 A Hard Reign, by dan smith (USA) 2025 crosshatching in tears seasons of drought and arid earthiness, devouring friend of a maturing land, rain burned to dust, dust soaked with thirst, thirst blanched with unendurable earth. there is a six-mile spit of land just out of Africa, like a boney finger stretched between Morocco and the sea, six miles too often burdened with ten-thousand, faces hungry, angry, etched with pain. these are migrants who would cross the narrow isthmus, find a place to sleep, mountains, forests, springs, harbours, fields and food. yet within the frame is only lust for metal, a patchwork sky crosshatched with gold. let us look beyond the frame at barbed wire fence. and beyond that, heads bobbing in the sea. farther out beyond are we, thieves who cry for power, seed the sky with radioactive dirt. look again: survivors press against the frame, would breach it, smash its false conceptual lath. so let this picture teach us what we may not like to see, rain ugly-dry, a common future, fate's uncertainty. let us learn to welcome other souls, allow their dreams, their rivers, grasses, hopes, life-giving trees. Victoria Korth Victoria’s Pushcart nominated poems have appeared in Nine Mile Magazine, Stone Canoe, Ocean State Review, Tar River Poetry, Spoon River Poetry Review, Leon Literary Review, and widely elsewhere. Among other prizes, she is the first-place recipient of the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize and the 2026 Sean Hodge Poetry Prize in Medicine, and the third-place recipient of the 2024 Troubadour International Poetry Prize. The author of two chapbooks, Cord Color, Finishing Line Press (2015), and Tacking Stitch (2022). She edits the humanities section of Families, Systems and Health as well as Le Mot Juste Anthology. ** Accord Muddling chaos, Individuals swarming, hoping for accord. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had short stories, micro-flash fiction, and haiku poetry published. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and adorable Shih-Tzus Breanna and Maximus. ** Succession At first, a leader, proclaimed as a king But his untimely death left a vacuum Succession became a critical thing A scramble by rivals, one may assume And it left the land exposed and waiting Hoping a successful challenge would loom A new regal line needed creating The victor then seized and secured the throne With offspring most were anticipating Succession by family link alone The line lasted over generations With just one dark challenger, as is known As in all families, tense relations Such is the case in monastic nations Howard Osborne Howard is a UK citizen, retired. Published author of non-fiction reference book, scientific papers and poetry. Interests mainly creative writing (poetry, novel, short stories, songs and scripts), music and travel. ** Canvassing the Search Significance in sacred space, coincidence in wider place, when esoteric makes surprise, wild hazard yields with whimsy’s prize. But boundaries ignored, for way’s walls tumble as the oeuvre plays; perform as teach, read, write on site - let unresolved be bright as light. So is it rain or reign that’s hard - poetic language with regard - when downpours rule from heights above, precipitation reigns with love? Explore what might be set in charge as larger visions disturb, barge in, question quick conclusions reached, uneasy solutions daily breached. Stephen Kingsnorth Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church due to Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces curated and published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic Review. He has, like so many, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. His blog is at https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com. ** Hard Reign My cubic kingdom for a cubic horse! And rein him in—I know it can’t be easy, a cubic head the right side and the left-- the profile on the one, the full-face on the other. It can’t be easy in this cubic rain that pours in fringes off the horse’s torso and off the blocks you put the bridles on, and off the sun—a darkly painted square. It can’t be easy reining him in rain, but just imagine ruling this whole kingdom of scraped and squared green and brown folk who want protection from a horseless monarch! Iryna Hall Iryna Hall immigrated from Ukraine in 1997. She is married, has three beautiful children, lives in Utah, and writes while managing multiple sclerosis. ** Hard Reigns Hard rain dripping lies like old blood from old kings, their old plaids hanging ragged as the lies of their old hard reigns, ready now for the dustbin of history. There is new blood now new reigns new suits old lies as the rain falls hard. Lynn White Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She has been nominated for Pushcarts, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Consequence Magazine, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com. ** … castle in the air … The sun is a melting chocolate square melting in its own heat strings in streams like rain pour down adding to the deluge scene it sits where it sets later between the castle battlements in autumn livery lifts aloft strings in streams like rain pour down from where the monarch reigns supreme in the castle made in squares of browns and reds and mottled greens and defend it they can— this castle in the air where it sits floating above the deluge-like chocolate streams pouring down solidified as if hardened to become the airy foundations on which the reign secures the citadel in the air from where still protects the land beneath coloured in matching autumnal streams poured down onto safe ground offering shelter from the rain but not safety from a hard reign-- where will be found a life that’s fair ? in a land overseen by a fantastical castle in the air? Peter R. Longden Peter R. Longden, born in Rotherham, South Yorkshire in 1957, now lives in Coventry, England with Sally and son, Joe. He started writing 'seriously' around 2000. After retiring from a long career in youth work, Peter found more time to write, particularly poetry but also fantasy novels with his son Joe. Peter has had nine poems published, by The Ekphrastic Review (one to be in their forthcoming anthology), two poems by the Wee Sparrow Press, and one in an anthology called Yesterday's Diary, published during lockdown in Coventry. Peter was also was shortlisted for the 9th O’Bheal Five Words International Competition (2022). Eldest son Ben, Estefi and granddaughter Gigi live in Argentina. ** Hard Reign Triolet When rising waters come, will you stay beside me? There is no other. With the power to save you teach us not to follow or obey. When rising waters come, will you stay or will you go your own way lest you follow me to a watery grave? When rising waters come, will you stay? Beside me, there is no other with the power to save. Lara Dolphin A descendant of immigrants, Lara Dolphin lives with her family among the Allegheny Mountains of Central Pennsylvania on the ancestral land of the Susquehannock/Iroquois people. She has written three chapbooks In Search Of The Wondrous Whole, Chronicle Of Lost Moments, and At Last a Valley. She, like countless others, hopes for a world filled with greater peace. ** To dan smith Regarding A Hard Reign You symbolize, I here assume, the devastation slowly doom should industry of man invite by profit's haste and oversight the taint of seas and vapors left as toxic reign of life bereft from primal balance long sustained by leaving things, as they've remained, to suffer from volcanic spew and sulfur of its residue and flame unbound by lightning set with smoke and smolder winds abet and other heinous feats of clime and biospheric paradigm, that we would helpless face and fear if not for hope we engineer by reason judging risk and cost against the sooner gained or lost. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Prefers to craft with sole intent... of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment. Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart — in the absence of context ** Barrier to Consent Red. Green. Haze. No. Yes. Confusion. No means no. Silence is not no. I don’t know is not no. Pausing is not no. Unconsciousness is not no. Yes means yes. Silence is not yes. I don’t know is not yes. Pausing is not yes. Unconsciousness is not yes. Confusion overpowers good judgement, consent, agreement. Confusion is fed by hormones, by fear, by control, by alcohol. Confusion fills a space but never fully, allowing for gaps and openings. Confusion, all too often, communicates no as yes. Brydon Caldwell Brydon Caldwell is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. He was recently named the winner of the 2026 Icelandic Festival of Manitoba Short Story Contest. His writing can be found in Boudin, The Ekphrastic Review, New Verse News, and the upcoming Fear Dealer, Opolis 2026, and Still From Somewhere anthologies. ** Extending the Edge I turned around and I was gone. Who was in my place then? Time was filled with bodies, none of them mine. I had become a window that disintegrated when it was opened. Dimensionless, substance fell away. memories become confused with wishes, with stories, with half-remembered dreams with the impossibility of finding reason or rhyme Kerfe Roig Kerfe Roig makes and juxtaposes art and words in NYC. ** Universal Jail A Hard Reign indeed Harsh blocks used as a prison To confine our sins Jean Bourque Jean is from Montreal, province of Quebec, Canada. In the 50s, religion had a Hard Reign and an enormous influence over French Canadians in Quebec. Sometimes, that influence resurfaces, as in his haiku. ** No Good Deed D. Dunker lived alone at the end of Plank Road in a weathered house, worn as Grandma’s Sunday hat. Rusted junk scattered across his overgrown lawn like menacing land mines. Broken concrete steps led to a rickety screen door that flew into Uncle Jed’s yard when the derecho wiped out the neighborhood’s ash trees. No more amber golds or rosy tinted leaves would brighten our bleak existence come fall. In the humid August heat, we gathered to tackle the conglomeration of debris. Chainsaws hummed, grinding off dead branches that we dragged to the burn pile. The fire smoldered for hours. Afterwards, Jed asked me to help him return D. Dunker’s door. I grabbed the back end and trudged towards Dunker’s dilapidated two-story home. We angled the door through a collapsed picket fence. Feral, flea-bitten cats yowled as we high-stepped through Dunker’s front yard. We hefted it up the corroded steps, leaned it next to a sagging porch swing. Jed knocked and hollered. No one answered. We circled the premises, peeked through filthy windows, and decided to venture inside. An acrid smell burned my nostrils. Cat piss, rotten food, and some indescribable stench permeated the air. I pulled a kerchief from my back pocket and covered my nose; tried to breathe. Jed rolled his eyes at me like I better man up or suffer his ridicule. Empty booze bottles lined the stained linoleum counters. Piles of trash leaned against the back door and empty cupboard shelves openly glared at us. Uncle Jed sighed, shifted a bit and then opened a grimy metal door. I looked over his shoulder; followed him down dank cement stairs. At the bottom, Jed pulled on a string connected to a single bulb. The windows were covered with tar paper, but we could see a room in the southeast corner. We hesitantly moved towards it. Black bile, old blood and feces covered the floors and walls. I began to gag, choking back vomit rising into my throat. Then we saw the bones. Jed gingerly picked one up and handed it to me. I felt its gritty length shiver in my hands. A frightful scream as fierce as the raging winds that turned our world upside down pierced the fetid air. I looked at Jed’s blanched face and realized the scream was coming from me. Barbara Edler Barbara Edler lives in southeast Iowa. She loves to write flash fiction and poetry. "No Good Deed" explores the dark side often exposed after a storm. Her work has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies including NFSPS Encore 2025 Prize Poems, The Cities of the Plains, and issues of the Grant Wood Country Chronicle, Lyrical Iowa and Moss Piglet. ** Queen of the Weavers’ Last Message I saw these pieces laying on the top of a sarcophagus the summer I helped in the textile department in Turin’s Archeological Museum. They had been found on the top of the mummy inside—removed for closer study. But these weavings, the large one and the small, and a scroll, placed with them. The scroll was assigned to me to be deciphered—the first independent work of my internship. I am proud to present my translation to you here: From the Queen of the Weavers to the Ruler of the Afterlife Here you see my sample weaving and the first efforts from the tiny looms of the youngest ones in my last weaving class—their samples. I let them go a while and then cut off the weaving to let them know what can be improved and praise their successes so that the second one, a rug for their dolls, can be a work of pride. These three- and four-year-olds princesses laughed and played as they wove --before the fever came up from the Nile last summer when the air lay hot and heavy all around us. As Queen of the Weavers, it is my duty to instruct these little ones, and the olde girls, to watch over all the weaving done in the Royal household to ensure it is pleasing to the Pharoh and to the gods. I am Queen, yes, but my reign is not an easy one, especially when the little ones succumb to fevers as these did and as I will soon do. Their little bodies could hardly withstand the foul miasma that brought disease, not matter how many herbs I put to the fire, not matter how many sacrifices I made, one by one they fell, to an embalmer, Pharoh’s children, and even the tiniest one, my own daughter, all sent to be made ready for the afterlife by the Pharoh’s own embalmer and buried with his tiny daughters so they could all enjoy playing and weaving together in the afterlife. He wanted his new cloak completed for his upcoming autumn ceremony and told me no one except the Queen of Weavers (me) could make it for him. He had mandated decoration in gold thread outlining one of his hunting expeditions. What could I say? Though I felt the heat of fever in my own body, I persisted. Today, it is done and I also am finished or soon will be. Pharoh’s wife came for the cloak and saw my fevered state. She sent her own physician, but he said it was too late. He said I shod have rested immediately and not worked. He said I should have taken time to grieve the loss of those little ones, one of whom was my own. Pharoh’s wife came and stayed with me as I was writing and when she left, I heard her murmur—"a Queen’s Reign is never easy, so many expectations on us, so many rivalries, so few considerations given any of us.” So, I leave this world for the next, hoping to show my sample to small ones who abound in the next world and that there many of them will put their fingers to tiny-child-sized looms and together we will make a cloth big enough to cover us all with love, respect, and appreciation. By the time I had finished, there were tears on my paper. I and my twin sister had been given a tiny loom at a slightly older age. We both made little rugs but not so fine as these since we had no one to instruct us, only a paper that came with our looms. We laughed and talked while we wove but once the tiny rugs were finished, she argued her weaving was the best. At last, the looms went the way of other toys, forgotten and donated, but the rivalry continued until it separated us in many ways. I wonder what she will think of this find and my translation? Will the recalled laughter of our first attempt at the looms be enough to re-weave the threads of our broken relationship? Joan Leotta Joan Leotta on an internship in Torino! Such a magnificent imagined job for Joan who loved their collection of Egyptian textiles, the most she has ever seen. Alas, she is only a writer and story performer in Fairfax VA who dreams of such things and such people as the Queen of the Weavers. But then again, who is to say the Queen was not real and that perhaps she came to Joan in a dream with her story? ** On the Barnside Usually he met me where the furrows ran deep and wide This time he asked me to meet him on the barnside The furrows in my father’s face ran very deep and wide When I told him “Dad, I’m going to meet him on the barnside” The space between our properties were bordered deep and wide The first was near the planting ground, the other tucked behind Silently he took my hand from on the other side and then he pulled me closer till we were walking side by side He’d been thinking, I’d been thinking, yet we both tried to hide As silently he took me through the barn door to the inside I looked around and wondered, not for the first time, If I were the girl, the only one he wanted on the inside What was done was done, and now here I was, with a baby tucked inside. That’s what happened the last time that I met him on the barnside. The barn was planked and white, with needless streaks of red and brown I wondered who had painted it and who would take it down I was thinking about before and after, and what it was we could be, he said he was thinking we were too young, how, now, he could see. The life we had belonged to us yet he didn’t want to be saddled with the burden of someone else, while also learning me I thought about the times I knew we were meant to be and, instantly, I knew his inside was for someone else, not me. My insides bloomed, I knew this one would choose whatever I would be. So I told him I would do it on my own, my dad and me. The sheets were deadly white with needless streaks of red and brown I wondered who would take them up and who would lay her down My dad’s brow was furrowed deeper now, as he listened to me cry And yet I knew in time, dad would forgive me, by and by, for forging life unsustainable, with one who casted me aside. And I hated I could see him walking, from my window, towards the barnside. Debbie Walker-Lass Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, literary non-fiction writer, and collage artist living in Decatur, Georgia. Recent work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in The Ekphrastic Review, Lit Shark, The Avon Review, Collaborature, The Rockvale Review, Green Ink Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, The Light Ekphrastic, and The Niagara Poetry Journal, among others. Debbie was nominated by TER for Best Small Fictions, 2024. Her poem "Whispers in the Grass" was poem of the month in Collaborature last fall. She also collaborates with J.Z. Wood, writing poetry as “The 1965.” ** What Remains (A Haibun) It’s not hard to see my family’s colours in the wool-like paint strokes of the artist’s brush and the sporan holding court mid-canvas, as if to remind the viewer that once, men ruled and wrought their bloody violence on green fields and in villages where people hoped for a simple life, if not a long one. The clans wore their tartan to the grave, the fabric imperishable as flesh dissolved to corpse wax in the cold of the cairns and muirs long after the blàr. their song grown cold below a bloodied hill Linda McQuarrie-Bowerman Linda is a published, award-winning poet living and writing in Lake Tabourie, NSW, Australia. ** no caps mud flaps instructions said i could “research the artwork or artist” and use discoveries to fuel my writing dan smith? a common name i thought the lower case affectation would make identification easier hoping to fulfill an old school dictum: credit your sources claude helped my inquiry initiating 14 web searches accessing 100+ pages for snippets of info precious power spent pursuing an answer not daniel smith montana wildlife painter not dan smith card game illustrator possibly dan smith small press writer (but no online evidence that he paints) kate contacted dan who courteously replied (thanks, dan) he is a writer painting for about nine months an endeavor I applaud! hope fulfilled… red and green christmas decomposing gift boxes returning to the muddy slurry from which cardboard forms no hope for glossy wrapping paper which recycling won’t accept jerseys of red and green morocco’s 2026 world cup deep red with green side panels evoking their flag red/green/gold embroidery-style trim at collar and cuffs thunder and lightning delaying games running and leaping in the rain paint pigments mixed sometimes turn muddy brown choices to be made John Lake John Lake recently became interested in haiku, and wondered about haiku written in response to art. On August 9, 2026 he was introduced to the term “ekphrasis”. John lives in a small town in northeastern Washington State, USA. ** Old Trails Spokane, Washington Red dogs walk through red streets, red mouths full of red bones, under a red sun in a red sky pinned with black trees. They live in the hearths of red brick chimneys and dream red memories of roofs, blankets, beds and water bowls. They breathe red air and howl red howls at a red moon with a new crater. They pray red dog-prayers to dog-gods Firetruck and Siren, Airtanker, Helicopter, and Phos-Chek. To keep the dogs safe, their gods from time to time drop over the chimney homes red rubber balls which burst in a hard rain of thick wet heft. A slurry of salts and clays – ammonium phosphate, potassium silicate, bentonite, lignosulfonate, and guar gum, dressed in red fugitive pigment – dampen the red dirt of the dogs’ good red home and turn away the hot hungry tongues of other red, with its smoke, ravage, and growl. The dogs whine red whines and wag red tails and look up with colourblind dog eyes, remembering a cool time of browns and greens and, maybe, blues. Bryn Cavin Bryn Cavin is a current MFA student at Pacific University. She holds a BA (Hons.) in Literature & Writing from Whitworth University and has held writing positions with such organizations as Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition, Tahirih Justice Center, Museum of Glass, and the Smithsonian. Bryn is a former Assistant Managing Editor of Rock & Sling Literary Journal. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her boxer-pittie mix, Dalloway. ** Highland Fling The only reason I wanted to be a Colour Guard was to wear the kilt. Stewart Clan tartan. And the knee socks. The spats over penny loafers. The tam. No other high school football show squads played the Highland Fling on bagpipes. Only us. Kearny High. Home of American soccer. Where Paisley, Scotland workers immigrated to work in the thread and linoleum factories. I wasn’t Scottish. I didn’t fling my arms in the air in Scottish dance school. My father didn't toss back a few at the Scots-American Club, revering the signed photo of Sean Connery. I threw my hat in the ring. Attended tryouts. The Colour Guard captain, with whom I worked in the school library, tried to mentor me about the discipline, the rigor needed. But in the first tryout, as the music director inspected the line and looked me in the eye, I couldn't keep a straight face. His seriousness just made me laugh. It’s not like we were training to be surgeons. Just a bunch of lower class girls wanting to wear kilts. Wave flags around on a football field. Stroke our fingers along the nap of our black velvet jackets. I had the audacity to laugh. Mr. Risden pointed his finger at me. “Out!” he said. And that was the end of my Colour Guard career. I dashed out of the room, darted to my locker, where I heaved my hurtled ego. Time to launch into something else. I stopped by my German teacher’s classroom and said, “I can work for you afternoons now.” The next time my family went to Montreal on vacation, I bought a kilt. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner is a poet and historian from Kearny, New Jersey. She is the author of four books about her hometown. Visit her website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** The Forest Weeps Once aglow with clusters of leaves, furred moss and lichens, stately trunks bearing russet and brown, the forest weeps, for its story is ending. Stacks of sticks for breeding birds lie untouched: limbs for warming nests to nourish eggs are gone. Feathers, falling, wither, decay. These regal woods knew wind and rain, storm and sun, the songs of birds, bare winters, verdant springs. The forest weeps, for its story is ending. Donna Reiss Writer, editor, teacher, bookmaker, and mixed media/paper artist, Donna lives in Greenville, South Carolina, where she is a member of the Greenville Center for Creative Arts, the Guild of American Papercutters, and the Poetry Society of South Carolina. Follow her on Instagram @dreissart ** (from above) weaves taking off skyward papered stains finger dragged soil crinkle under absorbant cleanly lifted streaks ground returning arising at that place - I love MWPiercy Michael W. Piercy : At the intersection of Art, Poetry and Contradiction, you will find my work, you will find me. Observing memories and the present moment, thinking with an eye that shadows the natural world. Philosophy, Theology, and Science are at the core of my writing - I have found that I am a synthesizer. Managing ideas which do not always cohere. A manipulator of ideas. ** The Matriarch The matriarch lives though she is wounded. Oh, but she has her ways. And she will prevail. Hers is an endless grapple with the rapers of land. Until the moment the universe blinks and the new world begins. Drums beat through her body of earth. Her great, boundless heart. She endures. She always has. She is the great birther. The rolling mass. Particles of magic. She bears fruit urgent second by delicate minute, solar day by lunar year. All this precious life. Her yearning and her wont. For life longs for itself and she bears the seed. Clothes the spirit with clay, makes dreams of dust. The matriarch is also the Great Warrior. She rises up in fire and subdues. She will take you whole. You cannot face her in her might. She will spit lava until you fall into her embrace as bones and ash once again. Become food as she remakes the world. Maybe you are part of Her Great Plan. Maybe you are her sacrificial lamb. Reborn if she wills you to. Do not defy the Great Mother. Whilst you roam her body, you are tied to her will and her bidding. Do good. Be good. That’s all you need do. The matriarch holds you in her arms at the end. Just as she did in the beginning. You swim in her tears, and her milk. Lifted beyond yourself. She is all you need. She was always so. You screamed to exist and she heard you. Now she soothes you with lullabies as your blood fertiles the earth. Her milk is drying up now. Is it too late? Maybe there’s still a chance for redemption. Or maybe we’ll fall into the cracks of her earth as she calls us to return. Always and again. Maybe you’ll be lucky and move within her great belly as a humpback whale in the song of time. Maybe you’ll whirlwind through her jurassic breath into a jungle of green as always was in the native times before everything began to fall. Just as the tower of Babel crumbled to become pure again. For when the temple is overtaken by thieves, it must undo itself to ask for a blessing. It is one cycle of fish after another. Can you hear that? The gentle thunder? And so, the gathering begins. Her great drum roll throughout the universe. Go make your wish. Maybe she will hear you. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and fine artist based in Birmingham, UK. She has been widely published online and in print. You can usually find her surrounded by books, making art or putting one word in front of the other. You can also find her at her blog Sunra Rainz where she regularly shares poetry, art and book reviews. ** Wool, Weaving, Warp and Weft Bulging skirts, sturdy shoes, hats of the old-fashioned lampshade kind. Swollen fingers, balls of wool, the colours of the Andean earth-- the colours the Inka knew and those who came before. Not quite brown. Not quite green. Not quite red. The loom between their legs, they sit on the stressed grass of an early Peru summer at 3,500 m above sea level. The warp, The weft. The warp, The weft. The warp, The weft. Taking wool from the not quite brown, the not quite green, the not quite red: The colours of Pachamama, who gives and takes life, the mother who receives blood sacrifices, the woven cloths that warm the dead. Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels, short stories, eight poetry collections and one chapbook, her poetry has been published widely, mostly in US poetry reviews (online and print). She is a several times Pushcart and a Best of Net nominee. All her books are available on Amazon. A new full-length collection, My Father’s Sky has been published in July of this year. Her earlier collection, Life Stuff, has just received a five-star rating from Reader’s Choice Book Awards and is a bronze winner. See more on her website: https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** The Hard-Earned Harvest Our 12-by-24-foot plot sits in the northeast corner of the community garden. It’s a rental with an affordable seasonal rate. The kale basil and romaine lettuce flourish in the middle. Mingling in red rust and sage the pepper and tomato plants enrich the border. Like anything worthwhile it takes care time and effort. When it rains we’ve a sense of relief. The United States of America could be viewed as one big garden plot a place where its inhabitants have the ability to flourish no matter what sort of patch parcel or lot. When The People’s House is tangled in weeds what a sense of relief it will be to elect a new Gardener-in-Chief– someone who cares will take the time and effort to nurture growth wash away the streaks of disregard– someone who will serve the hard-earned harvest of its citizens. Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts writes poetry and prose influenced by memory, the human experience, and the natural world. A visual artist and the author of nine books, her latest full-length poetry collection is titled On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing (Kelsay Books, 2025). Her work can be found in journals, magazines, and anthologies, both print and digital formats. From 2018 to 2026, she served as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. ** You Know Cradling the battered package, you toss your sweaty gloves on the mudroom floor, wipe your brow, then head into the kitchen where she greets you with a kiss on the nose and a frosty glass of lemonade. “Hey garden-guy,” she says, “you look parched.” You smile back as her eyes land on the banged-up box you just brought in. “What did they do, drop-kick it?” “The delivery driver placed it right in my hands, said it looked like that when he loaded it onto the truck this morning.” You’re apprehensive as you hand it to her, watch her scrutinize the black Sharpie-scribble where a return address once was. And just above the scribble, in spiky script, three initials: Y.K.W. “You Know Who,” she says aloud, and then, “It’s from Mark, a couple weeks late, but he remembered my birthday after all.” You can tell she’s pleased, but you know whatever’s in the box won’t be a thoughtful gift, because your brother-in-law is not that type. She’s got the boxcutter and she’s smiling as she slices the tape and eases open the half-crushed container. You watch as she lifts the lid of the interior box and her face clouds. Your chest tightens. She turns wordlessly and shows you what the brother she helped raise sent her, in the middle of an August heatwave, two weeks late for a birthday even an orangutan could remember: 8/8. The molded bonbons have melted into amorphous blobs, but it’s the streaks of coloured cocoa butter and luster dust, festive in holiday colours, that bring it all home. Her lower lip is trembling, because damned if these aren’t the same artisanal chocolates she sent him for Christmas, not last winter, but twenty months ago. He must have shoved the box in a cupboard. Until now. “You know what I’d like to say to You Know Who?” and before she can respond, you scoop up some of the warm chocolate and fling it at the white kitchen wall. It slides down, leaving brown and green and red streaks before flobbing onto the floor. “You’re slime.” “SLIME!” she shouts and hurls a fistful of goo. And now the two of you are flinging and laughing and wiping sticky fingers on your gardening pants. Soon the box is empty and the wall is a canvas and your pants are a canvas and your hands are gooey monster fingers you wiggle at her as she screams and runs with you close behind, and you know that later, when she is resting, you will sneak downstairs and clean all this up, the part of the mess you can touch, the part you can fix. Tracy Royce Tracy Royce is a writer with fiction in 100 Word Story, Bending Genres, Flash the Court, and MacQueen’s Quinterly. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions, and her story "Sibling Rivalry" was selected for Best Microfiction (2026). Find her on Bluesky. ** Reign Its meaning is paragon of its sound - glorious grand gold, but to be all of that at once it must be what it doesn’t voice – hard, as in the case of its homophonic twin – rain – which pours when snatching the power from heaven reigning in line only with its own perspective as in dan’s deliberate design where the strenuous vertical signs are aiming to raise their dominance: some with thick body augment some with clear colour accent some with tricky central advent, yet adjoined in the effort to tame the subversive vanishing point reigning over the perspective with such an operose swipe that its birthright leap is nowhere to be reaped. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA in Philology and Philosophy, writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and her poems have often been honoured by The Ekphrastic Review and its challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni 2021. ** Weaver took tufted moss & silvered lichen marsh marigold bog myrtle arctic willow from the north & petal-stain of lupins from Icelandic lava-fields purple as Scottish heather first dried them all then soaked them making pots of dye took wool & steeped it in dark pools for days & sombre days spun it in twisted strands hung for a blowing window frame then knotted all for warp shoved shuttle back & forth, forth & back for weft-- to make his family tartan of poor wetland plants-- rich moorland cloth Lizzie Ballagher Ballagher's focus is on landscapes, both interior and exterior; also on the beauty of nature. Having studied in England, Ireland, and the USA, she worked in education and publishing. Her poems have appeared in print and online in all corners of the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/ ** space heater space heater glow warms worn linoleum Robin White * A Quiet Menace Cloudy day, a quiet menace Reflective thoughts, a tapestry Ideas fleeing, a travesty In muted savageness Reflective thoughts, a tapestry Cloudy day, a quiet menace Robin White Robin is a lifelong poet, writer, painter, collagist, and mixed media artist. She was born and raised in a small gown in Georgia, USA and can drive on a wet red clay road without going in the ditch. She loves music from gospel to hair metal. Going thrifting and antiquing followed by good food and good company is a perfect day. Her dream is to live on the beach at her favorite place in the world, Jekyll Island, GA. ** Owed to Dan Smith Dear Dan Dear Dan My dear older brother It’s a hard hard reign that’s gonna fall You and your memories dwell no more in possibilities no more dribbling paint upon your canvases No more stories of planting birdseeds no more waiting for baby birds to emerge from the earth It’s a hard hard rain that’s gotta fall My words too slide sideways They’ve got nada más to say after averring all what’s true as profs are wont to do And now and now I scrumble my phrases whilst the storm she rages And my spelling’s been struck from the pages Donna-Lee Smith As you may imagine, there are many dan smiths out there and one of them happens to be my older brother, who also happens to be a painter —but alas he is not the dan smith of this current challenge. Sadly, like many of us, my brother struggles with dementia and dribbles paint no more upon his canvases.... ** Bad Architects The gods built badly. That's what we learned after the seventh temple fell: no foundation, no drainage, no provision for winter. They knew how to make thunder. They did not know where to put the rain. Once, they said, the red tower belonged to the god of war, the green one to harvest, the black one— that's always been up for debate. We have become very good at forgetting which god destroyed us. We live beneath them now. We patch the roofs, scrape their names from the stone. The gods haven't been seen in years. Still, whenever it rains, something ancient comes down with it. Isabella Nesheiwat * A Hard Reign I keep calling them buildings because I need them to be buildings. Three above, one below, all carrying the same weather in their bones. Once, briefly, I thought they were people standing shoulder to shoulder with their heads cut off. But the longer I look the less certain I am there are walls at all. The white around them Refuses to explain anything. It is not sky, nor snow, nor emptiness. It is simply what remains when the artist decides not to tell us. I have spent an hour trying to make a kingdom out of four rectangles. The painting does not forgive me for wanting it to mean something. It just keeps raining. Isabella Nesheiwat Isabella Nesheiwat is a fiction and poetry writer based in Southern California. Much of her work explores mythology, identity, and the tension between inheritance and self-invention. Her debut collection, Turning & Turning, was self-published in 2025. She is currently at work on a contemporary horror retelling series set in the Pacific Northwest. ** Shale Civilizations lay their seeds. Heritages prosper. Peace reigns. By the river, love blossoms. By the river, little paths wind, Wild flowers grow Aging in the shadows. In distant music and laughter. Souls are lost-and found By the river. Until a shadow cuts the sky. The boathouses. The playgrounds. The domes. Ploughing the earth, Dividing the air. Aborting togetherness. The quiet that ensues -- Clawing at the earth. Cries and despair. Killed landscapes Stacked upon one another. By the river Streaked in blood. We etch the lines by the rivers -- Rivers that once healed. Abha Das Sarma Abha Das Sarma lives in Bengaluru, India. An engineer and management consultant by profession, writing is what makes her happy and fulfilled. Her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Silver Birch Press, Blue Heron Review, Poetry X Hunger, here and elsewhere. She has also contributed to several anthologies, Pixie Dust & All Things Magical and Soul Spaces: Poems on Cities, Towns & Villages, among others. ** Pastoral The streets are quiet. Daylight rests on a mattress of sandbags. A girl looks through her apartment window at the gray truce. The weather insinuates no change in the coming hours. Rain stripples her red hair on the glass as she waves to a woman coming home with a bag of groceries. The mother nods, smiling at her daughter, a sapling within the splintered frame, and remembers there are Kalyna bushes rooted in the park. Their berries will ripen and drip torrents of colour in the Autumn smoke. Wendy Howe Author's note: Kalyna berries with their bright red colour (in Ukraine) symbolize life, family roots, and the unbreakable resilience/resistance of the nation. Wendy Howe is an English teacher who lives in California. Her poetry reflects her interest in myth, women in conflict and history. Application of imagery, personal reflection and rhythmic language are basic elements of her writing style and expression. Over the years, she has been published in a variety of journals. Among them: The Poetry Salzburg Review, The Interpreter's House, Indelible Magazine, The orchards Journal, Songs Of Eretz, Sun Dial Magazine, The Linnet's Wings and many others. ** A Hard Reign We could use a hard rain. The crab grass in the backyard, mowed too close back in July, has turned a brittle yellow, spikes to my tender soles. The dirt’s packed hard underneath my toes, not even thistles thrive this summer of drought. Drought, again. And fires everywhere. This is our new normal, not just fire but brimstone. Hell on earth. And yet. There are glimmers of green. Down by the creek bed, a trickle coaxes wild bergamot, swamp milkweed from red clay, draws monarchs, ruby-throated hummingbirds, buzzing bumblebees. Some days I can believe that all we need is one massive storm front to move through, towering black cumulonimbus clouds blown in on chill winds to crash and clash with the suffocating humid heat that hovers above, to reign down hail and heavy raindrops, to cleanse the streets, wash away our sins, fill our cisterns to overflowing, make all things new. We could use a fresh start. Jennifer Hernandez Jennifer Hernandez teaches immigrant youth and writes poetry, flash, and creative non-fiction. Her words can be found in public installations, literary journals, and spoken into the air. Recent homes for her work include Silver Birch Press, Talking Stick, Agates, and the Detroit Lakes Flowerpot Poetry Walk. Pushcart-nominated, Jennifer has newly transitioned into the role of president of the League of Minnesota Poets and believes that through the power of language we can change the world. ** The Day the House Fell 7pm: His admission of his many affairs. Each sordid detail an axe to the walls of our Gottman house. Chest tight, vomit in my throat, hands numb. Pausing my breath didn’t pause reality. “Please hold me.” “I will hold you.” “Please stay home with me.” “I will keep you safe in our home.” Unable to sleep, I watched the walls split open. My recent coat of paint was still pristine, but now I smelled the rot beneath it. 7am: His abscondment from my pain. His sunrise promises to stay became the creak of the garage door and the revving engine. I ran outside with one slipper on, just in time to watch his bumper turn the corner. I collapsed in the middle of the road. My screams shattered our windows and cracked our drywall. I rubbed paint on the walls with my bare hands until my fingertips streaked them with blood. 7pm: His homecoming to a broken wife. He sauntered aside to send comforting texts to his collection of women. The weight-bearing walls of trust and commitment had been held up by me alone. I had mistaken my devotion for ours. The house crumbled above me as he grinned in the glow of his phone. I had nowhere to put the love I felt for him. Our future fell with the roof and cracked my skull wide open. 7am: His recent date left me a voicemail. I crawled out of the rubble, sat in the dust, and listened to her pain. Everything I had painted beautifully was now wreckage. The remains of our foundation washed out from under me. I sat alone in our burned-down home. I mixed my blood and tears with the dust, and I tried to build our walls again. I had enough love to rebuild the house, but no one to come home to. Alexandra Fritz Alexandra Fritz is based in Los Angeles and roams whenever possible. Inspired by social justice and the complications of being human, her work searches for dignity in difficult circumstances and the moments that reveal our shared humanity. Note: Gottman’s Sound Relationship House is a model of a healthy relationship that uses the metaphor of a house to describe key aspects of strong relationships, including trust, commitment, effective communication, and shared meaning. **
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