A Magazine of Many Arts

Instead of noisy static, we hear clear beats

grouped in patterns of seven and eleven.

Our entire team is galvanized; not even

the frequent napper holds back to see who gets

to break this code. At last this is the breech

in the chaos where we’ve plunged our heads

for years. If this is more than just a glitch

in our equipment, we’ll do as it bids.

We work around the clock like beings driven

by unseen forces. Take-out pizza boxes

fill up the lab. All effort goes toward solving

the encrypted message. The smell of pizza mixes

with smells of a gym locker room: not even

the need to run a clean, tight ship relaxes

the grip of this obsession. Where it leads

is up for grabs. In face of all the scads

of data, interpretation lags behind.

Prime numbers turn to other universals –

Planck’s constant, pi, the speed of light. The mind

of each researcher is party to rehearsals

that leap from a quantitative kind

of knowing through sensual feeling parcels

to mountains forests horses starlight art

and magical perceptions of the heart.

Last night you invaded my dreams again.
Just how long do you expect to hang around?
But here you are,
A regular supernatural Jack-in-the box.
There was a time when the dead
Had the courtesy to stay so.

The first time I buried you was ten years ago.
Your constant presence was soothing.
I enjoyed your companionship,
But life with the dead quickly palls
Into a six foot rut.
I suggested you visited
A little less often.

That was fine for a while until your visits
Began to interfere with the daily task
Of living. A job I do very well.
So I put you back in the box
And turned the key; bringing you out
Once in a while to check that you were dead.
But you never were.

Those last times, I thought I’d really nailed you.
Exorcism: book of my words
And candle of our love;
Guttered of course.
But the reading of the words named you
And you it was
Who rang the bell.

It’s the sheer nerve of it though.
You bear no resemblance to the original.
Oh physically speaking, yes,
If that’s the word for it.
But you are too caring, too considerate,
Too full of love to have been you.
Perhaps that’s the problem.

So I am seizing this conundrum,
The you that was, the you that is, the you that isn’t,
And back in the box you all go,
Sealed down forever with original failings.
What a laugh if he could perform the last and final rites,
But over ten years we’ve misplaced the body
And, anyway, I look good in black.

J.S.Watts was born in London and now lives and writes in East Anglia. Her poetry, short stories and book reviews appear in a variety of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia and the States including Acumen, Brittle Star, Envoi, Orbis and The Journal and have been broadcast on BBC and Independent Radio. She is currently Poetry Reviews Editor for Open Wide Magazine. Her debut poetry collection, Cats and Other Myths, is published by Lapwing Publications. Further details are available at www.jswatts.co.uk

She was an apple thief
a thief of summer’s fruit
it was just natural to poison what she fed on
after all, who
would pity the rat that ate of poisoned bait?

And she was quite another sort of vermin
her seven tails dug seven trails
behind her, no matter where she went
and the voice was infinitely fairer
than the evil maw it came from

in the snowy woods of ebony
her blood-red lips lay hidden
and her lair was a grave of apple cores
that’s where she had taken the fruit
of poison, the two-faced apple

it is also where she lay asleep in ice
as if it were a bed of crystal glass
who would have thought that all this apple bite
could leave her merely sleeping?
The prince saw her sleep in this deep

deep forest and to her lips
he lost his mind
he kissed her and kissed the poison from her lips,
drank it from her throat and collected
the stray drops of venom from her teeth

Gone mad from kissing poison
it is no wonder
that he had people dance themselves to ashes
in fire shoes of glowing iron
–how his eyes gleamed when they danced!

It is no wonder also
that he would keep her apple sweet breath
beneath his tongue, his pillow
and in the fabric of his sheets and that his
shrouds were made of apple peels
that the beast had woven tightly, like a noose

I may be just a metal woman,
rust for brains,
but hot lubricant courses through these tubes.
I want more than a battery powered thrust
between my legs.
I am looking for love
a man to ignite my jets,
but no one with an ounce of fresh gristle
wants to be held in my solid grasp
They run as if rocket powered.

I thought I’d build me a man,
all pistons and genuine aluminum six pack.
I collected the parts,
drew up the schematics,
but though everything functioned,
went down and up as needful,
I could never find the place
to install real lasting love.
It wasn’t long before he left me
for a vending machine.

I think I might try again, someday,
to build me a metal mate,
a man with big pistons and a sense of fun,
but first I need to work out
where you put the love
and how you keep it there
so it doesn’t fall out
or corrode or snap,
unless you want it to,
after one vend too many.

This poem will be published as part of “Songs of Steelyard Sue” (ISBN 9781909252028) by Lapwing Publications later in the summer.

Sad really,
watching the way
this world works,
when I’m from another planet
altogether.

These “humans”
don’t have the humanity
I carry
in the locket
around
my neck.

Heartbreaking,
mad-hatting
broken fingered
degenerate dope-fiending
bottom feeders.

The lot of them.

All my alien friends think so;
“dirty”
is the word used most often,
not always meaning dirt.

Still,
the nachos here are good,
and the oceans are a lovely
shade of green,
or is it blue?

It would just be nicer
without all these “people”
around.

Softly
or else, he wakes
and crushes you with his giant’s hands
and licks the pulp you’ll then become
from his dirty palms

He has not always been like this
not always so tall, so big
so gigantic
or so savage

once upon a time
he was like you
all daggers and sword
and a hero’s tongue
blazing like the sun

but no more.
His hero’s shadow lies dead
buried under a stone
and this vile-breathed giant
is all that remains

Softly now
or else he wakes…
up the looming cave into the darkness!
your sword is drawn already, good;
always straight for the heart
as you have done so many times before

there was no doubt that you would win against
this shadowless monster
was there, Hero?
and when you leave with one more slaying to your name
don’t forget to take your shadow with you,
Hero, giant among men…