dreaming roots awaken
the winged muse competition winners, MAY
sweet smell of mango drizzles the day with joy. summer’s fruit has ripened in the orchards, and on the page, words are scribbled in honeyed ease. evening’s squall sends birds skittering home. dreaming roots awaken and parched trees revel in sudden rain. tonight, the taste of earth and sky is warm upon the lips. Saraswati Nagpal
we are preparing to write wildly, in surrender, in step, in love with nature in our three-workshop series “SELF AND UNSELF - UNCOVERING BIOPHILIA” starting May 29 (tomorrow!) leading into our submissions window opening on June 1st. our EIC and host Jai-Michelle would love to see you there – a few spots are still available! find out more here.
Jai-Michelle and i love reading each piece sent to the winged muse - so much gratitude to the writers who responded to our May writing competition’s ekphrastic prompt: “From Dark Seeds” by collage artist and visual illustrator, Jenny Lloyd. Jenny’s vivid pieces are much loved at the winged moon, and have been previously published here and here. “From Dark Seeds” is also featured in our print issue, Hinterland.
we are thrilled to announce two winners to May’s writing competition —
Ryan Hooper and Wendy Howe’s poems are deeply evocative, textured in different but profound ways in response to Jenny’s striking art. congratulations to both of them!
Ryan and Wendy will receive a three month paid subscription to this magazine, which includes bonus writing from our EIC, submission recommendations, monthly write-alongs, and our new book-club gathering.
enjoy their moving work, and the works of our commended poets this month…
WHAT NEVER ROOTED Ryan Hooper The echo of what never rooted folds inward into loam, soft with rot, like forgotten prayers exhaled through teeth of dust. Socketed hollows search far and wide for a seam of light where wheat-breath once clung. A hand breaks through griefskin. Black mirrors curve into their own hush as tar petals sleep in knitted pores. The day decays— still, absent. Decomposing fruit begins to bend into questions. They lean in to listen: low metal songs of ripening death thread the air, and old wounds reopen across the garden. Drifting shadows pause. And still—the bloom. The one you were told would never strike, never stir, never bleed again— is here now, in this Stygian theatre, rooted in ruin and calling out to something that dares to answer.
THE ORCHARD Wendy Howe The gold apple feels moist and smooth. Her fingers rub the fruit as if to touch the skin of a ripened womb. Along the grass, her dress floats like cream just separated from the fog; and as she kneels both season and girl shine unblemished in this orchard north of the river where fish swim tangled in algae that stains the water red and coal mines where the skeletal track trembles as trains pass carrying freight and memories of a smudged landscape -- her mother knew too well She once said that bones buried there echo the fate of many who gnawed on seeds of desperation, felt blight blackening the petals of each lung.
and here, the commended poets for this month -
DARK SEEDS Patrick Widdess Rigor mortis grips the words within this withered tome due back at the library, on the padlocked side of town. Dry leaf, sunbeam, postcard of a skull stuck between the pages until, until, until… Turn the pages back to front, read them upside down: Anthems of forgotten nations cower in the spine. Pencilled in the margin - an exclamation mark! Periods open chapters that finish at the start. Dark seeds whisper poems under subterranean skies. Roots extending neural paths enrich the meadow’s mind. Every tree’s a ghost now, each plot of land a grave. Standing by a fresh mound to place a dead bouquet, a hand emerges like a tulip - fingers all unfold waiting to be lifted, back into this world.
LUMINOUS GIRL LULLABY Özge Lena lungless death lies mute under the tongue of any carbonised city. tiny teeth are scattered here and there, still and crooked. my song is made of choked letters as i stroll on the smoking future, a sunless hole like a shelter, marked by the skull of the far flame of being a mother. a rotten rose shows me the way to a plump egg, cracked already, thus empty. i lick the lush juice of a seed bending over the emerald hope blossoming inside me. i see my hand planted to grow a golden girl, her first words will rename what is lost now, rework a new language of gleam against gloom. ash will mean a bright birth, fire a bird. then death will be an impossible country for children, death will not even be.
THE PALE AFTER MIDNIGHT Brandon Shane I could have sworn it was you veiled like marble silk whispering through the dust. I plugged in the telephone and waited for someone to call, dirty fingers pushing towards the clouds. I wondered about the floral dresses, all the elegance you left behind, tongue of a resentful artist, and where it all went. The ease of evil, mud covering electrical wire, glimmering across stagnant water after the rain has stopped. I knew it all, the left-over blood, the cocoons pierced with needles, midnight staring at the acid drying in the shape of wings. The fire you set, the bed you laid me upon, and on the porch I saw you dead and dancing, it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
and with these verses of beauty, the winged muse writing competition will take a break for June and reopen in July. find us on social media @thewingedmoon to hear the latest.
thank you for reading with us, and see you next week…
Saraswati and Jai-Michelle
read about today’s artist here:
Jenny Lloyd is a collage artist, illustrator and visual designer from the UK. Having lived in various cities across Europe since she graduated with a BA (Hons) Illustration degree from Falmouth School of Art, she has over seventeen years of experience working as both a freelance and full-time illustrator and digital designer. She’s now been living happily in Amsterdam for the last three years, where she takes on freelance design commissions as a branding, graphic and website designer – and social media manager – for small local businesses, as well as creating custom collage pieces for album art and book covers.
I am very honored to have my poem. The Orchard" featured as co-winner of this month's competition. The writers in these competitions including this one, Ryan, Patrick, Shane and d'orge Lena are outstanding and creatively diverse. It's always a pleasure to see what ekprastic or thematic prompt leads each different contest. Thankyou so much -- Jai -Michelle and Saraswati for this honor and for giving all of us the opportunity to share our work at The Winged Moon;s Kin Magazine.
My best
Wendy Howe
I find "What Never Rooted" fascinating. Sometimes, in the underground of our own conscience as well as the earth itself, there is the dark thought, dream, macabre matter that never took root but still haunts that netherworld region. And though rootless, it still can bloom through an old wound or fear. It calls out and ripens in the darkness of our own mind or the earth's own soil. This poem is intense and expresses that phenomenon for me. These lines really haunt with a visercal intensity, both beautiful and raw.
"and old wounds reopen across the garden.
Drifting shadows pause. And still—the bloom.
The one you were told
would never strike, never stir,
never bleed again—
is here now, in this Stygian theatre,
rooted in ruin
and calling out
to something
that dares
to answer."
In "Dark Seeds", I think of the book of dead history waiting to be opened and resdscovered. All of its pain, dark secrets and turmoil waiting to take root in both the land where something once occurred and the mind of the observer and the reader. Descriptive and eloquently phrased, this poem is beautifully constructed with its vivid language and rhythm.
"Dark seeds whisper poems under subterranean skies.
Roots extending neural paths enrich the meadow’s mind.
Every tree’s a ghost now, each plot of land a grave.
Standing by a fresh mound to place a dead bouquet,
a hand emerges like a tulip - fingers all unfold "
waiting to be lifted, back into this world."
"In Luminous Girl Lullabye", I love the richness of language and the progression from ruin to hope. The opening sets the perfect, macabare tone with its "carbonized city" and "sunless hole" On feels the doom of such a place until the bloom of something golden and ripe. The rebirth of life and the ability to reimagine something strong and vibrant. These lines capture that thought with memorable and tangible imagery.
" marked by the skull
of the far flame of being a mother. a rotten rose
shows me the way to a plump egg,
cracked already, thus empty. i lick the lush juice
of a seed bending over the emerald
hope blossoming inside me. i see my hand planted
to grow a golden girl, her first words
will rename what is lost now, rework a new language
of gleam against gloom. ash will mean..."
In , "The Pale After Midnight", the title ,itself , had me hooked and the opening lines were stunning with its ghostly and elegant image!
"I could have sworn it was you
veiled like marble silk
whispering through the dust"
Throughout the rest of the poem -- I could feel the narrator's desperate sense of wondering; and the dark pulse of speculation leading to these beautiful and surreal lines --
midnight staring at the acid
drying in the shape of wings.
The fire you set, the bed
you laid me upon, and on the porch
I saw you dead and dancing,
it was the most beautiful thing
I have ever seen.
I enjoyed this week's selection of poems immensely.
Thank you everyone !
Best
Wendy
whispering through the dust."