Food and shelter make things right— they’re useful—
truths are takers not givers and ask way more of you
than they ever cough up in exchange. So, a bit like cats.
POETRY, ONE POSSIBLE DEFINITION
Intent and Expectation— both masochists— meet up, find they have nothing to say to each other and struggle to hide their disappointment.
Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years for which he blames Larkin, who probably blamed Hardy. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.
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I look at an aging chart – It ends at 80 – I’m off the charts. I think of my parents, They didn’t make it this far. I’m off their charts, too. I have aged ancestors. Well over 90 – I’m not off their charts! Yet. I feel more comfortable. I see another chart – It ends at 85 – I’m off the charts again! Where does it go? Straight up? Horizontal? Off the cliff! I go for a walk. I feel wonderful, The sun is shining. It’s cool and damp. I love it. Health-span! Joy span! Finally, a chart that I’m on! I’ll keep it!
From Public Domain
Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator. His 90-plus articles have appeared in various publications. He has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away With It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, 60 Odd Short Stories, and Empaths. Ron has had his poems published in Scarlet Leaf, Borderless Journal, and other periodicals.
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Now the changes have stopped and what it’s come to has settled in a curtain masking as it spreads so what was at one time discernible is painted in thicker darkness. At this point I see it will not reverse another day weathered another string of moments shaded by insistence—soundless sketches of how real objects appear bloodless stripped of their depth blended with their variances.
It’s not the daylight I miss but the touch of what once stood before me the comfort seeing it knowing it was there in the light now both unreachable. It’s the darkness that seems to hold the more natural light among the new air that’s turned cold shifting between two selves: one that knows what the daylight once gave and the other that knows when the light returns each day will be different.
SR (Salvatore Richard) Inciardi was born in New York City and attended Brooklyn College and New York University. His poetry has appeared in USA and Europe in various online and print magazines including Green Ink Poetry, Harrow House Journal, Grey-Sparrow Journal, Written Tales,among others. He was a contributor to Green Ink Poetry’s Kennings: Equinox Collections: Autumn (2024, Amazon)
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The Dream of Venus by Salvador Dali (1904-1989). From Public Domain
MY STILLBORN DREAMS
Clouds have hovered above me For as long as I can recall. Perhaps it was their destiny To shadow me upon every path.
Of all the dreams I once beheld, None became a rallying call For those that came thereafter — So many, yet their hymns elude me.
Beneath the ceaseless drought of light, None could bloom or bear my name, None to endure through centuries, None to crown me with esteem.
A poet haunted by tavern walls, I have spent a lifetime digging graves For my stillborn, fleeting dreams, Lined like bottles along the bar.
A fervent poet I remain, though still My hands fall short of the desire To etch a metaphor for each tomb. Yet those I buried, I cherish as my own.
Pramod Rastogi is an Emeritus Professor at the EPFL, Switzerland. He is a poet, academician, researcher, author of nine scientific books, and a former Editor-in-chief (1999-2019) of the international scientific journal, Optics and Lasers in Engineering. He was an honorary Professor at the IIT Delhi between 2000 and 2004. He was a guest Professor at the IIT Gandhinagar between 2019 and 2023. He is presently an honorary adjunct Professor at the IIT Jammu.
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The meadow opens nature’s wings To the morning When the soft birds sing Grass grows brave in sight Each flower a small prayer Sunlight gleams with a big heart Across the sky the air holds me A meadow of nature’s glamour And the raindrops silver shimmer
JoyAnne O’Donnell is author of five poetry books. Her latest poetry is in Live Encounters and The Galway Review.
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The ring is too tight for me, But I'll give you my heart. The ring is too tight for me, But I'll give you my soul. The ring is too tight for me, But I'll give you all That can never be confined with a ring. And all the invisible rivers That meander in the wind Will fail to swerve me From you. And tattooed on my finger, By imagination alone, The ring will gleam Stringing me to you In ways others can only dream, Dissolving the tightness Like salt in a hot water stream.
Ananya Sarkar is a creative writer from Kolkata currently living in Bangalore. Her work has been published in various ezines. She loves to go on long walks, cloud gaze and ponder upon miracles. She can be found on Instagram @just_1ananya and reached at ananya7891@gmail.com
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Nikolai Tesla (1856-1943), also referred to as ‘Lightning Boy’, discovered the Tesla coil. From Public Domain
December 12th, 2025 (Poem Written at the Quattro Hotel)
Tesla was right. We are receivers of external stimuli. The internal as well, but Our Boy Lightning was much more deliberate about the external. As though he were always searching for something. That’s what some pop psychologist would say. You know the ones: red marker for brains, getting to nirvana on a bus pass. Those people you would rather not run into waiting for an elevator. It is in the silences that we find ourselves, I truly believe that. Like a child of exquisite reflections. Our time away is a necessary distance. The well-whispered peace of burrowing things, I know this well. It is hard to write about kisses. You feel them long before the words ever arrive. And the conundrum crowds are back before too long. In truth, they never leave. And the yellow wet floor pylon is out again, making friends. Squeaky housekeeping carts loaded down with an army of disinfectants. Conference rooms in use like a meeting of the mindless… Those colours of twin Oscar fish in the tank by the pool. I have always had the eye of a painter. Happiness is watching light dance off the water forever.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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I have longed to leave and be not afraid Take these wings beyond the listless land Let the sea erase that bight of sand
I have come to soar and sightless to fear Let me hush the clinging shores of here Take these wings and crave this night
I have longed to be lost and be not afraid I have come so far and to be so near These wings will brave the flight of light
THROUGH THE KITCHEN WINDOW
The damp and slump of weathered branches made light with a sudden breeze, and leaves no longer sullen, uplifted to scatter... time to believe in matters of chance?
The souls of spices arise from the pan, my wooden spoon a turmeric moon, and our pandemonium of kids and you chasing leaves. I can see them.
Phil Wood was born in Wales. He enjoys painting and learning German. His writing can be found in: The Fig Tree Coal Mining Anthology, The Shot Glass Journal, London Grip.
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I want to be a small god, even a dusty household deity puffing fiery magic into rooms where sharp
clothes and people inside them chortle and think they think
and then decide our fate. I’ve no gift for moving the movers
and only rank as a person on good days. I shadow the shadows of plovers as they skitter over mud,
and watch a bored malamute nose a shrub and find a tick.
We’re rivulets coursing puddle to pool, bearing last fall’s leaves and the day’s whirling seeds
toward obscure ends. At our best, we shine in runoff, joining what
turns in rivers that mean the world to their gleaming trout. Power gathers in ashen clouds.
WHAT YOU KNOW
You know the smell of grass. Sky hunger. The way it feels being airborne. The shape
of thrush flight, one tree to the next, a curving path restarted halfway. That having just enough isn’t.
Smell of your lover’s sweat. You don’t know you know this anymore, but you do.
How we come from parents, teachers, from one bold friend-- and belong to children who’ll know us as stories told for the cadence of the telling.
And you know the metallic sound of a huckster’s voice.
We speak more slowly now, assembling thoughts. Once, in the Dark Sky Park west of Mackinaw, we spent dusk watching for hawks,
then trained binoculars on the ecliptic, finding Jupiter and its four visible moons, almost
as though we didn’t know. We knew. Just to see.
Michael Lauchlan has contributed to many publications, including New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The North American Review, Louisville Review, Poet Lore, and Lake Effect. His most recent collection is Trumbull Ave., from WSU Press. Running Lights is forthcoming in 2026 from Cornerstone Press.
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Selected and translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch
From Public Domain
THE ECLIPSE
The naïve claim, the moon lay veiled in shade. But ask of me, for I beheld that night My beloved stand, her flowing hair arrayed, Each stroke of her comb eclipsing silver light.
THE HEALING CARESS
With the very hands that rend my wounds, She tends and heals them ever so gently. My heart’s blood she cradles within her palms, And eases two burdens at once from me.
EMANCIPATION
And grief ground me to kohl beneath its weight, Till a fleeting glance from deer-eyed beauty came. Were it not her partridge-walk, her measured gait, Moonlit nights would rain on me fire and flame.
DREAM-ILLUSION
In the first watch of night, she’d grace my abode Sayad, so in a dream spoke Hanul, the beloved dear, Whom do you still wait for so long? The night has yielded; the day is already here. SCARLET REMEMBRANCE
I know not by whose grace I yet draw breath. Twice has my cup almost brimmed over, I recall. Can memory ever betray you? From my blood-red tears, Once you dyed your bridal shawl.
CURLS OF ILLUSION
I’m beguiled—they are curls of smoke Rising from my sighs to the air, Each time my beloved dear Runs the golden comb through her hair.
Sayad Zahoor Shah Hashumi (1926-78) is known as the pioneer of modern Balochi literature. He was simultaneously a poet, fiction writer, critic, linguist and a lexicographer par excellence. Though he left undeniable marks on various genres of Balochi literature, poetry remained his mainstay. With his enormous imagination and profound insight he laid the foundation of a new school of Balochi poetry especially Balochi ghazal which mainly emphasises on the purity of language and simplicity of poetic thoughts. This school of poetry subsequently attracted a wide range of poets to its fold. He also authored the first ever Balochi novel ‘Nazuk’ and compiled the first comprehensive Balochi-to-Balochi dictionary containing over twenty thousand words and hundreds of pictorial illustrations.
Fazal Baloch is a Balochi writer and translator. He has translated many Balochi poems and short stories into English. His translations have been featured in Pakistani Literature published by Pakistan Academy of Letters and in the form of books and anthologies.
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Borderless 