I prefer to slip back through the ear,
ignoring the common portal of throat,
sliding past the anvil, hammer, and stirrup
so quietly I cannot hear myself come in,
though often I am caught repeating
the echoing walls of the heart.
Jeff Burt lives in California and works in mental health. He has contributed to Tar River Poetry, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Williwaw Journal.
And I would beg forgiveness,
though you have little left to give.
Instead,
my bloodstained bones will bend
a mist of midnight air
to crown your forehead.
Tabbytha Spyrison is an aspiring student writer, enrolled at Warren Wilson College. Her poetry has been published in her high school literary magazine and she has a short story in the WWC Literary journal.
The ivy or whatever it is
Comes right up from the grassy earth
Like a great octopus’ tentacles
Gripping the deck of a flailing ship
And slowly covers the stone animals
That solemnly stand along the path
Leading to the place where
The dirt now covers Confucius.
The ram and the horse and the tiger
Do not fall.
Neither does Confucius
Rise.
John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals in the last dozen years. See a full list of his published poetry online on his website.
Your crypt of rock is hidden
your stone is scotched with lesions,
candles drip below disfigured saints,
your script I cannot read.
I stoop in the cool air
clean as bone, smooth as the lake outside.
For lack of air the damp creeps
the walls give way to bones beneath.
Ben Keatinge is a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of English, Trinity College Dublin. His poems have been published in The Stony Thursday Book, Orbis, Eborakon, The Galway Review, Agenda, Cassandra Voices, Flare and in Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets (Dedalus Press, 2019). He taught English literature for nine years at South East European University, North Macedonia and he has travelled widely in the Balkans. He is the editor of Making Integral: Critical Essays on Richard Murphy (Cork University Press, 2019).
Hydrangea stalks sundered,
stripped from out the copper loam —
impending corpses sprawled like lapis anchors
tarnishing beneath the stone,
voices praying with the roots:
march home,
march home.
Danae Younge is an undergraduate at Occidental College currently studying remotely from her home in North Carolina. Her work is published in Vita Brevis Magazine, Palette Point, Wonders Magazine, Academy of the Heart and Mind, and Rogue Agent Journal, and is forthcoming in Mason Street Magazine. She was a national winner selected by the Live Poets Society of New Jersey to be featured in Just Poetry!!! Literary Magazine and was awarded third place in the It’s All Write international competition. You can read more of Danae’s writing on her website and follow her on Instagram (@danae_celeste_).
I saw a man today
He drowned
Floating, adrift
Upon a yellow lilo
In the canal, flowing down Glasgow
With one hand poking
Through the reeds
And the lillies
Plopping, podgy plastic
Lowly
To the cavern
Of lost
Flouting
Molly Knox is a Music student at Durham University. Molly is a poet and theatre and literary reviewer. She primarily explores themes of identity, mental health and nature in her writing.
“It’s just a scratch” the Doctor assured
“Three stitches and she will be fine.”
A cold needle tugs the loops together,
Drops of hot red blood, it yields.
I nod and close my eyes.
Anisha Kaul is a poet with Masters in English Literature. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Dwelling Literary, The Minison Project, Beir Bua Journal, Small Leaf Press, Analogies & Allegories Literary Magazine and Visual Verse, among others. You can reach out to her on twitter (@anishakaul9).
Briefly Write 