By: Emily Ellison What is the value of temerity if in slugging along, I am still a lugubrious snake in the state of cardiovascular plunder? This gut holds but the jitters of mice tucked inside themselves, a false scale of scary…

By: Emily Ellison Swallowtails gulp down my frail, yet renowned attempts at song. Notes, like black fish, burble in symphonic schools. Feed me nonverbal worms, for I have hunger for an earthbound tastiness, cuisine of the humble ground. Feasts reeking steamed…

By: Ian Fletcher How busy I imagine they must have been in homes or offices farms or factories getting and spending living and loving until finally dying. How strange it seems they are now so still lying neglected here on this…

By: Aruna Subramanian Spines and blooms filled my path. Middle of the journey, I turned back To the sight Of reddened flowers. Bloody foot trails Burthened my Light travel…

By: Aruna Subramanian     Low lying heights Symbolize the sky To a tiny bird That only hops. Blood filled quills, Unspread wings Withers away. Leaving behind The awaiting sky, To bear the trails Of grown feathers…

By: Dixon Hearne Warm springs draw the pilgrims forth, the bracing winds of winter at their back. Healing waters gurgling from the earth quell the worry, pacify the soul, sate the thirst of human longing— an ancient wisdom rediscovered. In…

By: Dixon Hearne Steel mummies rust in scattered heaps as if tossed by pitchfork— littering the desert floor, changing shape with light and shadow and imagination. Debris. History. Art. A child’s roadside guessing game, chards and nuances of some former world…

By: Lana Bella A fresco of fireflies bled sepia, mapped the night’s ration of willows suffering the rapids, threatening from some dusk, implacable shifts. Broke like leaves, runnel of years preyed on by the sparks of dandelions, breathing antres, seeping side- wards with…

By: Lana Bella Down she will come from among the branches and roots, feathered skirts pulled from the many birds of the meridian sea. She disciplined hands, forgetting an entire winter of throat missing glass, where sorrow and gin met in…

By: Lana Bella Where earth was song and currents, I spread false indigo onto nights given glow of human skin, recalled to the pull of your hands in abeyance that was both real and omnipresent. Darkly of life I slept, pressing black to…