The Celestial Press

09/08/2024

CHRISTA WEIBEL

I Got You

Manners are assumed
By you when I meet you,
And by me when I don’t want to meet you.

I never know if you
Or my manners,
Or our meeting

Will change the sky
From its churchyard grey,
Misting on my stellar

Jokes about you,
Me, the world,
And everything.

My humour is a genius
For your genius ungenius.
Receive the blessing,

Take no sorrow
From my sorrow.
Alone is the best.

Death is no defeat.
It comes as a friend
Who never wanted a friend.

Christa Weibel 2024

07/08/2024

C F HOOD

The Ringing

Or at school,
when Miss Lambert sought silence
and told us to close our eyes.
Listen! To all the sounds you can hear.

Did I start with the clock on the wall?
or the crack of the pine
our frosty hands had put in the stove?

soon, a bus and footsteps;
soon, a voice and another - but not together;
soon, the breath I once made.

Craig Hood 2024
[from THE FOREBODING]

02/08/2024

WENDY WALKER

Requiem

Now have come times
when you can’t say some things.
Controls,
and emotions that fire in spite of them.
I define my grief
like that and
my revenge is what you used to say.
Before.
Before.
“We’re coming to get you’s”.

Wendy Walker 2024

28/07/2024

BOXER

kick

hey guys
the word is out
i be told
i be readin
i get seedin good
lookin
viewin
news of the world
1948
tubeyou
we got peace
take it back
take off the uni
forms of all the s**te
that came down fast with
the false god
boxer knows
boxer says
boxer goes
praise the lord
they be kermit
kermit da frog

Boxer 2024

28/07/2024

ENNIS WILLSON

alarum

the pall people
- people who pall.
and lace themselves
with pathos -
hey
most of my world.
sized in a song lyric.
some writers don’t
catch up
some writers don’t
catch on
some writers don’t
catch fish
some writers don’t
catch cold
some writers don’t
catch fire
some writers don’t
catch buses
some writers
catch in your throat.
folks down my way
know how to laugh
incoming or not.
bombs
you know.

Ennis Willson 2024

24/07/2024

C F HOOD

Irene

Titanic workers,
crew,
who did
do their duty
with no particular ego
- more gratitude.
Something to do
while you wait.
Helping others.
Others,
not so lucky,
went up and down the boat.
Up and down.
Band did play.
Not a myth.
Well,
what are you going to do?

Craig Hood 2024
[from THE FOREBODING]

23/07/2024

BOXER

sure does

little songs
little people
i be the hero
milling your steeple

sat an
crisscrossed
feeble s***m of
pretend goodies
you know s**t
about s**t

no rescue
no soul
boxers here
boxer knows
boxer says
over the side
over the top
over the hill
run boys run
shes coming
shes coming
and i sure knows

Boxer 2024

22/07/2024

WENDY WALKER

My Boy

The wind I knew a year ago
when I walked to school
is gone. My love is too.
My trees of green were always blue.
You knew and I knew
that it was only you.
Fallen leaves.
Compost of life.

Wendy Walker 2024

21/07/2024

ENNIS WILLSON

ennis willson

there is time in the affairs of men
to remember that how we speak,
oh men, my man of man’s,
vroom, vroom,
is neither here nor there.
man and woman are ancient foes,
said my dad,
the day of his third divorce.
fun for the kids,
three moms,
and a very grumpy lawyer grandad.
world’s lookin up,
folks,
i’m lookin down.
down
higgledly piggledy
down.
see ya.
go kamala.

Ennis Willson 2024

19/07/2024

C F HOOD

Stella

In some reports
I have seen,
the final conclusion
is the same.
With faith and devotion
pull the plug on the planet.
Never to be discussed again,
simians don’t work.
Aim better next time.
Your mother told me
she did love you,
you know,
drill baby, drill.
Coming back first
you’re young,
and summers run long.
For the young
they run and run.
Streets and drones.
Black. Dark. Septic.
Resistance again.
Your mother.
Me.
All the rest.

Craig Hood 2024
[from THE FOREBODING]

10/07/2024

CHRISTA WEIBEL
_______________________________________________________________________
Occupational Therapy

Why must my days end like this?
I spat at her. I spat at the TV.
I spat at the news
I have become what my mother said I would.
I have become a big I.
I am not a little I.
You are not a little you.
You come with me
and we will see.
Rise up, my sisters.
Write to our brothers.
My brothers die.
They die.
You bastards.

Christa Weibel 2024

10/07/2024

ALEXANDER SCIANNA
_______________________________________________________________________
'The Redeemer'
[Acrylic on Canvas. 3' x 2'] 2024.

01/07/2024

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
Greta, My Love

Greta, come to me my love.
Sit with me a while.
Does the train come late
or early these days?
Courage - she’ll tell you
when it’s near.
Look at that wag!
She has always sat
at the feet
of all my virtues.
Your mother mustn’t know,
if, you know happens.
No details. You know.
You tell her though.
Greta, my love,
you were always my child.

Craig Hood 2024
[from THE FOREBODING]

25/06/2024

CHRISTA WEIBEL
_______________________________________________________________________
‘Biblical Babies’

Proof of what?
None.
Proof of who?
The sentimental.
I am old but I regress
To no godly nonsense.
It was never any words of comfort to me.
I am a woman
Who festered in a manly divine embrace.
My divorce from Abraham
Came when I found loneliness
And the sistered silence
That unbelief brought.
Be my love in the dark.
The power of my day’s end
Is the daughter of darkness.
I name her:
Visible soul of nothing.

Christa Weibel 2024

27/05/2024

CHRISTA WEIBEL
_______________________________________________________________________
‘Ovenbaked’

Less of the self
Is all the world Adorno
Grants. I would have him brothered.
My grandparents were poets,
Who died in Auschwitz.
Poetry died there. Forever.
Nothing to say
Except sorry?
Stop writing your bulls**t.
The world is not
Your farce and your secret
Public indulgences
Sister me no follies.

Christa Weibel 2024

14/05/2024

We mourn the great Canadian short story writer, Alice Munro, dead at the age of 92. A Nobel Prize winner for literature, her work has bewitched and enriched countless readers. One of the world's finest writers has gone from us. Ever RIP beautiful and sublime Alice Munro.

Her stories were widely considered to be without equal, a mixture of ordinary people and extraordinary themes.

03/05/2024

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
'Wooden Toys'

Dear Mother, you have this now
because you know what has happened.
I want you not to mourn me
but I know you will and I’m sorry.
You will find in the secret box
beneath my bed more wooden toys.
I made them for the shop
but they still had plenty when I left.
The window with my wares
will soon deplete – you wrote me
that I’m still selling well!
Let the gaps stay a while, thanks,
and then stock from the box
till it’s empty.
There’s a tank I did
just before the war.
Please put it in the fire.
Your ever-loving son, Penn.

Craig Hood 2023
[from RETURN TO DUTY]

29/04/2024

There are no words to describe our grief at the death of Vincent O'Sullivan.

Sir Vincent, a prolific and iconic writer and academic, died on Sunday.

11/03/2024

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
'Miller’s Trombone Dream'

At the railway station
I found myself alone
- mid-afternoon, late summer.
I think.
The shadows were longer
than they should be.
I had no fear that the train wouldn’t come.
It did. No one was aboard.
I found my own seat
and relaxed, with a peppermint.
I wanted sweet breath
as we pulled out of the station.
And then I saw it.
My case, on the platform,
or the desk,
it doesn’t matter which.
My playing days are over.
That empty carriage,
gathering speed,
all for me.

Craig Hood 2024
[from RETURN TO DUTY]

19/02/2024

MIKAERE GREENSLADE
________________________________________________________________________________
'bene'

cancer had her
with fingers wrapped around the sap
a slow squeeze that
didn't move if you looked
but slid quiet
in the dark hours

i'm rich
she would announce
with eyes wide and full of life
love insistent and florid

let me cook you a meal
and tell you those same
stories
once more

tattoo them on your soul
then you will know words
for all the songs
when silence claims me

Mikaere Greenslade 2024

10/02/2024

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
'Another Dawn'

There are sad sounds.
As one ages they transmit life to death.
My neighbour died some months back,
leaving a widower.
Her dog, hitherto silent,
now bays at intervals that I presume
only another bereft dog would comprehend.
I lie in bed in silent tears,
pining for the time when it was
cuddles and joy in theirs.

Craig Hood 2024
[from RETURN TO DUTY]

03/02/2024

ALEXANDER SCIANNA
________________________________________________________________________________

'Cassidy Hutchinson'

Acrylic on canvas
24" X 20"
Completed February 2, 2024
by Alexander Scianna

26/01/2024

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
'Summer Pasture at the Abattoir'

I suppose a long weekend
before the cataclysm
is kinder to a creature.
Did the donkeys work
so hard that day in Pompeii?
It’s like that,
signing orders,
granting death.
A three day leave
before Tuesday’s business,
is unconscious of me and its lies;
the rumble of the guns,
soon and certain.
An industrial massacre
you would say,
had you lived to tell the tale.

Craig Hood 2024
[from RETURN TO DUTY]

19/01/2024

MIKAERE GREENSLADE
_______________________________________________________________________
'beyond'

colour the day with
your prism
sway our path and

gild the litter
left by those sad
winter souls whose

monochrome stares leach
air from lung and smile from hearts
until you

Mikaere Greenslade 2024

14/01/2024

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
'Carpathian Dreams'

When two people
who once loved each other
abandon ship what can save them
from the trench beyond?

They are no different
from caregivers,
caught in a craft
with no care to give.

Look! The wind rises.
The stars are obscured.
Through the clouds,
a moon suggests itself.

I found a woman,
dead and frosty,
her arms around a dog
in the icy waters.

The fable is mysterious
in this way.
It ends, abruptly,
beneath our frozen grasp.

Craig Hood 2024
[from RETURN TO DUTY]

22/12/2023

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
'The Staff Officer's Last Christmas'

Granted leave, I catch the train to St Petersburg:
long ago we starved here
and died listening to Shostakovich.
Now, I find myself at the Mariinsky,
sat above the nutcracker
who is father to his country's fate.
A silenced poet speaks of no surrender
but points out the view through
a dusty church window
of an advanced enemy.
Soon the dispatches reach me,
even here,
and the warming seas rise
to meet our great,
infinite retreat.

Craig Hood 2019
[from DUETS FOR THE MODERNS]

14/12/2023

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
'Prophecy'

The job is, of course,
to say what something’s like.
Good vision
is not the
same as
good sight.

All right, I’ll be honest.
I see it all
in perfect sepia
to the right
of my right eye.

The shadows,
for they are shadows,
is what it’s like.
No stars
in the sky;
or fingers in the pie,
can stop a baby
so quickly
as the Shylock
I see born
among bombs.

I told you.
The shadows.
I neutralise the shadows.
I know the myths.
My soul is owed.
I have my duty.

Craig Hood 2023
[from RETURN TO DUTY]

11/12/2023

MIKAERE GREENSLADE
_______________________________________________________________________
'we war'

the men climbed down the rope
descend into our eye
wavered on our breath
and held their balance with pitons
sprung to our hope

today the sun plays happy
and we are not gaza
or armed for death

but the hip bone is connected
to the soul
and my brother weeps
for new jerusalem

Mikaere Greenslade 2023

08/12/2023

We mourn Refaat Alareer, a writer, poet, professor, and activist from the Gaza Strip. He was murdered in the ongoing genocide that Israel is performing on the Palestinian people.

Refaat Alareer (Arabic: رفعت العرعير; September 23, 1979 – December 7, 2023) was a Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and activist from the Gaza Strip. He taught literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza and cofounded the organization We Are Not Numbers, which ...

30/11/2023

C F HOOD
_______________________________________________________________________
'Home'

Closer to the front, now,
they found me digs
in a nice old house.
Everything, just as the occupants had left it.
Remarkably fluid, fate can be.
Like an accommodation officer,
she knew my tastes well.
They put me in my own house!
Returned,
I bought a carton of milk,
and some cream,
for the fridge
we never turned off.

Craig Hood 2023
[from RETURN TO DUTY]