Poetry: Joslin, Blossom, LShok
Four very different pieces explore what the body remembers and what time cannot quite erase. Oonah V. Joslin’s five tankas move through mature love, humour, habit and the tenderness of ageing; Laurel Blossom’s Very Warm for March catches desire in the sudden warmth and recklessness of an early spring, while Red Rewind turns memory back through illness, sisterhood, art and bereavement, where love persists inside the machinery of grief. Linda LShok’s surreal Dark Snow closes the group in a more dreamlike register, transforming appetite, heat, domestic objects and the body into a strange, sensual landscape.
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Oonah V. Joslin's tankas offer our readers a poetic glimpses into love, nature, and life's fleeting moments. Each verse weaves emotions and memories, revealing the beauty in the mundane and the eternal dance of change. Dive into a world where words paint lasting impressions on the heart and mind. |
"Very Warm for March" beautifully intertwines the awakening of the natural world with the awakening of human desires and connections. Blossom's use of imagery and intimate details creates a piece that resonates with the joy of early spring and the timeless nature of love. |
The poem invites readers to reflect on the nature of sibling relationships, the process of mourning, and the search for meaning in the face of mortality. Through its exploration of these themes, "Red Rewind" speaks to the universal experience of grappling with the complexities of love, loss, and the human condition. |
Dark Snow by Linda Shok is a narrative that seems to revel in contrasts: the tangible with the abstract, the domestic with the natural, and the intimate with the expansive. The prose is rich with metaphor and imagery, suggesting a deep undercurrent of emotion and longing beneath the surface of everyday actions. |
Spring 2016 Galleries
Spring 2016 gathers the issue cover art, public-domain images and visual references into one archive gallery, with captions now displayed from the gallery database. |
 Spring Gallery 16 Juana de Ibarbourou gathers the visual material used around Stephen Zelnick's essay, including portraits, contextual images and captioned references. |
 Spring 2016 SB is a mixed splitbox image gallery for the archive rebuild, combining public-domain/archive images with AI-created visual companions, clearly labelled by caption. |
Writers: Bernbaum and Ferraro
This wide-ranging selection moves between the cosmic, the spiritual and the deeply human, exploring the fragile boundaries between life and death, freedom and confinement, love and loss. Howard Bernbaum’s How Long the Life takes an irreverent journey from a hospital deathbed to the origins of the universe, setting the immense scale of creation against the brief and often absurd circumstances of individual human lives.
Diana Ferraro’s essay on Spanish women writers opens another perspective, tracing a literary tradition in which spirituality, imagination and the supernatural become ways of reaching beyond social and personal confinement.
Together, these works consider what lies beyond the surface of ordinary existence: the vastness above us, the unseen life within us, and the persistent human desire to find freedom, love and illumination in the face of mortality.
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'How Long the Life' by Howard Bernbaum, a striking juxtaposition unfolds between the cosmic journey of a meteor and the human saga at a hospital. |
In this essay, there's an imaginative spirituality tradition that is vividly represented here by St. Teresa of Ávila, whose mystical poetry transforms death into the promise of a greater life; by Rosalía de Castro, whose Galician poems move between humour, desire, love, reputation and sorrow; and by Gloria Fuertes, whose deceptively simple, rebellious verse insists upon compassion and light in a world capable of extinguishing both. |
Essay: Martin Heavisides
In these three wide-ranging works, Martin Heavisides explores the unruly power of imagination through William Blake’s visionary art, Peter Barnes’s darkly comic theatre and the precarious world of Empty Bowl. Together they challenge received ideas about madness, morality, power and human nature, finding flashes of freedom and compassion amid violence, absurdity and disorder.
Heavisides presents a fresh perspective on the legendary figure William Blake, challenging long-held perceptions that have confined Blake's genius to the realm of literature alone. |
 This work is an exploration of a playwright who dared to venture where few others have, merging the realms of historical and fantastical with a contemporary edge that remains as relevant today as it ever was. |
 In this play, Heavisides masterfully crafts a narrative that is not just a story to be told, but a philosophical exploration to be experienced. "Empty Bowl" is a compelling invitation to explore the depths of our own existence and the intricate connections that bind us to the world and to each other. |
Poets: Walters, Bittner
Across desert roads, weathered rock and a canyon transformed by snow, these three poems explore love through landscape. Ann Walters finds intimacy, memory and renewal in journeys through the American Southwest, while Russell Bittner’s intricate wordplay traces the building—and breaking—of a shared dream.
Ann Walters evokes an open-road journey through the desert toward the ancient ruins of Chaco. Beneath the blue sky, stone walls, canyon starlight and whispering ghosts, a shared drive becomes an intimate passage through history, memory and new beginnings. |
 Russell Bittner uses driving rhythm, rhyme and the recurring imagery of rock, stream and timber to trace a relationship built upon shared dreams. As its imagined home begins to fracture, the poem’s language carries love and hope toward a final, painful collapse. |
 Against the snow-covered grandeur of the Grand Canyon, Ann Walters recalls the quiet intimacy of a third anniversary. Red rock, sugared juniper and drifting snow frame a celebration of love in which every shared moment is recognised as singular and unrepeatable. |
Story: Fitzpatrick, Patrick, Miller
Three compact stories explore memory, relationship and the fragile ways people make sense of their lives. Marie Fitzpatrick’s Eden moves between the natural world and human history, finding beauty in what is transient; Jesse Patrick draws memory and emotion through the symbolic presence of water; and Mary Miller looks closely at companionship, changing relationships and the expectations we carry for ourselves and one another. Together, the pieces find large emotional currents within brief, carefully observed moments.
"Eden" is a richly layered work that invites multiple readings, each uncovering new dimensions of interaction between the natural world and human history. It weaves a complex narrative that invites reflection on the beauty and transience of existence. |
 Patrick's ability to weave together memories, emotions, and the symbolic power of water results in a narrative that is both touching and resonant, leaving a lasting impression on the reader. |
 Miller's succinct storytelling invites readers to reflect on the meaning of companionship, the evolution of relationships over time, and the ways in which individuals navigate the expectations placed upon them by society and themselves. |
Pay it Forward: Magazines and Poetry Books for Sale
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Poetry: Torres, La Forge and Jackson
These poems move through change, memory and the fragile ways people shape themselves against the forces around them. In Zev Torres’s Carved from the Wind, movement through the natural world becomes light, elusive and almost musical, while Evolution turns to the domestic sphere, observing a mother whose anger, control and sudden social transformation are watched closely by her children. Jane Rosenberg La Forge’s At Pottery Barn considers death, cremation and remembrance with wit and unease, questioning what remains of us materially and symbolically after death. Beverly Jackson’s Feeding Frenzy closes on a warmer note, celebrating friendship, age and independence through food, gardening and the easy intimacy of two women who have learned to nourish themselves and one another. Together, the poems consider transformation in its many forms—from wind and family memory to mortality, survival and the pleasures of ordinary companionship.
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"Carved from the Wind" by Zev Torres unfolds with a delicate, ethereal quality, evoking images of movement, transformation, and nature's ephemeral beauty. Its verses flow like the very wind it describes, meandering through scenes of grace, loss, and ultimately, a return. |
"Evolution" portrays the ongoing struggle to balance personal needs with familial and societal expectations, a theme that resonates deeply in the intricate dance of family life. |
"At Pottery Barn" by Jane Rosenberg La Forge is a profound poem that weaves together themes of loss, memory, and the search for meaning in the rituals of death. La Forge explores the personal and cultural dimensions of mourning through the physical and metaphorical scattering of ashes, contrasting different family members# choices and reflecting on the implications of these acts |
Beverly Jackson crafts a narrative that is both grounding and uplifting, reminding readers of the value in the connections we forge and the simple acts of living that bind us. |
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Quarry by Lisa J Cihlar She forgives the prodigal fox. She lives her life fearless. Her friends are all rabbits hunkered in the weeds and under hanging rose canes drooping from the last storm. She is the fox, nosing among the phlox and tomatoes, plucking bittersweet strings. She reads the weather report on the sunflower leaves. It will continue dry now with pollen floating on morning fog. It makes her sneeze and her eyes drippy. She smells the jaws. She smells the meat on the rusted spring. She pees on the metal spike twisted into the loam. She drops a stick and snap. She steals the meal and head high delivers it home. Home is a fissure in the limestone. |
 Magilligan's Dead by Maureen Wilkinson |
Sparking a Sneeze by Gill Hoffs Sparking a Sneeze by Gill Hoffs I asked her about it in the schoolyard, the rough white bandage covering the accident of her marriage, tapes cordoning off the scene of the crime. Two fingers held together, for better or worse, for sickness, for poorer, for a few weeks more at least. Our children bouncing into the school, us hoping they wouldn't get married, wouldn't feel torn. Torn up inside, torn between decisions, torn between self and other. |
Voices Against Silence: Harris, Walters, Tallefer
Three works confront the pressures that silence people: guilt and the search for redemption, the double-edged longing for flight and freedom, and the struggle for safety and dignity in the face of hostility. Harris, Walters and Taillefer turn fear, vulnerability and human experience into voices that insist on being heard.
"Human Noise" by Bruce Harris is a compelling exploration of the human condition, delving into the depths of love, guilt, and redemption. It serves as a reminder of the complexity of human emotions and the continuous journey towards understanding, acceptance, and healing. |
 Ann Walters' poem intricately weaves together these narratives to present a multifaceted exploration of flight, capturing its beauty and brutality, its capacity for liberation, and its potential for sorrow. The repeated motif of flying serves as a powerful metaphor for the human condition, reflecting our deepest desires, fears, and the inevitable search for meaning beyond our tangible experiences. |
 Venom by Dennis Tallefer explores the complexity of human emotions and the struggle for personal safety and dignity in a world that can be unwelcoming and dangerous for those who are perceived as different; it also highlights the need for empathy and understanding towards individuals who are fighting their own battles, both internal and external. |
Art Walls 2013: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter
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 Summer |
 Autumn |
 Winter |
Stories: West, Bourgeois and Joslin
Every Stick by Bill West |
 Knotted Fables, Novella Excerpt, by John P. Bourgeois |
 The Whole Circus by Oonah Joslin |
Poetry: Sheehan, Jensen and Smith
These poems move through memory, love, grief and the lingering presence of the past. Tom Sheehan finds a mother’s labour and affection still held in the worn surface of an old dough board, while Kristine Jensen traces the damage of an angry thought and the longing to recover what has been lost. Iain C. Smith’s Mates reflects on friendship, sudden death and the preciousness of the time still granted to us, and Pipedream returns through storm, smoke and remembered domestic detail to childhood, family tensions and an earlier world. Together, the poems show how ordinary objects, gestures and moments can carry whole lives within them.
"Sign on a Wall" by Tom Sheehan is a nostalgic poem depicting a worn dough board, symbolizing a mother's labor of love in bread-making. It evokes memories of family, tradition, and the passage of time, blending sensory details with a deep sense of longing and reverence |
 Exploring the ephemeral space between day and night, 'Down The Crack With The Crickets' by Kristine Jensen delves into the fleeting nature of thoughts and emotions. An angry thought disappears with the wind, symbolizing lost moments and the struggle to reclaim them. |
 Explore the poignant poem Mates by Iain C. Smith, dedicated to Jake and Patrick. Reflecting on the sudden loss of a young life, it intertwines themes of grief, camaraderie, and the fleeting nature of youth, as experienced through the lens of a soccer match metaphor. |
 "Explore the evocative poem 'Pipedream' by Iain C. Smith. A vivid blend of memory and observation, it captures a moment of reflection amidst a storm, evoking nostalgia and introspection about family, past experiences, and the transformative journey of life. |
Short Stories: Robinson, Hamilton, Burke, Faison
These four works move through childhood survival, artistic obsession, literary imagination and family memory. Bill Frank Robinson’s Arche Ceebo follows a boy left largely to fend for himself, whose determination to find the price of a Saturday picture show reveals both poverty and resilience, ending with an unexpected act of kindness. William Reese Hamilton’s Artist at Work turns the reunion of former lovers into an unsettling encounter between desire, creativity and possession, as intimacy itself becomes part of the artist’s material. Martin Burke’s Epic wryly follows a solitary dreamer convinced that he can recreate Gilgamesh as its definitive version, blurring devotion, literary ambition and delusion. Galen R. Faison’s Gemini in Twilight remembers two formidable grandmothers whose neighbouring porches hold family history, humour, faith, loss and endurance.
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Archie's adventures and misadventures, from his initial quest for a dime to his interactions with various characters in his community, reveal a society where children are forced to mature quickly, facing realities that test their ingenuity and moral compass. |
"Explore Artist at Work" by William Reese Hamilton, a gripping tale of love, art, and transformation. Dive into a complex relationship set against a backdrop of urban decay, where art becomes a metaphor for connection and self-discovery. A narrative rich in emotion and psychological depth. |
"Epic" serves as a meditation on the nature of creativity, the solitude often required for profound thought and work, and the complex relationship between an artist and the society that surrounds them |
"Gemini in Twilight" by Galen R.Faison weaves a poignant narrative that navigates through the realms of family legacy, the resilience born out of struggle, and the indelible marks left by our ancestors |
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Book One: High Hedges |
 Book Two: Indigo |
 The Crafts |
Poetry and Micro Work: Price, West, Tepper, Joslin
These four pieces explore the ways memory, imagination and the natural world shape our sense of being alive. Darryl Price’s Fungi light/Fungi Language moves playfully between science, spirituality and love, finding connection in the hidden networks beneath and within us. Bill West’s Painting the Sky turns a lifelong habit of sky-gazing into a poignant meditation on wonder, memory and mortality. Susan Isla Tepper’s Next to Rock enters a darker psychological landscape, where cold, shadow and unsettling imagery blur the boundary between physical reality and inner fear. Oonah V Joslin’s Memoire returns to a remembered family home rich with food, laughter and companionship, before revealing how that cherished world became the source of courage and sacrifice in wartime. Together, the works consider what sustains us: connection, beauty, memory and the places we carry within us.
n "Fungi Light / Fungi Language," Darryl Price contemplates the interconnectedness of life, sitting in the dark of his kitchen, reflecting on how mycorrhizal fungi connect everything, much like music's universal language. Amidst thoughts of light, love, and cosmic connections, he finds solace in nature's quiet reassurance that everything is working as it should, despite life's uncertainties. |
 In "Painting the Sky," Bill West tells the poignant story of a man's lifelong connection with the sky. As he recalls childhood dreams, young love, and moments of fear, the sky remains his constant companion. Now, facing an uncertain fate, he finds solace in memories of cloud gazing and the endless expanse above. A moving reflection on life, time, and the enduring beauty of the sky. |
 In "Next to Rock," Susan Isla Tepper paints a haunting scene of darkness and isolation. Amidst blue shadows and chilling hands, the narrator's inner turmoil unfolds beside Petrov's laughter by the fire. Struggling with feelings of shame and despair, the narrator seeks comfort and perfection for Petrov while grappling with their own descent into darkness and cold. |
 In "Memoire," Oonah V Joslin paints a nostalgic picture of a woman reflecting on her cherished childhood memories in a sun-drenched corner of her grandparents' home. Surrounded by scents of herbs and the warmth of terracotta, she recalls family gatherings, wartime tales, and the simple joys of life. As a resistance fighter, these memories gave her strength, anchoring her forever in her beloved past. |
Art Walls 2014: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter
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 Autumn |
 Winter |
Poets: Verlaine, Duggan
Three poems of haunted places and wounded lives move from the battered Devon coast to a Venetian waterside and the darker streets of Dublin. Sea, rain, memory, and grief bind them together, revealing landscapes marked by absence, sudden sorrow, and the ghosts of what cannot be undone.
A dark and accusatory poem addressed to a grieving mother, tracing poverty, abandonment, secrecy, and the death of a child. Through recurring images of rain, mirrors, buried truth, and unanswered guilt, the poem exposes a tragedy that refuses to remain hidden. |
 Set beside the glittering waters of Venice, this poem captures a private moment of devastation unfolding within an ordinary afternoon. A young woman receives painful news, and the beauty around her is transformed by grief, memory, and the sudden breaking open of the heart. |
 A windswept journey along the Devon coast, where ruined defences, fishing villages, sea birds, and broken shorelines become vessels for memory. The poem evokes a landscape haunted by history, hardship, and the lingering presence of lives shaped by the sea. |
Essay and More: Zelnick, Fitzpatrick, Giordano
These three pieces explore creativity, interpretation and the unpredictable places from which stories emerge. In the opening reflection, an ordinary encounter between a cat and mouse becomes the starting point for poetry and an experiment with artificial intelligence, showing how a writer can remain the imaginative director while using new tools to examine movement, structure and technique. Stephen Zelnick’s Chekhov’s Dark Comedy revisits The Seagull as a work of irony and restraint rather than conventional melodrama, considering Chekhov’s refusal to judge his characters or force life into easy conclusions. Joe Giordano’s The Mandylion shifts into suspense, where art expertise, family loyalties and an alluring figure from the past draw Anthony Provati toward a potentially dangerous million-dollar proposition. Together, the pieces consider how observation becomes art, how interpretation changes what we see, and how curiosity can lead us into territory we never expected to enter.
Chekhov's Dark Comedy, Stephen Zelnick explores the enigmatic nature of The Seagull, a play Chekhov envisioned as comedy but layered with despair, cruelty, and unfulfilled lives. Zelnick examines Chekhov’s nuanced storytelling, which mocks genre conventions, embraces subtle irony, and resists tidy conclusions. The essay celebrates Chekhov's artful portrayal of flawed humanity amidst societal decline. |
 In Picture on Picture, Mari Fitzpatrick captures the lively interplay of nature and imagination through a vivid cat-and-mouse chase by a rain barrel. Blending humor and reflection, she contrasts the raw vitality of the pursuit with the serenity of a garden setting. The piece evolves into a poetic exploration of movement, tension, and the delicate balance of life in its fleeting moments. |
 In The Mandylion, Joe Giordano intertwines art, danger, and family dynamics through the lives of Anthony and Valentina Provati. This gripping excerpt sets the stage for a high-stakes narrative as Anthony, a Manhattan art dealer, is drawn back into a dangerous world by Sophia, an alluring figure from his past. With Valentina’s sharp wit and FBI expertise, the siblings navigate temptation, loyalty, and the shadowy underbelly of the art world. |
Short Stories: Helgadóttir and Braverman
Two sharply different stories explore the uneasy claims of the past. In Margrét Helgadóttir’s The Pact, Tuva returns to her family’s abandoned tivoli in a remote mountain clearing and discovers that an old bargain with the mysterious grey people is more than folklore. Alex Braverman’s Mozart and I moves through musical parody, dark comedy and Holocaust-shadowed family memory to examine fathers and sons, artistic inheritance, expectation, and the impossible demand that art should answer history.
Helgadóttir's writing style is lyrical and evocative, drawing the reader into the story with vivid imagery and a sense of foreboding. The blend of history, particularly the references to World War II and the resistance movement, with folklore creates a unique and engaging narrative. This piece is a testament to Helgadóttir's skill as a storyteller and her ability to create a world that is both fantastical and deeply rooted in human emotions and experiences. |
 Mozart and I by Alex Braverman is a narrative that captures the essence of what it means to be an artist and the often tumultuous journey of balancing personal vision with external pressures. The narrative oscillates between admiration and resentment, showcasing how genius can be both a gift and a curse. The reference to Chaim Potok's novel "My Name is Asher Lev" serves as a poignant parallel, highlighting the universal struggles of artists who must navigate the tensions between their creative expressions and the values of their communities or families. |
Poetry: Mickelson and Graham
Four poems explore the ways ordinary things hold what time threatens to take from us. Kathleen Cassen Mickelson finds inheritance, unease and tenderness in a first attempt at preserving summer, then turns to a snowy Minnesota morning where moonlight, crows, an old dog and a loved one make the everyday feel like prayer. James Graham writes from the harder country of bereavement: confronting the blunt material fact of ash before poetry can return, and later discovering that memory can quietly repopulate an empty house with a familiar voice, a glance and a consoling ghost.
In a humid August kitchen, blue jays squawk as cucumbers, onions, and garlic lie in preparation for pickling. The search for canning supplies consumes days, while memories of a mother's past canning intertwine with reflections on inherited traits and parenting. |
 At a grave, the narrator receives a box of ashes, the remains of a loved one. Struggling to find poetry in the moment, they recount the cremation process and the stark reality of loss. |
 In "When the Morning is a Prayer," Kathleen Cassen Mickelson captures the serene beauty of a winter morning in Minnesota. The poem unfolds like a series of cherished gifts: |
 "Ghost" by James Graham is a hauntingly beautiful exploration of memory and loss. In the quiet aftermath of a loved one's passing, the poet describes the emptiness of a house once filled with life and conversation. As time passes, memories of the departed begin to resurface vividly--their eyes, voice, and laughter lingering like a comforting ghost. Graham's poignant verses capture the enduring presence of those we have lost, transforming grief into a gentle daily companion that brings solace and quiet strength. This poem is a touching tribute to the enduring power of love and memory. |
BITTNER: Little Miss Muffet and Nolens Volens
Two mischievous poems turn childhood defiance into verbal play. Little Miss Muffet answers the world with wit and suspicion, while Nolens Volens stages bedtime as a grand philosophical rebellion destined to collapse beneath bears, pillows and sleep. Russell Bittner combines nursery-rhyme rhythms, wordplay and comic argument to create poems that are clever enough for adults and unruly enough for children.
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 Little Miss Muffet — Russell Bittner |
 Bedtime becomes a comic battle of wills between a reluctant child, his equally resistant imaginary companion and a mother who knows exactly how the argument will end. Full of linguistic jokes, nursery-rhyme echoes and mock-serious rebellion, the poem follows resistance all the way to the inevitable comforts of sleep. |
Poetry by Duggan, Sigriddaughter, Fianna and Burn
These poems move between grief and wonder, finding thresholds in burial grounds, fountains, birds, islands, insects and shells. Death and departure sit beside renewal, humour and moments of sudden illumination, while sea, wind, light and living creatures carry memory into the physical world. Together, the poems explore how what is lost can remain present — transformed into landscape, sensation, imagination and the small, unexpected magic of being alive.
Dolores Duggan's “Death / Leaving” moves through grave, body, memory and departure, holding grief in spare images where stone, hair, earth and absence become part of the same quiet reckoning. |
 Beate Sigriddaughter's “Fountain” imagines the self as a source of water and gathering life, a small lyric wish for movement, birdsong, openness and renewal. |
 Fianna's poems gather magic, westering light, insects, islands and threshold moments, making a delicate sequence of perception, transformation and bright interior weather. |
 Jane Burn's “Lazarus Jewel Box” rises from tide, silt and sea-worn mystery, turning recovered fragments into a charged meditation on loss, return and hidden treasure. |
Writers: Walters, Graham, West
The three stories gathered here move through childhood, memory, labour, and inheritance. In scenes of rainwater, porch-light storytelling, family grief, and working lives marked by poverty and endurance, the ordinary world becomes charged with consequence. These works look closely at what is passed down: stories, losses, small loyalties, social wounds, and the stubborn human will to keep going.
From Summer Porch Stories by Alkeith Walters follows Little Keith and the neighborhood children as they launch paper boats into the rainwater running along a suburban gutter. Their game of tiny battleships and imaginary kingdoms unfolds against a background of family grief, poverty, adult sorrow, and things children only half-understand. With quiet detail and a child’s watchful eye, the story captures a summer afternoon where play, fear, loss, and small betrayals drift together toward the dark m |
 No Share in the Common Treasury by James Graham is a powerful memoir-essay tracing the author’s family history through generations of hard labour, poverty, grief, and exploitation. Moving from County Antrim to Glasgow, Ayrshire, and the long working life of his father Danny, the piece blends intimate remembrance with political conviction. Through the lives of farm labourers, factory workers, mothers, widows, and underpaid servants, Graham argues for dignity, shared ownership, and a fair place fo |
 Capsize by Joseph West is a brief, sharp meditation on the hidden weight of mental distress. Using the image of a capsized boat as both joke and lifeline, the piece captures the strange mismatch between inner weather and the ordinary world outside, where the sun still shines and strangers still smile. Honest, self-aware, and quietly hopeful, it follows the speaker through a bad day toward the knowledge that the feeling will pass, and calmer shores can be reached. |
Haynes, McManus and Salzano
Three poems explore private lives shaped by longing, weariness and small acts of escape. A waitress finds companionship and comic consolation at the end of a difficult day; a quiet room becomes charged with desire as a man watches his sleeping lover; and a daughter remembers her father through the music, restlessness and thwarted freedom that filled their home.
Rosie and Max is a beautiful piece that portrays the power of everyday rituals and the strength to carry on after a challenging day. |
 'The Orange Room' by Conor McManus is a vivid and sensuous piece of writing, capturing the intimate and contemplative moments of the protagonist. |
 Salzano's 'Turn the Page' is a deeply moving piece that uses the backdrop of a classic rock song to explore themes of nostalgia, longing, and the emotional landscapes of life ... |
From the Archive
A lyrical poem in which a dancer’s movement becomes rain, birdsong, sky and spring, capturing grace, music and the fluid beauty of a body transformed by motion.
A reflective poem contrasting traditional basket weaving with the clinical language of modern therapy, finding healing, memory and human value in the simple act of making something by hand.
Set near Eboli in 1939, this story opens among nuns preparing the convent garden for spring, before history, conflict and human courage begin to disturb the quiet order of their world.
An ageing former baseball champion reflects on memory, mortality and change as rain gathers over the rural landscape, in a story shaped by weather, companionship and the long reach of the past.
Nonnie Augustine considers Anne Whitehouse’s The Refrain, exploring the collection’s emotional resonance, lyrical control and compassionate attention to memory, relationship and lived experience.
A weary case worker confronts duty, mortality and the fragile connections between people in a quietly affecting story about compassion, responsibility and the moments that continue to trouble the conscience.
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European Union and Italian flags hang above a narrow Venetian canal, framed by sunlit façades, shuttered windows and reflections in the water. The scene captures a quiet residential corner of Venice with a strong sense of place and civic identity.
Photograph by Marie Fitzpatrick
Oak and Maple
I still see it. The deterioration of this old house. She has masked it with navy paint and new shutters, but it is drowning. Sinking into itself. There are snakes and raccoons in the walls, clawing at night like twigs over siding. Exterminators have been called. Redialed.
There are days I wonder if the orange rust on the gate is real, or an apple pie slice of my childhood. I cling to this. Fruit plucked from branches, skewered with brazened swords made from basement pipes. My wife removed it years ago, when our son was old enough to start running his fingers across the table top in search of sugar.
Green Sheep
Burl: a lump or slub in wool or cloth -The Oxford Dictionary
Bonnie Peeples dragged two slow steps into her living room and stopped stone still. Something was very wrong. She listened. No sounds. She leaned on her cane with both hands and darted her eyes without turning her head. No movement. The furniture seemed the same, the reading lamps, the paintings on the walls, the dull and mindless ticking of the clock. No, it was something else. Something was missing, something so obvious that its loss struck her like a blow and she crumpled to the floor with a little bleating cry. When she had regained enough strength, she sat up and checked again: yes, the floor was bare, uncarpeted, stripped and naked. Pulling on chair legs and the side of the piano, she crawled to the table and grasped at the phone. She couldn’t quite reach so she raised the crook of her cane and pulled the receiver close.
'Missing Persons Bureau,' she said and the operator put her through, one of the benefits of age to have your numbers dialled for you.
'Your name?'
'Bonnie Peeples. 70 Lakeview Street.'
'Name of the person missing, please. Last name first.'
'Last name, Ram,' said Bonnie.
'First name?'
'Sam.'
'Sam Ram?'
'Yes, Sam the Ram.'
'Gender?'
'Male, of course.'
'Age? And your relationship to said person?'
'He’s been a member of the family since the crossing in 1849.'
'The cross, ma'am?'
'Yes, when the Peeples family came across from Ireland.'
'A cross? The people of Ireland?'
'Sam came with the family.'
'Ma’am, what are you reporting here?'
The Equilibrists Over River: Symbols of Resilience, Hope, and Unity. They were created by Enes Sivac in 1993 to hang over the main river, created in a time of war and grief and carved from energy found in the darkest days.
Mari Fitzpatrick, Sarajevo 2026
The Ghosts of Lily Pond
by Tom Sheehan
Ah, Saugus, the town I took to Korea many years ago, savored, brought back! Images strike here, deadly accurate in their mark. Metaphors, booted and buckled and loaded for bear, ride horseback through my town, holding forever in place. At times they ride roughshod or, taking a breath, saunter a bit, smelling new-cut hay over hill, or marsh grass caught up in light appreciation of salt about the air, all Atlantic talking. Realization comes too: Times there were when our river was like an old man trying to get into bed, slow climb at banking, belt or pajamas astray, slight failures; some springs, it would be caught up in flume’s rush. Our pond, long-gone Lily Pond, comes up odd mornings of memory like a hobo rising from his varied nights; a serious master of colors, Persian red, coin gold, yellow of a wheat or a blonde, autumn in the traces, ignition’s flare. Or there’ll be April-May at explosion about that wide saucer of water, Turnpike to dam, cliff-face to Prohibition cabins now taller with cellars plunked beneath them, post WWII heaven for returning veterans, with their new brides, foreign brides, casting hundreds of skaters and swimmers and boaters and fishermen on these shores, on that horizon before any of us realized the change.
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The snow had come early that winter. It lay in wind-polished drifts across the open Dakotas a white hush waiting to be broken. In the half-light of morning breath formed clouds around the mouths of Lakota children and the elders stirred coals back to life beneath their thin canvas shelters. Hunger clung to everything. The treaties had been broken again and the agency rations were spoiled or delayed again.
"Flight 103 to Lockerbie: Happy Anniversary" by Russell Bittner poignantly contrasts the serene domesticity of a winter storm with the devastating tragedy of the Lockerbie bombing. The poem reflects on the comfort of home and the unspeakable loss suffered by others, evoking the grief of those who wait in vain for loved ones who will never return, underscoring the stark divide between personal peace and collective sorrow.
Archie is sick; ever since he got knocked out nothing seems right no more. Everything is strange he sees things moving away from him and then they come back real close. It’s mostly the walls in the room but now it’s the trees and the houses, hedges, sky, and everything else. He just can’t get things to stop moving away and then back when he looks at them. And he wants to throw up from time to time and his tongue is sore and swollen.
He must of bit his tongue when he went down cause it’s been bleeding and it hurts too much to eat. He’s walking to school but he don’t want to go: he might throw up in the classroom. He’s known as a tough guy now but he don’t feel like no tough guy.
And Pike-eye Monahan? Everybody’s mad at him because he lost on a foul to a little kid. Everybody hates a dirty fighter especially if he’s supposed to win. They say his pa’s so mad he shipped the disgraced bad guy out of town—maybe all the way back to Ireland. Even Pike-eye’s friends are getting shunned, ain’t nobody wants to talk to them no more. Somebody said Archie was always gonna be known as the guy who run Pike-eye outta town.
In Listening to Maria Callas, James Graham contrasts the harsh noise of daily life with the transcendent beauty of Casta Diva. Her voice silences the world’s clamor, sowing peace in a moment where music eclipses war, machines, and time itself.
In Dull Day at the Beach, Julie Hogg drifts between Jerez and Cadiz, where dragonflies dance, sparrows sip the Atlantic, and a single wave arches like an eyebrow. A languid, sensual meditation on nuance, stillness, and the quiet poetry of the Costa de la Luz
In People in Rooms, Gemma Meek captures a moment of quiet survival--tempting fate, watching the bridge at days end, and finding small refuge in Bukowski. A raw, unvarnished glimpse into solitude, longing, and the fragile act of getting through another day.
In "Viewing Vermeer's 'Young Woman with a Water Pitcher,'" Neil Dyer contemplates the quiet power of the painting's subject. The poem highlights the woman’s connection to light, as she becomes a vessel channeling sunlight into the room, bringing everything to life. The poet gradually uncovers the subtle radiance of the scene, where light transforms the ordinary into something sacred and vibrant.
In False Detective, Patricia Walsh captures a life under constant watch--letters censored, calls screened, movements monitored. Through sharp, restless lines, the poem explores paranoia, control, and the uneasy dance between suspicion and self-preservation
The Album by Nick Bowman is a moving elegy in verse, unfolding the quiet mystery of a woman's past through keepsakes and photographs. As memories resurface from a bottom drawer, a haunting revelation at Belsen deepens the grief--and wonder--of those she left behind.
...The Storm
As the story unfolds, Flora and Esteban reflect on the thin lines between fiction and reality, recognizing their power to influence the course of both. In this world of energy and storytelling, ancient tales and modern realities intertwine, revealing the profound impact of imagination and memory on the flow of time.
Hobs and Fiddle
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