Poetry
scythe
by Sodïq Oyèkànmí in Issue Ten, August 2023
for Yemọja
my mother keeps track of time by how much rain falls
heavenwards. i know it is night because there’s a torrent
& the grim reaper blades through the whirl. it is night.
my mother stands at the threshold with a switchblade—
no match for the reaper’s scythe
but sharp & bold enough to sl...
Post-traumatic stress sonnet of the Indigenous archeoastronomer
by Kevin Martens Wong in Issue Ten, August 2023
Star-rise. I wake in arms of amber light,
Awash in swiftly dreaming galaxies.
I turn, I yawn, a wayward, drowsy sprite
Untempered by dying vagaries.
Wrap me instead in lazy gleam of quasar,
In the shimmering dust of a thousand suns:
come alive, Jong1, Pari2, Biduk3, Bintang Tujuh4.
Come alive...
Paradox Lost
by S.T. Eleu in Issue Ten, August 2023
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn; he wonder’d…
bio Grandfather with a shotgun
caught me in the loft of the barn
two clicks removed from levitical codes
chaos of slurs and bullets
chorus of curses
NO, No, no – no, No, NO
I
was sent to the hospital
my love was not
***
Som...
Continue →I, Luminescence
by Avra Margariti in Issue Ten, August 2023
α) Radiation (This Place is a Message)
What am I but an emanation
Of energy better left
Undisturbed, a ruined
Palace calling out to you
In forbidden whispers
Of far-future runes?
β) Bioluminescence, Beloved
In the bathypelagic zone
You find me through subaqueous
Scrying mirrors, the lanter...
War Dream: Bridged
by L. Acadia in Issue Nine, June 2023
Last night, I was in a grim, dusty, subdued Poland,
like a modern theatrical production imagining medieval gloom,
bleached palette, pre-industrial quiet, charred air.
Mud-covered bodies stumble larger towards me
aimlessly with insects, despair,
Ewa appears: their homes bombed,
bakeries breadle...
The Lady of Ice Drowned in the Rising Tides
by Anton Cancre in Issue Nine, June 2023
The burning comes earlier
and earlier each year, as we march
our way further down this angry path.
Seems I can recall passes
round the sun where snow
still fell in great heaping drifts
from the sky well into March.
Seems I can recall the time
when we cheered
at the thick smoke rising into t...
Stairs Appeared in My Backyard One Night
by Marcus Whalbring in Issue Nine, June 2023
It took all night to get to the bottom floor
under the tree roots and the cicadas and the fossils.
Like anyone, I wondered if I’d found the way to Hell,
but there were no screams layered like torn fabric
on one another begging God’s mercy. There were no
flames, no bald bodies crying, stranded a...
Spell to Raze a Tree
by Colleen Anderson in Issue Nine, June 2023
Merlin furious, fell, can no longer
abide deciduous, conifer, any bark
limbed being ever since his confinement
he has yet to feel, will stop at any cost
to halt future’s relentless, unwinding cord
Speak of fires, infestations
Mountain pine so unholy
Speak of limb rot, dank rain fungus
Speak of barr...
Lunar Maria
by Eva Papasoulioti in Issue Nine, June 2023
the moon doesn’t have shores
it reflects waves, waits
for the tide
have you ever seen the sea on fire?
skin propagates flame like water distorts
depth
five oceans burned to the ground
all we ever wanted, a tree branch,
to deep our feet in chlorophyll and –
now, all we have is bitter salt
a...
King Arthur Wakes in 2023
by Tania Chen in Issue Nine, June 2023
It's in pieces: the mind, the Kleenex box with torn openings,
the cables and cord extensions stretched out like the markings of where a round table would be.
The no ending, unending, infinite: the sense of loss;
warm metal carrying the intermittent ticking of the electric surges, Excalibur with...