- When Printing Microchap, Set Print (%) Scale to 'Fit To Printable Area' -
March 2024
...Is it Spring, yet?
On the reading horizon...
Cover: Author's painting, 'The Meadow of Hope'
Each flower represents a neurological disease
I Dream in Color
I woke up in inky darkness. I had become blind, devoid of color. But my dreams are alive with color. I dream in vivid and vibrant hues of deep greens and blues crimson and violets yellows and oranges. The colors are alive. They drive my dreams into swirls of pinks and purples, curling around each image I see. I thrive in the colors. No black. No white. Everything my mind touches in my dreams is in color. The colors are wild- bright lights and neons. My mind cannot see blindness. It can only see colors.
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Beth Fournier 2024
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Beth Fournier is a native of Massachusetts and a former high school counselor. At the age of twenty-six she was suddenly stricken and diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a severe neurological condition. This left her paralyzed and blind. She now lives in a long-term care facility in Dorchester, Massachusetts. She enjoys audiobooks, painting, and singing. Music and the memory of sunflowers lift her spirits.
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Cover by Jerome Berglund
distant shore —
gather on beach squinting,
signal with mirrors
trampled grass
past the ghosts
of lions
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Jerome Berglund © 2024
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Jerome Berglund has published many haiku, haiga and haibun, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, and Modern Haiku. His first full-length collections Bathtub Poems and Funny Pages were just released by Setu and Meat For Tea press. Micro-chapbooks of his can be downloaded from the Origami Poems Project and a mixed media eBook showcasing his fine art photography is available now from Yavanika.
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Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’
Whatever I See Knows Joy “The fullness of Joy is to behold God in everything.” What part of the earth, sky, air does not contain the essence of creation? None. Whatever I see knows joy of being created. All I know makes me sing praises. When I hold back singing, I am denying my awe, my reason for waking up. Why wouldn’t I want to share my praise everywhere? No reason. None. This morning-song will echo fullness of Joy to behold in God in everything
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Martin Willitts Jr. © 2024
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Martin Willitts, Jr., a frequently published Origami Poetry Project poet, has over 20 full-length collections of poetry. He has four books released in 2023, “Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World” (Flowstone Press, 2023); “Ethereal Flowers” (Still Point Press, 2023); “Rain Followed Me Home” (Glass Lyre Press, 2023); “Leaving Nothing Behind” (Fernwood Press, 2023).
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Julian of Norwich was a 14th-century English mystic who wrote the first book in English by a woman, Revelations of Divine Love, about her visions of God's love.
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Cover photo: Kanawa County, WV center
Black Maple
I used to think this black tree were diseased, as if a fungus had taken hold in the creases of its bark— anomy, growing midst other trees.
So I thought.
Texture stands out, blackened as natural as noon sun. You can see it fifty yards away growing in the green wall of summer, what once appeared dead lives now, even more, through me.
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John Robinson © 2024
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John Robinson is a mainstream, American poet from the Kanawha Valley in Mason County, West Virginia. His 165 literary works have appeared in 115 journals throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Poland, Germany and China. He is also a published printmaker with 101 art images and photographs appearing in forty journals, electronic and print, in the United States, Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Recent Work; Pennsylvania English, Xavier Review, North Dakota Quarterly. Talking River Review, Revolution John and Language, and Semiotic Studies.
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Cover: Mandala photo taken by author
Stretching Into Awareness
Sometimes, at the end of the class, my teacher says, “Look what your body let you to do,” and I realize that my body lets me do all kinds of things—relax in lizard pose, take long walks, push a sled, do bicep curls, put sheets on my bed, pick up dozens of limbs. My body is old, my body is small, my body hurts. But it lets me roll out a mat and take it to a place of possibility, where my mind— an ill-behaved, unwelcome guest— is not allowed entry.
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Diane Elayne Dees © 2024
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Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks, Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books), The Last Time I Saw You (Finishing Line Press), and The Wild Parrots of Marigny (Querencia Press). Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world. Her author blog is Diane Elayne Dees: Poet and Writer-at-Large.
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Cover from web
Dad and Charlie.
They plan the place the hour. One o’clock.
Rib joint on Northern Lights Avenue.
Maybe Charlie pays. Maybe they get some
extra ribs and sauce to go.
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Ronda Piszk Broatch © 2024
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Ronda Piszk Broatch is the author of Chaos Theory for Beginners (Moonpath Press, 2023), Finalist for the Sally Albiso Prize, and Lake of Fallen Constellations, (Moonpath Press). She is the recipient of an Artist Trust Gap Grant. Ronda's journal publications include Greensboro Review, Blackbird, Sycamore Review, Missouri Review, Palette Poetry, Moon City Review, and NPR News / Kuow's All Things Considered. She is a graduate student working toward her MFA at Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop.
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February 2024
Cover from web.
Memory with Water
For now, let's talk about sinking
cities, said my mother
who carries a pair of Neptunes
in her eyes & paints about phantoms
in the 21st century. Gravity is when
the psychiatrist assessed you
& heard a heart murmur like rain.
In an instant, you were in the sea:
a merman sticking his head
above the surface, swathed in salt
water, standing by for austere arms,
like a remembrance possessed by echoes
of phantoms playing on a record player.
Almost always, there are greetings—
at sunrise, say hello to clouds, to sparrows,
to the maps of music you made in your mind.
& when the morning arrived as a Roman
god of waters & seas, you finally crawled on land.
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Jessie Raymundo © 2024 |
Jessie Raymundo is an educator and poet from the Philippines. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in TAB: The Journal of Poetry and Poetics, Failbetter, South Dakota Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Singapore Unbound's SUSPECT and elsewhere.
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Cover design by author
a knuckle-like sprout unfolds in near audible silence towards the sun.
eager and wind-strong, the burgeoning vine becomes the night’s acquaintance.
wide parasol leaves shelter flounce skirted blossoms as they flirt with bees.
tendril-set-fruit keeps the company of crickets, care-worn vines persist.
frost-stitched with morning dew, the old umbrella leaves fall in brickle heaps.
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Jennifer Ann Dennehy © 2024
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Jennifer Ann Dennehy lives in Colorado with her family, cats, great horned owls, and the occasional fox. She spends a bit of time re-creating lawns as prairies and re-claiming starlight for migrating birds. Jennifer has had poems published in The Cold Mountain Review and the Raven’s Perch Review.
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Cover design by JanK
new years day forgetting time snow always falling
January 3rd icicles hang inside the bedroom
winter storm watch checking cancellations for the morning
cranky morning I stop listening to your dreams
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Kelley Jean White © 2024
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Pediatrician
Kelley White has worked in inner city Philadelphia and rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA Her most recent collection, NO. HOPE STREET is published by Kelsay Books. She received a 2008 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant.
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Cover photo by author
FOG RELUCTANTLY
I enter the fog willingly like a duck lands on a pond safe from shore predators.
Deeper, deeper I dive into vapor and surface on the other side not even wet from my journey.
I exit the fog reluctantly like a reflection blurred by ripples.
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Diane Webster 2024
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Diane Webster's work has appeared in El Portal, New English Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Verdad and other literary magazines. She had micro-chaps published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022 and 2023 and was nominated for Best of the Net in 2022.
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January 2024
Cover art by Lauri Burke
NOTHING IS DIFFERENT
I have no need to pretend that nothing’s going on. Everything’s normal. I’m not trapped in this vortex of life and death. There’s not something in the air that has it in for me.
I stay in this house as much possible. But that’s not a problem. I like it here. And I don’t step outside without wearing a mask. But masks are the new fashion. And my tastes in clothes lean toward haute-couture. I keep six feet away from people. But when haven’t I? We’re all at our best at a distance. And I wash my hands a lot. It’s in my nature. I’ve washed my hands of so much over the years.
So, despite what you might think, I am not in quarantine. I’m inside myself. There’s a difference.
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John Grey © 2024
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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, California Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Isotrope Literary Journal, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.
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Cover illustration:
‘Autumn Evening’ by Dawn Senior-Trask
A Brief Ecclesiastes
Clouds cannot tell time, nor do they count the days.
Hours or years, minutes and eternities, the moon is a light, like God, that comes and goes, that smiles, then turns its face away.
Origami wind folds, unfolds, enfolds the trees, the leaves, the branches, wind, tearing out sky from its own invisible paper.
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B. J. Buckley © 2024
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B. J. Buckley is a Montana poet and writer who has taught in Arts-in-Schools & Communities programs throughout the West and Midwest for nearly five decades. Her chapbook, "In January, the Geese", won the 35th Anniversary Comstock Review Poetry Chapbook Prize. Visit: https://
wild4verses.wixsite.com
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Cover photo by author
How to Paddle Upstream
Consumed with your own thoughts, always going it alone because that’s the silence that comforts you, there’s no easy way to get back if you start paddling downstream.
So pull yourself along the bank. The lee side, of course. Why start now with the risks? Stroke left, then right, head-on into the current, meeting snags, obstructions, knowing you can always turn back to the beginning by drifting along the easy course you’ve followed all along.
Or face those challenges, solve the problems you encounter. Who knows? Maybe you’ll learn something about life along the way, learn to set your own course once you rejoin the flow.
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Ken Gierke © 2024
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Ken Gierke writes poetry primarily in free verse and haiku. He has been published at Vita Brevis, The Ekphrastic Review, Silver Birch Press, Amethyst Review, and Eunoia Review. His poetry is in three anthologies from Vita Brevis Press, as well as in 'easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, an anthology' edited by D Ellis Phelps. Visit his blog: RIVRVLOGR
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Cover photo by author
1. Clocks tick as sunflowers reach tall to blossom
Sun trails the fence line while a season makes changes
The oncology nurses are pros at what they do
2. Bushy tailed squirrels scamper fence posts to find a moon of ripe seeds
Laden with rain one sunflower falls on a sidewalk
Protocol demands clean non-latex gloves for every procedure
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3. White streak of geese crosses blue sky
More sunflowers engulfed in shadows open to gold
A needle has long since created an aperture in the body
4. Stalls of cut flowers sprawl the length of an urban market
Buskers sing last songs of summer
The nurse closes the port in the body
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Mary Ellen Talley © 2024
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Mary Ellen Talley's poems have been published in journals such as Banshee, Gyroscope, and Ekphrastic Review as well as in anthologies such as Raising Lilly Ledbetter and Sing the Salmon Home. Her poems have received three Pushcart nominations. A chapbook, “Postcards from the Lilac City” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020 and a forthcoming collection to be published by Kelsay Press. Please visit her website for further updates:
maryellentalley.com
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Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’
Julian of Norwich was a 14th-century English mystic who wrote the first book in English by a woman, Revelations of Divine Love, about her visions of God's love.
“Two duties belong to our souls. One is to reverently marvel. The other is humbly to endure, always taking pleasure in God. He wants us to remember that life is short and it won’t be long until we clearly see, within him, all that we desire.” - Julian of Norwich
• To marvel
When you consider a raindrop, see it as a small world bringing relief. How many may fall before they end? No one knows. I would have to run around the land counting. I could never count them all in time. Even if I caught the rain in hundreds of buckets, I could not separate them to count each one.
I cannot see this as impossible; rather, I must know searching for answers begins with the heart wondering.
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I must be amazed with wonderment, and guess with incurable curiosity. I am not meant to know every secret Instead, I am encouraged to try.
I watched a snail in the garden, but I was called away to do some other tasks. When I returned after supper, it seemed to be in the same place. Hardly a budge. Just a thin trail of slime, drying behind it.
But to the snail, it must seem to have been a long journey
When I consider how seldom I walk very far, I know I never moved any real distance. The shadows travel more than me to places I cannot see or imagine.
All my trivial concerns trail far behind me.
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Martin Willitts Jr. © 2024
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Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’
"We are in God and God whom we do not see is in us.”
We are all a part of God. This explains why we are so precious; therefore, we must see God in other people. This lack of understanding, that we all are a part of God, causes strife and war. We cannot comprehend we are made in God’s image. If we do not find this extraordinary truth, then we risk losing connection to the most essential part of our existence
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“In God's sight we do not fall: in our own we do not stand.”
I tripped and fell. We all do this eventually.
I did not watch where I was walking. We all do not pay attention when distracted.
I was in a hurry. I can’t remember why. We all forget what happened when we recover.
I do recall the fleeting pain, but not the urgency to ask for help.
We all stumble. We all rise up, brush off, move on.
Practicing and living my belief has falls, but many chances to mend.
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Martin WIllitts Jr. © 2024
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Martin Willitts, Jr., a frequently published Origami Poetry Project poet, has over 20 full-length collections of poetry. He has four books released in 2023, “Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World” (Flowstone Press, 2023); “Ethereal Flowers” (Still Point Press, 2023); “Rain Followed Me Home” (Glass Lyre Press, 2023); “Leaving Nothing Behind” (Fernwood Press, 2023). These latest microchaps are parts 3 and 4 of a series about Julian of Norwich, the 14th century English mystic writer.
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December 2023
...Entering that last month of the year
On the reading horizon...
Cover: Clichy Glassworks (Cristalleries de Clichy), France.
Paperweight, ca. 1845-60. The Art Institute of Chicago
Breathing Lessons
I’ve been to Ketchikan but never Denali, watched a butterfly herd on Santiam Pass, caught a star with my left hand one late summer night. Whenever my feet slip the slopes, I come back to the start. Breathe in, breathe out. Sometimes, the world is too damn beautiful.
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The Next Morning
Bright yellow soaked the hotcakes, dripped from forks, coated my tongue like canary blood. It could’ve been morning in another area code. I don’t remember.
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Keli Osborn © 2023
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Keli Osborn lives and writes in Eugene, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in multiple journals and anthologies. When she’s not playing with words, she might be hiking, reading with kindergarteners, or researching election practices.
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Cover photo by Ruby Saltbush
My Mum’s Singing
I love my mum’s singing. She has more enthusiasm Than talent, But to be fair, she has a whole lot of Enthusiasm.
I’m convinced she has a tiramisu soul, Rich with chocolate dipped wisdom, Cultivated from a complex life. Sweet as cream, zany with An unstoppable, caffeinated Brilliance. Unconcerned with the finer points Of hearing or sight She knows she can handle it.
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So we dance around the kitchen Making cupcakes, Throwing in one too many eggs -Or perhaps not enough, it’s not quite clear- And I belt it out, Because she’s the one who taught me Not to care so much About how silly joy can look We are far too wild for that.
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Holly Payne-Strange © 2023
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Holly Payne-Strange is a novelist, poet and podcast creator. Her writing has been lauded by USA Today, LA weekly and The New York Times. Additionally, she’s given talks on podcast creation at Fordham University and The Player’s Club. Her English language poetry has been published by various groups including Quail Bell Magazine, Call me (Brackets), and Red Door, while her work in Italian has been published by We Have Food At Home. She would like to thank her wife for all her support.
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Cover: Boardwalk photo taken by author
along local trail in Marbut Bend, AL
Virga
once driving home, I missed the rainbow--
but then 100 blackbirds landed in the cool puddle of broken concrete
as if they were shot out of that orange jewelweed sky.
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Apogee
Last night the full moon Streamed, raced away, cirrus over fallow fields waiting to be forgotten.
Come spring who lives in the old house? The one with the chimney I cannot see--
Smoke climbs like rose branches, thermals through bones bare of the world
settle on the edge of fields, forgotten cotton; advent calendar.
--crows dance, the hiss of each passing car--
Is there still room in the dark to howl?
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Sam Calhoun © 2023
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Note: "Apogee", "Insomnia", and "Meniere's" were technically published in May of this year by Stark Nights Lit, an online zine that has ceased publication.
Sam Calhoun is a writer and photographer living in Elkmont, AL. He is the author of one chapbook, “Follow This Creek” (Foothills Publishing). His poems have appeared in Pregnant Moon Review, Westward Quarterly, Offerings, Waterways, and other journals. Follow him on X or Instagram @weatherman_sam
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Cover art by Julia Carrasquero
Things That Come and Go
Wash of sea foam at low tide, wind kicking in on a drift of waves.
Message in a bottle bobbing about imaginary shores.
Sunny side of leafy trees swathed in wings of shade.
Bee buzzing flower blossoms, petals in the sidewalk cracks.
Canary’s song longing for flight toward the sun.
Stars sparkling in the night sky, earthshine of a crescent moon.
First breath, first kiss, first love, lasting only as long as they exist.
Coming to these things that come then go, moths to flames.
—Highland Park Poetry
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my documents (an excerpt)
…hold onto these memories, they are my documents, these words my guarantee of sanity— your cell, my cell where near night everything teeters but will not fall with you wild as you were, startled crow staggering the bridge rail drunken with sky…
–from “Four Cells,” Santa Clara Review
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Andrena Zawinski © 2023
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Andrena Zawinski's fourth full poetry collection, Born Under the Influence, is recently released and can be found on Amazon. Her poems have received accolades for free verse, form, lyricism, spirituality, and social concern. She founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon..
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Cover design by JanK
Selections:
Repurposed
My grandparent’s house is now a Kroger grocery store. Their bedroom is a coffee station. Their kitchen is produce.
They’ve been gone too long so it’s not so sad any more. When they cut the tress to build their house, my grand- ma said, “Who knows how long we’ll last?”
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Resurrection
There are lessons in bread. Science principles, magic in the way it all works out. The rising like spirits,
proofing and rising again, cold dough laid in metal tombs, placed into an oven for final rites of passage.
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John Dorroh © 2023
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John Dorroh may have taught high school science for several decades. Whether he did is still being discussed. Five of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. Hundreds more have appeared in journals such as Feral, Wisconsin Review, River Heron, North Dakota Quarterly, Loch Raven Review, and Selcouth Station. He had two chapbooks published in 2022 – Swim at Your Risk and Personal Ad Poetry. He is a Southerner living in the Midwest.
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Cover from ‘beutefullplacee’
"The more the soul sees of God, the more it desires Him."
I did not understand why I am wanting. A piece of me always feels missing, absent, always yearning for some more-ness. Reaching and never arriving at a destination, I see only distance but never how far I’ve been. I never think to look back. My heart only knowing wandering, aiming for some place I belong, longing, longing, longing for a restful place.
When I was not paying attention, I arrived. I was welcomed. My wanderlust over.
I knew roots attach to the soil, settle in.
I did, too.
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Martin WIllitts Jr © 2023
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This is his latest (2) microchaps, 'Pray Inwardly' and 'Every Soul Labors, are part of a series about Julian of Norwich, the 14th century English mystic.
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Martin Willitts Jr, a frequently published Origami Poetry Project poet, has over 20 full-length collections of poetry. He has four books released in 2023, “Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World” (Flowstone Press, 2023); “Ethereal Flowers” (Still Point Press, 2023); “Rain Followed Me Home” (Glass Lyre Press, 2023); “Leaving Nothing Behind” (Fernwood Press, 2023). These poems are a part of a series about Julian of Norwich, the mystic writer. (See 'Pray Inwardly'.)
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Cover design by author
The Spanish Garden
Poets, shuffling stillness into words,
unfold again the lacquered night, and, where
a seated woman with dark braided hair
plays chess, the chamber rings with chirping birds…
Echoing through some recess beyond time,
the unfolding night reveals each facet
cut with the precision of a sonnet.
A fountain plays in a courtyard where lime
trees and oranges grow in an arrangement
until, cutting the cards, the night is spent.
Waking from enchanted sleep with dead sand
in our pockets, metal poles ringing down
the street, unloaded on the cold dawn, and
a smell of baking bread over the town.
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Andrew Shillam © 2023
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This collection is 'a sequence of six modern sonnets using the symbolism of archetypes and including traditional and made up tarot images with the title of each poem being the name of a tarot card.'
Andrew Shillam recently has had poems published in online journals including "Burrow" Old Water Rat Publishing, Paris/Atlantic 2018 and Studio La Primitive. His artistic background is mainly in the visual arts. He studied at Newcastle University in Australia in the 1990's and has exhibited regularly for over twenty years. He lives in Northern NSW Australia with his wife who is also a visual artist.
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Cover photo from Pexels
Perimeter
Mundane slog, September chill Equals Philosophic craving (Eraser markings + whiteboard squawk)
Recluse charm, Counterculture Equals Irrational asylum dwellers (Heaving our souls behind us)
Slump, exile, Braindead ideas Equals The small things we enjoy.
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Roots
Spirit runs to body As we finally escape. Kiss the dirt. Born in a flowering world And returning to our spirits When the bell rings. Sentient beads of musing dew, With graphs drawn on, all mouths. Kindle the elements, The unspoken word primordial. Eternal ecstasy of flight loops up, And we are baked to motherly perfection.
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E. M. Fosters © 2023
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E. M. Foster is a writer, poet, and graduate student at the University of Cambridge. Her work has been featured in Aurora Journal, 50 Word Stories, Sledgehammer Lit, and more. Her chapbooks can also be found at Origami Poems (2021), Yavanika Press (2022), and Ghost City Press (2023). You can find her portfolio and blog at fosteryourwriting.com.
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Cover image: 'Pixabay'
Lightning quick
Under amber autumn moonlight, I spread a fresh mound of bark across the bush-stubbled yard.
Shreds of redwood tucked into place, I smooth out rough spots then look up to see Gemma
rising early in the Corona Borealis. She watches me pat down loose elder remains. Her luminous tiara tilted, the northern jewel nods. Sapphire-white approval
travels seventy-five light years to reach me. Her applause— crackling thunder.
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Icarus
Unlike you, foolishly feathered with wax
too close to the sun, I have learned
from failing to soar
beyond nebulas, bathe in Neptune’s cool waters
thread strands of distant light into my skin;
tattoos hold me - at bay, yellow-blue gases whistle.
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Karen Pierce Gonzalez © 2023
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Karen Pierce Gonzalez’s works include True North (Origami Poems Project 2022), Coyote in the Basket of My Ribs (Kelsay Books 2023), and Down River with Li Po (Black Cat Poetry Press 2024). Her writing and assemblage art have appeared in numerous publications. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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October 2023
Cover collage by JanK
equation
love is a two hulled boat
seek ing the
same
water
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the sea
a bud of nostalgia
(wistfully wished away
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hometruth
a cat is not where she appears
walking to and fro the horizon; ask
ing---
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Vishal Prabhu © 2023
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Vishal Prabhu - Educated as a chemical engineer, in Bombay, Cleveland, and for a while at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Vishal Prabhu has since tried to escape writing a bio. He currently lives several fathoms up in the Himalayas, trying to string together the song of his heart.
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Cover art by Andrew Shillam, Australian artist
Mr. Dapperman struts his stuff at 46 Henry Street
The women are waiting for Mr. Dapperman Panama hat white linen trousers blue and white collarless shirt softened with much washing that brings out the colour of his eyes seafarer’s eyes the exact shade of a June horizon and as full of promise
He’s ready for anything on this bright spring day hungry for breakfast croissants home-made jam coffee They always bring the wrong coffee but he’s too polite to complain he’s here for the jazz One day they’ll get it right and he will dance The women are waiting
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A story yet to be written
Hemingway’s up in the hills on the edge of the bush where life’s a little looser a nothing-looking sort of place dual carriageway runs straight through road trains hurtle past on the way to Kalamunda or points North Behind a drab brown wall blacked-out windows jazz erupts saxophonist and friends every Tuesday the food is good the grog is better still wine and cocktails not much beer Mr. Dapperman eats apple pie and at the bar a lady waits in red stilettos and tyrolean blouse Mr. Dapperman munches on while the band goes wild
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Daphne Milne © 2023
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Daphne Milne's poems, flash fiction and short stories are published in print and online in magazines and anthologies internationally. She has returned to the UK after five years in Australia. In Australia she discovered jazz and is delighted to find the jazz scene round Exeter and the South West is thriving. - A Katharine Susannah Pritchard fellow for 2021, she was nominated for the Forward Prize for 2022. Published by Indigo Dreams Press in 2019, her pamphlet The Blue Boob Club was selected as book of the month by Poetry Kit where Daphne was also invited to be a Contemporary Poet for 2020. Two new pamphlets are due to be published later this year.
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Cover from Instagram ‘beutefullplacee’
“Pray inwardly, even if you do not enjoy it.”
We can enter prayer like opening a door, never knowing what we will find. We can place our hands on a prayer, feeling the trembling of our words we speak only to ourself or speaking in a hushed whisper. When I place my hand on a door handle, I feel the presence of someone who entered. If I am lucky, I will enjoy that company. If I find the one that I seek, I know I will have a great conversation just by listening. Opening and closing prayers can be this easy. Seeking and finding can be this easy. Today, I opened a door like it was a prayer laying my finger on the right passage.
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“Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.”
Sunlight from my window finds me, accepting me. I welcome the light back. The breath of light tingles with expectation. Willingly I enter into the light chasing it as it moves across the room like someone talking with good news about the day, bringing psalms of joy.
I hold that music to never let it go, when the light leaves my room reluctantly. I hold onto that prayer fiercely. Letting go never enters my mind. Light can also be held that fiercely.
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Martin Willitts Jr © 2023
Quotations from Julian of Norwich
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Julian of Norwich was a 14th-century English mystic who wrote the first book in English by a woman, Revelations of Divine Love, about her visions of God's love.
Martin Willitts, Jr., a frequently published Origami Poetry Project poet, has over 20 full-length collections of poetry. He has four books released in 2023, “Not Only the Extraordinary are Exiting the Dream World” (Flowstone Press, 2023); “Ethereal Flowers” (Still Point Press, 2023); “Rain Followed Me Home” (Glass Lyre Press, 2023); “Leaving Nothing Behind” (Fernwood Press, 2023). The above poems posted are a part of a series about Julian of Norwich, the mystic writer.
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September 2023
Cover photo by author
SAVORING THE STORM
Suddenly the sky outside my room grows dark, swift cloud shadows fall ‘cross windows, deep thunder grumbles, rattling panes … sharp lightning flashes so near, I can almost touch it, I can savor it
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ABIDING
someplace behind those clouds of this too-long rainy season
the moon is slowly disappearing soon to shine not upon our world
then she shall grow again more full, night by night
her light growing brighter illuminating our dreams …
unless those clouds hide her away in this too-long rainy season
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Lorraine Caputo © 2023
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Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in over 400 journals on six continents; and 23 collections of poetry – including In The Jaguar Valley (dancing girl press, 2023) and Chaco Dreams (Origami Poems Project, 2022). She also authors travel narratives, articles and guidebooks. Her writing has been honored by the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada (2011) and has been thrice nominated for the Best of the Net. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth.
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Cover design by author
Selection:
My Journey
I see life as a journey. A journey where I sit inside a train called life. As I grow old, the train passes by a lot of stations. I stop by a few stations but I make sure I get back into the train called life to continue my journey.
As the train moves, I get to see a lot of scenery called life experiences through my window. Few sceneries are beautiful, few not so beautiful, few worth remembering, few worth forgetting.
I keep the imprint of the good scenery in mind, throwing away the ugly ones out of the window.
But I ensure that I sit inside the train called life and continue my journey. At times the train slows down, picks up pace, passes through a
dark tunnel, but I still sit inside the train hoping that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
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As I travel in the train called life, I get to meet a lot of people called passengers, few get down in different stations whereas a few travel along with me and the journey continues.
Those fellow passengers who travel with me till my destination, turn from passengers to friends and then to family, for we are friends and family not just by chance but also by our choice.
From childhood to middle age to growing older I prefer to sit inside the train, travelling and enjoying my journey called life. This is my life, my journey and I enjoy my ride.
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Kavitha Krishnamurthy © 2023
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Kavitha Krishnamurthy is a Project Management professional with a flair for writing. She lives in Chennai, India, and her work has appeared in Unlikely Mark IV magazine, Garfield Lake Review magazine, Dreich magazine, and The Journal of Undiscovered Poets. Please follow her on Facebook at Kavitha's Canvas or email her at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for updates on her work.
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