Stephen Kingsnorth My title, Jude, you understand?If but a hardy soul, you should.Perhaps my verse is not your spacebut yours the access – trace my mind.Why can you not hear what I voiceand, taken plunge, still get it wrong?I’ll write, gazing in crystal ball –if yet unseen, your wiring’s poor.I’ll use the info learned at […]
Jen Schneider as a child i collect rocks. barefoot on gravel paths. peony pink paint on toenails. glitter specks and spectacles. my fingers move mountains as i dig for rocks of many shades. and many moons. underfoot. shards of glass. glasses always half full, eclipses always half acres wide. & out of reach. solar duals […]
Jay Fraser Pulse-paced, shifting likeOil on glass; greased rainbow memoryAnd glistering sub-recollection A wavering reproduction (shaking)Held up to hear (to inspect the sound)And know (once-heard aural death)To be (Passed from this world to haunt) Jay Fraser is a writer from Lincolnshire. Growing up between the fields and the North Sea, he finds inspiration in both […]
Sloane Angelou let me be a holy habitationwhere your spirit is sentand mine, to die an endless deathlet me be what makes the rain freezeturns ocean into iceand clouds into moving smoke. Sloane Angelou is a storyteller & writer of West African origin; passionate about learning of human existence by interrogating human experiences. They exist […]
Audrey L. Reyes Too many things don’t respondto a pause. And I say, so be it—It’s late and dark and stormy.Palms itch to pounceon uncalculated risksand pots of piss at rainbow’send. A red light flashes in the distance;it’s all eye of the stormthat won’t abideto weathervanes and a thirst for lack. Audrey L. Reyes is […]
Jeremy Freedman Everywhere I go I courtthe ambiguousamphibian atmosphere—the momentum of nostalgia—I remain unsteady—dizzy from the breath of beauty, only incidentally free,marooned, unraveling.I no longer see your Adriatic face,immodestly proud and fearful, traveling crow-somber, though you haven’t disappeared entirely.I loved your unyielding certainty,in the face of my uncertainty,even if what kept not happeningor what never happened is past, […]
Audrey L. Reyes Wrap it tight in discord and abaca. To train the budfrom ever flowering again. The bud is rotten; how do you shake it awake? When you unspool the petals, each crumbles to touch.But my hands must keep the bud from unraveling. Remember when we used to suck out the nectarfrom the santan […]
K.R. Everett As the season stained in leavesbegins to yell through feral winds,I watch the petals fall, each tingedin kisses of decay;like the greying of agetheir colors begin to fade.Reds soften to pinks like the flush of flesh,purples dull like grapes left rotting on the ground,blues pale like the dusty skies before a snow;eventually, they […]
Preston Smith “‘Cause I know I’m a sinner, but I could be a saint in your head.No, I don’t got religion, but I’ll tip my hat to the dead.”—VÉRITÉ, “Saint” If I knew how to be alone, I woulddeconstruct the fairy tales of my mindand live somewhere in betweenthe fabrics of reality and words. I’d […]
Neal Sandin The air buzzes without echoRed grass scrapes our shoulders and saddle bagsBehind us unseen swarm men with guns and rotten teethWhispering our sin through cracked lips.No one has been here before We steer a wide berth around buildings silhouettedLike thorns among impossible mounds of earthAs children play, others shout greetingsBut they do not […]