SEB2
SK2
JZ2
SEB2
The empty nostalgia
…. happily ever after.
What is there
but winter
barbs
and an abandoned nest
JZ2
The morning is blister popping.
In a taiso stretch
scorched black rock
kisses the coat tails
of the rising sun.
Pensive in the water
the day in revelation.
Origami calm.
Water holding
fire
-Donna Faulkner
-Phil Hyde
SEB 2
Here they shoot crows
leave nests
empty.
Black masses
mourn
on the wing.
-Debbie Ross
My Own Solitude, based on Artwork by JZ2
A monolith of shadow rises,
trees etched like whispers on its skin.
The lake, a hush of obsidian glass,
stirs only to bleed the sun;
a red wound smeared across its depths.
Silence clings like mist,
the world withdrawing, dissolving,
leaving only the lone stone,
the breathing dark,
and the slow orbit of birds
that know no name for exile.
-Anish Gupta
Capricorn (the red dot on Jupiter)
in response to artwork by Jenn Zed
after Pippa Phillips
Unconcern yourself with star sand on abandoned shores. The warrior sent out with a quiver of onyx arrows is defining another galaxy — point of no return. Fortune levitates in unending loops, moon’s iris magnifying in helium rain. Near afar mount peaks chiselled blunt by destiny’s splint. Favours will be shapeless preyed upon by hunters of grace, navigate layers with acute agility. A fox never goes the distance wearing shoes of premature ingenuity.
-Sheikha A.
Jz2
A Crimson Dusk
The sky is wounded, spilling fire into the water.
The sun does not set. It collapses.
It drags its heavy body toward the edge of the world,
clawing at the horizon as if it dreads the dark.
The mountain watches, unmoved.
It has seen this a thousand times.
The dying of light, the slow surrender.
Time has carved its face into silence.
No grief. No longing. Only the quiet weight of knowing.
The water swallows the sun in trembling ripples.
Its reflection fractures, uncertain.
A ghost of what was, dissolving before it understands itself.
A mirror trying to hold on but failing, as all things do.
Somewhere, in the hush between light and shadow,
something is ending.
A love. A life. A name whispered for the last time.
The air is thick with the scent of loss,
with all that was meant to be said but never was.
And then the night.
SK2
Drifting Away
A heart once tightly woven, now frays,
Untethered, it rises, softly, quietly.
Below, the world becomes distant,
A silent echo, as winds lift without mercy.
The weight that once burdened, now disappears,
Fading into the air, leaving only emptiness.
No walls to lean against, no paths to cling to,
Only the vast, uncharted sky, boundless and cold.
Let go, let yourself dissolve into the unknown,
Where shadows cease to haunt, and dreams take root.
For freedom calls in a voice you can barely hear,
A whisper, trembling, urging you to follow.
Rise, unbound, as the night fades away,
Where truths are spoken in the quiet hum of stars.
In that infinite space, far from the familiar,
There, you will find yourself lost, yet whole.
SEB 2
A Mother’s Hands
She wove the nest from pieces of her own heart,
thread by delicate thread, stitched with the quiet weight of sacrifice.
Her hands, once soft and unmarked, grew calloused,
not from toil, but from holding so gently,
so the fragile things wouldn’t break,
so the tender things wouldn’t fear.
She built the walls from whispers of lullabies,
wove the sky with strands of quiet strength,
taught the wind to soften,
taught the wings to believe in the sky.
Then, one morning, the weight was gone.
The nest, still intact, still whole, stood empty.
She stood beneath the vast sky,
her hands aching with the weight of memories,
of holding, of sheltering,
of knowing that love, the deepest love,
is the one that learns to let go,
even when the heart can’t quite understand.
-Rituparna
Gondola
Empty nest in bare tree, a gondola
that has lost its balloon, fledgling leaves
flown.
The mountain ripples red in the water,
massive red sun floats its stretched plastic blown.
Earth its gondola tethered to its death.
Intricately made-from-chosen-parts home.
Flight fire braids air, water and mountain depth.
Birds find twigs of sky to intertwine, hone.
Carefully placed pictures on a home wall.
Items to be sorted when you are dead.
Treasured, kept, rubbished or charity haul.
Reminders of outside, moments unsaid.
Unremembered stories of how you chose
bought images shelved and arranged in rows.
-Paul Brookes
Artworker Bios
Jenn Zed
Ms. Zed is an artist, writer, and musician who lives in Bath, England, with the ghost of her cat.
She studied art, art history, and design MA at Bath and Cambridge Universities.
Sara Elizabeth Bell
Says:
I’ve always loved drawing. It’s a form of meditation for me and has now become a way for me to find peace and sanity when my world gets too overwhelming, which, as a single mom with a neuro-divergent teen, happens quite often. When it does, I follow John Muir’s quote, “Off into the woods I go to loose my mind and find my soul.”
The results of those trips are sketches of the forests around me and photos. I work from the photos to create my watercolors and intaglio prints. I hope you enjoy them and can find a place in your home to adopt one or more.
Spriha Kant
Spriha Kant is an English poetess, book reviewer, and digital artist. She has been published in some anthologies — “Hidden in Childhood” and “We Are The Waves,” to name a few. Her poems have also been published in the seventh issue of “Reflections,” the well-known literary magazine “Prosetrics.” She has been the Guest of honor in the award-winning show “Victoria in Verse” (Bloomsbury Radio, London). Her interviews can be read at feversofthemind.com & and brokenspine.co.uk. Her quotes are published as an epigraph and a blurb in Magkasintahan Volume VI & Swiped Right [both books published by Ukiyoto Publishing, Philippines], respectively. Her artwork can be seen in a webzine called “The Starbeck Orion” and on thewombwellrainbow.com.
Writer Bios
Debbie Ross,
Debbie is a poet, author, artist, photographer, and baker. She lives 400m from the sea, in the far north Scottish Highlands, and can be mostly be found in the kitchen, at the beach, or at her writing table.
Matt Guntrip,
Matt Guntrip is a guitarist, song writer and indie musician from the UK. He has published four albums & five singles via CD Baby, available on most channels. He was a nominated solo artist on the New Music Generator Show, Cambridge 105FM.
Through creative writing he explores themes of nature, time, love, loss, rejection, injustice and hope, with a view to learning, improving and thus to writing better songs.
Matt’s writing has been published in The Belfast Review, The Broken Spine, Fevers of The Mind, Folkheart Press Blog, GAS Poetry (YouTube), The Starbeck Orion (Substack) & The Wombwell Rainbow website.
Donna Faulkner,
Donna Faulkner lives in a cottage in Rangiora, New Zealand with her husband , two sons and Emily, the black Labrador. She’s been published in 300 Days of Sun, Havik, Windward Review, Havik, Fieldstone Review, New Myths, Bacopa Literary Review and others. Her debut poetry book ‘In Silver Majesty’ was published by erbacce press(UK) 2024.
Instagram @lady_lilith_poet/ Twitter @nee_miller. https://linktr.ee/donnafaulkner
Alan McGinn,
Anish Gupta,
Dr. Anish K. Gupta is an Indian urologist and an impassioned poet who writes mainly in English but also dabbles in Hindi and Urdu. His work seamlessly intertwines the exactitude of medical science with the subtleties of human emotion. Grounded in the complementary realms of medicine and art, his path reflects a profound quest for understanding, healing, and the expression of love and life. In the operating room or on the page, Dr. Gupta delves into the intricacies of both body and soul, approaching each with care, curiosity, and compassion. His poetry captures the subtle epiphanies of daily life, the fragility of the human condition, and the deep connections between love and existence. He goes by the #uropoet on X where his handle is @optionurol.
Phil Hyde,
Rituparna,
Rituparna Ghosh is an alumna of the National University of Singapore, an AI engineer, and the founder of Whizzstep. With a passion for poetry, she enjoys crafting verses, particularly in the genres of free verse and reflective poetry. A lover of nature, Rituparna finds peace in her walks by the beach, where the tranquility of the ocean inspires both her creativity and personal reflection. Coding is her profession, and she thrives on solving complex problems through technology. She also has a deep love for traveling, reading, learning new languages, and horse riding, connecting with the outdoors in a unique and fulfilling way.
Francis H Powell,
Judy Smith ,
Judy Smith lives in East Yorkshire. Retired from a career in health and education, she is an emerging poet. She has had poems published in several anthologies, including Spelt, 14, Black Bough, Artemis, High Wolds, Dreich, York Literary Review, The Starbeck Orion. She has a passion for wildlife gardening and community tree planting.
Sheikha A,
Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her poems appear in a variety of literary venues both print and online, and some of them have been translated into 8 languages so far. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com
John Armstrong,
John Armstrong is a poet whose work blends metaphysical inquiry with vivid, elemental imagery. Drawing from a deep reverence for nature, memory, and the cosmic, Armstrong’s poetry explores dualistic and trinitarian themes of love, transformation, and the spiritual texture of existence.Armstrong sees poetry not merely as a literary form but as a living, animistic force—language shaped by the earth itself. His work is a personal quest, a surrender to the unknown, finding beauty in ambiguity and meaning in the mist between words and life.
Spare time: He grows Cosmos flowers and wills them on way past the first frosts.
Saraswati Nagpal,
The Wombwell Rainbow 