“perennials” by Cora Hyatt


Three years ago,
I made a disastrous,
ill-fated mistake;
I planted two tomato seeds.

Little did I know,
those two seeds made a promise,
or perhaps a pact,
to carry out a cruel legacy upon my garden.

The following year,
I planted bell peppers.
They never saw the light of day –
the tomatoes had survived the winter and the frost.

Their monarchy established,
they choked out sprouts before they could bloom;
their army of vines
forced strawberries to surrender.

Now,
they’ve claimed divine right to the sun,
any plant that suggests they share
shrivels and fades in the shade.

I know that once I’m buried deep under,
looking up at my radishes from below,
those tyrants will continue to have their way,
and they will make sure the radishes rot with me.


Cora Hyatt is a poet, student, and Indiana transplant presently living in Portland, Oregon. If delivering flowers, send red carnations.

“Lament of the Female Kind” by Kiana Rezakhanlou


About suffering they were never wrong,
those poets of old, masters
of the quill. How intensely they understood
the human condition towards conformity,
hexameters, spondee after dactyl, anceps to wrap up the mind
neatly. Sphragis for a ribbon tied round. We still love praising
ourselves.
And how much they thought of
women, it seems, with distorted faces towards empty seas,
deserted shores and wretched kin. Lion-hearted and spouted
from Scylla and Charybdis and howling for pity,
miserere nobis was their cry, if you could manage to feel any
pity for an artificial plurality. Women were not rules,
they were the exception, the bastardised, the barbarianised,
othered even still on a funeral pyre.
Burning burning burning burning.
Betray a brother and you shall have no fleece to keep you warm.
Beating of breasts and ripping of hair, a mother’s cry can set a whole town
alight. It can end a whole Book of strife.
Masters know how to observe art. A Bacchant Brawl.
Poets can pile on detail, loosening of dress, fleck in cheek, gloss of eye, but they cannot forget
that women must sacrifice, must suffer. And we must feel for them, when no one else
does — immemor are those men, mindful are we.
You, you! they can cry, perfide! in desperation, rage, sorrow, in letters, laments, accusations, but
recusatio and rhetoric will not help them,
when their girlish feet get stuck in the sand.


Kiana Rezakhanlou is an Upper 6 student from London, hoping to embark on the next stage of her academic journey at Oxford University, come October, whether by Zoom or amidst the colleges themselves. She is interested in all things linguistic, literary, classical and philological, and can often be found waxing lyrical about the poets Goethe or Ovid, sometimes within one sentence of each other.

“A Birthday Party” by Ramces Ha


These rides, these blasts through the atmosphere, this guilt-thickened sea, this captain, this name, this balaclava’d god, this string of gray hair, this playing to the crown, these feather-capped fists and mountainous scams—like those who lay before us in these squared-off banks, it is now my name written on your tombstone tongue.

Except this is a birthday party, equipped with pointy hats and chocolate cake, surrounded by friends and family alike. Even though you’ve picked me out of the crowd, ostensibly because it’s my time, I need you to wait. At least until my daughter blows out her candles—because nobody knows what she’s going to wish for, and maybe that will buy us some time.

“A pony,” she says. “I wish for a pony!”


Ramces Ha is an MFA candidate at the University of Texas El Paso. He currently resides in Aledo, TX.

“Messing Around in Eden” by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

For Val Healey


Val sees me in the garden
and dangling her rubber snake
Mr.Squiggles, in her gnarled hands
asks me for the twenty second time
in the four years that we’ve been neighbours
if I am afraid of snakes
and I tell her that I most certainly am
even the fake ones creep me out
like her Mr.Squiggles here

and then I know it’s coming –
I’m listening to her story again
which I now know scene for scene
but always make it a point
to look interested
like I’m hearing it for the very first time –
that story of Val aged eight
somewhere up in the Blue Mountains
picking vanilla lilies in the summer
when an irate tiger snake
lunges for her heel in the bushes

Val being nimble-footed and badass
swiftly snatches it by its tail
lassoes it around in the air
and flings it far into the undergrowth
and the snake is briefly cock-eyed
scramble-brained and nauseous
like its Biblical predecessor
on the day it was caught mischief-making
messing around in Eden
and eight year old Val stands arms akimbo
watching the critter slither away
more draconian in scare tactics
than good ol’ God of the Old Testament
then blowing me a kiss
laughs and wiggles Mr.Squiggles
and ambles back to her unit.


Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is a Sydney artist, poet, and pianist, of Indian heritage. She holds a Masters in English and is a member of Sydney’s North Shore Poetry Project and Authora Australis. Her recent poems have been published in several print and online literary journals and anthologies. She likes to write about everyday experiences. Her superpower is making people laugh. She has a terrible weakness for chocolate, and is obsessed with painting magpies. www.poetry.oormila.com

“Bind” by Meryl McQueen

    (after Georges Mathieu’s Le Duc Charles épouse la Duchesse de Bourgogne)

now a hawk’s eye, now a
falcon’s nest:

nine royal days, blue
and bold in

union, palm read
swirls begun in

urgent defense
against a king’s

own challenge
more brash than

bridled, more swap
(land/point/power)

than sweeping
anyone anywhere

meeting in the
middle (her) stooping

for a kiss and still
geography, with

its elbowed strokes
on his side, hers

feather-tipped
and fading

they rise, reveal:
they reel and rise


Meryl McQueen is a global nomad, space science geek and tree-hugging polyglot with a PhD in linguistics. She believes in creative community solutions to intractable problems, civic social responsibility, and systematic acts of kindness.

“Marco the Magnificent” by Elizabeth Farris

He blamed everything on his lovely assistant.  Lately she’d been acting strange, allowing the rabbit to escape from his top hat.  She failed to oil the hinges on a safety device.  Sabotaged his act by rumpling his silk handkerchief so the fake flowers emerged upside down. 

Even the stagehands noticed the crying fits.  She’d lost her sparkle; her passion for the magic of show biz had vanished. 

If she had survived, she would have told how he sniggered about the weight she’d been putting on.  Growing too fat for the sequined costume.  Her swollen ankles were visible to the people sitting in the last row.  She was unappealing, both to him and to the audience.  She could barely squeeze into the Saw the Lady in Half Box, no less contort her body to avoid the saw.  Marco the Magnificent, a show all about deception.  He accused her of refusing to participate in the illusion.     

If she’d survived, she would have told him, “I don’t care if your wife finds out.  I’m having this baby.” 


Elizabeth Farris is a dual citizen who divides her time between a small cabin in the mountains of Arizona and a small town in New Zealand. Both houses overlook water; a tiny year-round creek and the Tasman Sea. Either there are elk in the yard, or she is down the beach collecting pretty shells.

“Come, leh we dance” by Lynda V. E. Crawford


calypso, kaiso, ringbang, soca

merge horns into morning cock crows
tingle pan, pound bass

wuk up your waistline
in a giggle first, then

a sweaty laugh


Lynda V. E. Crawford is a poet who has lived in the USA longer than her childhood home Barbados, a fact that sways and punctuates her writing. She’s let go of journalism, copywriting, website management, and email marketing. Poetry won’t let go of her.

“Shopping Mysteries” by James Barr


For years, I’ve thought on and off about Mr. Coffee. To be perfectly clear, I have nothing against the guy. In fact, I think he makes a great cup of coffee. Instead, my wonderment has to do with Mrs. Coffee. Where the heck is she? Or was there ever such a person? Is Mr. Coffee a lifelong bachelor or did he and Mrs. Coffee go splitsville and I just missed hearing about it?

I’m not a regular reader of those supermarket magazines, but I know for certain that if there was ever any news about a Mr. and Mrs. Coffee breakup, it would’ve been splashed all over the cover. If so, I would’ve caught it, just as I caught another breaking story. Someone spotted the Pillsbury Doughboy at a weight reduction clinic. There’s even a grainy shot of him on a yoga mat, and it isn’t pretty.

I occasionally wonder if Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker know each other. After all, they’re stocked in the same aisle, sometimes right next to each other and have a lot of kitchen wizardry and wooden spoons in common.

I frequently see signs about “Gluten Free” and wonder, since it’s free, where I can get some. But there’s never any small print providing directions or attempting to clarify things. But that’s okay. I’m thinking I wouldn’t like it anyway and would probably return it. But where would I take it?

How come we never hear anything about Laura Scudder? She makes a mean batch of peanut butter, despite forcing me to bend a spoon and tear a wrist tendon while trying to stir it. I can see why she wouldn’t want to hang with Peter Pan, as he’s too young and an imagined character. However, I have heard rumors about Laura and Chef Boyardee, but can neither confirm nor deny them.

I also feel a little deceived whenever I go to Bed, Bath & Beyond. Despite asking every time I’m in one of their stores, no one can point me to the “Beyond” section. The Bed and Bath merchandise is easily found. But whatever’s in the “Beyond” department is a mystery. Maybe there’s a secret door somewhere behind the display of lemon-scented garbage disposer balls. I’ll take a closer look next time.

That brings me to that Mike Lindell guy of “My Pillow” fame. Have you ever seen anyone prouder of their pillow? If I were to purchase one from him, would he still consider it his pillow? Or would it now become my pillow? And when, exactly, does it officially become MY pillow? Why does one guy have to have so many pillows he considers his? Also, if I purchased two, would they then be called My Pillows?

Admittedly, none of these are problems worthy of a think tank or some cumbersome governmental committee. But let’s all work together to get them cleared up.

Doing so will give me more time to try to pull my spoon out of Laura’s peanut butter.


An ad agency creative director turned freelance writer, James is enjoying his newfound creative freedom. During his career, he was once challenged to find features and benefits in a well-known beauty soap. Today, he’s free to lather up stories that bring smiles and joy while never leaving a ring in the tub.

“The Word” by Kevin LeMaster


when the word is spoken
it files the teeth to a sharp edge
butters the tongue
like morning news
almost always not as sweet
looks at you with doe eyes
a fawn in your arms
until it kicks its way free
an uninvited guest that won’t leave
until it has drained you of all you can say
all that you can imagine is out there
on the table like lines of coke that must
be snorted
all we can do is breathe deep and smell
the rotted with the too sweet
and listen to the drone in the ear
until it has finished speaking


Kevin lives in South Shore Kentucky. His poems have been found at The Lakes, Appalachian Heritage, Praxis magazine, Rockvale Review, The Rye Whiskey Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Plainsongs ad Coe Review.
He has had recent work published in Dragon Poet Review, Pangolin Review, Constellations and Inkwell Journal and work forthcoming in The Bookends Review and Heartwood Literary Review. Kevin was a finalist for the Mahogany Red Lit Prize.
His work in “Rubicon: Words and art inspired by Oscar Wildes De Profundis” was nominated for a Pushcart prize.

“Higher Learning” by John Tustin


My son liked sea chanties
And my daughter liked Neil Young’s Harvest album
And Ennio Morricone.
They both liked Tom Waits.
In the limited time I had with them
I crammed all the learning about the finer things
That I could.

Someday in the future their significant others will ask them about me
And they’ll hear a song off of Bob Dylan’s Desire in their heads
Before they respond.

Whatever they say about me,
They better say I taught them well.


John Tustin is currently suffering in exile on the island of Elba but hopes to return to you soon. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.