Whatever is Below the Roof

By Caleb Helfrick

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At dawn is when the monsters decide to climb out of my ceiling
The tiny crevices between the tops and the walls are no match for their slither
These snakes fly from the sky and enter my room with ease
Watching me bite the apple that tastes like knowledge and pride
This is the thin line you see in-between heaven and hell
The texture of fruit is not so important in this type of moment
But as I finish my snack I look back up at the sky
Just to see nothing but snake skins stretched by a popcorn ceilings

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Caleb Helfrick is an actor based in Longview, TX that has in interest in writing. He has been filling up his “Notes” app and journals with poetry since 2019. This year he has decided to submit poems for publishing. His first and only published poem titled, “The Tooth Fairy Grins” can be found on Navy Pen’s website. Follow Caleb on Instagram @calebhelfrick.

I lay on the grass and worry

By Dmitriy Kogan

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I lay on the grass and worry
as the stars stare down at their second lives
I think about every global event
not so important
in the grand scheme of things
as the only thing I feel is
my head on the grass
and the chill of the wind
on my feet

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Dmitriy Kogan is a short story writer and poet from Staten Island, New York. His work is forthcoming in Straylight Magazine, BULL, Close to the Bone, and Some Words. Read his other stuff at dmitriykogan.net and follow him on X at dmitriykogan.

THE STARS HAVE SECOND LIVES

By Shailendra Ahangama

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The stars stare down at their second lives
From the grand, velvet firmament.
Their glowing forms are imitated in
A great oblong lake in the countryside.
Far above us in unfathomable heights
Born from the marriages of gases and dust,
Sentries born to burn till their demise,
How they inspire great awe and wonder!
But these complexities of space
Are easily reflected in a body of water
Surrounded by paddy fields and cat-tail reeds.
The stars wish to descend from
Their cold, insular celestial throne
And be a part of this bucolic communion.
The lake wishes to ascend from its simple rural refuge
To become an astral body worthy of adulation.
These are passions that stir conflict and contention,
Yet they are all extinguished gradually
As the minutes approach the dawn.

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Shailendra Ahangama is an aspiring writer from Sri Lanka, who also loves music, nature and film. He has published a poetry anthology, titled 'The Beauty Of Becoming' in 2019. His work has also been published on The Piker Press, The Worlds Within and Small World City. Find him on IG @shailo17_ah.

NIGHTMARE AS VILLANELLE MINUS ONE

By Ian Parker

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Where is it you have gone?
I have been reeling in the hours
as the minutes approach the dawn.

Bleached my hair and keep it shorn,
my eyeballs are falling out.
Where is it you have gone?

Tears go off like a bomb,
leaving me in emotional drought
as the seconds approach the dawn.

My legs have etched in the lawn
a path of retreaded doubt —
where is it you have gone?

Leave me to carrion,
the remains of me without
where it is that you’ve gone
as the sun retreats from dawn.

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Ian Parker is a poet, musician, and photographer living in Portland, OR. He has been previously published by wildscape. literary journal, Mikrokosmos Literary Journal, and Thimble Literary Magazine, among others. Find him on IG @gloomsayer_ and gloomsayer.bearblog.dev

Schizoaffective

By Jackie Chou

after Edvard Munch

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The screams are stuck inside of me
so no sound is coming out
I cover my ears
to silence the voices
my palms squeezing my cheeks
my lids stretched so wide
my eyeballs are falling out
and I have pulled off my hair
I am bald
bald as the nakedness of my fears
my mouth forming into the oval
of shrieks landing on deaf gods
The sunset is fiery and fierce
my friends having abandoned me
without leaving so much
as a silhouette

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An ekphrastic response to The Scream by Edvard Munch.

Jackie Chou (she/her) is a writer from Southern California who has two collections of poetry, The Sorceress and Finding My Heart in Love and Loss, published by cyberwit. Her poem "Formosa" was a finalist in the Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize. She also has poems published in Synchronized Chaos, The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply Zine, Alien Buddha Zine, and Spillwords.

Childhood Photo Negative (Found)

By Ravneet Kaur Sandhu
after Hilma af Klint

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Hope is a horror of love
You and I
We don’t like uncomfortable feelings
My feet are turning blue

Finding my voice to yell
There’s a language inside of me that dies
When our mouths pull against gravity
Into a polyphonic rage

If I cannot change it
I don’t let myself feel it
If the space between two loves
Is as immense as a keening ocean
Then why is it the only voice that laments?

The screams are stuck inside of me
You push, I pull
And we don’t go anywhere
Insects in amber, fossilized in our own secretions
Stuck between feathers used for flight

We need to think outside the trap of ourselves
I press the down feather you once left
Into the void framed by bleached wood and square-wire shutters
Waiting for the sun to purify it

Give me romance give me love give me some action
Give me an ending that is happy
Alchemize these emotions, cremate the hate
Swallow it down like fine sand

I would be, no doubt, be lonelier without
The dance of mated swans on a canvas of ice
Glaciers break and the ocean between us rises

The rage is on our mouths
Outstretched wings and angry beaks
We both have bad teeth

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An ekphrastic response to The Swan, No 1 by Hilma Af Klint.

Ravneet Kaur Sandhu currently lives near Philadelphia with her husband. Her short stories have been published in The Offing, Gordon Square Review and Tiny Spoon Magazine. Find her on Instagram at @ravneet_recommends.

My Blue Peninsula

By Kristen Keckler
after Joseph Cornell & Emily Dickinson

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The sky is a bucket
of lapis lazuli pigment
tipped
onto a stretched canvas
through the window
of my simple room,
framed by bleached wood
and square-wire
shutters
that offer me and bees
a reprieve from
the world’s gaze.

After you visit from
your own box,
I don’t perish
from bliss and delight—
I feel fortified
by my technicolored
daydreams
unspooled in flesh,
dopamine coasting
swift currents.

Then weeks of bleeding
sunsets,
and memories
cling like grass burrs
picked up
while gardening,
ready to collapse
at a soft touch.

To tame my brain’s
electric filaments
I scrawl doting notes
carried by messenger
pigeons, launching
my songs into sauntering clouds.
I linger in the warm
bath of you until
it grows shivery,
attempt to gently
shake you out
like fine sand
from a white towel.

I would, no doubt,
be lonelier
without the loneliness
that clutches my chest with
a funk that sometimes
only sunlight can evaporate—
or busy hands
in a patch of peonies.

If the space between
two lovers
is as immense as
a keening ocean,
hope is the finger
of Italy summoning
empty lungs to fill again.
Between our pages
I press the downy feather
you once left
on my doorstep,
waiting for your return
envelope.

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Kristen Keckler teaches creative writing at Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Her work has appeared in L’Esprit Literary Review, The Argyle, The Collidescope, The Iowa Review, Vestal Review, Free State Review, and other journals. She can be found rummaging around garage sales and thrift stores, on the lookout for unexpected treasures. “My Blue Peninsula” was inspired by the Joseph Cornell shadow box that was, in turn, inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem #405.