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A Morning Between Life and Death
Out my window, above the loblollies,
clouds mask the morning,
threatening snow and ice.
The glass needs a good cleaning,
coated by the nose-smudged breath
of Clover—our neighbor’s dog,
whose sleek spotted coat shines warm
against winter, her wagging tail
an exclamation of hunger and habit. -
Edinburgh Pub
Every great city and forgotten hamlet have one.
A shrine to conviviality, fashioned for friendships
both old and new. A sanctuary to ward off the chill
of wind and worry. A haven for the warmth of friendly
conversation and laughter. -
Synthetic Souls
By: Grant Patterson
I looked up the definition of the word “synthetic” on Google. There’s the noun version, a synthetic material. As an adjective though, it describes “a substance made by a chemical synthesis, especially to imitate a natural product.” Google defines the word “soul” as the “spiritual or immaterial part of a human or animal and is regarded as immortal.”
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My Life in Writing and Writing in My Life
By: Vaishnavi Pusapati
I do not remember when I began to write; I only remember the quiet before the words arrived—how they hovered, unformed, behind my eyes. Writing did not enter my life like a discovery, but like a return. It seeped in quietly, as though I had been waiting for it all along. Over time, I realized that the language I used to understand the world was also the one that would build me.
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Your Warm Saffron Milk
The dry, shriveled saffron threads
of your old pains and troubles
need the warm patience
of the milk of your compassion
to release their gold. -
To the Boys Who Fought the Battle of Britain
Young airmen billeted in Grandma’s house
looking out over fields and distant woods,
playing tennis in the evening shadows,
waiting for the final bugle call. -
The Nature of Mourning
It’s the silence of the quiet moments
that brings painful, shuddering awareness
that things are no longer the way they were
and never will be quite that way again. -
In Heber Springs
you photographed andromeda from the backyard as
the waves lapped against your legs and drenched
your jean cuffs through -
A Beautiful Boy
By: Adnan Adnan
What does any of this have to do with my father travelling to India at fourteen and Hemingway?
By the time his mother, Aklima Khatun, discovered Rabiul was gone, he had already crossed the border from Bangladesh into India. The year was 1973, and Bangladesh was still struggling to find herself after the war of independence in 1971. Like his country, there was
uncertainty and restlessness in Rabiul’s heart too. -
Spring
Spring returns,
Reclaims the land,
Stirs the fish and lets them run,
Pins the apples to the trees,
Liberates the frozen stream. -
Learning to Float
I was born with a brick tied to my ankle
No one knew about the brick
No one could see the brick, it was just there -
Acceptance
Sitting waiting
as the grim crepuscule
of today approaches.
With dozens of reasons
to suffer in the course
of a lifetime. -
Ancestors
All around me, as well as within—
watching, guiding, and whispering.From their blood and bones
I have risen from,
more powerful than any phoenix
rising from its ashes. -
Swedge
travel one hundred miles, calling
the 99th, half way
understand one thing:
I am no longer
misinformed -
Family Ties
By: Martha Patterson
As kids, my middle brother and I fought all the time. It wasn’t really his fault – I was just his pesky little sister. And it wasn’t exactly my fault, either. I suppose it was just the same sibling rivalry that happens in any family. I’ve heard about it enough from friends and relatives. We weren’t, probably, too different from lots of brothers and sisters – always getting on each other’s nerves. And maybe my anxiety about our fractious relationship was an early sign of a mental health issue I developed later in life – schizoaffective disorder, characterized by sporadic delusional thinking, neurotic behavior, and psychosis.
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Peacocks
I hate them for their beauty, not just
their possession of it, but how they flaunt it,
shimmering so much splendor into the world.
Flannery O’Connor, whose peacocks
I have seen at Andalusia Farms,
once said of a favorite that he
carried himself as if he not only
had a train behind him but a retinue to attend it. -
Fuck ’em up Worse
By: Kimberly Shaw
When our son was born, Adam and I were both thirty. Age does not equate to maturity. The night our son turned a month old, Adam was at my cousin’s house at a cookout. I was pacing from the front door to our bedroom window with our son tucked in my left arm and my right hand parting the white mini – blinds every time I imagined the sound of Adam’s bald ass tires crunching the sticks and sand and gravel in the driveway. When I called, he consistently
told me he was “on his way home.” He forgot to add the adverb eventually. I imagined him sitting on his orange Igloo ice chest drinking Keystone Light, smoking Marlboro Reds, and laughing at me. -
Sunflowers
The sunflowers that once stood
so proud, and so tall
now droop as if
their heads are too heavy
for their green, sinewy body. -
Happy Thanksgiving
On this quiet morning,
before the ovens warm
and the world leans into its rituals,
I sit with a cup cooling in my hands
and think of you—
the ones who send us poems
in the late night hours,
the ones who read them
on lunch breaks, on train rides,
in the stillness before bed. -
Finding a Lost Paradise
By: Lamont Neal
An excerpt from the memoir, A Tree in a Storm (unpublished)
Paradise Found
Gallia County kept surfacing in my ancestry research, over and over. I had never heard of Gallia County before. I assumed it must be near Logan, Ohio, where my mother’s side of the family had roots. When I finally took the time to dig deeper, I was surprised to learn that Gallia County had once been home to a significant early African American community. That was something I had never heard growing up.
