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.

Devika Mathur: Things My Body Forgot to Bury

My knees still echo

with the prayers I mouthed as a girl,

beneath quilts that smelled

like mothballs and turmeric-drenched fears.

No one warned me

that the spine remembers grief

like a second language—

spoken only when I sleep on my side

and dream in static.

I once tried to unbutton my shadow.

It laughed,

said I stitched it too tightly

to my mother’s sighs.

I keep

half a lullaby in my clavicle—

the other half,

buried in a cracked soap dish

in a bathroom

where no one knocks anymore.

The body forgets nothing.

It files heartbreak between molars,

carries anxiety in its elbows,

and folds shame neatly

under the tongue

like a crushed hibiscus petal.

Every mirror asks me

what part of you is still yours?

And I say—

just the dust that gathers

on my name when I don’t speak it.

Even silence

has a noise threshold.

Mine hums

like a lightbulb too tired to die.

Devika Mathur is an Indian poet, writer, and founder of Olive Skins. Author of Crimson Skins, her work has appeared in The Alipore Post, Madras Courier, Pif Magazine, and more. She explores surreal themes and has contributed to various international journals and anthologies.

Sarah Mahina Calvello: haiku

Lulling of time 

Birds on the horizon 

Hopeful songs

Her name is Sarah Mahina Calvello. She lives in San Francisco and writes mostly haiku, and is addicted to nature and coffee.

Dominic Fisher: Subdural Haematoma

They drilled holes in your skull to drain the blood

which had leaked onto the inner terrain

slowing your steps and the steps of your tongue. 

Your pathways are lighter now and your tongue

is in touch again with places where blood

had spread a darkness across the terrain. 

There’s a distance to go yet, more terrain,

silence at times comes like mist on your tongue,

but I’ll walk with you through shadows of blood 

as brighter blood quickens terrain and tongue.

Dominic Fisher lives near the allotment he shares with sparrows and foxes in Bristol. An English language teacher for many years, he was a co-editor of Raceme magazine, is widely published, and sometimes broadcast. His second collection, A Customised Selection of Fireworks, was published by Shoestring Press in 2022. dominicfisherpoetry.co.uk Bluesky: @domfishpoet.bsky.social

R. Gerry Fabian: It Should Have Been So Much More

When I saw you last,

we were disappointed lovers

coming to grips

with the sour milk of parting.

We did not do it well.

Since you moved back

into our home town,

I’ve seen you three times.

Once you smiled in recognition.

The other two times

just the subtle head nod

glance away.

R. Gerry Fabian is a published writer and poet from Doylestown, PA. He has published five books of poetry: Parallels, Coming Out Of The Atlantic, Electronic Forecasts, Wildflower Women, Pilfered Circadian Rhythm as well as his poetry baseball book, Ball On The Mound.

D.R. James: Great Chain of Being

          From nature’s chain whatever link you strike,

         Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

         —Alexander Pope

You might be mildly surprised to learn,

if you haven’t Wikipedia’d it like I,

that demons (fallen) fall between (unfallen)

angels and the ranked array of humans—

kings to commoners—and that the wild

suspend above domesticated animals,

prized stones then metals above all minerals.

But no more surprised than I in 2006

and again in 2009 when my father

then my mother died, and I found

I’d climbed the chain a link by

vacating complicated Son. Hardly

the patriarchal type, I felt like those ‘divine’

boys who became kings by default

but deferred to regents—or princesses,

my sisters having long been the go-to girls.

Grandson had hung benignly empty since

the 80s, but this ascent asserted something

fixed—at least for me, my own four sons

soon to follow suit once I succumbed.

What healthy offspring feels the enemy’s

in everything, from his siblings’ eulogies

to the after-funeral well-wishings? Why now

so tender, when all those years so numb?

A revelation, at the least, devastation

not close to the worst, that train of transition,

the drinking of that cup, so different than

whatever’d stunned before. I’d bumped

a ceiling, hit an inevitable dead end,

reached a mythical crossroads without

an oracle, meanwhile missing all oases

in that wry desert of metaphor. Some

sons rise ready for the role. I, dangling

like bait over an abyss, glimpsed

a crevasse that smacked of the grave.

D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections is Mobius Trip (Dos Madres Press). www.amazon.com/author/drjamesauthorpage