 Crooked Ditch, by Fred Ingrams (England) 2016 Colorado River Requiem They called me rojo But wanted me clear Might, they cried And promptly clapped me in concrete Grand gorges weren't enough Clothed now in a crooked ditch To make the desert lush One after another Impoundments to store Canals to drain Floods controlled Turbines turn Produce to feed the populus and Manicured lawns that Feed only egos Drying climate and human hubris Will cause the last gasp Of my laughter to echo through Empty canyons Ken Forman A naturalist and an educator, working to help people understand our place in the world. ** ’Scape Though Flow Country, north peatland Scots, it is east England fens connect; low counties drained to nether pitch, that’s straight until a crooked flat. The learning eye sees kink in line of discipline, art school expelled; this pupil’s trick like Con-ington -- Elektroskopic Punk for some. He crossed red line, guess, being ditched, but found new scope in that escape. So tumbled into acrylic, brush dipping into dripping skin; caught weather change, space, atmosphere - scene interplay cedes no defense. Here’s slash and gash in widespread land, horizon brood or glower room; he know this place has sum of need -- expanse displayed, no expense spared. 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 ** Fate Curving winding roads, lost in circuitous ditch, succumbing to fate. 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 the adorable Shih-Tzus Breanna and Maximus. ** Across The Void I could show you the way, that voice said No ferryman to pay, even if you are dead Just ensure you follow the path that’s red Crossing a void of tears from all that cried Until you reach eternity on the other side In return, my demand is to own your soul As there are some who are very easily led Many who believed the lies they were fed And the path is tainted by those who bled As it’s a grim reality that cannot be denied No way back, even though some had tried To step on solid ground remains your goal Once there, the future that you abrogated You may feel your debt is as heavy as lead So now be quite clear about it in your head You will belong to me, I shall be your guide Safe, but not perfect, you’ll see I never lied It will be paying just a different kind of toll 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. ** Showing the Way You came such a long way, dragging yourself across the crooked ditch that bisected two nearly equal reservoirs of black emptiness. At the other end of the ditch you were normal, well-liked, a small sprig of orange behaving exactly like every other small sprig of orange, but you knew that you were different. When the day came, you looked across the emptiness and imagined a world that was more than flat grey houses, a world where every sprig of orange was not supposed to be the same. You said goodbye to unanimity, and exploded across the ditch like sunrise, falling to earth before you reached the other side, but certain your light would show the way for others to follow. Frank Miele In the nearly half century since attending graduate writing programs at the University of Montana and the University of Arizona, Frank Miele has devoted his writing career to journalism while continuing to keep a hand in poetry and fiction. All writing done with love is valuable. He lives in Kalispell, Montana, with his wife and youngest son. He has been published in Kansas Quarterly, Northwest Review, Whitefish Review, Plainsongs and Poet & Critic, among others. ** The Scars of Appalachia Bruised and scraped coal mines bleed out orange and steaming yellow blood into the rivers. The brook trout turn their red bellies to the sun, their blue halos picked clean on banks. The water, a poisoned inheritance of all creek chub, warps the spine, carves the small faces before they are born. The Guyandotte River is no match for human desire. What is a fish to a man? Tiny brilliant-colored paintings slurried to bones. Even mountains are not safe, peaks blasted to reach thin elusive coal seams. They call this “valley fills,” a lovely name for a dying, ancient hill. What we are in Appalachia is our songs and land. Our mountains & rivers run through us. Janette Schafer Janette Schafer is a poet, photographer, playwright, and realtor living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She holds an MFA in poetry from Chatham University. She is the author of three collections of poetry and the chief editor of two poetry anthologies. Her writing and photographs have appeared in numerous journals, newspapers, and websites, including The Missouri Review, Vox Populi, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and SWWIM. She is a winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize. ** Journey I am on a road to nowhere The blood beneath my feet has been replaced By crusted over blisters of brown Permeated with the heavy stench of asphalt How long has it been like this? I can only remember a faint beginning The whisper of a starting line Instead of the bang of a gun That once rang in my eardrums I had a dream back then In the distance I saw a city Grandiose and humming with life I was destined to capture its essence And mold it into something brighter with my hands Now, in my slothful state I know better than to trust such mirages Laced with a dash of hope and promises of better things I’ve climbed into the throats of many beasts And found tonsil stones Where memories should be I’ve seen it all There is no clear path forward No right turn to make There are no secrets And there is no way to go but forward So, I will trudge on I will pick up the pace I have fumbled before on this road to nowhere And I will make many more mistakes Sadie Lombardi Sadie Lombardi is a poet, musician, and above all, a lover. They found their love for poetry through lyricism and the desire to connect with others. Their poems feature a special blend of joy, melancholy, and laughter. As a queer, nonbinary person, they are extremely passionate about spreading love and acceptance throughout their community. You can find them outside, playing in the sand. ** Getting Uncrooked What is not crooked upon a perfect line’s solitude? What is not mean by a gentle golden mean? What is not absurd under a hanging tempest-hood? What is not penny plain under a full blood moon? What is not green next to a bright leaking mandarin? It’s the meanings coupling game after wandering alone in a pitch-black mind and before becoming snobs of their own righteousness while still catching up with Camus’ essential prime which seems somehow late by Sartre’s existential inmate… Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas, MA in Philology and Philosophy, writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and her poems have often been honored by The Ekphrastic Review and its challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europa Edizioni, 2021. ** The Frightening Hand At the beginning Of the green road There is that hand That frightening hand As crooked as her ditch Her cradle She extirpates my vital force And tows me out of the barn My safe haven She tows me along a long road Over the darkness Where my body leaves A long and sad trace Of my last energy My strengths are too weak to struggle But tenacious enough To be at peace and healed Jean Bourque Jean is from Montreal. ** errant merely a bystander, I watched my own life unfolding from outside myself-- the paths moved, and, interwoven, became collaborations with the landscape-- wandering contexts, detours of unexpected surprise-- abandonments and returns, veering over the edge of nigh Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Her poetry is often written in conjunction with her own artwork. Follow her explorations on her blog https://kblog.blog/. ** Inverted My true colours shine Through the negative; I am nothing but My vice versa self. What is dark is light; What is up is down; Skies fluoresce below; Shadows swarm above. See my orange blood In the green of flesh; Twist the crook of neck Into crooked spine; Drow them in reverse, Every word of mine; Un-define my name, I am Antonym. Iryna Hall Iryna Hall immigrated from Ukraine in 1997. She is married, has three children, lives in Utah, and writes while managing multiple sclerosis. ** Museum Night Galleries are not for gods but us, yet holy temples all the same, testament to our fleeting flame, some Promethean spark that rivals what’s divine: creation from human hearts no mere imitation and though those vain inventions cannot trump nature’s smooth sublimity, they enhance it through admiration, so each canvas becomes a chapel of life within this cathedral, every frame doorways towards either progenitors’ minds, or elsewheres outside whatever walls we’re hemmed by. Like light kissing stained glass floods churches with god, peering into masterworks lifts my soul above. Teo Eve Teo Eve is a formalist & experimental poet, and author of This Isn't Italian Romance, a work of literary fiction. ** … red for dead … It’s a sad conclusion to be drawn as farmyard in the early dawn unsuspecting of its predicament is lit by something glowing red in the culvert open like a yawn extended crooked as a donkey's hind leg a source of blue from which it’s fed insinuating itself into the natural scheme through some unknown contaminant a toxic hazard turning fields black laying its own tragic waste track its danger in the colour matched lined by the remains of something green does it mean it’s radioactive? should we worry for its half-life? beyond the farms city under grey dystopian sky all other colour leeched as it passes by a throwback to some B-list movie experiment no one has time to prevent illegal disposal or money to repair years of neglect and leaks paints a picture of a future that’s bleak sun hidden no stars at night no rosy cheeks how are things ever to be any better? another change must happen and no excuse: find some compassion and stop endless planetary abuse! 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 ten 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 shortlisted for the 9th O’Bheal Five Words International Competition (2022). Eldest son Ben, Estefi and daughter Gigi live in Argentina. Peter has a website: Words In Mind at https://peterlongden.co.uk ** Untitled when you finally realize that you’ve only had acrylic for blood that each of your heartbeats was a glow worm filling your soul with green luminescence that your life was not a ditch in the dark but the brightness that flows through it relax you can flatline now Iryna Hall Iryna Hall immigrated from Ukraine in 1997. She is married, has three children, lives in Utah, and writes while managing multiple sclerosis. ** The Ditch She lies dead. Dead as ditchwater her blood leached out in a perfect ribbon bright to the end her end bright but dead. Dead as ditchwater. 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 and https://www.facebook.com///www.facebook.com/Lynn-White-Poetry-1603675983213077/ ** To Fred Ingrams Regarding Crooked Ditch, Second Drove, Queen Adelaide You rightly paint a somber scene of man's design to intervene where sea exceeds its seeming shore to feed the life within its roar by flooding plains to milk their earth for nurture native to rebirth in biosphere of constant deep dependent on such daily steep receding to enrich resolve in teeming destined to evolve and leave its bogs more fit to farm amid the drains that forfeit charm but gave to you a decade's oeuvre to feature, strangely, veer and curve in sight so bleakly found grotesque that ought to be more picturesque and risks perhaps dependence lost by living forms becoming cost demanding nature compensate unleashing unpredictive state to raise, forever, battles fought to question worth and harm we've wrought by engineering our control of sea and land where rendered whole. 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. ** Dark Night Triolet Wild shifting winds rain dogged showers that flow and run into the crooked ditch where fragrant frangipani flowers wild. Shifting winds rain dogged showers; Time runs down in constant hours flowing through eternity in which wild shifting winds reign. Dogged, showers flow and run into the crooked ditch. 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. ** Skipping Rope Your tongue is a skipping rope You can skip one way and then another darling But never remain fixed to either side Always right, never wrong As slippery as an eel With an electric barb What is the narrative here dear A ditch I don't want to inhabit I jump, jump, jump - dance Your darts find my bullseye, time after time, sweet heart No matter what side of the ditch I stand on, the views of the fields are stretching out into infinity Whether it's the golds of rapeseed Or the greens of corn A dividing force between oil and water, a varicose vein, head to toe, of a Fred Ingrams landscape I am not here for childish games The horizon zigzags, no matter There's no right and wrong Everything is grey fighting for its own colour The restless sky is the limit I can jump. That's why I'm still learning to fly Mark Andrew Heathcote Mark Andrew Heathcote is a support worker for adults with learning difficulties. His poems have been published in various journals, magazines, and anthologies, both online and in print. He is from Manchester and resides in the UK. Mark is the author of In Perpetuity and Back on Earth, two books of poems published by Creative Talents Unleashed. ** That Day when we were young and crazy and you drove the old Studebaker into the ditch on that dirt road outside Port Matilda, PA, and the ochre yellow car ground to a halt at the top of a hill of ragged alfalfa fields and rich black furrowed earth, the sky billowed with cumulus clouds banked upon the lapis of a summer’s day, and we threw ourselves into a mound of pink clover, rolled on our backs – heads cradled in our arms – to face the whole wide world of green – oh, so green grass, and a piercing grey backdrop to a building storm of thunder giants above our toes that rolled so quickly from east to west that we were dizzy and lost between up and down in a landscape where sky and earth were one. Do you remember that day? Pat Kabra Pat Kabra is a nascent writer, professor and a former diplomat. She teaches at the George Washington University in DC and has published poetry in The Yellow Arrow Journal and The Beltway Quarterly. ** Childhood Road Trip For the first time in a long time I recalled my childhood six-week cross-country family vacation, from Rochester, NY to Disneyland and back, our longest family vacation ever. Driving our Ford Edsel station wagon, whose three years of production ended in 1959 after disappointing sales during the 1957-1958 recession, “a classic case of the wrong car for the wrong market at the wrong time” per Time Magazine (11/30/59), a medium priced car which debuted just as the compact car market was starting to boom (remember the VW bug?). Our wood trimmed Bermuda station wagon was one of 18 models introduced after 10 years of planning and 250 million dollars in development (equivalent to 2.7 billion 2025 dollars), named after Henry Ford’s son Edsel (a name overdue for a revival), a name selected by the executive committee over the initial objections of Henry Ford II and Edsel’s own three sons, the car famous for it distinctive “horse collar” shaped front grill, described as resembling “an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon”. I rode in the wide back seat. My six year old memories of the trip are few, but I do remember being bored, since I didn’t play a lot (if at all) with my seven year older brother. Sightseeing was not entertaining; my father would point at interesting things to see out the window, and I had trouble locating them; by the time we returned home my parents realized I needed glasses. Looking at books gave me headaches. I remember sleeping a lot, in that seat wide enough to lie down sideways, and assume that’s when I learned the habit of easily falling asleep in the car (dangerous when I’m the driver). I was a picky eater who didn’t like hamburgers and preferred fish sandwiches, hard to find while driving through the Southwest, where we stopped for repairs at a hot, flat, dusty combination repair shop and used car lot, and I was cautioned about rattlesnakes, but I did catch horned toads. The Grand Canyon was splendid, seeing Mickey and riding the Matterhorn was fun, and Crater Lake made an impression. This was back in the day when people went to Yellowstone Park to see the bears, before park personnel realized it was unhealthy for the bears. My Mom and I kept count, which reached 27. Few vivid memories, perhaps not surprising given my young age and poor vision, but I do remember that distinctive Edsel front grill. John Lake John Lake lives in Northeastern Washington State. ** The Decision Sunniside, England 1928 Grandmother, why does sleep elude me? I hear your slippered feet padding in the corner of memory. Found among the stacks of washing, deep, deep thoughts of your inner dispatch, calculating the cost of every fish and bone. Next, I see you standing on the edge of Sunniside in the shadow side, slipping a blade of grass between forefinger and thumb. You wonder if the move so far from familiar will mean survival of the next generation. You allowed a swallow of your first ale in the pub. Bitter ending to a time of turbulence for the mining men of the black hole of coal. And for their women, trying to make ends meet from the strife of the strike, with empty pockets in their aprons. The ribbon of road lies before you. Now you look for the green and gold possibilities overseas in a new country, threaded with the red string of uncertainty. Sister Nora, who married the boyo Barrow, with her son Will, [who would later call your son “greenhorn” upon arrival]; she with the daughter of a saint’s name given to the Nuns, she sent the invitation for you to follow with other sister Nell, husband Jim and the children. Job waiting for him. Your decision. Your conviction to convince Jim, embodiment of consistent, and daughter Mary, now sixteen with lads eyeing the swing of her hips. Time to change direction. You will leave, tethered to commitment. Opportunities await as you emigrate. Cynthia Dorfman Cynthia Dorfman is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and will have a poem printed in their 2027 calendar. Her work has appeared in Bramble, Red Ogre Review, and The Journal of Expressive Writing. ** Letter from Home, 1916 My Dearest Albert, please do not judge me. This past week I have been plagued by dark thoughts; it feels as if a crow has feathered my palm with tar. The omen has grown into winged foreboding, so I sought a seer. I sense your disapproval as you read in muddied trenches of the Somme. You will think it unwise to meddle, that God’s plan is a furrowed path we have to follow, but Albert, I am not able to trudge that track. The palmist was kind, crystal-eyed. Her fingers trembled my hand, flattened the flesh as if ironing maps of Picardy’s sullied turf. She traced my fate line, followed the narrow groove where blood runs thin, kinks, pauses at the point of possibility. At the scorch of her touch my fingers flew to the warmth of a sweetheart brooch, gifted, pinned to my breast, your crest edged in deepest red enamel. I saw it then, a crimson ravine running your skin, your smile, your colours bleeding the page. If you are able to read this I beg you, please write, tell me my fears are unfounded. I will wait, my Dearest Albert. Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar. Her poems have appeared in webzines and magazines including Stand, Fly on the Wall, Alchemy Spoon and Poetry Scotland. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlets A Spark in the Darkness and Beyond the School Gate have been published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet or on her website kateyoungpoet.co.uk ** Underblaze The town was much the shade of pitch, Tight silhouettes against the fog, But underneath, a crooked ditch Kicked out like an exotic frog. The town believed the ditch was hell, A shameful penitential fire, And every little frightened cell Dreamed of escaping somewhere higher. Meanwhile it crouched there, dim and neat, And paid its dues and did its part, While hidden in its sewers beat A raging, joyful jungle heart. Ruth S Baker Ruth S Baker has published in some online poetry journals. She has a special love for animals and visual art. ** Three Tanka Response to Crooked Ditch 1 Waiting for something Wanting to scuttle away The sun unclenches Mouths of tightly held beliefs Beneath yards of silken thread 2 If you choose to love Something green, raw, and snapped shut Start with your belief Forested mountains arise Beyond the orange ribbon 3 Gems in your bright eyes On horseback or two sad feet You will arrive soon Compose your face, fragile heart- Be the way you’ve been seeking. Debbie Walker-Lass Debbie Walker-Lass, (she/her) is a poet, artist, and writer 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 andThe Niagara Poetry Journal, among others. Debbie was nominated by TER for the “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.” ** Untitled I’m mad. I’m mad. Benevolence be damned, The mortals don’t deserve what they were given; They never will atone and be forgiven, And never understand why I have slammed The lightning bolt of fury on their heads, The crooked tear fluorescing through the air And ripping skies apart—they do not dare Admit that they have caused me to be mad; They may rebel against me if they like, The swarming worms, but I won’t take that lightly, And without warning I will send them nightly A crazy green and orange lightning strike. Iryna Hall Iryna Hall immigrated from Ukraine in 1997. She is married, has three children, lives in Utah, and writes while managing multiple sclerosis. ** You Could Be Lying in a Ditch Somewhere You could be lying in a ditch somewhere. Toss me your tethering train, I’ll grip it, pull you back to safe ground through midnight air. Your leaving has shredded me, left me bare. I run out, see your footsteps, heel, toe, bit. You could be lying in a ditch somewhere. When did you slip silently out there? Was it after you pushed me, gripped, and hit? Why should you have safe ground through midnight air? You never said, Sorry, expression rare You never said you loved me, I’ll admit. Could you be lying in a ditch somewhere? Up till now I’ve let you control, ensnare. You’ve punched the walls and me in angry fit. No, no safe ground for you through midnight air. And you, my ex, moods I’ll no longer bear. I’ll erase your footsteps, unmark your split. Maybe you should lie in a ditch somewhere. I’ll pull myself to safe ground in morning air! Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner's most recent books include The Color of Time and Other Stories (Blaze/VOX, 2025), The Night Watch: Poems (Kelsay Books, 2025), and The Wanderers: Poems (Shanti Arts, 2026). She is co-editor of Kelsey Review, the literary journal of Mercer County (NJ) Community College. She lives and teaches in New Jersey. www.barbarakrasner.com ** Crooked and Crooked There once was a crooked woman who smiled a crooked smile who stalked a crooked mile There once was a crooked woman who swiped a crooked knife who lived a crooked life There once was a crooked woman who crooked a crooked arm who snarled a crooked charm Donna-Lee Smith A wee ditty re the English language and her oddities. ** Lost in a Language of Images When evening brushstrokes the Vermont countryside in dark tones of grey, I follow twisting country roads through bloodshot eyes as It's Now or Never, an old familiar tune plays on the 74 Caprice's radio while charcoal structures from a distant town south of Rochester appear blurred in a fog bank. A neon NO VACANCY sign outside a nearby motel sways in stiff northeast winds while untold stories drift in fine mist as dense fog creates this dream state. Jim Brosnan A Pushcart nominee, Dr. Jim Brosnan is the author of Long Distance Driving (2024) and Nameless Roads (2019); copies are available at [email protected]. His poems have appeared in the Aurorean (US), Crossways Literary Magazine (Ireland), Eunoia Review (Singapore), Nine Muses (Wales), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), Strand (India), The Madrigal (Ireland), The Wild Word (Germany), and Voices of the Poppies (United Kingdom). He holds the rank of full professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, RI. ** What We Become based on the scenes captured in Gyirong (August 26, 2026) At zero-eight-thirty-seven, over the river that let flow grief- surrounded by beauty and peace, morphed a black cloud. A wall of stone walked across the borders of Tibet and Nepal churning shapes, gulping existence and hurling it all under waters. Unfolding a crooked ditch- deep and invisible until. Over the valley floor at night when the moon rose to the sky, the Gods assembled. Collecting the fragments of life, a littered reality- how could it be? How could they let it? Round the mountains lay the pride- the inheritance of tribe. 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. ** Border/Breaking Belief ingrained deep Protection from world at large The box is the keep. Fear of choice in charge Tradition dictated the path. Veering off to barge Through the wall. No wrath In freedom, true self expands And all that hath Pushed and now commands: Tradition supports the strands. 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. ** Early Fig Sable, with a tapered tip or time, consuming… We only were an ache Boggy folk music snuck in like a bullet come home Eden even-veined with summer coming or maybe someone else stroking Crept in a flyback and metal-main zipper made an outside man Dull medium green: early fig Wheat grazing yellowish waste along the wooded rocks Day-layered with lightness of shared experience At night, dirt and diesel barely breathing Toothy rag-rolled industrial orange And in the distance, delight-- gigantopithecus roaring Loyal Poem Loyal Poem is a harpist and a remote viewer. She lives in Los Angeles, California. ** What the Headlights Don't Show I hate this road. No moon, no farmhouse window, just my two beams boring a green tunnel through the Fen's black hide. The radio talks so the silence can't get at me. I grip the wheel and watch the white line stitch itself toward me, orange in my low beams, climbing like a fuse lit behind me, unseen, and still burning. I am not thinking about a fox. I am thinking about a fox so hard it grows a whole coat, russet, stunned and scrawled across my vision, a flower torn open by light it never asked for. It is not there. It has never been there. My foot already knows the brake before my mind agrees to it. The dark past the wedge doesn't care what I imagine. It keeps every field, every dyke, every animal that isn't crossing tonight. I drive through what I can see and haul the rest behind me, headlights first, fear a half mile ahead of my own tires. Lynne Kemen Lynne Kemen is the author of Shoes for Lucy (SCE Press, 2023) and More Than a Handful (Woodland Arts Editions, 2020). Her work has appeared in One Art, The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and elsewhere. She received a 2024 Pushcart Prize nomination and serves as Editor/Interviewer for The Blue Mountain Review. She lives and writes in an 1830s farmhouse in rural Delaware County, New York, where she shares her property with a murder of crows, one of whom she has named Edgar Allen Crow. https://lynnekemen.com/ ** Galactic Black Light Mini Golf: ZERO STARS!!! We drive all the way out here because Dirk heard there’d be themed obstacles like a spaceship and crop circles. Then Dirk pulls up the discount ticket on his phone and a guy in a creepy costume nods his big head and points at this one-hole wiggly ditch. That’s what you get for ten bucks a person, prepaid. WTF? When Dirk asks about the spaceship, Mr. Creepy points at a sign: DELUXE COURSE $25. No way are we forking over more money for this bait and switch, so we try the ditch, and Dirk goes first and his ball gets stuck in this red yuck sludge. So of course, Dirk makes it into this joke like, wooooooo! It’s alien ectoplasm, and I’m like, Yeah, can we blast off now, spaceman? He says, No, let’s finish, just let me wipe off my ball first. But it’s sticky and gross and there’s nothing to wipe it on. So he carries it into this thicket saying he can use some leaves or something and that was ten minutes ago. I’m going to post this now and update later because I don’t want anyone else to waste their money on this rip-off. Dirk’s coming back any minute, and when he does, we’re totally demanding a refund from that quiet guy with the big head. Any minute now. Tracy Royce Tracy Royce is a writer and poet with work appearing in 100 Word Story, Bending Genres, Flash Frontier, and Best Microfiction (2026). Tracy’s poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions. She lives in Southern California, where she enjoys hiking by day and film noir by night. You can find her on Bluesky. ** Haiku Follow the neon Follow it, not directions Follow it to me Rose Menyon Heflin Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku published in a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. ** Derailed My son’s mind veers off track. One idea appears, then another. It’s a pinball machine ratcheting beyond the stars so far he gets lost along the way, turns to drugs to ease his erratic mind and dies unexpectedly. Once he wrote poems, sang songs and dramatized everything. If only he could have found a straight path brilliant as orange neon to follow until he could plant his dreams maybe even raise a family, but life never offers easy cures, only dark, dangerous curves along offbeat roads riddled with crooked ditches. Barbara Edler Barbara Edler lives in southeast Iowa in a little berg called Sandusky where she admires birds, light reflecting off the river, and spending time with her husband when she’s not writing poetry or flash fiction. She writes to heal and appreciates the company of other poets and artists trying to make the world a more beautiful place to live. ** The Crossing At forty seven, two legs appeared where the water meadow opened. He watched them go the long green reach of them the wet grass closing behind. He could not see the body above them. Only legs. Impossible legs. They walked through his sleep already carrying him away. By spring, he had left the house. His wife stood in the doorway one hand clutching the frame. He did not turn. The black earth opened between them. He crossed. On the far side a cup cooled beside his hand. A bed held the exact hollow of a body. Morning entered through the same window. Even the grass had not changed. Τhe purple tree remained He had crossed the field. It had not moved. Angela Segredaki Angela Segredaki holds a Creating Writing degree from Oxford University. Her poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, Amsterdam Quarterly, New Lyre, Mouthful of Salt, Lighten Up Online, The Ekphrastic Review, The Dawntreader, Snakeskin, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, various anthologies and elsewhere. ** In The Field Behind the House I Grew Up In My father was not completely bad, but boy could he yell. His yelling shook the cobwebs, his yelling shook himself out of himself and wobbled us all off balance. My father’s yelling reached across the black field and lodged itself in a ditch that only my mother and I could see. His yelling was all colors colliding but mostly red. Some people love a chocolate covered cherry but even now, I can’t handle that kind of surprise. From the front of our house the ditch wasn’t visible, neither was it invisible but no one went looking for something like that: a screeching jumble of pain tangled like a necklace or some other chain you might let weigh you down well into adulthood though you know you should unclasp it and leave it lying in the grass. In the end it was the green that saved me, that shade reserved for moss and saints. Call it aura, life-force, whisper of nature, those grasses I recalled from summers away. I wove them into something neutral and made my escape through the dirt. Crystal Condakes Karlberg Crystal Condakes Karlberg is a poet and visual artist living in Massachusetts. ** A Sijo Sequence on the Legend and the Impact of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration’s Paving of Todd County, Kentucky’s Backroads I. Legend has it that, during the Great Depression, the WPA paid its young men by miles of road completed, not by the hour, and with starving families to feed, they were desperate. II. So, they took advantage of the local geography, going around all the hills, and going around all the streams, going around all the forests and going around all the fields, III. Inflicting wounds as greedily, yet as gently, as possible on a land that had been loved, loved, and loved almost to death – loved by a people so native, loved by a people still so new. IV. My mother used to speed round all those curves in her blue Oldsmobile, momentarily flying free, that Rocket engine humming, and it seemed like we might actually be able to escape – V. To escape the alcoholism, the screaming, the hunger – the hunger for food and the hunger for something, something, something, something more – some greater purpose, some intellectual challenge. VI. Yes, those roads made me long for, made me chase, a freedom unique, made me rebel against the oppression choking that Southern air, made me someone who fights and someone who flies. Yes, they made me me. VII. I refused to get my license and never drove those curves myself. But those curves gave me ambition, and those curves gave me courage. Those curves gave me something to look forward to. Those curves gave me hope. VIII. The greedy desperation of those young men so long ago paved two-lane curves that would become backroads my mother could rule. Paved the way for my own hunger. Paved the way for my success. Rose Menyon Heflin Originally from rural, southern Kentucky, Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin. Her award-winning poetry has been published over 250 times in outlets spanning five continents, and she has published memoir and flash fiction pieces. She has had a free verse poem choreographed and danced, an ekphrastic memoir piece featured in a museum art exhibit, and two haiku published in a gumball machine. Among other venues, her poetry has appeared in Deep South Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and San Antonio Review. An OCD sufferer since childhood, she strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people. ** The Open Vault Off the highway, a long ditch laments time from the road to the edge of cliffs fortressing the coastline. On one side, gravestones are marked with names of women who were hanged for witchcraft in 1590. On the other, a choir of mourning doves feed on grass and blue cornflowers. The air humid, heavy with breath as we still inhale the earth Gossip and records say we gathered on the beach drinking and conjuring storms to shipwreck James the sixth and his new bride returning home from Denmark. Our confessions claim we skinned cats, consumed the innards and flung their carcasses into the sea A bonfire blazed with sparks spinning around us like bees, But in truth, we never testified to such deeds. We were healers, tending to women, weather and matters of the hearth and field. Shins pressed, we still shunned their lies, The council changed our statements, burned the originals and buried then underground. A flock of ashes. And though many thought we'd become powdery dust, our bodies swung from a rope. Not enough wood to spare, so hemp sufficed. Months later, there was a sudden crack in the terrain, made by lightning that split the earth's womb apart. A c-section giving birth to birds that flew from the vault and the script of our words etched in clay. How we invoked rain for ailing crops, scavenged the beach for Mary's kidneys and kelp -- but no cats, no fire, no malice toward our king. For centuries, the trench has remained. On nights when fog smothers the view, someone watches and warns oncoming cars. Anyone of us appears cloistered in a cloak -- with hair wandering past our hips, glittering like torchlight. Our hands clutching seed pods, ready to ease the labour of death. Wendy Howe Notes: - In 16th century Scotland, women accused of witchcraft were submitted to torture. -"Shin pressing” was a process where an iron device locked around their shins, crushing the bone until they confessed. - Mary’s kidneys were seed pods found along the beach, shaped like kidneys and named after St. Mary. They were used to ease the pain of women in labour, while kelp was used to cleanse their bodies after delivery. Wendy Howe is an English teacher living in California. Her poetry explores themes of myth, history and women in conflict, relying on rich imagery, personal reflection and rhythmic language. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including The Poetry Salzburg Review, Flowers of the Field, The Interpreter's House, Forgetting Home: Poems about Alzheimer's and Climbing Lightly Through Forests: A Poetry Anthology Honoring Ursula K. Le Guin. ** The Collective Electrocardiogram Driving in blackout headlights amplify the ditch visible tension * Stress levels waver motorists’ heartbeats unite send watchful signals * A spike of relief an electrical measure the city’s in sight * Crooked ditch of flames the all-knowing sage explains displays our oneness Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts writes poetry and prose influenced by memory, the human experience, and the natural world. 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). From 2018 to 2026, she served as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. An award-winning artist and poet, she holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Arts degree and finds joy spending time outdoors and with loved ones.
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