Daylilly

The Garment

by Fred Longworth

Fred Longworth restores vintage audio components for a living. His poems have appeared in numerous journals including California Quarterly, Comstock Review, Pearl, Rattapallax, Spillway, and Stirring.



The shirt everyone adored
when you slipped it on
finally fell into disrepair, collar ragged
as an elder's voice, pockets torn
like the prospects of the disillusioned.

Still, you kept on showing it off,
even as admirers turned to other darlings,
and shadows that used to part for you
hardened into impenetrable walls.

When I saw you last, rats scampered
at your heels, and moths fluttered
around your head. As for the shirt,
ligatures of vanity dangled like cobwebs.

The South Window

on the death of a dog

by Dunstan Attard


Dunstan Attard was born in 1953 on the Mediterranean island of Malta where he still lives. The significant influence on his life was his father who struggled to come to term with his detachment from his agricultural and deeply religious comminty in Gozo to live in the ambitious environment of a Maltese town. Attard's fascination with island life wrapped in steep history today energises his concept of being. Attard, who's first language is Maltese shares his emotions using the English language which is his second language. He rarely makes an effort to communicate with his reader as his poetry is very often a series of words that surface through his emotions at the time of writing.



dogs die
in bundles of echoes
that come from perfumes
of childhood roses
oozing
the resigned flesh
of silver moons

then comes the resolution
not to adopt another dog,
for too great is the pain
of the passing away

then eerie emptiness
creeps
into cracks of water
spreading the alphabets
with tears
that taste of mint

i call on the old landscape
and gaze on the stillness
of empty stables

by now
the horses have become butterflies,
i empty ships