Lavender Wolves Literary Journal

On Thursday Morning 3:55 AM
There lies One whose Name is writ in Water"
John Keats (1795-1821)

Lying here imagining what would happen if
we wound back to that Time and Place and
met all over again?
And you knew it was me
and
I knew it was you.
Sure, it's a worn hypothetical but
things don't come down easy from the wall.

Would we talk about why it didn't work?

I doubt it, for we are not yet wise enough
to speak of such matters.
We are younger, slimmer, less gray -
which, and it must be said, is akin to
gaining your sight back - only better.

Now there we are chatting in the blue July air
with the gentle idleness of summer grass. You are
cooled by my contemplative calm and I warm in your
light.

Or maybe we are like veterans at a war
reunion - survivors of each other. Speaking
of future shared horrors: battles won and
lost.

Hell - we could screw, argue, have a Mexican
marriage, or split.

But wait - I notice the way your lower lip
drops and you raise your eyebrows ever so
slightly when telling a joke. And how your
crushed diamond eyes cut through my eminence front.

Truth is - I've been watching your lure all
evening from afar as you go about spawning gardens
from the soles of your feet.

So what happens later: well, it gets my full attention.

It's odd isn't it? That long look back to see
where our choices are born.

But time is a thief and it never gets caught.

Anyway - with our damn luck the clock would strike
12 and the spell would broken as in some
Cinderella fable.

"Please Fairy Godmother, give me just one more
hour, then I'll go, I promise.”

Tony Walton is a Caribbean writer living in the Cayman Islands and has appeared in The Iceland Review, Whisperings Magazine, Mountain Tales Press, Out of Our Magazine, Poetry Bay Magazine, Burningword Magazine, Wilde Magazine, Nite Writers Literary International Literary Journal, Avalon Literary Review, East Lit Liteary Magazine, Boston Poetry Magazine and Eunoia Magazine.

A Caribbean Tale: An Interview With A Caribbean Poet:

Lavender Wolves Literary Journal: The editors at Lavender Wolves Literary Journal have seen your work previously appear in other literary journals. Do you have any advice to aspiring writers who have not been published before who would like to establish their voice as a literary writer? That being said, do you think the internet has helped the poetry market, or hindered it in anyway? Why or why not?

Tony Walton: I think it's important to write in your own voice, as if you were saying the words you are writing. In actual speech we don't choose our voice. We grow up with an inherited pattern and structure that determines how we sound and it would be a hindrance to tinker with this. And the poem you write should tell a story and we all have stories - don't we? The internet is great medium for writing. Mediums constantly changed over history and the internet effect has been enormous. I think it has already influenced the way we write because of the vast source of material at our fingertips. The internet has exponentially accelerated contact which accelerates change (mostly positive). In answer to the question it has helped the market.

Lavender Wolves Literary Journal: How do you feel about rejection as a whole? Do you remember the first time your work was accepted? How about your first rejection? What was going through your mind during these pivotal moments of your literary career?

Tony Walton: I remember I was rejected and accepted within my first month of submitting, so the timing was pretty lucky. Rejection or acceptance in writing or any art is quite often subjective after a certain technical level.

Lavender Wolves Literary Journal: So what prompted you to write this piece that was accepted? What sort of inspiration did you draw from it as a result of producing this piece? Was it spontaneous, or something you really had to think about before you even wrote the poem?

Tony Walton: This poem was spontaneous. I usually see something, hear something or remember something - and it could be a single word. I then wrap a story around it. Random events have a huge influence on the roads we end up on but there are choices along the way. And then there are choices that if we had to go back and do over we still question whether we would do anything different. Of course, I don't want to complicate matters. I've made some good decisions and a few really stupid decisions. I'm likely to make a few stupid decisions this weekend, if all goes as per normal.

Lavender Wolves Literary Journal: Who are some of your favorite poets, and why do you consider them to be your favorites? Of those favorites, which poet influences you to write the way you do and why?

Tony Walton: My favorite writers/poets are: W.H. Auden because he tackled the Big Questions of Life and Love. Ted Hughes and Derek Walcott for their gift of language. Charles Bukowski (audible groan from many readers) as he wrote true things - and hey, the truth is gritty. Anne Sexton for her emotional rawness. Contemporary writers/poets I really like are Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney as they are both extraordinarily profound. You can read what they are writing in a blinding storm and still not be distracted. Valentina Cano for her gift of imagery and use of it to convey emotional experiences. I enjoy the diversity of reading the work of the above feminists, misogynists, and womanizers (Ted!) - it's what makes life so damn interesting.

Lavender Wolves Literary Journal: At this stage of your career, you have established yourself, but all writers want to accomplish more. What sort of plans do you have moving forward? Or do you aspirations that you still would like to accomplish in a professional capacity?

Tony Walton: A few poems I have written are extracts from something longer I am writing but I am happy enough to continue on writing in the same way. When the inspiration hits me to do something a bit bigger and with more effort, well then - I will.

Expectations

I love rainy overcast days when the sky is low.  I figure if God has lowered his expectations - then so can I.

(This page of a diary was found in an vacated apartment titled: "Today I fit into my Skinny Jeans" - June 3)

Getting into my Skinny Jeans

(an anonymous poem)

I've had a few cocktails and I spot my old college jeans hung
in the corner of  the walk in closet(love it!) and as I'm a little tipsy but
12 llbs lighter than I was before Christmas (it's May now!),
I think oh - What the Hell, I'll see if they fit (I'll be crestfallen if they don't fit, you know that sinking feeling?), and..........
HOT DAMN -THEY FIT!-they're even a little baggy
around my ass
and my mind flashes back to
Shanahans bar and Kenny Vincent's Southside Club
and popular cheerleaders and fake id's and
puking in toilets and sneaking through things
and sneaking out of things and sneaking into things
and I try to think of  the last time I
wore these jeans, but I'm having a blonde moment.
OH I REMEMBER it was after after a sorority party and
I should remember, cuz
I got laid that night with a Basketball Cheerleader, she was
quite skinny.

I found it!

photo by tony walton (bluff, cayman brac)

I wrote this a LONG TIME Ago (required in junior high school literature)
and it has traveled from handwritten cursive (can you still write well in cursive?)
to Apple Macintosh to an IBM pc
to a Compac and now a Dell shuffling without complaint
or recognition from hard drive to hard drive
and floppy disk to cd to dvd and
moved with me through 3 countries across
2 oceans and now it rests here, old fashioned but not discarded.

Evening Sea

Searching the fathomless sea
with quiet eyes
after sun bows to the eve,
the moon sits high
gazing down in
soft glow content
on diamond caps,
Balletic waves dancing
gently to silent stars
then kissing timeless shores
rolling with immortal pleasure.

It is on this evening
the restless soul is pillowed
And my mind lies still.