Issue 0

The Fool

EDITOR’S NOTE

Knights of Pen and Ink was born from a fool’s dream.

We endeavoured to trial and error an accessible poetry and illustration magazine to showcase unique perspectives of cycles of life through universal archetypes.

Every Hero’s Journey begins with a fool. It only takes a first step to set you on the path; a mark smeared across a blank page; a word spoken to break silence; an idea sparked from the darkness.

Our lovely artists and poets, who’ve taken this leap of faith with us, have each submitted pieces connected to the theme of this issue. We hope you enjoy our combined folly.

FREDDY J. LAMBERT

Design by Knights of Pen and Ink

Illustrations by Freddy J. Lambert (unless specified)

All content © contributors and Knights of Pen and Ink respectively.

October 2025.

CONTENTS

Scroll through the magazine organically or jump to your favourites from the links below.

Your Happiness is Average poem by GEMMA STRANG

The Space on the Bench poem by DEBBIE TAYLOR

Narcissus and Echo stone carving by FREDDY J. LAMBERT

Remembering Dorian poem by NICOLA WRIGHT

SMALL TALK poem by FREDDY J. LAMBERT

Holiday in the Alps poem by KAPU LEWIS

Dancing Fool illustration by TALIA SMITH

woman at the rock show poem by GEMMA STRANG

belly laugh poem by ALEXIS DEESE-SMITH

Fool poem by DAVID WHITEHEAD

Him, or me? poem by WILLOW TAYLOR-JONES

SummerSlammed haiku by GREG MELROSE

In the paint shop poem by KAPU LEWIS

Wash and Tumble poem by FREDDY J. LAMBERT

Your Happiness Is Average

GEMMA STRANG

I Googled ‘am I happy quiz’

because how can you really know? Do you know?

I worry I am old too soon. I worry it’s almost over. I worry

I never danced enough. I worry I am a shouty mother becoming

her shouty mother. I worry I am a distracted wife. I worry that

ennui is a privilege. I worry my worries are cringe. I worry

I have Paris Syndrome about everything except Paris

I answer the questions on the quiz

which “is NOT a diagnostic tool”:

I often find goodness in myself and others

I sometimes feel life is rewarding

I sometimes feel joy from moment to moment

I rarely have a lot of energy

I sometimes have a sense of meaning and purpose in my life

I often reach out for support when times are tough

I sometimes accept my feelings throughout any given day

I sometimes actively keep in touch with friends and family

I often feel optimistic about the future

I often feel grateful for what I have

I rarely let go of past disappointments or hurts

Dumb as it is,

the quiz betrays a rubric for happiness

A sense of which dials may need adjusting

which hurts need letting go

When the results come in, they say

“Your Happiness is Average”

and I think that’s a little harsh

because having seen the data

I think I am almost certainly happy

The Space on the Bench

DEBBIE TAYLOR

Our first family visit to see my grandfather after my grandmother's death

Nose against glass as trees blend and merge

I begin to feel sick as the world starts to surge

“Are we nearly there yet?” youngest sister opines

My brother just scowls as he moans, and he whines

Mum says, “Will you stop making a fuss.”

My brother says he wishes we’d taken the bus

The ticket inspector is doing his rounds

We search for our tickets until they are found

Our jumpers and fingers are sticky with pop

Counting the hours as we wait for our stop

I take out the book that was bought by my dad

It’s quite hard to read when I’m feeling this sad

There at the station, my grandfather’s sat

In his best coat, with his stick and his hat

Checking train windows for a familiar face

His grumpy old mongrel has started to pace

The train shudders and creaks as it comes to a stop

My mum grabs our cases, and I spill my pop

Into my pocket, I quickly thrust my book

As my eyes scan the station, I look and I look

The place on the bench where my grandma should be

Now houses a stranger who looks straight through me

My grandfather smiles as we step out of the train

He seems really happy to see us again

I take his cold hand as he gives one-armed hugs

He asks, “How are you, lad?”, but my brother just shrugs

“Fish and chips?” says my mum, and we all agree

So family and dog all hurry home for our tea

Narcissus and Echo

FREDDY J. LAMBERT

Remembering Dorian

NICOLA WRIGHT

And he said, “you have killed my love. You used to stir my

imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity…
you realised the dreams of great poets and gave
shape and substance to the shadows of art.
You have thrown it all away.”

OSCAR WILDE

I think of that era and shiver again.

A sad past buried, a settee ingrained

Bursting with the memory of more disgrace

To surrender flustered by his embrace.

The town mourns, for the girl will soon vanish

A glance of the portrait sees his beauty tarnish,

Cushions cold like gravestones at the church yard

Now she stares at the walls of the morgue – scarred.

Did he care that her honour was robbed

Or her right to privacy mobbed –

Is she freed from her own prison of passion?

Mischief, voyeuristic glee, fobbed –

Off by faux love, torment and trickery

I’m relieved to see she flees

Her dark misery.

SMALL TALK

FREDDY J. LAMBERT

i

The rope skips

hits ground in rounds

a rhythmic pulse

Smile

Frown

Smile

Frown

apathy between the lines

almost ready to jump…

IN

I’ve tripped over my own shoelaces

tongues tied

sole worn but I’ll try again

ii

The sea looks nice today

clouds clear, air here.

Weather.

Nice pimple-

spot, the deference

I do my stretches and shakes

two bone applause

holy palmer’s kissup

just about ready to dive…

IN

I am pocketed by the tide

chewed up

along someone else’s gums

iii

Naked in the auditorium

a silly word

I’ll audit YOUR orium

you sick Fuck

why are they looking at me?

blaze-slated fingers

torch-squinted eye

I’ve foot my mouth again

but now I want it…

OUT

somehow that’s not right either

I’m a word fool

a naked word fall in the dark

Talk

(not well hung)

Holiday in the Alps

KAPU LEWIS

Just when I think the path will turn

and the brow of the hill

will meet my feet

you say something

and the brow is no longer a brow

but a mere undulation in the long ascent

like a Ha-Ha

in a posh British Garden

to hide the truth

But you never do

is that why I married you?

in this meadow of alpenrose and aconite

we can’t linger here

you won’t let us

you point to the steepening path ahead

sharpened with schist and gneiss

an abyss on one side

the darkness of pines on the other

you lead

I follow

to the mountain top many years ahead

TALIA SMITH

woman at the rock show

GEMMA STRANG

tonight at the O2

blink-182 reunite

the punk crowd

of my youth

twenty years older

*

a band tee strains over a pot belly

a scalp gleams beneath thinning hair

a chin fades to neck

I wonder how the rest of them are faring

as I turn my back on the mirror

and make for the tube

to North Greenwich

belly laugh

ALEXIS DEESE-SMITH

spilling is usually a mistake

is clumsy is a quick slip on a laugh

a slide into

tangled arms tangled teeth but you laugh

into my hair and i let myself spill over my edges happy silky buzz

fizzle pop like soda better than alcohol better than sucking on vodka from a straw better

than betting my hopes on the rind of a lime

for once i am buoyant

(though i can’t spell it on the first try)

as in i am not

drowning in the air around me as in

i do not count in out in out do not

consult the instruction manual do not care

that i make a mess with my breathing am not

reminded that there is a finite amount of air and that

the universe does not always like to share so

on weekdays i respect its wishes keep my intake to a minimum

carefully conserve the amount i allow myself and that is why

this laugh feels like fuck the patriarchy or whatever archy i want to give the middle finger

today if air wasn’t invisible this room would be a pigmented cloud

i would be colouring outside the lines of my body i would paint the ceilings with the

lick of my laughter i’d be full on it, this oxygen that belongs to me

my list this morning suggested warm lemon water

light stretching three moments of gratefulness

but i know no better way to romance the word ‘self’ than this thesaurus:

g r i n (giggle) shriek chuckle SNORT do these until you feel it in your belly

feel each atom of atmosphere you take up

Fool

DAVID WHITEHEAD

Her peated voice

Lazed crocodile

On the banks

Of her afternoon curls

Her slow smile

Had songbirds in it

And stretched tomcat confident

Coral and cream

Abashed and proud

She’d plucked her breath tight

Made the tuning of her strings

Into an overture

Itching with restraint

Composed in the key of expectation

The choreography of desire

Magnificent

She

Pirouetted the conversation

Just so

Poised her offhand offer

And broke in half laughing

A feathery cadenza

A revelation

An almost comic

Relief

I floundered, diffused

Saturated, giddy idiotic

With this meteorite

This state of sweet

Emergency

The man on the spot

The balance of the moment

The head of a pin

And with excruciating charm

I dredged unthinking

The very worst

Thing

To say

Her eyes of years and moments

Of there and then

Of here and now

Blinked

And sank without a ripple

Left without fanfare

And never more

An encore

Self centred and blind

As a lighthouse

I only saw

What passed me by

I hoarded my apologies

Ministered only myself

And like any injured fool

Did not see the blade in my hand

Til I cut my eye

And saw red

Clenched searing coals

An inflicted self

A confidential voodoo

A terrible warning is nearly

As useful as

A good example

And I will use mine to instruct

The fools of tomorrow

May they recognise the good

When it smiles

And hear the music

When it sings

Him, or me?

WILLOW TAYLOR-JONES

Nothing knows nothing as ignorance knows bliss

Memory guides him as all else he will miss

Be not aware of the hound as it bites harmless skin

When it comes to the fall, let indomitable spirit win

I do not excuse the weakness of a fool as he drops –

Yet I envy the music in the chambers before it stops.

The stars hold a grudge for the beauty of his light

Though one is the other amongst fearful night

Feet feel the ground as arms feel the air

Pollution or sin is the absence of care

Do you dare be the one to tell him to see?

It takes blindness to life for the soul to be free.

A lesson we’ve learnt; fortune favours the fool

He is beginning and end, the gods’ loyal tool

Charm is the muse for his cataphatic way

Earth is not beguiled enough to allow him to stay.

To be cradled by youth in the gallows of man,

It is he that I love. It is he I cannot stand.

SummerSlammed

GREG MELROSE

Verdant bravado

Autumn's rage sets trees ablaze

embittered leaves fall

In the paint shop

KAPU LEWIS

there’s a lovely light over everything

the colour of sour milk

polluted sea foam

bleached shop window

a torch battery fading, you

Buttercup Fool!

the light itself is a ghost

of red swimming costumes

yellow gander beaks

blue fishing boats

framed in '70s prefab and concrete, not

Hot Paprika, Banana Dream, Sapphire Seas, Shadow Chic

it’s the colour of your face

when your heart stops

on the bed in the corridor

of the so-called hospital

with the doctors who'd rather a

Java Cream

Let’s be honest it’s the colour of the room

you say you enter

when your body stops breathing

while the nurses talk

hairstyles and nail varnish

it’s the colour of your flat

line

Wash and Tumble

FREDDY J. LAMBERT

Carry me up on the wind

and I’ll sever the last dry

seaweed stipes that holdfast

to that pebbled beach

I kept clambering on about

rock slip not worth

the handful of misted glass

parsed from stone-turned dog

days fisted as I fly

updrafted into fresh quarters

scatter me to cloud cover

speckle me in cirrus spark

or rain to condensate

me true, down to dirt again

fresh soil rising up

to greet me in this

new life my fingers and toes

root for, hungry to

bed my nails deep

crease my lifeline with

seeds this time til my

pockets weigh me steady

let earth bind me like an

acorn cotton balled to shoot

up and up and up again

then to the river run

A FINAL ROUND OF APPLAUSE

AND A HEARTY HUZZAH FOR

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Alexis Deese-Smith

Freddy J. Lambert

Kapu Lewis

Greg Melrose

Talia Smith

Gemma Strang

Debbie Taylor

Willow Taylor-Jones

David Whitehead

Nicola Wright

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