Jorn Peter Budesheim, Paul Brookes, Genevieve Chorneki, Selene Ceridwen Lee, Robert McCarthy

FLOCK OF
Paul Brookes
penned sheep who wolf whistle
out of saltmarsh gloom and murk
crop waterside pastures
with short blue-grey bills.
Ewes and lambs autumn brown,
orange, ice white, tups
are soft grey with chestnut heads
and creamy yellow foreheads.
These sheep have wings,
shepherd broods across clear,
glassy surfaces feed on eelgrass
beds, mow fresh waterside.
One of the Seven Whistlers, perhaps,
souls of unchristened babies,
messengers of misfortune,
when the six find the seventh,
the end of the world.
THE ORKNEY HOOD
Genevieve Chornenki
Raindrops and dew overfill a lochan
in the heather-silent bog,
a gloaming space,
a beckoning place
where a dun-coloured hood enters an opening out of time
—a child’s cowl let fall by grieving hands.
Moon upon moon upon moon,
low clouds swaddle it,
moss and sedge shield it
from the curlew’s spirit-wailing
and the charms of the night-scented orchid.
Moon upon moo
till men flaying a bank in fog-filled air
cleave its sepulchre—
—light and heat and incense of heather pour out!
wilder than a tempest, sharper than a dagger.
A hell-spirit not, but the cowl,
glowing, gilded, glorious
Hand-shadows, too,
sleek with lanolin.
Fingers pluck fleece from moorit ewes
pull out bracken bits
drop spindle whorls
ply yarn
thread looms, throw shuttles
weave two-by-two twill for the hood’s pixie-pointed peak,
chevron bands for the shoulders, neck.
And the fringe—oh, the fringe!
pea tendrils long as a lamb shank:
fourteen-hundred fine woolen threads
twenty-one thousand twists
three-hundred-and-fifty catkins that once circled a chieftan’s waist,
reworked for the curls of a peedie red-head.
Previously published in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces
ARCADIAN
Selene Cerridwen Lee
Inward where the moors grow mirthless,
avoiding tongue with teeth of creeping bent.
My marrow merry to rust and turn over to celtic tuft unwound
as crows pluck at pine bones and
soil croons more so sinew.
In becoming stained, further sodden with space,
prevails sorrow for the slumbering holt
that forgets to spill over this way, the man bewildered
by the howl of boundless green
as if it is not itself filled with the urgency,
the cantata
of life.
SUNLIT UPLANDS
Rob McCarthy
Roses twine the after-action crossbeams,
vacant of hemp just now. Gibbet lends
its trellis of cage to climbing convolvulus,
their trumpet-blossoms for now suitably muted.
Fire to the littered field tenders
greetings; licks the steel-storm
gleanings as a dog might a hand.
Meanwhile, uplands blaze with Spring’s
green ignition; the jocose sound
of shepherd’s pipes. A lamb concocts
a gavotte from a his own frisky gambols;
and somewhere a sow devours its farrow.
Jörn Peter Budesheim was born in Marburg in 1960, studied art in Kassel until 1986, where he has lived ever since. He received the Kassel Cultural Award, was on the board of the documenta forum (2016–2022), and is a member of the Kunstbalkon gallery. From 2019 to 2023, he was involved in the Hugenottenhaus, an art venue in Kassel, and has been a member of the artist collective Naturkunde since 2021. Numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad since 1978. Jörn Budesheim is a draughtsman; what counts is beauty and poetry. His subject is man in his reality. https://www.instagram.com/j.p.budesheim https://www.facebook.com/joern.budesheim www.budesheim.art
Paul Brookes is a shop assistant. His chapbooks include Wolf Eye, (Red Ceilings Press, 2023), Wolf Eye Territory,(ImpSpired, 2024), and Ever Striding Edge, (Dark Winter Press, 2024). Forthcoming The Dude Work, (Sherwood Press). He edits The Wombwell Rainbow Interviews and Challenges and a new substack webzine, The Starbeck Orion. thewombwellrainbow.wordpress.com substack.com/The Starbeck Orion | Substack
Genevieve Chornenki is a poet, writer, editor, and literacy coach with a background in dispute resolution. Her poems have been accepted for publication by the League of Canadian Poets, Friends Quarterly, Prairie Fire, and other print and online publications in Canada, the UK, and Australia. Genevieve belongs to the Writers’ Union of Canada and the Canadian Authors Association and is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets. She lives in Toronto, Canada
Selene Ceridwen Lee is a young Welsh writer with a reverence for free verse and prose poetry that unwinds the equivocal nature of self and sanctity in earth's coils. Instagram @darlinglune
Robert McCarthy is a writer living in New York City. His work has been published in The Argyle Poetry Journal, Orbis, New Ulster Review, the Alchemy Spoon, and others.