JZ10

SEB10

SK10

Leo (transit of a blooming sun)

in response to artwork ‘Poppy Dreaming’ by Sara Bell

after Pippa Phillips

Grow an August poppy to symbolise the topaz nature of wealth. Warm disposition is frost’s misconception; late solstice recovers from barrage of eclipses. The sun cannot be commanded to hang loose as a thread on fabric of inherence. You must journey at speed of an eagle wearing blinders — causation is a tool to depute wisely. Remember success on shifted rail tracks accumulates motion in absence of rust. A thin film stretched out of propensity may duress, hence pull only as much as you can push. Dreams endure all estimates.

-Sheikha A.

Jz10

Papavers
Orange, happy yellow, purple and red
Papavers excite their dilated eyes,
Innocent bystanders nod together
Understated seeds scatter for gardeners,
Mindful to control their easy spread.

History shows poppies grew in ancient
Egypt, Greece, China, across the Silk Road.
Religious scribes tell of its use for pain
Only now we know of insane addictions.
Ichor oozing from glaucous seed-heads, scraped
Narcotic poison pods; look only, don’t touch.

Judy Smith

-Phil Hyde

Jz 10

Poppies in a Memory Mist

I don’t remember the place,
just the way the light fell,
soft, like it was trying not to disturb anything.

The poppies stood still,
as if they, too, were remembering something.
Not loud. Not bright.
Just there,
like a feeling I hadn’t spoken aloud.

Some moments don’t come back in full.
They return as a pause,
a scent,
a quiet that knows your name.

SEB 10

The Soft Courage

The petals open like a memory,
half-remembered, half-longed for.
Their edges hold the warmth of something once felt,
a sunset thought, a quiet ache.
They rise without needing reason,
drawn by the hush between light and shadow.
In their trembling bloom,
there is no need to dazzle.
Only the soft courage to keep growing,
even when no one is watching.

SK 10

Born from Fire

I am not a petal.
I am the flame that shapes it.
I carry the weight of women who came before me,
and the echo of those who dared to speak.

I was not created in comfort.
I was carved out of resistance,
shaped in shadows,
tempered by truth.

I do not ask for softness.
I do not wait for permission.
I rise because I choose to,
because silence was never my story.

My hands remember how to hold,
but they also remember how to fight.
I have touched tenderness,
but I do not live there.

There is fire in my voice
and steel in my breath.
My presence is not meant to please,
it is meant to claim.

I walk into rooms like I own my place in them.
Because I do.
Because I’ve earned it
with every bruise that became bone,
every wound that turned into wisdom.

This is not a poem of survival.
It is a declaration.
I am here.
I am whole.
I am her.

-Rituparna

Sk10

Eschscholzia californica


California sunlight,

cup of gold,

a golden heliotrope,

petals pulled

by our binary star.

-Debbie Ross

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,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

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

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,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

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

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,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

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,

SK6

JZ6

SEB6

Aquarius (riding the staticwave)

in response to artwork ‘Stone Tower, Laurel Creek’ by Sara Bell

after Pippa Phillips

A pheasant in a tree is as unusual as a starless sky — you are able to recognise possibilities within a yolk. Rummage the pantry for a scrap meal, but eat with silverware. An owl by the window is harbinger of cold storms. Feather sail on paper boat will cross you the stream; be deliberate about railing red kites. Search a frog in a babbling brook in a pixie forest, count its spots then set it free. Collect emerging water lily mourning the loss of its amour fox. Trust as much as a stone amid sting-corals. Heed the imploding sky.

-Sheikha A.

-Donna Faulkner

Jz 6

Scorched

I am the ember that never fades,
a wildfire stitched into my veins.
Red skies tremble at my touch,
smoke curls in my lungs,
ashes whisper my name.

I do not burn for warmth,
nor for light,
but because I do not know how to stop.
Too much, too deep, too fierce,
I love, I break, I rise again,
a flame that refuses to die.


SEB 6

The Solitude of Stone

Alone, yet unyielding, it stands,
worn smooth by the river’s quiet persistence,
etched with the passage of time.
Water comes and goes, shaping, softening,
but never breaking what refuses to break.

It does not call for hands to steady it.
It does not beg the current for mercy.
It simply remains, rooted in silence,
bearing the weight of its own existence.

Perhaps that is the fate of the strong,
to endure not because they wish to,
but because they know nothing else.


SK 6

Solitude in Motion

They move as one, yet each alone,
skimming the surface of a silent world.
The water does not question them,
the sky does not call them home.

Drifting, gliding, never still,
they follow currents only they can feel.
No tether, no anchor, no final shore,
only the quiet ache of belonging and distance.

The wind knows their names but does not speak.
The waves reach for them but never hold.
Even together, they are travelers,
always near, yet never touched.

-Rituparna

Jz6

If paintings
can make prophecies
nothing bodes well
earthquakes and fires
like a scene from hell
Perhaps this is a waking call
to seek out new ways

-Francis H. Powell

SEB6

Stones
Ancient volcanic stones, blue-grey, white in sunshine, 
settle in ever-running streams sourced by springs 
on high northern slopes, silvered to the eye, 
as mined for centuries where sulphurated air 
spewed from tall chimneys, settled in valleys.

Now leisure walkers and pilgrims seek healthy lives, 
stop by shingle-beached banks, 
leave their mark; 
balance flat stones like stotties, 
topped-off by black pebbles, teetering flints; 
cairns, built as high as a man or low as dogs, 
stumble by silted logs in shadowed scrub. 

Who can read the untold imprints here?
When hard rains flash-flood who will hear them crumble?

-Judy Smith

-Phil Hyde

Static in the Spectrum, based on Artwork by JZ6

Red bleeds into yellow,
anger warming to ache.
The mind stares through
concrete towers of thought;
faintly lit, but silent.
A line of red cuts across,
straight, stubborn;
logic or longing,
I can’t tell which.

Noise smears the corners.
Memories?
Mistakes?
Hope?

Color is not clarity.
It’s distraction.
And I’m pulled;
left, right,
inward.

Still,
I look.

=Anish Gupta

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,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

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

SEB5

SK5

JZ5

-Judy Smith

-John Armstrong

5 Jz5

I had a dream

an ocean aflame

the sun relentless

no sign of rain

no food to eat

no plants could grow

or cherished planet

stripped to the bone

-Francis Powell

Libra (dodging Midas amid gold fog)

in response to artwork by Jenn Zed

after Pippa Phillips

Pay attention to the extended hand that hosts a crater. Canyon is Minotaur’s home where frayed yarn has long since singed in obeisance to solar flares. Building caves in this moment will garner irreparable foibles. Your desire for floating galaxies will cause unmeditated merging with discs of residual light — practice haste with prudence. Often times ingenuous dreams morph into dry cacti by fatigue’s eventide. Balance energy on lotus scales; float without touching air of allure.

-Sheikha A.

Phil Hyde

Jz5

Hope in the Horizon

The light spills over the edge of the world,
not in triumph, but in defiance.
It reaches through the wreckage of yesterday,
daring me to move, daring me to believe.

I stand at the edge, breath unsteady,
hands still carrying the weight of what was.
The past clings like a second skin,
but the horizon burns, relentless, unyielding.

Hope is not gentle.
It does not whisper.
It roars in the silence,
pulling me forward,
even when I am afraid to go.


SEB 5

The Hollow and the Echo

There was a time when the wind spoke my name,
soft against my skin, wrapped in voices I knew.
Laughter tangled in my branches,
love carved into my roots.

Then came the silence,
a quiet that was not peace but absence,
a hollow carved not by time,
but by the weight of what left.

Still, the earth holds me,
whispers through veins of wood and longing.
My roots remember the warmth of hands
that once traced their way home.

Above me, bubbles rise,
fragile ghosts of yesterday’s breath,
weightless, yet holding everything
that ever mattered.

And so I remain,
not whole, not broken,
but something in between,
where love once stood,
where love still lingers.


SK 5

Roots and Wings of Love

She stands between two truths.
One that binds, one that frees.

The earth holds her,
weaves into her skin,
calls her back to where she began.
A quiet whisper of roots,
of belonging, of staying.

Yet in her hand, the weight of longing,
not heavy, but vast.
A heart, bold and trembling,
aching for the wind,
for the unknown, for the unreachable.

She does not know which to choose.
Perhaps she does not need to.
Perhaps love is both:
the courage to hold on,
and the strength to let go.

-Rituparna

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,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

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,

SK3

SEB3

JZ3

Jz3

Eyes of Defiance

Night gathers at her feet, murmuring secrets
only the forsaken understand.
She moves like prophecy, carved from silence,
a shadow against the neon glow of a world unraveling.

Beneath the mask, she is not what they believe,
not fragile, not lost, not waiting to be saved.
She is the hush before a storm,
the ember buried beneath cold ash,
the quiet rage of a soul unbroken.

She has walked through ruin,
let it touch her, let it name her,
but never let it take her.
Her scars do not whisper of defeat.
They are inscriptions of survival,
etchings of fire upon her bones.

They will not speak of her sorrow.
They will not name her battles.
But in the hush between their words,
in the weight of their silences,
they will know she was never meant to fall.


SEB 3

What Remains

Beneath the surface, unseen hands reach upward.
They do not beg. They do not call.
They simply remember.

The earth cradles what once was
a voice, a breath, a body that moved through the world
with hunger, with longing, with fire.
Now it rests, yet it does not vanish.

The tree drinks from all it left behind.
It rises, relentless,
bearing the weight of silent echoes.
Flowers unfold where fingers once touched,
branches stretch where arms once held.

Above, the wind moves without memory.
Seasons pass. Faces come and go.
But the roots know.
They hold on when the living forget.
They anchor what time cannot erase.

Nothing is truly lost.
Not love, not sorrow, not the shape of a soul.
It lingers beneath,
feeding the bloom,
becoming the earth itself.


SK 3

The Architecture of Silence

The city hums with unsung prayers,
a scaffold of longing pressed against the sky.
Steel bones remember the hands that shaped them,
each beam holding the weight of whispered names.

We build to forget how fragile we are,
how the earth beneath us trembles,
how silence settles in the seams of concrete,
waiting for the moment we listen.

What is a monument but a pause in time,
a plea to be more than dust and departure?
Yet even the tallest towers bow to the wind,
and the strongest bridges learn to sway.

Somewhere between the rising and the ruin,
between what we reach for and what we lose,
we are neither stone nor shadow,
but the spaces in between,
unfinished, unbroken, alive.

-Rituparna

Battering Ram

-Oormila V. Prahlad

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,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

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

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,

GP Hyde was born on the Wirral and now lives in Grimsby. He studied art at Goldsmith’s and at the Royal Academy Schools. His fiction has been extensively published by Pure Slush. His poetry has been published by Black Bough Press, Hedgehog Press, Written Off, the Dark Poets and voidspacezine

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,