 The Reverie of Mr. James, by Rene Magritte (Belgium) 1943 We Float On Enigma Sky is no island paradise, no utopia. All measures are false, futile. The cosmos is forever retreating from our circumscribed senses. We wander and wander and wander yet remain exactly where we are. We are only temporary, an apparition, always in the process of unraveling. The sea calls us and we follow, enclosed in a mirage of substance. Our bodies seek their lost limbs, phantoms chasing bones of contention. To whom does this world belong? We rearrange it with make believe, unable to free the illusion of ourselves from its mirrors of Gordian knots. Kerfe Roig Kerfe Roig lives in NYC where she spends her time among images and words. ** To Be or Not, a Complement? Regret masters Réne Magritte. analysis he would reject; the boy’s lost mother, suicide - Régina, queen, face-covered, drowned - all blamed each other’s escapades. To cap it all, she milliner, devoted as a Catholic, yet father anticlerical. For roses, thorns go hand in hand in wispy, wristy floral tryst. An egg, drawn bird with outstretched wings, to liquidate conventional; the mirror glass that sees behind, or handiwork for trellis growth - so many questions framed for us. His meet to marry, seven years, that butcher’s daughter at the fair, the girl Georgette his later muse, for first exhibits, critics rose, but piled abuse served, moved him on. The Rêverie, entitled dream, but did our Monsieur James think so? And would he care, or others dare? He did not look outside the box - denied the box was ever there. Through periods, and phases, styles, the occupation, war, mind more, those forgeries of headline names and currency in leaner years, but were notes printed cash for real? Try Ceci n’est pas, for a line, the pipe as concrete through the gap to what stand painted, poster pen, when artist seen and not the thing; surrealist in play along. His oeuvre, time and time again, by repetition, trauma marked, but each unique though looked the same for image seen not image been, a complement in every scene. 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 ** When the Whole World Is Ruled by Love and the Marvelous I’m trying to write a poem about holding your hand, but your curved fingers pinch and caress the blooms on the bush. As if this is a dream of pale pink under an azure sky. I realize what’s left is my tongue like dough in the stove of your mouth. What’s left is to caress your tapered wrists, and thankfully, time is an endless symphony. Time to realize that our existence is adventurous, treading without bathing suits. Time for an April afternoon to throw bits of fortune cookies in the murky water. A timeless moment to toast marshmallow clouds above an infinite blanket. If only we could eat caviar and hard-boiled eggs from marbled bowls. If only we could watch our child chase a cat. You left me decades ago on the sofa, or rather I opened the front door and marched out. But this dream--joie de vivre—is why I want to write this poem. Caressing and closing distance. The folds of what’s left. We knife our initials in the wooden handrail of a bridge. I saw you drowning with roses cut in your hair and I woke to dive in, disembodied. John Milkereit John Milkereit lives his surreal life in Houston, Texas working as a mechanical engineer. He has completed a M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop. His work has appeared in various literary journals such as The Comstock Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply, San Pedro River Review, and previous issues of The Ekphrastic Review. In December, Kelsay Books published his fourth collection of poems entitled, Lost Sonnets for My Unvaccinated Lover. ** A New Pygmalion She remembers her hands tiny, milky, chubby like a newborn baby’s. For years they clenched shut, smooth without a crack, like dainty white eggs before hatching cherubim. Daily he came into the arboretum to offer her water infused with oneirogenic herbs he had grown in an earlier dream. He remembered lying flat and still in his bones, meditating on Primavera: bird’s eye primrose, purple anemone, poet’s narcissus, grape hyacinth, for-get-me-not, nemophila or baby’s blue eyes. His body rained and grew lush like northern California in early March, today a beige desert, tomorrow miles of superbloom humming with streamertails and swallowtails, painted ladies and honeybees. His hands and heart fluttered. Then Santa Ana blew his lavender ocean dry and he woke. Daily he fed her water infused with oneirogenic herbs. Santa Ana aged him into a dry ascetic sitting rooted in sand, meditating on his black shriveled hands. Are they burnt by some dark magic flame he wondered. In his dream oneirogenic herbs bloomed around a sacred spring. Saying prayers, he sprinkled its water on her root. His oasis hands blossomed into a ciborium. In his posthumous dream her buds are finally blossoming: a thousand hands like Buddha’s, each unfurling fingers in a different gesture, curling, reaching out, twirling round one another, milky and dewy, a blooming damsel’s, flesh-full but empty as a devotee’s heart to receive God’s spirit and body, uncrossed with lines, unholding sin. Graceful joints where her slender green stems sprout these voluptuous hands are white egrets’ heads spouting into grass-green beaks. Her floral formula has no sign for stamen or pistil. Meaning opens, suggestive. In his posthumous dream he sculpts his masterpiece of Arborescent Sign Language, slipping roses into all her hands, one rose for each. They are meticulously grown in a desert irrigated with virtual reality, dipped in liquid nitrogen, then warmed in his own cryogenic heart. The difficult thing is not to fill a hand or a heart he says. The difficult thing is to teach it to touch, to hold, so the roses, feeling tenderness, won’t wilt. The difficult thing is not to hybridize. The difficult thing is to graft eros, to heal the splice. For each sign to suckle its signified. Dreaming within a dream, she is signing with these roses to stay alive-- Lucie Chou Lucie Chou is an ecopoet hiking and gardening in mainland China. An undergraduate English major, she has work published or forthcoming in Entropy, the Black Earth Institute Blog, Tiny Seed Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Transom, Tofu Ink Arts, Halfway Down the Stairs, and Slant: A Journal of Poetry. A debut collection, Convivial Communiverse, came from Atmosphere Press. In August 2023, she participated in the Tupelo Press 30/30 project where she fundraised for the indie press by writing one poem each day for a month. In spring 2024, she is doing exchange studies at UC Berkeley, where she explores the gay outdoors and works on a long poem that seeks to queer Erasmus Darwin’s The Botanic Garden. ** A Springtime Dribble Spring’s hands reach through the stems of pink rosebushes, conjuring blooms for passersby: fingers twist, pinch, and dig, setting a climber here and a creeper there, the changes changing every time a passerby comes close, stroking petals here, flicking bugs there, the curves of each rose’s face welcoming any touch. Cheryl Snell Cheryl Snell's books include several poetry collections and the novels of Bombay Trilogy. Her most recent writing appeared in 100 Word Story, Does It Have Pockets? Switch, and other journals. She has work in several anthologies including a Best of the Net, and been nominated nine times for the Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and BOTN anthologies. ** Your hands reach for roses they can not hold because roses are felt by the eyes not the hands Mr. James the pink flowers fall because your wrists are like stems afterall. Daniel W. Brown Daniel W. Brown is a retired Special Education teacher who began writing poetry as a senior. At 72 he published his first collection FAMILY PORTRAITS IN VERSE and Other Illustrated Poems through Epigraph Books, Rhinebeck, NY. Now a year later he faces a backlog of dozens of poems he’s compiling into various chapbooks to try to send into the world. He’s been published in various journals and anthologies and writes each day about music, art and whatever else catches his imagination. ** The Offering From the depth of her prickly nature the silent call: Take my beauty, take it, for it’s made for the taking. I have partied the pollinators until they slept in my softness after getting drunk on my juices. I felt the dearth of death when, petal by petal, my gorgeous flowers fell slowly, reluctantly, to the hardening earth. I felt my small bodies ripen with their seed, and I retired into myself, dreaming of the dawning of rebirth, of renewal. The cycle repeated--as it does--and I see you in need. Take my offer of perfection before it too will die, I have seen your longing. Rose Mary Boehm Rose Mary Boehm is a German-born British national living and writing in Lima, Peru, and author of two novels as well as eight poetry collections. Her poetry has been published widely in mostly US poetry reviews (online and print). She was three times nominated for a Pushcart and once for Best of Net. Do Oceans Have Underwater Borders? (Kelsay Books July 2022), Whistling in the Dark (Cyberwit July 2022), and Saudade (December 2022) are available on Amazon. Also available on Amazon is a new collection, Life Stuff, published by Kelsay Books November 2023. https://www.rose-mary-boehm-poet.com/ ** The Reverie The rose garden is special to me. I dug the ground that winter when my insides churned and my mind left me for a while. I took the spade, cob-webbed and damp, from the depths of the shed. I pulled on my gardening boots and my hat. I walked to the middle of the lawn and dug. It was hard at first to cut through the grass, overgrown and brown. The spade was rusted and my arms were weak, grown unaccustomed to labour over the long weeks and months of last spring and summer and autumn when my thoughts kept me rooted to the house and turned me to the wall. My hands, pale and wretched from constant wringing, slipped on the handle at first but in time I cut the first sod. I turned it over revealing the rich dark clay clinging to the twisted white spaghetti that is the underbelly of turf. I breathed in the dank earth and plunged my spade in again. Day by day, spade by spade, I cut a square in my lawn. I watched it from the seat in the bay window of my bedroom. I saw the frost come, delicate icing that broke down the clumps. I heard the robin singing from the handle of my discarded spade and held my breath as he turned over leaves and dirt and pulled out pink, struggling worms. When the frost and the first of the snow passed I took out the wheelbarrow and dumped last year’s rotted horse manure onto the patch. I raked it across the stiff, chill earth. After the big snow that sat heavy in the grey sky for weeks and months and when if fell, blanketed the ground bringing the great silence, I walked out to the patch and took up my spade again. My hands had grown stronger in the pause. I turned over the sods again, mixing soil with manure and waking up the worms. When the weak spring sun turned to early summer rays and the ground warmed, I planted the roses. The pale yellow one for the solace of the quiet winter, the pink one for my skin with its blush returned by the space to heal and the blood-red one for my heart, still beating beneath the tissue-layers of resolving pain. Caroline Mohan Caroline Mohan is based in Ireland and writes sporadically, mostly stories with the occasional poem, and mostly in workshops. ** We are Seven Seven brides for seven brothers. Seven hands hold seven roses. Seven starlings rise from the bushes. Seven colours arc across the clouds. We sing... We sing our seven sorrows. Suffer our seven sins and ascend into seventh heaven. When our brothers were transformed into apples, falling with raindrops and bowler hats, sprouting wings and taking flight as swans, we were cast... We were cast into nettles, planted as brambles and briars in churchyards. Souls rise through our roots from the gravesides. Spirits swim in our sap. Green leaves grow... Green leaves grow from our skin. Bronze angels kneel on marble pillows to pray for us and play chess on tombstones by silver apple light. Seven years is a long time to weep... We weep for all we have lost. Each year, winter frost cracks our thorns. Greenfly crawl across our branches. Spring storms and floods batter us down. Pin cushions itch us with incubating wasps. Seven days of pins and needles. Seven seas of sleep and sleeplessness. Seven times seven we turn to the sunlight. We are seven, we insist... We pour hope into our petals. Plucking out our own hearts to hold up in our fingertips. Our wrists as thin as sponge sugar, as easily snapped. Bees visit our nectar scented centre. The buzzing fuzz of their bodies brushing our invisible faces, the warm sun-kissed skin of seven sisters. Seven magpies will never tell our secret. Saskia Ashby Saskia is in UK Greenwich meantime, soon to spring forward into British Summer Time. ** Flowers and Singing Whales Slaloming along coastlines. Growing into and from biomes of waters, greens, and voices. Of love, grooming, mating, losing, and dying. Like singing whales skirting the migratory lanes, day, or night, seeking partners, even for a few moments. Bliss of unions of flowers and hands, of bodies, and ancient Akashic wisdoms. Best held in the palms of their pods. Offering fragrances of completeness from one to another if chance portends. Hands not touching, just skimming skin. Fins not flapping, just slow dancing. No spotlights shone. Like whispers at night from afar. Like inaudible clicks, whistles, pulsed calls of whales that impregnate quiet missives in deep oceans. Messages that your polluted sounds muffle and drown. Traffic above and in oceans follows the same routes, blaring horns, chugging fumes, propellers chopping, engines sucking away possibilities. The sky is mostly blue, waters seem calm, and leaves seem at peace. But trails of strings from unheard whale music, from buds left closed, sometimes miss the mark. Turning into damp moans and lean, hungry fingers that cannot hold the flowers close enough. Can’t feel the aromas or auras. Lost desires. Lost cries for help. Lost freshness of the breaths of the dying young. Anita Nahal *Akashic record: Ancient records holding knowledge of all events, thoughts, words, and emotions. Scientific evidence has not revealed the actual existence of these records. Author’s Note: This poem is inspired both by Rene Magritte’s Rêverie de Monsieur James and the fact that the life giving and sustaining sounds and singing of whales is becoming dim for other whales to pick up due to high oceanic traffic. Anita Nahal, Ph.D., CDP, is a two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated Indian American author. She was a finalist for the Tagore literary prize 2023 for her fourth ekphrastic prose poetry collection, Kisses at the espresso bar (Kelsay, 2022). An academic and a writer, Anita has one novel, four poetry collections, one of flash fiction, four for children, and five edited anthologies published. Her third prose poetry collection, What’s wrong with us Kali women? (Kelsay, 2021) was nominated by Cyril Dabydeen as the best poetry book, 2021 for British Ars Notoria, and is mandatory reading in a multicultural society course at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Anita’s poetry is part of a recent anthology, Twenty Contemporary Indian English Poets released by India’s Academy of Letters-the Sahitya Akademi. Anita is the secretary of the Montgomery Chapter, Maryland Writers Association and former editor of the newsletter, Poetry Society of Virginia. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals in the US, UK, Asia, and Australia and anthologized in many collections, including The Polaris Trilogy, slated to be sent to the moon in the Space X launch. www.anitanahal.com ** Mr James Dreams / sometimes the breeze carried the scent of salt water from the lapping waves in through the window / she planted it in the garden and picked its blossoms / she was experimenting, she said, with a twinkle in her eye / blood speckles on the green foliage / I was tired from a heavy shift working on the new approach / they radiated their pungent aroma as the sun beams flooded my office / I asked her about it. She laughed lightly / I was deep in my research, developing new techniques / she put a bouquet of them into a vase every bit as refined as her cut-glass accent / it was hands-on research, really cutting edge / between the sun's warmth and the soporific floral scent I found myself drifting off / she said, hadn't I heard about nourishing shrubs with bonemeal / my work at the teaching hospital was so important to me / I was gifted a hybrid tea rose named Pink Lady by my wife Rosanna when I was promoted to consultant surgeon / the pinkish stems were swollen / small red droplets on the leaves like a spray pattern from a pin-prick, something I recognised from my work / I was pioneering a new approach / hands-on work, cutting edge / the pinkish stems were swollen / pinkish / the stems, the stems, the stems, the stems / Emily Tee Emily Tee writes poetry and flash fiction and particularly enjoys trying her hand at ekphrasis. She's had recent pieces published in Ekphrastic ReviewChallenges, Genrepunk Magazine, Roots Zine, Unlost Journal and elsewhere. She lives in the UK. ** A Longing Burgeons A remembering leaves her body and bustles around, tidying corners, making tea, playing the harmonium. A phantom self rises and dies unto itself when the reverie breaks. She sits at her spot on the bed and comes to terms with this all over again, every day. Broken shall remain broken. Outside, fuzzy buds make a late entry on the dry wisteria vine. You had inane thoughts of cutting it down. Yet, the longing to blossom coursed through its dry body like a mythical underground river. Even in the coldest months a dream burgeons in the rosebush. How do you name the feeling when the body knows it won’t make it back from a freeze, but keeps on longing? Sayantani Roy Sayantani Roy writes from the Seattle area and has placed work in Book of Matches, Gone Lawn, Heavy Feather Review, Panoplyzine, TIMBER, Wordgathering, and elsewhere. Find her on Instagram @sayan_tani_r. ** Bloomin' Last Saturday or so when out for a wee walk I thought of a rose a pink one I think but no shape or petal came to mind I found I couldn't picture how a rose should look Fearing I had that brain disease that one no one can spell I called the doctor and the doctor said come see me Tuesday Tuesday came and Tuesday went and I forgot to go Never you mind my sister said as she put my shoes away in the fridge So you failed that brain wave thingy Just you wait you're gonna ace your autopsy Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith swears this wee ditty is mostly true: her sister forgot to go to her memory test her grannie put shoes in the fridge her aunt had early onset alzheimer's her brother is fighting the beast and taking drugs to keep the inevitable at bay her family's black humor includes acing an autopsy.... It's enough to make ya bloomin' larf ** Roses are Read Petals of white will bloom, celebrate sentiments, loved ones passed, melodious memories of lives they touched. Friendship reigns in yellow, fragrant, bright eyes like a smile of loyalty, glassy eyes of empathy hearing shared stories. Pink, the palest shade sweetheart of flowers, bud in brilliance, delicate bouquet caresses like a whispered sigh. Regale in roses red - favorite of lovers, symbol of treasured time, of hearts embraced sun-kissed, gentle touch. No matter the shade, all roses are read, hands entwined with recited worthy words, prolific petals of poem. Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is hooked on Ekphrastic poetry, writing from art prompts, music and memories; her poems capture the visual. Dickson, a push cart nominee, guest editor for publications such as The Ekphrastic Review, Inwood Indiana and Lit Shark, past poetry board member, rescuer of feral cats, advocate for captive elephants often appears in journal and magazines such as Open Door, Blue Heron and The Ekphrastic Review. Author of several books of poetry and YA fiction, her works are available on Amazon. ** I, Rose I have thoughts— even though, it’s true, I have a pretty face. Because you have quick hands does not mean you may pluck me. Because you have artistic fingers, you think it’s your right to rearrange, to touch. But because I am softly scented does not mean you may come so close to breathe my sweetness, stroke my petals. Take your hands away! Let me grow, unpicked, to be the flower that I was made to be without your busyness. If not: I have thorns. Lizzie Ballagher Ballagher's work has appeared in print and online on both sides of the Atlantic. She lives in the UK, writing a blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/. She enjoys experimenting with formal structures as well as free verse: is particularly interested in how a poem sounds when read aloud. ** Our Minds Our minds, Made of a flowers such as tulips and roses and carnations, Is a collection of everyone we’ve ever known. My father gives my stepmother flowers every time he knows she has had a hard day. She does not talk about her hard days, but he is able to tell regardless. This gesture planted a seed in my head where my own flower may one day grow from. My friend brought me beautiful purple flowers from her house. She apologized for them being dried out, I thought they were exceptional. This flower, and my friend will live in my memory even after its petals and stem disintegrate. I like to bring flowers to my girlfriend at unexpected times, just so she can know how loved she is. Whenever I see grocery store flowers I will think of her. My friend’s favorite colour is purple. Everytime I see lavender, and the purple flowers that bloom in spring in between sidewalk cracks, I am reminded of my undying love for her. Our minds are a collection of everyone we have ever known, good and bad. They each come and plant their own garden in our minds. It is the most amazing thing when they stick around to tend to it. Sydney Rappaport Sydney Rappaport is passionate about writing, and is in eleventh grade in Charlottesville, Virginia. ** To Rene Magritte Regarding The Reverie of Mr. James The roses were to James your art and he the understanding heart of hands that had them each arrayed as if immortal, where displayed, your soul would linger daring eye and mind perplexed to wonder why a dream would force reality to scream that its banality indicts a world that underserves the values by which it preserves existence that remains ascent by many journeys briefly spent that rise to seek and reassure the truths by which it will endure. 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. ** Flowers are Present Opal and a lionfish The peacocks feather Roses and camellias The purple heather Gifts of decoration colouring creation like cherries on a cake They are present They are Gems in kitchy colours luring us theatrically into sensing this place is magically prepared for us children of man kind offerings of beauty Stien Pijp Stien Pijp lives in the eastern part of the Netherlands amidst trees and heather. ** We Rose from Ashes I would never wilfully pluck the flower. I’d be happy if it turned its face toward me so I could entertain the possibility I am its sun. The sprouting of a love is so often an echo of the one before. Shared whispers in the sprawled night. An adventure that requires more daring than before. Rose and thorn co-exist. The curl of viridian leaf hides a sting. You would be stung trying not to be. Isn’t it just truth-blinding-symmetry? That heaven is made lovely by the presence of a hell. I, thorn, cannot help my nature. I am born to draw blood. As your test, I prick your conscience to see if you really mean your love. They say the pink rose divines the one who would befriend you first. And the heart would shyly blossom after that. Take my hand, it would say. Okay, you would say. Then not know how to go any further than that. Oh, the blushes. The to-and-fro thoughts. A slow waltz of back and forth. It could go on for years like this. Then one day, it warms up and…no more words are needed. White is only meant to be friend. Entertain nothing more. It would only dissipate like petals in a gale. Yellow is a dark one. For they secretly desire another while reading you their latest love poem. Naughty, roguish yellow. You are only stepping-stone for the one they’ve set their sights on. A beguiling downfall for many a fellow. You bask in their sun then wonder how the shadow of cloud had chilled you so quickly. Red is intensity brooding. Like a late summer storm brewing purpled clouds and damn, you’ll know it when they split. Eyes are involved. Air, electric with current. Suddenly, you want to taste everything. Passion like this must be tempered. It cannot burn for longer than a summer else it would make ashes of you. And still you walk willingly into its fire. Its velvet hug, a promise unfolding. To leave its centre marked forever. Nina Nazir Nina Nazir (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, artist and avid multi-potentialite based in Birmingham, UK. She's had work published in various journals, including The Ekphrastic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Free Verse Revolution, Unlost Journal, Harana Poetry, Visual Verse and Sunday Mornings at the River. You can usually find her writing in her local favourite café or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir and X (Twitter): @NusraNazir ** You're Here You’re here An angel materialized in front of my eyes Spring is just a vessel A moment in time It happens billions of time on Earth Trillions in the universe It’s a vessel for life to come anew To return Until it can’t Eventually it’ll end Eventually the birdsong will be gone Soon we’ll all be sitting in nothingness Well we’ll all be nothing I come and go To enchant To leave and let us die and live No To let you pick roses Hayden Rubinstein Hayden Rubinstein is a student who has a passion for the existential in our life but also baking and certain video games such as Heroes of the Storm and World of Warcraft. I hope you have a nice day reading. ** Haiku Triptych Magritte sets it – she fingers the soft rose petals – scent out of hand. Magritte shifts it – she fingers the shy smooth petals – sense out of hand. Magritte has it – she fingers the blooming petals – bliss out of hand. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas is writing poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning and her poems have been honoured by The Ekphrastic Review often. Her poetry collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni, 2021. ** Remember How easy it was then, to dream about roses, open and full blown, their soft-lipped petals whispering against our fingers as we plucked them from the thornless bush. Kisses without consequences, gifts simple as a cloudless sky, clean as morning. No warning, no horizon, no debt to be collected, no rent overdue. It was all we wanted, love without regret, no suffering, no punishment, no thorns to catch and tear and leave us bloody, our hands full of silk and scent, the subtle blushes of flowers just unfolded on the gentle air, a world tremulous and new, the dew still on it. But then too late, too soon, we failed, we lost, we found ourselves in other dreams, other gardens, cold and drab, all our rosy promise faded into pale dried ghosts, pressed petals, flat and tissue-thin, tearing at the slightest touch, scentless shadows of our earliest intentions, colourless as dust. Mary McCarthy Mary McCarthy is a retired Registered Nurse who has always been a writer. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Ekphrastic World, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic; The Plague Papers, edited by Robbi Nester, and recent issues of Gyroscope, 3rd Wednesday, Caustic Frolic, Inscribe, and Verse Virtual. Her collection How to Become Invisible is now available from Kelsay books. ** Mourning Reverie the morning reverie a time between the darkness which at this early hour, quiet and serene, we chose to ignore i know the people on pavement by the tune of their soles it’s my favourite song not in altitudes quite high enough to reach the clouds so i call it the 6 am haze, and whatever the whimsical wonders upon us, let it last before the malevolence awakens, as we dare further into darkness i fight the tears to fall synchronously with our sun in mourning reverie Zoe Nikolopoulos Zoe Nikolopoulos: "I'm in 11th grade in High School and I've always loved to write, but it's harder for me than it should be since I can't properly understand what I'm even trying to say. I love to hear what people have to say just as much." ** The Paper Hanger Roses and vines creep in solid columns on my childhood bedroom walls. My grandfather in his overalls brushes the underside of the paper, matches the pattern as he and his ladder glide around the room. His hands hang this wallpaper my mother chose. But roses aren’t meant for children. Their thorns threaten just as Nazi occupation threatened my grandfather’s brothers and sisters in Europe. They are all gone now, blushes storm-tossed onto graveled paths.. With petaled hands they reach out to him. His scoring tool declares, “This is for you, Faygele,” and “This is for you, Isaac.” His tears salt the paste, the roses slide into his hands until they wither into negative space and die. If it were up to my grandfather, the wallpaper he would design would string memory stones on vines climbing to the sky. Barbara Krasner Barbara Krasner was only four when her grandfather died, but images of his papering her bedroom remain with her. She holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies from Gratz College. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Nimrod International, Paterson Literary Review, Typehouse, Cimarron Review, Rust + Moth, and other journals. She lives and teaches in New Jersey. ** The Pruning of Roses My Grandmother had the most beautiful hands, slender fingers that tapered and twisted at wrists warm flesh encircling my own young skin still vulnerable to the nip of a frosted tongue. No one could prune a rose the way she could, her fingers and thumb welded to secateurs each cut angled on dead wood, a snip to outward facing buds changing the shape of growth. When necessary, crossed stems were sliced with words as sharp as a thorn on a thumb melding a wayward rose to her will forever teasing and guiding its destiny. 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 pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness has been published by Hedgehog Press and her next pamphlet Beyond the School Gate is due to be published soon. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12poet.
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