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Celeste

By Holly Wrightson

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Your gaze was heavenwards,

searching angels and sky-blue

We were bright with sin,

in the holy place where we climbed 

                                            up, up, up. 

The salt of high sun 

slicked our skin,

dressed in the remains 

of last night’s desire. 

We peered out and over—

there was light for miles 

over the ruins. From there we can see 

everything, except the love 

which we would learn 

to live without. 

Biography

Holly Wrightson studied English Literature and Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, where she specialised in modernism and imagism. She has poetry and creative non-fiction published in several magazines, newspapers, and journals. In her spare time, she takes photographs and works with refugees.

Kodak

By Selena Jay

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I bring you into focus 

Dial you through a variety of lenses 

Like you do 

before you press “capture” on your favorite Canon camera 

The one found looped around your neck 

Closer to your chest than you’ve held any woman 

And it doesn’t matter digital or film

You love whatever can arrest a moment 

I washed prints with you in Humanities at midnight, once 

Careful for the chemicals not to graze my skin

I remember the 6’4 outline of your figure 

Highlighted by the red overhead lights

Contoured by the shadows of the building 

The one you told me was built this way, like a cage

To stop the riots 

But look at you & I 

Young and full of life 

and riotous in the after hours of this building 

Meant to contain us 

The short and long strands of your dreadlocks 

Rocketed everywhere as you tossed your head back and laughed

When I taught you the slang from my neighborhood

The tiny corner of my universe 

You evaluated the compasses of our lives 

Where they intersected, paralleled and never met 

How that camera had led you to several continents and numerous countries 

With your name plastered throughout hallways 

& galleries at this very university 

You told me you were surprised I stayed so long

with you that night 

Like you aren’t used to being chosen 

Like your face isn’t the one I secretly wish to soak in everyday 

Like I don’t hold your words with immaculate grace 

I know I’ll never be as important to you

As your camera 

But it’s okay 

I won’t even fight for 2nd place 

I’m just happy to make it in the frame

Biography

Selena Jay is a part time poet and full time procrastinator. She attends a Big 10 University that she moderately hates. She originally hails from Baltimore, Maryland (the city not the suburbs) and aims to create work that places black women in the center stage.

the midnight dancer

By Jessie small

---

Groggy eyes. Focused on candlelight.

The enchantress dances,

His limbs contorted.

It dances with fiery resign,

Ignited by the need to move.

I could sit watching for hours,

Watching each kick of the flame

As it beats through charred wick.

But it’s late

And I’m tired.

I brushed my fingers over the flame

One time too many

And now my fingertips are red,

They ache.

One quick exhale;

The dancer flees,

Betrayed and enraged-

The only sign left of his routine:

Molten wax dripping,

A warped and blackened wick,

And smoke.

It drifts into the air 

Saunters and floats itself to me.

I succumb to the fatigue.

And now I fall asleep to the smell of smoke.

Biography

The Impossible Dream

By G. Lynn Brown

---

It’s one of those August twilights when,

as day surrenders to evening,

summer allows autumn

to remind us it’s on the way.

I’m sitting in the cool, alone, 

hidden among the wildflowers

that thrive along the river bank,

awaiting you,

and the alternate beats of my heart.

And as the sun settles into

a patchwork blanket

of purples, reds, and pinks,

a shiver dots my skin.

I’m growing colder, lonelier,

despite the winking fireflies

that have come to dance

beneath the arriving stars.

I take another glance

toward the river’s bend.

The foot bridge you never crossed

fades into the dusk,

and with it,

your love,

a love no longer mine.

Was it ever?

Kneeling at the water’s edge,

the visage of a fool appears

in the murky shallow.

Tears drip onto her sullen face

rippling the dark, flowing water

I wish could take me away,

far away,

to an impossible place

where promises are more

than well-dressed lies,

love isn’t a sport

of winners and losers,

and hearts never ache.

Jam, Pickles and Memories (Things Meant to be Preserved)

By G. Lynn Brown

---

There’s a mason jar

on the nightstand

beside her bed,

and it holds nothing more

than a creased wallet-sized photo

of a well-dressed man

But to a dreamer

who believes in fairy tales, 

to an optimist who sees

everything half full, 

and to a hopeless romantic who sees beauty in everything, 

it is a jar full of fantastic things

It preserves her hopes 

and her dreams, 

and it seals in the freshness

of a lifetime

It is where she keeps the magical moonbeams that scare off the darkness, and the stardust

of the fallen stars

she once wished upon

It echoes with the laughter of her youth,

and it falls silent with nothing 

but the din of the thousand tears that have streamed down her face

It flutters with the butterflies

only he could stir within her,

and it sparkles with the glint from the wink of his sapphire eyes

It’s chock-full of memories, 

those she hopes to never forget, 

and those she’d rather not remember

Yet, it is far from capacity,

with space enough

to hold the symphonies

and the silences

of a whole other lifetime

There’s a mason jar

on the nightstand

beside her bed,

and it holds nothing more

than a creased wallet-sized photo

of a well-dressed man,

but, to her,

it holds the world

Biography

G. Lynn Brown is a published poet and writer whose work can be found in various print and online journals, including Spillwords, Prosetrics, Fictionette, Written Tales, 101Words, and Paragraph Planet. She is a contributing author at Friday Flash Fiction and is an editor/judge of poetry and drabble for an established online publication. 

In The Works

By Bruce McRae

---

Waiting for the thunderbolt of inspiration.

Waiting for the devil’s touch. The welt of Cain.

The itching ear of angelic persuasion.

If I could strike two stones together.

If I could make a flood from this puddle of mud,

instead of stumbling in a desert, maddened with heat,

tormented by hunger and impudent demons,

their badgering ridicule, their otherworldly insolence.

Waiting for light’s translation, all of a darkness.

I’m sitting in my prophet’s chair, a rib-thin hermit

building alien gods from sensations and words.

Asking, why not a new sun and other mornings, 

rancorous muse? Why not

a split tongue that would speak to thousands?

Only the wind answers, gargling in its mockery.

Only the ball-gag of my conceptual distemper.

Biography

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems have been performed and
broadcast globally.

The Good Ship Violin

By Thomas M. McDade

---

The boy launches his violin

like a discus champ then

flings rocks trying

to sink it. He calls

a white, shiny stone

lucky, sure to do the scuttling

but the missile is intercepted

by the strings and bounces

like a virtuoso’s spiccato.

The current revs the

instrument’s trip.

Resting fireflies buzz

celestial navigation.

The solar heated metal

strings as hot as a grill join

with breezes to stroke

Le Mer variations.

A red bird perching on

the scroll mimics

a galleon’s figurehead.

The next day a man 

in a tuxedo whips

his son with what remains,

chanting that bow’s parts:

hair, tip, frog, and grip.

Mistakes

By Thomas M. McDade

---

Listening to Sunday night

vintage radio and

its modern commercials  

for sleep memory,

prostate help, etcetera,

I’m glad to be susceptible  

to hoofbeats and six-gun  

slugs ricocheting

in a Gunsmoke episode.

They’re healthy as any

Ginseng I expect.

But TV’s Jim Arness

intrudes on portly Bill

Conrad’s Matt Dillon until

I hear that distinctive voice

lamenting the loneliness  

of a Dodge City lawman.

Soon he’s at the saloon drinking

with Kitty, Chester, and Doc.

An old couple has vanished.

Strangers claimed their

ranch with a dubious deed.

Matt thinks he bungled

the investigation.

Kitty says, everybody ought to  

make a mistake once in a while;

keeps them from getting old.

Chester adds, or else

helps them along.

Coyotes howling at  

a new grave break the case.

Matt and Chester prevail  

in a shootout.

The Marshall philosophizes

in a manner and tone

that advance my years

and magnify my screw-ups

into a monumental sadness.

High-caliber, St. John’s Wort,

and Melatonin are concoctions

the Dodge City Doc would fail to 

link to snake oil.

Biography

Thomas M. McDade resides in Fredericksburg, VA. He is a graduate of Fairfield University. McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, Dam Neck Virginia Beach, VA, and aboard the USS Mullinnix (DD-944) and USS Miller (DE / FF-1091). His poetry has most recently appeared in Cajun Mutt.

Your Head is Hanging Low

By Kirsty Miles

---

your head is hanging low

I want to tell you

‘it’s okay to be weeping and sorry’

I want to scream at your closed eyelids

those walls

the cardigan you wore was your mother’s

and still, you’re surprised you forgot who you are

you were meant to be counting the whole time

sorting yourself out, you forgetful thing

your pattern of anger like gum stuck in a mouth

spit the hatred away from you

that’s my advice

you’ve got far far far away from your own body

I talk at your closed eyes

that belong to no one

like talking behind a closed door

‘I promise you’re dying

I promise you’re alive

brace yourself for the slow motion fall to your knees,

the sadness always announces itself

the turning, buzzing thing thing thing thing’

I’ll Cross My Legs

By Kirsty Miles

---

I’ll cross my legs and I’ll cry I’ll cry in my legs

And become soft and crying

With legs

Then I’ll cross my legs and let the tears fall in them, my legs, a bucket

Then

I’ll cross my legs and be a body

And dream in that body with my legs crossed

And stare at the stars in that dance of crossed legs

And float in star knitted clouds in that pose

And I’ll believe it, I’ll believe it when I see them, my crossed legs, mine

I’ll sit there, I’ll lean forwards and put my hand on my chin

Hair up, the world outside, blue, big, breathing

And let it tangle me up over and over and let it enfold me, tighter and tighter,

I’ll let it tie me like a knot and

I’ll cross my legs and travel on the trains forever

Biography

My name is Kirsty Miles and I have just graduated from The University of Oxford where I studied English Literature. During my time there, I wrote poetry and wrote and directed two plays which were performed at the Burton Taylor Studio. I am currently studying a master’s in script writing at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.