Guest Writer

Poems by Robert Beveridge (Day Two)

Eulogy

She ate chicken hearts

still beating, lambs’ brains.

Said it made her healthy.

She got

what she came for,

her brother said

before the trial.

Robert Beveridge

I Have an Embarrassing Story

You’ve beamed over to the wreck

and you scope out

anything that looks

like it might get you a few bucks

for it if you haul it back.

We may not have found much

but we lit a fire in the remnants

of a greenhouse, swapped stories

of more lucrative runs. One of the new

guys talked about hunting cats

in the ruins of a religious apocalypse.

A second talked about the gleam

of firelight off the armor

of a machine pistol in the hands

of an android, the words

that let him live while we traded

thermoses of liquor from worlds

none of the others had ever seen.

Robert Beveridge

Poems by Robert Beveridge (Day One)

(Today we begin three days of poetry by Robert Beveridge, with two fine efforts. We hope the readers enjoy them as much as we do–The Eds.)

Client

He considered somnambulance

as a way to attract attention

but his priest counselled

against its dangers

in a mountainous region.

Instead, he projects himself,

possesses the bodies

of orange marmosets.

Robert Beveridge

Dow Saah (“Sweet Bean Paste”)

Steam rises as the buns

firm up. Lamplight

flickers over the pages

of the old cookbook,

the next page perhaps

a recipe for fish, tofu,

breast of longpig.

The scratches at the door

intensify. The buns

are almost ready. Blow

out the lamp.

Robert Beveridge

(header provided by DWB)

Nardo by Geraint Jonathan

Nardo

I got the flasks of trebbiano

followed by the 8 shirts

thank you

Nardo

since receipt of the trebbiano

& the shirts

I have nothing else to tell you

Nardo

I have received the trebbiano

44 flasks in all

6 of which I gave to the Pope

I thank you

Nardo

I got the cheeses & the crate of pears

& the trebbiano

I thank you

Nardo

but since receipt of the cheeses

& the crate of pears

as well as the trebbiano

I’ve little else to tell you

but I thank you

& please no more

Nardo

I received the silks the wax cloth

& the trebbiano also

& the pears & cheeses

& I thank you

but Nardo

if I am alive next year

no more I beg you

yours

Michelangelo

Geraint Jonathan

(After Michelangelo’s many letters to his nephew Lionardo Buonarroti)

My Aunt Wears Holiness like a Second Skin by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Note–Today we conclude our five day look at Jonathan Chibuike Ukah. He is nothing short of brilliant, and we hope to see more. And even though our readership is small, it grows, and in it we are sure that God, or whatever such high person, must know of this fine poet, for deities remember whom they gift–LA)

Do not remind her that Heaven and Hell are real;

she will scream that she knows, she knows,

her face will become light; her eyes will twinkle;

She will raise a cry like a strangled cat, a caged bird.

How dare you tell her about salvation and redemption

when her yellow dress proclaims that Jesus is Lord,

and her handbag has a black and white poster,

shouting, Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come?

In the evening, she goes to the morning mass,

and in the morning she attends the evening service,

while her unrepentant husband and five children,

awaited her five loaves of bread and two fish,

which she promised that Jesus would bring to them

as part of the miracle He did to feed the five thousand.

Her husband rebuked her for starving her children;

but she snapped that man shall not live by bread alone,

though she stopped by Mama Ngozi’s Akara stall,

and chucked three balls of bean cakes into her rainy mouth.

The day her husband flipped out to lash out at her,

she remembered the silver rosary around her neck,

which she dangled at him, like a small golden gun,

screaming, touch me, and I will turn you into a stone.

Her daughter told her that Christ turned water to wine,

not the stone she threatened to turn their father into,

my aunt rocked like an empty drum, rolling to the floor,

My father handled you with gloved fists and smiles,

but I will give you ten thousand scorpions and vipers.

Each time, her face glowed like milk against the sky,

or an ancient wall whose brown coating peeled off,

The unmasking of a god’s charred face by a child’s hands.

At night, when she carried her husband in her holy hands,

her children ran out to the sitting room, unable to sleep,

and the only noise plundering the neighbourhood,

was their mother’s Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Image by Christopher J Ananias)

Man with an Umbrella by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

The man held an umbrella over his head,

like he held darkness from crashing into light.

A sartorial suit sold in Soho,

an Obama shirt, a Trump rain jacket,

Che Guevara’s moustache,

Fidel Castro’s pipe, Abacha’s sunglasses,

Kim Jong-un’s shoes and Clinton’s smile.

The man walked like Armstrong on Mars,

as though all of the ground was wool.

How the clouds had descended on earth,

made the floor of every garden fluffy,

chastened the rough places,

patched up the crooked landscape,

that he who was the next thing to an angel,

would go with no broken bones,

or blistered toes, or bloody eyes.

His blessed hands had pulled down the lift;

his tender, socked feet matched on a white terrace,

smeared it with the blood of the nine-year-old.

He married her with full rites and rights.

But it was his hands that touched off this inferno,

by which he fondled two breasts in passing,

though his innocence glowed from his collar,

shouting, it’s better to die of passion than of boredom.

He was a devout believer;

prayed seven times a day,

even as he walked on the tapestry of the sky,

the red carpet which Heaven laid out,

for those who would ascend at the rapture.

Watch the umbrella! Watch the umbrella!

with a nipple like a virgin’s.

Who would blame him for touching it?

It’s like caressing the pages of his holy book.

And as he went home that rainy day,

the night was too virile a consolation,

from a day woven with the linen of fear,

when he would tear off these garments,

lay beside the limp body of his wife,

and closed his blessed eyes and mouth.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Image is of a statue near Ivy Green Cemetery, Charleston, WA)

My Father’s Voice by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

As I voice out these words,

I remember that my father had three voices,

the voice he used for my mother,

the voice he used in speaking to us,

and the voice he used for his kinsmen.

He had no voice for himself and his god,

though he said that he would have time,

to speak to himself and to his god when he died.

I can imagine my father mumbling to his god,

when he’s on his way to his ancestors,

blaming him for the way he was cast upon the sand.

What else would he be doing with his fellow dead,

if not, making them get used to his new voice?

The grave would echo his loud, lone voice,

when he blasted his dreams and tantrums

through the waves and storms of the grave.

He said that he would return once or twice,

but there would be no thrice.

I wondered if he dismissed his full resurrection

that deals with three comings to bear fruit,

or whether he would start creating sequences

which no one had ever seen or heard before.

The voice my mother heard from my father,

was the cradling of a flower during a flame,

something that began with tongues of yellow fire,

and it was the hammer, death nails on wood,

or the voice that fell the oak that dried in summer;

the same voice commanded wealth with a guitar,

singing to his ancestors the pain of his lingering,

when, with one deadly blow, time lashes out at him.

How often I tried to speak to my mother like my father,

with the voice of a man tormenting spirits asleep,

but she stirred as a queen roused to fury,

and ordered me to await my time to grow,

when time itself runs out of things to say

to a man whose moment of victory has come.

Sometimes, my mother forgets that we were there,

while she waited to hear my father’s voice,

calling her from behind the bedroom curtain,

to hurry up, as the night is far and deeply spent.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Image is of an allegedly genuine totem pole found in front of a great bakery in Manette, WA)

A Man in Love by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

God! All the girls say I’m Jerusalem,

surrounded by gigantic mountains;

some say I’m nature’s poor patchwork

and I’m not beginning to show leakage.

There’s no trembling in the sky,

there’s no falling of the clouds;

my defences are rigid and stone solid

and I have not ceased to be a lightless night,

or a field of flowers littered with corpses.

I embrace the night like it is day,

though I see what jewels lie on the ground,

sparkling, illuminating dark objects between.

Like my head sticks within the clouds,

and I have no way of turning right and left,

but stranded between the earth and the stars,

I hang my neck where the noose is strong.

I’m now in a house with a thousand doors,

Yet, I lock each room in my blood.

But you picked up this secret flame

burning like a distant scent of rushing water;

led by a spirit you cannot comprehend,

you arrive with hesitation at my door, knocking.

Now, I stand before you naked,

a man in love, in epileptic surrender,

a man who cannot speak or hear;

a man who was not blind from birth;

but wander without eyes except your light.

I am challenged and paralysed,

I am physically disabled and displaced

dead to everything around me.

Like a bone lying carelessly on a garden floor,

I pant for water, air and nutrients,

not knowing how to return to my former life,

but knowing only the outlines of your heart

that feeds me like water, air and nutrients,

and not cast me away like a rejected prodigal,

but wash me in popsicles, wrap me in joy.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Image is of a “orgone pyramid” on top of one of Leila’s many book cases)

The Stone of My Fathers by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(We are pleased to welcome the readers to five full days of Jonathan Chibuike Ukah–The Eds.)

When I grew old and bold enough to understand

the difference between the laughter of the forests

and the grinning of the flowers of our garden,

my father showed me the stone of his forefathers.

His great-grandfather hewed it from an ancient rock

which built the stalagmite walls of the Woku River,

where the young women of my village fetched water

when drought possessed the land like the night;

or famine ate the fields like a band of locusts.

My father told me that the sea that overflowed

in the Harmattan during the anger of the moon,

or the River Niger that surged beyond its banks,

had swept over the rock a thousand times a day

and rendered it wrinkled, rough and cracked.

My grandmother planted flowers around it,

and dug up the ruin in its base with tenderness,

that though the wind ceased near our compound,

the stone had enough air to breathe and live.

On the surface of the stone lay names of my forefathers

whose wives and mothers tended to the stone

and preserved its hardness and longevity till now,

that time would not erode its beauty and strength,

standing as a bond between the past and the present.

He told me how crazy the rain had become of late,

that swept over the stone with wild gales and storms,

yet did not wash away the names of my ancestors,

that stood out in the garden like light on a hill.

It became a scene of dusk and darkness in the sun,

weathered by time, fractured by a cruel touch,

the stone lay on the ground like an old carcass.

I asked my father about my mother’s name,

which the stone did not display to the town.

“Your mother did not clean the stone till her death,

and now it stooped not to bloom again at her time.”

My eldest sister said mother killed the old stone

after father sprinkled the blood of a goat on it,

as an annual sacrifice to the gods of the land,

that we might have life and have it abundantly.

Even stones wilt, whittle, decay and die away

if care, love and affection pass them by.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Image of a winged friend perched on a stone in the Manette district of Bremerton, WA, USA-Leila)

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah is a Pushcart-nominated poet from the United Kingdom.His poems have been featured in Propel Magazine, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Atticus Review, Tab: The Magazine of Poetry and Poetics, The Silk Literary Magazine Sublimation and elsewhere. Jonathan won the Poet of the Month Award for December-January 2025 of the Literary Shark Magazine 2025, and was the third winner of the Poetry Contest of The Hemlock Magazine in 2025, the Editor’s Choice of Panoply Zine in 2024, and the Second Poetry Prize Winner of Streetlight Literary Magazine in 2024. He was shortlisted for the Minds Shine Bright Poetry Prize in 2024.

Flying Socks by Paul Kimm

The flight back home left mid-morning from the major city airport they always chose, in order for it to be direct, as Paul preferred to not have any changes, but because of recent political sanctions from many countries, and the need to avoid flying over a large amount of land mass, the flight time had increased from the normal eleven hours, to a total of fourteen, and so, whilst it was still direct, neither of them relished that much time in the air, Paul because of his fear of flying, and his wife because of that too, knowing that every bump, any minor shake, dip, or little wobble, would have him clenching his wrists, gripping the armrests and unable to speak or open his eyes for at least fifteen minutes after even the gentlest of turbulence had passed.

For her part, Zoe loved flying, the opportunity to sit in a comfy enough chair for a period of time, no guilt to feel about not being more active, no gym to go to, no yoga classes on board obviously, and so relaxing in front of a screen packed with dozens of movies, TV series, a few daft on-board games, and the delivery of three meals, and the free-flow wine to the seat was a perfect way to spend fourteen hours, as long as her husband managed to contain his nerves, these nerves impervious to the number of times he’d flown before, or the statistical knowledge he had about flight safety, the multitude of empirical data, all meaning nothing as soon as the first bit of mild mid-air shaking came.

The flight was at 9am and because of the time difference with the UK would arrive in London at 5pm at Heathrow, which was 11pm in the time zone they were in, so they would be able to get to the hotel and sleep off the flight as soon as they got there, ready to move on to their friends the next day, who they hadn’t seen since their previous diplomatic posting on the other side of the world, where they’d worked together for five years, and loved it, until almost two years ago when they came to the posting they were in now in a much colder part of the world, and so meeting up with Sandy and Malcolm would be a great reminder of life in warmer climes, and they knew they’d have a wonderful, albeit different from how it used to be, first weekend back home, catching up with their old pals.

As usual check in and security was efficient and within half an hour of arriving at the airport they were through and at the departure gate areas with their carry-on bags in tow and closer to three hours than two remaining before take-off, so they decided to find a place for breakfast, and if time after to browse the shops and perhaps get an additional gift for Sandy and Mal, some single malt for him, perhaps a Japanese brand, that obviously couldn’t be opened that weekend, and a fancy style accessory for Sandy, ideally something purple, this being her favourite colour, but first a bite to eat, and then a quick walkaround the airport retail offerings.

They went to the usual place they ate, the breakfast options being the best, much as the lunch and dinner options were when they took flights at other times of day, and after a couple of minutes looking through the menu Zoe ordered avocado toast, making sure there was no butter and that they removed the poached egg, and Paul, allowing the airport meal to be a treat before the long flight, broke their recently agreed commitment to veganism and ordered an omelette, asking for them to just keep the vegetables in, not include the listed cheese, as some form of concession to their plant-based eating resolution, allowing one ingredient to break the rule rather than two, mumbling something about a couple of eggs not really being a health issue anyway, and murmuring the words ‘free range’.

As they waited for their staple freshly squeezed orange juices to arrive, they didn’t speak, but looked out into the airport, watching people walk towards their gates, some rushing, overtaking other passengers, with their wheeled small cases whizzing behind them, whilst others, also clearly with ample time, meandered around, stopped to look at the same menu where Paul and Zoe were dining, but made faces about the prices, and moved on, perhaps in search of an over-priced, but still much cheaper fast food alternative elsewhere in the airport, which made Paul smirk slightly when these never really potential customers scurried off.

‘Come on, Paul. It is expensive here to be fair.’

‘Not for us it’s not.’

‘That’s a little mean though. When we first met the best we could have done is share a box of fries from one of those places, and then get on our budget airline. And, we’re not quite as well off nowadays anyway.’

‘I know, I know. Sorry, you’re right, of course. The good old days when we’d have some fries and a beer to share.’

‘Yes, I suppose so, or perhaps it was the bad old days! I think we agree a fresh juice is preferable.’

‘Of course. Anyway, did you pack my flying socks?’

‘No, you know where you keep them. Are they in your carry-on or check-in bags?’

‘Wait, I thought you mentioned you packed them.’

‘I didn’t mention them once. I packed my stuff, then we did the usual run through what we might have forgotten. You didn’t mention your flying socks once. I assumed you’d packed them.’

‘No, I didn’t! Good grief, this is nightmare. You know I can’t fly without them.’

‘Paul, check your carry-on then. For crying out loud, it’s a bloody pair of old socks.’

Despite the thirty years of regular flying, the hundreds of flights he’d taken, Paul had never got used to it, never managed to allow all the knowledge he had accumulated about flight safety enter his mind enough to calm his nerves, and even meeting pilots, and other aviation experts, who’d emphatically promoted the extreme unlikelihood of serious accidents, the data such as a aircraft using 85% of its mechanisms on take-off, no extra ones during cruising, and 15% on landing, meaning any technical issues would likely occur in the first ten minutes of flight, just meant nothing to Paul, as did the reams of statistics ensuring the absence of crashes, and the fact that they chose the most reputable airlines with the highest safety records, often at extra cost, all meant nothing as soon as there was a the merest of mid-air movement during a flight.

Instead Paul, ironically, given his diplomatic role was in the science field, though not as senior as it had been in previous postings, had turned to superstition to assuage his nerves, his flying socks, which he’d owned for close to two decades, being the necessary accoutrement for all his flights, those pair of socks, navy blue, with a white airplane motif repeated all over them, long since riddled with holes, making them unwearable, continued to be a travel essential for him, no longer putting them on due to their age and disrepair, but rolled into a tight ball they’d been in, unused on his feet, not requiring a wash for over twelve years, but a vital, needed, indispensable item of packed luggage, as somehow their presence on all his flights, in Paul’s psyche, protected him from any actual danger.

Their breakfasts arrived, but rather than tuck into his omelette he told Zoe to eat her toast, whilst he rifled through the contents of his carry-on, fully opened out on the banquette seating, removing each item, his spare underwear, laptop, removed from its slipcase, the couple of books he took on board, always unlikely to read due his need to close his eyes during any inclement weather, a couple of t-shirts, spare trousers, one smart pair of shoes, and a few small toiletry items, and two pairs of fresh socks, new, hole-less, clean, and not with planes on them, and therefore not his flying socks.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

‘Paul, I get it, but you know the socks don’t make a difference, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I know that, but you also know how I am. I don’t know what do.’

‘Look, eat your breakfast first, before it goes completely cold, and perhaps we can look around the shops. Who knows? Maybe somewhere sells socks with planes on. Would a new pair do the trick?’

‘There’s no harm in looking I suppose. I don’t know for sure they’re not in my check-in luggage anyway, but I’d feel much better knowing there were at least some socks with planes on in our bags for sure, if possible.’

‘Okay, eat your omelette and let’s go and see what we can find.’

Ordinarily Paul was the first to finish eating any meals they had, Zoe being a much more delicate eater, carefully slicing her food, enjoying each morsel, whilst Paul wolfed his food, generally using his fork to break up his meals, only using a knife when the fork couldn’t manage it, and each subsequent bite entering his mouth whilst his previous bite was yet unswallowed, meaning he consumed most meals in a third of the time Zoe did, but this morning he barely touched his omelette, his worry overtaking his appetite Zoe could tell, even though he attempted to brush off his unwillingness to finish it as some nonsense about feeling bad he wasn’t sticking to their new dietary regime, turning her usual mild disgust at his eating to restrained impatience at his mendacity and reluctance to eat.

‘Are you going to finish your omelette?’

‘No, you’re right. I shouldn’t really be eating eggs.’

‘It’s an airport treat, right? Are you not hungry?’

‘You know, look, I’m just, well it’s my nerves to be honest. I feel a little sick.’

‘Okay, let’s go and browse the shops to try and find you some replacement socks?’

They went through a few of the stores, the first three, with their small selection of socks, selling, at best, some diamond patterned, striped, or dotted socks, but nothing with any kind of images on, and certainly not approaching anything related to flying whatsoever, but then they came across a new shop, selling only socks, a purely sock shop, with shelves, and revolving stands full of themed socks, which they decided to divide between them, being sure there must be something that would appease Paul’s fear, and could be taken on board with him.

Each rack and shelf was themed for the most part, from selected animals, foods, Paul being unamused when Zoe asked if he wanted the pair with fried eggs on, her hope at humour calming him wasted, then through to musical instruments ranging from guitars, to drums, to what looked like saxophones, then types of weather, an assortment of random household items including television socks, dartboard socks, and even coffee maker socks, which brought them to the section on transportation themed socks, which as they looked through the different shaped and coloured car;, yellow Volkswagen beetles, red Ferraris, green Minis, and also motorbikes, bicycles, ships, even helicopters, but seemingly none with planes, at which point Zoe went to ask at the counter.

‘Excuse me, do you have any socks with planes on?’

‘Ah, no, we’ve none left, I think. We do usually have a couple of designs, but out of stock at the moment. Sorry. We do have the ones with helicopters on.’

‘Paul, they’re out of stock, but there are the helicopter ones.’

‘Sorry, no. It has to be planes.’

‘Yes, sorry about that, he has a, well, he likes to have what he calls ‘flying socks’ with him on his flights.’

‘Zoe, there’s no need to bloody explain!’

‘We do have lots with different types of birds on if that helps, sir.’

‘No, socks with fucking birds on won’t fucking help!’

‘Paul!’

Paul stormed out of the shop, Zoe following him after apologising to the shop assistant, but he left at a pace she couldn’t match, and couldn’t see him, deciding perhaps he’d gone to other shops, searching for more possible sock replacements, thinking she could try to persuade him a t-shirt, a tie, any item with a plane embellished on it would do, even a small plane model, ubiquitous in airport shops, would be suitable enough, and so she trawled from one shop to the next, yet Paul wasn’t in any of them, and their time for boarding was approaching, he was nowhere in sight, so in the last shop she looked in she purchased the smallest sized toy plane they had, a small keyring with a biplane flown by a vintage aviator styled dog, and a chocolate bar with a Boeing jumbo jet emblazoned on its wrapper, then left, to head to the gate, hoping to see him there at least.

As she bolted towards their gate she glanced in each shop, café, and restaurant, quickly sweeping her eyes through the customers to see if Paul was amongst them, but no sign of him until she glanced into the airport’s only pub, an Irish bar named Mulligans they’d never stepped foot into, and saw his back, sitting at a bar, something he hadn’t done for over two years, and as she reached him putting her hand on his left shoulder, the barman placed a large whiskey in front of Paul, next to an already empty glass with barely melted ice inside it, and Paul beeped his card on the contactless pad without even acknowledging his wife’s presence, and before Zoe could speak, he’d taken his first sip, of his second drink, and let out an overly loud, satisfying gasp.

‘Paul!’

‘What? Exactly what?’

‘You can’t be serious. What are you doing?’

‘What does it look like I’m doing, Zoe? I’m having a fucking drink.’

‘Paul, please, the flight will be okay, please put the drink down. Come on.’

‘The flight. I’m not getting on the flight without my socks. You go. I’m fine.’

‘I’ve got some possible alternatives, please have a look.’

‘There are no alternatives! I don’t want to see any fucking alternatives. This drink is the alternative, alright?’

‘Paul, honestly, you can’t do this, you know you can’t. You’ve been doing so well. Please.’

Paul put down his drink, turned on his stool to look directly into Zoe’s eyes, and that fierceness she’d seen in his eyes many times before, but not in the last couple of dormant years, made her want to step back, but he took her hand that wasn’t holding the plastic bag, and gripped her wrist, not speaking, not blinking, his face showing he was preparing what to say, but she knew whatever he said would be definitive, unnegotiable, inflexible, he would be staying in the bar, not flying, and rather than waiting to hear one of his old diatribes, his rambling tirades, the kind of nonsense speeches that ultimately got them where they were now. Instead, she directed her thoughts to being on the plane, the comfort of the premium economy seat, the choice of wines she might have herself, the selection of films she might get though, what the booked vegan meals might be like, how his absence and the empty seat next to her would be an additional luxury, and when his mumbling had finished, and he released her, she said goodbye, and went to the gate, smiling at the memory from a few hours ago of popping a pair of old socks, with planes on them, in the bin.

Paul Kimm

(Image is of Mr. Kimm)

That Girl, Sadie by Bill Tope

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“Well, what do you want me to do with her?” asked Mike, growing exasperated with his friend and housemate.

“Just take her off my hands for the evening,” implored Ed earnestly.

“I don’t know,” replied Mike, staring uncertainly into the living room, where teenage Sadie was lingering near the table containing all the bottles of alcohol for the Christmas party later that night. She was clad in faded jeans and a blood-red sweater.

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