Bruce McRae: What Makes The Forest Dark?

 We do.

We make the forest dark,

a child crying for her mother,

wolves singing of their loneliness,

owls asking their impertinent question.

We imagine a forest, and there it is,

an ocean of trees, the little girl shivering

as another darkness falls, another winter evening.

We make a fire out of moss and sticks

and this casts no light or shadow.

We stumble over ourselves in a dream,

babes in the woods, runaway children,

all kinds of seven darknesses

shading the trail and hushing the fire.

We invent a forest in our image,

a doe made drunk on wilderness,

a bear in the comforts of a growl,

the first stars showing through the branches,

the little girl a character in a storybook,

a tale of the unspoken and unthinkable.

A jagged moon rises in our mind.

Because we say it is so, it is so,

voices in the distance calling a name.

The child asleep, she does not answer.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published

in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. The winner 

of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his next book,

'Boxing In The Bone Orchard' is coming out in the Spring of 2025 via Frontenac House.

Bella Melardi: Bedsheets

I’m allowed to make love with my bedsheets

The mattress the earth

The outline of my body the horizon line

That bleeds into my fleshy sky

Maybe it’s the bed roots

That cut into my skin

Or maybe it’s the world

Telling me I have to get up

But when you’re sick

Oh when you’re sick

Sometimes the bed

Is what you need

Don’t let the world tell you

You can’t rest

Because resting is being human

Bella Melardi is a poet and author. She attends OCAD University. She writes about social justice issues and mental health.

Elana Wolff: Sea Level

Now for the first time we see the grey waves of the North Sea

slapping the distance beyond the ship, the sound, if you will,

of slate. God in the fog and listing, the misting mime-

white horizon and sheep. Rubbing their wool-thick

shoulders with others on the slopes at Nordfjord.

Touch one, says the man, and be switched.

There’s nothing wretched in being anonymous,

nothing disgraceful in being, as speedwell,

just one of a low-rising other. The long straight light-

lines curve, the waves send no lone gull up,

no puffin. The vista’s complicit, ice-

water a primer—a leveller, says the man. The lower I am,

the truer my place. We gather on the upper deck at midnight,

tip our faces skyward—waiting to be amazed

by solar wind & swirling shimmer.

Elana Wolff writes from the ancestral land of the Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat First Nations in Ontario, Canada. Her Kafka-quest work, Faithfully Seeking Franz, received the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the category of Jewish Thought and Culture. Her poetry collection, Everybody Knows a Ghost, is forthcoming in 2026.

Israel Allen: Skyline Drive, Fall

Brown leaves warble

across the blacktop,

crackling like the voices

of an elderly choir,

Scottish hymns

breaking in their throats.

Grey oaks drone

a Highlands dirge,

chords shaped by the bowing

of branch on trunk,

limbs too bare to rustle.

Cool wind whistles,

like the lonesome kestrel,

lamenting another autumn,

the earth once again

falling out with the sun.

Israel Allen writes and teaches poetry, fiction, and drama. His work includes the plays Ask Me Anything and The Emerald Heist and the novels Ian Baker’s .45 and Bibles and Ball Bats (writing as Chris Allen).

Rebecca Clifford: Fin

This’ll be the end.

I can see it coming.

Like those camphor-scented spinsters in the cinema

who make you mad

fumbling for gloves

elbowing themselves into coats,

buttoning up –

Such a final snapping shut of handbags

the moment it’s all over but the change of mood and music.

So you demand response, do you?

Right to the bitter end, you like to see the credits roll?

I’m off.

Rebecca Clifford's poetry and prose appear in Canadian and international anthologies and e-zines. She lives in rural Ontario, gardens with intention and a backhoe, planting as many sunflowers as the ground will hold.  She is supported in her endeavours by her long-suffering husband and a disdainful cat of questionable parentage.

Pulkita Anand: When there is smoke, there is fire

Fire in the heart, in the field, the ocean, in the belly…

The LA fire, the burnt files of the chemical victims
The burnt papers of the poisoned ponds
The singed documents of the claims
The blazing records
The seared cabinets. The parched folders. The incinerated data. The charred curtains.
But still able to cover the venal hands…
Grace, the big guns are safe, the big boss is safe
Except for some bees, wasps and ants…
The boss is in his House and all is right with the world.

Pulkita Anand is an avid reader of poetry. Author of two children’s e-books, her recent eco-poetry collection is 'we were not born to be erased'. Various publications include:  Tint Journal, Origami Press, New Verse News, Green Verse: An anthology of poems for our planet (Saraband Publication), Ecological Citizen and elsewhere.

Sarah Smith: In Memory

An old clock's minute needle presses on,  

steadfast— tick tick tick. Such permanence  

is a privilege: there is comfort  

in repetition. The blanket stare  

of an ivory wedding dress, draped in lace  

and falsettos, meets the gaze of red eyes:  

           a mockery.  

Its anchorage should have been the committed  

hearts of two. Instead, serving a life sentence  

surrounded by old shoes and empty boxes. Once  

simple fabric, now stitched into a compilation  

of substantial moments, altered to fit  

this very one: realised devotion  

          will never cease. 

Not quite ready to part with the last remnant  

of a true love, now displaced, the costume hangs  

from cheap plastic, waiting.

Sarah Smith is a published poet, writer, artist, and certified creative arts therapist. Smith lives in Cleveland, Ohio, USA with her husband and three cats. Smith manages a creative arts blog titled Chronicles of a Disillusioned Optimist and also has poetry anthologies available for sale on Amazon. sarahelisabethsmith.wordpress.com 

Dave Wakely: As if...

As if the contours of a tune could outline

the route of a voyage, the skyline of a view,

the way that a drawing maps the dancing

of a pencil across a blank sketchpad.

Each dip and crest, every slow climb or

gleeful descent, and every unexpected turn:

the episodes of even the quietest adventure.

The syncopation of living – breath’s rhythm,

the throat’s libretto, the cadence of the heart’s caprice -

is the ancient jazz, improvised over the pulse

of all the inescapable verities, the shifting pace

of footsteps across pavements or footpaths,

over carpets or lawns, up an aisle or down

a cul de sac. Each day’s makeshift medley

from reveille to finale, from dawn chorus

to lullaby, is merely a wordless song

offered in the hope of an encore.

Dave Wakely’s writing has been shortlisted for the Manchester Fiction, the Cambridge and Bath Short Story awards, and appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Online Programme Manager for Milton Keynes Literary Festival,  he lives in Buckinghamshire with his husband

Andrew Shields: London

You know he's going to bullshit you

about summer snow that falls

on every park and heath.

The reflections from the glistening towers

clash in the air and on the ground,

too much for even the most hardened

sceptic to ignore. He launches

into a dizzying round of images

and ideas so far beyond anything

you've heard before. Will you

succumb to his persuasive arts?

How fast will you run as you take

the hurdles every 35 meters?

How many will you pretend

neither of you knocked down?

You think you broke the tape,

but he insists he got there

just a stride ahead of you,

and you agree you must have

slipped in the snow you're now

so sure was on the ground today.

Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His collection of poems "Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong" was published by Eyewear in 2015. His band Human Shields released the album "Somebody's Hometown" in 2015 and the EP "Défense de jouer" in 2016. Mastodon / Facebook

John Grey: A Question of Survival

I think I'm cheating or something.

Otherwise, why do the gunmen

mow down the innocent in northern Kenya

and not here.

My life is like answers written

on the back of my hand.

Floods, earthquakes,

riots in the streets - no.

It says right here in my knuckles:

eat tasty dinner, watch TV,

go to bed and sleep deep.

Even when the violence is close,

there's a piece of paper

hidden in my pocket

that I can refer to.

Drug deal gone wrong?

No, it clearly states,

kiss on the cheek,

arm around the shoulder.

Three car pile-up on 295?

The missive declares,

drive on, go to your destination,

you're not involved.

I read the newspaper in the morning:

Kidnappings, muggings,

landslides and always more massacres.

Nothing in those pages indicates

that these or any other

crimes, wars and disasters,

can be avoided.

Not even the obituaries.

But the ones pictured

are always someone else.

If I knew my secret

believe me I'd share it

with all the ones

who don't know their secret.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Flights.