Issue 1 features poems from various countries, including Portugal, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, India, Malaysia, the United States, Poland, Wales, and Japan. It explores a wide range of themes such as nature, memory, and human experience, reflecting on both tranquil and tumultuous aspects of life. We are pleased to give talented poet Saki Arimoto her first ever publication, in our first ever issue. Happy reading to you all!

New Beginnings

They are pushing slowly, a country.

There are bright lights but

the obstructing hand, fingers splayed,

is not a friend.

To keep above the squelching sand--

they are holding their own, heads above, beyond.

They are trying to raise oceans,

land forms shifting, carrying words;

symbolizing those heavy things we, all humans, carry.

Movements of bodies through the mazes

of air and water.

A new place, both lifting and half-drowning.

Reaching, reaching, there is sky, there is—new.

We can, we must, we will. Open the gate!

Moving is all, moving is IT.

A former librarian, currently teaching and being a friend to children, Godfrey Green also helps ESL adults with English and has published two books of poetry, Toward Freedom and Singing on Subways.

Alba La Romaine

The sundial sparks in equinox over the amphora hill,

light rises vibrant in the drone of cicadas,

olives and dark grapes press into crystal,

the wall stone opens to rosemary.

We cross the arched portal below a scorched eagle,

black talons scrape the inscription on my lips,

though I will say nothing,

the heat of your hands presses a sign in the clay.

The sun unknots a linen gauze softening at your touch,

you lean to my shoulder and I reach for your stillness

then we return to the relief of the shade cloth,

sky white with sun, the fabric flares an aromatic garland.

And as the light reunites with earth,

the cotton mesh catches thorn, spilling basaltic syrah.

Living in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France, John Swain has published two collections of poetry, Ring the Sycamore Sky (Red Paint Hill), and Under the Mountain Born (Least Bittern Books).

A Socks Story

Two socks go in with the laundry.

Once all are washed and dried,

only one sock emerges.

It’s like so many marriages.

In all the swirl of suds,

the spin of heat,

one party somehow

eases them out through

the merest of cracks of the machine,

or squirrels itself into a pants pocket,

leaving the other

as the useless half of a pair.

I buy many pairs

of the very same color and design.

As with divorce,

many lost souls

team up with other lost souls,

try to make it as a pair.

Sometimes, one sock

wears out before the other,

develops a hole so wide

half a foot can fit through it.

It’s like so many marriages.

One holds itself together.

The other splits apart and is tossed.

An Australian poet, a US resident, John Grey has been recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. His three latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert, and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon. His work is upcoming in California Quarterly, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa and Shot Glass Journal.

Self Portrait

I sit at the kitchen table with magazines snagged at a garage sale. The glue from last year’s art class is too thick. My scissors are dull. Today’s assignment is to create a self-portrait of my childhood self. I rip out pages, cutting and shaping her young face from a honeycomb. Rusty bottle caps for eyes. She stares at me as if gazing through binoculars. As a kid, seeing what others couldn’t see would’ve come in handy. Her nose is a photo of a boiled sausage. I use a pen to draw a scar on the bony bridge. Her stilled lips are good at keeping secrets. Layer upon layer, paper scraps become epidermis, dermis, hypodermis—barriers against pathogens. However, nothing can protect her from grief or trauma. I piece together ears with extra wide canals, an adaptation like an early warning system. Her body is an oversized heart pieced together from an ad for prickly pears. Spines make good armor. I had planned to use mighty oaks for her arms and legs. Instead, I attach seagull feathers. She reminds me of art tacked up in a kindergarten classroom—but with the freedom to soar. We like that about us.

A teal-haired septuagenarian, Sherry Shahan creates art in a small beach town. Her poetry lives in F(r)iction, Progenitor, december, Plentitudes, Critical Read, The Mud Season Review, Antithesis, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize in Poetry and Best of the Net.

Slaughter

In the dark,

on the floor,

on a 2-inch thick mattress—

there was my sanctuary.

Scared of the slaughter,

I hid beneath the blanket,

escaping through lullabies,

stories, and films,

grasping only fragments.

I grew to love the arts.

I started writing—

proses and poems,

memorizing film dialogues,

transcribing my blues and darkest days,

scribbling until the ink ran out.

But he emerged from the underground,

where living embodiments of evil were molded—

hunters without purpose,

preying on the helpless,

inflicting pain for entertainment.

I knew my escape was fated to fail,

and my fate was to be slaughtered.

But the young and naive

cling even to a thread—

an inevitable demise,

yet better with a hint of light.

Saki Arimoto, a Tokyo-based poet and full-time professional at a leading global consulting firm, was born and raised in the Philippines. She found her voice in poetry amidst the vivid contrast of her upbringing and the intense rhythm of her life in Japan. Her work, often delving into the complexities of personal struggles, emotional resilience and the intersections of cultural identity, blends the warmth and vibrancy of her Filipino roots with the introspective and disciplined nature of her life in Tokyo.