Poetry by Linnet Phoenix

            yrjö jyske CC



An Everyday Murder 

If grief is a massacre 
of windblown crows scattered 
across a lifespan left.

Love is an ancient weathervane
coated in green patina.

North is the empath storge,
we place our care
delicately like quail eggs.

East is our own philia 
we hold friendship and family 
close to our rising sun.

South is the fiery Eros
our passionate flesh desires
romance for a chosen one.

West a bleeding red agape
the unconditional all forgiving
of a deity, I long to achieve.

I am strewn across this bloody 
field, my feathered grief 
calling you, a sunset, home.





Blow-back
 
And what was it she saw?
no longer darkness 
not a shivering flame
dancing naked in the company 
of long lost shadows.
No...
here comes a raging fire
with flaming wings spread, 
belching smoke to ferret out
those sewer-rat lies.
She is finally found ignited;
all that gas you spouted 
only fueled the final days.
She's all in 
with a handful of aces
and damn, she will still rise.

​


​
Gratitude 
 
To the man who thought 
to fetch a woman who can. 
 
For the woman who could
and cared enough to act. 
 
For the man who cared 
enough to ask anyway, 
 
I think he might have prayed. 
For the friend whose heart
 
beat an extra mile again. 
For a sister whose love
 
carries a brace of raven's 
weight in every storm. 
 
For all the little graces
that move mountains.

​

Linnet Phoenix is a poet in North Somerset, England. Her work has previously been published in Red Fez, Fearless, Heroin Love Songs, New Verse News, Rye Whiskey Review, Gasconade Review, Rat's Ass Review, ImpSpired Magazine, Poetica Review and others. Her chapbook Rusty Stars & collection Urban Mustang have both been published in 2021 . She has poems coming in both Cultural Weekly and Raw Art Review in December 2021. She also enjoys horse-riding in rainstorms.

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