Poetry: O’d to Prince by Ivor Daniel

O’d to Prince

I guess I should have known
by the way you Played so long Danced so long
So Full On. Did the splits, gave your All to Funk
gave Mojo More. Out James-ed James Brown
sometimes.

You, the best-dressed bees knees.
Your band a team of best-dressed ass.
More model Motown grooves revolve, evolve-ing.
Echoes of Stax, a new Philly from Minneapolis.
You sang so sweet, reached the high notes.
Flew so high.

I guess I should have known there would be pain.

Eternal Sets you played — Sweet Love you made.
Full On Times 9 lives, funk-cool Cat.
Times. Eternal.

Love Candle Creativity Burned Both Ends.
No — all the way through And both ends.
Damn!

Love those Keys
in ‘Girlfriend’, boyfriend.
Love your Guitar ‘When Doves Cry’.
That Tambourine in ‘Tambourine’.
Your humour. Your timing. Your poise.

That pause in

‘Kiss’.

Love
Your Voice Always
Your Words Always.
Your Voice.

You never meant to cause us any pain.
And you didn’t.

Purple Haze Love Sexy Poet
Intimate.
Headline! Read All About It!
In Purple verse or prose.
Signs, Times. O!

So
Contro Verse He.
Falsetto. Androgyny.

You cast an Anastasia Spell.
Became a Symbol.
Pretended you couldn’t spell.

Big pharma dharma warps distorts.
Warps. Mark’s warning in ‘Rowche Rumble’
sad unheeded.

That creep who polluted The Beach, Boys.
(No, that guy should be in a different poem).

Sad rain, self-interest motives, twisted greed,
self-serving cogs of an industry turning
unseen, out of tune, out of your hands,
swells a blood red livid purple stain.

Somewhere it snows in April.
Some say April is stained.
Some meds too toxic, acid.
As Dyian sings, ‘Hard Rain’.

No one wins a fight with major labels
except you, and George Michael.
Fuck cynic greedy mind man-ipulations.
You Strong Sweet Prince.

Thank U
Sweet Lord Nelson Rogers.
I want to see you on high.
In Trafalgar Square.

I still hear you everywhere.

When voices said you were sex soul tease
I was in the middle row, worried ‘bout your
knees. Painkiller Life. Not all honey and ballad. Long
story short. A Slow Bleed.

I search U tube. You play sweet lead on ‘Gently Weeps.’
Dream gospel guitar angel. Sleep. Sleep.
Perchance to dream of Paisley Park.
Some days don’t fall far short
of the dark.

Your Vault of Love and Music Still
Vault of Love and Music Still Always
Will, Will Always, Will

Run Over
Flow Forever ‘n’ Ever ‘n’ Ever.
Ah, Man!

Thank U

Poetry inspired by Leonard Cohen from Ivor Daniel

(c) Geoffrey Wren

Memory Flames 
(after Chelsea Hotel #2, and other songs by Leonard Cohen)

If you remember the Sixties
you were not there, some bore said
later, at a clever dinner.

The Sixties, yeah.
We were there
and we remember it well.
I went down on you
while the limousines still waited
and the afternoon light
fell, slatted gold
on our emboldened bodies.

Now that we are both
passed
I think of you more often.
And you, Suzanne.
And Marianne.

You are all hot flames to me still.
And your light still gets in.

And not one of us is mentally aching now.
Or ill.

Bio: Ivor Daniel lives in Gloucestershire, UK. His poems have appeared in A Spray of Hope, wildfire words, Steel Jackdaw, Writeresque, iamb~wave seven, Fevers of the Mind, The
Trawler, Roi Fainéant, Ice Floe Press and The Dawntreader,
After..., Re-Side, Alien Buddha, The Orchard Lea Anthology (Cancer) and The Crump’s Barn
Anthology (Halloween). .
@IvorDaniel



	

Poetry Inspired by Art from Alexander Bolotov (Mo Schoenfeld, James Penha, Ivor Daniel, Pasithea Chan)

(c)Alexander Bolotov

art photo sent by Pasithea Chan for writing prompt

Untitled by Mo Schoenfeld

memory, dry, cracked.
silent shivering, slick streets,
puddles like mirage.


Twitter @MoSchoenfeld 
A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Mo Schoenfeld

Promenade by James Penha

The rain drizzles like paint on a canvas 
but I am safe under cover of night when
lamplit colors melt this great city I own
on my way.


Expat New Yorker James Penha  (he/him🌈) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. His essays have appeared in The New York Daily News and The New York Times. Penha edits The New Verse News, an online journal of current-events poetry. Twitter: @JamesPenha

Light by Ivor Daniel

(And then the lighting of the lamps. T S Eliot - Prelude).
We shall overcome. (Pete Seeger et al)

And then the lighting of the lamps
And then the lighting of the
And then the lighting
And then the
And then
And

We
We shall
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, some
We shall overcome, some day
WE SHALL OVERCOME, SOME DAY
WE SHALL OVERCOME, SOME DAY
WE SHALL OVERCOME, SOME DAY
#SLAVA UKRAINI  

A Poetry Showcase for Ivor Daniel *Updated 9/23/22* with Plath haiku

A Painter's Umbrella by Pasithea Chan

I set my canvas in swirly wrinkles
hoping my brush makes ripples 
in my lover's heart for all onlookers
etching my pain in colorful grain
to relieve longing's strain & stay sane.

I'm neither a cane for her to lean on nor a window pane
to entertain an agonized soul sedating his pain.
I am an umbrella held for shelter from weather.
Never a stage for soulful blues under red hues.
To me you are both the same:
hiding your agony in a canvas colorfully
as she hides under me indifferently.

All I have is a love story that's now a memory
captured in a silhouette of her figure.
Blue is all the affection left behind love's rapture.
I am a picture hanging on by a fixture 
trying to mend my heart's fracture.

Like rain's pitter patter hearts often scatter 
taking apart lives that were once together.
Take it from me, there's no  warmth in being of use.
Sometimes the end can be your muse
even when your hues become forgotten clues.

Pain is my eye and hope my sky
Blue is my welcome made to qualm
A broken heart looking for a fresh start
Raindrops my fingertips turning colorful drips
into benches to sit through a goodbye.
 
Author's Notes: 
The piece is inspired by Alexander  Bolotov's  painting of a girl walking holding an umbrella under the rain fading into the blue evening sky and red street lamps. The poem is an imaginary conversation between a painter and an umbrella he painted. 












A Poetry Showcase for Ivor Daniel *Updated 9/23/22* with Plath haiku

In High Summer

when flies walk upon my forearm hairs
proprietorial as landlords
and the land is ripe with roadkill

extreme weather scenarios
play out in real time

climate diplomats gather
but the plenary is beached -
delegates cloyed
as wasps in coulis

we sit around
the water table
with an ashen thirst

everybody wants to make a move
but no one does

like watching the bleaching of coral

the only thing agreed on
is that all this is unprecedented

unprecedented rainfall here
unprecedented temperatures there
unprecedented use of the word unprecedented     everywhere

in high summer
the deluge
the canicule
the conflagration

ants grow fat
grow wings
buzz my ears

we pick at
the brittle wishbone
of consensus

wait for crows 
locusts
to draw down the dusk
with a dry calling  

We Are Green

One winter’s day
through condensation windows
I mistook a withered gunnera leaf
for a heron’s wing.
Imagined the bird 
coiled, primal,
waiting at the water.

Months later, 
in the veiled sphere
under a summer gunnera plant,
I imagined myself 
small,
deep in zoological realms
below explosions
of virid strong-stemmed leaves 
as wide as the sky,
blush flower spikes
pushing up and through.

Today
in seasons of indeterminate grey 
when squirrels
do not know
which page
of the nut calendar
we are on,
it is the verdure
I return to.

I daydream of a kinder world.

Daylight and rainfall
elect a parliament of plants.
An upper house of trees.

We are green,
enfranchised.

XY (No Means No)

X.
Doctor Foster
went to Gloucester
in a shower of rain.

Fred and Rose
they quit town
but left a nasty stain.

That’s Fred West -
more than a sex pest.
Did unspeakable things
in his dirty vest.

Y.
Cycling past
the rape seed fields
brings it all back.
The yellow so vivid,
you lying on your back.

The yellow, the horror,
you want to be home,
but find yourself
involuntary, prone.

He seemed ok at first,
he said he’d drop you back.
The stony ground remains
no aphrodisiac.

You shut your eyes
your demon’s back,
slow, stupid in the sack.

And No Means No
involuntary
lying on your back.


Choose Your Own Mother
(for Rhianydd Daniel)

I have heard it said 
the yet unborn  
can choose their parents. 
 
A strange idea, this. 
Although we live in times 
when nothing is 
beyond belief. 
 
If it is true..    
If it is true, 
I ask myself 
the reason  
I chose you. 
 
Indecisive as I am, 
and daresay was 
before my birth, 
there is a scenario 
in which I am at peace. 
 
Wherein, unborn, 
I somehow hear 
your singing voice. 
 
And from that time 
I have no choice. 

sand in your blood

I remember when 
you scraped your leg on coral..
a rose rust bloomed raw 

under your skin..the
sea was a blister the moon
was a bruise.. all night

your fever rose and 
fell..lava tides licked feral 
flames..sand in your blood   

Ad Astra Zee

I am waiting for my blood
to clot. Broad beans
block green veins, 
velvet furred.
I am ripe
for it.

One day my feet 
will be corms,
shoehorned
in stony ground.
My soles are up
for it.

Hey Astra Zee!
I want my
second dose
already. 
             
I am weary 
of this solid flesh
my veins
so unimpeded.

Bring on the levelling dark. 

I am ready, pale horse
for your clip-clop.
For blood clots. 

Bolt, beauteous breathlessness! 
Bolt, cramping throbbing pain 

stampeded!

the paranoia shop

sells mini cctv 
for the home or handbag
sells cctv any size you need

hard-sells hard knuckle dusters
and knives all shapes and sizes
beyond imagination
for your perfect tribulation

they say carrying a knife
puts you more at risk of a stabbing
but the stab-proof vests are on offer today

see the cute hand guns 
to fit your hand    just so 

the paranoia shop
nestled between Gaultier  and Kenzo

I love to window shop there

It makes me feel so safe 

worm haiku

exit wounds out of 
apples, soldiers, the worm out 
of one the bullet

Perfect Bed

I dream I am at Bembom Brothers
Dreamland funfair park
with Tracey Emin.
Hard by Margate sands.

I know I shouldn’t drink that Vodka
on the Helter Skelter.
Apart from that,
a Day as Perfect as the Lou Reed song.

We Kiss with Fish and Chips Lips,
Join Hips. A Turner Sunset
Going Down.

I guess it is the Golden Hour.
Blair’s Babes 
and even some of his men MP’s
are busy Changing a whole heap of things
for the Better.

Back in your room 
we remember that
we even Changed the Bed this morning.

The linen soft and cool next to our Optimistic skin.

(This poem has previously appeared online in iamb-wave seven)

Going back

I went back, and it looked the same. 
I was not expecting that. 
Expected the usual rash of 
New Builds, creeping up the hill.

I went back, thinking
it would all look smaller, like
when I came back from America
aged 19, and it seemed like the train 
home had shrunk 
in a B movie.

I went back
looking for what?
The muddy lane where
we skidded our scooters?
The neighbour’s garden gnome
one of us pushed in his pond?
The Fish Caves, where we played
explorers? Journey to the Centre of the Earth,
or at least 
some way in
to that disused tin mine.

I went back, not to look for
my Dad, just some of the places
he used to take us. 
Halfway between morbid 
and curious.

I went back to the old conker trees 
and the scraped knees. To the
broken fence on Bishop’s Wood Road,
where it said No Trespassing
but my Dad said we’d be alright.

I went back to the old quarry
with the pond we thought was a lake.
I’m channeling a half-
remembered sense of comfort,
danger. Somewhere between 
Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys.

I went back to stacking
boxes of seaside rock
at Woolworths.

 Each stick had writing all the way through,
persistent as memory.

From up on the hill
you can see it all. 
The only thing different
is wind turbines out at sea,
turning like time.

I remember a school master who left.
All of a sudden. The smell
of that old classroom
at the end of the dark
corridor. Scuffed floor wax. 


Thanks Sylvia  for the Sylvia Plath/Anne Sexton Challenge

You married Ted, slapped
cobweb faced British poetry, 
long overdue


Bio: Ivor Daniel lives in Gloucestershire, UK. His poems have appeared in A Spray of Hope,
wildfire words, Steel Jackdaw, Writeresque, iamb~wave seven, Fevers of the Mind, The
Trawler, Roi Fainéant, Ice Floe Press and The Dawntreader. He has poems forthcoming in
After..., Re-Side, Alien Buddha, The Orchard Lea Anthology (Cancer) and The Crump’s Barn
Anthology (Halloween). .
@IvorDaniel





Poetry and stories inspired by the Red Tractor picture

(c) HilLesha O’Nan

Red Tractor by David L O’Nan

Hazel Willett grew up between country and town before the Carmi, Illinois roads. A right red arrow sign points “Corn Seeds and Corn Sold here”, the left black arrow sign on the other side says “The House of Prayer” all you see are fields. Where are these places?

Well Hazel got married a few times to Ol’ Red, Ol’ Roy, and Dwight the drunk. She had a few kids, a few odd girls and a couple of country punks. She had one son the cook, Willie Buck and one son that knew how to crook ‘Lil Clyde. Together them boys could steal some hearts, skinny dipping like frogs out in the pond while mean ass Dwight drove around drunk mowing a mess of crops with his rusty red tractor.

A few years in the boys got through school or left before the final bell tolled and enlisted into the Air Force. They learned the game, got married and got a divorce to two Lindas 2 weeks before they left off to their first mission.

Well Linda Jean and Linda Darlene moved on quickly and got hitched up with the Grawlikee twins. Sean and Shoney Grawlikee. The best metal head country loving boys with the coolest motorcycles and the coolest 8 track system playing the Allman Brothers Band until the birds fell from the sky to their death from the Ramblin’ sounds.

Well back to Willie Buck, known for his cooking the best Scrambled egg chili and blood red puddings, but Clyde felt lonely out there near the Philippines. They began to hear about the rumbles of the wars in countries nearby. Clyde fell in love with a girl from Manila. They talked about babies, farming and building a home back near his mom. Well this girl didn’t feel quite the same for Clyde. She didn’t fully like his idea. She said “no, no, no red tractor, I’ll stay here” then he saw her walk away to another man about a mile away at the corner store. The man was wearing shades and smoking nearly 2 packs at once. It was Clyde’s enemy in the Force. Jimmy Wesley, the self proclaimed loverboy who could convince any women that walked by that he was quite the investor. “One day baby! It’ll be me and you in a big mansion and we’d have all the horses you want”

Well, Clyde got mad. Escaped away. Beat up a greaser style man on the dirt road. Clyde stole his coat and his car and made a skip-hop-and a jump to the nearest Aeroplane. He made it home back into mama Hazel’s arms and her ripe red flowery moo-moo dress.

Hazel said “Welcome home baby, Daddy Dwight is missing…or maybe the ass is in jail… I tell you what Clyde, find you a gal down at Birdie Brown’s bar, marry her up and you can have Dwight’s farm since I’m down for the count and falling more ill everyday damn it!”

She took a silent breath of wretched smoke straight into Clyde’s ear and whispered “You can save up and get you the newest red tractor on the market”

Clyde got giddy and got him a factory job and began singing Buck Owen’s tunes to hippies in the bar that were stoned and tipped him torn dollar bills. One of those Friday nights he saw Marie Smith, a childhood enemy who know was smoking about 2 packs at once and dancing around. They got to talking and next thing you know they were dancing to “Summer in the City” he said “baby, all this scotch has gotten you looking so pretty”…”and it would be an honor if you come to my horse farm estate and become my wife” Well she thought Clyde was full of gold…but he just sold her a pack of lies with wandering eyes.

The couple got married on a rainy El Dorado night. The slick haired preacher got them all wedded and ready to go. 2 weeks later she is looking outside. Clyde is outside yelling “Baby! look at my new ride” Hell…it was the best red tractor around.

4 years later, 6 kids yelling, and a deadbeat neighbor who keeps inviting Marie over for a weed break and a jean shorts photo session. Clyde is walking around, hands in pocket, brass knuckles and a lucky rabbit’s foot in his clutch. Instead of fighting his neighbor Kenny for a lost cause he kept walking up that hill and sat by Mama’s stone. He talked for about an hour and said sorry Mama…I just wasn’t as successful as you wanted me to be.

A few minutes later his brother Willie Buck pulls up with his famous Dr. Thunder Cherry Pie and his family of five. He says “Hey Clyde it’s going to be a great Christmas ain’t it?” Well before Clyde could answer in shame, Willie Buck pulls out a check and says here’s 50 bucks…buddy it’s time to tow away that motherfucking red tractor!”

Clyde begins to hitch the roads and hopes to hit Hollywood to stalk Dolly Parton.

The Red Tractor Micropiece from Spriha Kant

The Red Tractor 
stands polished
excited to assist
his driver’s nominee
in plowing the fields

(c)Spriha Kant

Small town Whitley City, Ky from Marilee Poppins (Lena Saunders)

Ol'Red 

Childhood memories take me back to the winding roads of Kentuckys holler. 

Summers spent running amuck with our cousins

Balancing buckets on our tiny shoulders to bathe ourselves

Taught to handle, load, and shoot guns so young, knocked me on my toosh 

Seeing our Uncle riding back on the red tractor, we knew it was time

Uncle Buck would bring laughter to hurt your belly and cheeks

Aunt W would sing her angelic songs, motioning for us all to sing along

The red tractor still sits in their yard today

Old, duled in its lustrous red, grass grown knee high, weeds twined with the tires and grill

As old and dull as it may look, Red still starts and runs to give its best just to be chosen. 

Life doesn't end as we grow older and wrinkled.

Life doesn't end as our bones do not cooperate as they once did

Life doesn't end when we choose to settle in our lives

Let things grow and get wrapped up in different ideas

Turn that key 

Start your engine

Be present in the body and world your in.

(c)Lena Saunders 9/8/2022

Hot red tractor by Ivor Daniel

I love your hunky tyre track ruts
in clagging mud or
droughted dust

your Wrangler shirtsleeved
diesel trail

your hoarse rough
rumbling horsepower

hotter than a red
Corvette (to me)

in the heartland
the prairie

in sunset Shredded
Wheat
or Marlboro

Country 

“Cursed Houses” Part 2 Poetry Showcase from David L O’Nan  

A “Cursed Houses” pt. 1 Poetry Showcase from David L O’Nan – September 2022 

 Inspired by Bob Dylan poetry by Ivor Daniel 

A Review of “Before the Bridges Fell” by David L O’Nan (review by Ivor Daniel) 

2 poems by Spriha Kant from Hard Rain Poetry Forever Dylan Anthology 

Poetry based on photography “The Lone Road to Moloka’I” from Maggs Vibo 

Poetry based on photography Challenge from Ankh Spice pt. 1 

Bare Bones Writings Issue 1 is out on Paperback and Kindle 

Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan Anthology available today!