https://www.spiritlakereview.com/2024-issue
Posts
A Gorey Moment I sometimes have a Gorey moment wondering what could have been if the hanging chads hadn’t hung, or if Gore had hung up his gentleman’s suit and cried “Fraud” as loudly as Trump was to do. No hate to fuel 9/11, no war in Iraq, perhaps the end of history would be nigh as Fukuyama predicated, existing divisions becoming historic and no new ones created. With more Gore less blood would be spilled. There would be no Bushfires burning the sun would be shining but without its intensity, the storms would be still and the world would be stable. It was hanging by a thread and we missed it missed the chance to grasp those chads hanging. https://edgeofhumanity.com/2024/04/28/a-gorey-moment/
A Review of Obinna Chilekezi’s A Passion Of Tide by Lynn White These are splendid love poems written with a distinctive voice. The love of Obinna Chilekezi for his Soxna, for his home, for his life spill out in his words. He writes of his love at a distance, seeing her smiles in “this rainbowed light”. Such beautiful words streaking across space in the opening poem and floating through dreams as he continues in his longing. And later in “without your smile” he deals with the pain and loss of an angry parting and this sense is present in many of the later work here. “Let’s allow love to shine” is more philosophical engaging with love and hate in wider society recognising that “For hatred hooked, we hook others too/To hate othersmore”. Such evocative phrasing recognising the power of hatred and the need to love others “ Even if their mouth smells ” to bring hope and laughter back to us. Many poems express love of his home, the animals and flowers, rivers and sunshine -even the occa...
Again Never again the holocaust of Jews, of Slavs, of dissenters, of the mixed or mismatched ethnicity. Gassed starved beaten enslaved dying. Never again the swarms of refugees left behind fleeing dying pleading to be let in anywhere dying unwanted. Never again. That’s what they said then. But then in Gaza it happened again. And now in Gaza it’s happening again. Again and again and again. https://newversenews.com/
Consumption Curse I can hardly remember my early life when I wiggled and wriggled embryo-like blindly consuming all before me. I know I sensed the warnings not to bite off more than I could chew, but consumer of cliches that I was, I carried on regardless making a meal of everything I could swallow, even the words. I could feel that change was coming and eventually it happened! I made it happen! My curse became a blessing and I broke out of my hard carapace, split open the shell that had become my prison, did my best to leave it behind to have a look at the world outside and continue my cruise of consumption. Nothing was sacred I ate it all and grew fat. too fat. So fat I felt ready to explode. And then it happened! It was like a nuclear explosion inside me all the dust and debris of decadence solidifying into something unspeakable, mushrooming into something unintelligible to be spewed out of my big, accursed mouth. I don’t know what wil...
Last Rites I’d always loved flowers and you helped me fill my garden, brought a plant each time we met. It was our little ritual a recurring theme, flowers for my garden to bring me joy. I would like to lie in that garden in the mist of the soft sweet smelling mist of them for ever. But we all have our time, our time to live, and our time to die and only your flowers will bloom eternally each in its season, in their own little ritual living on beyond me. I want no funeral rituals. When I’m dead I won’t see them on my grave, won’t know that you’ve brought them for me won’t know if you haven’t. The flowers you carry in that season should be for you, you that I left behind. Don’t let them die for me. Nobody wants dead flowers, least of all, dead people. https://pinklilyliterature.wixsite.com/home
Circles of Light I’d walked down the street many times and not noticed them in both day and night time. I’d driven down many times and not noticed them in both day and night time Such innocuous road markings seen so often they become unseen. But tonight I saw the street from above and saw how the trees lights lit up the markings in orange and blue circles moonstruck like an art installation painting circles of light and making the ordinary into extraordinary. https://pinklilyliterature.wixsite.com/home
