Larry Blazek
Why can’t the nighttime last forever?
Why can’t the creatures that rule the night
scuttle endlessly from shadow to shadow?
Why can’t an unholy army of the dead
snuff out the sun like a candle flame?
Why can’t the earth stop turning?
Why can’t the nighttime last forever?
Poetry Contributor
Mark A. McCutcheon teaches English literature at Athabasca University. Mark’s poems appear in literary magazines like Grain, On Spec, EVENT, and Kaleidotrope; his debut poetry book, Shape Your Eyes by Shutting Them, is forthcoming from Athabasca U Press in 2019. He has also written a cultural studies book, The Medium Is the Monster (2018), and his literary criticism appears in The Explicator, Continuum, and other scholarly journals.
Poetry Contributor
KB Ballentine’s sixth collection, The Light Tears Loose, appeared this summer with Blue Light Press. Published in Crab Orchard Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, among others, her work also appears in anthologies including In Plein Air (2017) and Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017).
Poetry Contributor
Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a poet and writer who taught in community colleges for more than a decade. Her tanka and bardic verse in the Celtic style have been published extensively in Europe, Asia, and North America. She is the author of With No Bridle for the Breeze: Ungrounded Verse published by Shanti Arts and Publishing and The Language of Bones: American Journeys Through Bardic Verse published by Kelsay Books.
In the Dungeon of Duntulm Castle
Steve Deutsch
My doctor said
he could find nothing
wrong.
The symptoms—
extremities on fire
pinprick pain
in my face
and chest
were merely
occasional
and not all
that worrisome.
He didn’t believe
the sleepwalking
was new.
I was new
then to teaching.
High School calculus
for fifteen gifted students.
We cruised through
to double integrals
and April
when interest waned
and even my best students
seemed lovesick
and dull.
I doubled down—extra
homework, special assignments
and frequent quizzes.
and the dullness
turned to testiness.
But I was new to this.
What could I know?
One May night
I woke to a full moon
over the town square.
My legs were blistered
to my knees
and my right eye
unfocused.
The wire trash bin
was burning blue
and around the edge
were fifteen effigies
of me—
crude clay makings
with blackened legs
decorated with straight pins.
Somewhere
nearby
young voices
were chanting.
An owl hooted
and the hair on my head
stood on end.
I was gone
before first light.
I didn’t pause to pack.
J V BirchPoetry Contributor
J V Birch lives in Adelaide. Her poems have been published in anthologies, journals and magazines across Australia, the UK, Canada and the US. She has three chapbooks with Ginninderra Press – Smashed glass at midnight, What the water & moon gave me and A bellyful of roses – and a full-length collection, more than here.
Photography Contributor
Born in the Deep South, it didn’t take the Alabama native long to realize she had an immense passion for photography. Brielle’s style of art displays the raw and gritty experiences of minorities; predominantly those within the African American and LGBTQ+ communities.
Ginger DehlingerPoetry Contributor
Ginger Dehlinger writes in multiple genres. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and she has won two Pacific Northwest writing competitions with her essays. Most of her work is set in the West including novels, Brute Heart and Never Done. Ginger lives in Bend, Oregon with her husband and a black cat.
Clare ChaiPoetry Contributor
Clare Chai is a writer who lives and breathes Hong Kong, and hopes to write about it in all its contradicting complexity and also about her personal experiences in the city. She has a day job and is only a poet by night, so please excuse her if her work is sometimes a bit dark (though she loves to let the light in too). She is interested in identity, culture and the ephemeral nature of things.
Poetry Contributor
Kate Garrett writes and edits. Her poetry is widely published, has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, and longlisted for a Saboteur Award. She’s the author of several books, most recently The saint of milk and flames (Rhythm & Bones, 2019) and To Feed My Woodland Bones (Animal Heart Press, 2019). Born in rural southern Ohio, Kate moved to England twenty years ago, where she still lives in Sheffield with her husband, children, and a cat.