POETRY PACIFIC
[Vol. 14, 2025 edition]
 |
Cover Art by Belinda Subraman: Desert Fantasy |
Monday, 5 May 2025
Poetry Pacific: Editor's Notes
dear PP Patrons, All PP Patrons,
in this annual edition, we are honored to present 66 poetry authors and 4 visual/graphic artists.
enjoy reading/viewing, and have a great springtime!
with warmest regards from vancouver, [long live] canada...
- eds. at PP
PP: Call for Subs - Guidelines
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES [Revised]
WARRANTY & AGREEMENT
By submitting to PP, the submitter warrants that s/he alone has created the work s/he is submitting and that s/he owns all rights to it. The submitter will indemnify and hold PP and its staff harmless from and against any and all loss, damage, costs and other expenses arising out of claims, whatever their nature, resulting directly or indirectly from breach of this warranty. At the same time, the submitter/contributor agrees that PP can use part or all of his/her accepted material, including responses to PP's interview questions, on its Facebook and/or other similar social networking vehicles for promotional purposes.
* All poetic and visual artworks are carefully read/viewed year round on a rolling basis for an anuunal e.edition, due out on or around 5 May;
* Multiple and simultaneous submissions, as well as previously published work, are all equally welcome insofar as you still hold the copy/publishing rights;
* sorry, this is not a paying market, but a literary project as a labor of lovepresented to true lovers of words and wisdom;
* Please send up to 5 of your best shortish poems each time by pasting them all together with a brief 3rd person bio note
within the body of your email (Textual subs with attachments will automatically be deleted unread)to editors.pp@gmail.com, But send up to 10 visual artworks each in a separate attachment
* Please feel welcome to send us a query if, for instance, your accepted work does not appear as scheduled;
* Our response-time is three months though usually much shorter than that, &only those accepted will get a reply;
* we do not require you to mention us as the first publisher of your work,but your mentioning would be much appreciated;
Once accepted by PP, please allow at least two years/issues
before submitting new work to us
- Many thanks for your kind support of PP & Gooooodluuuuck!
********************
for book or poetry collection/chapbook manuscript submissions
send us a brief description together with a literary tv or professional bio
Basic Guidelines for Preparing a Manuscript
1. Proofread everything carefully to make sure there are no typos, misspellings or improper uses of capitalization & punctuation marks.2. Single-space all the textual content;3. Stick to the same font, preferably ‘times new roman’ (12) for sake of conformity;4. Use font sizes (for titles or sub-titles), italics, boldface, underlines in a consistent and conventional fashion;5. Provide a cover image/photo in a separate file, if any;6. Include no more than 5 high-resolution illustrations (images/photos) for a chapbook, 10 for a full-length book, whose sizes should be less than 3/5 of a standard doc page (11x8.5 inches);7. Provide a ‘devotion page’ (optional);8. Provide a ‘acknowledgements’ or ‘attribution list’ page (work title, followed by publication name, & date/issue number if any);9. Provide a ‘table of contents’;10. Paginate the text of the (chap)book beginning from the first poem or first page of the prosework;11. Provide an ‘author page’;12. Provide 3 to 5 blurbs (optional)
Note: failure to comply with the above or provide a camera/print-ready ms would result in eventual termination of the publication process.
MANY THANKS FOR YOUR KIND COOPERATION!
WARRANTY & AGREEMENT
By submitting to PP, the submitter warrants that
s/he alone has created the work s/he is submitting and that
s/he owns all rights to it. The submitter will indemnify and
hold PP and its staff harmless from and against any and all loss,
damage, costs and other expenses arising out of claims,
whatever their nature, resulting directly or indirectly
from breach of this warranty. At the same time,
the submitter/contributor agrees that PP can use
part or all of his/her accepted material, including responses
to PP's interview questions, on its Facebook and/or
other similar social networking vehicles for promotional purposes.
* All poetic and visual artworks are carefully read/viewed
year round on a rolling basis
for an anuunal e.edition, due out on or around 5 May;
* Multiple and simultaneous submissions, as well as previously published work,
are all equally welcome insofar as you still hold the copy/publishing rights;
* sorry, this is not a paying market,
but a literary project as a labor of love
presented to true lovers of words and wisdom;
* Please send up to 5 of your best shortish poems each time
by pasting them all together with a brief 3rd person bio note
within the body of your email
within the body of your email
(Textual subs with attachments will automatically be deleted unread)
to editors.pp@gmail.com,
But send up to 10 visual artworks each in a separate attachment
* Please feel welcome to send us a query if, for instance,
your accepted work does not appear as scheduled;
* Our response-time is three months though usually much shorter than that, &
only those accepted will get a reply;
* we do not require you to mention us as the first publisher of your work,
but your mentioning would be much appreciated;
Once accepted by PP, please allow at least two years/issues
before submitting new work to us
- Many thanks for your kind support of PP & Gooooodluuuuck!
Once accepted by PP, please allow at least two years/issues
before submitting new work to us
- Many thanks for your kind support of PP & Gooooodluuuuck!
********************
for book or poetry collection/chapbook manuscript submissions
send us a brief description together
send us a brief description together
with a literary tv or professional bio
1. Proofread everything carefully to make sure there are no typos, misspellings or improper uses of capitalization & punctuation marks.
2. Single-space all the textual content;
3. Stick to the same font, preferably ‘times new roman’ (12) for sake of conformity;
4. Use font sizes (for titles or sub-titles), italics, boldface, underlines in a consistent and conventional fashion;
5. Provide a cover image/photo in a separate file, if any;
6. Include no more than 5 high-resolution illustrations (images/photos) for a chapbook, 10 for a full-length book, whose sizes should be less than 3/5 of a standard doc page (11x8.5 inches);
7. Provide a ‘devotion page’ (optional);
8. Provide a ‘acknowledgements’ or ‘attribution list’ page (work title, followed by publication name, & date/issue number if any);
9. Provide a ‘table of contents’;
10. Paginate the text of the (chap)book beginning from the first poem or first page of the prosework;
11. Provide an ‘author page’;
12. Provide 3 to 5 blurbs (optional)
Note: failure to comply with the above or provide a camera/print-ready ms would result in eventual termination of the publication process.
8 Photos by Yanfeng Qu
 |
Dr. Yanfeng Qu, a PhD. holder in Linguistics and a university professor with more than 30 years' experience, is an avid traveler and nature lover. When he is not teaching, you will find him hiking in the mountains, bird watching in the wild or immersing himself in the natural beauty of exotic places. Here are some photos that he took since 2025 in Vancouver, Cancun, Mexico and San Antonio, Texas.
5 Poems & Paintings by Belinda Subraman
Low Vibrational Thought Forms
bless them and release them
everyone is seeking love
not knowing it is what we are
masked in ego
numb to the Source
cells in the heart of God
Immigrants Looking for Home
At the base of a desert mountain
the dry ocean of empathetic waves
mingle and continue as the air we breathe.
There is no spiritual boundary
in the atmospheric sea.
Winds blow through fences.
Border Patrol may capture and detain us
on farms our ancestors lived.
Long guns with laws may deport us.
We still share the same air
and ghosts of history haunt the land.
We’re only looking for home
above the cemented gulch
of the Rio Grande.
bless them and release them
everyone is seeking love
not knowing it is what we are
masked in ego
numb to the Source
cells in the heart of God
Immigrants Looking for Home
At the base of a desert mountain
the dry ocean of empathetic waves
mingle and continue as the air we breathe.
There is no spiritual boundary
in the atmospheric sea.
Winds blow through fences.
Border Patrol may capture and detain us
on farms our ancestors lived.
Long guns with laws may deport us.
We still share the same air
and ghosts of history haunt the land.
We’re only looking for home
above the cemented gulch
of the Rio Grande.
Artists
We’re learning to travel the tunnel
and come back spontaneously.
Attachments keep us tethered
but head signals are increasing.
We won’t let go but want to.
Our guides are around us
giving directions.
We paint them to understand them
multidimensionally
mystically multiplying toward infinity
while houses breathe and tick and hum.
Everything makes its presence known.
We are never alone.
Midnight Mindcraft
Even houses snore
tic and breathe
pulse with atoms
and illusions we believe.
Every creature fights for rights.
One way or another
the ego screams “mine.”
We lie in our beds wondering
if its thunder, gunfire
or fireworks flowering.
Everything blooms
with passion, wilts and dies
rejoining the source
with no questions.
Rivers join the ocean
then it rains.
Rivers rise again.
The Drama of Silence and Light
Portals, gateways
increasing signals,
electricity
humming in radar ears
pulling of my essence
outside the shell
reading my power,
choosing to follow a program
from an unveiled source
or to disobey my own enslavement.
I grip with ghostly nails.
I love what scares me
and hate it too.
One leg through the veil
head stuck in the doorway
to grip what I know is unreal
a shallow layer of being
afraid to let go of illusion
while beginning to have a clue.
I grip with ghostly nails.
I love what scares me
and hate it too.
Bionote
In 2020 Belinda began an online show called GAS: Poetry, Art and Music which features interviews, readings, performances and art show in a video format available free on Belinda Subraman’s YouTube channel. She also runs a GAS Facebook group and GAS literary journal. She was inducted as Texas Beat Poet Laureate (2023-2025) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation. Belinda is also a mixed media artist. Her art has been featured in Beyond Words, Epoch, Flora Fiction, Unlikely Stories, Eclectica, North of Oxford, Raw Art Review, El Paso News, Litterateur RW, Setu, Texlandia, The Bayou Review,
Red Fez, Chrysalis, Maintenant 16 and 17 and many others. In November 2022 she won 2nd Place in the Sun Bowl Exhibit, the longest running art show in the Southwest (since 1949).
We’re learning to travel the tunnel
and come back spontaneously.
Attachments keep us tethered
but head signals are increasing.
We won’t let go but want to.
Our guides are around us
giving directions.
We paint them to understand them
multidimensionally
mystically multiplying toward infinity
while houses breathe and tick and hum.
Everything makes its presence known.
We are never alone.
Midnight Mindcraft
Even houses snore
tic and breathe
pulse with atoms
and illusions we believe.
Every creature fights for rights.
One way or another
the ego screams “mine.”
We lie in our beds wondering
if its thunder, gunfire
or fireworks flowering.
Everything blooms
with passion, wilts and dies
rejoining the source
with no questions.
Rivers join the ocean
then it rains.
Rivers rise again.
The Drama of Silence and Light
Portals, gateways
increasing signals,
electricity
humming in radar ears
pulling of my essence
outside the shell
reading my power,
choosing to follow a program
from an unveiled source
or to disobey my own enslavement.
I grip with ghostly nails.
I love what scares me
and hate it too.
One leg through the veil
head stuck in the doorway
to grip what I know is unreal
a shallow layer of being
afraid to let go of illusion
while beginning to have a clue.
I grip with ghostly nails.
I love what scares me
and hate it too.
Bionote
In 2020 Belinda began an online show called GAS: Poetry, Art and Music which features interviews, readings, performances and art show in a video format available free on Belinda Subraman’s YouTube channel. She also runs a GAS Facebook group and GAS literary journal. She was inducted as Texas Beat Poet Laureate (2023-2025) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation. Belinda is also a mixed media artist. Her art has been featured in Beyond Words, Epoch, Flora Fiction, Unlikely Stories, Eclectica, North of Oxford, Raw Art Review, El Paso News, Litterateur RW, Setu, Texlandia, The Bayou Review,
Red Fez, Chrysalis, Maintenant 16 and 17 and many others. In November 2022 she won 2nd Place in the Sun Bowl Exhibit, the longest running art show in the Southwest (since 1949).
5 Images by Ric White
Bionote
Ric is an artist and musician based in Southwest England. His work has been enjoyed in a number of exhibitions as well as on book and CD covers and published in a book of poetry and images. His music has covered many genres from rock to jazz to freeform. These days he focuses on experimental electronic composition and freeform improvisation. For these pieces he has created settings for poems by widely published, prizewinning poet Phil Madden. His work with Phil can be viewed on their website ifapelican.co.uk
Ric is an artist and musician based in Southwest England. His work has been enjoyed in a number of exhibitions as well as on book and CD covers and published in a book of poetry and images. His music has covered many genres from rock to jazz to freeform. These days he focuses on experimental electronic composition and freeform improvisation. For these pieces he has created settings for poems by widely published, prizewinning poet Phil Madden. His work with Phil can be viewed on their website ifapelican.co.uk
5 Poems by George J. Searles
HOW TO LOSE A MICHELIN STAR
When George Donner called ahead
to make dinner reservations,
nobody remembered to ask him
whether anyone in his Party
had any dietary restrictions.
Bad mistake, any way you slice it.
THE KIND OF REQUEST
YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT IGNORE
Please step out
of the vehicle, Sir,
and keep your hands
where I can see them.
NO PRESSURE
Hey! Here it comes—
another femtosecond:
one millionth
of one billionth
of one second.
Don't blink,
or you'll miss the whole thing.
A PROBLEM IN THE KEYSTONE STATE
The teams at James Buchanan High School
in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, are nicknamed
The Blue Devils.
The teams at Mercersburg Academy
in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, are also nicknamed
The Blue Devils.
This may or may not be a Satanic plot,
but it does cause some confusion among readers
of The Mercersburg Journal sports pages.
G.J. CHAITIN & G.J. SEARLES
In his book The Information, James Gleick asks,
"Looking generally at all the numbers,
how can a mathematician know
whether the interesting ones are rare or common?
For that matter, looking at any one number,
can a mathematician ever know for sure
whether a smaller algorithm night be found?"
Gleick goes on to inform us that
"For Chaitin, these were the critical questions."
But for me, not so much.
When George Donner called ahead
to make dinner reservations,
nobody remembered to ask him
whether anyone in his Party
had any dietary restrictions.
Bad mistake, any way you slice it.
THE KIND OF REQUEST
YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT IGNORE
Please step out
of the vehicle, Sir,
and keep your hands
where I can see them.
NO PRESSURE
Hey! Here it comes—
another femtosecond:
one millionth
of one billionth
of one second.
Don't blink,
or you'll miss the whole thing.
A PROBLEM IN THE KEYSTONE STATE
The teams at James Buchanan High School
in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, are nicknamed
The Blue Devils.
The teams at Mercersburg Academy
in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, are also nicknamed
The Blue Devils.
This may or may not be a Satanic plot,
but it does cause some confusion among readers
of The Mercersburg Journal sports pages.
G.J. CHAITIN & G.J. SEARLES
In his book The Information, James Gleick asks,
"Looking generally at all the numbers,
how can a mathematician know
whether the interesting ones are rare or common?
For that matter, looking at any one number,
can a mathematician ever know for sure
whether a smaller algorithm night be found?"
Gleick goes on to inform us that
"For Chaitin, these were the critical questions."
But for me, not so much.
Bionote
George J. Searles teaches English and Latin at Mohawk Valley Community College (Utica NY) and has also taught creative writing on the upstate campus of Pratt Institute (Brooklyn) and graduate courses for The New School (NYC). Widely published (literary criticism, textbooks, poetry), he is a former Carnegie Foundation "Professor of the Year" and is currently editor of Glimpse, a poetry annual.
George J. Searles teaches English and Latin at Mohawk Valley Community College (Utica NY) and has also taught creative writing on the upstate campus of Pratt Institute (Brooklyn) and graduate courses for The New School (NYC). Widely published (literary criticism, textbooks, poetry), he is a former Carnegie Foundation "Professor of the Year" and is currently editor of Glimpse, a poetry annual.
5 Haiku by Kevin Cowdall
Flying Fish
Clouds are reflected
on the pond’s glassy surface.
Fish fly through the sky.
Full Sail
With all sails set full,
your ship flies across the sea.
I wait here for you.
Seal
Basking in the sun,
a seal alone with its thoughts.
Silence all around.
Northern Lights
Wavering ribbons,
dancing in the northern sky.
Nature’s own light show.
Swan Feather
Gracefully drifting
on a gentle summer breeze
across the still pond.
Clouds are reflected
on the pond’s glassy surface.
Fish fly through the sky.
Full Sail
With all sails set full,
your ship flies across the sea.
I wait here for you.
Seal
Basking in the sun,
a seal alone with its thoughts.
Silence all around.
Northern Lights
Wavering ribbons,
dancing in the northern sky.
Nature’s own light show.
Swan Feather
Gracefully drifting
on a gentle summer breeze
across the still pond.
Bionote
Kevin Cowdall was born in Liverpool, England, where he still lives and works. In all, over 300 of Kevin’s poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies, and on web sites, in the UK and Ireland, across Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Canada, and the USA, and broadcast on BBC Radio, RTÉ Radio, Ireland, and local radio stations across the UK. His 2016 retrospective collection, Assorted Bric-à-brac brought together the best from three previous collections (The Reflective Image, Monochrome Leaves, and A Walk in the Park) with a selection of newer poems). His most recent collection, Natural Inclinations, features fifty poems with a common theme of the natural world. His poem for children, The Land of Dreams, was published on the Letterpress Project website, wonderfully illustrated by Chris Riddell, and is available on YouTube.
Kevin Cowdall was born in Liverpool, England, where he still lives and works. In all, over 300 of Kevin’s poems have been published in journals, magazines, and anthologies, and on web sites, in the UK and Ireland, across Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Canada, and the USA, and broadcast on BBC Radio, RTÉ Radio, Ireland, and local radio stations across the UK. His 2016 retrospective collection, Assorted Bric-à-brac brought together the best from three previous collections (The Reflective Image, Monochrome Leaves, and A Walk in the Park) with a selection of newer poems). His most recent collection, Natural Inclinations, features fifty poems with a common theme of the natural world. His poem for children, The Land of Dreams, was published on the Letterpress Project website, wonderfully illustrated by Chris Riddell, and is available on YouTube.
5 Poems by Joe Benevento
Weed Bouquet
I’ve filled a dark blue, glass vase
with weeds I gathered from my backyard,
early September clusters of small white flowers
most resembling baby’s breath, which florists favor
for their rose arrangements or other unweedy bouquets.
Huddled together in the vase,
cut short from their main stems
their green leaves spearhead shaped,
they might be apt for lovers after all.
No gardenia fragrance, but neither
are they malodorous,
These visitors from abundant life
in my backyard, a jungle rejecting
horticulture and so well able to spare
some samples, need not apologize
for their absence from any floral catalog:
their process as awake to the observer
as any paid for or planted flower.
I Once Shook Hands With Vincent Price…
a few hours before he began his one-night, one-man show
at our rural U. with a reprise of his scary lines from Michael Jackson’s
“Thriller,” which he understood our students would go wild over.
His blue eyes twinkled when I told him how honored I was; he could
feel how much I meant it, as he gripped my hand, somehow aware
I had sympathy for all the mediocre movie and TV roles he had
had to accept in order to keep on acting.
During the show he even told us how his A-list career had unraveled
once method actors like Dean and Brando took over Hollywood, leaving little
room for classically trained Yalies with resonant voices. I felt the poignancy
of his regret over having to shift from classics like “Laura,” or “Song of Bernadette,”
to schlocky Roger Corman, pseudo-Poe pictures, and even more horror-ible films.
His sense of humor safeguarded his dignity through all the television he did, banking
on his ready-set persona. Egghead on “Batman,” kept him a villain, but I preferred
his Count Sforza on “F Troop,” when it was a mistake to believe him a vampire,
since Sforza, like Vincent, was really just a nice man who sometimes donned a cape.
Vincent Price, St. Louis born and raised, you came back to our little Missouri town
more than once. I like to imagine you returned to find out if anyone paid
heed to who you really were. I like to imagine in the seconds
we shared you received that wistful recognition, firm in our handshake,
acknowledged in your laughing blue eyes.
After Being Retired for a Little Over a Year
I’m not surprised but still chagrined
to be a senior-citizen, card-carrier
for AARP (only way to qualify
for their supplemental insurance) a guy
who gets pension and social security checks
each month that together are a bit higher
than his working salary ever was.
I still haven’t found myself
longing for a new job, nor learned how
to cobble together a worthwhile day without one.
Travel, except to see family or friends
doesn’t interest me much, especially
since my blood sugar became too high to allow
even the thought of eating my way through
Europe or some high-caloric cruise.
Yes, I like my hours volunteering at the Food Pantry,
time with family, guitar, Mets games or TCM,
and am also back to writing a little, despite a lot
of years of very few folks caring much (I’ve got
sixteen not-best selling books on my shelves to prove it.)
Still, I fret over no longer mattering,
of all the condescension, especially from
the well-intentioned, the perhaps many
years ahead of benign insignificance
in moderately okay health
before things get much worse than that.
After Singing "It's Impossible" Makes My Wife and Daughter Cry
It’s get-away week for Maria, moving
to Omaha on Friday, the beginning of her new
life as a college student at Creighton. All summer she
has prepared, working two jobs, buying what is needed
to get along without the five of us she'll leave
behind. These last few days before packing her possessions
into our green van, we're doing whatever we can think
of to make this last week memorable. All her favorite
dinners: taco night; chicken roll with mashed potatoes;
lasagna from her grandmother's recipe, with the home-
made sauce and mini meatballs, the whole milk
ricotta, mozzarella and imported parmesan.
We always used to sing together, our finest
form of prayer each night before bed.
We've let it drop these last teen years,
but tonight we recall all the old favorites:
"Moon River," "More," "I Only Have Eyes for You,"
"You Belong To My Heart," "The Shadow
Of Your Smile, old songs we’ve helped them
newly love. “It's Impossible" is the one
I’ve filled a dark blue, glass vase
with weeds I gathered from my backyard,
early September clusters of small white flowers
most resembling baby’s breath, which florists favor
for their rose arrangements or other unweedy bouquets.
Huddled together in the vase,
cut short from their main stems
their green leaves spearhead shaped,
they might be apt for lovers after all.
No gardenia fragrance, but neither
are they malodorous,
These visitors from abundant life
in my backyard, a jungle rejecting
horticulture and so well able to spare
some samples, need not apologize
for their absence from any floral catalog:
their process as awake to the observer
as any paid for or planted flower.
I Once Shook Hands With Vincent Price…
a few hours before he began his one-night, one-man show
at our rural U. with a reprise of his scary lines from Michael Jackson’s
“Thriller,” which he understood our students would go wild over.
His blue eyes twinkled when I told him how honored I was; he could
feel how much I meant it, as he gripped my hand, somehow aware
I had sympathy for all the mediocre movie and TV roles he had
had to accept in order to keep on acting.
During the show he even told us how his A-list career had unraveled
once method actors like Dean and Brando took over Hollywood, leaving little
room for classically trained Yalies with resonant voices. I felt the poignancy
of his regret over having to shift from classics like “Laura,” or “Song of Bernadette,”
to schlocky Roger Corman, pseudo-Poe pictures, and even more horror-ible films.
His sense of humor safeguarded his dignity through all the television he did, banking
on his ready-set persona. Egghead on “Batman,” kept him a villain, but I preferred
his Count Sforza on “F Troop,” when it was a mistake to believe him a vampire,
since Sforza, like Vincent, was really just a nice man who sometimes donned a cape.
Vincent Price, St. Louis born and raised, you came back to our little Missouri town
more than once. I like to imagine you returned to find out if anyone paid
heed to who you really were. I like to imagine in the seconds
we shared you received that wistful recognition, firm in our handshake,
acknowledged in your laughing blue eyes.
After Being Retired for a Little Over a Year
I’m not surprised but still chagrined
to be a senior-citizen, card-carrier
for AARP (only way to qualify
for their supplemental insurance) a guy
who gets pension and social security checks
each month that together are a bit higher
than his working salary ever was.
I still haven’t found myself
longing for a new job, nor learned how
to cobble together a worthwhile day without one.
Travel, except to see family or friends
doesn’t interest me much, especially
since my blood sugar became too high to allow
even the thought of eating my way through
Europe or some high-caloric cruise.
Yes, I like my hours volunteering at the Food Pantry,
time with family, guitar, Mets games or TCM,
and am also back to writing a little, despite a lot
of years of very few folks caring much (I’ve got
sixteen not-best selling books on my shelves to prove it.)
Still, I fret over no longer mattering,
of all the condescension, especially from
the well-intentioned, the perhaps many
years ahead of benign insignificance
in moderately okay health
before things get much worse than that.
After Singing "It's Impossible" Makes My Wife and Daughter Cry
It’s get-away week for Maria, moving
to Omaha on Friday, the beginning of her new
life as a college student at Creighton. All summer she
has prepared, working two jobs, buying what is needed
to get along without the five of us she'll leave
behind. These last few days before packing her possessions
into our green van, we're doing whatever we can think
of to make this last week memorable. All her favorite
dinners: taco night; chicken roll with mashed potatoes;
lasagna from her grandmother's recipe, with the home-
made sauce and mini meatballs, the whole milk
ricotta, mozzarella and imported parmesan.
We always used to sing together, our finest
form of prayer each night before bed.
We've let it drop these last teen years,
but tonight we recall all the old favorites:
"Moon River," "More," "I Only Have Eyes for You,"
"You Belong To My Heart," "The Shadow
Of Your Smile, old songs we’ve helped them
newly love. “It's Impossible" is the one
getting us most emotional, with twelve year old
Claire actually sobbing, while her mother's eyes
glisten, understanding the song itself knows
what it sings, as we deliver back its melody,
the reverberation of loss immeasurable,
impossible as an adequate goodbye.
After I Cured Myself of Heart Trouble
so bad I was in rapid arrhythmia hours each day,
never knowing when I would reach the point
of sinus rhythm no return, I looked back over three years
worth of faulty prescriptions, constant worry when
a stroke would be the very end result of all my heart’s
improvisations, and concluded the worst part had not been
the daily dizziness before (and after) my diagnosis, nor the ambulance
ride ninety miles to the nearest cardiologist, nor the cardiac
catheterization and its only one in fifty chance of killing me,
nor the nightly wake up out of rhythm, trying to retrieve dreams,
the most unsettling of which were nicer than the nightmare
of my atrium and its fibrillations, nor even the canceled fishing
trips, snowball fights, other, irretrievable moments with my kids,
but rather the surgeon who insisted it was time for an ablation or else,
the mere searing of my heart for some hours with a laser
to murder its ability to step out of line ever again, maybe,
if luck was with us, and, if not, just another opportunity
to operate again, so, for him, win-win.
That was when my anger overtook my fear,
I ignored MD options, took an hour on the internet
found a simple combination of supplements
the white coats never mentioned, one of them head-shaking, “Go ahead,
try them; they won’t do any good,” added fish oil on my own intuition
to the magnesium, potassium, taurine alchemy some sensible
cyber co-sufferer suggested and have since, for some years
aimed my heart’s beating regularly away from those smug MDs.
Bionote
Joe Benevento retired last year after 40 years of teaching literature and creative writing at Truman State U. in Kirksville, MO. The most recent of his sixteen published books are, The Cracker Box Poems from Mouthfeel Press and My Perfect Wife, Her Perfect Son, a seriocomic novel about the Holy Family from the viewpoint of St. Joseph, with Histria Books. Benevento is donating 100% of all royalties from that novel to charity. His poems, stories, essays and reviews have appeared in close to 300 different places, including Prairie Schooner, Bilingual Review and Poets & Writers. He is the longtime poetry editor for Green Hills Literary Lantern.
Claire actually sobbing, while her mother's eyes
glisten, understanding the song itself knows
what it sings, as we deliver back its melody,
the reverberation of loss immeasurable,
impossible as an adequate goodbye.
After I Cured Myself of Heart Trouble
so bad I was in rapid arrhythmia hours each day,
never knowing when I would reach the point
of sinus rhythm no return, I looked back over three years
worth of faulty prescriptions, constant worry when
a stroke would be the very end result of all my heart’s
improvisations, and concluded the worst part had not been
the daily dizziness before (and after) my diagnosis, nor the ambulance
ride ninety miles to the nearest cardiologist, nor the cardiac
catheterization and its only one in fifty chance of killing me,
nor the nightly wake up out of rhythm, trying to retrieve dreams,
the most unsettling of which were nicer than the nightmare
of my atrium and its fibrillations, nor even the canceled fishing
trips, snowball fights, other, irretrievable moments with my kids,
but rather the surgeon who insisted it was time for an ablation or else,
the mere searing of my heart for some hours with a laser
to murder its ability to step out of line ever again, maybe,
if luck was with us, and, if not, just another opportunity
to operate again, so, for him, win-win.
That was when my anger overtook my fear,
I ignored MD options, took an hour on the internet
found a simple combination of supplements
the white coats never mentioned, one of them head-shaking, “Go ahead,
try them; they won’t do any good,” added fish oil on my own intuition
to the magnesium, potassium, taurine alchemy some sensible
cyber co-sufferer suggested and have since, for some years
aimed my heart’s beating regularly away from those smug MDs.
Bionote
Joe Benevento retired last year after 40 years of teaching literature and creative writing at Truman State U. in Kirksville, MO. The most recent of his sixteen published books are, The Cracker Box Poems from Mouthfeel Press and My Perfect Wife, Her Perfect Son, a seriocomic novel about the Holy Family from the viewpoint of St. Joseph, with Histria Books. Benevento is donating 100% of all royalties from that novel to charity. His poems, stories, essays and reviews have appeared in close to 300 different places, including Prairie Schooner, Bilingual Review and Poets & Writers. He is the longtime poetry editor for Green Hills Literary Lantern.
5 Poems by Sri Lal
Along the Riverbank
i.
I would not hold fast to
anyone’s belief in who I am.
Such shelter is fragile.
Old timber of blame or praise,
the rot of doubt, fear, rage, or sorrow.
Even bright expectation is
like laughter, falling silent.
I rest along the riverbank.
Painted boats pull at their mooring.
No one can define another,
like the Ganga—
not the same today
as tomorrow or yesterday,
even as a river flows on,
one water.
ii.
We each bear a silent grief,
the wound of which we do not speak.
Somewhere,
beyond blood and bone,
I return to Manasarovar
where swans eat pearls,
to a sky that opens out
beyond ideas of yours and mine.
What of this earth belongs
to anyone, anyhow?
I belong to none,
so I wander everywhere—
Each resting spot along the path
I travel is a simple shrine to your beauty.
iii.
As the sun ripens
and drops like fruit,
the sky turns to gold.
Still, I am afraid to let go
of what I know
for what I do not.
If I desire anything,
let it be to be free—
free of nescience,
free of the simple shadow
I cast along this red earth,
upon any man’s mind.
Let this mind be steady.
I am not bound to who
I have been,
and no one knows
yet what is to come.
I was not born to be a possession,
so I possess myself and trouble none.
Whatever the monsoon of yesterday,
in the cool light of morning,
dew falls gently over the Vale of Kashmir.
iv.
I am an open field of nameless wildflowers
that continues to bloom
at the foot of Meru,
even as some quietly die out.
What arises disappears again,
salt doll to seawater,
rain to earth,
breath to sky.
I do not stake my worth on illusion.
I do not claim what is not mine.
I could not hold onto a cloud
any more than I would a monkey’s tail.
At night, kusha grass brings strange dreams.
So, I wake and watch the summer moon
break through the darkness.
v.
If I fail along the way I travel,
let me fail to find fault,
for which of these ten thousand things
is not as it is meant to be—
born of ancestry and circumstance,
spinning on toward a radiance
that is a star-strewn cosmos,
that is this gentle exhale.
Light of sun, moon, and fire—
light that rises as the twilit song
of a Haridwar temple,
light that emanates as breath.
I turn to this light in my inmost shrine.
Each soul I meet
along the path I travel
is the one I seek.
So, I bow low
and wake to my god,
everywhere.
The month is Ashadha.
In your orchard, mango ripens
the color of dawn.
i.
I would not hold fast to
anyone’s belief in who I am.
Such shelter is fragile.
Old timber of blame or praise,
the rot of doubt, fear, rage, or sorrow.
Even bright expectation is
like laughter, falling silent.
I rest along the riverbank.
Painted boats pull at their mooring.
No one can define another,
like the Ganga—
not the same today
as tomorrow or yesterday,
even as a river flows on,
one water.
ii.
We each bear a silent grief,
the wound of which we do not speak.
Somewhere,
beyond blood and bone,
I return to Manasarovar
where swans eat pearls,
to a sky that opens out
beyond ideas of yours and mine.
What of this earth belongs
to anyone, anyhow?
I belong to none,
so I wander everywhere—
Each resting spot along the path
I travel is a simple shrine to your beauty.
iii.
As the sun ripens
and drops like fruit,
the sky turns to gold.
Still, I am afraid to let go
of what I know
for what I do not.
If I desire anything,
let it be to be free—
free of nescience,
free of the simple shadow
I cast along this red earth,
upon any man’s mind.
Let this mind be steady.
I am not bound to who
I have been,
and no one knows
yet what is to come.
I was not born to be a possession,
so I possess myself and trouble none.
Whatever the monsoon of yesterday,
in the cool light of morning,
dew falls gently over the Vale of Kashmir.
iv.
I am an open field of nameless wildflowers
that continues to bloom
at the foot of Meru,
even as some quietly die out.
What arises disappears again,
salt doll to seawater,
rain to earth,
breath to sky.
I do not stake my worth on illusion.
I do not claim what is not mine.
I could not hold onto a cloud
any more than I would a monkey’s tail.
At night, kusha grass brings strange dreams.
So, I wake and watch the summer moon
break through the darkness.
v.
If I fail along the way I travel,
let me fail to find fault,
for which of these ten thousand things
is not as it is meant to be—
born of ancestry and circumstance,
spinning on toward a radiance
that is a star-strewn cosmos,
that is this gentle exhale.
Light of sun, moon, and fire—
light that rises as the twilit song
of a Haridwar temple,
light that emanates as breath.
I turn to this light in my inmost shrine.
Each soul I meet
along the path I travel
is the one I seek.
So, I bow low
and wake to my god,
everywhere.
The month is Ashadha.
In your orchard, mango ripens
the color of dawn.
Bionote
Sri Lal’s writings have appeared in Fiction International, the New York Quarterly, Epiphany, Daedalus, Bombay Review, Indian Quarterly, Chicago Quarterly Review, Bamboo Ridge and others. She is also an editor at the Ganga Review. She teaches literature and creative writing in the English Department at CUNY’s Borough of Manhattan Community College.
Sri Lal’s writings have appeared in Fiction International, the New York Quarterly, Epiphany, Daedalus, Bombay Review, Indian Quarterly, Chicago Quarterly Review, Bamboo Ridge and others. She is also an editor at the Ganga Review. She teaches literature and creative writing in the English Department at CUNY’s Borough of Manhattan Community College.
4 Poems & 8 Photos by Allen Yuan
Chasing the Pacific Star
Air gyres crowd into the boy
As he dashes through the clouds of hope
Surfing on a wish
He descends to the touchy ocean
A salty breeze gushes from underneath
A spring of refreshing motivation
The flaring sun eagerly follows him like a bright shadow
Intimidating mountains forcibly rise, but are capped
From the serene, misty horizon
Where a bleached bird loudly flaps its wings away
Upgrading his life board,
With exhilarating dreams
As he dashes through the clouds of hope
Chasing the Pacific Star.
-
In Life as in Love We Must
Assist as we
Insist, persist or resist
To subsist
My Assets
I don’t own the sun, but I
Have plenty of sun light
I don’t own the sky, but
I enjoy all the free air
I don’t own the morning
But I cherish a lot of hope
I don’t own the language, but
I am entitled to every word
I don’t own autumn, but
I can get a good harvest
Drink Water in Wilderness
As I approach the pond
More vigilantly
Than an antelope
On African savanna
My entire being is
Swallowed up inside out
By a crocodile in ambush
Before I was able to kiss
The water with my mouth
& soul, both dying of thirst
Bionote
Allen Yuan, author of Traffic Light, is a 2-time Pushcart and 2-time Best of the Net nominee. A co-editor of Poetry Pacific, Allen currently works as a financial analyst in Vancouver. Since grade 10, Allen has had poetry appear in more than 70 literary publications across 16 countries, which include Cordite Poetry Review, Literary Review of Canada, Poetry Scotland, Shampoo and Spillway.
Air gyres crowd into the boy
As he dashes through the clouds of hope
Surfing on a wish
He descends to the touchy ocean
A salty breeze gushes from underneath
A spring of refreshing motivation
The flaring sun eagerly follows him like a bright shadow
Intimidating mountains forcibly rise, but are capped
From the serene, misty horizon
Where a bleached bird loudly flaps its wings away
Upgrading his life board,
With exhilarating dreams
As he dashes through the clouds of hope
Chasing the Pacific Star.
-
In Life as in Love We Must
Assist as we
Insist, persist or resist
To subsist
My Assets
I don’t own the sun, but I
Have plenty of sun light
I don’t own the sky, but
I enjoy all the free air
I don’t own the morning
But I cherish a lot of hope
I don’t own the language, but
I am entitled to every word
I don’t own autumn, but
I can get a good harvest
Drink Water in Wilderness
As I approach the pond
More vigilantly
Than an antelope
On African savanna
My entire being is
Swallowed up inside out
By a crocodile in ambush
Before I was able to kiss
The water with my mouth
& soul, both dying of thirst
Bionote
Allen Yuan, author of Traffic Light, is a 2-time Pushcart and 2-time Best of the Net nominee. A co-editor of Poetry Pacific, Allen currently works as a financial analyst in Vancouver. Since grade 10, Allen has had poetry appear in more than 70 literary publications across 16 countries, which include Cordite Poetry Review, Literary Review of Canada, Poetry Scotland, Shampoo and Spillway.
4 Poems by Juliet Cook
Un-pretty Maroon
My creative flow
starts internal ambience,
then begins screaming.
I revise my screams
into un-pretty maroonthat will speak for me.
Words obliterate
words into non-existence
if I don't feel real.
Nihilistic White
Fresh white snowflakes fall.
Shimmer down, glitter the ground,
grow into cold gloom.
Nihilistic white
witch, ice queen growing darker.
Overtaking light.
I Hate My Guts
Ugly fat preys on
my ribs. Tries to hide them with
menopause gut punch.
Another Me
Another me might be hiding
behind me
on the other side
of this mirrored doorway.
So it suddenly appears.
Another balloon animal
popping itself
out of the hole
in the handle
and reshaping itself
into bangs that are flatter,
but still filled with static.
Bubbling from the top of my head to my eyes,
trying to replace those eyes
with frenetically mildewed millipedes.
My creative flow
starts internal ambience,
then begins screaming.
I revise my screams
into un-pretty maroonthat will speak for me.
Words obliterate
words into non-existence
if I don't feel real.
Nihilistic White
Fresh white snowflakes fall.
Shimmer down, glitter the ground,
grow into cold gloom.
Nihilistic white
witch, ice queen growing darker.
Overtaking light.
I Hate My Guts
Ugly fat preys on
my ribs. Tries to hide them with
menopause gut punch.
Another Me
Another me might be hiding
behind me
on the other side
of this mirrored doorway.
So it suddenly appears.
Another balloon animal
popping itself
out of the hole
in the handle
and reshaping itself
into bangs that are flatter,
but still filled with static.
Bubbling from the top of my head to my eyes,
trying to replace those eyes
with frenetically mildewed millipedes.
Bionote
Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared in a small multitude of print and online publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently including "red flames burning out" (Grey Book Press, 2023), "Contorted Doom Conveyor" (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), "Your Mouth is Moving Backwards" (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), and "REVOLTING" (new from Cul-de-sac of Blood in Fall 2024). She has another new chapbook, "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" forthcoming from Pure Sleeze Press in Spring 2025. Her most recent full-length poetry book, "Malformed Confetti" was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. Cook also sometimes writes collaborative poetry and also sometimes creates abstract painting collage art hybrid creatures. You can find out more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.
Juliet Cook's poetry has appeared in a small multitude of print and online publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently including "red flames burning out" (Grey Book Press, 2023), "Contorted Doom Conveyor" (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), "Your Mouth is Moving Backwards" (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), and "REVOLTING" (new from Cul-de-sac of Blood in Fall 2024). She has another new chapbook, "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" forthcoming from Pure Sleeze Press in Spring 2025. Her most recent full-length poetry book, "Malformed Confetti" was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. Cook also sometimes writes collaborative poetry and also sometimes creates abstract painting collage art hybrid creatures. You can find out more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.
4 Poems by Yuan Changming
The Echoes
The wind has blown away my voice
Yet I am sure
despite all noises in the valley
Those echoes
are my words returning home
Here’s a song worthy listening to
1/ book review on Detaching (a hybrid novel; Phoenix: Alien Buddha Press, 2024; https://www.goodreads.com/
The wind has blown away my voice
Yet I am sure
despite all noises in the valley
Those echoes
are my words returning home
Here’s a song worthy listening to
En Route: for Qih
1/ Attachment Detached
I thought you’re the home
To my little bird as to my
Large soul
But alas, I find
You are just another hotel
Along the long way to Dao
2/ Night Vision
As the tide surges forward
From the heart of the ocean
A tiny white flower
Is blooming
Against all the dark noises
Rising high along the coast
3/ Celebration of Sunlight
Stop, Seeker, and set yourself
In a moment of meditation
If you listen to the sunshine
With all your inner & outer ears
You would hear
A serene song of serendipities
Anagramming ‘Love’: a Bilingualcultural Poem
In English, ‘love’ is meaningless if anagrammed
But if I add a letter, it will become a magic word
Full of possibilities as in the case, say, where I
Take off my glove, use a clove or olive to write
A novel about how to solve my problem of ‘I’
As a vowel in a hovel in its laevo form; whereas
In Chinese, 爱情 [love] can be embarrassing, for
If I remove two strokes from the root-character &
Add them to my feeling, 爱情would become受精
[Fertilization]; so, I’d avoid saying爱你 [love you]
For if two strokes were taken away from the root-
Character for 你, it would mean 受伤 [geting hurt]
Nuanced Nuisances
Things I hate most about my life here: brushing teeth twice every day; happening to see my deformed face in the mirror; cleaning the toilet wall; listening to the endless self-promotional rhetoric before hearing what I expected but fail to get from youbube or tictok; trying to find a program worth my effort to kill time; giving up my whim to know what is happening in the world; deleting junk emails; garbaging the fliers & free newspapers; opening my door to a stranger trying to sell a new god or product; waiting more than one hundred minutes only to speak to a helpless recorded voice over the phone; cooking meat; doing laundry; doing dish washing at least three times a day; bearing the noise made by Ted, my elder son’s eight-year-old dog when he comes to visit me from seattle; aalking or, rather, being walked by, the dog during my stroll with it; making poetry and fiction submissions to various online or print magazines; seeing my wife’s long face; putting up with my younger son’s nasty attitude; seeing his messy room and shoes everywhere; in particular, having to take a dump when getting ready for a meal; standing long in the washroom before managing to pee out anything … alas, my life is really so hateful in this invisible & infinitesimal corner!
Now, in this antlike moment, is my life really worth living, Gadfly?
Bionote
Yuan Changming grew up in an isolated village, started to learn the English alphabet in Shanghai at age nineteen and published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently lives in Vancouver, where he co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Writing credits include 16 chapbooks, 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 3 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline and 2129 other publications across 51 countries. A poetry judge for Canada's 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022. His debut novel Detaching, 'silver romance' The Tuner and short story collection Flashbacks are all available at Amazon, his duology Edening due out in 2026.
Solo poetry collections:
1. Chansons of a Chinaman [Paperback]. Murfreesboro: Leaf Garden, 2009.
2. Landscaping [Paperback]. San Jacinto, CA: Flutter Press, 2013.
3. Mindscaping [e.chapbook]. Halifax: Fowlpox Press, 2014.
4. Origin of Letters [e.chapbook]. Chicago: Beard of Bees Press, 2015.
5. Kinship [Paperback] Seattle: Goldfish Press, 2015.
6. Wordscaping [e. Chapbook]. Halifax: Fowlpox Press, 2016.
7. Dark Phantasms [Paperback]. San Jacinto, CA: Flutter Press, 2017.
8. East Idioms [e.chapbook]. Cyberwit.net, 2019.
9. (R)e.volution [Paperback]. LA: the Wapshott Press, 2021.
10. 《袁昌明詩選》(Selected Poems [e.book]. Vancouver: PP, 2021.
11. Limerence [Paperback]. Vancouver, Poetry Pacific Press, 2021.
12. All My Crows [Paperback]. Grass Valley, CA: Cold River Press, 2022.
13. E.dening [Paperback]. Seattle: Goldfish Press, 2022.
14. Homelanding [Paperback]. Yakima, WA: Cave Moon Press, 2022.
15. Sinosaur [Paperback]. Hickory, NC: Redhawk Publications, 2022.
16. Englines [e.Chapbook]. Red Wolf Editions, 2024.
1/ Attachment Detached
I thought you’re the home
To my little bird as to my
Large soul
But alas, I find
You are just another hotel
Along the long way to Dao
2/ Night Vision
As the tide surges forward
From the heart of the ocean
A tiny white flower
Is blooming
Against all the dark noises
Rising high along the coast
3/ Celebration of Sunlight
Stop, Seeker, and set yourself
In a moment of meditation
If you listen to the sunshine
With all your inner & outer ears
You would hear
A serene song of serendipities
Anagramming ‘Love’: a Bilingualcultural Poem
In English, ‘love’ is meaningless if anagrammed
But if I add a letter, it will become a magic word
Full of possibilities as in the case, say, where I
Take off my glove, use a clove or olive to write
A novel about how to solve my problem of ‘I’
As a vowel in a hovel in its laevo form; whereas
In Chinese, 爱情 [love] can be embarrassing, for
If I remove two strokes from the root-character &
Add them to my feeling, 爱情would become受精
[Fertilization]; so, I’d avoid saying爱你 [love you]
For if two strokes were taken away from the root-
Character for 你, it would mean 受伤 [geting hurt]
Nuanced Nuisances
Things I hate most about my life here: brushing teeth twice every day; happening to see my deformed face in the mirror; cleaning the toilet wall; listening to the endless self-promotional rhetoric before hearing what I expected but fail to get from youbube or tictok; trying to find a program worth my effort to kill time; giving up my whim to know what is happening in the world; deleting junk emails; garbaging the fliers & free newspapers; opening my door to a stranger trying to sell a new god or product; waiting more than one hundred minutes only to speak to a helpless recorded voice over the phone; cooking meat; doing laundry; doing dish washing at least three times a day; bearing the noise made by Ted, my elder son’s eight-year-old dog when he comes to visit me from seattle; aalking or, rather, being walked by, the dog during my stroll with it; making poetry and fiction submissions to various online or print magazines; seeing my wife’s long face; putting up with my younger son’s nasty attitude; seeing his messy room and shoes everywhere; in particular, having to take a dump when getting ready for a meal; standing long in the washroom before managing to pee out anything … alas, my life is really so hateful in this invisible & infinitesimal corner!
Now, in this antlike moment, is my life really worth living, Gadfly?
Bionote
Yuan Changming grew up in an isolated village, started to learn the English alphabet in Shanghai at age nineteen and published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently lives in Vancouver, where he co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Writing credits include 16 chapbooks, 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 3 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline and 2129 other publications across 51 countries. A poetry judge for Canada's 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022. His debut novel Detaching, 'silver romance' The Tuner and short story collection Flashbacks are all available at Amazon, his duology Edening due out in 2026.
Solo poetry collections:
1. Chansons of a Chinaman [Paperback]. Murfreesboro: Leaf Garden, 2009.
2. Landscaping [Paperback]. San Jacinto, CA: Flutter Press, 2013.
3. Mindscaping [e.chapbook]. Halifax: Fowlpox Press, 2014.
4. Origin of Letters [e.chapbook]. Chicago: Beard of Bees Press, 2015.
5. Kinship [Paperback] Seattle: Goldfish Press, 2015.
6. Wordscaping [e. Chapbook]. Halifax: Fowlpox Press, 2016.
7. Dark Phantasms [Paperback]. San Jacinto, CA: Flutter Press, 2017.
8. East Idioms [e.chapbook]. Cyberwit.net, 2019.
9. (R)e.volution [Paperback]. LA: the Wapshott Press, 2021.
10. 《袁昌明詩選》(Selected Poems [e.book]. Vancouver: PP, 2021.
11. Limerence [Paperback]. Vancouver, Poetry Pacific Press, 2021.
12. All My Crows [Paperback]. Grass Valley, CA: Cold River Press, 2022.
13. E.dening [Paperback]. Seattle: Goldfish Press, 2022.
14. Homelanding [Paperback]. Yakima, WA: Cave Moon Press, 2022.
15. Sinosaur [Paperback]. Hickory, NC: Redhawk Publications, 2022.
16. Englines [e.Chapbook]. Red Wolf Editions, 2024.
book publications + interview/book review in 2025:
1/ book review on Detaching (a hybrid novel; Phoenix: Alien Buddha Press, 2024; https://www.goodreads.com/
2/ The Tuner: 16 most moreish days in a lifetime (a 'silver romance'; Phoenix: ABP, 2025) https://www.goodreads.
3/ Flashbacks: a collection of hyperrealistic narratives (short stories, Seattle: Goldfish Press, 2025) - https://www.amazon.ca/dp/
4/ Interview with ABP: https://alienbuddhapress.
5/ Interview with USask. https://greenandwhite.usask.ca/articles/2025/writing-makes-my-life-meaningful.php
3 Poems/Images by Martin Indars
Author's note: Picking Clover, was first published in Littoral Magazine; "World in Order" appears on Martin Indars' personal website: martinindars.com; "Lucky" was first published in the Euphemism journal..
Bionote
Martin Indars lives in Norwich, Ct., and works at Nippy's Driving Range. His photopoetry has appeared in October Hill Magazine, the Euphemism journal, Littoral Magazine and Harpy Hybrid Review. All are available at martinindars.com.
3 Poems by Linda Sacco
I Am Budgie
The elders called me “good eating,”
so I flew camouflaged between the waterhole and the scrublands.
The newcomers reduced me to ornamental status,
so I tried to soar behind bars.
The opportunists made me every colour.
Yellows, blues, whites, greys, purples, olive and multitudes of original green.
European bird breeders and Australian exporters got rich quick,
so I was called a good pet.
The humane owners I considered my flock.
So I ate when they ate,
listened when they spoke,
mimicked the same language and sounds.
From the Australian outback to the world,
I became the most popular feathered friend.
So whether you call me budgerigar or parakeet,
I am budgie… hear me chirp!
Currency
Kindness is a currency –
can’t spend it all in one place.
Save a little for yourself –
for a rainy day.
Keep a little to yourself –
to make a sunny day.
Keep spare kindness in your pocket –
to make change in the world.
Kindness is a currency –
don’t fixate on the exchange rate.
(That won’t fix anything.)
Cost
Gypsy lifestyle,
bohemian spirit.
Freedom has a cost.
Bionote
Linda Sacco lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her poetry has been published in Ariel Chart, Bluepepper, Dead Snakes, Dual Coast Magazine, 50 Haikus, Haiku Journal, Haiku Pond, Inwood Indiana, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Pacific, Tanka Journal, Three Line Poetry and Track + Signal Magazine. Her first poetry collection is titled Waves. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
She is the author of the Which Is Your Perfect Pet? ebook series with titles on Dog Breeds, Designer Dogs, Cat Breeds and Birds. A forthcoming title in the series, Rabbits and Rodents is due for release in 2024..
The elders called me “good eating,”
so I flew camouflaged between the waterhole and the scrublands.
The newcomers reduced me to ornamental status,
so I tried to soar behind bars.
The opportunists made me every colour.
Yellows, blues, whites, greys, purples, olive and multitudes of original green.
European bird breeders and Australian exporters got rich quick,
so I was called a good pet.
The humane owners I considered my flock.
So I ate when they ate,
listened when they spoke,
mimicked the same language and sounds.
From the Australian outback to the world,
I became the most popular feathered friend.
So whether you call me budgerigar or parakeet,
I am budgie… hear me chirp!
Currency
Kindness is a currency –
can’t spend it all in one place.
Save a little for yourself –
for a rainy day.
Keep a little to yourself –
to make a sunny day.
Keep spare kindness in your pocket –
to make change in the world.
Kindness is a currency –
don’t fixate on the exchange rate.
(That won’t fix anything.)
Cost
Gypsy lifestyle,
bohemian spirit.
Freedom has a cost.
Bionote
Linda Sacco lives in Melbourne, Australia. Her poetry has been published in Ariel Chart, Bluepepper, Dead Snakes, Dual Coast Magazine, 50 Haikus, Haiku Journal, Haiku Pond, Inwood Indiana, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Pacific, Tanka Journal, Three Line Poetry and Track + Signal Magazine. Her first poetry collection is titled Waves. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
She is the author of the Which Is Your Perfect Pet? ebook series with titles on Dog Breeds, Designer Dogs, Cat Breeds and Birds. A forthcoming title in the series, Rabbits and Rodents is due for release in 2024..
3 Poems by Rustin Larson
Dreaming on Amtrak
The music pursues
toads over rotting logs
and vast forests of mushrooms
The train waits there
for seven hours
No one knows why
Finally a sailor
gets up from his seat
and tracks down the conductor
Something about a bridge
Something about
The music pursues
toads over rotting logs
and vast forests of mushrooms
The train waits there
for seven hours
No one knows why
Finally a sailor
gets up from his seat
and tracks down the conductor
Something about a bridge
Something about
a missing rail
Golden Hour
Suddenly it is one o'clock. Where
do we go? The sun follows us everywhere.
What if we could follow the sun?
At 6 pm, late September, it is
the golden hour: everything is
silhouetted in a haze of gold.
What if we could always follow
the sun, the golden hour, and be
bathed in gossamer dream light?
Oboe Solo
The snake wanders
through the garden
with an apple in his mouth.
Everything is beautiful.
The succulent leaves
have a pulse and blood
bright as the sun.
Bionote
Rustin Larson's writing appears in the anthologies Wild Gods (New Rivers Press, 2021) and Wapsipinicon Almanac: Selections from Thirty Years (University of Iowa Press, 2023). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, Puerto Del Sol, The Penn Review, North American Review, and Poetry East. His latest collection is Russian Lullaby for Brother Donkey (Alien Buddha Press, 2024)..
Golden Hour
Suddenly it is one o'clock. Where
do we go? The sun follows us everywhere.
What if we could follow the sun?
At 6 pm, late September, it is
the golden hour: everything is
silhouetted in a haze of gold.
What if we could always follow
the sun, the golden hour, and be
bathed in gossamer dream light?
Oboe Solo
The snake wanders
through the garden
with an apple in his mouth.
Everything is beautiful.
The succulent leaves
have a pulse and blood
bright as the sun.
Bionote
Rustin Larson's writing appears in the anthologies Wild Gods (New Rivers Press, 2021) and Wapsipinicon Almanac: Selections from Thirty Years (University of Iowa Press, 2023). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, Puerto Del Sol, The Penn Review, North American Review, and Poetry East. His latest collection is Russian Lullaby for Brother Donkey (Alien Buddha Press, 2024)..
3 Poems by Afshan Shafi
The Self Caught outside the Door
*This poem appeared on the Aleph Review website in Nov 4, 2020
After the work of the female surrealist painter Remedios Varo
Often no more than a grayish cast of rain
she is fluent in conjugations
And half measures
(a bright pelling, a water show)
Her ache to mark the truth,
Keeps her behind a veil
Each text is a tiny pile of stones-
She receives them with her hands by her sides
Eyes that are platinum,
Gatherers
Not swimmers or prone to sing
Around her, an aureole splinters meekly
It singes to warp
the chrome fuzz of her hair
When she speaks
Her words fleck the air;
Wry, engine red,
Water-balloons
Descending into flame
When the words shed their attire
They are poor snakes, coat-less, un-glossed
Her words, concern the earth,
They do not fall
They do not court the eroding fact
like confetti
They flatten to a common fringe
(The door lightens to filament
Her feet leave her, in a flush of rain
Tiny batmen thunder exculpations
Court her, insisting
You are not you
You are not your given body)
Figures looking at a sculpture of gauze spectacles (at the Ejaz Art Gallery)*
* This poem appeared in ‘Trigger’ published by Pandemonium Publications in 2019
For a split second,
Finely calibrated
She seemed to hover, not
At the edge of herself
(All that fine moonlit hair)
But on the stem of the
Glasses she had found,
An ant-like grinning creature,
Unlikely equilibrist,
Tonguing,
The cheap gauze stems
Of these unlikely monocles,
Representing a kind of condition,
Representing a split infinitive
of sellable thought.
She teetered soon enough,
As a boy, shrunken
To a wisp of his size,
Joined her
On that rustling bridge.
His selene- irises,
The beswept urgency of his brain
Toppling them
Into rye-colored
Plastic fields.
Now, housed
In the eye of a God
Obsessed with his wheat-sack hammock
They chortle over rotting seeds
And nip at the gilt embrasures
Of their world.
Her spectacles
Offer no glass
His cigarettes offer
No panic.
Once in a red moon
They lay down arms
Over
A rainless kiss.
*An art gallery in Lahore, Pakistan
Study of three figures in lockdown
Figure 1.
*This poem appeared on the Aleph Review website in Nov 4, 2020
After the work of the female surrealist painter Remedios Varo
Often no more than a grayish cast of rain
she is fluent in conjugations
And half measures
(a bright pelling, a water show)
Her ache to mark the truth,
Keeps her behind a veil
Each text is a tiny pile of stones-
She receives them with her hands by her sides
Eyes that are platinum,
Gatherers
Not swimmers or prone to sing
Around her, an aureole splinters meekly
It singes to warp
the chrome fuzz of her hair
When she speaks
Her words fleck the air;
Wry, engine red,
Water-balloons
Descending into flame
When the words shed their attire
They are poor snakes, coat-less, un-glossed
Her words, concern the earth,
They do not fall
They do not court the eroding fact
like confetti
They flatten to a common fringe
(The door lightens to filament
Her feet leave her, in a flush of rain
Tiny batmen thunder exculpations
Court her, insisting
You are not you
You are not your given body)
Figures looking at a sculpture of gauze spectacles (at the Ejaz Art Gallery)*
* This poem appeared in ‘Trigger’ published by Pandemonium Publications in 2019
For a split second,
Finely calibrated
She seemed to hover, not
At the edge of herself
(All that fine moonlit hair)
But on the stem of the
Glasses she had found,
An ant-like grinning creature,
Unlikely equilibrist,
Tonguing,
The cheap gauze stems
Of these unlikely monocles,
Representing a kind of condition,
Representing a split infinitive
of sellable thought.
She teetered soon enough,
As a boy, shrunken
To a wisp of his size,
Joined her
On that rustling bridge.
His selene- irises,
The beswept urgency of his brain
Toppling them
Into rye-colored
Plastic fields.
Now, housed
In the eye of a God
Obsessed with his wheat-sack hammock
They chortle over rotting seeds
And nip at the gilt embrasures
Of their world.
Her spectacles
Offer no glass
His cigarettes offer
No panic.
Once in a red moon
They lay down arms
Over
A rainless kiss.
*An art gallery in Lahore, Pakistan
Study of three figures in lockdown
Figure 1.
Not at all like the eldest Bronte’s
Trapped schoolmistress
Bent over her spindle of
Dust
Not at all like a housewife
Spilling over her dress
And onto the walls
As if her skin immanent
But acrylic,
As if her skin seam-choked
With curling linguine, truffle-butter
Wreaths of Parmesan and crumbling bulbs
of cheddar
Trapped schoolmistress
Bent over her spindle of
Dust
Not at all like a housewife
Spilling over her dress
And onto the walls
As if her skin immanent
But acrylic,
As if her skin seam-choked
With curling linguine, truffle-butter
Wreaths of Parmesan and crumbling bulbs
of cheddar
How ready to be parceled,
twined in waxed paper,
How ready to be inhaled off the
Varnish of hung,
Moulting canvases
Figure 2.
twined in waxed paper,
How ready to be inhaled off the
Varnish of hung,
Moulting canvases
Figure 2.
One cake isn't enough-
Past thickest midnight-
She licks crisping fondant, off
A peppermint tuft
Discards the fork,
Hangs head;
teeth first.
Figure 3.
Past thickest midnight-
She licks crisping fondant, off
A peppermint tuft
Discards the fork,
Hangs head;
teeth first.
Figure 3.
He wonders where his index finger
Has been spirited as
A nightmare-cherub lassoes
His neck to a dream-pillow
With finely cobbled strings of rattan
(Or his guitar spliced to separate its strings from
It’s limber torso)
He cannot touch his knees
They have been replaced with feathery tufts
Of factory air
The right hubcap of his skull,
Is now, to his touch,
A firm, three-headed, torque of sage,
His eye, is gloomy, vitric,
And the red of fruit.
He deep-swells to a dumbness
Of joints and music.
At his doorstep
His girl bears gifts for his
Well of throat,
His hands that, were once bolsters for hawks
Are now, twigs of salt;
Unstable elements.
Love elements.
Bionote
Afshan Shafi lives in Lahore and has studied English Literature and International Relations at The University of Buckingham and Webster Graduate School London. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY, Poetry Wales, Blackbox Manifold, Flag + Void, and 3am magazine. Her poems have also appeared in the anthologies, Smear (edited by Greta Bellamacina), The New River Press Yearbook, and When They Start To Love You As A Machine You Should Run (edited by Heathcote Ruthven). She has previously served as a poetry editor for The Missing Slate and is currently a poetry editor at the Aleph Review.
Has been spirited as
A nightmare-cherub lassoes
His neck to a dream-pillow
With finely cobbled strings of rattan
(Or his guitar spliced to separate its strings from
It’s limber torso)
He cannot touch his knees
They have been replaced with feathery tufts
Of factory air
The right hubcap of his skull,
Is now, to his touch,
A firm, three-headed, torque of sage,
His eye, is gloomy, vitric,
And the red of fruit.
He deep-swells to a dumbness
Of joints and music.
At his doorstep
His girl bears gifts for his
Well of throat,
His hands that, were once bolsters for hawks
Are now, twigs of salt;
Unstable elements.
Love elements.
Bionote
Afshan Shafi lives in Lahore and has studied English Literature and International Relations at The University of Buckingham and Webster Graduate School London. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in POETRY, Poetry Wales, Blackbox Manifold, Flag + Void, and 3am magazine. Her poems have also appeared in the anthologies, Smear (edited by Greta Bellamacina), The New River Press Yearbook, and When They Start To Love You As A Machine You Should Run (edited by Heathcote Ruthven). She has previously served as a poetry editor for The Missing Slate and is currently a poetry editor at the Aleph Review.
3 Poems by John Hopper
Psychic Barbiturates
He was a rolling dream, like he was strung out on psychic barbiturates.
Eyes rolled up into his skull, tongue tinder dry.
He was heavy in dream, heavy in another fucked up reality.
Neon Striped Bubblegum
He popped his neon striped bubblegum, same colour as his lips.
His head, pumped with the thump of the music in the pitch black room.
Hands slid up his thighs with intent.
He popped his gum ... SMACK!
It was the way.
He Wore a Wonder Cloak
He wore a wonder cloak around him of 'go fuck yourself'.
It was always with him, always glowing, as sharp and as vibrant as his neon strobed hair.
He was a creature with a thumping heart, a wandering human gender gene, fluid and up front.
Bionote
John Hopper is a UK based writer, artist, and magazine editor. He publishes two digital monthly magazines - Inspirational art magazine, and 100subtexts literary magazine, as well as regularly posting short slices of dark, out of sync fantasy fiction, across social media.
John Hopper is a UK based writer, artist, and magazine editor. He publishes two digital monthly magazines - Inspirational art magazine, and 100subtexts literary magazine, as well as regularly posting short slices of dark, out of sync fantasy fiction, across social media.
3 Poems by Peter Mladinic
Doctor Author
Her left leg asked her right leg, Do you have
a name, a social security number? Are you
perfumed? Do you wear a stethoscope
at midnight, reading a psychological thriller?
Do you listen to your heart? If so, you know
I’m near the part in the thriller that keeps
your hand turning the page.
Palisades
I find the black, jagged rocks along
the Jersey side of the Hudson beautiful,
how their shapes jut into the sky.
I can’t help feeling what I see, but I can help
how I feel. I’m not going to climb one.
With people, we can’t help who we find
beautiful but can help how we feel.
Portrait of the Dead
I wanted to bring you roses,
you in the picture on the shelf, thinking
to brighten eternity. But all I came up with
is moonlight on granite and iron,
and in a garden in the song “Ocean
of Tears.” Do you think eternity’s the deep
blue sea, you in the sky above this house?
Bionote
Peter Mladinic's most recent book of poems, House Sitting, is available from the Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.
Her left leg asked her right leg, Do you have
a name, a social security number? Are you
perfumed? Do you wear a stethoscope
at midnight, reading a psychological thriller?
Do you listen to your heart? If so, you know
I’m near the part in the thriller that keeps
your hand turning the page.
Palisades
I find the black, jagged rocks along
the Jersey side of the Hudson beautiful,
how their shapes jut into the sky.
I can’t help feeling what I see, but I can help
how I feel. I’m not going to climb one.
With people, we can’t help who we find
beautiful but can help how we feel.
Portrait of the Dead
I wanted to bring you roses,
you in the picture on the shelf, thinking
to brighten eternity. But all I came up with
is moonlight on granite and iron,
and in a garden in the song “Ocean
of Tears.” Do you think eternity’s the deep
blue sea, you in the sky above this house?
Bionote
Peter Mladinic's most recent book of poems, House Sitting, is available from the Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.
3 Poems by Joan McNerney
Celestial Songs
A Prussian blue sky
willow weeps golden threads
silver snow drifts on brown earth.
Shy autumnal bird.
Did you brush against the moon
to find that pale down?
In our frail world, even
meteors, the eyes of heaven
fall like dust from God’s hands.
What discus thrower
threw a tangerine moon
on top of Main Street?
Keepsake
A Prussian blue sky
willow weeps golden threads
silver snow drifts on brown earth.
Shy autumnal bird.
Did you brush against the moon
to find that pale down?
In our frail world, even
meteors, the eyes of heaven
fall like dust from God’s hands.
What discus thrower
threw a tangerine moon
on top of Main Street?
Keepsake
There are too many
clocks and not enough
time. I will take
and save this minute
for myself.
This minute
of mercury
this swift night
as sleepless stars
glide through
the sky in
aerial ballet.
Brightly burning star fish...
Do you wonder where you swim?
Wandering sky and ocean flying
floating now near shore line.
Many arms extended tugging
celestial weeds Irish moss.
Grasping glowing orange disc
climbing beds of coral coral.
Do you wonder where you swim
brightly burning star fish?
Bionote
Joan McNerney’s poetry is published worldwide in over thirty-five countries in numerous literary magazines. Four Best of the Net nominations have been awarded to her. The Muse in Miniature, Love Poems for Michael, and At Work are available on Amazon.com. A new title Light & Shadows has recently been released.
clocks and not enough
time. I will take
and save this minute
for myself.
This minute
of mercury
this swift night
as sleepless stars
glide through
the sky in
aerial ballet.
Brightly burning star fish...
Do you wonder where you swim?
Wandering sky and ocean flying
floating now near shore line.
Many arms extended tugging
celestial weeds Irish moss.
Grasping glowing orange disc
climbing beds of coral coral.
Do you wonder where you swim
brightly burning star fish?
Bionote
Joan McNerney’s poetry is published worldwide in over thirty-five countries in numerous literary magazines. Four Best of the Net nominations have been awarded to her. The Muse in Miniature, Love Poems for Michael, and At Work are available on Amazon.com. A new title Light & Shadows has recently been released.
3 Poems by Shengxian Xu
I Have News for You
I have news for you:
I’m back.
Caressing my sore feet,
Bringing dust and dirt from the West of our motherland,
And kind regards from people there:
What do you need?
Their roars are as strong as steel,
Their torches are brightly lit,
And their young warm hearts
Burn brighter than pomegranate flowers.
Their tireless efforts
Will make us see victory banners;
In this severe winter
They have prepared for the moist spring breezes.
Caw of the Crow
i. In Lieu of a Preface
告诉你一个消息：
我回来啦！
抚摸着陶醉的行脚，
我带来西方的尘土，
也带来她们亲切的慰问：
你需要着什么咧？
大后方有钢铁的吼声，
有明亮的火炬，
有燃着比榴花还明的，
年青的热烈的心，
她们在不疲倦的努力下
将使我们在这儿看见期待的旌旗？
在严冬的季节里，
已经预备下阳春的风雨。
2. 诗 1942年4月29日 乌鸦诗钞
（一）代序
没有银铃的响
没有夜莺悦耳的歌唱
这儿只向你咕噪些
诅咒和不祥
如同你所厌恶的乌鸦
（二）战争的宠儿
上帝是人类的儿子
潘彼得是爱神的儿子
谁是战争宠幸的儿子呢
告诉你
如果你是山城的贵宾
你尽可以在千元豪饮之后骄傲地自语
“我吗！
与强盗供着一样的神”
（三）受伤的城
受伤的战士是荣誉的
受伤的城却只有侮辱
弹痕上还溢着野犬的笑
对面却耸然建起楼台
明灯映着粉脸
钞票垫起脚跟
哟，你说够奇怪吗：
这时代茶楼上也是堂堂的“战争的声音”？
卖唱的真会摆招牌
（四）有光的街
据说有光的街
是都市的河床
这儿摇起了千万只步桨
高跟的
平底的
尖来像箭头般的
哟！如果是鱼
一师人可不领副食费啦
然而，谁来捕捉呢
战争的网
还漏下这一个城厢
3. 诗 1942年5月5日 剑铭 -- 赠与有剑的人
你知道一柄剑，
或是一把刀，
它的光芒，它的锋，
是一块顽铁，一块矿石。
然而你不自掩其闪烁，
而且借重于砂布，
以助长对人之夺目，
你说剑是应该有光的。
但你已将黄色之锈，
抹上你的脸，你的心，
甚至于你的呼吸里。
你开始了自我的毁灭！
你的光，你的锋，
遂如曙天之星星，
纷纷地流落了。
你说我要保有铁的本质。
“不能自淬于寒泉的
没有寒泉之凛冽
而日日自拭
乃为锈之播种”
故剑可以屠龙，
也可以屠狗，
也可以挂在壁上，
让你的光辉被锈吞食。
中夜或晨鸡初唱时，
你不能啸了，
因为你已成锈之母，
不能作铅刀之一割了！
哀怨吗？当初
何不披一袭
晦色的外衣。
然而这是伪装呢!
Shensang Xu (徐燊桑）, a pen name for Shengxian Xu （徐聲先）, was born in Sichuan, China, in 1918, into the rich and powerful Xu clan. Unfortunately, an opium addiction led Shengxian's father to squander the wealth handed down from his ancestors, and the family had fallen deeply into debt when he died. As the full scale of the second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Shengxian joined tens of thousands of youths in China's Resistance. He graduated from Huangpu Military Academy and became an officer in Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Army. Shengxian's intelligence and abilities brought quick promotions. He rose to battalion commander and was killed by an artillery shell on July 17, 1944 during the Battle of Hengyang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hengyang). Shengxian Xu was not only a patriotic military officer, but also a poet, writer, and war correspondent. The three poems translated here were published in the newspaper Southeast Daily in 1942. Shortly before Shengxian's death, his good friend Lu wrote to tell him that he was on the division's list for medals and prizes. Shengxian dashed off a reply in a madly cursive style: "I'm not fighting for medals. In this hail of bullets and bombardment, however, I'd like to 'measure' Japan's setting 'sun'!" In Chinese, "measure sun" is pronounced "heng-yang". Lu could hardly believe that under such conditions his friend could still make such a clever play on words. What a literary genius! Xu was intending to write a book about Hengyang Battle after the war ended.
The poems have been translated into English by his daughter, who was born after his death. To carry on her father's legacy, she is currently writing The Battle of Hengyang, the first book in English to tell the story of "the most savage battle ever fought in the smallest battlefield with the greatest casualties in the military history of the world."
I have news for you:
I’m back.
Caressing my sore feet,
Bringing dust and dirt from the West of our motherland,
And kind regards from people there:
What do you need?
Their roars are as strong as steel,
Their torches are brightly lit,
And their young warm hearts
Burn brighter than pomegranate flowers.
Their tireless efforts
Will make us see victory banners;
In this severe winter
They have prepared for the moist spring breezes.
Caw of the Crow
i. In Lieu of a Preface
Not the tinkling of a silver bell,
Nor the trilling of a nightingale.
But only some grumbled
Curses and forebodings,
Like the caw of a loathsome crow.
ii. The Spoiled Son of War
Nor the trilling of a nightingale.
But only some grumbled
Curses and forebodings,
Like the caw of a loathsome crow.
ii. The Spoiled Son of War
God is the son of Mankind,
Peter Pan is the son of Cupid.
Who is the spoiled son of war?
Here is the answer:
The honored guest of the mountain city,
Can, after a lavish banquet,
Say proudly to himself:
“I am the one!
Like a god worshipped by robbers.”
iii. A Wounded City
A wounded soldier has honor,
A wounded city has only insults.
Here, bullet holes become like the smiles of vicious dogs,
There, tea houses are suddenly rising up.
Brilliant lights shine on powdered faces,
Paper money piles up underfoot.
Ah! Won’t you say this is strange:
In times like this even the tea house stages
The dignified “Sound of War”?
The singsong girls ply their trade artfully.
vi. A Brightly-lit Street
They say a brightly-lit street
Is the riverbed of the city.
Tens of thousands of oars flash by,
High-heeled,
Flat-soled,
Or pointed like arrows.
Ah! If they were all fish
An army wouldn’t need allowances to pay for food.
But who would catch them?
The war
Has let this city slip through its net.
Inscription on a Sword – Presenting to the Person with a Sword
You know a sword
Or a broadsword
Its radiance and blade
A hard block of iron, a block of ore
You however not only preserve its luster
But also polish with emery cloth
To add to its brilliance
You said a sword must shine
But you already allow yellowish rust
To grow on your face and in your heart
And even in your breathing
You start to self-destruct
Your radiance and your blade
Are like stars at dawn
Disappearing one by one
You said I want to maintain the quality of iron
“The one who cannot temper oneself in an icy spring
Is without its bitter coldness
Wiping self away day in and day out
Sowing seeds of rust
So a sword can be used to slay a dragon
Or to butcher a dog
Or hung on a wall
Letting your brightness rust away
In the middle of the night before sunrise when the cock crows
You can no longer roar
For you are rusting inside
Unable to kill like a real sword
Grieving? at the very beginning
Why not cloak yourself
With a dull coat
That is but a disguise
Chinese (in original)
1. 诗 1942年3月6日 告诉你一个消息
Peter Pan is the son of Cupid.
Who is the spoiled son of war?
Here is the answer:
The honored guest of the mountain city,
Can, after a lavish banquet,
Say proudly to himself:
“I am the one!
Like a god worshipped by robbers.”
iii. A Wounded City
A wounded soldier has honor,
A wounded city has only insults.
Here, bullet holes become like the smiles of vicious dogs,
There, tea houses are suddenly rising up.
Brilliant lights shine on powdered faces,
Paper money piles up underfoot.
Ah! Won’t you say this is strange:
In times like this even the tea house stages
The dignified “Sound of War”?
The singsong girls ply their trade artfully.
vi. A Brightly-lit Street
They say a brightly-lit street
Is the riverbed of the city.
Tens of thousands of oars flash by,
High-heeled,
Flat-soled,
Or pointed like arrows.
Ah! If they were all fish
An army wouldn’t need allowances to pay for food.
But who would catch them?
The war
Has let this city slip through its net.
Inscription on a Sword – Presenting to the Person with a Sword
You know a sword
Or a broadsword
Its radiance and blade
A hard block of iron, a block of ore
You however not only preserve its luster
But also polish with emery cloth
To add to its brilliance
You said a sword must shine
But you already allow yellowish rust
To grow on your face and in your heart
And even in your breathing
You start to self-destruct
Your radiance and your blade
Are like stars at dawn
Disappearing one by one
You said I want to maintain the quality of iron
“The one who cannot temper oneself in an icy spring
Is without its bitter coldness
Wiping self away day in and day out
Sowing seeds of rust
So a sword can be used to slay a dragon
Or to butcher a dog
Or hung on a wall
Letting your brightness rust away
In the middle of the night before sunrise when the cock crows
You can no longer roar
For you are rusting inside
Unable to kill like a real sword
Grieving? at the very beginning
Why not cloak yourself
With a dull coat
That is but a disguise
translated by Shifen
Chinese (in original)
1. 诗 1942年3月6日 告诉你一个消息
告诉你一个消息：
我回来啦！
抚摸着陶醉的行脚，
我带来西方的尘土，
也带来她们亲切的慰问：
你需要着什么咧？
大后方有钢铁的吼声，
有明亮的火炬，
有燃着比榴花还明的，
年青的热烈的心，
她们在不疲倦的努力下
将使我们在这儿看见期待的旌旗？
在严冬的季节里，
已经预备下阳春的风雨。
2. 诗 1942年4月29日 乌鸦诗钞
（一）代序
没有银铃的响
没有夜莺悦耳的歌唱
这儿只向你咕噪些
诅咒和不祥
如同你所厌恶的乌鸦
（二）战争的宠儿
上帝是人类的儿子
潘彼得是爱神的儿子
谁是战争宠幸的儿子呢
告诉你
如果你是山城的贵宾
你尽可以在千元豪饮之后骄傲地自语
“我吗！
与强盗供着一样的神”
（三）受伤的城
受伤的战士是荣誉的
受伤的城却只有侮辱
弹痕上还溢着野犬的笑
对面却耸然建起楼台
明灯映着粉脸
钞票垫起脚跟
哟，你说够奇怪吗：
这时代茶楼上也是堂堂的“战争的声音”？
卖唱的真会摆招牌
（四）有光的街
据说有光的街
是都市的河床
这儿摇起了千万只步桨
高跟的
平底的
尖来像箭头般的
哟！如果是鱼
一师人可不领副食费啦
然而，谁来捕捉呢
战争的网
还漏下这一个城厢
3. 诗 1942年5月5日 剑铭 -- 赠与有剑的人
你知道一柄剑，
或是一把刀，
它的光芒，它的锋，
是一块顽铁，一块矿石。
然而你不自掩其闪烁，
而且借重于砂布，
以助长对人之夺目，
你说剑是应该有光的。
但你已将黄色之锈，
抹上你的脸，你的心，
甚至于你的呼吸里。
你开始了自我的毁灭！
你的光，你的锋，
遂如曙天之星星，
纷纷地流落了。
你说我要保有铁的本质。
“不能自淬于寒泉的
没有寒泉之凛冽
而日日自拭
乃为锈之播种”
故剑可以屠龙，
也可以屠狗，
也可以挂在壁上，
让你的光辉被锈吞食。
中夜或晨鸡初唱时，
你不能啸了，
因为你已成锈之母，
不能作铅刀之一割了！
哀怨吗？当初
何不披一袭
晦色的外衣。
然而这是伪装呢!
Bionote
Shensang Xu (徐燊桑）, a pen name for Shengxian Xu （徐聲先）, was born in Sichuan, China, in 1918, into the rich and powerful Xu clan. Unfortunately, an opium addiction led Shengxian's father to squander the wealth handed down from his ancestors, and the family had fallen deeply into debt when he died. As the full scale of the second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Shengxian joined tens of thousands of youths in China's Resistance. He graduated from Huangpu Military Academy and became an officer in Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Army. Shengxian's intelligence and abilities brought quick promotions. He rose to battalion commander and was killed by an artillery shell on July 17, 1944 during the Battle of Hengyang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hengyang). Shengxian Xu was not only a patriotic military officer, but also a poet, writer, and war correspondent. The three poems translated here were published in the newspaper Southeast Daily in 1942. Shortly before Shengxian's death, his good friend Lu wrote to tell him that he was on the division's list for medals and prizes. Shengxian dashed off a reply in a madly cursive style: "I'm not fighting for medals. In this hail of bullets and bombardment, however, I'd like to 'measure' Japan's setting 'sun'!" In Chinese, "measure sun" is pronounced "heng-yang". Lu could hardly believe that under such conditions his friend could still make such a clever play on words. What a literary genius! Xu was intending to write a book about Hengyang Battle after the war ended.
The poems have been translated into English by his daughter, who was born after his death. To carry on her father's legacy, she is currently writing The Battle of Hengyang, the first book in English to tell the story of "the most savage battle ever fought in the smallest battlefield with the greatest casualties in the military history of the world."
3 Poems by Sheila E. Murphy
Three Ghazals from 2023/2024
52/
Comp the room or clop the plot that swings not
skips to my Lou my darling evergreen.
Fault line with necessary rigor may
pinch a nerve, whose last nerve is what we mean?
Botanical gardens house rigor;
mortuary science, where love belongs.
Give them an inch they'll dance askance just like
mother used to bake, treats on wax paper.
Hold the silver hold the sauce. I'm tuckered
out, spare me the kismet, pummeled radish.
54/
Try not to stultify my levity.
You brinks-manhandle all my workmanship.
Look out across the unit of measure
called a football field, an easy language.
Stop doing what you're doing and text
my infancy with your progeny.
It's April somewhere; raise a glass to this
lass conceived over Labor Day weekend.
Shiny as a mood this Friday happens
to coincide with horoscopic splendor.
55/
Decrees spawn weeds in elementary
districts; plump blooms consuming vitamins.
Master fate in your spare time else walkups
become your destiny over gone bones.
Celestial playbills gloat with donations
revealing orphans desperate for fame.
Child wild neighborhoods quash meditation.
Beads between fingers and thumbs help us rise.
Capstone coursework spurs creativity.
A dial tone quietly evaporates.
Bionote
Sheila E. Murphy. Poems have appeared in Poetry, Hanging Loose, Fortnightly Review, and numerous others. Most recent books are Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023) October Sequence: Sections 1-51 (mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, 2023), and Sostenuto (Luna Bisonte Prods (2023). Murphy received the Gertrude Stein Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Murphy's book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland).
52/
Comp the room or clop the plot that swings not
skips to my Lou my darling evergreen.
Fault line with necessary rigor may
pinch a nerve, whose last nerve is what we mean?
Botanical gardens house rigor;
mortuary science, where love belongs.
Give them an inch they'll dance askance just like
mother used to bake, treats on wax paper.
Hold the silver hold the sauce. I'm tuckered
out, spare me the kismet, pummeled radish.
54/
Try not to stultify my levity.
You brinks-manhandle all my workmanship.
Look out across the unit of measure
called a football field, an easy language.
Stop doing what you're doing and text
my infancy with your progeny.
It's April somewhere; raise a glass to this
lass conceived over Labor Day weekend.
Shiny as a mood this Friday happens
to coincide with horoscopic splendor.
55/
Decrees spawn weeds in elementary
districts; plump blooms consuming vitamins.
Master fate in your spare time else walkups
become your destiny over gone bones.
Celestial playbills gloat with donations
revealing orphans desperate for fame.
Child wild neighborhoods quash meditation.
Beads between fingers and thumbs help us rise.
Capstone coursework spurs creativity.
A dial tone quietly evaporates.
Bionote
Sheila E. Murphy. Poems have appeared in Poetry, Hanging Loose, Fortnightly Review, and numerous others. Most recent books are Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023) October Sequence: Sections 1-51 (mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, 2023), and Sostenuto (Luna Bisonte Prods (2023). Murphy received the Gertrude Stein Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Murphy's book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland).
3 Poems by Jim Sennett
Bench
The stone bench beckoned.
So I sat.
Like so many before me.
Storm weathered just so.
Sun baked.
Able to handle the weight.
Oddly comfortable.
Allowing me to see the sky,
the bird beside me nibbling at something or other,
skipping thoughts.
Gravity pulls while yearning launches.
I want to linger.
Natural inclination to repose.
Sled
My old sled hung in Aunt Tiss’s garage like a tattered old towel.
On trips North, we’d visit it like a mummy in the Carnegie
Museum.
Untouched, dusty, deteriorating slowly into Pennsylvania
detritus.
Used only a few times, it was familiar and foreign to me at
the same time.
Not sure why it wasn’t sold or given away but kept.
Fingerprints barely visible, radiating memories.
Warmer than the snow it once plowed.
The stories still present but fading incrementally like the
red paint on the sled’s carcass.
Evaporating tears dripping.
Dare I snatch it from its eroding concrete perch,
plop it in the snow,
and slip away
in time?
Known
Would your image
crack the mirror?
Bring seven years
of misery?
Distort vision for a time
at least?
You cannot have it.
Possess it.
Own it.
Change it.
Turn it
into skim milk.
No photos
like
Crazy Horse.
Do you really exist?
In dreams,
of course.
Nipping at the heels like a pup way too attentive. Poetry has pursed this word student all his life. The muse has a funny way of showing up when it wants to make its presence known. He can do no other but to follow. Previously published in The Louisville Review, The Thinker Review and The Birmingham Poetry Review. Publication pending with The Main Street Rag.
The stone bench beckoned.
So I sat.
Like so many before me.
Storm weathered just so.
Sun baked.
Able to handle the weight.
Oddly comfortable.
Allowing me to see the sky,
the bird beside me nibbling at something or other,
skipping thoughts.
Gravity pulls while yearning launches.
I want to linger.
Natural inclination to repose.
Sled
My old sled hung in Aunt Tiss’s garage like a tattered old towel.
On trips North, we’d visit it like a mummy in the Carnegie
Museum.
Untouched, dusty, deteriorating slowly into Pennsylvania
detritus.
Used only a few times, it was familiar and foreign to me at
the same time.
Not sure why it wasn’t sold or given away but kept.
Fingerprints barely visible, radiating memories.
Warmer than the snow it once plowed.
The stories still present but fading incrementally like the
red paint on the sled’s carcass.
Evaporating tears dripping.
Dare I snatch it from its eroding concrete perch,
plop it in the snow,
and slip away
in time?
Known
Would your image
crack the mirror?
Bring seven years
of misery?
Distort vision for a time
at least?
You cannot have it.
Possess it.
Own it.
Change it.
Turn it
into skim milk.
No photos
like
Crazy Horse.
Do you really exist?
In dreams,
of course.
Bionote
Nipping at the heels like a pup way too attentive. Poetry has pursed this word student all his life. The muse has a funny way of showing up when it wants to make its presence known. He can do no other but to follow. Previously published in The Louisville Review, The Thinker Review and The Birmingham Poetry Review. Publication pending with The Main Street Rag.
3 Poems by Maryfrances Wagner
Cricket Nocturnal
He preens all afternoon,
cleans his leafy burrow,
then sits with it, hoping
she’ll enter after dusk.
His first notes sputter,
smoky scrapes, clipped,
until he settles into his trill,
marking and scraping,
each song longer before he
pauses. She hears the call,
but wavers, decides to wait
for a more seductive call,
but by ten, he’s keening, his legs
now rusty noisemakers.
He spurts two sharp trills
then is done. He will tune up
for the next night’s serenade
with a better tune
to change her mind.
Danielle Dances in a Mosh Pit
Tout Le Monde
A lone ant
tucked inside
a peony
cannot imagine
a larger
universe.
Bionote
Maryfrances Wagner’s newest books are Solving for X and The Immigrants New Camera. Her book Red Silk won the Thorpe Menn Book Award and was first runner up for the Eric Hoffer Award. She is a co-editor of I-70 Review, is president of The Writers Place, was Individual Artist in 2020 for the Missouri Arts Awards, and served as Missouri Poet Laureate from 2021-2023.
He preens all afternoon,
cleans his leafy burrow,
then sits with it, hoping
she’ll enter after dusk.
His first notes sputter,
smoky scrapes, clipped,
until he settles into his trill,
marking and scraping,
each song longer before he
pauses. She hears the call,
but wavers, decides to wait
for a more seductive call,
but by ten, he’s keening, his legs
now rusty noisemakers.
He spurts two sharp trills
then is done. He will tune up
for the next night’s serenade
with a better tune
to change her mind.
Danielle Dances in a Mosh Pit
What did you do
last weekend?
You probably
sharpened pencils
or bought
new red pens.
I’m only
kidding.
Me and Carly went
to a headbanger
and danced
in a mosh pit.
We were the only
girls in there.
The guys
wore chains
and had
tons of ink.
Carly dislocated
her shoulder,
and someone
with steel boots
kicked me
in the eye.
It was
so cool.
last weekend?
You probably
sharpened pencils
or bought
new red pens.
I’m only
kidding.
Me and Carly went
to a headbanger
and danced
in a mosh pit.
We were the only
girls in there.
The guys
wore chains
and had
tons of ink.
Carly dislocated
her shoulder,
and someone
with steel boots
kicked me
in the eye.
It was
so cool.
Tout Le Monde
A lone ant
tucked inside
a peony
cannot imagine
a larger
universe.
Bionote
Maryfrances Wagner’s newest books are Solving for X and The Immigrants New Camera. Her book Red Silk won the Thorpe Menn Book Award and was first runner up for the Eric Hoffer Award. She is a co-editor of I-70 Review, is president of The Writers Place, was Individual Artist in 2020 for the Missouri Arts Awards, and served as Missouri Poet Laureate from 2021-2023.
3 Poems by Mike Belongie
sy
syl-la-ble
y
l
a-ble
y
l
a-ble
Jaded Juncture
Eclipsing late August
sunsets,
pinky-orange horizons
motion
south.
Indifference mutes
the muse,
dulls
panache of pastel
wash.
Unattended portal
entangled,
slighted.
All Points
Eclipsing late August
sunsets,
pinky-orange horizons
motion
south.
Indifference mutes
the muse,
dulls
panache of pastel
wash.
Unattended portal
entangled,
slighted.
All Points
Circle of love encompasses-
be open and kind - forgiving
needle north, south west east.
Bionote
Michael Belongie, poet of six chapbooks and whose home is embedded within a limestone quarry on Beaver Dam Lake shore, remains active in poetry and writing, past president Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, emeritus Poets’ Calendar editor, Pushcart nominee of poet Antler. Poet Margaret Noodin ,“we are all, one by one, cousins.”
3 Poems by Joshua M. Hall
Imagination’s Prescience
that moment at dusk
when birds look like bats, before
the moment they are
Imago Infestation
Perhaps he needs
a dream-trap. Joshua
hears them rustling
in the night, between
rooms, inside walls.
But what flavor of
bait, and how long
the sprung blade?
In Post-colony
Each footstep fizzles
away what little magic
clings to barely-dancing
heels. Down where side
walks should be, yet
definitively are not.
Bionote
Joshua M. Hall earned his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, and his research focuses various historical and geographical lenses on philosophy's boundaries, particularly the intersection of aesthetics, psychology and social justice. This includes seventy-eight peer-reviewed journal articles (including in The Pluralist, Philosophy and Literature, and Oxford University’s Essays in Criticism), four of which have recently been republished in Spanish translation, and coediting (with Sarah Tyson) Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Finally, his related work in the arts includes a nomination (by the editors of Verdad literary journal) for inclusion in the 16th annual Best of the Net Anthology, one mini-chapbook collection (Bachata Adobe), and poems in numerous literary journals (including North Dakota Quarterly, Folio, Off the Coast, and Roanoke Review), along with thirty years’ experience in dance.
that moment at dusk
when birds look like bats, before
the moment they are
Imago Infestation
Perhaps he needs
a dream-trap. Joshua
hears them rustling
in the night, between
rooms, inside walls.
But what flavor of
bait, and how long
the sprung blade?
In Post-colony
Each footstep fizzles
away what little magic
clings to barely-dancing
heels. Down where side
walks should be, yet
definitively are not.
Bionote
Joshua M. Hall earned his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, and his research focuses various historical and geographical lenses on philosophy's boundaries, particularly the intersection of aesthetics, psychology and social justice. This includes seventy-eight peer-reviewed journal articles (including in The Pluralist, Philosophy and Literature, and Oxford University’s Essays in Criticism), four of which have recently been republished in Spanish translation, and coediting (with Sarah Tyson) Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Finally, his related work in the arts includes a nomination (by the editors of Verdad literary journal) for inclusion in the 16th annual Best of the Net Anthology, one mini-chapbook collection (Bachata Adobe), and poems in numerous literary journals (including North Dakota Quarterly, Folio, Off the Coast, and Roanoke Review), along with thirty years’ experience in dance.
3 Paintings by Michael Moreth
 |
| Glistening |
 |
| Engaging |
 |
| Fervent |
Bionote
Michael Moreth is a recovering Chicagoan living in the rural, micropolitan City of Sterling, the Paris of Northwest Illinois.
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