Fred Johnson

Nereus
Vitam impendere vero
–Juvenal

Nereus sold lies.
He opened a stall without a licence
And made a small fortune.

He had lies for every occasion
For both marriage and political office
Lies were essential. For divorces, too.

Nereus would adjust a lie
To suit the purpose, a special skill –
Libels were extra.

He would provide a lie
To cover up a lie –
The outcome of a lie was not his concern.

He sold a product
And what was done with it was up to
The purchaser.

But he never had a single
Complaint. He knew how to keep
His curiosity in check.

Consider Nereus
And his trade. All done from a stall
For which he never had a licence.

 

Kris Spencer

Funeral Song

I hold a piece
of fallen headstone.

Rubbing the dirt away
I see letters

but not the words
that marked a life.

The trace of the chisel
is still sharp in the stone;

the surface smoothed
and finished

by a hand made hard
from working.

I drop the rock.
There is enough here, I say.

Kris Spencer is a teacher and writer. Brought up in Bolton, he now lives in London where he is a Head Teacher. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a thread running through his written work is landscape. Inspired to write poetry when an ex-pupil came to talk to some of his pupils about her poetry during lockdown and via Zoom. He has written seven books, most published by OUP, and many magazine articles.

Mark A. Murphy

Hide and Seek

Quand on est aimé on ne doute de rien.
Quand on aime on dout de tout. –
Colette

Someone is hiding from someone else
Someone else wears a blindfold
Someone looks at you with the eyes of a fox
Someone else is counting up to ten

Everyone asks what she is playing at
Everyone knows she is obsessed with him
Everyone asks what she is hiding
Everyone knows she is running out of time

Someone else is alone very much alone
Someone could not care less
Someone else wears a black shawl
Someone looks at you with the eyes of a crow

Mark A. Murphy is a low income, Ace poet, living with GAD, complex PTSD, and OCD. He is the editor of online poetry journal: www.poeticareview.co.uk He is the author of 5 full length collections. His work has appeared in hundreds of journals including, Acumen, The Magnolia Review, ISACOUSTIC and DREICH Magazine. He has poems forthcoming in Cultural Weekly and Synchronised Chaos.