My Unlight

I can see them now around me, shadows

begetting shadows—their dim appendages

multiplying, eating

light

in this once bright afternoon—

Shadows

spreading like a grassfire, thickening their

sub-lumen, growing

shadow wings, taking flight

over the sun. It started down

within me, black cells

waking, doubling,

thinking—A shadow’s mind

wants only dark—dark in the

head, dark in the hills, dark over the soul

like a strange quilt. I think this

is what I always wanted—a shadowed mind

in a shadowed world.

Alexander Etheridge has been developing his poems and translations since 1998. His poems have been featured in The Potomac Review, Museum of Americana, Ink Sac, Welter Journal, The Cafe Review, The Madrigal, Abridged Magazine, Susurrus Magazine, The Journal, Roi Faineant Press, and many others. He was the winner of the Struck Match Poetry Prize in 1999, and a finalist for the Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize in 2022. He is the author of, God Said Fire, and, Snowfire and Home.

Ticket out

Buy a ticket out

with the forgotten jewels

under your ‘always’ coat.

Fly off all your handles

and be the hard beauty

of your diamond self.

Doug Jacquier writes from the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia. His works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry have been published in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India. He blogs at https://sixcrookedhighways.com/

Feng Shui

you think about moving the bed

but then stop to consider

all of the candy bar wrappers

& the dead mice

dreaming under there.

John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023) and Dead Photographs, (Stubborn Mule Press, 2024). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

Ekphrastic Haiku #2

after Cuckoo – Early Summer’s Rain by Ohara Koson (Japan), date unknown
for Anoop Bhogal-Nair

sand-bathing cuckoos;
rain washes the leaves o’ peepul –
mousson’s pronouncement!

Saad Ali - Author Photograph (300dpi) (1).jpg

Saad Ali (he/him; b. 1980) is a bilingual poet-philosopher & literary translator from the UK and Pakistan. His work appears in The Ekphrastic Review, The Mackinaw, BRAWL Lit., Lotus-eater, ImmaginePoesia, and various poetry anthologies. He has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and Best Microfiction. FB/IG: @owlofpines.