Ravens and Robins by The Linnet's Wings

THE WINTER´S TALE (Ravens and Robins)

Time cocooned, dentrite Pirouettes in crystal dreams: Metamorphosing

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The Winter´s Tale

“And blackbirds too full for flight-their bellies hanging over spindly feet. The ones, you said, that needed braces and britches.” From “ The Sun Splashed Van Gogh´s Palette” A Christmas Canzonet 2015. A Linnet´s Wings

Publication

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1723303941

Ravens and Robins

“The morning

around Ypres, and in particular Passchendaele, worried him so much that forcing his normaly disciplined mind to working concerns was sometimes erydifficult indeed.” See page 28,

was oddly changeable,with sunlight puncuated by brief, spitting rain, but the sweeping vistas of coast and country began to achieve the desired effect. With his son James a serving officer, the dreadful news seeping out concerning what was happening

The Telegram Boy

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1981116400

“Harris has provided a beaufully written and emotionally uplifting collection. The eponymous title of the opening story in this collection, The Guy Thing’, is about suicide. When faced with a suicide attempt by a fellow student, the main character recalls a pastoral session in his school sixth form in which a respected senior teacher addressed the students about his personal experience of suicide. For Harris, The Guy Thing’ is/are the repressed feelings of men, which typically explode into a negative reaction. Throughout this collection the male characters battle their emotions in order to find a more positive, more appropriate response to crises.https://www.amazon.com/dp/1981116400 John Holland

The Winter´s Tale

Poetry in Motion

Li�� O� Form @ TheLinnetsWings

Ravens and Robins

Winter’s Last Breath Blow me a blow of wind high in the tops. Leafless, still leafless, lifeless winter drops whiter than bone and through hard bitten ground delicate bells push up and make no sound. Screech me a screech would make a spirit quake. Moan all around, leave terror in your wake. Frighten mere children while it’s in your power. This is your final battle, your last hour. Yes, you have fight but you can’t win the day. Change as change happens. Spring is on her way. Look, I have taken off my winter vest. See how gently light rain comes to rest there on your grave, old withered winter wind. Sleep there a while until the season’s turned. Go now, let bird song tune you from my mind. Oonah V Joslin Previously published in “Three Pounds of Cells” by Oonah V Josllin “Three Pounds of Cells” is A Linnet´s Wings publicatio

https//www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993049370

The Winter´s Tale

Ravens and Robins

The Winter´s Tale

“The Sorrow”

1918-2018 @ THELINNETSWINGS Smile, Smile, Smile, Wilfred Owen Peace, Rupert Brooke Prayer for Those on the Staff, Julian Grenfell To Germany, Charles Hamilton Sorley Before Action, William Noel Hodgson I Have a Rendezvous with Death, Alan Seeger Re-Incarnation, Edward Wyndham Tennant The End of the Second Year, Arthur Graeme West Setting out (1913), Ernst Stadler Leaving For The Front, Alfred Lichtenstein To Our Fallen, Robert Ernest Vernede The Dead Kings, Francis Ledwidge War, Hed Wyn The Volunteer, E. Alan Mackintosh In Flanders Fields, John McCrae Returning, We Hear Larks, Isaac Rosenberg If I Should Die, Philip Bainbrigge Sounds of Ellul, Robert Ziege Prayer Before Battle, Alfred Lichtensteinl

Ravens and Robins

WORLD WAR 1 Through

Eyes

the

of the

Poets

https://www.amazon.com/ dp/1727721314

The Winter´s Tale

December homage has been made. Dark drifts, but light slips into days Where caterpillers await chrysalis As west winds sweep the sky And unicorns dash ashore And all of life gets-set for new beginnings. MLF, 2009

Church Interior Franciscan Abbey Multifarnham, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, MLF, 2018

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Stones at my Feet by Bill West I tugged hope tight about me and went through streets marbled by moon stepped between puddles of memory searched for the lost and misplaced cast out into abandoned gloom. I found a dead cat, a matchbox, a letter the annotated works of women, written on tombs a comb, my uncle’s sideboard and his wig rakish atop a spittoon. How I ached for all I had forgotten a kiss a touch a blow and how I grieved for lost hours lost moments tomorrows never known A wind drove me out from the city into gentle hills and fields to a wood where a stream lapped lightly and the stones at my feet and the stones at my feet were smooth. Bill West ( Previously published in “The Linnet´s Wings” )

The Winter´s Tale

Ravens and Robins

DEDICATION: Ginger Hamilton Alex Braverman Mikal Huber Writers, Artists and Friends

The Winter´s Tale

All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, mail the publisher at thelinnetswings@gmail.com 978-1-9164622-8-1 Dec 2018 First Edition 12/2018 Book and Cover Design; MLF, 2018

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Other Seasonal Publications by “The Linnet´s Wings” Christmas Series The Linnet´s Wings: A Christmas Canzonet ISBN-13: 978-1519581686 https://www.amazon.com/Linnets-Wings-Christmas-Canzonet/ dp/1519581688 The Linnet´s Wings: A Christmas Canzonet ISBN-13: 978-1540454935 https://www.amazon.com/Linnets-Wings-Christmas-Canzanet/ dp/1540454932 A Christmas Canzonet: Dreamers ISBN-13: 978-1977809070 https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Canzonet-Dreamers-See-Contributors/dp/1977809073

The Winter´s Tale

Table of Contents FRONT MATTER

Life on Form, 6 The Jewel Box Cluster 8 Through the Eyes of the Poets 10 Winter Wizardy 12, 13 Dedication 15

PART ONE 24

Just In Time 2 Medoitations On Dear Petrov by Susan Tepper 26 The Telegram Boy by Bruce Harris 28 From our Archive: The Language of Frost by Bill West 39

PART TWO 40

A Better Gift, Editorial by Oonah Joslin 42 Lonely as a Clown by Mike Lewis 44 After the First Storm of the Season by Kathleen Cassen Mickelson 47 Cinderella by James Graham 48 Time to shine by Lesley Timms 51 Never Trust a Talking Cat by Oonah Joslin 52 Godless Fruit by Jo-Ann Newton 55

Ravens and Robins

The Children of Lir

Photo of Stained Glass Window in the Franciscan Abbey in Multifarnham in County Westmeath .. MLF, 2018

The Winter´s Tale Silver by John C Mannone 57 Hellhole by Megan Denese Mealor 62 Still Life by Akeith Walters 64 Mercies Found in Christmas Lights by Tom Sheehan 39 Snow Dance by Oonah Joslin 71 Like a Lost Pair of Kites by John C Mannone 72 Old Snow by James Graham 74 A Baby's Smile by Lesley Timms 77 Key Bridge January by Beate Siddrigdaughter 79 The Light Of Snow by Dolores Duggan 81 Reflections Of An Old Man by James G Piatt 83 REMNANTS by Tom Sheehan 84 White Winters by Irena Pasvinter 87 Sozzled Santa by Mike Lewis 89 Under the Loving Tree by John C Mannone 91 SIBERIAN SUNDAY by Tina Cole 93 IN PRAISE OF NO GOD by Kathleen Cassen Mickelson 95

ART, PS and Design

Marie Lynam Fitzpatrick Blackfird Wearing Britches 4 Elephant in the Room 5 Church Interior in the Franciscan Abbey in Multifarnham in Co. Westmeath 12 Duck on Lough Owel 10 Photo of Stained Glass Window in the Franciscan Abbey in Multifarnham in Co Westmeath 19 Christmas Morning on Lough Bofin 25 One Morning in France, 26 Sunflowers at Night 30 A Rose for Mum 41 Genius 45 Beach Walk in Winter, 46 Knockaree 49 At the Oasis 52

Ravens and Robins

Editors

Marie Fitzpatrick Bill West Oonah Joslin Peter Gilkes Offices Publlshing Corkaree, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath, ROI Carchuna, Andalusia, Spain Online The Linnet´s Wings Submission Offices

Website: www.thelinnetswings.org

Still Life with Basket of Apples 54 Faery Landscape 56 V G´s Train 60 Wind at Sunset 63 Still Life 64 The Party´s Started 66 Dancer 70 Bed at Sunset 74 Mia Grace 76

Following Roerich, A Saturday Mountain Climbed 80 The Wind 82 Bed of Flowers 85< Winter Sunset on Lough Boffin 86 Santy at Work, 88

The Cruciform, 90 Snow Robins 92 Crow at Sunset, 94

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“It’s in time we step as we await a birth. When life and line renew, to reach, to stretch Straight through to other births, to those Who walked this line on earth” Mia Grace, MLF Sept 2014

Ravens and Robins

Christmas Morning on Lough Bofin, Co Leitrim/Roscommmon

Part One 25

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Meditations on dear Petrov by

Susan Tepper Set in 19th Century Russia during a time of war

Nights I slip out to the tiny boat on the riverbank. Lapping. Scarcely enough to hold two. Cold, still, the nights. I am drawn to these wet boards. The smell of wood rotting. You dragged the boat to this very spot, dear Petrov. I can feel your boots sinking in the muck. At least a season has passed. Bending to touch where you trod. While above me birds cackle in the black sky. Great flocks coming back to roost. Today it warmed enough that I might sweep the path. Clearing de-

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bris. Sticks. Shadows. Leaves buried under the snows. Feeling the sun on my face grown eternal. All winter I dared not imagine. Why should I. Though I might tell you many untruths if you asked many things. Which you never do. Entering this house at dawn as though it were merely an evening passed over. Too much drink in the tavern. Falling asleep across a table. Awakening with the light. Convenient, I suppose. The guns in the distance emptying like small thunders. I say nothing under the circumstances. Try not to wring my hands. But how little you know of the cellars, dear Petrov. Potatoes in sacks pushing twisted knots. Pressing forward in their cycle. My own a swift timeless span. Swirling then recumbent. Down on my knees. Crumpled. Silent. In the small chamber where a bed leans into the wall. Cracking. Green as peeled peas. A silly formality. Moving of the bed each morning. It’s an excursion, you say, when night comes and it is to be moved again. Knocked to the floor. Straw ticking scratching my skin as you climb onto me. Dead. Putrified. Exhausted. How filthy the straw. Where are the thick lap robes. A hamper basket of sturdy foods. Just punishment arising from smoke fires. The whole of you, dear Petrov. A study. The snows that scrape you raw. Blacken your teeth. Frost-burn the hair off your head. The lack of sleep. Always. Or so you say. And bad food. You seem to fatten well enough. At least there is a food source. Somewhere. Scarcer and scarcer here. I bridle my horse for the journey to market. Pittance for a pound of half-flung bird. Fresh if I’m early. Still bleeding. Thinking of escape. Never a moment goes by. Long exclusions will do this. I’m not bereft. Just thinking. Always thinking. My time set by the stars and the winds hugging the damp. ---

The Winter´s Tale

The Telegram Boy by

Bruce Harris The headmaster of the local grammar school, Mr Richard ex-Major Nicholson, lived as near to the school as he could without actually being in it, which neither he nor his wife cared for. Musbury Lodge was about half a mile away from the school gates, on a promontory no more than a few hundred yards from the cliffs. War news meant his walk to work was not always a pleasant one, but the sea air cleared his head and allowed him to adjust from war to school. The morning was oddly changeable, with sunlight puncuated by brief, spitting rain, but the sweeping vistas of coast and country began to achieve the desired effect. With his son James a serving officer, the dreadful news seeping out concerning what was happening around Ypres, and in particular Passchendaele, worried him so much

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that forcing his normally disciplined mind to working concerns was sometimes very difficult indeed. Most of the press was still banging out its gung-ho nonsense, but Richard relied more on his occasional visits to Plymouth. No pub was empty of servicemen on leave, usually sailors but sometimes soldiers, and as usual, the men actually doing the fighting were the people who really knew what was happening. He knew some of them as ex-pupils and the fact that it was widely known that his pronounced limp was a consequence of his lower leg having been blown off in 1878 during the Second Anglo-Afghan War removed any protective anti-civilian ring they threw around themselves. Richard’s private opinion was that the Second Anglo-Afghan War was a monumentally pointless and hopelessly disorganised encounter, particularly the Battle of Ali Masjid which opened it on November 21st. An uppity Emir had decided not to admit a British envoy to his country, and this flimsy pretext started the war with an attack on the fortress of Ali Masjid. Battle was haphazardly joined as both sides blundered about during the night. The morning revealed that the Afghans had gone and the fortress, for what it was worth, was taken. But by then, Richard had lost interest in the proceedings, as a result of a random ricocheting Afghan shell removing his right leg from the knee downwards. After two years, the war allowed Britain to ensure that Afghanistan stayed out of Russian hands, though why either Britain or Russia should want the place mattered little to Richard in a Devon hospital as he painfully, at times agonisingly, learnt to move around on what he described to himself as ‘the device’; it was a leg only in so far as being vaguely the same shape. The experience had ended his military career, and probably none too soon; his young mannish wish for travel and glory had long since faded away in the teeth of the squalid and frequently foolish realities. But it was painful indeed to meet ex-pupils, eager, sometimes highly intelligent, former fresh-faced boys become haunted shadows of themselves, marked and wrinkled by the horrors they had seen. However, as far as his home village and county was concerned, he was a hero, maimed in the service of his country, and after a struggle with this notion of himself, he eventually accepted that it was probably true enough to justify their respect. It had certainly saved him from the trouble some teachers were being given from boys still straining at the leash to go off and get themselves killed. But after three years of lost

The Winter´s Tale

Sunflowers at Night: MLF, Watercolour on Card, 2018

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brothers, uncles and fathers, enthusiasm was not as rampant as it had been. Where exactly Lieutenant James Nicholson was at that moment, he didn’t know; James wasn’t allowed to reveal his exact whereabouts and his father didn’t ask. But the lack of news, a silence of nearly five weeks now, rendered sidelining James, sensitive, unworldy and aesthetic James, to the demands of the everyday routine more and more challenging. Such reflections could only partly be relieved by sea air and views, and it took a moment or two for him to register the sight twenty yards or so in front of him. A telegram boy in his delivery uniform, postal bag slung round his slim shoulders, was propped up against the side of his bike, asleep. On closer inspection, Richard recognised the boy as a recently ex-pupil - Benjamin Perowne, still only fourteen, bearing a Devon name as widespread as the Sooles and the Drakes. Benjamin’s father, a naval lieutenant, was somewhere in the Atlantic, and that’s as much as the family knew. The boy had four younger siblings, and his mother would need his help before the lad set off on his round. Benjamin was only just an ex-pupil, having left the previous July. A pupil who should have stayed on, but family demands were all powerful in present circumstances. Some sense seemed to stir Benjamin, or perhaps it was the noise of his ex-headmaster’s rather creaky approach. His eyes opened, and he sat up as if caught in mischief. ‘Mr. Nicholson, sir. I’m sorry – what must you think of me, lying in the lane like a tramp’. ‘Tiredness needs sleep, Benjamin’. Address by second name was standard for pupils, but not necessarily ex-pupils. ‘Are you having a busy morning?’ Ben scrambled to his feet, shaking a leg cramp away. ‘Well, I was up at five, sir, to start the fire, and then the children have to be fed and sent off to school, and my mother is tired these days. As soon as the round is done, I will need to get back home, not lounge about in country lanes’.

The Winter´s Tale

At that moment, Richard caught sight of one of the yellow telegrams calculated to spread fear through any household unhappy enough to receive them, and immediately reflected that Ben’s father was a serving officer. He helped the boy haul the bag back over his shoulder and looked carefully at the address on the telegram. The address wasn’t the Perownes, which was a relief – for the moment. The Major doubted whether this was a suitable appointment. He knew John Green, the postmaster; they were old schoolmates, on first name terms, although they had never been particularly close, even at school. John Green had never left Devon, and the narrowness of his experience, Richard sometimes thought, matched the narrowness of his imagination. He couldn’t stop the appointment, but he could question it. ‘Have you much more to deliver?’ ‘No, sir, thankfully. My mother and I should be able to get some rest this afternoon, before the children come home from school’. ‘Good. Take care, Benjamin’. ‘Thank you, sir’. Richard watched the boy pedal vigorously away, wondering yet again at youth’s ability to move so effortlessly from one extreme

to the other, and made his way to school. The Post Office was not, strictly speaking, on his way home that afternoon, but it wasn’t much of a detour either. Green was in his own office behind the main counter as his wife manned it, which Richard thought was probably preferable, if words needed to be had. After a civil exchange with Mabel Green, a long suffering woman who did most of Green’s work for him and who looked pale and tired, as almost everyone did now, Richard sat down on the other side of Green’s desk. ‘You seem to have acquired a new postman, John’. ‘Yes, Richard’. Green sounded harassed and indignant, as he usually did. ‘My choices are limited. Every available adult is away on service or committed to a fulltime job or struggling to live on the land. Or –‘ he struggled to find the right expression. ‘No longer with us at all’. ‘You have remembered that the boy’s father is a serving officer’. ‘Yes, of course I have’. Green made a gesture of impatience. ‘But he is quick, he is very intelligent – feather in your cap, Richard – he has the stamina and fitness of the young –‘ ‘I found him asleep in the lane, propped up against his bike’.

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‘Well, Annie Perowne’s sister, who was helping her, is doing a factory job now – ordinance – so Ben is the only help she has with the other children. But I can’t do anything about that, Richard. It’s this damn war, as it always is. I can’t be telling you anything about war, of course, but it does mean make do and mend, all the time’. Richard got to his feet. Alice made allowances for after school, but too long would worry her. She felt he should have retired by now, and she was right. But then, so should John Green. ‘Your business is your business, John. But bear in mind the possibility that the boy could receive a telegram about his own father –‘ ‘Oh, yes, he mentioned that. If it happens, he wants to intercept it. He wants to be able to tell his mother in his own way, not from a telegram. Then, as soon as he gets to be old enough, he says, he’s going to go and kill Germans’. The two men looked at each other, momentarily speechless. Green went on. ‘He’s a boy, yes. But he’s not only intelligent and able, Richard - he’s full of courage. Real courage, for a fourteen year old boy. And you are one of his idols, let me say. If

you told him you thought he was doing wrong, he would probably stop. But as I said, Richard, our choices are limited’. Not for the first time, the headmaster had a thoughtful walk home. As he shut the front door gratefully against the deteriorating weather, he saw Alice standing just outside the kitchen. Alice could express herself with great eloquence without words, and the apparent contradiction berween her animated blue eyes and the awkward, unsettled way she was standing signalled to him that, while James was home on leave, everything was not as well as it might be. A few seconds later, the boy himself, if a man of thirty years old who was rapidly becoming a veteran soldier could be described as such, appeared beside her. A wan smile crossed James’ face and seemed to be the best he could manage, and Richard saw by the uniform insignia that ‘the boy’ had been promoted. ‘Captain Nicholson, I see. Congratulations, James. Welcome home. How long this time?’ ‘Just two weeks, I’m afraid, Dad, and then, yes, I will be in charge of sending even greater numbers of men to the slaughter’. A clumsy lead in to a homecoming handshake, and the

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firm soldier to soldier handshake suddenly turned to something else when James laid his head on his father’s shoulder, as he had done in childhood. A fleeting moment, no more, but Richard could see that tears had not been far away. The leave blundered on, the three of them edging carefully around each other like a family suppressing bad news. On the third night, Richard woke in the early morning, with enough light to see Alice lying fully awake in the adjoining bed. The mechanics of his ‘device’ and Alice’s insomnia had caused them to take separate beds some time ago. Alice had already lost a nephew and a cousin, and the idea that her next loss might be her only son, conceived late in life when it had seemed no children would be had, made the whole business of sleep fraught with hurdles. ‘Alice’, he whispered. ‘Are you alright?’ ‘Listen, Richard. Oh, God. Listen’. A succession of noises emerged from James’ room, a mixture of recognisable words, ‘Down’, ‘get down, you bastards’, ‘now, right now’, odd strangled gasps and sounds not far from sobs. The blue eyes turned towards him, and their anguish in the half light wrenched his heart.

you?’

‘Go to him, Richard. Will

‘To do what?’ he said. She stared on into the morning, and he joined her, the dawn rising against the noises, suddenly and thankfully resolving into thick, heavy snores. They fought politely on through the leave, and worked hard to conceal from each other the treacherous sense of relief on the last day. An ex-pupil, Robert Myers, a friend of James, possessed a big Wolseley which he liked using on every available occasion, and he drove James and his kit to the station; James insisted that neither parent should go with him. ‘I prefer goodbye to be private rather than public’, he said, ‘especially when everything else I do now is public’. The car drew up, chugging and heaving like a predatory beast, and James turned back to them. Alice got something like a hug, Richard a handshake without the head on his shoulder. ‘Goodbye, Dad’, James said, and something like panic resounded through Richard at the too valedictory nature of the words and the face. As weeks went by, Ben Perowne’s problems tiredness problems seemed resolved, because Richard only ever saw him riding

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his bike and occasionally waving. The dreaded telegrams were, for the moment, rarer, perhaps partly because the supply of local men in the services not accounted for had dwindled. Then, on a late October day when the air was full of impending winter and the tide stirred itself to pound away at the bottom of the cliffs, Richard’s walk to school was arrested by a small figure sitting only a few feet from the cliff edge, bike and bag in the grass beside him. His arms were wrapped round his calves, and he was gazing fixedly towards the edge. Sometimes the ‘device’ was particularly annoying, and Richard cursed under his breath in a manner ill-suited to a senior schoolteacher as he attempted to summon up something resembling speed. Very soon it became clear that the boy was Ben Perowne, and his absolute stillness was intimidating – schoolboys, in Richard’s long and varied experience, were totally immobile very rarely indeed. Even when Richard had come to within ten yards, there was still no turn or hint of recognition. ‘Benjamin?’ Richard said, and at last a face turned towards him, a face which seemed to be returning from some very differ-

ent place. The reaction was startling. The boy grabbed across at the bag and pulled it towards him. ‘What is it, Ben?’ Richard reached across to the bag at the same time, and they managed between them to tip half the contents of the bag over the grass. The yellow telegram envelope was clear enough. He reached down to it. If it was as he thought and dreaded, someone needed to stay with the boy and help him work out a way to break things to his mother – and keep him away from the cliff, where the monstrous waves were roaring up at them as if claiming their own. ‘No, sir, no please, you mustn’t –‘ Ben shouted, reaching for the envelope. But Richard had already seen the address, and he needed no more than the first two lines -Mr and Mrs R. Nicholson, Musbury Lodge. Ben was on his feet. ‘I wanted to think of the words, a way to tell you – everyone was hoping it wouldn’t happen to you, sir –‘ He fell silent, and for some seconds, there was nothing but wind and waves. ‘That was very thoughtful of you, Ben’. Richard heard some

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disembodied voice speaking, and realised with surprise that it must be his. He wanted to move away and back into his house as fast as the device would allow, but this person with the voice wasn’t prepared to go off and leave an agitated boy just a few yards away from a old wooden cliff edge fence which wouldn’t have provided any great obstacle to a child half his age. ‘Ben, I would appreciate it very much if you could cycle to the school and tell Mr. Prentice that I won’t be coming in today’. ‘Of course, sir’. The boy, rescued by his errand, was away with the startling rapidity of his age. Richard didn’t doubt that Prentice already knew; the grapevine was quick and accurate. Prentice was competent enough; in recent months, that was probably just as well. Alice was standing at the open door; she must have been watching from a window. He stood at the end of the path; she looked from him to the envelope and back again. ‘I’ve told Prentice I’m not going in today’, he said, and the voice still seemed far away. She moved to him and took his arm. ‘Good’, she said. ‘Come inside, Richard’. As Ben glanced back at a pause in the traffic, the front door was closing behind them. Thursday December 12th 1918. The local decision was that Lieutenant Perowne, R.N., would be welcomed home in style and it was forward the Myers Wolseley again. Richard heard of the time of arrival and felt a need to be somewhere near the station himself. He had a horse-drawn trap of his own, a gentler form of travel, and he timed his pause near the station exit perfectly. Even the station had a decorated tree standing outside; this was to be a very special Christmas. Mr. and Mrs. Perowne were climbing into the Wolseley; Ben’s younger brother Simon was already bumping up and down on the back seat and being quietly admonished by Myers. Lieutenant Perowne, uniformed no more, a tall, authoritative man with a carefully cropped beard, had Simon on his knee and Ben chattering eagerly beside him; Annie Perowne was smiling in a way which made her drawn face almost unrecognisable, even at this distance.

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Richard found he was smiling, which he didn’t remember having done for a while. As the car started turning itself towards the road, he clicked and pulled on the reins. ‘Walk on’, he said. ###

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“The Language of Frost” won our micro of the season competition for which Bill received an Amazon gift cert. The competition was judged by “The Linnet’sWings” editorial team and the voucher was sponsored by Ramon Collins, our micro editor in the day.

Ravens and Robins

THE LANGUAGE 0F FROST by Bill West

He drifis across frozen fields to the house beside the tam -- watches her from the garden as she sits motionless at a Christmas table set for two, her plate untouched. He strokes the window with phantom fingers and in the fractal language of frost he writes “love” on every pane. ---

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"I am writing this for you today ‘cos I won’t be here tomorrow. Don’t mess with talking animals. They’ll only bring you sorrow." "Never Trust a Talking Cat" Oonah V. Josiln

Ravens and Robins

A Rose for Mum, MLF, Oil on Canvas, 2017

Part Two 41

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A Better Gift Editorial by Oonah V Joslin Have you ever looked at the faces of fellow shoppers around this time of year and seen the stress etched there? Or greed? Or despair? Have you ever tried giving them a smile and got a dirty look or a snarl in return? This is not retail therapy. It’s the corporate lie. I’m finding it harder each year to justify the capitalist Christmas. I have no wish to collapse the entire economy just to salve my eco-conscience and I wouldn’t steal the wonder from any child’s eyes, but nor would I steal their future. So this year I am not joining in with all the hype. I won’t be buying that shiny wrapping paper you can’t recycle. I am trying to avoid plastics in packaging and in the things I buy, and I am looking carefully at products containing palm oil because I don’t want to kill trees and orangutangs! I will not be buying any new decorations ever again, just because I am tired of the old ones, or replacing that artificial tree I have had for the past 18 years. Our friends have made a deal with us not exchange gifts this year but just to meet up for a little cheer. I will bake my usual treats and buy what we need this Christmas, but we don’t need anything more than usual. If giving is a part of Christmas, there are plenty of needy people out there and so many better ways to give. My gift to you is my time, choosing the poems for this Canzonet, dear reader. I hope it brightens your world.

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Consider all the packaging that cannot be recycled, the plastics, all the batteries, deforestation, waste. Treats and turkeys, peddled as if there’s no tomorrow. If Christmas has to cost the Earth it leaves a bitter taste. Let’s show some human kindness and alleviate some sorrow, create a better future to honour every birth, rekindle the light of times past.

To our writers. thank you for contributing your gifts to the Linnet’s Wings this year and to all our readers who share us online or buy copies, we value your support. Oonah

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Lonely as a Clown by Mike Lewis I battled gamely through the crowds when, floating high o’er ringing tills, the P.A all at once announced a host of great, to-die-for, deals. At Lakeside on a spending spree, with scores of Buy-One-Get-One-Free. Continuous credit I did find, with lots of easy ways to pay, as stretched in never ending line stood flat-screen plasmas on display. Down from a thousand pounds and more, but now half price in every store. The crowds beside them thronged as they out-did each other in their glee. A cynic could but feel dismay in such short-sighted company. I gazed and gazed then sudden thought ‘What wealth has television brought?’ For oft, when on my couch laid prone, in vacant or in pensive mood the TV or the telephone will rob me of my solitude. And then my heart with pleasure fills that I withstood those daffy deals.

Ravens and Robins

PS: Genius 1, MLF, 2018

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Ravens and Robins

AFTER THE FIRST STORM OF THE SEASON by Kathleen Cassen Mickelson A just-past-full moon bathes the dog and me in light as we pick our way over day-old snow turned brittle. A forty-degree temperature drop changes the world. Wind pushes dark puffs of clouds across the back-lit sky, reshapes their nebulous bodies. If only it were so easy for us to move along. I think of my mother, dead seventeen years today. We played Christmas carols during her last week, knew she would be gone before we opened presents. On her last morning, I looked into her yellowed waning moon eyes, felt her light flicker, then extinguish. Her spirit scuttled away, through the wall, into a point in outer space we think of as Heaven though we remain unclear about its details. Then bleeds into now: snow-covered ground, brightening sky, swift clouds, setting moon, my own icy breath.

The Winter´s Tale

PS: Knocknarea, Co Sligo,MLF 2018

The slipper fitted. ‘I have found you,’ said the Prince. ‘You are the paragon of women. Your eyes are the deepest pools of sparkling mountain stream; your blushing cheeks are like the sunset, harbinger of summer days; your mouth is like a rose; your breasts…’ ‘Your Royal Highness,’ said the girl. ‘What’s your view of the role of women in the modern world?’ ‘My view? I…I…what would we do without them? They, erm…manage well-ordered households…as mothers too! They bring new human beings into the world, and nurture them, and make of them great men …and women…Will you marry me?’

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‘Well, sir, you danced with me, got horny, set your bureaucrats to find out where I live, and now you think I’ll marry you and be your doll? No deal. I mean to leave this miserable place, this so-called home and family, and go to work – have you heard of ‘work’? – as a servant if I must, a kitchen maid. Then education – education, yes, for women! Can you get your head round that? I will pay for it myself. And I will be no slave-princess, no, I will be an independent woman…Ah! He’s gone

The Winter´s Tale

Caits, PS, MLF 2018

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Time to shine by Lesley Timms

Do the ever-twinkling stars Refuse to shine their powerful light; Too shy to blaze their wondrousness; Too scared to dazzle us by night? Does the spotted ladybird Hide her vivid scarlet back; Too mindful of her beauty; Too frightened of attack? Do crashing, pounding waterfalls Quieten their mighty roar; Afraid of their magnificence; Afraid of awestruck looks they draw? So as a perfect work of art, Why hide away your glorious light? Bewitch us as the butterfly Whose painted wings enrich our sight! Hold your head up high and sing, Blackbird-clear; bold and proud! Don’t shrink from your perfection. No! Smile and broadcast it aloud! Yes! Banish modesty and fear; High time you twinkled bright and clear.

The Winter´s Tale

PS: MLF, 2018 At the Oasis,

Ever since that cat arrived my life’s gone down the chute. To start with he demanded a pair of shiny boots.

he put his forepaws on his waist and whiskered his disdain, ‘I’ll need a coat and trousers too. Us cats don’t like the rain.’

I tried to state the obvious; I was the one in charge but he stood up on his hind legs his eyes all bright and large,

His stolid and unflinching look crumpled my resolution. To give him what he wanted seemed the easiest solution.

Ravens and Robins When he started poaching pheasants; taking presents to the king I thought Oh good! I’m rid of him You know -- it’s a cat thing. But not a bit of it. This cat had hatched a plan you see and part of it involved a bit of subterfuge and me. The Royals had a daughter a bit plain -- a bit rotund, for whom it seemed no suitor suitable had yet been found and Puss, that’s what I called him, fancied a life of luxury and decided in his scheming way that she should marry me. So while I was skinny-dipping he purloined all my clothes, flagged down the princess’ carriage and she said: Here put on those and made her footman take his off. She said I looked quite fine. Then she drove me to the palace

and ordered meat and wine. I don’t recall what happened next but it seems I am engaged. That furtive and rapacious cat had my whole life story staged. It’s the night before the wedding and I’ve never been more sure her father the King’s an imbecile and the princess is a whore. I know I can’t go through with it. Marry? I’d rather kill her. I was never meant to be a prince. I’m content as a simple miller. I am writing this for you today ‘cos I won’t be here tomorrow. Don’t mess with talking animals. They’ll only bring you sorrow. Don’t be like me, so innocent! Talking cats aren’t at all cute. They’re malevolent, maleficent. Just give the cat the boot!

The Winter´s Tale

Following Cezanne: Still life with Basket of Apples, MLF, OIl on Canvas, 2018 ...

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Godless Fruit

by Jo-Ann Newton It doesn’t look much. A red, round thing. Waxy in my palm. Smelling of nothing. Promising all. He warned not to I know. The other one said it was truth. Power in edible form. If only we dare to be human. Your face shadows as I rip it from the branch. Ah, my love. Always so good. It tastes of grief and honey. Here… Take it.

The Winter´s Tale

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Silver

by John C Mannone It’s beautiful when snow showers of silver chloride fall out of a watery heaven when a clear and colorless solution of silver nitrate mixes with simple salt. White pyramidal crystals pile up at the bottom of the test tube, then darken a bit from ultraviolet light. I think of great grandfather standing by a talus pile at the dark wide-mouth entrance of a silver mine, gazing at red & purple streaked stones— his eyes carefully assaying silver. I wonder what he might have thought of if he were here in this lab working the same experiment. I imagine him absorbed in all of my chemistry, in all of Nature’s chemistry, prospecting and working silver

The Winter´s Tale

mining towns in the high plains. And I visualize that I am with him: A Santa Fe locomotive diesels its cars into Chloride, Arizona; the late afternoon sun still hanging over sagebrush, glints off the coal-car’s cargo—anthracite, always shiny, its cleaved faces like lit diamond. Empty cars are filled with a new cargo. The train will haul away chlor-argyrite—the mineral on top of weathered veins of silver ore. Great grandfather says the silky cubes of crystal, the pearly gray to brown ones, are pretty rare, but the massive, stalactitic columns are more common. At times, he sounds more like a geology textbook than a miner. But he is a miner. I go with him and others to the mine. Halfway down the mineshaft, the ground grumbles, threatens to swallow all of us at any time. Then walls crumble, pinning our elevator. In the middle of prayer, he stares through hazy acetylene light

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at rock formations. He tells me more than once, he swears he sees baby Jesus and his mother cradling him in the silver ore etchings. He says that her husband, Joseph, with the shepherds, is there, too, all the while his ears are ringing with voices, angelic ones. He shakes his head, and says the song is still there. and so is the creche. Earth shifts again, the mine rains dust, hails more debris. He closes his eyes and prays out loud this time with hands raised. Through the thin films of his eyelids, a red glow burns, then flashes to brilliant white. He calls out to his wife, voice breaking, over and over again. He says he thinks he’s going straight to the other side. When he opens his eyes, he sees the dark ceiling of the mineshaft crackedopen to the sky with the bright silver sun pouring in. Rescue workers free him and his men. He never much believed in prayer before that. When the train finally leaves, steam and coal soot dance in swirls of wind. For a moment, he sees the beautiful shapes of promises, the hope

The Winter´s Tale

in silver-lined clouds. He says the clouds look like his children, and his children’s children not even born yet and that they are with their mothers. Two thousand townsmen and miners stand and watch the train smoke dissipate but only great grandfather and I know that it isn’t just a wisp of sky.

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The Winter´s Tale

Hellhole the ice age of the idolless raptures a little field of clasping cones Megan Denese Mealor

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The Winter´s Tale

Still Life

by Akeith Walters

There’s no secret code written in the dust on the coffee table, no incredible winter warning peeling skins off the bowl of fruits, at least none that I’ve found. So what if brown leaves have begun to blow across the cobbled path outside the front door? We would walk anyway, bundled-up with our breaths icy grey, our speckled hands clutching each other, knobby knuckles stressed in the effort to never let go. Our parents and even our parents’ parents, before their own sunlit shades began to fade into thedark, told us to be prepared. But how could we, when the glistening skin of summer heat still holds the pounding beat of our hearts in our throats as we lie together entangled in that cliche of tangled sheets while Autumn’s late afternoon lingers like a distant thought slanting through the window of our senses, the curtains nothing more than a gentle billow of the evening to come, a distraction to go unnoticed.

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PS: Still Life at the Dinner Table, MLF, 2018

The Winter´s Tale

Mercies Found in Christmas Lights by Tom Sheehan

Across this newly thickened pond my night skates chatter up clouds of mist as dense as the Milky Way. Underneath, the fish disbelieve the sudden hardness of their sky. The darkness makes me love all the mercies found in light. Only the blind could love light more, given one more chance; a flake of pond ice in their eyes with a star caught up inside. If I dare to listen I hear an event

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The Winter´s Tale

of ice fracture, a shore-to-shore cracking underfoot, schismatic, a round of forgotten artillery; or my booted cutlery slashing lines on the sugar-white surface, crackling an electricity that divests thinly clad wire. I am on the pond after midnight and there is light. Clarity speaks on cubes of air. The wind has teeth for the back of my neck. Only my left arch is tired, and that from an accident once on a night moving lightless. What matters is I am not blind. Light comes in spheres, or long, thin lines, in the dusts we know of explosions. Light is in the cold air sling-shotting pellets at my teeth. It is what first comes of darkness, and all the mercies we’ll ever know.

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The Winter´s Tale

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Snow Dance by Oonah Joslin

Today the snow danced with the wind, spun and pirouetted, swirled, barely touched the ground it seemed as her billowed dress unfurled. And I envied so the flakes that joined the dance, happy and free. This is the chance love always takes, to tread the wind’s uncertainty.

The Winter´s Tale

Like a Lost Pair of Kites by John C Mannone

[S]evering me from an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string…I keep searching the sky…to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites —A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote It is that Christmas after the city fell to its knees as crumbled skyscrapers. Some things should be forgotten but not how to pray. My mother always said to listen to my heart, to follow my dreams… things every mother says to her son as she kisses him on the forehead. Now, her lips are pressed into silence except when the morphine that courses through her heart, prompts her delirious rancor while the music crackles through: ‘Do you hear what I hear? A star, a star, dancing in the night With a tail as big as a kite.’

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PS: MLF, Pulling Love Through the Sky, 2018

Why is the hospital so sterile? Its walls don’t know any more than my own mother does. Momma doesn’t know me too well this Christmas, a day empty of thanksgiving as I crumble to my knees. Yet her rich brown eyes sparkle brighter than any Christmas light when she thinks she recognizes me—for a moment, I am lifted with her smile to where she’d soon be going on the soft wind of angels, on a whoosh of ushered Amens lofted high like a kite soaring above any tower left kneeling, high into the sun.

The Winter´s Tale

Old Snow by James Graham

Long before light he wakes and crosses the chill slate floor. He opens the door to the snow; a little cataract falls and shatters. This snow, the same since ages of the wild ox and mammoth, is the ﬁrst deep snow that will inspire him. He leaps, and cannot see its surface; with all the levers of his body leaps again. He touches, sifts and shivers - and now runs though the moon-pale house to the big bed, and tumbles into the middle space. The seed from which he grew contained the joy of snow.

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The Winter´s Tale

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A Baby's Smile

by Lesley Timms Groundhog Day’s now Groundhog Years, Rudderless, my raft of fears. Hermit-like: forced isolation, Old dreams dashed. Desolation. Futile quests; no magic key To freedom from this curse M.E. Fruitless hours of Google searches, No solace from books or churches. Now dreary wintry skies augment The pain of years so poorly spent. From news reporters, no relief: Bleak local news; dire global grief. Yet as New Year is poised to play More weary tunes of yesterday, A shaft of light, a searing dart, Rends in two this cynic’s heart! Melting ice when all else failed, A frozen soul by joy impaled! What force could banish years of bile, So artless, so devoid of guile? As Groundhog Days resume again, What image cuts through all the pain? A tiny baby’s joyful grin, The wondrous smile of Evelyn!

The Winter´s Tale

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KEY BRIDGE JANUARY by Beate Sigriddaughter There’s only one road to arrival and it’s all a road of knowledge and it had to lead across this bridge beneath the steel grey sky of January rain, transfigured by the darker steel of birds.

The Winter´s Tale

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The Light Of Snow by Dolores Duggan Silver slivers of light shine Amid the frozen glass Panes above my bed.

Legs entwined lightly. Bed clothes dim the sounds Of the winter. Outside silence is loud In its absence . Time the rise and fall Of your chest. In the dark. Light from snowfall And ice. Cocooned As The cat stretches in his bed And Later on, he stands at the door. Keening to escape . Birds awaken and chirp. We made love. Then we made coffee.

The Winter´s Tale

The Wind, Ol on Canvas, MLFf, 2018

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Reflections Of An Old Man

by James G. Piatt

ld memories drift in and out of my mind like an intermittent rain in wintertime. Tears once withheld often flow down my wrinkled cheeks as visions of the past continue to fade into infinity. I am left in the presence of my aging bones and wistful thoughts. I often recall the rapid flowing moisture of a stream now dry, and a lake, which is but a pond, casualties of the drought. I no longer hear the croaking of frogs once hidden in the reeds along side softly rolling brooks for they too have vanished. The wind through the hollows whispers images into my soul of past treks where I walked on dusty trails. I remember a long time ago when I was strolling in the woods under the summer sun and the river was filled with fish, bullfrogs and ducks. I seem to be caught in that ambiguous nowhere land between yesterday and today, and sense a vague longing for all that has vanished, but more for fear of what is coming as my years rust away into the mirror of echoing reflections.

The Winter´s Tale

Remnants by Tom Sheehan

Grandfather ran the city dump, burned clinkers in a little house made of scrap. On cold nights drunks slept in, thicket ‘round the grouse. They were welcome, long night heat of iron stove they wrapped around, hot rim cold feet were propped upon, quick difference from frozen ground, bare railroad tracks and entry ways, darkness where abides the ghost, or last resort, dread cardboard wrap. The lonely birds came in to roost, flew in at dusk. He stoked the fire to flames, dried their feather sward; often he left his lunch about, like suet hanging in the yard. On Saturdays I brought his lunch, dense laminates of bread and meat, thick and heavy, coarse as sin, brown banana we would not eat dark coffee bottled in a pint, wound about with paper clasp. I never saw one bottle finished off within his grasp,

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never saw his hand inside odd-size paper bag. His flock did choose, had suet choice, hens dining before the cock. When he died they came to grieve the man who gave them sup, drunk and besotted brothers who once drank of his cup, mottle skinned, so soured of life, pale host, the beaten and the warred, they came to touch the little man who gave them what was left of God.

The Winter´s Tale

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White Winters by Irena Pasvinte I used to think that winter should be white, Its icy armor wrapped in snowy coat – The reign of cold in all its freezing might. When moonlit snowflakes glistened in the night And screeched beneath my boots on empty road, Of course, I thought that winter should be white. It always came on time and, full of spite, With steely hands it grasped at Nature’s throat – The reign of cold in all its freezing might. Today my winter cries with grim delight, And rainy clouds above me glumly float... I used to think that winters should be white. When rains get tired, they promptly lose the fight To desert winds with heavy sandy load, The reign of heat in all its blazing might. I still can feel the smell of snow at night, But now I leave no traces on the road Where folks assume that winters should be white, The reign of cold in all its freezing might.

The Winter´s Tale

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Sozzled Santa by Mike Lewis

When dear Father Christmas stopped by here last year, I remember he drank all my poor Daddy’s beer! My Daddy was sleeping in one of the chairs – I found him still there when I came down the stairs, with a whole lot of empty beer cans all around. Father Christmas had managed to not make a sound! He had drunken the lot and then just slipped away. I waited to see what poor Daddy would say. But, when he woke up, he was quiet as a mouse, and Mummy was crossest of all in the house. Which I can’t understand (grown-ups really are queer) ‘cos Mummy, I know, doesn’t even like beer!

The Winter´s Tale

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Under the Loving Tree by John C. Mannone Today I was a photo-elf for the oldest Santa in the Mall. An outstanding Santa—wildly warm. He scooped each child up onto his lap, flattered every aspect of the little one’s character, each child delirious with joy. But he never asked them what they wanted. Instead he listened, then called each mother over, pressed in close, whispered in their ears, Do you tell your children that you love them? Do you tell them every day? The mothers always blushed as they shook their heads. His eyes still twinkling, he’d tell the children, Give your mother a kiss, your father too. Winking, reminded them to tell their children that they love them more than presents. He ends with Remember that the most important thing is loving other people as much as they love you. The parents, astonished, surrendered laying down their video recorders and their shopping lists, then gathered under the Christmas tree to ponder all these things. They looked up, past the happy Santa, up the tinsel star-studded tree to the top of the evergreen where a Christmas ornament overshadowed the cruciform shape on their faces.

The Winter´s Tale

Snow Robins, PS, MLF, 2018

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SIBERIAN SUNDAY by Tina Cole

Come inside, place your palm like a quiet vow on the blessing of the nearest wall where the torn join of the pattern is familiar. Ease off wellingtons while the bare arms of trees shed Winter blossom, carelessly casting off their lean coldness in sheets of flickering snow, they cannot wait to let it go, watch it dissipate across blank fields where small birds hop their criss-cross codes, soon erased by softly shifting loads. Hinges sing and sigh, demented wind chimes clatter, as we fling off corkscrewed hats, regard ourselves in glass that’s spiked and frozen, return at last to a room full of scent, the almost spent bloom of Hyacinth.

The Winter´s Tale

The Linnet´s Wings

IN PRAISE OF NO GOD by Kathleen Cassen Mickelson

Backyard spruces cradle snow, boughs bent yet strong enough to offer a foot of purity. My arms tire after two rounds of shoveling. I rest on the handle, grateful for strong limbs. In the half-light before sunrise, crows wing their way to the woods half mile to the east, a daily habit. I hear their mingled voices rise, wish I were beneath their trees, an offering of my own in hand. Not that they need me. I need them, their black swoops overhead, raucous calls reminding me there are other ways to live, untethered from whatever this is humans have created. Would I shrug off this life for a briefer, leaner, wilder one? No. I will make it enough to consider the crows’ view, their sky-high wisdom.