Kristen Greenwood is a contributing poet and editor of The Unpublishable Zine, a Connecticut native, and a 25-year-old poet who dreams of becoming a witch and fleeing to a cottage in the woods with her fiancé. When a global crisis does not confine her to her apartment, she enjoys wandering through the stacks of her local library, hiking, and sipping iced coffee. When a global pandemic does confine her to her apartment, she enjoys playing an inordinate amount of Animal Crossing.
a bassinet glows in the dark. How many right angles
an hour hand makes in a day? Night sits bolt tight
on the basin of my arms as I sway.
THE POWER OF ONE DARK AND TAN FOX
Años antes, we saw the black and red fox
crossing, near the fence between two countries.
and without a reason sometimes I catch time
wriggling its fur dark and tan, almost faux,
through the barbwire of relationships.
What we were doing on that day? Details antiquated,
what remains remains to recall something else
and if recalled shall wither with too much of life.
Was it the day we almost crossed the border
of wishful thinking about a felony and acting on it?
That would explain the memory’s persistence
and pursuance of forgetting.
The fox turns its head to my reverie drowned self
sometimes. I keep my eyes closed on those nights.
Your hand finds my shivering and pet the same
without any affection.
SPURNED
A desert for acres infinite,
rambles with your thirst,
but if you have a fruit bite it
and suck its spirit, let the seeds
shower over the arid dirt
as this land is known for
the growths of plants beyond any logic.
I may find you and shall ask –
“Why am I here meandering?
Perhaps, if this fulfills
the ugly promises of any desert,
my hallucination provides your sustenance.
Again, we are talking about deserts.
Maybe you stumble here, not me;
you talk to me as if I am your oasis
or a cruel joke leading you,
thereby me too, to a slow quietus.
RITUALS
The Sunday ritual – let the last drink
plummet into the forbidden depth
of a memory recalled during the family dinner,
let my slumber be the night watchman
at the anamnesis orphanage. Of course,
night wings above; its shrill cawing dies when
the seminary gate squeals, and nothing enters.
Why do you collect bones of forgetting?
Why do we talk during a good meal?
Here I drive my hands through the marsh.
I know about the body and the liturgy
we took so seriously. The whiskey drops
to the soft shattering of the cut glass.
A Sunday performance, I’ll bleed to sleep.
CRASHING A NIGHT POOL
The night swing pool, a shot of affluenza
to immunize me against the sombre of the time,
the caretaker who took bucks to let me crush the club
drinks the cheapest spirit. I can strike a matchstick
against the smell in the wind and a fire may blast in the premises.
A car gravels the silence. Perhaps the patrons return.
Take a deep breath, let your skin disintegrate
under water, so black and blue, ripples of tealights
and panic above your head. Good advice,
but one cannot imagine what I think,
how I become a blind dolphin
in a bonsai river waiting for the accidental fishing net.
A poet and a father, Kushal edited magazine “Words Surfacing” and authored The Circus Came To My Island, A Place For Your Ghost Animals, Understanding The Neighborhood, Scratches Within, Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems, Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems and Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse – A Prequel. Find and follow him amazon.com/author/kushalpoddar_thepoet
Stephen J. Golds was born in London, U.K, but has lived in Japan for most of his adult life. He enjoys spending time with his daughters, reading books, traveling, boxing and listening to old Soul LPs. His novel Say Goodbye When I’m Gone will be released by Red Dog Press in October 2020 and another novel Glamour Girl Gone will be released by Close to The Bone Press January 2021.
Missouri is home with trees and rolling hills. Speed limit 65. Along I-70 there are billboard signs for adult shops. Lion’s Den. An advertisement for Ozark chocolate. Blue masks swing on the rearview mirrors. Driving west, the landscape turns into a prairie.
Kansas. Speed limit 75. Amid the prairie there are corn fields. Billboards showcase quilt shops. Paintings of Jesus stand next to the highway. From the brown field, those brown eyes are watching you. Driving west, there are windmills with silver blades and in the wind the prairie moves like a green ocean.
Colorado. Running out of prairie, the horizon is turning into purple clouds – the Rockies. Driving up into the mountains, the road switches to two-lane. Twice we slow down due to accidents. Sharp turns, uphill, downhill. Stressful. Hugging the rocks are lodges, ski resorts, and homes for retirees. Smoke puffs from Charcoal Burgers’ chimneys. The scenic train follows the Colorado river. After many tunnels under the mountains, we enter a landscape morphing into a desert.
Utah. A sign limits speed to 80; another warns no service for 45 miles. We’re in the desert. Yet we pass trucks hauling boats. One is blue-and-yellow striped named Dog-On-It. The ground is flat, dusty with clumps of grass. Mountains mirage in the distance. We pass several towns. Yellowcat disappears behind us just like the others, towns with no bathrooms, restaurants, or gas stations. Long-sleeved shirts and towels protect us from the unforgiving sun. One sign along the highway warns that “fatigued driving causes fractured driving,” or was that a mirage, too? More signs. Ghost Rock. Eagle Canyon. Millers Canyon. The last I checked, the elevation was 7886 feet above sea level.
People wearing masks appear in my dreams.
Arizona. We weave in and out among the mountains heading downhill. Huge, grey jagged walls of rock shoulder the highway, and suddenly we are 2000 feet above sea level.
Nevada. A new view. Mountains with flat tops. Joshua trees. Valley of Fire, Lake Mead State Park, and finally Las Vegas. A drive through Sin City on a Sunday. Billboards for slots, magic shows, and cocktail parties. Ads for window shutters and dice. Mr. Vegas says wear a mask. I see a woman in a bikini top and shorts. Two skinny, shirtless men, one sporting American flag shorts, the other in brown shorts with a cigarette between his teeth. None wear masks. At least Caesar has a mask, a gold one, and we leave the city, always heading west.
California. Starting elevation 4000. Downhill 11 miles past Joshua trees and rocky hills. Traffic snakes from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on a Sunday, along with a boat named Better When Wet. Call boxes line the highway. One billboard implores drivers to wear a mask to slow the spread. Death Valley. There is a glassy refractive pink tinge to the clouds. As the sun sets, a plume of smoke obscures a wildfire in the distance.
At last sea level. Mask in one hand, shoes in the other, we walk along the shore. I set foot in the Pacific Ocean. The water is cold. I feel the push and pull of the tide. I look out to the horizon. This is as far west as our car can take us. Here is where our journey ends.
Aura Martin (she/her) is a graduate of Truman State University. She is the author of the forthcoming chapbook Those Embroidered Suns (Lazy Adventurer Publishing) and the micro-chapbook Thumbprint Lizards (Maverick Duck Press). She is a 2020 Sundress Publications Best of the Net nominee. Her work has appeared in ang(st) zine, Capulet Mag, and Variant Literature among others. In Aura’s free time, she likes to run and take road trips. Find her on Twitter @instamartin17.
I’m sorry, mama Your memories have become an alarm clock that I happily bought from the bazar, excitedly kept on my side table, but snoozed off when I wanted more hours to convince myself, it’s a dream, you don’t exist anymore.
Fizza Abbas is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her work has been appeared or is forthcoming in quite a few platforms including Poetry Village, Poetry Pacific, The Stone of Madness Press, The Daily Drunk, Neuro Logical Magazine, Serotonin Poetry, Versification, One Hand Clapping Magazine, London Grip and elsewhere. She can be reached at @fizzawrites on Twitter.
exhale wishes, nursing your flowers until it blooms.
like sunflower (a rose, maybe), that morning, with the rising sun,
you open the petals of your dreams to a world red & yellow,
bold, oozing fragrance.
before night fall, off come the petals
nipped from its bud. stomped. destroyed. rejected –
you watch your dream wilt. die. decay.
you feel pangs of rejection, you want to eat yourself
& pour your grief into a cup of vinegar,
crown yourself with wreathes made of decomposing hay. mayhaps,
it will drown the pain & help you believe in fantasies, again.
but nothing really is as heavy as a rose in a casket
FOR BOYS WHO CAME, SAW & WERE CONQUERED
We stuck our arms through the bars
clawing for freedom from ugly circumstances
We danced like the flicker of candle light in dark streets
beckoning on illumination to light up our darkest nights
We drizzled like rainfall through the night
wetting our parched dreams with tears
We stood tall like lamp posts on deserted cities
waving torn flags of peace, with waring demons
We quivered like a reed in the wind
longing for calm in the inside
We nudged hope, crawling on skinned knees, across coals
baiting for wisdom to discern drought from deluge
We hoped to break records
we got broken instead
Jaachi Anyatonwu is a contributor at Poemify Publishers, a literary blog for young African writers. His poems have been published in several print and online publications, including ACEworld Magazine, WRR, AllPoetry, Poemify, Poetry Soup, Tush Stories, and African Writers.
before there were fast things bright circling things distractions to retreat into
life chugged along
you took trains with the one you love watched the rapid retreat of thoughts through the window swept up in the tunnels and wind and you chugged distracting liquids with friends
you worked often choked by the speed of approach but it was normal
you received therapy a gift, wrapped in cardboard and posted second class but when it arrived it was beautiful bright white and spacious revealing
you took deep, agonising breaths full of it holding them in
then there was panic
a sudden breathless rush coming in from the cold; a ruthless, aching wind before all life slowed down
trains passed through empty stations pasta briefly graced empty shelves beds emptied and refilled
there were some fast goodbyes
and then you were home surrounded and thawing but somehow alone therapy came crackling and broken by static down the phone work arrived in spluttering bursts; and then it flowed
and there was no time to think no time to breathe or seek a safer place inside but you did not mourn these things – they had barely crossed your mind
now there is some pause
a slowing down of sorts as life begins to open up albeit at a changing speed
the flow of work splutters almost to a halt a trickle and you can breathe just for a moment
but in the freshness of this breath there is a sour note a sense of older problems creeping in now they have been awarded space to swell and bloat to regain old hard-fought ground
and still, there are no swooping trains to be whisked away by no touch to be taken over and consumed by not even the familiar rush of cool air to be renewed by
you do not know what to do with these sprawling empty days but this painful part of you does; it rushes in with anxious thought to fill the space in between and pull you to the very edges of the room squealing and taut
therapy salvages some clarity again in terrifying painful truths it says you must reclaim the air it swallows every day and step into the space instead
you must reframe the time it takes not as some sorry stolen thing but as an opportunity to bring your fullest self to the fight
an opportunity to stretch yourself out – astonished, and renewed and extend into the light
Mac is a writer from Manchester, currently studying in Sheffield. He writes mostly poetry, and enjoys writing surreal, dream-like poetry focusing on his own experiences battling mental health issues. He also enjoys dystopian and Lovecraftian short fiction, and the overlap between this and his poetry. You can find him on Twitter @mac__goodwin, or on his website mac-goodwin.com
Certainty becomes brittle when the new moon shines
And at the edges of the boneyard
Lonely spirits grow bold
Like unstitched wounds in time
Decaying concrete underpasses
Soaked in urine and spray paint
Old tower blocks standing in the sputtering ether glow
Breathing is hard in the rancid air
Only the most desperate creatures brave the forests of brick and glass
You can feel it trapping them
If only they can make it to the clearing
Unobserved by the lost gods and unattached souls
Can you hear the wires sing?
Follow their static moaning through the empty fields
These are the voltage temples
Do not tread lightly through their doors
Not all magics of the night are dispersed by dawn
Some linger still
Trapped in the wires
Singing
By Miles Coombe
FALLEN
You can’t see my wings from over there
They are lost inside a fever dream
Everything is too loud
Screaming when the blinds are opened
Beware of those who collect feathers
Landfills full of used up thoughts
I burn brighter when you water the flame
Like a peat fire hidden underground
I bet you are made from the most beautiful of stars
You have mistook me all this while
Intoxicated with loneliness
A silent corridor of drifting ash
Your bandages make me turn feral
I change the sheets each day but its leaking out of me
Every night I dream of paradise
There is always the taste of vodka in my mouth
My teeth never feel sharp enough
The homesickness makes my jaw ache
I sit at the back of every old church
In every lost town, in every forgotten world
Blinded by the incense
You can’t see my wings from over there
But they burn on the inside
Maybe one day I will get to go home
REFUGE
When the world is cruel, we seek refuge in others
Delicious moments of terror
A sense of what is buried below
Dappled smears of psychic history
Haunted by all the journeys never made
There are lines drawn on the land
Old TVs and piles of asbestos
Violently weaponised loneliness
The Silence will follow you
Like a nauseous adrenaline chill
An apocalypse of quiet and unploughed fields
The white ash of Solstice bonfires
I had that dream again
The one where all those dead crows come back to life
I’m seeing pathways to God
In the geometry of the skeletal leaves
Don’t confuse vulnerability with weakness
Those are the waiting areas
Drowned in the smell of failed metaphysics
The place where the shadows thicken
Monsters are the patron saints of our imperfections
The wheel keeps turning
Negative and positive
Underworld and wide open sky
What is the reality of my feelings?
I sleep with bone fragments under my pillow
Searching for the Mist Gates and the liminal borders
A hovering fairyland of soft dreams
How desolate everything is
Your thoughts shift in the hazy light
You must contain the darkness
Absorb it, accept it, and move on
Miles Coombe (he/him) is a queer multidisciplinary artist living in London. He is fascinated by the idea of modern fairy-tales. He often combines the words that he writes with the artworks that he makes. His writings are based on youth / obsession / loss / nostalgia / memory / dreams / mental health / folklore and apocalyptic landscapes. Find him at; www.trashprincemusic.com and https://twitter.com/trashprincemuse
to add copper as a reactant while writing an equation in your final exam.
But you still passed your chemistry exam.
Now when you are celebrating your success, copper is reading quietly in a nook
words like sonnet, haiku, lyric, villanelle and pentameter
that she couldn’t ever find in her DNA, her formula.
Fizza Abbas is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her work has been appeared or is forthcoming in quite a few platforms including Poetry Village, Poetry Pacific, The Stone of Madness Press, The Daily Drunk, Neuro Logical Magazine, Serotonin Poetry, Versification, One Hand Clapping Magazine, London Grip and elsewhere. She can be reached at @fizzawrites on Twitter.
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