SEB8
JZ8
SK8
JZ8
Lightning struck
two lovers down
in this very spot
An old wives take
a folk tale
told to children
The tree
a library chronicling
their fate.
The trunks
entwined
A lovers embrace
Cherry red
the eternity
of young love
-Donna Faulkner
The Gravity of Quiet Things (Based on Artwork inspired by SK8)
Veiled in milk-light,
the moon listens;
not with ears,
but the still gravity
of an unblinking witness.
It carries our hush
like breath caught
beneath old bone.
We cast wishes like stones
into its pale ocean,
forgetting where they sank.
Even in silence,
it echoes what we fear;
a heart turning slowly,
holding everything we buried in sleep.
-Anish K. Gupta
Jz 8
Rooted Woman
She rises from the hush of the earth,
not born, but remembered,
a memory of longing, shaped in bark and shadow.
Her spine curves with stories unspoken,
each knot a wound, closed without apology.
She does not flinch beneath the weight of red.
It is not burden, but flame.
The wind does not move her.
It only listens.
Even the sun steps lightly,
drawn to the gravity of her stillness.
She is not waiting.
She has outgrown the need.
Roots hold her where no hands did,
deep, quiet, unshakable.
She is woman,
not because she bends,
but because she never broke.
SEB 8
Resilience in Fragile Forms
I have seen tenderness mistaken for weakness.
I have watched strength wear the wrong face.
Yet you grow
not with flourish
but with the quiet insistence of one
who has suffered
and stayed.
The world around you crumbles in places.
The soil is scarred.
The air forgets to be kind.
Still, you rise.
Each vein of gold a memory
of light that once touched your skin.
You are not the loud kind of beautiful.
You are the kind that lingers
after the storm
when silence begins to speak again.
You bend.
You lean into the uncertain.
You ask for nothing
and still, you remain.
There is something achingly human in you
a refusal to let go
a reaching even in cold.
Not for glory.
Not for praise.
But because life
even bruised and brittle
is still life.
SK 8
She Doesn’t Ask
She shows up.
Even when no one looks.
Lights the sky
for strangers who never call her by name.
She doesn’t wait to be invited.
Doesn’t check if her glow is needed.
She just steps in,
soft and full,
like she always does.
There are no records of her keeping the dark bearable.
No monuments for the nights
she held the world without dropping it.
When they point their cameras,
she stays still.
When they turn away,
she keeps shining.
She doesn’t ask for kindness.
Doesn’t measure her worth
by how many eyes are watching.
She returns,
again and again,
carrying silence
like women do.
Like mothers do.
Like those who know
that strength
is not noise
but presence.
-Rituparna
Shipping Forecast in the Time of Apple Pie
after Du Fu (JZ8)
The sea pips its mourning bell. Icebergs signal hold me fast!—but fades like cherry blossom.
An Albatross wings a crucifix across the blinded soul of man.
Fisher, Dogger—smoke and mirrors. No shore replies. No port is heard.
The orchard sighs windfall withered sound bites. Monkey-puzzling hands peel saints’ shrouds from the roots.
She tunes to habit. The recipe hums as the radio weeps.
Sugared gales whip diabetic memories. Earth’s crust she bakes—a brittle prayer.
Storm warnings—gossamer—thread the air. Apples fall, catatonic, to murmur grief. A bruise blooms across her soul, like swooning millibars on forgotten maps.
Skuas of Cromarty skewer polystyrene offal. Dogger gulls vomit orange dying twine.
The barbarians of denial wait, laughing softly at the oven door.
She serves us slices of happy-pill pie with #insta grace, and we soon forget the ocean’s mirror face.
-John Armstrong
SEB8
Fern
Frilly, fearless fronds
framing undergrowth.
Flourishing
in cool, dark spaces
lighting up the world
in shades of green:
fern green, of course,
forest green,
fresh avocado,
frog.
-Debbie Ross
Jz8
Flame Tree
How can I hold a tourist’s admiration
when Cubans live in poverty,
once proud houses are crumbling ruins,
and a variety of food is a rarity?
Yet the countryside is full of beauty;
emerald hummingbirds delight the eye;
by day, sun a golden orb, azure sea and skies,
at night, air humid and black as sleeping crows,
back-yards illuminated by glowing fireflies.
And lining dirt roads, the Flame trees,
with flamboyant blossoming branches,
as red as the passions of the people.
Oh, I’m with Hemingway when it comes to Cuba.
-Judy Smith
Jz8
A tree trunk
with a dancer’s form
with blossom
red and pink
just like
being trapped
in a fire storm
-Francis Powell
Pisces (the starlings silhouette tree)
in response to artwork by Jenn Zed
after Pippa Phillips
In a bird bath, a flurry of black feathers promise an omen. Look beyond a rain-moon and invoke the visible tree; bulbs of grief will manifest into hybrid fruit. Pluck, but bite with immediacy of restraint — name aloud colours seeping from pulp. If you see crimson, numb your palms against tree’s bark. Refrain is the highway you may miss by the closest clearing for not navigating vigil. Ether trail lead by fireflies is magic to avoid; peel leaves without disrupting nest. Tonight in your sleep, count birds you will not see.
-Sheikha A.
-Phil Hyde
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 