fashion, Dame Partlett’s wit thought themaster, treads down his father’s slipshod mettle,Your skirts of corn ripple and sing, inalienable rights, silk, and the warmsouth winking, a dispassionate inquiry into the riot by Castlereagh,champagne for the general, chameleonYoung head on old shoulders, soldiers, Silas Tompkin Cumberbatch,dragoon -Coleridge, Skint needs the King’s shilling, in the shining oil ofarmour Lord-love-us Byron too and the poor unfortunate, heir to anestate, pugilist for grub-steak, splendour of Greek fire. Spendthrift in herbest Dress, Fanny cross-stitched hemistich, Sapphics, heroics, candy-striped picture-hats, a fashion, Classical strophe, antistrophe, apogee,Aristotelian odes, Tinterelli’s abba abba, crambo; he gave her his Psyche,his Melancholy, unrequited riots, pills of paper, love letters, sonnets, thethin wall separation unreleased, a tubercular prison, Leigh Hunt of presentpleasure, junkets, not, forgotten in a tattered cloth, not Hessian, atremulous bright star, heretical to think otherwise.Blackwood’s’ nightmare kicks against the pricks, Lockhart who sacrificesthe greatest romantic. No, no hint of the syphilitic, words writ in water,arterial blood, echoing rings spread to the edge of Elysium, he's stridingover the desert to pluck an unseen flower, in a pasha’s seraglio cries ofindifference, witnessed, silenced by winning near the goal, the meadowswith manna of lover’s tears,Scattered thoughts gleaming, the stripped nerves and reason, raising hisvoice louder than the cannon’s. Bruit, choice words from the distress of

poverty near to Chatterton’s, the spreading folds of a Nightingale’s wings,sun-setting of its pinions; locks tumbling saliva, hyacinthine, laudanum inthe mosquito gloom of his death chamber, a voyage on a hithertounknown sea.The chthonic ocean volcanic outcrop, butterfly island paramour, catamite-odalisque of the Turk Quaffing Tokay never a Ganymede, cup-bearer toZeus, Leda the swan, breasting the near mythic Hellespont to thePropontis, Shelleyan Tyrrhenian aboard the Ariel; no, Trelawneymaundering Basilisk-eyed on the Etruscan shore, the Corsair, on theSpanish steps, no Socratic oration,On the Corso in a catafalque. He arrived by theSouthern brese, sacrificial via Scylla or Charybdis,In a Fata Morgana, gilded clouds hung lowOver his marmoreal house, where love found its immortality.

Susie ReynoldsSusie Reynolds is a poet, short storywriter and novelist. She’s had poemspublished in literary magazines such as Gargoyle US, The Medusa Anthology,The Leigh Times, Writers Monthly, The Southend on Sea best of twenty yearsAnthology and the best sci fi poem written by a woman that year in DataDump and others. Her short fiction is published in Ambit, Frogmore Papers,Sol, Trespass, Within these Walls and others. Poems and a story were chosento be performed at a Multi Arts Project at The Eastwood Theatre by EssexLiterature Development. Likewise, poems were chosen and performed byactors at The Quay Theatre in Sudbury. She has read for Ambit Magazine in London and Paris. She has alsoperformed at Le Chat Noir and Culture Rapide in Paris. She has written and published two novels, Dangerous Angel and 69.Her third novel is ready for publication and she is working on a fourth. Susie was a Drama Teacher and Prose Editor of Chimera Magazinefor ten years. She lives in Brittany and Paris.http://sbpra.com/susiereynolds/

BLACK PEARLBlack pearls in the oyster meshCaress the thought as an shell opens a crackin liquified silence, its sacrifice you’ll never knowYou’ll never know its mystiqueVery Edgar Allen PoeShe moans and sighsThe heart of the pearl in a crinoline gownWe harvest from the seaShe picks one out, like a torturerAnd dreams of her loverAs it slithers down her throatDirecting her taste buds“You never know what you’ll find in a mouldy old crustacean!Come on Come on, let’s dance in the flit-bat nightAlong the crystalline canalOr in the sea-green vaults of the mausoleumWhere bones are stacked delightfully high.”She stares into the satin eye NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 39

CITIESThe signs tell us allWe’ve come from outer spaceToo late to die too soon for re-birthWe are lost among the cracks of city pavementsCorpses jive to the reggae of the streetsGolden dope ferments the airFetid drunks sit on benches-How close we are to dining with corpsesUnder violet cityscapes pollution sinksAs does beauty over the yearsJaundiced eyes from casements, human eyesLife goes on with the night lightsThe setting sun;To haunt us and blind usWe are set to burnIgniting those crumbling buildingsWhere we try to live NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 40

LUCIFER HAS RISENIn the cold fevered night of wormsDelirious in your fleshI ransack your grave with moonstone fingersRummaging, rummaging as stars explodeCome to me now on this Black SabbathLucifer has already risen, cruising the nightIn his automobile of pink coral firing off on all cylindersAs the sun falls in our fetid bedWe join the screech owls crying to extinctionOr the fox grabbed by its withered neck and hauled outNo death cry but near suffocation until the pounce of houndsThen the tearing flesh-The blooded brush!The cemetery is no longer silentIt contains the pain of centuriesYour body, my bodyThe craving for extinction,In the arms of the witches, being passed aroundSuccoured as bombs fall on Muslim gravesThe baby too must also sleep, child of the nightThe magic prophesy, rolled in hag clothsYet we crave love entombed hereIn this near heaven but silence winsThe stones have encompassed our bodiesWind blows cold over heaving volcanic rocks NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 41

Lorino TrimarchiMr. Trimarchi lives in La Spezia. He is a teacher of Italian literature andHistory. He is a Had master in a High school-writer.Literary works, genres: fiction, poetry, children short story, essays.Subjects: lyric(poetry), love, thriller. The most important Trimarchi’sworks are: “L’Aureo scrigno” (The golden casket); “Inconsistenze”(Insubstantialities), love poems; “Voci dall’etere” (The aether voice),poems; “Traguardi” (Goals), social poems; “Prose e versi” (Literary prosesand verses); “Poetic@. (Poems by Internet). Many Italian critics had takenup lorino’s works: Giorgio Luti (Florence University); Giorgio B. Squarotti(Turin University); Neuro Bonifazi (Urbino University); SpartacoGambrini (Galles University - U.K.) and so on.

MilenaName like falling starsof blue squats,of broken waters, of violets,of fragrant kisses,of spring on canvasesof Hellenic Elysium. elisiName like fairy tales,of enchanted manners, of fairies,of shrill smiles from vanished kingdoms.Such is your name for me,dreamy name of dreamsin the darkness of my existence,of your existence. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 43

I Have Nostalgia for YouI'm nostalgic about you, your tears.I'm nostalgic about your caresses,of your smile that filtersfrom the penumbra of the soul.I have nostalgia of litigation,I have nostalgia of tender hugs.Dream the vibratory bed, your white swaying white thighs.I'm nostalgic about your love.People look at my gaze, she smiles gently.But he does not understand, he willnever understand. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 44

Now the Almond TreeNow almond blossoms in colourand the lion laughs in the clear mornings.From the dusty road the larch renewsthe mysterious cycle of nature.Now the shimmering sun is shining.The children are chirpingon the blue horizon of the evening.How is spring in you, love?What new thoughts?The new scarlet petals?My tree rich in buds, flowers,lush with lightnow winds up for far away,for yellow flames of joythat do not warm, love far away. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 45

ButterflyYou hit the light of the glassStrong strokes with wound wingprostrate, decided to live that outan autumn sun deluded.Butterfly with ferrous coloursyou did not know the frosty windwaving on the shaved lawnyou did not know ... maybe ...which lasts for life,it only lasts one season.But maybe you'll end up in the endlonely, on the one leafof the pinned branch from the frosty beaten wind. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 46

When I think of you gorgo: maelstrom?Storm of windy fronds,palpitations of lost life in the gorgoof childhood dreams.Earth far off mine, mine and Teocle Teocle: eroe greco, fondatore dellapolis di Naxos in Siciliafrom the black blocks of lava, blondesmell of roses in the sun in August.Transsexual Sea Pearls, \"cerulee: the meaning is like:of land and blood loves,of glittering blades of knivesluccicanti (to glitter!)sparkling under the moonin hateful fire.And the soul taking nothingand burning like lover kissesafter a lost life for nothing ...for nothing, deep well in the soulbottomless …BOTTOMLESS …That seems to megreen triangular cinnamon blue.NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 47

Linda Middleton Linda Middleton taught literature and writing at the University ofHawai`i, Mānoa English Department until her retirement in August 2017.She was born and raised in Honolulu, the grand-daughter of Portugueseimmigrants from Madeira. Her B.A. in English and Psychology and herPh.D. in English are from the UH and her M.A. from UC Berkeley. Shewas an Assistant Professor upon retirement, with twenty-six years offaculty service, and an award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.Her areas of scholarship are in 19th C. and modernist women’s writing,feminist theory, and trauma narratives. She has been writing poetry andprose since her undergraduate years at UH Mānoa.https://www.facebook.com/linda.middleton.908 https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda-middleton-1a201066/

DaguerotypeAncestress anonymous poses in a sepia parlor for a patient lens.The slow exposure yields two images:A woman, and the sheath of time’s shadow.I meet her eyes, numb, stunned by the simulacra of life-tracing light. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 49

First LoveAdam and Eve shared a birth-ribSperm as pure as pearl, as a moon-full pool becoming boneBranching toward blood immaculate,Making a man, so god said.Eve, once unchaste, became a ghost that never answered Adam’s whisper,From branches where she hid with sin, though, never leaving,Missed their nocturnes, she, sole, always mourned his song. NEW POETRY 2018 ISSUE 50