 Sonnet, by Stephanie Grainger (England) 2018-2019. Click on image for artist site Dear Ekphrastic-ers, Stephanie Grainger has received everyone's poems and flash fiction (not only the published selection below!) and I would like for you all to read her heartfelt message: Wow! What can I say… I am speechless. This is wonderful... Thank you to all the writers, I am so moved by the quality and quantity of the work. There are times when - as all creatives - you go through the doldrums and think 'why do I do this'? Today your email [with all the writings! KC] gave me such a lift. I find any form of collaboration is so very rewarding. A suitable parallel to the poem…. PS: Stephanie mentioned that the actual sonnet she has used to “draw on” was Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29. Now you know... Have a lovely start of a new month, thank you ALL for your inspiring submissions, Kate Copeland ** Creation  WPiercy At the intersection of Art, Poetry and Contradiction, you will find my work, you will find me. Observing memories and the present moment, thinking with an eye that shadows the natural world. Philosophy, Theology, and Science are core of my writing - I have found that I am a synthesizer. Managing ideas which do not always cohere. A manipulator of ideas – **  Anna Million Anna Million is currently a student at Truman State University, where she will be receiving her BA in English and Creative Writing. The unhurried and reflective life of rural Missouri inspires her work. ** Soon It Will Be Over The turbulent waters are looking up to see Lightning tracks, like a spider’s web falling From the blackened clouds in a strange sky Yet with each glance, none understand why Despite the distant echo of thunder calling To some it’s elation, but for others, misery Three tercet glimpses and a couplet ending To some it triggers memories of Hiroshima As a frightening trail then breaks the silence The signal of impending doom and violence Whether imagined as Sonnet or Terza Rima Yet so few still get the message it’s sending Howard Osborne Howard has written poetry and short stories, also a novel and several scripts. With poems published online and in print, he is a published author of a non-fiction reference book and several scientific papers many years ago. He is a UK citizen, retired, with interests in writing, music and travel. ** Bleak Bleak sky and water, Encumbering one’s thinking, on this sombre day. Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher has been writing since 2010 and has had many micro-flash fiction stories published. In 2018 her book Shorts for the Short Story Enthusiasts, was published, The Importance of Being Short in 2019 and In A Flash in 2022. She currently resides on Long Island, New York with her husband Richard and two dogs. ** Reformed The Sonnet, school-child, technical, with rhyme-scheme, line-count, history - of Petrarch, Shakespeare, classic names, analysis of structured forms. Yet singing mood, romantic verse, less device as title-choice, scene-setting word for form of art, this mediating of a tone. Right angle, graphic column set, in visual blocks, this poet’s task, for feel that form laid out, as waits - glyph landscape for a couplet end. An animation in my mind - a need to turn this on its side, translate first scribbles into terms - to format, though discretion veils. So now to wrestle, then relax, performance masked as if perchance, and maybe, perhaps, formulate escape route from perplexity. 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 ** Perilous Pointing It was an insidious beginning Accumulating from horizons Brushed aside as it was happening Taking refuge inside our vices Burnt reflections on charcoal scratches Lingering in suffocating chokes Darkened residuals in masses Clotting blood in the backs of our throats Yet, we knew it could have been this way Watching signs of perilous pointing Still we sat crisscrossed and disobeyed Forgetting who we were exploiting Realized too late as we scattered Dissenting opinions never mattered 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 journey as an expat. ** Shanti The sea is such a daunting, mythic scene Where hidden Neptune and the sky-lord Zeus Resume, renew their everlasting war, While steady, patient land is free of struggle. But sometimes the Atlantic quietens down, And in its calm, it seems to be inviting. It calls for willing souls to swim its surface, And tempts them with Ulysses’ dream to sail. But this seductive state can never last. The old and furious battle will return, The thunder and the monstrous crashing waves, Rise from silent darkness, depths of water. And so, I’ll hold my peace here on the shore, Contemplate my saline verse, and little more. Edward An Irish poet and dramatist based in London. ** Thin Sonnet for Southern England clouds cling strike lightning again again waters pool, spread, sprawl far across floodplains winds drape -- scrape dark bows play violins of rain, more rain forever soft and down... deluge upon the Downs Lizzie Ballagher A winner in Ireland’s 2024 Fingal Poetry Festival Competition and in 2022’s Poetry on the Lake, Ballagher focuses on landscapes, currently creating a collection of poems about Exmoor. Having studied in England, Ireland, and America, she worked in education and publishing. Her poems have appeared in print and online throughout the English-speaking world. Find her blog at https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/ ** lines, curves, clouds, water, black, white and in between the vertical and the horizontal, imagining the volta as a streak of lightning, hitting water, the octave more musical than words on a page, and yes, there is metaphor, the brain meandering through language and thought and shading until the number 14 appears, and as if by magic, a small song is heard over oceans and deserts-- the sestet appearing beneath & above land, lakes, and mountains of doodling along the margins, ink on paper, and in the sky above the earth floating—movement-- in contrast a rock with five edges skipped across a pond explodes in the center, sending near funnels into the air—a windy amalgamation of thought-- word, action, slumber, brilliance Anne Graue Anne Graue is the author of Full and Plum-Colored Velvet (Woodley Press, 2020) and Fig Tree in Winter (Dancing Girl Press, 2017). Find her work in Poet Lore, Gargoyle, Verse Daily, River Heron Review, Unbroken Journal, and Crab Orchard Review. She is a poetry editor for The Westchester Review. ** Shore Report Somewhere up ahead a storm assembles, A magnet drawing black scribbles to itself, Pushing clouds to the top of the sky, Water a dark mirror the sky moons over. Partial clearing will follow, as day winds Down to evening and waves flatten. You Fishermen will want to get back in the boat-- Fat bass and trout will be spawning. There’ll even be some blue, visible Beneath the white scroll of clouds, illegible But hopeful, a foretaste of tomorrow—blue Expanse, buttoned shut by scattered clouds. Still, the storm’s history will be written In foam, lacing the thin beach of Jackson’s Cove. Jeffrey Skinner Jeffrey Skinner’s selected poems, The Sun at Eye Level, won the Sexton Prize, and will appear in 2026. In 2014 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry. He has published nine books of poetry. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The North American Review, Image, Fence, and Poetry Ireland. ** Broken The cold wind speeds so move slowly now one step at a time careful now one step then another before the broken ice melts away the sky shatters and the wind brakes it all. 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/ ** Wandering Ophelia a demi-sonnet* How strange to make a flower crown in midst of dankish wintertime. When rheumy white winds tumble down, you search for doves of columbine. The boughs of willow will not hold. The brook below is nipping cold. Look up! The slender, rueful sky’s above. 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. * The demi-sonnet, created by Erin Murphy, is an aphoristic poetic form consisting of 7 lines, true or slant rhymes, and no set syllable count. ** the tapestry on my wall three slender panels white lightning swirls falling on slivered black ice one winter storm writes its cursive signature Sister Lou Ella Hickman Sister Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS is a former teacher and librarian whose writing appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her first published book of poetry is entitled she: robed and wordless (Press 53, 2015) and her second, Writing the Stars (Press 53, 2024). She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Using five poems from her first book, James Lee III composed Chavah’s Daughters Speak first performed at 92Y in New York City. Other venues were Cleveland, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Washington Irving High School, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Clayton University, Atlanta, Georgia; and Sanibel Island, Florida. The most recent concerts were held at First Methodist Shoreline in Corpus Christi, Texas for their First Friday program in 2025 and Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi, Texas with Assistant Professor Jessica Spafford’s faculty recital. She was a finalist for Amnesty International Humanitarian Creative Arts Competition sponsored by the University of Melbourne, Australia in 2025. ** To Stephanie Grainger Regarding Sonnet So many journeys here you've shown we step through fear from stone to stone as if we're poets well aware they bridge our here and now to where the peace we feel will be the calm of courage found to quiet qualm and weather tempest running course that, waning as destructive force, will leave its mark as task ahead, regret acknowledged put to bed, and lesson learned by which we're led to faith renewed as conquered dread becoming joy that we extol in stillness lifting strengthened soul. 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. ** Soliloquies Not Spoken Tidal pools filled with tears, emotions overflowing onto sand oversaturated with discomfort and regret. Rumbles in the distance as slate grey skies are replaced with clouds hanging heavy with Words. Letters tumble and scrape together groaning and creaking under the weight of unshed words, messages, meaning, trapped inside. Footsteps straggle along the shore showing indecision, second third fourth thoughts, emotions tamped down leaving words to die on the tongue. Nothing said, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Constrained passions cutting black scars on the soul. Brydon Caldwell Brydon is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. He is grateful and motivated after his first submission was selected for The Ekphrastic Review’s challenge. ** Imperfect Sonnet The corpse, lying in its bed, wears its last bonnet, Its soul emerges from cold water in tangled lines, Each of them follows its own route marked with vague sines, Death is imperfection so is my first sonnet. Fate veils its face with a black sunbonnet, It dupes life, offering its sweet sunny grape wines. Drunk, its spirit doesn’t see the dark hidden signs. Fragile love in a deep coma joins its comet. Now lost in Stephanie Grainger’s wide Universe, Its grave is a deliverance, no more a curse, Birth and doom connected in a fusional link. Dense fog is disappearing letting light in place, Our destiny lettered and painted in black ink Moving to a new world with confidence and grace. Jean Bourque Jean lives in Montreal. He used the French structure to write his sonnet, which is composed of fourteen lines in alexandrines and rhymes according to the pattern ABBA ABBA CCD EDE. ** Neutral Triptych with Vertical Lace Volta First panel the viewer travels past a land dark yet not quite frozen her memory bends beyond the horizon lines of clouds cross toward branches the artist pedals into her future. Middle bridges solid and vapor. Ice shelves wait to be stocked with essentials--the viewer inhales the present--tries not to dip into her past--a dark shade of regret tarnished with guilt’s pewter. Third view cross hatches lines of neutral. The future dreams itself into color. Doubt evaporates--gathers into mixed precipitation. There is no wisdom only fluid connections. Final couplet is narrow--a lace path leading towards the artist and her practice. Work is mundane yet tender. Each fragment of phrase yields an image open to discourse. Jenna Rindo Jenna Rindo is a former pediatric intensive care nurse who lives in rural WI. She now tutors and mentors refugee students and trains for races from the 5K to full marathon. Her work is published in AJN, Calyx, Tampa Review Relief: a Journal of Art and Faith and JAMA. ** like a scar loves healing like a scar loves healing or to be healed like a line takes the curve in its arms and closes the door before a new day of burning like the dark whispers to the light i need you soon and in their embrace they make my memory and yours with the new day and like hate with time gives way to love and breaks in the door and rage runs away weeping for the rest of us soon forgotten by all in the room or like water with a smooth touch and caress the sand the salt the embers of the night with the first showers of the sun wrapped in honey and flowing down the beach like the dance allows the chair rest in a moment those times when we keep kisses in drawers to later rub on and off thighs pumping and hurling knees those legs our own horses escaped from stables the last of the gray getting in the way the black the white time held close in a coin purse bursting with notes for collection time and two sides just two sides blessed and dropped in a bowl for a monk’s breakfast or prayers for the dead or maybe in a slot to play our song that crushes the tin silence and opens our embrace one more time again mike sluchinski ** Lacy Lines I read your lacy lines from left to right your racy bits from here to infinity They hold my passion with fragility How dare you leave me like a blighted knight! You brush lacy lines from my aged face my tears reflect your animosity Did you love me out of curiosity when black widows spin their ragged veils of lace? Donna-Lee Smith DLS loves lacy bits of things and once housed a tarantula (with 8 pink feet) in her apartment. ** Sonnet After Grainger Three panels of the self before the quiet: the looped and tangled thinking, all that wire strung overhead, the dark nodes where the fire of some old fear kept circling. I won't hide it anymore. Below, the horizontal damage. How the body learns to carry what the mind insists upon. How every crisis leaves its stratigraphy, the total weight of years compressed to dark and pale. And then the fourth. That narrow, nearly white remainder. Not healed. Not even still. But the line continues, thin as an exhaled breath, as something that survived the night without quite knowing how. It does. It will. Lynne Kemen Lynne Kemen’s full-length book of poetry, Shoes for Lucy, was published by SCE Press in 2023. Her chapbook, More Than a Handful, appeared with Woodland Arts Editions in 2020. She is a nominee for a Pushcart Prize, and her work is anthologized in The Memory Palace: an ekphrastic anthology (Ekphrastic Editions, 2024), Seeing Things and Seeing Things 2 (Woodland Arts, 2020 and 2024). Lynne is an Editor and Interviewer for Blue Mountain Review. ** the pause between sky calligraphy writing into the shadows-- the land is restless stormclouds crack open, liberate unseen voices-- ocean overflows a sudden silence descends, quilted into dusk-- prayers rise like omens spirit empties itself, grows wings, follows the stars Kerfe Roig Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Her poetry and art have been featured online by Feral, Pure Haiku, Collaborature, The Chaos Section Poetry Project, and The Ekphrastic Review, and published in The Anthropocene Hymnal, and The Polaris Trilogy. Follow her explorations at https://kblog.blog/. ** Sonnet’s Existential Crisis Let me not compare thee to poetry for thy liveliness is strictly rhymeless and would rather whirlwind between the two partners in shenanigans than calibrate by numerals who’s more changeless – substance or essence, though this portraiture is a bluff as they are made to look alike despite the slightest twist being a flight into a tango fight, only a volta pooling them apart. Here they start! 1.1 Substance defines its full perimeter and steps charm, pretending indifference 1.2 Essence deploys its holy righteousness and keeps its cruce with cool tenderness 2.1 Substance stirs barrida to the centre sweeping essence to full magnificence 2.2 Essence’ crusada bends down presence hanging over curves in charming semblance. 3.1 Substance replies with self-defeating hook 3.2 Essence sways its quintessential lapiz 4.1 Substance abrazo shattered sonnetics 4.2 Essence stamps its ocho of evanescence. What? Vertical volta! Call it a day. Visibly, you can’t push the sky at bay. Ekaterina Dukas Ekaterina Dukas writes poetry as a pilgrimage to the meaning. Her poems have often been honoured by TER and its Challenges. Her collection Ekphrasticon is published by Europe Edizioni, 2021. ** Sonnet, Unbound Four narrow windows hold a storm in place. White script unravels upward from the shore, as if the sea has tried to write its face and failed, and tried again, and then once more. The bottom keeps its discipline: the black of tidal flats, of ink that will not rise. But higher up, the lines begin to crack, to loosen into weather, into skies. Is this what form does—hold the body tight until the body aches to be undone? A sonnet is a shoreline made of white where something spills and calls itself begun. Between restraint and ruin, see how far the language climbs before it loses shore. ** Between Panels The museum keeps the painting under glass, though no one can explain what might escape. From a distance, it looks like shoreline—low tide, exposed ribs of earth. But when you step closer, you begin to see the white lines climbing upward, frantic and delicate, like handwriting practiced in secret. A docent once told me the title was Sonnet. I stood there a long time trying to count fourteen of anything—lines, shapes, movements of tide. I never reached fourteen. Instead, I saw this: the bottom panels holding their breath, heavy with ink and water, while above them something pale and unruly kept trying to leave the frame. When I left the gallery, the sky was a pale, blown-out green. For a moment, the clouds looked exactly like handwriting. Later, I couldn’t stop thinking about the verticality of it—how the dark remains below, sedimented and obedient, while the white climbs as if it has somewhere urgent to be. As if the sky were safer than the ground. I went back the next day. No one else was in the room. The air felt thin, as if something had already been taken from it. Up close, the white lines were not smooth. They trembled. They broke and reconnected. Some ended abruptly, like sentences interrupted by a door opening. I leaned closer than the glass recommended. For a second—only a second—I thought I saw one of the lines move. Not dramatically. Just a slight adjustment, as if correcting itself. The lower panels seemed darker than before. The black ink had settled deeper into its marshes. The shoreline looked less like landscape and more like aftermath. I realized then that the glass was not there to keep something in. It was there to keep something from spreading. Language, when it climbs far enough, forgets what it was meant to describe. It begins to describe the space beyond the room. It begins to diagram exits. I counted again, carefully. One panel. Two. Three. Four. Four narrow thresholds. Four attempts to hold the tide in place. And above them, the script—if that is what it is—continues rising, thinning, almost vanishing into the pale green atmosphere. I stood there until the overhead lights flickered. For a moment, the white lines aligned into something almost legible. Not a sonnet. A warning. Then the lines loosened again. When I finally stepped outside, the sky had gone darker. The clouds no longer resembled handwriting. They looked like erasures. Isabella Nesheiwat Isabella Nesheiwat is a fiction and poetry writer based in Southern California. Much of her work explores mythology, identity, and the tension between inheritance and self-invention. Her debut collection, Turning & Turning, was self-published in 2025. She is currently at work on a mythic-horror novella series set in the Pacific Northwest. ** Cracked Earth Sonnet I am burned, formed of marriages held in pain a target for the curious, a grey haze of falling cloud sold to hard hearts, beaten into rivers flowing proud as cold now as ever, fallen behind a shrill refrain the virus of you gladdens your eyes insane I scream silently lost in the idea of what you are it was I who used to be to you, that distant star I am burning, blood ignites into what you became while you watch, aghast at these vicious ways failing to see it was you, all along, and weep as if trying to play with all colours of fate we stand alone like two forbidden strays split into quads and given breath to sleep I give in, fail, fall into this dreamlike state Zachary Thraves Zachary Thraves is a writer and performer. His poems have been published by Broken Sleep Books, Juste Millieu and at Poetry Worth Hearing, as well as a contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. His plays have been performed internationally. In 2023 he created a one-man fringe show exploring his experience with bipolar, and in the same year won best actor for portraying Charles Dickens. Zac also co-hosts a podcast. He lives with his partner in East Sussex. Find him on Bluesky @28hary ** A Folding Sonnet to What Could Have Been The cliff edge turns its back to the sky. The sea shrugs at our apocalypse, one eye bluer for its glance. These days, planes of truth are wiped with an innocuous blink. By sundown, the year takes flight. The whole experience is a series of lightning strikes or rerun after rerun of Groundhog Day. It seemed like we levitated, but you told me I could stand a course in air pressure. And then, the arrival of truncated time, looping without a life saver. Our little wings beat in contrapuntal turbulence. One plus one was not about two but the air between them. Alex Schofield Alex Schofield is a poet, editor, and visual artist living on the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq and Kanien’kehá:ka peoples as she completes her Master of English (Creative) at Concordia University. She holds degrees in English, Education, and Fine Arts. Her written work has won the WFNS micro-poem contest, the Canada Permanent Writing Contest, scholarships, and has been published in Fathom and Zettel journals, and the forthcoming anthology, Breach House Women. Her visual work has been shown in the Maritimes, published in journals, and is in collections internationally. ** Wrestling Like Jacob a man slumps down his head on stone his thoughts unsound his sleep a groan he’s taken flight he’s on the run unsoothing night unruly son white lines split dark and weight finds him his hip is jerked his breath crushed thin we won’t let go till blessings flow Helen Freeman Helen enjoys responding to art in ekphrastic challenges and reading other writers' takes on the same piece. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. Instagram @chemchemi.hf ** Start to the Day After breakfast, Pop left her flat and crossed the road to the edge of the beach. She gazed at the view and described it to herself: Tide’s out, an unfriendly wind, bleak sand. She turned to go and stopped. On the beach, some two hundred metres to her right, she saw a forklift. Has the sea washed it up? she wondered. Or has someone driven it here? But from where? There are no businesses for miles, never mind one that would use a forklift. “I saw it first,” came a voice behind her. Pop twisted round and faced a teenage girl. “That thing on the beach is mine,” the girl said as she moved a fuel can from one hand to the other. “Is it?” Pop said. The girl sneered. “Yeah. I’ll set light to it. I reckon it should explode.” Pop recognised the girl. She came from a nearby block of flats. “Your name’s Bam, isn’t it?” “So?” the girl said. “I suppose yours is ‘Old Hag’.” The remark did not annoy Pop; rather, it made her smile. “That thing out there is a forklift,” she said. “I’ll race you to it. Whoever arrives first can claim it as their own.” “Nutter,” Bam said. “I’ll beat you easily.” They both ran. Pop made much better progress on the sand. The wind invigorated her, and she forgot about the girl. Only when she reached the forklift did she remember the purpose of the race. “I won,” she declared. “You cheated,” Bam said as she caught up. “I can’t run on sand. It’s too soft. And I have a stitch, which is your fault.” “You’re unfit,” Pop said and studied the forklift. It seemed in good condition, and the wheels had sunk no more than an inch into the sand. She climbed onto the seat. “Get off,” Bam said. “Let me pour petrol over it. I want to burn it.” With a shake of her head, Pop turned a key and pressed a button. The engine started. Dark smoke swirled from the exhaust. “Diesel-powered,” Pop said. Bam stared as Pop touched the controls and made the forks go up and down. “Okay,” Pop said and pointed to a pile of driftwood. “Bam, take your petrol and set fire to that.” “What?” “Do it, please.” Reluctantly, Bam splashed petrol over the driftwood and put a match to it. White smoke curled and swept over the sand. “Now join me,” Pop said. Bam squeezed herself onto the seat. Pop drove the forklift to the driftwood and scooped it up on the machine’s forks. She then raised the forks to the maximum height. “You’re crazy,” Bam said. Pop smiled and drove in a figure of eight. “Look up and around you, Bam,” Pop said. “We’re making patterns in the wind with the black smoke of the exhaust and the white of the wood.” Bam clutched Pop’s arm and laughed. Pop spun the forklift in a circle and thought, A good start to the day. K. J. Watson K. J. Watson’s stories and poems have appeared on the radio; in comics, magazines and anthologies; and online. ** After Sonnet, by Stephanie Grainger l. a twisting footpath the curve of branches an unknown path traveling to an antique land ll. so vast and mysterious shall I compare the landscape... to the lonely journey lll. twisting dark branches white etched clouds charcoal grey sky the true marriage of shadow and light lV. almost Japanese sonnet embraces Sumi-e 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, and was included in Mid-Hudsons Arts Poets Respond To Art in 2022-23. He writes each day about music, art and whatever else catches his imagination. ** Conjuring the Mythic Superhighway of My Unconscious Mind I set out on my journey, packing light as I only plan on being gone a few hours; sensible shoes for walking, breathable pants to move in, long-sleeved shirt for the cold patches along the way, and the blindfold; I am walking inwards along the black-lined, curving paths; I put my hands in front of me feeling my way through wisps, filaments, gossamer silk threads; one foot in front of the other, sure, sure of my steps; unsure, unsure of who I will meet; ghosts from the past: who I was at 15, I don’t recognize her anymore, she remains frozen in time; me at 25 already brittle from the strain of a bad marriage; 35 years old, single mother, still counting footsteps one in front of the other; at 45 reborn into another body and mindset; here I’ve stopped at 55 to take a breather, exhaling 40 years of experience, watch it swirl up like a gyre trying to reach heaven; not yet, not yet, heaven can wait a little while longer for me; I wake in the tundra and I know if I’ve survived this long the rest of my life-story, like the sonnets of Shakespeare, will endure for generations. Laura Peña Laura Peña is an award winning poet born and raised in Houston, TX. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. She is a primary bilingual teacher as well as a translator of poetry into Spanish. Laura has been a featured poet at Valley International Poetry Festival, Inprint First Fridays, and Public Poetry. She has been published both in print and on-line journals. She has been a workshop presenter at VIPF in the Rio Grande Valley, TX, and People's Literary Festival in Corpus Christi, TX. One of Laura's annual traditions is to write a poem a day for August Postcard Poetry Festival and has participated in the fest for the last 13 years. Laura has performed poetry for Invisible Lines at such venues as Notsuoh, Interchange, Avante Garden, and The Match. ** Sonnet for Aurora and Helios Quatrain 1 Have you ever started a journey at night time, well before the dawn? It feels like night, but isn't. Night starts with evening, meanders to its zenith. Beyond midnight it's different - light's there in potentia, waiting for the morning, for the rosy fingers of Aurora to open the gates of heaven for her brother Helios. Quatrain 2 Travel crosses this liminal space, of little traffic except the shift workers, busy bees with a pre-set start time alien to most of us. They do not amble. Aurora takes her time. On open countryside roads there's nothing but headlight lit tarmac and roadside verge. Sometimes, there's the glint of green animal eyes: a fox, maybe, or a cat. Once, an owl at hedge height, a spectre puncturing the headlight beams. Quatrain 3 It's hard to say where the light begins to seep in. It rises like soft steam, streaming over whatever bounds the side of the road, at once close up and at a far distance. It's like turning up the wick on an oil lamp, so that a glow starts to suffuse the surroundings, but so gradual it's almost imperceptible, like the start of spring and how it slowly travels from one tree to the next, reviving at the speed of a bud opening. Heroic Couplet What was darkness is dark no longer. Blobs of shape first became outlines, silhouettes of black on a dark grey field of view. These shapes have acquired details, definition and become known objects: a thicket of trees, a nearby hedge, a low stone wall, a bridge. Light cascades, a waterfall of illumination. A transformation - the twist if you like - has happened and Helios shows his handsome face. Emily Tee Emily Tee lives in the UK Midlands and when she's not walking or volunteering she's writing. She has a mini poetry pamphlet due out at the end of 2026 with Atomic Bohemian. ** Mind Painting filling in the gaps if only making people whole was as easy dan smith ** Failure Billie sketched while Mr. Brautigan lectured. She couldn’t quite follow him, her attention kept drifting. Something about Shakespeare and...iambic pentagrams? Billie was still sketching and musing about what a great band name Iambic Pentagram would be when Mr. Brautigan said, “Isn’t that right, Billie?” “Sure,” she agreed, and the class laughed. Oops. Then the bell trilled its shrill dismissal and before Billie could join the outflow of students, Mr. Brautigan was at her desk. As he lifted her sketch his eyebrows shot up. Billie wondered if he’d expected a crude caricature instead of a surrealist landscape. “Billie, you have so much talent. I’d like to see you succeed. Just give me fourteen rhyming lines, due two weeks from today. Please. Be on time.” Billie nodded. Two weeks wasn’t so bad. She could write a poem in two weeks. Sure. She was almost out the door when she heard Mr. Brautigan call out. She turned as he said, “And don’t forget the volta!” * Billie plodded through her lasagna, telling herself she still had plenty of time, most of lunch left before English, and how hard could it be to write a poem? She stalled, scrawled, scowled. She read what she had so far: You can make me wear a bonnet, but I’ll never write this sonnet. Hell. She remembered Mr. Brautigan trying to be kind, trying to encourage her, and his reminder about a...volta? She couldn’t recall exactly what that was. I’ll give you a bolt of volta, she thought, and sketched charcoal clouds across her words, then used her eraser to slash a lightning strike across the impending tempest. Then another. Soon she’d made the loopiest lightning storm ever, a cataclysm snatched from the nightmares of meteorologists. Her poem was cancelled due to a freak weather event. “This is what pencils were made for,” she said aloud, then headed for class. * The bell rang and the students trailed out, but before Billie could join them, Mr. Brautigan gestured for her to approach. “Didn’t see you submit your poem, today, Billie. Maybe I missed it?” She thought, he’s trying to give me a chance, even now. Which is why she surprised herself when she produced her paper, held it up for him to see, then tore the page into three long strips. “This is a modern sonnet: three stanzas.” She deposited the remnants on his desk and started to leave, then remembered, and turned back. She ripped a fourth narrow strip from the final panel. “And a volta.” She strode toward the door. When she glanced back, she thought she saw Mr. Brautigan failing to suppress a smile. Tracy Royce Tracy Royce is a writer and poet with work recently appearing in Brilliant Flash Fiction and The Ekphrastic Review, and forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review, Hot Flash Literary, and Best Microfiction (2026). Her work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions, a Touchstone Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Find her on Bluesky. ** A Sonnet in My Palm Drops down the darkened sky in trailing light Along the lines marking on earth our time. Like a waterfall in a stormy night In the moment of years since fifty-five. Tonight, moon sprawls beneath sidewalks upon A heap of fallen leaves in an embrace Of outstretched arms that outlast hope and dawn Delighted conversations I still trace. In death nothing matters, not even lines That I did not write below. Behold, then Be it here that our sonnet we find twined On banyan roots into ground that descend. Where sit bald eagle and a barbet steep Sending grey throated songs into the deep. Abha Das Sarma Abha Das Sarma lives in Bangalore, 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, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, Blue Heron Review, Poetry X Hunger, here and elsewhere. ** Construction of a Sonnet Start with a quatrain of black gossamer drifting over a marsh at twilight. Next add a quatrain of white strands unravelling over an ice-bound sea. Then set a quatrain of swans to fly over the ice-bound sea or the marsh at twilight. A couplet for closure, light as a feather, weaving the mysteries all together. Ruth Holzer Ruth Holzer is the author of ten chapbooks, most recently, On the Way to Man in Moon Passage (dancing girl press) and Float (Kelsay Books). Her poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, California Quarterly, Freshwater, POEM, Slant and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart, Touchstone, and Best of the Net nominee, among her awards are the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Prize, the Tanka Splendor Award and the Ito En Art of Haiku Contest Grand Prize. She lives in Virginia. ** Craquelure Such are the fine cracks showing on the sky this gray day mirroring the icy surfaces of the ground below. Both earth and sky are ancient, yet only in cold do they drop their masks of smoothness to display the craquelure of age. I study the patterns, attempting to learn their ways of wisdom, kindness, love, humility, celebration, attempting to determine if the lines my own inner and outer skin will show, in cold or warmth or both, the truth craquelure of my own old age, my life. Joan Leotta Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Her folktale programs (ages 5-adult) highlight food, family, and strong women. Her show, live and on zoom, Louisa May Alcott, is for children and adults. Joan’s on the board of London’s LABRC, and is Regional Rep for the North Carolina Writers Network. She’s taught storytelling and writing, for LABRC, the North Carolina Poetry Society, NC Writers Network, and others. Internationally published as essayist, poet, short story writer, novelist, she’s a multiple nominee for Pushcart and Best of Net. Her publications include One Art, The Ekphrastic Review, and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. ** When Time Unfurls the Tongue God speaks like cursive and evening light whispering ice floes, waterfalls, white sage, and lichen and I speak as woman possessed of salt and sough shivering like a spider web woven over river. Whispered prayers weave the sky. Heather Brown Barrett Heather Brown Barrett is an award-winning poet in southeastern Virginia. She’s the Membership Chair of The Poetry Society of Virginia and a member of The Muse Writers Center. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, The Ekphrastic Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, formidable Woman sanctuary, Black Bough Poetry, OyeDrum, and elsewhere, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. She’s the author of Water in Every Room (Kelsay Books, 2025). Website: https://heatherbrownbarrett.com/. ** Patterns Nothing will come of nothing. William Shakespeare, King Lear He measures life in surfaces Every year a smear across his skin Thoughts skim the static of his fear Each loss a wave he let pass through The day the papers dried the house went still A door unlatched and would not close again But still he said the air was clearer now That solitude proved strength, not flight He wants the perfect harbour, avoids the shore And moves from light to light with guarded hands If warmth draws near he feels the old recoil And names the distance wisdom, not retreat He stands where land and water meet A man who names the sea but will not swim. Angela Segredaki Angela Segredaki holds a CW degree from Oxford University and loves poetry, flowers, and people. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Unicorn, The Ekphrastic Review, New Lyre, Amsterdam Quarterly, Mouthful of Salt, The Adelaide Literary Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Dawntreader, Snakeskin and elsewhere. ** Prefigurement You left me when spring was about to come, blossoms still the clustering of fresh snow... — From an ancient Japanese text I never thought The Lady Otomo would leave her winter garden and come here to dress my portrait windows. Scholars will tell you the poet walked light and smooth as the rice paper she committed to song and ink. Now she swirls in wearing her pale dawn-powdered face, defying time and its frames of reference. Her hands arrange snow on glass. while nearby the river thaws floating gulls, branches and other debris on its slow tide rinsing over stones shawled in fraying moss. Because of her plum blossoms silhouette the long panes; and I sense they are bouquets left for a woman's lover. Mine moved through the Dunbas woods at dusk and marched toward a mountain marking the sky in silver chalk. Soldier, husband, friend -- his death might be written at the height of battle, my heart chilled with the last air that glitters in his lungs. Wendy Howe Author's Note: Lady Otomo of Sakanoue was a prominent lady of the court and poet in 8th century Japan. Much of her work was recorded in a Japanese text called A Thousand Leaves. Her poetry focused on themes of love, death, isolation and a profound relationship with nature. Wendy Howe is an English teacher who lives in California. Her poetry reflects her interest in myth, women in conflict and history. Landscapes that influence her writing include the seacoast and high desert where she has formed a poetic kinship with the Joshua trees, hills and wild life spanning ravens, lizards and coyotes. She has been published in the following journals: The Poetry Salzburg Review, The Interpreter's House, Corvid Queen, Strange Horizons, The Acropolis Journal and many others. ** Untitled Black-green the vista opens: smoke and stone Meet on a streaked horizon. In a cloud Pale lines are forming, angular as bone: The X-ray of an elemental shroud. Green-grey the view continues: wisps break free: Shapes everywhere dissolving, as the air And what's below rephrase their harmony; The stones are melting into mud. A bare Grey-white vignette now follows: what was sky Turns marble, every feature now a streak On a cold floor; or has a house dropped by, Muted chinoiserie, refined technique? The final vision: whitish, cool and tight As a good couplet. Then a perfect white. Ruth S Baker ** On the Cusp of a Sonnet in Four Panels in nature’s arms quiet water a tangled sky storm building no bird song no outstretched wings no gliding hawk pools stagnant a brightening refuge weavings of driftwood halcyon sky out of the hush a flute’s high notes a song shaping Sandi Stromberg Sandi Stromberg is the author of Frogs Don't Sing Red and Moonlight, Shaken (accepted for publication in early 2026). Her poems have recently appeared in Synkroniciti, San Pedro River Review, Red River Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Panoply, and MockingHeart Review, and also published in Equinox, Gyroscope Review, and The Senior Class, among others. An editor at The Ekphrastic Review, she also edited two poetry anthologies--Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston and Echoes of the Cordillera. A four-time Pushcart and two-time Best of the Net nominee, she was juried into the Houston Poetry Fest eleven times. ** The World Is Too Much With Us Late And Soon "The only wisdom is knowing you know nothing." Ilia Manilin at the Winter Olympics, 2026 Can sound alone create a sonnet? The murmuring of movement in the way music catches nature? Outside the city's scenic sideshow with its automated cries, were we a quatrain, two stanzas -- 7 lines -- out of time, our lives reversed as we stood like Japanese lovers enshrined on scrolls, too close to the end even at the beginning destiny's infinite drum roll like a water wheel (straight line to rotary, a refreshing revolution.) Were we old and blind in troubled youth? 7 - lines trying to stand upright our coda added on the right, the weight of the world in musical patterns when we were stanzas, inverted in art & summed up unexpectedly as we evolved, arguing in sonnets, our rifts captured by the artist? The day your glasses -- what you saw shaped like an infinity 8 -- fell on the ice, were they churned away in the frozen lake? So much winter! You, straight-backed, a scroll with memories ( Emakimano is an illustrated horizontal narrative system ) & wasn't I in 7 lines, beside you when worldly forms were stanzas flipped, trying to be a quatrain an artwork where waters try to settle, the end of arguments predicted in the 3rd scroll where I told you the legend of lovers who escape their fate on Satsuma, their story pictured on a vessel where they are beautiful, though chased by an angry warlord (was he father or rejected lover?) as they crossed a river flowing on the right like a ribbon unknotted by sharp stones in a coda a 4th scroll added to the artist's canvas where we may have followed a century of unrest, civil wars and reconciliation lovers fleeing in a Sonnet -- call it a map or drawing of our time together: My darling, Friedrich Nietzsche said Without music, life would be a mistake & I have tried to write a Sonnet For A Romance Novelist -- our relationship a fiction. Laurie Newendorp Author's note: The poem's title is from a sonnet by William Wordsworth. Honoured many times by The Ekphrastic Review's Challenge, Laurie Newendorp’s poetry explores the relationship of what is fixed and what is free in a century where multiple disciplines and genres -- art, sonnets, music -- emotion and its interpretations, human and AI -- struggle to survive. **
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