Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2021 Mini Edition by Live Encounters

2010 - 2020

P O E T R Y & W R I T I N G Free Online Magazine From Village Earth September 2021

Seven Poets Mini Edition

Cover Artwork by Emma Barone 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net

LIVE ENCOUNTERS MAGAZINE

©Mark Ulyseas

Young participant at the Pi Mai (Lao New Year) parade, Luang Prabang 2017, Laos PDR, photograph by Mark Ulyseas. © liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary

P O E T R Y & W R I T I N G

September 2021

Support Live Encounters.

Donate Now and Keep the Magazine Live in 2021 Live Encounters is a not-for-profit free online magazine that was founded in 2009 in Bali, Indonesia. It showcases some of the best writing from around the world. Poets, writers, academics, civil & human/animal rights activists, academics, environmentalists, social workers, photographers and more have contributed their time and knowledge for the benefit of the readers of: Live Encounters Magazine (2010), Live Encounters Poetry & Writing (2016), Live Encounters Young Poets & Writers (2019) and now, Live Encounters Books (August 2020). We are appealing for donations to pay for the administrative and technical aspects of the publication. Please help by donating any amount for this just cause as events are threatening the very future of Live Encounters. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om

Mark Ulyseas Publisher/Editor markulyseas@liveencounters.net

All articles and photographs are the copyright of www.liveencounters.net and its contributors. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the explicit written permission of www.liveencounters.net. Offenders will be criminally prosecuted to the full extent of the law prevailing in their home country and/or elsewhere. 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net

Contributors

P O E T R Y & W R I T I N G

September 2021

Kate Ennals Edward Caruso Richard W Halperin Mary Ellen Fean Peter O’Neill Jose Varghese Karen Mooney

2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net

PATHWAYS TO PEACE

Kate Ennals © liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary

KATE ENNALS Kate Ennals is a poet and writer who has published poems and short stories in a range of literary and on-line journals (Crannog, Skylight 47, Honest Ulsterman, The Moth, Anomaly, The International Lakeview Journal, Boyne Berries, North West Words, The Blue Nib, Dodging the Rain, The Ogham Stone, plus). Her first collection, At The Edge was published in 2015. Her second collection, Threads, was published in April 2018. Kate runs At The Edge, Cavan, a literary reading evening, funded by the Cavan Arts Office. Blog www.kateennals.com

Too much Pressure for a Young Man I overheard him say it was too much trouble. What is, I asked, when I got the chance. Going out with a girl, he replied, it’s a hassle. Really? I said, what is the problem? Well, he said, it’s would hardly be restful. I’ll have to do things I don’t really want to. Like what, I queried, give me examples. She’ll make me go places, like the zoo, art galleries, the cinema, shops, visit her parents. She’ll make me plan holidays, take weekend breaks. I’ve seen the length of time a girl can take. Tell me, what are you doing that is so precious? What’s so important that she will interrupt? Stuff, he informed me. My gaming, my life-style My freedom to do as I please when I want. I sighed. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a partner? Someone with whom to share your troubles? He shot me a withering look. Mother, he answered, There’s no stress in my life. I am single. I nodded, smiled, as if enlightened And through gritted teeth, I inquired Darling, will you ever want children? He frowned, pouted his lips, hesitated, said, yes, Probably. I’ll review it when I’m older not as busy, in my forties, I guess.

PATHWAYS TO PEACE

Pathways to Peace Syrians, Somalians, and Eritreans risk the Med or traipse the Balkans Afghanis trudge from the East forging ahead with Algerians.

Boys from Senegal and Morocco tramp from the North. In between, lies a path used by women and children from Cameroon

If it was you, what would be your route?

After packing my backpack with essentials (phone, change of clothes, a cup) I would walk the Dublin Road from Cavan And head towards Killiney Beach Assuming someone there (for they are rich and enterprising) would have set up a smuggling business to get me out of here. Then I’d walk the UK land bridge to France My final destination.

Already, it seems mad…to say the least all the borders, seas, police immigration, questions, different customs raised hackles, suspicions. I’d have to sleep rough. It would be dangerous.

KATE ENNALS

Would it be better to be raped imprisoned, murdered here, in my own home by my own, in a place where I’m supposed to feel safe? But I have a responsibility, a moral duty To protect my children and myself. I’ll contact Pathways to Peace, an international UN agency, to see if they have any advice. I read on their website that it has been ‘actively making peace a lived reality.’ I wonder what language that is Or if such a place exists.

PATHWAYS TO PEACE

Short Lived I stop, glance sideways a vibrant green bud at the tip of a bare branch Is about to burst its sepal yield its glow. Its petiole bubbles with vigour, sheds a tiny glimmer at the edge of my dark wood swarming with bark beetles, pine needles, dead leaves. A leaf will soon unfurl And when I pass tomorrow I will not recognise it at all

KATE ENNALS

©Mark Ulyseas

Photograph by Mark Ulyseas. © Kate Ennals 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net

CANVASES

Edward Caruso © liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary

EDWARD CARUSO Edward Caruso is based in Melbourne, Australia. He has been published in A Voz Limpia, Australian Multilingual Writing Project, ‘La Bottega della Poesia’ (La Repubblica, Italy), Communion, Meniscus, n-Scribe, Right Now, TEXT, Unusual Work and Well-Known Corners: Poetry on the Move. His second collection of poems, Blue Milonga, was published by Hybrid Publishers in January 2019. In August 2019 he featured on Radio 3CR’s Spoken Word program.

Vista From a train window, rear carriages in view.

Early morning fog, the Tiber’s elevated bank.

Foliage, silver light.

Creepers blanket a solitary elm.

CANVASES

Canvases Two bicycles abandoned by a river of glass, the owners, hand in hand, gaze at clouds, a song of roses. Somewhere there’s an older canvas. Childhood vignettes. A male face the painter no longer recalls, his mother closing herself away with him, two cigarettes side by side. A white gravel pathway. An estate’s fields lined by poplars.

He’d work with his brushes and canvases, the talcum powder voice of his mother’s companion distanced, as he’d lose himself in his own landscapes. Strands of plaited hair, fine red clothes with folds and lace hems. The inviting skin of a wife to come. The world, one of impressions, different perfumes and bottles of wine kept in his mother’s room.

EDWARD CARUSO

A wisp of hair in a drawer … His mother’s companions, he’d take their mantle with future lovers, mother long gone. Those who unearthed the shadow of a man who could never find himself, despite the self-portraits he lived with and the people who sought him out. They were all outcasts. His a world of wild rigging stranded in uncompromising surf.

CANVASES

Trains Through pastures and towns barely recognised, but within, the sun emerges, also within. Pines, the humming of a distant song and silence of a single voice, follow, follow. There isn’t a moment without movement, seconds that outlast thoughts. Consolations that open one’s life, definitions or pages that have to be rewritten or abandoned. If anything is ever wasted or tossed, the clear light of a discarded sky, landscape in bloom, whatever remains, lives or horizons, moments survived long after their vanishing.

EDWARD CARUSO

©Mark Ulyseas

Photograph by Mark Ulyseas. © Edward Caruso 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net

MATUTINAL PALETTE

Richard W Halperin © liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary

RICHARD W HALPERIN Richard W. Halperin has Irish/U.S. dual nationality and lives in Paris. His most recent collection for Salmon Poetry, Cliffs of Moher, is Catch Me While You Have the Light, 2018. People in a Diary is listed for 2022. His most recent shorter collection for Lapwing, Belfast, is Summer Night, 1948, 2021. His poem ‘Snow Falling, Lady Murasaki Watching’ is on permanent display at Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo. Readings scheduled in Ireland for 2020 have been deferred to late 2021 or to 2022.

Matutinal Palette ‘One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home.’ Knoxville: Summer of 1915, James Agee

Shiny things come from that. Every home has an odd one. Although everyone in the home is odd. Oz comes from an odd one. Salvation comes from an odd one. An Sylvia comes from an odd one. Wars come from very odd ones. For some reason, that is allowed.

Every day begins with one shining second. Then everything that can possibly happen to it Happens to it. In The Portrait of a Lady Isabel Archer goes back home knowing It is not home, no, not at all home.

She goes back to it because responsibility Is at least as luminous as happiness. Most poems are sad. Most songs are sad. Even An Sylvia. I am an artist, I am living at home. I am a musician, I am living at home.

MATUTINAL PALETTE

Summer Night, Dublin, 2021 Outside my hotel window, two young people Continue to talk past midnight. At a table in The hotel garden. Murmurs. Soft laughter. The heavy air carries it into my room. I wish That they would stop, but my soul wants them To continue indefinitely. Very young voices, One may be a girl’s, or a boy’s whose voice Hasn’t changed yet. Two brothers, I think. They speak Danish, a language I can recognise But which I cannot understand.

They are we. As we were, and for decades Thereafter. We would sit outdoors, talking Quietly in the quiet, in a language which was Our own, sometimes until dawn. Love – Familial and of every other conceivable kind – Rubs the edges off words. The soft knot of being Together. The soft knot of being together At the same time in the same place.

RICHARD W HALPERIN

A Ballet for Martha There they were and I, too, I A child so I did not recognise them Crossing streets, on their way, Graham, Copland, others, a New York that was, Traffic, noise, art – ‘Appalachian Spring’ A bubble blown by sophisticated people About unsophisticated people – marriage, House-building, faith – vanished before They existed, never existed except In dance. Quaker tunes which whirled Them all away, Martha, Aaron, my mother Jeanne, me, Bonwit Teller’s, vanished, vanished.

AFTERNOON

Mary Ellen Fean © liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary

MARY ELLEN FEAN Born in East Galway, Mary Ellen Fean’s work has been published in Cyphers, The SHOp, The Clare Champion, Revival, broadcast on Clare FM radio, and she was shortlisted for the Desmond O’Grady poetry prize. She has read her work widely at, for example, The Forge at Gort Literature Festival, Whitehouse Poets (Limerick,) and the Galway Arts Festival Fringe.

Brothers Wild honeysuckle brought From the island separates Their houses

They stand either side of it, Each by his own door Batting the breeze

Sometimes silent, gazing Out over the bay, to the place They were raised Tall men, rugged build Years of following The work These days they grow Herbs in old Lobster pots

Harvest the fruit canes, watch Long days draw in, slipping Easily into the mother tongue – Leitirmor, Leitirmullan An Ceathru Rua; places held In the heart.

AFTERNOON

Afternoon Often in the dead hours Of a summer afternoon We went to the village library – You aged four, swayed By an ice-cream promise

A rarefied house of books Cool air, blades of the brass fans Turning slowly Took your interest, hummed You to sleep; while I randomly Turned the pages Of some travel magazine. Mostly I just Watched you sleeping.

Even then I knew these moments passed.

MARY ELLEN FEAN

©Mark Ulyseas

Photograph by Mark Ulyseas. © Mary Ellen Fean 2021 September POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net

UNSEEN ELEMENTS IN VAN GOGH’S PAINTING

Peter O’Neill © liveencounters.net POETRY & WRITING September 2021 Celebrating 11th Anniversary

P E T E R O’ N E I L L Peter O’Neill is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently Henry Street Arcade a bilingual edition, his first, with translations into French by Yan Kouton published by Éditions du Pont de l’Europe, 2021. He has also published a book of translations The Enemy -Transversions from Charles Baudelaire (Lapwing, 2015) and the hybrid prose work More Micks than Dicks – a satirical dig at the current world of Beckett studies (Famous Seamus, 2017). He has just finished curating Baudelaire 200 Years! an online festival for the Alliance Francaise, and a new book, again inspired by Baudelaire, Ideals and Spleen is due out in the summer.

The Poet’s Garden For Beale MacKenzie Diogenes tub-weary hurling a superb turd at Plato While he traverses the marketplace on his way to the Acacademy as my old professor, Dr Cyril McDonnell, dreams of a career in stand- up comedy.

Yet, while maintaining all of the rigour of radical Empiricist philosophy, continuing on Hume’s tradition! Also seated there invisibly, Raymondo Chandlereque At the moment of the birth of his most superb fictional Creation – Sir Philip Marlowe a conglomerate of parts; Reaching from the extent of Christopher – Author of Tamberline to the Knight of the sonnets.

Also to be included, a burlesque of broads with silver wigs, Pints of rye, monocles and Charlie Chan moustaches. And just barely audible - Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata.

UNSEEN ELEMENTS IN VAN GOGH’S PAINTING

Aristophanes On the outer spine, the image of the grapes Impregnate the air eyeward, The langorous Gironde, current a posible Constrictor, yet on this day gently unwinding. Like a great palm, releasing us its children Into the Godhead of the river. Grapes to the current, the charge of cold Onrushing up through the thighs and chest And smiles of the summer on the Banks Where I stood before you almost naked, You who could already see so far Ahead.

Blameless that you were, in the summer of your years, For are we not but the playthings of the Gods, You and I, that concept now, like a dead fly upon a window pane.

P E T E R O’ N E I L L

A Musical Education In the morning you listen to Debussy; Reflets dans l’eau. Mornings are Good For impressionism. You wake up gently, And to the aroma of the first coffee, which tastes bitter. At noon, you have already graduated to Beethoven; Some sonantas, variations or bagatelles. And, if you are really struggling - the Triple Concerto in C Major, Op. 56 No 2. No coffee there, as you’re already on the beer! From there? You can only mellow, Or otherwise face the inevitable meltdown. Miles Davis Kind of Blue. Now, you should be thinking also of food. That’s it, go and pour the wine now!

UNSEEN ELEMENTS IN VAN GOGH’S PAINTING

The Ancients Grammar bleeds into the child’s brain, Followed closely by algebra and the theorem Of Pythagoras. The Muse comes, wearing Her jumpsuit in black latex, and also bearing her scourge.

Behind Her, there’s Heraclitus & Democritus. The former is weeping while the latter cries with laughter. A fool then in the theater with two masks; The face of comedy and tragedy!

Even in our sports, destruction is inevitable. Learning defeat and living with the very public Humiliation. This is your learning. This then is your school! Don’t worry, you Will come to Love it, in time, When She sticks your face right in it, Urging you to suck it up. Your day is just beginning!

P E T E R O’ N E I L L

Politics is Concrete Black lives matter. The case of the exception is the rule. The case of the exception is the rule. The case of the exception is the rule. Women’s lives matter. The case of the exception is the rule. The case of the exception is the rule. The case of the exception is the rule. Jewish lives matter. The case of the exception is the rule. The case of the exception is the rule. Gay lives matter. The case of the exception is the rule. The case of the exception is the rule.

A VEILED LIFE

JOSE VARGHESE Jose Varghese is a bilingual writer and translator from India. He edits Lakeview Journal and Strands Publishers and is the author of ‘Silver Painted Gandhi and Other Poems’. His short story manuscript ‘In/Sane’ was a finalist in the Beverly Prize and his second collection of poems will be published in 2021 (Black Spring Press Group). He was a finalist in LISP, a runner up in the Salt Prize, and was commended in Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His works have appeared in Joao Roque Literary Journal, The Best Asian Short Story Anthology, Dreich, Meridian, Afterwards, Summer Anywhere, Unthology 5, Unveiled, Reflex Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Chandrabhaga, and Postcolonial Text.

A Veiled Life Shifty eyes, a quaver in your voice, faltering feet and fumbling fingers reveal yourself as much as they fortress your secrets. A faint smile might light up the serpentine path leading to a cloistered courtyard, but the flowers in your garden are never in full bloom. You might invite the guests indoors, but they’ll have to be cautious, with each step they take, of the trapdoors that might open and close in the fraction of a second. You might offer food and drinks, but they’ll consume them only in small amounts, scared of the effects they can have later. You might show off your art collection, but they’ll wonder whether they were acquired illicitly. You might even show them photos of your family trips to exotic locations, but they’ll worry if the invisible family was purchased on credit as well, like the holidays. You might tell them you’re an open book, but they’ll excuse themselves and refuse to read even a page.

A VEILED LIFE

A Moment Before Rain Claims a Life The rain falls on his head, turning his mane to wet strands of silver and charcoal that stick to his temples and neck, but he doesn’t move from where he sits hunched in front of a shop. The market is almost empty. Even the pigeons are flying away with their share of the last bits of discarded food from the rubbish bin, leaving behind a couple of cats to clear it between useless fights. People pass by in a hurry and fail to notice the drenched currency notes stuck to coins spread on the cardboard in front of the man, as a weary breath departs, to stop his shivering.

JOSE VARGHESE

Restraint They will not allow those eyes to steal their silence where windows speak more to buried urges. When their bones creak, and a prayer forms within those rooms that are thirsty despite hopes, the sun shines bright on the hymns of widows and orphans that last through their chores till the dusk’s death.

They should perhaps think of a smile that could’ve killed the clocks to save them, but they never do that.

A VEILED LIFE

After the Swirl Some days the room upstairs waits like a canvas, and the colours are ready to dilute in a dash of turpentine, mix with one another, migrate to the tips of brushes, and dance. The hands that guide them are guided by visions from above, and though they try to reach above the murky lands to places that exist beyond wild dreams, they’re fatigued after a whole night out. The feet would then retrace the steps downwards like a hushed pet, impatient, longing for the next treat in vapid waiting rooms.

JOSE VARGHESE

Storm After the Calm Indigo swims down a luminescent white cloud to spread in a gray over the amber sunset. An eagle soars above the tallest tree in the valley. Sparrows, parakeets and mynahs flit about lower below with unique calls that slice the air and patch it. Frail flowers sway in the breeze and spring back upset by their own ghostly reflections on the darkening lake. Their white and purple souls refuse to smudge, and wait instead for eyes that are ready to engage with the beauty of drained hopes.

An impatient car speeds past like a bullet, its silver-gray metallic glow, noisy engine, and whiff of fuel spreading an eerie disquiet that atomizes a mindscape where these hues and sounds had stayed for a moment too long.

A VEILED LIFE

A Microphone in Search of a Prodigy The child has restless fingers that need tiny superhero figurines to keep themselves busy, pressing and rubbing, wrapped around them like tentacles in sweat-filled uncertainty. The heat of his palms passes through me when he leaves them for a while to get ready for the audience. He shifts me from one hand to the other, enjoying the cold contours while clearing his throat. He hates to talk, to answer questions, to respond to jokes, before he sings. He has to forget me, and everything else – what he’s going to do, how he’s going to do it, and who he’s going to impress.

His hands stop trembling, and fingers flow over me in kind caresses, as he sinks the hall in a voice that belongs to the celestial world where no divisions exist.

JOSE VARGHESE

People forget even to breathe as his voice swims through me. We become one rare musical instrument filled with the mysterious designs of stars and planets. His voice absorbs the hidden waves of despair within me, as it dawns on us that I’m the one to which he is meant to flow.

LAST RITES

KAREN MOONEY A career in human resource management provided preparation for Karen Mooney’s current activities; cats and words. Sometimes they hide, reappearing unexpectedly; sometimes they scratch, sometimes they purr. Her words have appeared in online publications and Penned In, co-written with Gaynor Kane published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. Her own pamphlet is due to be published later this year by The Hedgehog Poetry Press.

Last rites The world would come crashing in around us in as many days as it took to make when you return to the care home, conscious of our presence, attending your own wake. You perform a rehearsal one evening; we gasp at what we think is your last breath then you rally to sit up, eyes gleaming, ordering breakfast - your last before death. One by one, folk call in to pay respects, sit in silence or give a knowing nod. You aren’t fit to speak, yet touch does affect, as one lady proved and how I applaud her cradling your face in pillow-soft breasts; prompting memories, you smile, feeling blessed.

LAST RITES

A close shave I smile at the buzz of the electric razor, knowing that you like to be clean-shaven; feeling proud of having pieced it together after you cast it across the table, declaring it fucked. Until I catch your stare. This cuts deep. Anything mechanical intrigued you, rarely defeated you but today, you wear exasperation like a dry shave with a blunt blade.

Lessening dexterity thwarted once skilled tools, your hands. Hands that could carry hold, lift, repair, protect and even attack; shovel-like and calloused now soft with lessening use. Your attitude would soften too; in time. But now, as your grip on the day lessened, you bristled against it, so I applied the balm, moving in the direction of growth. Flipping open the casing on the shaver, I flick out a spring, close it over, check that it is silent and say Yes, dad, you’re right. It’s fucked.

KAREN MOONEY

I shaved a jumper today Knots and bobbles caused by wear and age; so unsightly that I take one of your razors, draw it carefully across the garment in mind-numbing strokes, thinking of your once smooth scalp, before the bumps appeared. The woollen fluff gathered by the blade leaves me strangely satisfied. And yet I run my hand across the surface, checking that everything has been removed whilst I wait… for your surgeon to call. Wondering if she, too, got it all.

LAST RITES

Waning Gibbous It’s just a phase, you say, withdrawing, hump faced, darkening my nights, leaving me to turn in, to find my own light. I, too, can change, rid out negativity, throw open windows, clean, clear and sage the corners to let go of fear; knowing that someday soon, I’ll meet the new you.

KAREN MOONEY

Reduction unique provenance well-seasoned concentrated on high heat lid off simmering reduced yet packed with flavour smacking of life’s experiences just a small portion now it doesn’t go far the spread across the plate curtailed condensed by life age ill health distilled to extracts of what matters creating a memorable aftertaste leaving us wanting more

2010 - 2020

P O E T R Y & W R I T I N G Free Online Magazine From Village Earth September 2021