 Peace, by Marian Spore Bush (USA) 1938 A Final Request Lay me down in the dark, Marian. Lay me down to finally rest. Let these waters lullaby my smile, let them caress my hair. Do not let them wake me as I float down the stream. Do not let my end, be the end of my sparkle and gleam. Paint me with flowers, Marian. I ask you only this much. Through cosmic time your wilderness name shone and I at once rushed. I chose you for this task. I chose you and your brush. Weave my watery lungs with a smile for eternity, no matter the indifference of clouds. No matter the vulture’s hunger, do not dare paint me in a shroud. Zoé Robles Zoé Robles was born in Puerto Rico. She has published in Adobe Walls, Malpais, Third Wednesday, Oddball Magazine and elsewhere. She currently lives in New Mexico. ** A Conversation Secret moments floated Each becoming a white chrysanthemum in still water. The sky reclined enduring infinite and lying under, as in meditation, I imagined being a bird looking back at myself. Retrieving the past, lying bare, feeling the earth, chills creeping up. Pulling at the ropes in turns, the brother and us sisters, Of the giant cloth for fan descending down the ceiling, the two ends tied Like the incapacitated wings. Contemplating freedom in pendulum movement, frills of scraps at its bottom Bouncing in shades of jubilance, seducing minds, enticing us to ride Into the wild until the fall of dusk. The burning youth of the afternoon unrelenting. Crossing the khal, a stream, the water looked a peaceful green. Coming down the bridge, bowing at the deity as did all irrespective of religion. Walking through the lanes, narrow and winding, pitchers zigzagged near the taps Waiting, women at doorsteps, men under tin sheds, their ambitions in hiding. Fallen through the time once, hesitating now in return to temple chants and Flickering of the earthen lamps. To prevailing of calm and stillness reigning. Abha Das Sarma "An engineer and management consultant by profession, I enjoy writing the most. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), my poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent my growing up years in small towns of northern India, I currently live in Bengaluru. ** Essence (Haiku) Drifting, birds soaring, immersing in calm waters, lifting her essence. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published and The Importance of Being Short, in 2019. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and dogs Lucy and Breanna. ** Peace a pond a deep dark pond right near the forest path she chose for today was it the jackdaw, the deep green what did make her decide to drift along, despite her waryness, uneasyness for under the whistling petals the comfortable shade swiftly stops her rustle, more, an unknown wave threatens her solitary sense, this freedom under trees turns sudden into loch imprisonment in a blink of a swish cheeks flushed for the wind or for worries, the pond deepens and she sees, seems, becomes the one she was before a power outside her chest, the outer brain sensing this spirit with water, crowns where? where? her consciousness now winged, about to fade, feeble, losing her veer without knowing the ways to fly back out. Kate Copeland Kate Copeland started absorbing stories ever since a little lass. Her love for words led her to teaching and translating some silvery languages. Her love for art, water and writing led her to poetry...with some publications sealed already! She was born in Rotterdam some 51 ages ago and adores housesitting in the UK, America and Spain. ** Haiku A daisy caplet by the dead maiden's body Burial at sea Japanese translation: ヒナギクの花とたゆたう死装束 Toshiji Kawagoe Toshiji Kawagoe, Ph.D. is a professor at Future University Hakodate. He lives in Hokkaido, Japan. His poems in ancient Chinese have been published in the anthologies of Chinese poetry and his science fiction short stories in S-F Magazine and Anotherealm. His academic works in economics are also published in many books and academic journals. ** Get Thee to an Aviary! Ophelia feels the whiteness of her dress unfurl into feathers, the wet become wind. Her mouth becomes beak. It takes her two wingbeats to think of this weightlessness as freedom. Ophelia gathers her courage and looks down at her own corpse. Lily white in the river. Floating, eyes closed. Hair like kelp caught in the current. When she was six, Laertes took her to creek and speared a fish in front of her. Her skin looks like the iron sheen of death on its scales. Did her grief drown, or did it just grow feathers? The life of a caged dove ne’er suited her — but the crooked flight of a black swan might. Sanjana Ramanathan Sanjana Ramanathan is an English student at Drexel University. She enjoys playing video games, cracking open a new book, and daydreaming. Her work has been published in The Front Porch Review, clandestine lit, and elsewhere. You can find her on Twitter @sanjubilees. ** Questions to Other Women Did I wash to here, to this dark ocean, with Leda loose in my bones and a shadow of her monstrous bird above, calling to a past, a future then? Do you hear the old stories, the myths that line horizons, all starting with a silence or a song that is only ever to ourselves? Didn’t they gather me in, crown me with flowers for the holiness they craved? The gifts I chose, that mattered, float dismembered out of reach and now only my fire hair has voice. Will that be what remains in this grey silence - Christ’s own hue, curled against the tides? Amanda Ferguson Amanda Ferguson lives, works and writes in south west Oxfordshire. She has recently had work published by Visual Verse. ** Escort Flat white flowers wind-plucked from neighboring trees ride too lightly on the water to let me grasp them to pull myself out and so I rest now, pale from lack of life, eyes closed against the world waiting. Like my predecessors of romantic age who floated in lakes of water lilies, I’m waiting for angels to come for me. I did not expect what I see through my third eye, a black-winged avian cross between a heron, a rooster, and a scythe with three sets of claws swooping in to scoop me out of this world carry me into the next. What kind of world Would send such a fowl of an escort? No, not what I expected. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta of Calabash, NC has been playing with words on page and stage since childhood. Her poems, articles, essays, and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in dozens of journals around the world including: Ekphrastic Review, The Lake, Pine Song, A-3 Review, When Women Write, Verse Visual, and Verse Virtual, Mystery Tribune, two Guppy Anthologies, Saturday Writers, Saddlebag Dispatch, overmydeadbody.com, Red Eft, Red Wolf Journal, anti-heroin chic, Drunk Monkeys, Sasee, and others. She has been a Tupelo Press 30/30 author, and a Gilbert Chappell Fellow. Her chapbook, Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, is out from Finishing Line Press. Her free chapbooks are Nature’s Giftsfrom Stanzaic Stylings and Dancing Under the Moon and Morning by Morning, mini-chapbooks through Origami Press. As a performer, she tells folk and personal tales featuring food, family, nature, and strong women. When not on stage or at her computer, she’s curled up with a book or walking the beach.Joan can be reached on her facebook page, Joan Leotta or her author page, Joan Leotta Story Performer and Author. Twitter: @joanleottawrite ** of peace albatross of peace- you are free again, in wings slick, pristine, a sheen of renewal surrounds them, as you hover no longer hitched to the noose of belligerent love en burgeoning route to a distant empyrean devoid of earthly pain, you, for a moment, had mulled over your past self, a whiter shade of dead and pale barely breaching the surface of a thickened black marine, your old auburn hair an enduring beacon in abyss, your wreath of daisies a lovely shambles you point down your beak as if to lend belated help to a shackled soma, a quill to a memoir still glistening with fresh ink, or as if drawn to drink it all in for one last look, like an involuntary and ephemeral motion device, before your pursuit of peace would lead you away to your particular salvation. Brian Alvarado Brian (@brahvocado) is a Puerto-Haitian Bronxite writer and occasional opera singer. His work is featured and/or forthcoming in Thimble, Squawk Back, Trouvaille, and Cajun Mutt, among others. He holds a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University. https://brianalvarado.com/writing ** I Will Talk Peace Peace is not a dove carrying a freshly-plucked olive leaf, but I know love flies at first sight in a soup kitchen. I leave my mark in New York as the Lady Bountiful of the Bowery. I am no angel. It helps to dispense food and medicine. I shed pounds of fear off people. The war influences. The depressed mix. The crudely beautiful. I will keep this place until everyone has plenty. Everyone has pieces of need including the plants. People that cannot see will have spectacles. People that cannot walk will have wheelchairs. Mother sends me images to sketch on scraps of paper. A bird watches hypnotically. White flower petals floating in dark water cool me. Waves fleck in foam. My mystic passage. I know the bird shadow orders my eyes closed for travel behind the veil. To not see any more planes and burning buildings. The bird drinks in my hair steeped in orange tea. Beyond the veil, I dream of white-blotched clouds without smoke. The bird will whisper my soul to heaven if I’ve done enough. War is when never enough is, and isn’t peace a letting go? I mist away from black and white brushwork. Peace is love on chapped lips, a calm current. Talons and beaks of the world will come for my flesh. Dear departure for the ever after. John Milkereit John Milkereit lives in Houston and his poems have appeared in various literary journals including San Pedro River Review, The Orchard Street Press, and The Ekphrastic Review. His last collection of poems is entitled Drive the World in a Taxicab. He is a 2021 Pushcart nominee. ** Flora "I have never excluded the possibility of supernatural intervention from my belief...Spore has something beautiful and is conveying it to her fellow men." Harry Houdini, New York Sun, 1924 "Mystic voices led her to romance, fame and wealth..." New York Evening Graphic, April 26, 1939 The paint in the sea is so thick it's created a bed where a woman has fallen asleep, floating -- in a trance -- a seance at sea -- young again, her mother's ghost guiding her to a wind-blown garden of small, white flowers scattered on the ocean. It is the artist's conception of earth and petals changing the dark water to a mystical place for her to rest; and look! There, in the clouds round as clock faces, the sleeping sea's immobile impasto erases measurements of time and the gray sky hovers, empty of light above the girl so there is no way to date a flying shape -- a blackened, stylized cormorant -- a premonition of war resembling a prehistoric pteradactyl. Behind her closed eyes there are remnants of nature we cannot see -- surrealistic predictions of the future in the movement of the sea and the colors of palm trees -- the voices of artists suspended, with her, between worlds inspiring the primitive mysticism that guides her paint brush through passageways with the poor who called her "Lady Bountiful" an Angel bringing food and clothes to the Bowery as she painted pictures her mother sent her from the afterlife, her hair a cap of flame & passion when she falls asleep to the singing sounds of dolphins. Laurie Newendorp Poems in her recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, have received recognition from The Houston Poetry Fest, The Ekphrastic Challenge, and The Ekphrastic Review. She received a Master's Degree in Creative Writing, Poetry, from The University of Houston, and her thesis included information on William Butler Yeats, a poet who was influenced by extrasensory perception. Like Flora Marian Spore, Yeats communicated with supernatural voices, calling them "Instructors" and "Frustrators" in his book of esoteric philosophy, A Vision. Flora's art, called "primitively mystic" by the New York Times, included tropical foliage and colour from Guam, where she visited her brother, an officer in the military. Other work included huge, "mysterious" black and white canvases that she said had been suggested by otherworldly voices. ** No Peace: A Double Etheree Sequence You beckon through the haze of fluid dreams, a distant yearning in my heart and loins, with so many great promises that you never intend to keep, luring me with skillfully told lies, luring me with a masterful false tongue. Perhaps it is fate, maybe destiny that I should be hurt again once more. Perhaps these powers continue to lure my stardust-made self to still more misery like I tried to put far behind me long ago to make peace. In need of solitude, I locked myself away from it all, away from everyone, only to find you still haunt both my waking and unconscious, the anger that you seeded in me growing stronger with every passing day. It is impossible to know just how all of my fury will manifest, precisely what my rage will do, just how it will all play out. In my mind it ends with blood and violence, as all the while I pretend to be fine. I ignore all my pain all my anger and all of my fear - fear my dreams will come true, that you will come back to me with your lovely, lying promises, bringing your friend misery in tow. I fear, fear your outrage, fear your raised hand, and I fear the promises you will not keep. But most of all I fear my damn self and just what I will do next time. Sometimes in dream I strike you so hard that you fall down. I awake still mad, so angry that your ghost haunts my dreams still. My anger does not stop at my pillow. No, it carries me through morning rituals, through emails and returned calls, through unforgiving midday sun, through bland dinners I force feed myself, and through bedtime routines, back to the sheets, where the haunting cycle of hate and rage starts afresh with vicious avengence. So, I lie wide awake at night, afraid of falling asleep, of perpetuating this vile prophecy, afraid of what I would do should we meet. Rose Menyon Heflin Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet and artist from Wisconsin who enjoys nature and travel. Although currently busy cyanotyping, screenprinting, and photographing plants and cranes, she also enjoys mixed media collage, watercolour painting, and papermaking. Among other venues, her poetry has recently been published or is forthcoming in 50 Haikus, Ariel Chart, Asahi Haikuist Network, Bramble, The Closed Eye Open, The Daily Drunk, Deep South Magazine, Dreich Magazine, Eastern Structures, The Ekphrastic Review, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic, Littoral Magazine, Please See Me, Plum Tree Tavern, THE POET, Poetry and Covid, Red Alder Review, Red Eft Review, Sparked Literary Magazine, The Texas Poetry Calendar, Three Line Poetry, Trouvaille Review, Visual Verse, The Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, The Writers Club, and various anthologies. Her poetry recently won a Merit Award from Arts for All Wisconsin. ** a slender sleekness The beak has borne the brunt of it, (Darwin notes) evolution visible in the diversity of shapes — that one stout and stunted, this one sleek and slender — it seems improbably long, slanted, splitting lengthwise like a grass whistle when she calls for help, but help never comes, it’s always up to her — so she bends that supple neck, pierces a mouth unbreathing and slides that slender sleekness down the trachea, forces air into unwilling lungs. (Darwin notes) (sketching fiercely) And it makes no sense, of course, because beaks don’t work that way, only hers, only hers holds the power of life over death. But when you come to, retching water, you feel like you see feathers as white as seafoam, or dark as the wave that upended you — and you think angels, for she is long gone, preening in the shallows, keeping one steady eye on you. (Darwin notes) As feeling returns to limbs and you stagger to the shore, your throat is raw, and you do not think beyond the water until you spy a man writing and catch a glimpse of sketches. One page holds a slender sleekness and you swallow. He sees you looking, and lingers there — some things change when you measure them, some things should not be observed — he says. And there is such regret that you want to apologize, but he tears out the page, tosses it to the waves, and you watch in silence as the sketch of slender sleekness slips into unbeing. Sarah Bricault Sarah Bricault has a PhD in neurobiology and currently works as a postdoc in that field. Her fascination with the mind and how it processes information often finds itself in her poetry, as do themes related to mental health. Sarah's work can be found in Brown Bag Online, High Shelf Press, The Poeming Pigeon, Beyond Words, Wingless Dreamer, and elsewhere. For more information on Sarah, check out SarahBricault.com. ** Dreams my Mother Sends me from the Grave Summer, I dream mother once, her body in a lidless coffin. Grass stalks, wild blueberries silent violet clay beetles. She says: It’s all an error giddily sits up straight she shakes herself awake a young woman again yellow full moon in my night window casket. Satin silk pillow. Ah, fresh air! Crumpled cotton dress with tiny pleats, sturdy stack heel leather shoes. Mother climbs out of the coffin wriggles herself free of flies and worms, black crow’s dry wing bones swallowed up in blue-white fescue. She walks uphill to a green sunny hillock. Turns her back to me. Disappears. Ilona Martonfi Ilona Martonfi is a poet, editor, literary curator, and activist; she is the author of four poetry books, Blue Poppy (Coracle Press, 2009), Black Grass (Broken Rules Press, 2012), The Snow Kimono (Inanna Publications, 2015) and Salt Bride (Inanna Publications, 2019). Forthcoming, The Tempest (Inanna Publications, 2022). Her work has published in seven chapbooks, journals across North America and abroad. Recently, her poem "My Brother's Ashes" was nominated by The Ekphrastic Review for the Best Microfiction Awards Anthology, 2021. She is the curator of Visual Arts Centre and Argo Bookshop Reading Series. She is also the recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation 2010 Community Award. ** Sanctuary Repetition of the everlasting waves begin to lull my thoughts away and the sudden loss of my thoughts convey a feeling lapping over my brain, breeze blows the last of my reverie away And I feel something slipping, slipping The albatross that hung around my mind It was dripping, dripping Away. The great bird -en Of consciousness Sleek and black It flowed from my mind and to the open air And finally I could feel not But peace lapping, lapping over mind and body bare. Frances Sherman Frances Sherman, a fifteen year old poet, was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Throughout her life she was moved a total of three times and continually finds sanctuary in writing. Now living in Houston, Texas she is currently attending Jewish high school, Emery/Weiner. ** Seeing in the Dark Floating in a sea of onyx dreams, I rest my head on cresting waves. With wings as black as theater curtains, a bird hovers above, ever present. She casts a blanketing shadow, whispers stark words, reminders of what awaits me in the waking life-- a sturdy walker with rubber stoppers and handlebars on walls, jutting out like antlers. I flex my eyelids shut, block out the shape of gargantuan wings. The water gently rocks me back and forth. Suspended in harmony with the water’s lilt, I find freedom. Breathing in the stars, my moon face wholeness reflects all that glows from galaxies beyond. In this parallel sleep universe, I am climbing mountains with my mind, plucking stars from the midnight sky, tucking them behind my ears, in case I need to see in the dark-- find my way home. Cristina M. R. Norcross Cristina M. R. Norcross of Wisconsin, is the author of 8 poetry collections, founding editor of Blue Heron Review, and is a Pushcart nominee. Her latest book is Beauty in the Broken Places (Kelsay Books, 2019). Her forthcoming chapbook, The Sound of a Collective Pulse, will be released Fall 2021 (Kelsay Books). Cristina’s work appears in: Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Verse-Virtual, The Ekphrastic Review, and Pirene’s Fountain, among others, as well as numerous anthologies. She has led community poetry projects, workshops, and has hosted many readings. Cristina is the co-founder of Random Acts of Poetry & Art Day. www.cristinanorcross.com. ** To Marian After your mama died, you chucked your healing profession, And took up painting yourself out of the blues. It must have been a shock! To lose your mother’s living pride in you. Losing one’s mother is never easy, Whether she was as saintly as Theresa of Calcutta Or even if she had a heart as stony, cold, and black As the celluloid monster mother in Mommie Dearest. Whether she sports a halo or warts, mom is the magician Who conjures warm watery canal for her fleshy charge To slide from nine short months of peaceful darkness Into blinding dissonant chaos that could last seven, or more, decades. You said spirits spoke to you from beyond the veil, Murmuring art lessons in psychic ciphers for you to decrypt. Ghostly stork voices guiding you to thickly layer and layer and layer paint To birth surreal life right before the viewer’s eyes. Jude Bradley Jude Bradley’s prose has aired on National Public Radio and has been published in Teaching in the Two-Year College journal and in Momentum magazine. Her poetry has been published by literary journals including Tupelo Press, Thimble, and Ekphrastic Review. Her poetry and flash fiction re-envision classical literature and art and reflect on urban life in an ever-shrinking, ever-expanding world. Her poem “Argos” was nominated for the 2019 Pushcart Prize. She is lifelong writing teacher who loves to sing, dance, and garden. She is the Reverend Al Green’s biggest fan. ** Spirit Zephyr I. As I gaze upon your peaceful face I wonder if I should ferry you To a place where you Might find even more solace More peace. But the tides of time and spirit Have requested, no… Demanded your presence. So, it is with trepidation and definite deliberation That I must retrieve you and Send you to your next Soulful sojourn. II. My beautiful one, You have at last arrived. Your journey is but a pause In eternity, a moment of reflection. Bask in your radiance and seek no more. Ellie Klaus Ellie Klaus was born and raised in Montreal. She has lived different selves over several decades: daughter, wildlife biology graduate, vision quest traveler, family life educator, president (of her son's school committee), friend, confidante, lover, wife, mother, caregiver and now caregivee, if there is such a word. Each has contributed to a different perspective of living, of life. The pieces of the puzzle are evident and coming together, although the final image is yet to be revealed. So, writing has re-emerged as a creative endeavor to release some of the angst that arises from living a confined life, or any life for that matter. She has a poem entitled "Bones" that appears on NationalPoetryMonth.ca April 9, 2020 and poems appearing in The Ekphrastic Review and Pocket Lint. ** Soul Scavenger Covetous of redemption, release from earthly misery, the Soul Scavenger hovers close, laying claim to the faithless who choose to loose the chains of their mortal bindings - an irreversible solution for momentary pain - as Ophelia in her watery grave. Thus, the Soul Scavenger ranges back and forth, awaiting her final breath to seize her soul as it parts - mind from body, spirit from heart - and raven it before its ascension while she drifts in peaceful resolution, believing her misfortune concluded, unaware it is the beginning of eternal suffering. Antoinette F. Winstead Antoinette F. Winstead, a poet, playwright, director, and actor, is a professor at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. Her poetry has appeared in several publications, including Jerry Jazz Musician, Voices de la Luna, Langdon Review, Texas Poetry Assignment, The Women's Inc., and The Poet Magazine. Most recently, her poem “JAZZ” received first place for the 2020 Persimmon Prize. She is currently president of the Alamo Area Poets of Texas and vice-president of the San Antonio Poets’ Association. ** Only Believe If I could only believe I would lie in sweet flower scented water and dream ever sweeter dreams undisturbed. If I could only believe I would lie there still at peace and wake at peace still. Whether fish or fowl, dove or eagle fly above me it wouldn’t matter if I could only believe that peace lies within. If I could only believe. 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 was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Vagabond Press, Gyroscope Review and So It Goes Journal. Find Lynn at: https://lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/
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