Category: Shortform

DS Maolalaí has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).

Daisy season

spots of fried egg
on the gardens
this morning.
daisy season – I walk
past these well-
trimmed house
lawns. sun bright
and grass green
and some salt-
scattered flowers.
it happens quite
quickly: a detail
like stars in the sky.
and my hangover’s
mild, and I’ve got
work to get to.
I love it; the hangover,
cold breeze
and the light. delightful,
some colour:
this highlight in white
on these cores
of cold yellow
round mornings.

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You can find more of DS Maolalaí’s work via Twitter. You can also read another of Maolalaí’s pieces, Reincarnation., on our website.

Amy B. Moreno writes poetry and prose for adults and children. She writes in English, Scots, and Spanish, including multilingual pieces. She has recently been published by Mslexia (Little Ms), The Common Breath, The London Reader, and DREICH. 

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The Old Chandler

I’ve returned to an old place
which is now not so old
and has made me feel older.

The tenements have been scrubbed up; pink-cheeked,
The windows look bright, flat, and antiseptic.
The front steps don’t bow their heads
at being grubby and worn;
they’ve got other things to be getting on with.

Like a sheet sliding off a mirror
some weeks after a death,
the Chandler’s ghost sign has been uncovered.
It sits on top of the baker’s;
A tenement granny getting a piggy back.

The pastries are curled up,
like Jim’s cat that used to doze
in the corner of the window
on the sunniest days.
They’re presented in woven baskets
that used to hang off the back wall.
The iced buns line up under glass; sugared firelighters.

The smells are warm; they wrap me up in bread blankets.
But, knees creaking down to the lower shelf,
I still catch that sharp finger-point of carbolic.

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You can connect with Amy via Twitter and her previous contribution to The Ogilvie is accessible here.

Raised on the blue-collar streets of Houston, Texas, R.T. tries to maintain the balance of humor and raw temper the street corner life requires. His work has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Pedestal Magazine, Misfit, Trajectory, The Alembic, and Comstock Review. Internationally, it has been published in Canada, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, Portugal, and Antarctica.

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THE MOON REMINDS

I walk a muddy street,
boot tread impressions
brutal, random in February stealth.
Sliver of a moon dices
high fog, pitching oak limbs.
A north wind chills footsteps,
exposed layers of sweatshirt and sweater
beneath a borrowed bomber jacket.
Pausing for the parking turn of a car,
I shrug a shivering laugh, remembering
Mother’s stories of collision death or kidnap.
At the apartment door
I step back to the sidewalk, that cold tunnel,
center my eyes on Jupiter, waiting for Saturn.
By the news—mechanics made right,
we’ll return to the moon.

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R.T. is reachable via email at rcastl2335@aol.com.

Taha Salim is from Iraq but currently resides in Greece, having attained a bachelor’s degree in economics. Taha writes articles, poems, and short stories in Arabic, and translates them into English. Taha is currently in the process of writing and translating a debut novel.

 

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Stop

 

Stop.

Stop and take a glance at your past, weary with defeats.
Stop and cast your eyes over your body, covered in wounds.
Stop and look into your spirit, saturated with gas.
Stop and take off the underwear that is constraining your insides.
Stop and remove the watch that broke long before your birth.

Time has no importance in the face of death’s ugly end.
Start your day in the middle of the night; kill off your distorted little dreams.

Turn your concerns to the birds–who will give them bread?
Worry about the mermaids–who will make love to them when they are half fish?
Be God in the morning; be a little smarter than him.

Create humans who fly high, for the earth is weary and wants rest from our footsteps.

Be the devil in the evening and listen to God with passion.

Play him a dulcet little tune until he readies himself again for sin.

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You can contact Taha via email at tahasalim9494@gmail.com.

DS Maolalaí is a graduate of English Literature from Trinity College in Dublin. Maolalaí’s work has appeared in publications including 4’33’, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Out of Ours, The Eunoia Review, Kerouac’s Dog, More Said Than Done, Star Tips, Myths Magazine, Ariadne’s Thread, The Belleville Park Pages, Killing the Angel and Unrorean Broadsheet. Maolalaí has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice and has published two collections (Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden and Sad Havoc Among the Birds).

 

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Bad bread.

 

I make coffee. you are in the shower.
in the kitchen
I toast the bread
my mother gave us. it’s ok,
full of pumpkin seeds,
though she has a theory
that salt is unhealthy
so the satisfaction
is muted
with each bite. butter helps, the way it melts
flavour,
and sitting with you
wrapped
in your toweling dressing gown,
taking only a dribble
of my full-fat milk
and fitting our hunger
with stirrups, your teeth
shearing slices
and loving me
this morning
through
bad bread.

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You can find more of DS Maolalaí’s work via Twitter. You can read his other piece published on The Ogilvie here.

John Sweet resides in the the rural wastelands of upstate New York. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in the continuous search for an unattainable and constantly evolving absolute truth. His latest poetry collections include HEATHEN TONGUE (2018 Kendra Steiner Editions) and BASTARD FAITH (2017 Scars Publications).

 

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a merciful fist, an abundance of despair

 

dead man doing the worm down on
the corner of grant and main,
giving it everything he’s got, face torn
against the concrete, mouthful of blood,
eyes rolled in his head and this is
the past and this is the future and
this is always the here and now

this is the dream
after the dreamer has been crucified

the bastard children of
crippled saints

we leave them to laugh
at the desert’s edge

leave them to sing and to play in
the ruins of the
abandoned cities and, later,
when they sleep,
we crush their skulls beneath our heels

we feed their bodies
to the wolves

there is no such thing as a life
that can be survived

Luis, born in Mexico, lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, CA. His first book of poetry, Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press. His latest chapbook, Make the Light Mine, was published by Kendra Steiner Editions. His poems have appeared online and in print via Blue Collar Review; Ink, Sweat, and Tears; Ink Pantry; Mad Swirl; and Runcible Spoon.

 

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Walk Into Twilight

 

I walk toward afternoon
with the light still out.
I walk into twilight
and it is like all I ever
wanted and more.
Seeing is more difficult.
I could fall if I am careless.
I walk toward the night
searching for lost love
in the sky. I look higher
and higher toward the moon.
I focus on its light
that is not like the sun.
At night you can stare.
The sun can blind you.
I walked toward midnight
with a shadow following.
It could be the love I lost.
It could be the mugger
who will take out the light,
leaving me sunless and moonless.

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Luis can be reached via his email, cuatemochi@aol.com.

Juliet Wilson is an adult education tutor and conservation volunteer based in Edinburgh. Her poetry and short stories have been widely published—most recently in Mslexia. She also runs a blog, Crafty Green Poet.

 

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Even in the City

 

We call this night
though few of us have seen

star-fields

and the moon
seems half invented.

Drunks wander
neon streets

under night clouds

that glow
orange.

We cross our fingers
and wish on satellites.

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In addition to her blog, you can find Juliet via her Twitter.

Gerard Sarnat is the author of Homeless Chronicles, Disputes, 17s, and Melting the Ice King. He has been published in Gargoyle, Margie, OCHO, New Delta Review, and numerous other publications. Gerard is the recipient of the First Place Award and The Dorfman Prize. Gerard’s Kaddish for the Country was distributed nationwide in the US as a pamphlet on January 20th, 2017. In addition to his literary accolades, Gerard has worked as a professor at Stanford and as a healthcare CEO for several companies (and has worked in clinics for the marginalized as well as in jails).

This poem takes its title from the novel of the same name by Richard Fariña.

 

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Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me

 

Never thought a jot about folks in airport terminals
Who sat steely in wheelchairs while we kibitzing masses
Waited and waited for them to board first

Never began to notice fellow partygoers
Who remained trapped on divans
While the rest of us upright talking souls circulated

Never much slowed down my swagger-strut-sprint
In jeans plus tennies, like a teen just yesterday
Until I was an infirmed elder needing empathy

Today I am awed by all those who can stand no less walk

 

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More of Gerard’s work is accessible via GerardSarnat.com.

Samantha Emily Evans is a poet and writer living in London. She has been published in the Moorpark College Review, the Inklight Poets Anthology, and [Insert Title Here]. She has studied at the University of St Andrews and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. She is a member of the European Beat Studies Network and works at SAGE Publishing.

 

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The Graduate

 

‘The smell of home’–which home?
23424 home? Or St Andrews home?
Grandma and Grandpa’s home?
New home? Mother taught me,
To make the house smell like fall
Boil cinnamon.

Leaving tastes like a huge apple,
The first bite the acid.

Daddy, always Daddy and the pick-up area
Of LAX, the smudge of blue and all that gray,
Fumes of hello and the nervous chatter of six months.

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You can read more of Samantha’s work at www.literarypixie.com.