Jz 9
The Moment Before Surrender
The sky doesn’t cry out.
It just opens,
without warning,
without shame.
It holds until it can’t.
And then,
it lets go.
Not to impress.
Not to perform.
It simply breaks.
We call it rain.
We romanticize it.
But it is rupture.
It is surrender.
It is the moment the sky admits,
I can’t hold this anymore.
And still,
we shame our own breaking.
We wear masks of strength
while drowning underneath.
We apologize for the tremble in our voice,
the flood behind our eyes.
But what if falling apart
is not failure?
What if it is
an act of honesty,
of survival?
Let the sky remind you
that even the vast,
the eternal,
must empty itself
to remain.
Let yourself go,
not because you are weak,
but because you have carried too much
for too long.
There is no glory in holding in
what was meant
to be released.
SEB 9
She Waits with Petal Arms Open
She does not beg to be seen.
There is a dignity in her silence,
the kind shaped by time,
by disappointments folded gently
into the corners of her smile.
She stands as she is,
not for attention,
but because turning away
has never been her way.
Even when the light fades,
even when no footsteps arrive,
she remains.
There is history in her stillness.
Not just of flowering,
but of holding space
for what may never return.
Of offering warmth
when none is returned.
Each petal is a story
she will never tell aloud.
Each curve, a decision
to stay soft in a world
that so often forgets softness.
She is not waiting for rescue.
She is the moment before surrender.
The breath held
when you choose to stay
despite the ache.
She waits
because love,
for her,
has never been anything
but an open hand.
Sk 9
What Stayed
There is an eye,
carved into a storm of colour,
not as ornament
but as witness.
It does not blink
because blinking might erase something,
a truth,
a fracture,
a name
that once belonged
to a quieter version of you.
These shapes
do not fit neatly.
They jut,
collide,
bruise against each other,
each carrying a version
of who you had to be.
You were green in someone’s memory,
red in someone’s rage,
blue when no one asked how you were,
yellow when you pretended to glow.
But in the center,
there is an eye
and it has not closed,
not even when it was easier to.
It sees what broke,
what mended,
what never returned,
and what became you in its absence.
This is not survival.
This is composition,
a being made of colour,
truth,
and the courage
to stay.
-Rituparna
-Phil Hyde
SEB9
Orchid
sweet shy ladies
feet lightly trip
many hearts mourn
yet memories
as love slip deep
on thin chalk soils
petals adorn
royal gold foils
bewitch entice
to crawl within
stay forever
on thin chalk soils
-Judy Smith
Jz9
The edge of the world
thrills me
you can’t go beyond
-Francis H. Powell
Cancer (sowing moons in fields of stars)
in response to artwork by Jenn Zed
after Pippa Phillips
On plantation rows, disperse stardust collected during Milky Way’s shedding season. The hour conducive to high tides is when you must walk water barefoot. The advice is to not seek advice — await moon-dew to drip on a strolling beetle to confirm a choice. Night’s wall if scaled in insomniac state will levy fatigue; the lesson is too deep to trap in a shallow weir. Mountains form own horizons to encourage innovation. You are no less predictable than a weathervane’s compass. Trust. Trek sky with spry wearing winged boots.
-Sheikha A
-Donna Faulkner
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,
John Wolf
Creative writing tutor, poet, storyteller for Read To Write. Taught Beowulf, Odyssey, and Troy; Gilgamesh is coming in October. First poetry collection entitled Heroes (Glasshead Press, 2022). New collection, Historia, out summer 2025. Featured on Radio Sheffield, CAST, Little Theatre, Doncaster Ukranian Centre, Artbomb, Doncaster Foodbank Festival, Under Milk Wood and Women of Troy.
Oormila V. Prahlad
is a widely published Indian-Australian artist and poet. She lives and works on traditional Gammergal land. Find her on Instagram @oormila_paintings
The Wombwell Rainbow 