By James DiazThe CrossingSanctumTruly Lost, We Break for the TreesUnder Crab-Apple LightThere Were No PromisesJames Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) and Motel Prayers (Alien Buddha, 2022) as well as the founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their most recent work can be found in Orange Blossom Review, Wrongdoing Mag and Resurrection Mag. Twitter: @diaz_james / Instagram: @jamesdiazpoet
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by Mikko Harvey
Mikko Harvey is the author of the poetry collections Let the World Have You (House of Anansi, 2022) and Unstable Neighbourhood Rabbit (House of Anansi, 2018). He lives in Western Massachusetts.
by Clara Burghelea
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her second poetry collection Praise the Unburied was published with Chaffinch Press in 2021. She is Review Editor of Ezra, An Online Journal of Translation.
by Carina Solis
Carina Solis is a fifteen-year-old writer living in Georgia. Her work is published or forthcoming in the Eunoia Review, Wrongdoing Mag, Gone Lawn, CLOVES, and elsewhere. Find her at carinasolis.carrd.co or on Twitter @CarinaS74562803.
by Diana RaabTonight I think of how death teaches us how to live-- crocheted in beloved family mortalities nestled in screams cupped by answers to live by, encased with mirrors as reminders to enjoy simple pleasures. Or maybe it’s that Buddhist textbook with earmarked pages perched on my bedside table which describes our powers of living by beginning in present moment-- gears fixed in slow motion, like time spent time brushing our teeth, watering flowers, walking our gardens or meandering meditations in local parks. Or maybe it’s those dead philosophers like Socrates who profess that death has no place in our lives. Maybe I feel this way because my many friends died last year, and memories of mother in oblivion in intensive care after multiple tumbles from her aged horse’s back, as she approaches ninety. Is this nature’s song and a reminder to forge ahead dwell in the moment and make the best of each day? Maybe my prayer will be answered or maybe tonight I will slip into sleep and not wake up or feel satisfaction because I knew how to smell flowers and water my internal garden, and give myself permission to live. Diana Raab, PhD, is an award-winning memoirist, poet, blogger, speaker, and author of 10 books and is a contributor to numerous journals and anthologies. Her two latest books are, "Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life," and "Writing for Bliss: A Companion Journal."
by Jeremy SzuderThe gentle velvet click of beetle bones and joints rubbing notes of stairway melodies into a spiral of upwards waltzing, it begins when the fingerprint transfers itself onto a pane of cold glass. The warm flesh is mentioned so casually as a dot is round, because it is the vessel of all brilliant dancers, even when they have folded their lanky wings and even when nature strains to mock the pressing tender foot, that foot dreaming of becoming a cat's paw or a falcon's beak. I thirst in a silent swell, my skull encased in a pillowed ocean of ballet flats and the ankle weights pulling sparrow bodies down into pools beneath the well worn floorboards of this institution. To rise again with great passion, this artistry takes hostage the hearts of babes who’ve assigned their souls to the care and possession of a madness that will never fully pass. It is an avalanche of ivory keys and gossamer screams, sent razor sharp to cut through the thickness of the summer nights. Jeremy Szuder (he/him) lives in a tiny apartment with his wife, two children and two cats. He works in the evenings in a very busy restaurant, standing behind a stove, a grill, fryers and heating lamps, happily listening to hours of hand selected music and conjuring ideas for new art and poetry in his head. When his working day ends and he enters his home, he likes to sit down with a glass of wine and record all the various words and images that bear fruit within his mind.
by Ace BoggessTwist knob, enhance volume. Percussion vibrates. Here come the lead riffs--soulful, jazzy. The singer, he’s been there, felt what I have. Today is an excuse for music, as if I needed one, as if joy, too, couldn’t entice a song. Misery begs grooves for empathy. Something from the 1990s. Something off-kilter & angry with its dancing feet, my dancing feet, feet that never learned a two-step as they lived it: forward, back, forward, back, release. Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, most recently Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021). His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, and other journals. An ex-con, he lives in Charleston, West Virginia, where he writes and tries to stay out of trouble.
by Grace Hua man with stars in his hair and incandescent eyes shuffles past me in the winter, pulling his boots up from the snow as he offers me his wares a penny for a promise, a dime for a dream, a quarter for a question, a dollar for a scheme two for some more, pay three for four, the secrets of the meaning of this world are yours says he sells fantasies, every last one of the broken paths and forgotten pledges, dreams that died and wishes that never came true and he sells them by the bottle, charging a little bit of lifeblood for every dose, so we give our years for better ones, exchanging a breath to roll the thousand-sided die so we may land on our feet one day outstretched hands fingers scraped raw, shaking from the bitter winter and coarse wind, i wait as he pours stars into my palms that burn my skin and leave nothing but reddening blisters to bloom like rhododendrons against the white snow laughs, says he screams ghosts into our ears and calls them songs, wraps them around our feverish minds to remind us of these winter days, to entomb the frost creeping into our bones, to suffocate flesh in seeping delirium so that we may laugh as we lie with steel in our necks and silver in our hands phantoms of our creation, wraiths of smoke that surround us all our days. we inhale the bitter scent of the ambrosian dream of yesteryear to see its gilded colours fade when we close our eyes at last; we carry it with us, even as our fingers bleed and our skin cracks and what is left of divine image crumbles into carnal frenzy says he sees himself in me, once with chapped lips on a pale face, yearning to shatter and swallow another vial of fatal illusion so that i may be magnificent again, drunk on grandeur, intoxicated with the sight of unforged paths and unfinished plans and i ask him for a little more because i wither as the delusion of reality takes hold and rips me from destiny. my knees buckle and my eyes water and i crawl towards the wooden cart to beg for a little bit more, just one more dose although my pockets are as empty as my pain-stricken mind but he only laughs and ambles away, leaving a trail of glass shards and half-broken reveries in his wake foolish one they capture us by drinking us dry, they feed us, they reap us, they bend us, they break us they destroy us when they sell us fantasies, and we buy every single one of them until we have nothing left. Storytelling is a powerful force changing the world, and Grace Hu indulges in it through writing epic fantasy novels, poetry, playing piano, composing, or weaving narratives into her speeches and essays. For inspiration, she immerses herself in world history, linguistics, philosophy, politics, and current events. And, of course, video games.
by DS Maolalaigust me. be a thunderstorm. hell–be a tornado. tonight I am tired of houses standing and the aching joints of temperate weather. together, let's take a turn breaking forests on the equator, pressure dropping down on seabirds wings and boats lost in storms over surfaces which turn like pages. villages wiped out in swampy regions and low land. DS Maolalai has been nominated nine times for Best of the Net and seven for the Pushcart Prize. He has released two collections, "Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden" (Encircle Press, 2016) and "Sad Havoc Among the Birds" (Turas Press, 2019). His third, "Noble Rot" will be published April 2022.
by Morgan BoyerHeadset strapped to my left sided cheek a sound alerted me like a shepherd's whistle. Einkorn wheat fields coast through the audio the static plucked kernels flinging at the edges of each spoken sentence like Demeter, she was tied to sewn soil as the harvest was about to begin; the scythe of labor was imminent. Connect her to the midwife, the farmhand who shall yank the root from stem that will then wither in worries of motherhood. Then grind the kernels it bore, combine with water, bake until it disappoints us all. Morgan Boyer (she/her) is the author of The Serotonin Cradle (Finishing Line Press, 2018) and a graduate of Carlow University. Boyer has been featured in Kallisto Gaia Press, Thirty West Publishing House, Oyez Review, Pennsylvania English, and Voices from the Attic. Boyer is a neurodivergent bisexual woman who resides in Pittsburgh, PA.
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