Poet of the Month

January: Rebecca Lowe (Wales).
February: Jim Gronvold (USA). 
March: Carolyn Mary Kleefeld (USA).
April: Tozan Alkan (Turkey).
May: Byron Beynon (Wales).
June: Michelle Chung (USA). 
July: Jim Gwyn (USA).
August: Jonathan Taylor (England).
September: Beata Poźniak (USA).
October: Maria Taylor (England).
November: Stanley H. Barkan (USA).
December: John Dotson (USA).

January: Maria Mastrioti (Greece).

February: Gayl Teller (USA).
March: Mike Jenkins (Wales).
April: Cassian Maria Spiridon (Romania).
May: Simon Fletcher (England)
June: Sultan Catto (USA)
July: Vojislav Deric (Australia)
August: K. S. Moore (Ireland)
September: Kristine Doll (USA)
October: Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan (USA)
November: Christopher Norris (Wales)
December: Maria Mazziotti Gillan (USA)

2023: Poets featured as Poet of the Month 

January: Samuel Ezra (Wales)
February: Tôpher Mills (Wales)
March: Rob Cullen (Wales)
April: Mandira Ghosh (India)
May: John Greening (England)
June: Rosy Wood-Bevan (Wales)
July: David Hughes (Wales)

2025: Poets featured as Poet of the Month 
January: Annest Gwilym (Wales)
February: Sam Smith (Wales)
March: Dave Lewis (Wales)
April: Scott Elder (France)
May: Angela Kosta (Italy)
June: Abeer Ameer (Wales)
July: Jenny Mitchell (England)
August: Sydney Lea (USA)
September: Richard Collins (USA)

 

 OCTOBER POET OF THE MONTH: 
MARK LEWIS (WALES)

                                               
                                                           Mark Lewis(c) 2025 Mark Lewis

Born and bred in Wales, Mark worked in the museum sector for 30 years before going freelance in 2023, and he was able to dedicate more time to his creative writing.  Mark is the author of two novellas and several dramatic performances. His extended prose poem, Erimos, a moral-powered tale that blends timeless mythology and contemporary darkness, was published in 2024 and has been praised for its sheer originality, imaginative use and control of language and impressive poetic and dramatic moments.  It has been longlisted (Top 25) for the International Poetry Book Award for small presses/self-publishing/independent presses. 

He appeared at various festivals in 2025 including Solva Edge Festival, Llangwmlitfest and Aberystwyth Poetry Festival.  His poem, The Naming of the Dead appears on the Poetry Archive Worldview 2025.

His poem, Notes from a Transported Convict, won the 2025 International Welsh Poetry Competition. 

Mark is currently working on a new collection of poems due to be published by The Seventh Quarry Press in early 2026. 

He finds inspiration from our political and social climate, the natural world and climate change as well as experiences from his own life with several recent poems dedicated to the memory of his dad who died in 2023. 

His plan in life is to “find professional tranquillity through the creation of the written word and personal joy in daily life with my wonderfully supportive wife, Emma.”

His website is: www.marklewisfreelance.co.uk

 

CAITLIN

your eyes fill with butterflies,
naked as a winter branch
you ebb and flow,
the man in the moon blushes,
dons his wispy shrouds;
in dawn’s fecund dance
violins legato leaves
curlew calls acapella
herons hold their harmony;
river bleeds through salty veins,
hills halo hips,
the valley of thigh births movement,
arms aloft conduct cloud,
hands homage reverence,
you flame the morning,
draw blood from the rising sun,
dip toes in the bless of dew;
crows siren to warning,
prepare, your eyes entreat, prepare
the reaper of rhythm awakes;
you gift your soul
to the water and air, lark
and mark the muds, waiting
to be washed away, always away
by the merciless curl of a word

(c) 2025 Mark Lewis


BIRDSONG

As dusk settles down, a prayer
ghosts on parched lips. Too late
to offer heaven more than a pause.
Thoughts spin an orrery
through the orbit of memory
drawn to the sun of one conjured moment –

                     the rustle of bagged barley
in her coat pocket, the hushing
of grass; her path trailed serenely
towards water’s edge, lustful tongue
of estuary caressed skin of bank,
the gaze of petal eyes marshmallow
soft, then softer still, she lulls
the birds to feed, one grain at a time.
The glee of goose carolled clown of coot.
Wings thread golden hair to knots
of love, her love flies beyond, waiting.
Salt scent of breeze encircles her with promise.
Feathers alight on outstretched palms,
the freedom of flight, the learning
of school rooms scattered to the sky
on the weave of idle winds.
Her eyes close to buttercup yellow.

                    Sing me awake,
she incants to the bustle of bird,
sing me the song of the break of waves,
of wild warrior ways, sing me the tick
of the hour, sing me the float of a dream
from a rowan tree high on the clouds,
sing me the tears of the skies and the hands
of horizons, sing me the whisper
of wishes in daphne scent, sing me
a ballad of beauty and lament of loss,
sing me the pageant of fairies
from the height of the hills, sing me
the laughter of streams on the rum-tumble
of stone, sing me the drumbeat of passions
to scarlet the skin, sing me the sighs
of the river as it cradles the seas,
sing me the rain’s timpani on the
scales of the fish, sing me the harmony
of harp on cobweb’s silk strings, sing me
the echo of the shell song distantly
calling, sing me the haven of hollyhock
blazingly blooming, sing sorrow to silence,
sing me spry, sing me lazy, sing the sun
of my sun in the swoon of new morning,
sing the moon mournful to the balm of my eyes,
sing the weep of angel’s tears to flower me,
sing me the flash of the lightning when
my name is forgotten, sing me the heart
of the hammer on the dome of the sky,
sing me the peace of the dove when sleep
falls upon me, sing me the honour of stars
when velvet night has arisen, sing my life
with the rush of the arrow of beak shot
into the heart of the sun, place the coins
of sealed eyes into the lap of my children
where the life of memory lingers, sing me
joyous, sing me sadness, sing me brimming
with madness, sing me always, sing the soft
sweet sad song of me.

           Her empty hands filled again.
The cycle of life in the chorus.

A song dream held in the clutch
and tremble of hand, the fringe
on the fade of milk watery eyes;
when her body was offered
into the calm of the soils
her spirit flew with the choir of birds.

(c) 2025 Mark Lewis


SOLSTICE HAUNTING

Eyes closed I lay my head in the lap of summer; perfumed
fresh with newness, rains dried like tears on the skin of leaves.
Each night the moon shyly greets us, bids us good night rest,
then skulks to hide among the bushes upon the hill,
reverie silenced by the regalia of the revelry of days.
Wine uncorked, plastic glasses raised to cheer,
the cold year set; summer nears with wanton whispers,
the sighing promises in the vital beat of blood;
bold sun vainly offers its face to the mirror of the lake,
the bonfire dances to the tune of flame, dragons driven
to their lairs, blades sharpened for a reaping.
This season’s clock of crop chimes a sudden hour;
the devil stirs to offer us his hand; the future fertile,
altar ridden, drunk on malarkey, chances will be taken.
We harvest in our memories, offer them, stories
we tell ourselves to comfort given spark of new life.
And yet, in the springing of such waters there are depths
we cannot fathom, moments veiled to the turn of earth,
the bones we bury lay forever sacred; thorns from rose
bushes are nails driven through our hands; this dawning
will not release us from the weeds of weeping we wear
as garlands, those fractures in the chain of time unlinked.
In the genuflection of heavy petal heads, the sun
stands still, laughs in its blindness, misunderstands
the waiting. I am not posed to feast on the majesty
of movement, the returning of the growth of days
that keep night silently at bay; the circle of the snake
will uncoil itself; still the shadows fall in this communion,
where in the creeping corners of the troubled darkness
this blaze of sun shall not mute the spirits of the dead.

(c) 2025 Mark Lewis


CONFECTIONERY

After the war he opened up a confectionery.

 

Sugar spun from barbed wire traps, the chocolate

bombs to ooze, discharge, thicken the air,

the dust of burnt-out buildings flour

bonbons, the scars of hands ghosted, skewers

bayonet soured sugars, fizzy shells explode

wild in mouths, liquorice blood red arteries

flow across the counter tops of triage, you

pull the pins from toffee apples, stuff

truffle lobes back into papery skulls,

atoms strewn to recipe a deadly dessert,

trembling fingers stiff as boiled sweets,

shattered leg splinted with candy cane.

 
                                       Death by chocolate.

(c) 2025 Mark Lewis


THE NAMING OF THE DEAD

(after WS Merwin)

When the cities are burned the heart will remain,
the bell toll of heartbeats
the heartbeats give names to the dead,
the names of the dead on broken walls, on shattered tombs
in hollowed buildings, in emptied rooms,
in tears and hands cupped to receive
whatever grace can be found in the ashes and the dust,
on the branches of the skeletons of trees.
The dead must rise again like flowers
the stone of the tomb rolled away
when the earthquake of guns has passed.

No water falls into the eyes of the dead.
The eyes are not open; death has had their eyes,
skulls shelled.
Our eyes are not open
we hide our eyes in the crypt of our silence
hands mired in the sacrificial blood.

The fragmented testaments of the old god’s will -
Thou shalt not kill thou shalt not kill
the hammer of judgement heavied with guilt
the past an echo
the horizons blighted by flames.
The smoke and the bells will hold the names.

In the night flies buzz beneath occluded stars
stars dimmed by burning, the blackness of cremation
the dust of inhumation, inhuman, the hands that rip
the babies from the womb.
The bells toll like heartbeats,
the heartbeats muted beneath mourning,
the bells and the smoke and grief and the weeping
and the names on the stones of the tomb.

Bones hold the stillness of anger, splintered bones,
too small for searching out beneath the stones,
no water rises here to cleanse, the streets barred
by barricades of bones.
The stolen breath, the souls flensed.
There are no wise men to proclaim
a star of salvation across these lands
only the movement of faces, faceless;
the bones bleach white into the red sands.

The lamentations halt the procession of our shame,
the shadows of the dead advance on us
holding fire in their hands,
names caried on the tongues of flame.

(c) 2025 Mark Lewis


TO BEGIN AGAIN (extract from Erimos)

On the seventh day it is said God rested,
happy here with His choices,
and waited there on His laurels
before, for better or for worse,
He wedded his new green world to Man
and in this time of waiting,
in this hand rubbing pause,
the winds colluded with the seas
to collide with the cliffs
to tumble them to the ground.
And here from the rubble of this sombre creation
begat by the seed of anger in the womb of strife

crawled Erimos, scalded, scorched, bitter, blistered, aflame,

with a throat choked and arid

with hands cracked and bleeding

with eyes viscid with dust,

pulling the cord that united him with that fierce moment

from the twisted sinew of his guts;

 

he stood naked, roaring like the thunder.

 

The seal had broken.

The door had opened.

The balance had tipped.

The Heavens trembled.

(c) 2025 Mark Lewis


THE GOLDEN HOURS (extract from Erimos)

 

Erimos instigated and bore witness;

he was both the eye and the hand:

he was the shadow over Golgotha

he was the lion in the arena

he was the spear in the side

he was the blade on the senate steps

he was the crusading swords

he was the tinder spark of self-righteous burnings

he was the brutality of battlefields

he was the torment of the trenches

he was the guide to bodies into gas chambers

he was the mushroom miasma of Hiroshima

he was the Mau Mau machete

he was the guardian of genocide

he was the maladies of missionaries

he was the zeal of zealots

he was the brother against brother

he was the hands that signed the papers -

 

the endless litany of brutality

the gravestone inscriptions of atrocity

 

he and she and they who picked up the blades-

 

have you ever wondered how he managed it all?

 

Have you ever wondered whether you act

as witness or as instigator?

 

This uncertainty, this, too, was Erimos

(c) 2025 Mark Lewis


INTERLUDE (extract from Erimos)

 

From moss covered cairn

through simple wooden crosses of the fallen;

in barbed wire corpses hung out to dry,

in glassed faces on a Saturday night brawl,

in divided lands and pillage and scalpings,

in manslaughter to massacre,

in minds locked tightly shut with bloated ignorance,

denial, defiance, disregard, arrogance,

in killing fields to back-alley stabbings,

in destruction to extinction,

in selfish gluttony to food banks,

in raging anger, in alluvium tears,

in cataclysms, in tumours, in trauma,

Erimos stood behind it all and guided

through their gallimaufry of unending fears.

It all seemed so easy to lead such sheep

bleating on their spiral of self-defeat.

(c) 2025 Mark Lewis