 Eschatological, by Kitty North (United Kingdom) 2005-2023 Adjudication At the brink of dawn, Souls meet in contemplation Judgement awaits eight, battered with responsibility- infinite relief awaits the chosen No man is an island Orange dots the decorated soul Bleeding into the red of wealth and honour Eight is Orange and yellow Is there honour in this life? 18 years but is my soul complete? The blood of 18 years, embellished with wealth. Now I stand for the final ritual, marked for tragedy. Tragedy as beautiful as the sand my feet settle in, as beautiful as the 7 that surround me. The 7th day marked completion. What is the 8th if not the first day of enjoyment? May a soul rest in the garden of Eden as the others have been used to build it. This is karmic balance. What awaits me on the other side breath and air or nothingness? All is foreign to me the now the later orange, blooming In forever, against the cold collage of blue, a rhapsody of mourning. How divine is this? The moist air plays a cold instrumental song in my ears. I’m not sure if I can cleanse myself with the water that surrounds me, either way this wont save me. I am complete. Scatological degrees of sadness bloom like oranges in the desert of mourning. The 1965 The 1965 is a collaboration between your poetry Jahzara Zamora Woods and Debbie Walker Lass. We met at an open mic poetry group in Avondale Estates, Georgia and decided to begin collaborating together. Jahzara is 19 years old and Debbie is not! We hope to continue producing poetry together, this is our first submission. ** Home, Everlasting But one, all paintings great and small, the creatures of a Yorkshire lass, inspired by people, with their place, land scape etched deeply on her soul. Imposing, but inviting too, both powerful yet intimate, translating elements to paint; here’s death and judgement, afterlife - ’twixt Bolton Abbey Priory and Arncliffe Barn, web gallery. Where else for her, such Kitty wake, distinctive call where all complete? In her beginning is her end, an eschatology well framed. Yes, weaker sun and icy hue, few people skating past their last, on tarn maybe, their common plot, accented shades in dialect - whatever temperature of hell, whatever furniture of heaven. One born, so wedded to her land, a pilgrim painter grounded so, her only quest, remaining home, forever where she’s called to be. 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 ** What Comes Next Will we find ourselves in an alien place No Styx, no ferryman, no gates of Hell Or Heaven for that matter, no welcome Just here, upon some insubstantial raft In a maelstrom, awaiting uncertain fate Feeling the deep swell, sensing that pull A group, just this moment’s contingent With others’ blank stares and confusion Confirming that none really understand And that this is beyond comprehension Yet slowly, all probably come to realise That nobody ever did have any answer Despite many having asked the question And heard that same deafening silence 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. ** Kaleidoscope Day The sky is turquoise disbelief -- a snow day sky, when the world pauses just long enough to feel new again. I’m eight years old again, no school, just cold cheeks and the glitter of maybe. Light doesn’t just arrive-- it dances, fractures, shatters my heart into kaleidoscopic prisms. I don’t mind the breakage. I need the colour. This painting holds me like breath before laughter, like the silence before someone says yes. There’s innocence here-- not the naive kind, but the kind that survives. The turquoise sky is a songbird mid-flight, a hope I can eye-gaze into until I become it. And oh—those curves and swirls-- they pull me forward and backward, like time’s secret fingerprint. I don’t walk through the scene, I’m swept into it-- a soft spiral, a tilt of gravity, where everything is real and nothing needs explaining. There—eight shadow-figures walking the light-streaked shore. They could be anyone. My grandparents. My children’s children. Souls between the tides. Timeless, still moving. Gabrielle Munslow Gabrielle Munslow is a poet, NHS mental health nurse, and lyrical Firestarter from West Sussex. Her work blends grief, grit, and glitter, often in the same breath. She’s been published in Neon Origami and finds beauty in both breakdown and breakthrough. ** Smudges of Coal for This Eschaton We are but smudges of coal for this eschaton Formed in the mines of time Heaped and heat soaked Over a million years of patience refined Our essence is compressed and crushed Under tons of pasts deposited onto our sum Emanated energy from eternal trust Our being begged beyond the crust Once dug and arrived as creation We burned our backs in the sun For a few quick decades exchanged In a shoveling of intermittent experiences Our fuel spent on escaping ourselves While life deteriorated our bodies Ground and sanded against clay-stained pain Then strewn onto earth's salted plains Leaving us smeared In a slurry of oils and dry dust disappeared Our remains evaporated from the outside in And our efforts dissipated for distribution In buckets of ash flake residue Changed never to return as before But transformed into the complexity And recycled to fossils for storage Long formed in the depths of earth for a while And short scorched by eternal fire We are but smudges of coal for this eschaton Waiting for the next, last one Brendan Dawson Brendan Dawson is an American born writer based in Italy. He writes from his observations and experiences while living, working, and traveling abroad. Currently, he is compiling a collection of poetry and short stories from his time in the military and experiences as an expat. ** Eschatology at Gaping Gill “He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog.” (Psalms 40:2-3, ESV) Water tumbles from a seam of blue light 100 metres above the chamber floor You winch me up through falling streams Into a misty cerulean landscape How I wish to ease my pangs inside limestone walls To sip a proper brew beneath a stone slate roof But buildings I love have faded from view Leaving an orange glow to warm the terrain My ancestors have gathered in the Dales Beneath a cadmium yellow sun They call to me with ancient songs Beckoning me to life beyond the living And so I go To Pen-y-ghent To Ingleborough To Whernside Wandering higher and higher Into the bright and beautiful sky 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. ** Returning River valley revival A heavenly backdrop of rolling hills And cloudless sunlit skies Awash in a captivating frosty windswept wintry blue With faith that the ice is thick enough The invocational assembly of warmly dressed folks on the frozen waterway Ice skates tightly laced and tied Skillfully balanced on metal runners Pushing off on one foot, then the other, again and again Gliding effortlessly, piercing the wind Returning everyday to the frozen valley Skaters fellowship on the ice Until Mother Nature’s freezer succumbs to its melting point Not a death But a molecular conversion by the increasingly warming sun A transition to its liquid state, then to vapor clouds then to rain And in the coldest season, returning the landscape and the waterway to a captivating frosty windswept wintry blue Queen Hodge Henrietta Hodge is a Boston native who has resided in the Jamaica Plain area for over 30 years. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology from Northeastern University, Henrietta embarked on what is now a 49-year career as a Medical Technologist in a major Boston hospital. Henrietta, affectionately known as "Queen," found her passion when introduced to poetry in grammar school. Previously one of her poems was published by the National Library of Poetry. Recently, Henrietta’s poem “God Bless America” was featured at the Roslindale Branch of the Boston Public Library. She continues to write, and she reads her poetry in high schools, colleges and other venues. ** The Sage, the Book, and the Elements of Light We have been troubled by our inner selves, Tormented by the night, Trailed by the tendrils of darkness, Wrestled with the unseen. A sage advised us to journey to a distant place. The book tells us we will travel across seven rivers. The forest whispers mysteries into our ears, The elements of light guide us. We encourage one another, Sing songs of redemption, Speak to our weary minds, And strengthen our dwindling hope. The sky appears different as we cross the seventh sea. The sun emerges from its hiding, And we see a hill in the distance, Encircled by the colours of the rainbow. Thompson Emate Thompson Emate spends his leisure time on creative writing, particularly poetry and prose. He has a deep love for nature and the arts. His work can be seen in Poetry Potion, Poetry Soup, Writer Space African magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Borderless Journal, Written Tales magazine, Spillwords and elsewhere. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria. ** Eschatological Eschatological—relating to Solemnities of death and judgement—can Communicate no feel for what is true Hereafter: it's devoid of context, an Abstraction, just a soulless word. But art Transmits the feel. If, after shipwreck and On foreign soil, you're ready to restart Life, after almost losing hope you'd land On solid ground, you have no purpose for Grand words on final destiny—you are In your hereafter now. You don't fear more Catastrophe: you faced down death. Your star Ascends. Your sky is blue. Your morning sun Lights up your dawn. Hereafter has begun. Mike Mesterton-Gibbons Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets and other poems have appeared in Current Conservation, The Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, WestWard Quarterly and several other journals. ** Shadows Walking heavily towards the ocean waves The shadows of these elderly men and women Are weakly enlightened by their old body Like a tired guide Their shadow traces their path to the ocean Tracing before them The road of their resilience Shadows shaped by countless obstacles Encountered in their life A faint light that had shone In their youth Proud and bold Once these old people Fearlessly braved Challenges and Ocean waves That shaped their minds And opened their heart Now it is time to rest Their shadow fades dramatically Their body couldn't keep up with it Too weak But proud and grateful For all it gave them These old people no longer see Their shadow in front of them Turning around to look If it were behind They couldn’t be able to see it either Because it was already within them Bearing their old body And the weight of their efforts They return to the ocean Cradle of their shadows Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montreal. His first language is French. He is learning English. ** Senryu humankind pollutes the land deteriorates and oceans conquer K. J. Watson K. J. Watson’s poems and stories have appeared on the radio; in magazines, comics and anthologies; and online. ** The Tide We waited on the foreshore to see the tide come in. Not in any sense of supplication, but in expectation that supplicants would not leave dissatisfied. Some of us knew exactly what we wanted. We knew how to ask the right questions. Others were more open and simply wanted the slate to be swept clean There was a party atmosphere as the waves receded and the dry sand beckoned us to dance. Fish, suddenly out of place, flopped and died around us. And still the tide went out. Acres long lost to sight, were bared mud and drying seaweed. We chased the water to the edge, paused when the water paused and leaped at us, pounced at us, swept us up in an ecstasy of rush. Those standing in the favoured spots went first. The dancers furthest up the shore stood and stared, or began to run. The tide came in and still came in, beyond any expectation. We had waited for the tide to turn, and not in vain. It turned and swept the world away from end to end. Edward Alport Edward Alport is a retired teacher and international business executive living in the UK. He occupies his time as a poet, gardener and writer. He has had poetry, articles and stories published in various webzines and magazines and performed on BBC Radio and Edinburgh Fringe. His Bluesky handle is @crossmouse.bsky.social. His website is crossmouse.wordpress.com ** To Kitty North Regarding Eschatological So many are the destinies -- of those who are no more -- beginnings having endings that would never come they swore, yet now are told by vestiges awakening surprise as troves of curiosities that mystify demise. You render seeming classic theme so bluntly being blurred as inundation imminent of dream to be obscured, and yet decide to pause it just before the truth prevails where consequence so long uncertain clarifies details. The way we see this image therefore measures who we are and whether we'll have risen to our legacy as bar, and whether we'll have raised it by the remnants of a soul that others find or recollect to harbor and extol as proof that virtue fashioned from the fear in our embrace was faith that did not falter as our living, saving grace. 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. ** When the Apocalypse Arrives It is Brought by the Waves, Not the City Skyscrapers' Falling Masonry A howling wind - strange in a cloudless sky - buffets us with sea spume. Some of my companions are almost being lifted. Everyone's lost their briefcases, purses or manbags. One minute we were all walking towards the train station, the next we were by the sea. There were no warnings of earthquakes this morning, no tsunami alerts. When the big wave came it was worthy of Hokusai, a silent killer rolling inexorably through the city. I half-remembered Maggie, my meteorologist friend from college, telling stories about how the earth could open up, everyone thrown in the air. Like flying up to heaven, she'd said. At this latitude on a known fault line it could happen anytime. I never considered it would be leaving work one Thursday, a boring meh kind of day achieving little, bashing out documents I knew no-one would ever read. Maggie had made tectonic plate movements sound dramatic and exciting, with volcanoes making seas look like blood. Here, with the other suits, and a child in school uniform, everything seemed spectral, dreamy, unreal. It could have been a summer's day seaside scene, but this ghostly coastline was eerie. Are we the only ones left? Everyone else looks just as bemused as me. Alongside the not unpleasant strong warm wind's sound there's a continuous whine like a high-pitched keening. Ah, now I see it. The blue rock I'd assumed was a small island. That's where the sound is coming from. It's rising. So this is part of it. I gulp and yet I feel relaxed. I lean back, jacket arms flapping loosely like wings. I wait for the strengthening gale to pick me up. So be it. Emily Tee Emily Tee is a writer living in the UK Midlands. She's had pieces published in response to The Ekphrastic Review challenges previously, and elsewhere online and in print, including most recently in The Poetry Lighthouse and Gypsophila Zine. ** Final Exams Fighting cold sweats on my daybed at the hostel, I’m afraid one morning I might wake up dead. Pointing my 9 millimeter generally in the direction of my head, I think I’ll be hard to miss. Sneaking up to the door to see if the coast is clear, I glance outside: a failing sun; a swirling blue sky; faded brown farms; and little people making last ditch efforts. Tiptoeing back inside to hide, I nearly about specifically ended me for good. Just before I killed me, I found a little of that thing I call a self. It probably ain’t much, and I might lose it still if I go back to cooking up one last gasp at fame. No, I may not be living the truth, but now I’m betting that it’s more than a little junior varsity game. I guess it’s not going to be perfect, but imperfect is about all I got. Bob Olive Bob Olive is a retired pastor, college instructor, youth agency administrator and writer, having been published in The Louisville Review. He practices TaiChi and fly fishing occasionally and also pretends to lift weights once a week. He is happily retired and hides out in the sweet sunny south in Louisville, KY. He is pleased that no one has yet discovered that way down deep inside, he is very shallow. Occasionally his interest in synthesizing ideas results in disjointed haikus that highlight misaligned discrepancies emanating from the fingerprints of light. ** The Apocalypse The solitary sun obscures the narrow strip of existence, its unfamiliar boundaries. The mineral gleam of the cerulean sky fades. The blue waves, the lost sparkle of ebb and flow - a deluge of thoughts without the moisture of breath, outside the region of presence. Men and women - wandering bones without shadows, memory without names, runaway thoughts, walk to the shore. The fittest definitely survive, but like everywhere else, there are exceptions. The outlying seconds advance - silent sharks seeking a slice of time. The ocean of life imposes its impalpable tide of death. Aqua whirlwinds rumble into a formless dizziness. Preeth Ganapathy Preeth Ganapathy is from Bengaluru, India. Her works have been published in several magazines, more recently, in Pensive, Braided Way, The Orchard Poetry Journal and elsewhere. Her microchaps A Single Moment, Purple and Birds of the Sky have been published by Origami Poems Project. Her work has been nominated for Best Spiritual Literature. ** The Day the Sky Swirled The men declared the End of Days. They told the women to stay indoors, stay safe. While they, the men, ventured outside, assessed the sky, conducted a meeting. Devised a plan of action. The women acquiesced and remained inside as instructed, shuttering windows and bolting doors. For safety’s sake. Thousands of frogs, unsure why the women had summoned them but nonetheless feeling ravenous, looked down from the heavens and saw the specks below. Bugs? Yum. As the amphibians rained down, tumbling toward the ground through swirling skies, the specks below grew larger, taking the shapes of men. But it’s amazing what collective action can achieve. Tracy Royce Tracy Royce is a writer and poet whose words appear in Bending Genres, Does It Have Pockets?, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Villain Era, and elsewhere. She lives in Southern California where she enjoys hiking, playing board games, and obsessing over Richard Widmark movies. Find her on Bluesky. ** Eschatalogical The few of us who are left go blindly into the unknown - into the blue of parting waters or tsunami we do not know. The world kaleidoscopes as the sun blares down leaving us feeling small the few of us who are left. Juliet Wilson Juliet Wilson is an adult education tutor, wildlife surveyor and conservation volunteer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her poetry and short stories have been widely published. She can be found in various online places as Crafty Green Poet. Her Substack is https://craftygreenpoet.substack.com/ ** The Last Things As I lay dying after such a little death together I wrote these sparing words less strong than gossamer. When one at last arrives in paradise, will we find that there is nothing there? No one there at all? What will my body be burned and covered in dirt for that last long night like every night now? Hold me, I'm cold, hold me, I'm vanishing before my eyes. I chase the calendar pages none of us can catch. Loneliness is never born and never dies. It just is. I am the last of my house outliving friends and lovers. The sorrows we carried together never really happened, perhaps, and if they did, whatever they meant was left unknown. We live for this brief day in the calculated clicks of time, while the stars, eternal stars blink out forever. Hold me. I am holding no one. The air overhead is vacant and lifeless. And my writing is a toy against judgment. The galaxies smile, and the stars smile with what I can never know. It will come to me but I will not be here. Royal Rhodes Royal Rhodes is a poet who lives in a small village in the heart of Ohio. His poems have appeared in Ekphrastic Review and Challenges, Spirit Fire, 7th Circle Pyrite, and The Montreal Review. ** eddying Into the back of the mind and out again—a whisper of something—a dream, perhaps, or did it have more substance? -- too quickly the wave passes by, moving toward the farther shore -- the one beyond the horizon, the one we can only imagine but never reach, the one that eludes us when we try to remember where we intended to go, who we intended to be Kerfe Roig A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/. ** Eros at the End: a Meditation on Last Things “Love is the final end of the universe, the Amen of creation.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin I. Stars Sing a psalm to the stars: billions upon billions, freckles on the galaxy’s milky body. Lovers with come-hither eyes, laughing, gossiping, beckoning us into a dance. Sing to the stars. Sing to the freckles. Dance with me. II. Planets These stars have planets too, fruit in their orchards, children circling fires. Some grow tyrants, cockroaches, dinosaurs with teeth like gods. Some are silent as cathedrals. Still sing of them. Still, we sing. III. Galaxies Two trillion galaxies: my little brain reels on the zeros. Whirlpools of spilled milk, cities of light. They flirt, they collide, they devour, they embrace. New stars are born in the wounding of their touch. Sing of galaxies. Dance with me. IV. Creator Sing of the spherical, a potter at his wheel, sweat shining, clay flying. Bowls fired, bowls shattered, a creator giddy with wine hurls the stars against the wall. Even the broken pieces glitter. Sing the shards. Dance with me. V. Oort Cloud Our womb is a frozen halo, mountains of ice, teeth of stone. Love letters in bottles, unopened, circling the dark. Do they guard us, or forget us? No matter. Still, we sing. VI. Death of the Sun When the Sun runs out of breath, Venus and Mercury consumed, Earth’s oceans boiling like cauldrons abandoned at a feast: let this psalm not terrify, but reform us. Love more. Surrender the petty. Rise up, take hands, and dance with me. VII. The Faithful Will our children’s children’s children sail into another galaxy, icons lashed to their ships, visions etched into their skin like tattoos? May they take my tenderness, my laughter, my ache. May they carry me like a flame in their hearts. VIII. Heaven and Hell Eventually, the music stops. Silence upon silence. No Last Judgment. No Hell. Only ballrooms of ice. Perhaps a Heaven of consciousness. Perhaps love. Sing the silence. Dance with me. IX. Particular Judgment I will be gone, my aches, my fears, my tenderness, my wounds, my mercies rising, curling like smoke. Perhaps the Big Freeze is the universe’s last orgasm, too long to endure. Who can say? Mystery itself is praise. X. Hope Until then, can we hang together? Be the band still playing as the universe drifts into silence? Chosen family. Lovers. Beloveds. The tribe of kindness. Until then, sing. XI. Sacraments Spray paint collapsing walls with our names. Write poems on grocery receipts, crayon mandalas on children’s homework. Cradle babies in blankets of joy. Birth art and laughter. Share ripe peaches, clean water. Stop wars. Lay down the bombs. Baptize the world with laughter. Absolve lovers with kisses more sacred than holy oil. XII. Last Judgment When hydrogen is gone, when silence folds the world, let our song echo, beyond words, beyond Judgment itself. Only this remains: maybe love. Maybe love. Maybe love. Stevie B. Stevie B. (Stephen McDonnell) has spent all his life in mystical--and later, erotic—adventures, wandering the wilds of the soul and serving as a wounded healer: part priest, part activist, part therapist, part trickster. In his sixties, he began shaping the prose of his journey into lyric poetry. He has been learning the craft from Rumi, Whitman, O’Hara, Ginsberg and Anne Carson—and the great, mysterious in-between. He lives in an anchor-hold with windows in every room, where he watches the wide-open sky above the farmlands of eastern Long Island, New York. ** The New Messiah The portal would only remain open for a few moments. The Skaters slid into the valley and harvested the precious ice for safekeeping with their fork, calking, and breaking bars. The strongest among them used walking plows. Ice cutters followed. But Saskia, of the House of David, remained transfixed by the aura of tangerine, lemon, and watermelon. The fruits themselves were no longer available, because of the lack of refrigerated storage. The sun dripped lower in the sky. The moment would soon disappear. The Skaters would never be able to scrape enough ice for the larders or the people. There was only one solution. Saskia poised her collection stick for her one last shot. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, including the recent ekphrastic poetry chapbook Poems of the Winter Palace (Bottlecap Press), and the forthcoming ekphrastic collection The Night Watch (Kelsay Books). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in more than seventy literary journals, including Tupelo Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Nimrod, and The Ekphrastic Review. A multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, she lives and teaches in New Jersey. Visit her website at www.barbarakrasner.com. ** Sacrosanct Haiku Free souls reach sea nine Waves swing them to apeiros* Why’s there sound of splash? Ekaterina Dukas *Apeiros (Gr.) - infinity Ekaterina Dukas writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and is a frequent guest in TER challenges. ** 3 am she is surfing again skimming waves for likes to post on her insta fishing for soothing emojis and hearts she clutches her phone her lifeboat buoyant in choppy times the screen a sun strobing her eyes and the waters rise an ocean of doubt flooding her mind a balance board poised on the crest and she breaks she is white froth lost in seas of cobalt below trolls swirl burst shallows to surface Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and enjoys writing poetry, painting and playing the guitar, ukulele and mandolin. Her poems have appeared in various webzines, magazines, and chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlets A Spark in the Darkness and Beyond theSchool Gate have been published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet or on her website kateyoungpoet.co.uk ** … moot at the end of the world … More energy than they have felt in centuries of their loss it sweeps in wind-driven currents pushing the ocean into banks of indigo royal and purple creating the crater to which their order is drawn in a parting of the blue sea that they are dead is immutable their forms already transmuted voices mute until their presence requested to the moot on golden coloured sand of a seabed cleared to allow their passage— these ghosts of ocean tragedy: some draped in warfare tatters others scarred skins like yellow seals all affected by titanic forces that left them for dead— these ghosts of end of their world events come early: their second coming precipitated by this conjunction of swirling current that parts the sea storming wind that raises waves to high blue peaks below which, becalmed for a moment in their history a time of mystery, these spirits of the sea confer not of regret or cost but of their loss of being a consequence of their life with the sea before closure again sets them apart beneath once more making the golden orb a watery sun of a distant age Peter Longden Peter Longden: “My passion for writing poetry began over 25 years ago when I found it as my way to record how I see the world and what makes it the way it is. I am married to Sally with two grown-up boys (and a granddaughter). Recently, an ekphrastic poem was published in The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press Newsletter. Another of my poems was shortlisted for the International O'Bheal Five Words Poetry Competition; others have been published in local anthologies. I have taken part in NaPoWriMo over the past six years, recently based on my travels in Buenos Aires, Aruba and the Eiger, Switzerland.” ** Mother Earth's Demise My time is nigh I can feel it in my oceans they are so hot and salty and in my mountain ridges so full of aches and fissures Don't get me started on hot flashes the melting of my polar regions Or how the sapiens have fructified beyond imagining How they have destroyed my Amazon lungs in the name of beefy big mac WHERE DID I GO WRONG AS A MOTHER? Were the forest fires and torrential rains not enough tough love TO STOP THE DRILLING? Donna-Lee Smith DLS writes from an off-grid cabin in the Laurentians mountains, north of Montreal, where she witnesses shrinking forests and diminishing wildlife. ** Hokusai, Van Gogh, Chagall, Heisenberg, Einstein, Sartre and Pelagius Go Surfing With St. Augustine having waved goodby to tradition and their arguments -- Oaths give way to exclamations as they ask where's Nietzsche today? Each caught up in rapture that goes on forever. dan smith dan smith is the author of Crooked River and The Liquid of Her Skin, the Suns of Her Eyes. He has had poems in The Rhysling Anthology, Dwarf Stars, Scifaikuest, Deep Cleveland Junk Mail Oracle, Gas Station Famous, Jerry Jazz Musician and Sein und Werden. Nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize, his most recent poems have been at Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, dadakuku, Under the Basho, Sonic Boom, Lothlorien Poetry Journal andEkphrastic Review Challenge. ** Dawn after the Storm: 26th September, 1588 In place of its usual scatter of cockle and oyster shells; mermaid’s purses; and bladderwrack fronds, Streedagh strand heaved with bodies off the scuppered Armada vessels: La Livia, Santa Maria De Vision, and La Juliana. Rasps and groans from living lungs drowned out the cries of herring gulls. Irish tenant farmers stirred awake in their cottages on the hill, shivering with the wind blowing in through holes in the thatch. While in the dunes, amongst the bedraggled grasses, the Redcoats cocked their muskets, taking aim at any men still struggling on the sand. Bayveen O’Connell Bayveen O'Connell is an Irish writer who loves the medium of Flash Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for Best Microfiction and the Pushcart Prize. She's inspired by myth, folklore, art, travel, and history. ** Infinity "He passed the stages of his youth Entering the whirlpool,,," The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot Hier, my dear, I loved you in Infinity our bodies twinned as two strong strands of handmade rope coiled and uncoiled, the way 2 moon-drenched serpents seem to copulate -- the way they mate -- to propagate, real and alchemical their shape a magic symbol topped by silver wings -- Hermes's wand, called by doctors the Caduceus. Would I heal if you called my dog Apollo and raced to find me where the grains of sand were fine- tuned by the sun, the beach when we were running to our future? & would we miss the boat where Tarot figures waved to warn us we were running out of time on a card that meant we'd been stopped-lines in a painting where we, eight in number, raced together to an un- certain center? There, waves of color washed up, thin ties to capture clouds when it was dawn or sunset, light changing on the Cote D'Azur the spirit of the Impressionists gentling color to pastels -- but O! those shards of wind, circling, circling until we, drawn into the inevitable, struggled in the tentacles of all lost souls caught up, as we were, in dreams of spinning fashion -- those errant days Infinity was first in fashion. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp recovers as she writes in Houston. Honored many times by the Ekphrastic Review's Challenges, her poetry has appeared in Gulf Coast, Isotope and Analecta IX; her poem Forgive Us, honoring the victims of 911, was a runner-up for the Nimrod Neruda Prize. Apollo was the brother of the Greek god, Hermes (the Winged Mercury, messenger of the gods in the Roman pantheon.) Her poem Infinity begins with Yesterday, "Hier" in French. ** After Eschatological, by Kitty North Is it a tsunami striking down? our last vestige in shades of blues deep sea chroma waves curve to drown dark human dabs on pastel dunes-- the way it ends has led not to be in orange or red. Daniel W. Brown Daniel W. Brown is a retired special education teacher who began writing poetry as a senior. At age 72 he published his first collection Family Portraits In Verse and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. Daniel has been published in various journals and anthologies, including CAPS Calling All Poets 25th anniversary anthology and Kinds Of Cool, an anthology of jazz poetry. He has hosted a youtube channel Poetry From Shooks Pond and was included in Arts Mid-Hudson's Poets Respond To Art in 2022-23. Daniel writes each day about music, art and whatever else captures his imagination. ** Parousia one, two ready or not though I’ve counted to ten a hundred million times sun rusts to soot three, four run to the shore up hill, down dale, over the moon if required clouds bleed cobalt strive, spits all fiddlesticks but the north wind doth blow and big bad wolf smiles licking his lips seven, eight don’t be late, waves split and The Way lights up shadows slope off sidewards marks, get set, go Helen Freeman Helen Freeman lives in Edinburgh and loves Ekphrastic poetry. You can find some of her published poems on Instagram @chemchemi.hf. She’s interested in eschatology and wants to be ready! ** Why Should I Do That? Darkened spectres skate Memory’s thin horizon Blithe forgetfulness And reluctant forgiveness Crack loudly under our weight 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. ** In Painterly Verse: 1 Peter 3:20-21 Amidst the tempest the wind churned surged in gusts of aqua scuds of seafoam and Prussian blue. After the flood above the biblical eight the sun cast its overhead projector whispered the hope of salvation in washes of yellow welcomed the fruit of the spirit in strokes of persimmon. As symbolism numerology and God would have it believers proclaimed New beginnings for Noah and his family redemption by way of water! Jeannie E. Roberts Jeannie E. Roberts is a poet, visual artist, and the author of nine books. Her latest poetry collection is On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Sing (Kelsay Books, 2025). Her work appears in Amethyst Review, Blue Heron Review, The New Verse News, ONE ART, Panoply, Sky Island Journal, Verse-Virtual, and elsewhere. An award-winning artist and poet, she is a member of the League of Minnesota Poets and the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. She serves as a poetry editor for the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs and is an Eric Hoffer and a two-time Best of the Net award nominee. ** Souls We stare at the horizon near dawn and before crossing; linger in the low tide discarding our shadows and listening to the songstress -- her shoulders cloaked in dove feathers, her hair vaporous as fog backlit by the moon. She chants a prayer for the dead, a petition to be received all in a pitch that shatters sin and glass. We don't know the words yet the song seems familiar, a fountain coin's throw from Hebrew, Latin or Aramaic. It doesn't matter. It's about the rhythm, the resonance of breath; water rushing over rock, the sky clearing after a storm, a leaf quivering in the wind and the sun absolving its green of blight; and the sun gilding our shoulders (our un-grown wings) with trembling light as we hear her voice heighten dissolving into other voices, our voices and we sing -- the thaw of ice in a cavern, the trickle of grace on our tongues. Wendy A. Howe Wendy Howe is an English teacher and free lance writer who lives in Southern California. Her work is deeply influenced by diverse cultures, history, myth and women's issues. Over the years, she has appeared in a number of journals including: Liminality, Silver Blade, Eye to the Telescope, Strange Horizons, Songs Of Eretz, Carmina Magazine and Eternal Haunted Summer. Her most recent work will appear in The Otherworld Literary Journal later this autumn. ** Flight, Interrupted We watched oil fires burn the bright blue morning. Gray smoke funneled to the end, from the body in the bay, and the bodies, and the bay. We tasted poisons push through our nostrils and down our throats. Still, from land's end we had to look. What cross between Icarus and northern winds of Boreas brought them down, shards on scattered pyres? Turbulence sheared and dropped them, fragile as ash, to a small circumference of water. It seemed the sky itself could plummet, like the ancient tale's falling berry the jack rabbit heard, to cry catastrophe, or how we'd compress as if drowning, weighted the way we sometimes name the sky, like lead, until nightfall, when light lowers to the sun's noiseless tune, rehearsing our lie-down as weightless molecules. Lynn Axelrod Lynn Axelrod’s poetry has appeared in journals and outlets such as The Ekphrastic Review, California Quarterly, Orchards Poetry Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig; was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle; and is in the James Joyce Library Special Collections, University College, Dublin. She enjoys giving readings, especially those to which she is invited! Her chapbook Night Arrangements was described by Kirkus Reviews as “evocative and lushly detailed.” Lotus Earth on Fire (2024, Finishing Line Press) was praised by a poet-reviewer as “an unflinching witness to the hungry and the homeless, to floods, fires, and the untold injustices of man to man.”
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