My blood moon
he used to call me
because i blushed
every time
his shadow
descended
upon my slopes
He’d point
his face toward me
and howl
Bojana Stojcic is a teacher from Serbia, living in Germany. Her poems and flash pieces have been published in Rust + Moth, Anti-Heroin Chic, Barren Magazine, Spelk, XRAY, The Opiate, and elsewhere. She blogs at Coffee and Confessions to Go and is currently working on a collection of flash fiction/prose poetry.
To me, it makes a summer; continent-
compassing
steely blue wings,
pure breast, gorget
deep red as though still cooling from some southern forge.
Passing then fast repassing, it connects the dots
of unseen gnats,
so near to me
it makes me see;
to it, I’m utterly irrelevant.
Mark Totterdell’s poems have appeared widely in magazines and have occasionally won competitions. His collections are ‘This Patter of Traces’ (Oversteps Books, 2014) and ‘Mapping’ (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2018).
Freedom
The bird in the blue
It flew and it grew
To a place where it
knew how to be.
*
Longing in short
He’s miles away, he smiles away. Distance is grey.
Sarah Hulme is a Durham University graduate who enjoys writing poetry as a way to understand thoughts, feelings and the world we live in.
I watch a pair of lorikeets gorge on overripe peaches. They hook the ample flesh with their beaks chattering between mouthfuls, their green the green of the leaves so only the vivid blue of their heads is visible, with an occasional blaze of breast. I think of the women at the café in Brighton. Every Sunday they sit at a window table slurping tea and cream cakes, heads bent in gossip, oblivious to their surrounds and smeared lips. At that time, in their world, it’s just them. I note the silence, feel watched, look up to find the parrots staring at me, a couple of plump sunsets untouched at their feet.
J V Birch lives in Adelaide. Her poems have appeared in anthologies, journals and magazines across Australia, the UK, Canada and the US. She has two collections – Smashed glass at midnight and What the water & moon gave me – published by Ginninderra Press, and is currently working on her third. She blogs at www.jvbirch.com.
You want the artifact
without having to go
through the window
to get it
a body untouchable
the
bluish
fire in your skin
casting its antibodies
on the floor
eleven different ways
to wrestle with the dark
inside you
none of it holding
things
together
we all fall apart
that way.
James Diaz is the founding editor of the literary arts & music journal Anti-Heroin Chic. His work has appeared most recently in HIV Here & Now, Foliate Oak, Chronogram, and Cheap Pop Lit. His first book of poems, This Someone I Call Stranger, is forthcoming from Indolent Books (2017.)
she is the sea glass queen
all xtratuf boots and rain gear
trowel and shovel
searcher of shards
of pottery and glass
she takes the blue canoe
down to wrangell
a meandering passage
through silvery waterways
lined by rocky beach and forest
she is the writer
all creative mind and chapbooks
filled journals and prompts
collector of truths and stories
recorded by pen on paper
she will spend the summer
at mickey’s fishcamp
photograph the play
of cloud and setting sun
sort treasures from the beach
organize words on the page
Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing, high school English-teaching Alaskan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry through the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2016. Kersten’s recent work has appeared in Cirque, Inklette, Sheila-Na-Gig and Pure Slush. Her book Something Yet to Be Named by Aldrich Press and her chapbook titled What Caught Raven’s Eye by Petroglyph Press will be published in 2017. Kersten co-edits the quarterly journal Alaska Women Speak. When not exploring the summer lands and dark winter of the Yukon Territory, she lives in Sitka, Alaska with her husband and photographer Bruce Christianson, and daughter Rie.
Ocean glittering in deadly blue light,
filled with small phosphorescent dots,
we are bounded on the east and west
by beaches and the repetitious, drugged
sway of the ocean becomes our way of
living;
the room is empty, save for us, and your
long tentacles scattered on the bed.
This cut piece of reality is a still life
painted with pain and love.
Long hours lead to endless ages as I
dive back into the water to give you
the kiss of life or to get stung.
Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collections and two chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. He has won several European awards for his poetry and his poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others.
Foxglove Journal 