eclipse plumage

by Akhila Pingali

it was already monsoon when the last day of summer rose

in a final burst nearly purpling the sunbirds again. 

a future gaped open. a season become palimpsest. 

but there we were. baggage straining on the other side of goodbye.

you came around or maybe not.

a point trajectorized or blotted out.

we held fast. our bodies ground years between them. 

forked tongue of memory split at the seams scattering 

personal codes across the concourse. 

we could pick them up later. we could unpack them all prospectively in fact —

the rain wasn’t due for a cycle at least. 

when we parted at last, it was the most we had ever loved. 

in a pocket keys turned cosmic mass burned heavy. 

an itch beginning in dead cells ballooned into life 

portending. then

i opened my eyes at a chirp 

to a yellow and eclipsed thing.

Akhila Pingali is a research scholar and translator based in Hyderabad, India. She has an MA in English Literature. Her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in SoFloPoJo, Five Minutes, Brave Voices Magazine, Tint Journal, Contemporary Literary Review India, and in an anthology called Ninety-Seven Poems.

lungs

by Dipti Anand

the day we finally met   after not meeting

me    the butterfly  with a quiet past

you   catchy   like a tune

I recited an old story:

once I was barely here

mother’s heartbeat held me

while doctors said I was a natural

while father called my to-be brains his

but I knew       my birth had been a magic trick

yours too   you are air

with you   I discovered how to breathe

dancing twelve steps   in my tight button-less red dress

swaddling my body like saltwater pruned skin

though underneath    in a hollow cavity   filling with a drunkenness    

the air again   I suppose   full-bodied and heavy

moved inside me like a hurricane.

Based in New Delhi, India, Dipti Anand is an Indian writer, curator, and editor with an interdisciplinary master's of arts degree from New York University, among other adventures. Her writing has previously appeared in Catapult, the Aerogram, TXTOBJX, Scroll.in, Enormous Eye, as well as an anthology and several art catalogs. Her first novel was long-listed for the DZANC Books Diverse Voices Prize in 2020 and is seeking publication. 

day to night

by Catherine O’Brien

To say the rain clouds had a cotton candy center

that wasn’t hearsay – it was a solid fact.

What are you scared of? they used to say

Consider it tickled pink and tinged with violet

make it experience a spontaneous paroxysm of laughter

treat it to the unexpected beauty of a grocery store saxophone

marvel how it expands itself into the interlude

hear its existential sigh. 

Night isn’t everything that you fear

For a start, its dorsal markings are that mood board

you wish you had bought but you thought yourself rich. 

It is crackling moments of clarity that are a chiropractor’s sturdiest dream.

Though gentle in flight like a paper-based ornithopter.  

Catherine O’Brien is an Irish writer of poems, flash fiction, and short stories. She writes bi-lingually in English and Irish. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Orbis Quarterly International Literary Journal, Reflex Press, Ink Sweat &Tears, Ellipsis Zine, Tiny Molecules, Gone Lawn, Bending Genres, Books Ireland, Splonk, Flash Boulevard, Janus Literary & more. Her poem ‘Embezzled Emotion’ published in Janus Literary received a 2023 Best of the Net nomination. You can find her on Twitter @abairrud2021.

sunset in Istanbul

by Ina Merdjanova

One of these rare translucent summer mornings,  

in my green balcony in a far-away northern city  

I will come to peace with the memory  

of you and me  

mesmerized by the crimson sunset over the Bosphorus,  

the domes of Hagia Sophia and Sultan Ahmet  

frozen in their separated sad magnificence,  

the syncopated calls of the muezzins stirring the air  

in melodic succession  

like prayer beads with the ninety-nine names of God,  

and dissipating before we can find our way around.  

Our sudden togetherness growing larger  

than the haunting silhouettes of the vanished empires,  

yet remaining painfully fragile  

to defy them.  

Ina Merdjanova is a Bulgarian-born researcher and author of five academic books on nationalism, religion, and politics in Eastern Europe. She published two poetry collections in Bulgarian in the 1990s and started writing poetry in English after she moved to Ireland in 2010. She is currently affiliated with Trinity College Dublin.   

[false] beacons

by Elizabeth Bates

Late summer on the Skagit: the first fallen 

maple tree leaves impress

ripples into the river the way early spring 

water skeeters did. Tracing the path 

of the leaf underwater, the salmon mistakes 

it for a bug.

Late summer in the Edison Slough: a Blue Heron dips its beak 

& it surfaces, 

muddy. The fish slips away from the shallows

masqueraded in depth. In estuary waters

a fisherman snags, reels in what turns out to be 

a torn line: hook & split shot weights lost in battle

with an underwater log. 

His wife leans in to pat him on the back, to 

commiserate him on the one that got away,

but he snags a kiss

misreading the meaning of her gesture.

Elizabeth Bates is a Best of the Net and Pushcart-nominated writer living in Washington state with her family. She is the author of poetry chapbook, Mosaics & Mirages (Fahmidan Publishing & Co., 2022). Twitter: @ElizabethKBates

compact

by Ian Kirkland

after marlene

shelled on the floor

a linoleum shiver

gloam blushing in

bruise goose-stepping colour

inclement fever

in through the glass

nacreous shining

silver and brass

mirror phantasm

mute and concave

blush in the window

tiles by the grave

cracking the greasepaint

over the sink

shades of a gruesome

and dazzling pink.

Ian Kirkland (he/they) is a scholar, storyteller, and meanderer based in North London. Their writing investigates contemporary engagements with queer futurity, the digital diaspora, and the modern abject. They also manage a bookstagram collective in their free time for all your TBR needs! @bookpushers

flycatcher

by Steven Searcy

It’s warm for early March,

and the phoebes are feasting

on flies too small to be seen

unless backlit by the soft sun

streaming through the branches

that are still mostly empty

but will soon be unfolding

with a grandeur unmatched

by the staggering boasts of men

who think they can tame the sky,

or build something that will last,

or catch a fly.

Steven Searcy lives with his wife and three sons in Atlanta, GA, where he works as an engineer in fiber optic telecommunications. His poetry has been published in Ekstasis, Reformed Journal, Fathom Magazine, Heart of Flesh, and Amethyst Review, among others.

february’s last gasp

by Mercedes Lawry

Bark-battered, halo of moss,

efforts of clouds before storm,

the green necessary of the salamander.

Echoes take root,

hours elongated, stretched and snapped

as winter is aboveground.

Ferns argued into clumps, the soft

wheeze of a thin wind far up

beyond. A muck-skimmed pond,

imperious in its oddity, suspended in reeds.

The reach of place, the stunted season.

Mercedes Lawry is the author of three chapbooks, the latest, In the Early Garden with Reason,was selected by Molly Peacock for the 2018 WaterSedge Chapbook Contest. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Poetry, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner and she’s been nominated seven times for a Pushcart Prize. Her book, Vestiges, will be published in late 2022.

meadow clocks

by Gavin Turner

Standing, curving backs against the south wind chimes,

Once bright, gold leafed faces,

Holding by scruffs the fluffy washed hair of old men

crutched by limp legged stems,

Time, telling with each brush of air

As children, we would blow the seeds skywards,

Hours counted on each breath,

Mark time till we return home to earth

Wasted, stranded hay days,

daisy chained to our watched clocks,

Counting lives in numerals,

When the days would not know an end

Now, we live in the never knowing of days

Rattling seeds surround us

Husks like the pitted skulls of ugly Autumn,

swaying like metronomes, 

the thudding music of soil, the drumming hymns

Meadow songs, diminishing

Frosted pulses, catching cold

in rough breaths, as the roar of

lion petals melt to lamb fodder,

the soft blades we rolled in,

became dry nail beds, pluck our withered skins,

Time ferments us, like dandelion wine

Gavin Turner is a writer and poet from Wigan, England. His work has been published with Roi Faineant press, Punk Noir magazine, Void space and Icebreakers lit. His debut Chapbook, The Round Journey was released in May 2022. You can reach him @gtpoems on Twitter or find more of his work at www.gtpoems.com

poem ending with a sentence from Melissa Flores Anderson

by Jane Zwart

Our bodies don’t candle even a little. 

It feels 

like they should. 

Think of the synapses struck 

like matches inside these gourds we nod; think 

of heartburn. 

But only the breath heaved 

out, sod house to cold night, will shine, a tinsel 

veil that parts for us lumberers. 

Somewhere 

hidden in this reflection is a sliver of the moon.

Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Threepenny Review, TriQuarterly, and Ploughshares, as well as other journals and magazines. 

california doppelganger

by Paul Ilechko

There is a goodness in the emptiness of

the windswept streets     there is wealth 

and mystery     there is gratitude and a rarely

noticed sign that tells you the distance 

to California     it’s a long road to get there

and you know you won’t live forever

there will be long days on the road     time 

spent sleeping in cheap emotionless motel

rooms     wishing that somebody was lying

next to you     as you travel west the trees 

changing     their greens less brilliant     their 

foliage more leathery     but every morning 

the spiders are waiting     they float above you

on their silken threads     daring you to ignore 

them     confident in their exquisite aspect

the glitter of so many eyes     even as you

cross the bitter cold of the mountains

they slide through the pink caresses of 

morning’s vision     across the continental

divide     and you finally begin to understand

that this is not just you     you have a double

a terrifying copy who retraces the steps 

that you are still to take     approaching you

from unknown terrain     moving at your own

unremarkable pace     the crinkled skin that

surrounds his eyes so similar to your own

two snakes tangled in the sun-caressed rocks

they only see you when it rains     both of you

now lost forever to the thrill of language 

you take the silent way     rippling into oblivion.

Paul Ilechko is a Pushcart-nominated poet who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including The Night Heron Barks, Tampa Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Sleet Magazine, and The Inflectionist Review. His first album, "Meeting Points", was released in 2021.  

yes, I know I am dying

by Nolcha Fox

but don’t tell me I must leave,

I must let go. You frighten me,

the one I treasure, the one

who holds my hand.

Why are you so anxious

to empty out this bed?

Let me tread water in your tears

reflecting light in the diner

where you dropped

a cherry pie on my white shirt.

Do you remember?

Let me drop into delirium

of crunching leaves

beneath our boots.

Do you remember?

Soon enough the dawn

will wrap you in a rosy

robe of sorrow. Your first day

alone without me. Do you know

I hear you whisper in my ear:

I’ll always love you. Time to go.

Nolcha’s poems have been published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Alien Buddha Zine, Medusa’s Kitchen, and others. Her three chapbooks are available on Amazon. Nominee for 2023 Best of The Net. Editor for Kiss My Poetry and for Open Arts Forum. Accidental interviewer/reviewer.  

seasoned

by R Hamilton

Autumn limps homeward 

with only one sandal, having lost 

the other skinny-dipping with 

Summer and the girls down 

at the mill pond where some kid 

rigged a dream from a tree on a rope 

for us to swing out wide over the waves 

and fling ourselves at the troughs, yelling 

“Lookatme!” as loud as we can, 

startling egrets into similarly unloosed flight 

while our world slowly tilts 

further away from the dozing sun, 

scattering shoes and underpants and 

the gap-toothed laughter of blithe innocence 

in the tall grasses as it goes. 

R Hamilton’s poetry first appeared in their 1970 high school literary magazine,  followed by a fifty-year backstage career in performing arts ending with retirement and  pandemic. Their next “published” piece was included in City Lights Theater’s 2020  Halloween podcast, an unintentionally round number of years and/or decades. Since  then, Hamilton’s work has been included in collections by Caesura, Oprelle Press, and Boats Against the Current. 

winter magic

by Yuu Ikeda

Desire dwells

in stillness

resounding through

midnight.

Our breath is silent,

but tells us everything

we want.

Our eyes are merry on silence,

but tell us everything

we need.

Winter is the coldest 

earrings. And,

winter is the warmest moonlight.

Yuu Ikeda is a Japan-based poet. She loves writing, reading novels, western art, and sugary coffee. She writes poetry on her website Poetry and Me, Sometimes Coffee. Her latest poetry collection “Seasons Echoing Around Me” was published from Free Lines Press. Her Twitter and Instagram: @yuunnnn77

this is who he was

by Mercedes Hackworth

a boy sitting in serpentine dark 

staring idly at the counter, 

horses in the distance  

running for money, 

kissing beneath  

a small fish in a neon glow.  

what was it that you said 

while the dolphins sat still? 

something about a ride  

that was out of commission.  

and the charred pools see that  

we sank our cherries at midnight and  

made air compromise for 

scandal  

like backwards-sheet-mornings and  

articles decomposing in the dew.  

it all might as well be 

some relic I broke while 

drinking your foul port,  

fracturing onto concrete  

near your friends— 

the blondest  

rejected waltz? 

then we would sit 

in front of televisions and  

contemplate the state line,  

wane for a redneck hermit and 

wax for fortune. 

how long will  

sullen boats wait for  

sounds trapped on hilltops? 

Mercedes Hackworth was born and raised in West Virginia, USA, and completed her bachelor’s degree at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where she pursued anthropology and Russian studies. She now studies her master’s at the University of Amsterdam, where she hopes to shed her career as an archaeologist in trade for that of a poet. She is 23 years old, disturbed, and lurching toward the complications of the systems placed before all young people who seek romance and pragmatism, simultaneously. 

lizard

translated from the Odia by Pitambar Naik

lizard by Jayanti Biswal Behuria 

ଝିଟିପିଟି

ସେଠି କେହି ପ୍ରେମିକ ନଥିଲେ,

ପ୍ରେମ କରୁନଥିଲେ କାହାକୁ କେହି !

ଅନ୍ଧାର'ର ପିଠିକୁ ଢାଙ୍କି ରଖିଥିଲା

ଗୋଟେ ଟ୍ୟୁବଲାଇଟ୍

କିଛି ଝରିପୋକର ଉଦ୍ଦାମତା

ଅଟକି ଯାଇଥିଲା ଯାହା !

କେତେ ହଳ ଆଖି ଅନ୍ଧ ହେଉଥିଲେ

ସଉକରେ ଛାତି ତଳେ ଲୁଚିଥିବା

କଅଁଳ ପ୍ରଶ୍ବାସ ପତ୍ର ମେଲୁଥିଲେ ।

ବଳି ପଡୁଥିଲା ନୀରିହ ବିଶ୍ବାସ

ଗୋଟେ ଝିଟିପିଟିର ଲାଞ୍ଜ ହଲାରେ !

lizard

There were no lovers there, 

nobody loved one another 

a tube light encompassed 

the back of the darkness

just the tawdriness of 

some mayflies had halted. 

Some couples of eyes became 

blind with fond desire and 

the tender exhalation was hidden 

underneath the chest blooming. 

An innocent trust 

had become the scapegoat

in the shaking of 

the tail of a lizard.  

Jayanti Biswal Behuria is a poet from Baleswar, Odisha in India. Her work has appeared in some of the finest Odia journals. Mun Mo Sahita is her debut book of poetry and she has her second book of poetry forthcoming. 

Pitambar Naik, when he’s not creating ideas for brands, he writes poetry. His work appears or is forthcoming in The McNeese Review, The Notre Dame Review, Packingtown Review, Ghost City Review, Rise Up Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The Indian Quarterly, Outlook India and elsewhere. He’s the author of the poetry collection, The Anatomy of Solitude (Hawakal). He grew up in Odisha and lives in Bangalore, India.

toast sweats on a kitchen counter in Highland, Illinois

by John Dorroh

Has there always been bread? I want to know,

I guess, part curiosity, part conspiracy of thought,

the stories in documents: Bible-black testaments

of wheat & chaff, nomads in Egyptian deserts

searching for mana, unleavened bread; Austrian

monks who assigned me early-morning tasks

to prepare the dough, popping bubbles

with a quill pen, fanning warm proofs like

tired hummingbirds. Process deserves respect.

My Cuisinart stainless steel toaster with its 

obvious defect jettisons my toast onto the counter

where it lies in state on fake faux formica. I transfer it 

to a saucer, admiring the saunaed history it leaves behind, 

a near-negative with mottled surface. A gentle heat rises

like ghosts from fields where silver-green choruses

bowed & waved in golden Kansas oceans, Saskatchewan 

prairies, or a thousand other places on a fantastic 

earth.

John Dorroh understands that words are more than some magic potion, that words engage themselves with the soul. He appreciates the work that went into each and every poem he reads in journals by every author. He thanks them. Three of his poems have been nominated for Best of the Net. Others have appeared in over 100 fine journals such as Feral, River Heron, Pinyon, Burningword, The Orchards Poetry Journal, & North Dakota Quarterly. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.

glimpses of nana

by Jada Gordon

While gardening, my hands dig deeper into the earth. Softest wet ground. Reaching with

my grandmother's spirit. I swear I feel the south in the orbit of my palms. I pull weeds

without gloves and massage the vines and leaves. Baby cherry tomatoes blush in the

daylight. Thinking of the stories my mother told me. How my Nana didn't know what the

great depression was. They had an abundance of crops and fruits to feed on. The

sharecropper song. She hated picking cotton and what it did to her hands. She'd put

rocks in the bottom of the bag to weigh it down. There's always been an emphasis on

clean hands in my family. I scrub off the lye that singed my Nana's once youthful hands.

Every careful defiance makes her soul sing. I want her to bloom with life and vitality like

my jalapeños. I dug them out too soon. They were ahead of their time. Daring to make

an escape like I am, every story I've heard of my Nana feels like a picture caught her in

motion. Never stagnant. Never settling. Battling a world that burns labels into a Black

woman's back. Her hands always remained clean, lotioned, and presentable. She's a

lavender refreshing the garden. Bending, swaying but not folding. Her fists were rocks,

her voice thunder. In my box at the community garden, she rests, as the lavender and

peppermint oil I lather into my hair finds its place in my follicles. The smell so strong my

eyes fill to the brim with tears. I cry for her, the roots of the crops, the roots of her pain,

and the roots of my hair. The joy acquired in the distance.

Jada Gordon is a New York City-based writer, journalist, editor, and photographer. Their work centers around girlhood, sexuality, nature, gender, and family. Their work has been featured in Sula Magazine, Poetry & Performance 47,48, & 49, La Libreta, Stuck In the Library, Indolent Books, & KGB Bar Lit Magazine.

the blazing mass graves

poem and translation by Ivan de Monbrison

Горящих братских могилах

Говорить кричать не быть не думать не знать мое сердце начать снова плакать и начать снова не быть страху больше голод забвение мудрость лень земля время кровь земля там в крови ты ходишь ты говоришь ты я не не знаю кто ты ты ходишь ты разговариваешь ты смеешься ты забыл что в клетке животное это ты животное я открываю клетку вынимаю огонь я выдавливаю кровь я снова кладу огонь клетка, и снова я в клетке,  я кто горит, я кто сжигает мои раны, которая сжигает время, которая сжигает ночь в горящих братских могилах.

the blazing mass graves

Say scream don’t be don’t think don’t know my heart starts crying again and start all over again don’t be scared hunger forgetfulness wisdom laziness earth time blood earth there in the blood you walk you talk you I don’t know who you are you walk you talk you laugh you’ve forgotten that there is an animal in a cage it’s you the animal I open the cage take out the fire I squeeze the blood out of it I put the fire back in the cage and again it’s me in the cage burning burning my wounds burning time burning burning all night within the blazing mass graves. 

Ivan de Monbrison was born when people still needed to meet each other face to face to relate, and when education and art were still meaningful words, somehow. He remembers going alone, at the age of 12, to the Louvre Museum because he thought it was what had to be done. He’s been dabbling in poetry and painting while waiting for his death and – at the pace, as time flows – this should happen very soon. 

regret is a nocturnal beast

by Kathleen Pastrana

Regret turns nocturnal 

like a predator in the dark, 

drawn to the scent of fear,

hunting with fangs more venomous 

than my treacherous tears. Undetected, 

it lurks in the shadows 

of a short-lived situationship,

a phantom of affections

that never truly exist. 

Sometimes it festers 

in wounds that refuse to heal, 

preferring to hide only 

in crevices that cradle pain, 

beneath surfaces in danger of collapsing

and other times it dwells on what-might-have-beens,

in the ashes of desires left burning too long, 

settling like a brick in the pit of your stomach

the moment you realize 

commitment is a cage 

and you were born an illusionist

trained to pick locks.

A midnight guest or a familiar intruder, 

it doesn’t matter,

you welcome regret to your threshold

all the same.

In the morning it will be gone,

and so will you. 

Kathleen Pastrana writes from her hometown in Bulacan, Philippines. She used to work as a speechwriter for corporate and academic events. Now she writes poetry in a house she shares with 40 rescued cats. Her poems have appeared in Banaag Diwa and elsewhere.