JZ12
SK12
SEB12
Where the Roof Meets the Sky (Based on Based on Artwork inspired by JZ 12)
She walks through fields memory forgot,
brushing against ghosts of white blossoms.
The house, half-swallowed by time,
waits without waiting.
Its windows are eyes she once looked through,
its walls warm with someone else’s fire.
In dreams, it is always spring.
In waking, always fog.
She carries the place inside,
like a lost name
half-remembered.
-Anish Gupta
-Stephen Kingsnorth
Jz12
The wildness of the house
lost on a hill
nothing soothes me
as all is bleak
and remorseless
-Francis H. Powell
Jz 12
Haunted by Time
I stopped because something felt wrong.
Not loud wrong. Quiet wrong.
The kind that pulls at you without sound.
The house stood at the edge of the woods,
not ruined, not whole,
just still in a way that made the world around it feel like it was holding its breath.
Frost clung to the windows.
I told myself it was empty.
But the longer I looked, the more I felt watched.
Not by someone.
By something that had stayed behind too long.
I walked to the porch.
The wood under my feet didn’t creak.
That silence was worse than noise.
Inside, behind the glass, I saw a chair turned slightly,
like someone had just stood up and never returned.
The air felt thick.
Not cold. Heavy.
As if the house remembered every voice that had once filled it
and had swallowed them whole.
I tried to leave, but my body didn’t move at first.
It was like the house knew me.
Like it had waited for me.
Not because it wanted me
but because it remembered what people do when no one is watching.
There are no ghosts here.
Only memories that never learned how to die.
SEB 12
The Tunnel
She pushed past the vines,
where stone gave way,
not shattered,
but parted,
like it had exhaled after centuries.
They said it was just runoff,
a forgotten drain.
But the air thickened there,
and the red flower bent
as if listening.
She stood still for too long.
She said she could hear breathing.
Not hers,
not ours.
She said there was light inside,
but it felt old.
She stepped in,
barefoot,
slow,
the kind of slow that makes you want to scream.
We waited.
We called her once,
then again.
But the sound curled back, empty.
No scream,
no splash,
only stillness,
as if the world had blinked.
Later, we found nothing,
no hole,
no echo.
Just rocks,
moss,
and a flower that had turned to face the wall.
Someone sealed it with concrete,
saying it was safer that way.
But the wind still stops there,
and the leaves tremble for no reason.
No one walks close now,
and the flower never blooms,
but it never dies.
SK 12
She Turns the Wheel
She stands alone.
Not lost.
Just unlooked at.
The colors on her skirt are not for beauty.
They are days.
Wounds that healed uneven.
Moments that stayed
because no one else remembered them.
She holds the wheel gently.
Not to control it,
but to keep it from falling.
Inside it, pieces.
Books, maybe,
or voices she never forgot.
She stores them without order.
Nothing about grief is tidy.
Above her, a heart.
Cut clean.
A moon behind it
that doesn’t light the way,
but stays.
That is all it ever did. Stay.
A parrot waits on a branch
that isn’t growing anymore.
The snake curls,
not to threaten,
but because it doesn’t know another shape.
And then, the fruit.
Bright.
Absurd.
Alive.
A world where apples smiled back
and bananas leaned close to listen.
She once lived there
before she learned the weight
of being asked to be quiet
when she had so much to say.
This is not art.
This is survival.
Painted gently
because harshness breaks
what is already delicate.
She is not turning the wheel to go back.
She is turning it
because forward
is the only direction
she was never afraid of.
-Rituparna
-Sheikha A.
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
Stephen Kingsnorth
(Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies. He has, like so many, been a nominee for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/
The Wombwell Rainbow 