Karen Little's Blog, page 4

The Point Is?

I never cease to be amazed at the number of us who manage to keep going. Some of us in a striving way, some riding an invisible flow, others in a defeatist, hopeless kind of way. I often wonder who is happy. If we are striving, how can we be happy? If happy means satisfied with what we have, why do we need more? Do we believe we get what we strive for, rather than it all being a ridiculous series of coincidences? When we get what we are striving for (assuming we do) The Point Is? If we float along, letting things happen at us, The Point Is?If we keep going in a hopeless way, with the knowledge that nothing good will come to us, and even if it does The Point Is? What about those of us who stamp on other people to get where you want to be? Or who have to expand our ego enough to fill a room to convince everyone how great we are. And if they believe us, The Point Is?

Poem: A Daughter by Karen Little

Bonnie's Crew

A Daughter

A daughter is born as clouds form sea spray. Cast off,

she skims surfaces, defies gravity.

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Fast Flight by Karen Little

A great site to read and/or submit your poems to

Shudder on the Stairs by Karen Little

One of my favourite sites. for reading and submitting to….I have a couple of poems here today…….

I am not a silent poet

Broad backed, seal-like on the rock of stubborn acceptance

she feels flop-heavy, all fierceness gone. Dipping into morning’s

amber road, the journey absorbs her pain, smoothes the grumbling

edges. I try to read the whole of her: the shudder on the stairs,

her crumpled skirt dangerously torn. The road has seen and heard

it all before. The walking wounded don’t commit suicide on a whim.

My mind is a playground with a germ of an idea, a gem sparkling

within the umbra:
Mountains deny artificial explosives can be put

to good use. We explode naturally at times—all that fat.

Ash and steam create the loudest sound ever heard,

while history doffs its hat. We surmise that if we bubble

and expand enough, someone will hear the report.

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The Writers’ Cafe Magazine – ISSUE 4 “Time and Space”

A great online magazine to read and submit your writing to…..I have a couple of poems there this month…

The Writers' Cafe Magazine

The Haunted Sky

by Peter King

Waiting Room




by Peter King

Waiting is filled with silence;

one drop slides down the smooth side,

hesitates before it’s sucked beneath

the incurved marble base.

There is bustle and commotion all around,

but it’s absorbed and nullified,

leaves not a ripple in the syrup

of the silent vessel, not a trace.

Even when the waiting’s overset –

a clumsy jog of someone’s

shoulder, maybe – it is slow to empty,

silence spreading out in sticky lace.

An insect, small and iridescent,

slow to see its danger, struggles

in the unexpected flood, antennae waving,

silence setting it eternally in place.

Black Hole

by Peter King

Beyond the armoured glass

its metal shutters now drawn back,

I stare at vacum.

The stars are brighter than

I’ve ever seen – but I don’t

see them now, nor my reflection,

nor the ghostly cabin at my back.

And when…

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Prole Magazine

Issue 24 of one of my favourite magazines is available here:

http://prolebooks.co.uk/index.html

Prole is a print magazine crammed with poetry and prose. If you are a submitter, submit; but check out an issue for an idea of which of your work might fit. As a tiny taster, this is my contribution to issue 24:

My Whistle

In the wrought iron chair, oblivious to watchful eyes,

she’ll be waiting under a nervous moon for her dealer.

Her answers come foil –wrapped, sealed and shiny,

hard to get into without a steady hand.

My flaming wings were grounded by the threat:

‘Each time you  chew your hair, angels fall from the sky.’

Hunger, the desire for sucking barley sugar to a point

that could blind with a jab, loosened my gloved fist,

had me running from the Trailer and her pipe-smoke, to

follow the direction of rain, edges of clouds, slush of gravel.

Shame is broken-glass shaped, fists through windows, bottles

smashed on grim pavements, my whistle killed by drifting teeth,

the sudden appearance of gaps on the bottom row, an inability

to exactly shape air to summon dogs racing over the horizon.

Books, Dog bed, Trailer carpet and Nylobone

For sale: two signed copies of Filled with Ghosts, (Book 1, Spanish Spectres series)…Eight signed copies of Ghosts Treading Water (Book 3 Spanish Spectres series)

Not for sale: my copy of Ghost Train Leaving (Book 2, Spanish Spectres series….unsigned), dog bed, Nylobone and Trailer carpet. Cardboard to be recycled.[image error]

Lockjaw Magazine

My poem 13 ways of Looking at Beetles was in the first volume of Lockjaw Magazine a couple of years ago. It’s an online magazine, one I really like, and it’s still happening (though not open to submissions at this precise moment in time). They have an archive of interesting editions. Here is that inaugural one:

http://www.lockjawmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Lockjaw-Vol-I-pdf-screen.pdf

Forgotten Conflict

Trying to gather together my ‘publishing history’ I came across a couple of  my poems ‘Bully’ and Crossbow’ in  Here Comes Everyone Magazine. It’s a great bi-annual literary magazine, in print, that’s still going strong,  PDF versions can be read for free. Here’s a link to the PDF of the Conflict edition, December 2014.

http://herecomeseveryone.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ConflictHQ.pdf

Picaroon Poetry

Here’s a link to Picaroon Poetry’s  Pushcart Prize nominations. Best of all, you get links to some issues of the magazine, all in one place, for free