Category: Webzine

Circular Orphans

Gina Twardosz

I think she might’ve whipped it at him in the street once, or more likely, he asked for it back, but somehow, I have come to possess my mother’s engagement ring. It has a modest red stone, possibly garnet, shaped into a heart, placed onto a sleek gold plated band. It didn’t cost a lot and was bought so far after their engagement that I remember its selection and purchase. I don’t think my father proposed with any ring, they just shook hands like a business proposition. It was a marriage of convenience, mostly, which is not to say there wasn’t any love ever, but mostly the certificate was signed because it made sense (love, to me, has never made much sense) and I feel odd owning it now so I’ve stuffed it away in a box. I think about wearing it sometimes but I can’t detach it from its symbolism. Garnet is also my father’s birthstone. I almost pawned it once, but I hated the thought of someone else having it. I don’t think the ring will ever be worn again. I don’t think it’s something to be passed down. I think, maybe I should give it back to my mother, but then what would I even say? Here’s this love back.

Gina Twardosz (she/her) has had work published in Thimble Literary Magazine, Gotham’s The Razor, and Querencia Press. She has work forthcoming in Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose and Cobra Milk Magazine.

For That One Friend I Don’t Speak to Anymore

Chloe McIntosh

Anyway,
Sorry for the teeth at your collarbone,
The venom in your throat,
The way you never got to the centre of me
No matter how far you burrowed
And how much I promised it was right around that bend

The things we are to each other
Are nebulous and weak
As the tea your flatmate leaves
Scattered on every surface of the house

I just wanted you to take a chance, give a little,
Believe in something crueller and more wondrous than what you’d come to expect
But all we got was the shed skin, the tetanus, cold mugs, heating bills we can’t afford,
Ghosts of each other
Ripped out of every photograph

Chloe McIntosh is a poet and writer of short fiction from Hertfordshire. She has a BA in English Literature from the University of Exeter and was shortlisted for the Platypus Press Celestial Bodies Poetry Competition. Her work is also forthcoming in Lucent Dreaming’s For a Friend Anthology.

Volunteer veterans

Vyacheslav Konoval

A battalion is born
from former police officers,
wear a chevron
take the patch and medallion.

Training ahead
blood, sweat and loss,
shame, I’m in a warm bed.

Vyacheslav Konoval is a Ukrainian poet whose work is devoted to the most pressing social problems of our time, such as poverty, ecology, relations between the people and the government, and war. His poems have appeared in many magazines, including Anarchy Anthology Archive, International Poetry Anthology and Literary Waves Publishing.

A measure of the past from the future

Namratha Varadharajan

I scroll through the new world
and there is a face  

that reminds me of a closed door.
The promise of everything

that flew away, the hidden ocean
of (possible) emotions. Everything

away from sight. The
we was never a we, and the

(never we) became an I, I
should have stuck

my face inside the wet earth, I
should have (again and again)

dived off ledges and fell into tears. Instead
in the now. nothing.

which makes me think there was nothing then.

Namratha Varadharajan writes to explore human emotions and relationships, and our interconnectedness with nature while trying to chip at the prejudices that plague us, one syllable at a time. Her work has been published in The Yearbook of Indian Poetry 2022, The Kali Project, The Gulmohar Quarterly, The Alipore Post, haikuKATHA, Poetry Pea, among others.

Two Photos

Fabio Sassi

Frankie

Flux

Fabio Sassi makes photos and acrylics that take the everyday and ordinary and frame it in a different way. He lives in Bologna, Italy and his work can be viewed online.

On Reflection

Sherry Morris

Originally from Missouri, Sherry Morris writes prize-winning fiction from a farm in the Scottish Highlands where she pets cows, watches clouds and dabbles in photography. She reads for the wonderfully wacky Taco Bell Quarterly and her first published story was about her Peace Corps experience in Ukraine. See more on her website and follow her on Twitter (@Uksherka).

Bloodset

Praveena Pulendran

Praveena Pulendran is a 21-year-old creative from London. She enjoys photography, flowers, and the colour pink! Her passion for mixed media often merges with her poetry, creating mini art pieces tucked away in scrappy notebooks.

She’ll be a Writer

Ellis Jamieson

Two tiny tottering feet imagine they can fly with the gulls. Two blue eyes see mermaids’ worlds inside the rockpools. Her hand-me-down, red coat – a viking sail. Driftwood swords. Sandcastle kingdoms. She and the sea speak a secret language. 

Mum says,
“She’ll be a writer when she grows up.”

Ellis Jamieson is a queer, non-binary writer, based in the north of Scotland. They write prose as well as plays, and enjoy working next to their fire while the winds howl outside. Their work has previously been published in Shoreline of Infinity and on Yorick Radio Productions.

October 17, 2021

Emily Pinkerton

the sky is deep charcoal, threatening rain
for the first time in a year
filled with fire and dust. I watch the reel
of a VHS tape unspool in the wind,
snaking across the width of 40th street,
billowing in shining black arcs
as my car creeps toward the traffic light.

Emily Pinkerton (she/they) holds an MFA from San Francisco State University. Her writing has previously appeared in the chapbooks Natural Disasters (2016), Bloom (2018) and Adaptations (2018), and the journals ZYZZYVA, Juked, BlazeVOX, and Berkeley Poetry Review. She is a 2023 Fellow at USF Verftet in Bergen, Norway. See more online or on Twitter (@neongolden).

All the time

Alice Willington

All the time on the train today
I have imagined you feeding me ice-cream,
chocolate and distinct, from an elegant spoon.

Perhaps we have arrived at the Grand Café – 
there must be a table in the mirror’s eternity. 
The train has stalled at Arisaig – should I wait?

Alice Willington won second prize in the 2009 Ledbury Poetry Competition. Her poems have appeared in Magma, Under the Radar and other magazines. Her pamphlet Long After Lights Out (Eyewear) was published in November 2015.