2 poems

by Caitlin Upshall

peanut butter & jelly

On days when my grief is too loud, I put in ear plugs and roll away from her in bed but she finds me anyway and I wake up with a hand across my chest that makes it hard to breathe and when she refuses to leave, I decided to spend the day with my grief; see, they say you should feed a cold and starve a fever, but I don’t know which one she is so, instead, I make her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but I leave the crusts on and we go to a park but she pulls a shadow from the trees and I feed the ducks but she wails a swan song and I don’t want to invite her to my favorite places but she leads the way, knowing each one better than I do and eventually, when the sun has set and we are home, I fall asleep on the couch, a small hand resting on my chest, making each breath difficult and each one something to be thankful for.

flat

there are no mountains there

my Oregonian mother spends

months trapped in a paper picture

searching up

for heights left unconquerable

any perch for the gods

years after she leaves the paper picture

Washington breaks loudly atop a geological conversation

and my Oxfordian father understands 

why we do not yell

Caitlin Upshall (she/her/hers) holds a B.A. in English from Western Washington University and is currently based in the United Kingdom. When she's not writing, she enjoys most things dinosaur-related and trivia nights. You can find her on Instagram at @CaitlinUpshall or at www.caitlinupshall.com. 

if a bird would sing

by Caroline LaNoce

If a bird would sing,

amongst the terror and rage,

it was my sign to go 

I have thought about this many times you see – 

running away

as fast as my feet would allow

Not considering the sweltering heat in early July, 

Not envisioning the plump blisters on my course skin, 

splitting open and bleeding out,

cherry red, my favorite color 

Not sealing my eyes shut and standing still,

hearing the sound of my own heart palpitations bang like a drum 

pounding violently against my leathery chest 

And I think to myself – 

Oh how I think and think and think

If only a bird would have sang earlier, 

perched gently in its tree

High up from the madness,

the Northern Mockingbird watching destruction unfold, 

singing his sweet song,

the lullaby I never received 

Watching me closely, and with purpose, 

the endearing eye contact that failed to ever exist – 

I hear that song

And I go 

Caroline LaNoce attended Saint Joseph’s University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude in the Spring of 2023 with her Bachelor of Arts in English, Writing, and Literature. She is continuing her education at Saint Joseph’s and is pursuing her Masters of Arts in Writing where she hopes to expand her writing skills, both professionally and creatively.

distant stars illuminate nothing

by Tohm Bakelas

It is September, no October,

and for three days the rain 

hasn’t slowed. Except now,

now it has stopped, when

just before it was steady.

You can see the river has 

risen, far higher than it had 

been all summer. And 

summer, a season now gone, 

is a place you no longer wish 

to remember — too many losses, 

too many heartbreaks. Summer 

grows shorter as you grow older.

But here in this autumn, you

hear crickets talking amongst

themselves, talking about things

you will never understand. You

wonder where all the birds have

flown, is it to some place south,

some place tropical where the

sun always shines? You wonder

why you were not invited, but then

you remember you are not a bird.

And tonight, outside your window,

you will watch the moon disappear 

behind grey clouds in the inky sky 

as distant stars illuminate nothing.

Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have been printed widely in journals, zines, and online publications all over the world.  He is the author of twenty-six chapbooks and several collections of poetry, including “Cleaning the Gutters of Hell” (Zeitgeist Press, 2023).  He is the editor of Between Shadows Press.

the cloud

by Virginia Lake

My computer tutor tells me

My poems are in the cloud

I guess that means 

With everyone else’s poems 

Rent receipts

Grocery lists

Etcetera

Thomas Aquinas 

Father of moral philosophy

Who was canonized in 1308

First asked 

How many angels can dance

On the head of a pin?

That is a famous subject

Of theological debate.

I worry about the angels

Who dance

On the head of a pin

In the clouds

Where the angels live

How large is that pin?

Will there be enough

Room for my poems?

And the tutor has

Yet to explain

What about the rain?

Virginia Lake is a senior auditor at Portland State University. She audits literature and writing classes. In 2022 she published two poems in Old Pal Magazine. She was 77 years old. That was her first publication.

iron lung

by Benjamin WC Rosser

My window shut,

blocking Summer’s fierce gaze

and brown haze from distant flaming timbers.

One machine cools the room,

then my cats and I may nap.

Another, like a Vegas magician,

pulls gallons of water

from the air we breathe.

My window shut,

glazed by Winter’s cruel lick, 

outside sheets of ice and broken branches.

Furnace air and a space heater

blanket us with dry heat.

Eyes itch, hands and heels crack,

another device weaves soothing water

into the air we breathe.

I met a man, years ago,

who lived inside an iron lung.

It did the work of breathing for him.

His hapless head stuck out one end

of what seemed a metal casket on wheels.

With cheeky laughter, he read everything

and used his mouth to write.

I crack open my window.

Benjamin WC Rosser is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Saskatchewan where his areas of research and teaching were, respectively, cell biology and human anatomy. His poetry has been published in Consilience Journal (2022) and London Grip (2022, 2023). He currently resides retired in Ottawa, Canada, with his wife Corinne and children Isabel and Oliver.

still life

by Chloe Cook

Lipstick rimming glass
imprint of bottom lip like nectarine segment
bruised purple shade Amythest Wrath
I aim for the same spot, sucking in citrus notes
The glass’ contusion follows my head, blurring
Strangers hang like swollen berries on the vine
movements slow, anchored by elbow on syrupy bar
I stroke the wooden butt of pocket knife
enclosed in jacket as pip is enclosed by lemon flesh
fingers feel its polished streak embellished by nights like these
Fantasy of fruit freshly cut from stalk, warming in the palm
The people change faces nightly, mould their bodies more generously
but their smell – fruit bowl sickly, banana peel splitting – unchanged
flies feeding at the dishes of their mouths, alcohol rotten invitations
I am an apple rolling from crowded tree, worm bitten
sensing the sagging, bathroom door is the gateway to safety, sagging of my face
I find a mirror to see it with, toilet sounding behind me
with closed eyes I wash the glass clean, water pouring over cuff
soaking up to my elbow, I push my shoulder under
tip my head beneath the faucet, washing myself down the drain

Chloe Cook is a literary fiction writer and fine artist, located in England. She holds a master’s degree in creative writing and is interest in themes of dissociation, the fracturing of reality and the contrasting stillness that inhabits everyday lives. In her spare time she goes for walks – normally with a coffee in hand, avidly fantasies about improbable things, and runs a modest bookstagram account under @thenovelobserver.

thank you

by Robin Kinzer

It’s drizzling when I step outside.  

A July Sunday in Baltimore,

the night after we say goodbye.

Even as the sky spits steadily

harder, fireflies weave drunkenly.  

They continue to flicker and flash.

Tiny strobe lights in the night sky,

I wonder how strong their wings must be.  

Wonder if you realize you changed my life.

I tilt my face towards the ink blot of stormy sky, 

let rain spill down my cheeks. Let it curl through

my spray of pink hair. I watch the fireflies

weave drunkenly through the rain, seeking

out love even with sodden wings.

They know what they desire.  

As do I.

Robin Kinzer is a queer, disabled poet, memoirist, occasional teacher, and editor. Robin has poems and essays published, or forthcoming, in Cleaver Magazine, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Blood Orange Review, fifth wheel press, Delicate Friend, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others. She’s a Poetry Editor for the winnow magazine. She loves glitter, Ferris wheels, vintage fashion, sloths, and radical empathy.  She can be found on Twitter at @RobinAKinzer and at www.robinkinzer.com

summer storms

by K. Rice

Cruelty to me is the stoplights never staying red 

long enough for me to think about how

"He occupies his body again"

made it sound like the poison was just something to sweat out.

Like this dream was something I could have controlled

if I could reach inside a synapse and grab

a fistful of sedative

and wake up on purpose for once.

Between me and this highway,

I hang from these words like milkweed,

moonlight on the wall signaling seasons

when I cocoon myself away from the grief

and the loose threads of you everywhere all over

this damn house:

When every day is a choice

I either die in my wraps or fly away.

K. Rice (she/her) is a creative based in Los Angeles, CA. She currently studies urban planning at UCLA. In her downtime, you can find her at Philz Coffee working on passion projects and sipping a Honey Haze.

little magic

by Ifunanya Georgia Ezeano

Sometimes you want magic

but not like Morgana had 

for your hands to be filled 

with little magic

to do the simple things 

with your powers

like pausing a bad day

avoiding an accident

turning off the light bulb 

from your bed or 

telling your grandma 

you love her

few seconds before she dies.

Ifunanya Georgia Ezeano is an Igbo, Nigerian writer, poet, and editor. She holds a BSc in Psychology. She has her works published in journals and lit mags in many places. She is the head editor for Writers Space Africa Virtual/Video Poetry. She was the pioneer leader of Poets in Nigeria, at the University of Nigeria Nsukka.  She is the author of the poetry collection; Naked and Thorns & Petals (on Amazon and other places) and she has other unpublished works. She has a Gazelle (Droplets) coming out on the Konya Shamsrumi Review Gazelle series. She was nominated this year for the British Loft Prize for flash fiction. She recently received the Sparks Poetry Award honorary mention from Memorial University, Newfoundland, Canada. She is interested in human experiences, the psychology of life, femininity, and Africanism.

two objects

by Celinda Olive

Summer again, my beloved peonies 

the palest of pinks in their petal fleece.

I wash a wine glass under the spotlight 

just above the sink. Junior Kimbrough

lulls in the background in steady 

pulsed blues. It’s a mantra, 

this ominous lyric, “You better run…don’t let him get you…” 

The crystal of the glass, awfully 

clear, kissing the serrated blade like a mandate 

from heaven — and it overwhelms me, 

this terrible, sharp beauty, of living. 

Celinda Olive is a poet residing in the Minneapolis area and holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Seattle Pacific University. She’s a clumsy steward of beauty taking one day at a time. 

2 poems

by Anne Mikusinski

definition

Art is debatable

At best

If civility is your 

Aim 

For the discussion

At worst

It’s

Raised voices 

And various opinions

Expressed

In sitting rooms

Or noisy bars

Or sometimes

Outside venues

Where people wait

Together

To see the same event

But come away with something

Different.

as yet

Tonight I read 

As if you were listening 

Attentively

While hidden

In a quiet corner

Dimly lit

And undisclosed

But there.

As underneath

An imaginary spotlight

I revealed

My true intentions.

Anne Mikusinski has always been in love with words. She’s been writing poems and short stories since she was seven. Her influences range from Robert Frost and Dylan Thomas to David Byrne and Nick Cave. She hopes that one day, some of her writing will impress others the way these writers have had an impact on her.

summer calm

by Jeffrey Yamaguchi

There were always fresh peaches

in the fancy bowl on the counter

as soon as the summer scents

lofted the days to never ending

Diving into the liquid blue

further and deeper, over and over

seeing just how long

you can hold your breath

Playing ditch beyond last call

no one even looking for us

at stake the light of the moon

should we ever let ourselves be found

Taking late showers

the sweet sweat of an endless climb

up a cherry tree ready for harvest

forever holding its luster

A bowl of ice cream before bed

in our boxer shorts on the back porch

the boundless chirp of crickets

shaping the contours of our slumber

Jeffrey Yamaguchi (jeffreyyamaguchi.com) creates projects with words, photos, and video as art explorations, as well as through his professional endeavors in the publishing industry. His work has been featured in publications such as Okay Donkey, Atticus Review, Kissing Dynamite, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Vamp Cat Magazine, Nightingale & Sparrow, Failed Haiku, Daily Haiga, Black Bough Poetry, Feral, Anti-Heroin Chic, and The Storms.

scene at sea

by Nida Mubaraki

a lightbulb forty feet up waves hello from the southern tide, 

little hiccups in the waves 

dancing at our knobby knees. 

we woke up 200 miles north from last year’s dream 

in a farewell letter to the silver dollar espresso – 

traded in your boiler pot for a slow & grating stove, simmering 

soft your protruding ribs inside-out. 

newport’s sun-cloud glaze and my sworded fingers, 

wrapped up in sheets and echoes of yesterday. what happened to the

smell of the morning blackberries? too early picked 

and i don’t know what home is anymore. is it true 

you left her here to die? 

coffin in the kitchenette, sitting like a 

four o’clock scone. back there you’re all buttery and bone-thin 

in some alienatic way; 

dirtied hands and two-knot hair that you left in the city, 

all out of your reddish plates you fed to a lazy-eyed tomb. 

you were wound-up in the days of yesterday 

before the interstate drive down up (please don’t go back down).

education born in new england, the only place 

we can read with the fisherman’s daughters. learn where comfort resides:

they’re not short-knived in the boroughs. 

stay here with me is what i’d say if this was about us: 

linger where the ocean is the broth at supper, 

savory & seasonal is our mainland diet. 

no energy drinks except for the accidental saltwater sips, 

breaking bread with crab legs and lemon instead. 

august can be eternal now, if you keep holding my hand – 

do we abandon our souls if we leave here? 

down south we don’t work. just let us nod off 

in crisp winter with nothing 

but the woods, the fire, and us. 

waves shouting at you: the tide will welcome you now. no more nostalgia, no more

dreams, no more wonder; 

certainty is in the cusp of your palm & is thumbing your lip, healing the years

of bites. north is no north but it’s evergreened home, 

the city gives you nothing but day-old bread and a lack of remorse.

Nida Mubaraki is a New Jersey and Philadelphia based writer. She has work in/forthcoming in Maudlin House, Bullshit Lit, and Eunoia Review, amongst others. She works as the senior editor, Twitter head, and a contributor for The Empty Inkwell Review. Email her at nidamubaraki@gmail.com or find her on Twitter: @pennedbynida. 

gossip from the forest

by Kay Burrows

Last year I learned the difference between a forest and a woodland.

Forests are hunting grounds; ancient rites and rhythms.

Did you hear that she is home?

The moon is high and our eyes 

deal only in black and white.

You skip after silhouettes while I scatter a breadcrumb trail.

Magpies roost with shiny things

and fairy rings spring around my heavy feet.

Word travels fast in here. 

The news is pressing

on my chest and echoes are compressed.

Was she forced to confess?

I gulp and try to think of home

of silver jewelry and fairy lights and not only of the way you skewered 

marshmallows and licked

them clean off the stick, splinters in your tongue. I begged

you not to eat in the forest.

Didn’t you hear that she is home?

Kay Burrows is a scientist, musician, writer, and runner. She lives in the North of England and loves being outside, whatever the weather!

green water

by Sydney Thomson

An Ode to Herbert James Draper’s The Lament for Icarus

For a brief moment, after death, in the green,

it’s as if he were alive and had merely been

taking a rest, on a bed of soft feathers

in the pleasantest weather, before decay begins.

How long the fall, and how cruel the end,

but his face holds no fright, 

not at all, the sight almost serene.

The day is so bright all but where he now lies.

How strange to see Death in the light,

because the sun knows

Death is softer at night. It might be romantic 

if it wasn’t so tragic. 

Oh, how devastating! If only the sun

had been kinder or the sea not awaiting,

with open arms, the fallen angel

the plummet fatal, a strike that leaves the ears ringing

the rigor takes his wings and

his life already gone, their hearts surely stinging.

Their mouths are open, they may be crying –

they may be singing.

Sydney Thomson honed her writing skills in the University of Washington’s Creative Writing program. She writes poetry, short stories, and novel-length works.

2 poems

by Kirsten Ireland

twenty twenty

I look like he, 

but sound like she. 

It confuses people 

when my wife says

the baby 

she gave birth to 

has my eyes. 

why

I’m struggling,

at this point anyway, 

to understand 

exactly what happened. 

Rereading words 

nearly twenty years 

old and dead, 

I found honesty 

and happiness. 

I feel it still now, 

that truth 

and that warmth, 

but from a distance. 

I can’t say 

that it is diminished, 

just a different shape 

and I, as you, 

still don’t know why. 

Kirsten Ireland is a visual artist, musician, and longtime writer who currently resides in Illinois with her wife and children. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in anthologies such as, Shared Words, and Warps in the Tapestry. 

small talk

by Devon Neal

I never learned to float.

While friends could recline on the billowing surface

of backyard pools, the brown palm 

of the lake in June, the water swallowed me,

my ankles jagged concrete blocks,

my shoulders smooth river stones,

the goldfish of my organs swirling

in the tree limbs of my rib cage.

I could never tread water.

The stuff I’m made of is just too heavy,

my marrow like petrified wood,

my spine a clattering chain,

my lungs worn tires, waterlogged and black,

the reluctant prize of the novice fisherman.

Devon Neal (he/him) is a Bardstown, KY resident who received a B.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University and an MBA from The University of the Cumberlands. He currently works as a Human Resources Manager in Louisville, KY. His work has been featured in Moss Puppy Magazine, Dead Peasant, Paddler Press, MIDLVLMAG, and others.

2 poems

by Bryan Vale

oakland arena  

the canal floats

oil paints and

oxidized screws away

from their origins

in industrial backlots.

true story: i once dumped,

at my boss's direction,

ten gallons of acrylic 

down the drain.

so it's my canal

too, and i float

up to the

urban-scarred 

horizon. 

to the girls who enjoyed the hand motions

who brought waves of mercy and grace to life,

who improvised choreography to those songs that lacked it,

who closed eyes and tilted heads

as choruses hit the high note,

to the girls who enjoyed the hand motions:

i wish i knew who dispensed your wisdom,

who gave out your generosity.

i was a fly on the wall of your winter camp,

a seeker in the doorway of your youth group,

a humble pursuer of knowledge and joy

lost on unmarked dirt roads far from my destination.

Bryan Vale is a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His fiction and poetry have appeared in several journals, including Scribes*MICRO*Fiction, Paddler Press, Friday Flash Fiction, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Quibble. Learn more at bryanvalewriter.com, or follow Bryan on Twitter and Instagram: @bryanvalewriter.

2 poems

by Isaac Fox

as she’s dragged to the gallows

In Paradise

Lost, Earth

hangs from Heaven

by a golden

chain.

how Frank imagines the afterlife

When you

butcher

fresh-caught

bluegills,

brown eyes 

blink and

gills flap,

even

when their 

heads are

bloodied 

in a 

bucket

Isaac Fox writes crazy things, plays the clarinet and guitar, and spends as much time as possible outside. His work has previously appeared in Bending Genres, Tiny Molecules, and 50-Word Stories, among other publications. You can find him on Twitter at @isaac_k_fox.

\ out past the dawns (a pantoum)

by Frank G. Karioris

the warp

ripped your hands

as fallow bus 

routes departed

ripped your hands

on the empty shell remnants 

routes departed

& all we can do is stay

on the empty shell remnants

you braved new storms

& all we can do is stay

holding out hope, tomorrows

you braved new storms

where winter was oncoming

holding out hope, tomorrows

can’t break bone so easily

where winter was oncoming

phones no longer ringing  

can’t break bone so easily

so they breathe 

phones no longer ringing

love wasn’t meant to live

so they breathe

will you stay here now still

love wasn’t meant to live

were you hoping for more

will you stay here now still

or did the ocean draw you out again

were you hoping for more

what do palms contain 

or did the ocean draw you out again

waves don’t drown, just hold you close

what do palms contain

if the sand drifts

waves don’t drown, just hold you close

at night we make our own cover

if the sand drifts

make a beachhead & hold against the tide forthcoming 

at night we make our own cover

separated from a bed & a lover & all that is left is the roar of tempests 

make a beachhead & hold against the tide forthcoming

winds blow

separated from a bed & a lover & all that is left is the roar of tempests 

night still

winds blow

holy

night still 

cold

holy

aurora

cold 

eventide. 

Frank G. Karioris (he/they/him/them) is a writer and educator based in San Francisco whose writing addresses issues of friendship, gender, and class. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Collective Unrest, Riverstone, Sooth Swarm Journal, and in the collection Eco-Justice For All amongst others. They were a W.S. Merwin Fellow at the 2023 Community of Writers Poetry Program.