Bio: Joanna Galbraith is a short story writer and (burgeoning) poet living in Tuscany, Italy.

The Messiah  Remember when we used to wake before the sparrows even sensed the light, and our breath would unite in wired celebration because we realised our skins were about to ignite. Remember when you said to me that you thought religion had been invented by insecure men to control women whose desires they could not satisfy and I lay beside you, too shy to speak, thinking I had just been laid by the Messiah. Remember when I bled into the sheets, and I felt so ashamed, but you kissed my head and bundled that bloody mess under the bed. And when I returned later your fingers were scrub torn, and I couldn’t quite tell if it was love or erasing. Remember when you left me in that blank square. My green-patterned dress and unbrushed…

Biography: Pacella Chukwuma- Eke, NGP Xv, is a Nigerian poet and short story writer. She is a member of the Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation, winner of The Cradle Poetry Contest, Abuja Duet Slam, Splendors of Dawn Poetry Competition, and joint winner of the FOW poetry contest. She is currently studying Human Physiology in Uli, a foreign town in Eastern Nigeria. She is the author of Love in its bliss and sins; runner up for the 2022 Nigeria Prize For Teen Authors( Poetry.) Some of her works have appeared on the brittle paper, Eunoia magazine, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere

Becoming

For Sylvia Plath

(i)

this poem begins with a girl

living inside a canvas

a canvas carved

by the sacred keepers of culture

of culture is what they say

when they wear you silence

you silence your voice because

they uphold a quiet woman

a quiet woman knows no difference

between…

Bio: Carla Sarett @cjsarett is a Nominee for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best American Essays. Poetry: She Has Visions, Woman on the Run, My Family Was Like a Russian Novel. 

Charade

swan-necked 
  Audrey 
dons Givenchy 
  eats & cruises
the Seine to 
   accordion 
with a thief 
  she’s chasing 
& she's chased 
  by odd men  
who meet odder 
  deaths she 
nibbles 
  chicken runs 
in heels & 
  her thief hops 
from ledge to 
  ledge name to 
name &
  face it 
solid stolid
  Brian's no
match for
  Peter 
Alexander 
   even 
Adam oh 
   can't she have 
one more 
   (please)

Bio: w v sutra was born in Africa and raised in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, borne hither and thither on the surging tides of cold war and soft power. He has been at various times a rock musician, a public health professional, and an educator. He began writing poetry during the Covid-19 lockdown. His work can be found in various online journals and at wvsutra.com . He lives and works on a horse farm on the shoulders of the Holston Mountains in East Tennessee. Twitter @w_v_sutra

andy and the iron wig

he of the honest gaze can be real about fortune who cannot stop dancing or drinking or gazing at others when truly in love one can easily claim the beloved the object the thing the content the art undiscovered when the hair leaves the head a replacement is made of real metal the image compulsively rendered through…

Bio: HilLesha O’Nan is a blogger, writer, photographer & marketer. She is co-editor/founder of Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art. She runs the blog tothemotherhood.com for over 15 years

Catching the Sunrise

In the year 1987, on a dark night, two lovers were driving down Green River Rd. with wildness in their abandoned hearts. The wind was blowing through their hair, and the music of Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” filled the car.

As they drove, they talked about their love and their hopes for the future. They knew that life was unpredictable, but they were determined to enjoy the moment and the freedom of the open road.

The music played on as they drove, the beat of the drums and the synth sounds pounding their hearts with energy. They sang along with the lyrics, feeling the passion and the emotion in the words.

As the night…

Bio: Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Eyewear), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. He has also been twice shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Southword, Agenda, Wasafiri, London Magazine, and The Reader. He teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the Open University.

@saturnineone

SepulchralAfter Bernard Pierre Wolff Rain on benches in gardens of remembrance reflects small portions of sky. A chimney in the distance, belching out blackness as if part of some regime. Give me stars as casual gifts. I fear a plateau: no hill to climb. Place me on a precipice. Cut me down for lamentation. Who’s the angel? Her arm draped over her brow & now fallen on marble. Trees quiver gran mal seizures. No-one offers stark witness: a weight of words too…

Bernard Pearson’s work appears in over seventy publications worldwide, including; Aesthetica Magazine, The Edinburgh Review, Crossways, North West Words and FourxFour and The New Critique I. In 2019 he won second prize in The Aurora Prize for Writing

Joni

Her voice gets
Inside you like a scalpel,
She has no sky
Into which her songs
Cannot reach,
Her words are 
A litany for the lonely,
Freed now to rise,
From clothes left on
A far away beach.

Maria is an international adoptee from Brazil that has called Michigan home since a baby. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. An artist and poet, Maria’s latest poetry has recently been published or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, SIAMB!, Strange Horizons, Breadfruit Mag, Feral: A Journal of Poetry And Art,& elsewhere. Maria’s first chapbook will be published by Ethel Zine’s Micro Press in December ‘23. Maria is an “It List” Writer for Detroitisit.com https://detroitisit.com. 

Socials

IG: @Maria_Kornacki https://www.instagram.com/mar_kor12/
and @mariamakes_faces https://www.instagram.com/mariamakes_faces/

Twitter: @MRKornacki 

 

an erasure handmade from a page of Bluets by Maggie Nelson

a framed collage closeup of Joni Mitchell

Bio: Diane Funston writes poetry of nature and human nature. She co-founded a women’s poetry salon in San Diego, created a weekly poetry gathering in the high desert town of Tehachapi, CA and most recently has been the Yuba-Sutter Arts and Culture Poet-in-Residence for the past two years. It is in this role she created Poetry Square, a monthly online venue that features poets from all the world reading their work and discussing creative process. 

Diane has been published in Synkronicity, California Quarterly, Whirlwind, San Diego Poetry Annual, Summation, Tule Review, Lake Affect Magazine, and other literary journals. Her first chapbook, “Over the Falls” was published this July 2022 from Foothills Publishing.

Diane is also a visual artist in mosaic, wool felting, and collage. Her pieces have been in galleries in the Sacramento Valley. 

The Visitors  There is a knock on my door, most unexpectedly, in a well- deserved moment…