Poetry
And the Sea Brags of its Shells
by • R L • powell in Issue Eleven, October 2023
When I wake, it’s to hear the last siren,
receding to its distant causeway, banks of
salt, their bygone shackles of sand.
I hear, dig out what calls to you down
to an aragonite shore—stay gentle, as
you clean away the remains of so many
broken plates; the profound struggles
of timid fossils. See? Here’s a boundary
of long, but permanent, staycations.
“Exhume,” is too strong a word; but to
recover such monitions and portents, laving,
as they do,... Continue →
voyager
by Mark A. Fisher in Issue Ten, August 2023
are we not nomads in this midnight sea
lonely wanderers between the stars
floating through dreamscape nebulae
tempest tossed on gravity and tides
lonely wanderers between the stars
bottle messages thrown into waves
tempest tossed on gravity and tides
eternal drifters through inky skies
bottle messages thrown into waves
altered and flung out by starry death
eternal drifters through inky skies
transmuted by the flowing of time
altered and flung out by starry death
flowering into... Continue →
scythe
by Sodïq Oyèkànmí in Issue Ten, August 2023
for Yemọja
my mother keeps track of time by how much rain falls
heavenwards. i know it is night because there’s a torrent
& the grim reaper blades through the whirl. it is night.
my mother stands at the threshold with a switchblade—
no match for the reaper’s scythe
but sharp & bold enough to sl/ash every bubble
of tiny deaths—wafting through the universe.
i am twenty two years old—young & smart.
i know how to hold my breath through the night—
it is a rite—to save myself from the stench of... Continue →
Post-traumatic stress sonnet of the Indigenous archeoastronomer
by Kevin Martens Wong in Issue Ten, August 2023
Star-rise. I wake in arms of amber light,
Awash in swiftly dreaming galaxies.
I turn, I yawn, a wayward, drowsy sprite
Untempered by dying vagaries.
Wrap me instead in lazy gleam of quasar,
In the shimmering dust of a thousand suns:
come alive, Jong1, Pari2, Biduk3, Bintang Tujuh4.
Come alive, as the glimmering tides become one
Constellation; never lost, nor consumed
But turned to iridescent astral flame.
Resplendent in amaranthine hue,
reveal to me at last heaven and all... Continue →
Paradox Lost
by S.T. Eleu in Issue Ten, August 2023
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn; he wonder’d…
bio Grandfather with a shotgun
caught me in the loft of the barn
two clicks removed from levitical codes
chaos of slurs and bullets
chorus of curses
NO, No, no – no, No, NO
I
was sent to the hospital
my love was not
***
Som natural tears they drop'd,
but wip'd them soon…
***
I, Luminescence
by Avra Margariti in Issue Ten, August 2023
α) Radiation (This Place is a Message)
What am I but an emanation
Of energy better left
Undisturbed, a ruined
Palace calling out to you
In forbidden whispers
Of far-future runes?
β) Bioluminescence, Beloved
In the bathypelagic zone
You find me through subaqueous
Scrying mirrors, the lantern of my antenna—
Lifeforce light—reflecting off
Your diver’s suit, my villiform teeth.
I won’t bite, I lie. But what I mean is:
I need to know you’re real,
A recollection of... Continue →
War Dream: Bridged
by L. Acadia in Issue Nine, June 2023
Last night, I was in a grim, dusty, subdued Poland,
like a modern theatrical production imagining medieval gloom,
bleached palette, pre-industrial quiet, charred air.
Mud-covered bodies stumble larger towards me
aimlessly with insects, despair,
Ewa appears: their homes bombed,
bakeries breadless, our hunger is appropriate emptiness,
electricity is out, but what utility is a grid while everything dissembles?
Her impassive mien voids her words’ explanation, it is senseless.
I scan the wrecked skyline for a town... Continue →
The Lady of Ice Drowned in the Rising Tides
by Anton Cancre in Issue Nine, June 2023
The burning comes earlier
and earlier each year, as we march
our way further down this angry path.
Seems I can recall passes
round the sun where snow
still fell in great heaping drifts
from the sky well into March.
Seems I can recall the time
when we cheered
at the thick smoke rising into the sky.
I know I remember old Lilike
left alone and freezing
in folds of tattered blankets.
Karel was the one to find her.
Her only son returned,
greeted with a cold hearth
and an empty,... Continue →
Stairs Appeared in My Backyard One Night
by Marcus Whalbring in Issue Nine, June 2023
It took all night to get to the bottom floor
under the tree roots and the cicadas and the fossils.
Like anyone, I wondered if I’d found the way to Hell,
but there were no screams layered like torn fabric
on one another begging God’s mercy. There were no
flames, no bald bodies crying, stranded across
the ashen floor of an oceanless beach. There were
just rows of nice couches stretching on for miles,
a forest of couches, and there were people napping
or just sitting and reading, talking quietly
with one another. No one... Continue →
Spell to Raze a Tree
by Colleen Anderson in Issue Nine, June 2023
Merlin furious, fell, can no longer
abide deciduous, conifer, any bark
limbed being ever since his confinement
he has yet to feel, will stop at any cost
to halt future’s relentless, unwinding cord
Speak of fires, infestations
Mountain pine so unholy
Speak of limb rot, dank rain fungus
Speak of barren lands, absent birds