GAS Featured Poet: Jim Murdoch

 

Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct literary magazines and websites and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears and Poetry Scotland that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and, whenever the mood takes him, next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels: Jim, not the cat.

 

Having

  

The problem with wants is we imagine they’re needs

but whenever we get a thing we thought we wanted

we soon realise it wasn’t what we wanted or needed.

  

Needs are all about what’s lacking in our lives—

not necessarily what’s simply absent,

that we’ve mislaid or lost and might even miss—

but things that, if we had to live without them,

would lessen and possibly injure us.

  

Missing things can be replaced.

Damaged things are challenging.

Some can be repaired but most

repairs are only temporary and,

eventually, all things disappoint.

  

This, of course, returns us to our original problem:

i.e. what we want, need and might someday need.

Friends are not hearts and hearts are not teacups.

  

The sad truth is both wants and needs are luxuries.

We make do with what is available.

Life rarely hands over what we want or even need.

We have what we have until we no longer have it.

But at least we had it, at least that.

GAS Featured Poet: Strider Marcus Jones

Strider Marcus Jones – is a poet, law graduate and former civil servant from Salford, England with proud Celtic roots in Ireland and Wales. He is the editor and publisher of Lothlorien Poetry Journal https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/. A member of The Poetry Society, his five published books of poetry  https://stridermarcusjonespoetry.wordpress.com/ reveal a maverick, moving between cities, playing his saxophone in smoky rooms. His poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize x4 and Best of the Net x3. 

His poetry has been published in numerous publications including:  Trouvaille Review; dyst Literary Journal; Literary Yard Journal; The Honest Ulsterman; Poppy Road Review;  Cajun Mutt Press; Rusty Truck Magazine; Rye Whiskey Review; The Huffington Post USA; The Stray Branch Literary Magazine; Crack The Spine Literary Magazine; The Lampeter Review; Panoplyzine  Poetry Magazine and Dissident Voice.

INTANGIBLE

intangible,
like God, heaven
and the meaning of life
ultimately-

but to us, the motion of the wheel of time
brings it back to earth.

intangible
like feelings felt and factorised
unclear, but seen and realised
in the aspect of your eyes.

intangible
like an unfinished thought
in a cloud of smoke,
like oxygen 
invisible,
like laughter
when you tell a joke,
or the sound 
of a musical note-
and the lilt in the tone of your voice.

intangible
like life and love
in a bowl of hope,
or your scent
on some words you wrote
in a book set down-
in lucid language
that unfolds like a film in my mind;

intangible
like a warm wind stroking skin
real, beyond imagining.

SEPARATE PIECES

follow me
down the fathoms
of forgiveness
like ghosts
who heal and hope-
to that room
in the mind
where contentment
resonates
with longing
for love to fill
its vacant chair
and meld it to us both.

i can't go on
like separate pieces,
that move around each other
but never touch
in their courtship
on the board-
and yet,
so many things
you say and do,
won't go away
and fill me still,
with points of possibility
as the Great Wheel of Time
revolves
in harmony and confusion.

conscious moments,
call out
to chance and circumstance
and weave away in dreams-
orchestrating
opening gambits,
to suture sensual seams.
two hands touch
and influence fate
as they move around the squares;
time curves,
then unmeasures words-
and their endless game goes on.

"For We Who Love Our Critters," essay by Su Zi

For We Who love Our Critters

Uh-oh. One morning, Grace is walking crooked, head tilted, although the smile upon seeing you is always genuine. Then, there’s the staggering, that is laboriously righted because you are watching. When you sneak a peek, you see a furrowed brow and a distant look that might be pain.

Now, you are in a veterinary clinic. Grace cowers behind your knee—no excitement at new friends. There’s a waiting room and it’s filled with beings: humans and their nonverbal family members. The staff seems harassed, impatient and the wait to be seen has you shifting and looking, vigilant.  It is not a quiet place. By the time you both take some moments with the doctor, there’s lots of talk, a blood draw, a prescription; but Grace is still walking sideways, head titled. You are in an agony of helplessness.

But, what if when you went to seek help, the clinic is quiet; there’s a collection of pottery in a subtle and elegant display in a nook next to a large window. There are multiple examination rooms, doors closed discretely. This clinic is decorated in art, carefully collected pieces of furniture, of sculpture inside and out. A dog comes in, creamy locks wafting with a stiffly perky stride, and despite the taut leash, comes to greet you—you look into a worried face, slightly aged, with eyes that are beseeching. The humans tugs taut the tether, making boisterous sounds to the human receptionist.

This is the Chi University Small Animal Clinic in Reddick, Florida—although there are locations in Australia, Germany, Japan, on six continents, with the AI search note of “making TCVM [Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine] accessible worldwide”. This quiet place with sculptures and paddocks is a school where western-educated veterinarians get a Master’s Certification in Chinese medicine for our nonhuman compatriots. Located on a lovely, still-rural county road, the facility is run almost exclusively on solar power. There are 90 acres preserved as green space with minimally intrusive, but decidedly no-skimping building construction. There’s a separate building for horses, and plenty of room to swing a truck and trailer behind the covered arena and basketball hoop, and rarely is there not some gorgeous equine arriving or departing with a slight glow.

The Chi is, in undeniable fact, a world-class facility. Phone calls are handled off-site to maintain quiet and to “minimize stress in pets, owners and staff” according to the receptionist. It is intentionally a place of peace. Treatment utilizes the luxury of time. 

While Traditional Chinese Medicine might be utterly foreign in concept to many, it is a classical art, and as such has history, lineages, and complexities. All this is irrelevant to your unwell, nonverbal and potentially furry family member. For you, who loves and must pay the bill, TCM has many explanations. As a human who too has been schooled thoroughly in western thought , but who has found the seed of health by allowing acupuncture upon me, it is a remarkable experience in both personal body awareness and that too-rare sensation we have now of just taking some time being in our bodies and aware of it; the reality for all of our nonhuman companions.

Grace had continued to stagger sideways with a tilted head and what looked to be increasing nausea and vertigo after the chaos of the standard clinic experience. Despair haunted us. Then, fortune smiled in the form of Dr Xie, the founder of the Chi, who put gentle and deft hands upon her, began a single treatment of acupuncture while Grace seemed to be both watchful and dozing. Afterwords, she seemed very introspective, but her steps were steady—a respite of the crooked stagger and tilted head.  The next morning, she looked at me square on, and gave me a smile that glowed—glows in mind still—the glow of pure love.

Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago.

               

Check out her author page on Amazon.

GAS Featured Poet: John Yamrus

John Yamrus is widely recognized as master of minimalism and the neo-noir in modern poetry. In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, he has had nearly 4,000 poems published in books, magazines and anthologies around the world. His writing is often taught in college and university courses. Three of his more than 40 books have been published in translation.  2025 has seen the release of two new books: the quasi-memoir CAPTAIN BEEFHEART NEVER LICKED MY DECALS OFF, BABY and a book of poems, DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER: JUST GIVE HIM A GOOD PLACE TO HIDE.

the reading was a flop.  

we 

were 

up against 

a football game 

and the last nice day of the summer. 

hardly 

anyone showed 

and 

the wine 

and the cheese 

went to waste and 

the chairs were empty 

but the 

few of us 

that were there 

sat around in the gallery 

and the 

paintings on the walls 

spoke to us 

and 

taught us 

way more than 

any of my poems ever could.

he wanted to write 

like 

Hemingway,

but it came out 

sounding like bad Bukowski.  

on 

top of that,

he had nothing 

real or new to say, 

but that didn’t stop him 

from saying it again and again 

and again.

it was Tuesday, April 13^th, and

Marcia 

was laying 

on the couch, 

listening to Dylan, 

but,

not really listening,

 because she was also reading a book,

and 

the sun 

was out and

the light coming into 

the room made her smile, 

especially 

when Dylan sang 

(maybe directly right at her) 

how does it FEEL? 

and 

she really 

didn’t know what to say, 

but 

she knew 

what he meant, anyway.

GAS Featured Poet: William Doreski

William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024).  He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors.  His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.

Astronomically 

 

Space contains us, but what space

contains space? Galaxies flirt

with our sense of great distance.

Whirling pools of silvery rage,

they tease us through telescopes,

 

daring us to imagine the void

into which the universe expands.

Hard to believe it began

as particles crushed together,

plotting to fill every corner

 

of the solid, absolute ether.

Dark matter whispers secrets

huge radio dishes strain to hear.

We try to place ourselves close

to the core of everything known,

 

but science puts us near an edge,

far from the primal explosion site.

You believe an entity did this,

but we are the entity, the mind

projecting brain waves further

 

than the laws of physics allow.

The night sky winks at us

but doesn’t see us winking back,

its absolute energy dispersing

more rapidly than we can think.

 

 

Forsaken For Good

 

The ruined church still mutters

blasphemous but heartfelt prayers.

These rise in gusts of oily smoke

but can’t penetrate the atmosphere

 

to reach the outer galaxies.

I’m afraid to enter that shell

of fallen plaster and broken glass.

The congregation abandoned it

 

when the organ exploded halfway

through everyone’s favorite hymn.

Brass shrapnel killed the organist,

the priest, and two communicants.

 

Their ghosts still pray for healing  

but no palpable entity hears.

If I entered and walked boldly

down the rubble-strewn main aisle 

 

the ghosts would probably hide

from my heavy atheist step.

But what if they appeared in raw

daylight and confronted me?

 

Someone said it’s impossible

to see a ghost and live. I fear

that I’d explode like the organ,

scattering bits of bone and flesh.

 

Better stand outside in the snow

and listen to garbled prayers

that might be the titter of mice

rummaging through the wreckage.