by Linda M. Crate

​when best friends
transition to
ghosts,
this aching heart
feels as if it will
ache forever;
i wish i could let her go
but she was my childhood— 
i still see the auburn and gold
of her hair in the summer sun
when i look at the childhood in my past,
how am i supposed to simply forget her
as she has me?
i hate living ghosts,
at least you know where to visit the dead. 

* * *

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose works you can find at her social media links: 
​Facebook 
Instagram
Twitter

by Joshene Bersales

She finds an old dress
in her closet
by accident.

Black
cheap cotton
a hole in one pocket
(she was proud of those pockets)
and two missing buttons.

“It’s all wrinkled up
like me,”
she says with a laugh.

He steps into her space.

"Still beautiful— 
that dress 
and you."

She doesn’t feel beautiful
most days.

But in that moment
with that wrinkled ol’ dress
in her arms
and she in his

she feels
the fairest
of them all.

* * *

Joshene Bersales is a writer, editor, and translator from the Philippines. She self-published her first digital short story collection, Box the Stars and other stories, in 2021. Connect with her via https://linktr.ee/joshenebersales.

by Daniel Rogers

autumn wind
the busker's guitar
out of tune


sunset
the fruit bowl
full of oranges

​
starry night
flicking through
an old diary
​
* * *

Born and raised in Lancashire, England, Daniel moved to Poland in 2015, where he now teaches English as a foreign language. When not divulging the finer points of English grammar, he likes to write.

by Philippa Ramsden

As autumn settles, 
poppies continue to appear 
and bloom, albeit 
under a veil of raindrops.

* * *

Following a career in international development, Philippa Ramsden returned to Scotland somewhat adrift and has now settled in East Lothian. Her writing draws from life and work in Nepal, Mongolia, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Rwanda and her Scottish surroundings.

by Linda M. Crate

let me change like autumn,
transform into my prettiest colors;
let everything dead fade
away into the sky;
bathe me in a golden sunset
that could heal every
broken thing in my soul. 

* * *

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose works you can find at her social media links: 
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter

by Lisa Lahey

We don’t act like them, the xenophobes
and kinemortophobes,
each of us with a peculiar
look and a lamentable odour.
We’d love to run among the blue green grass
on frozen glass mountains,
with the cannibals
and their turquoise camels.
There is the one who sheds her skin 
every birthday so she can grow
while the skin melts into the ground.
There is another whose eyes
are moonlit lasers that x-ray every bone
and dream in a demon’s head.
You fear us all, that’s why we stay hidden.
It isn’t fair, shetani,
but what is?

* * *

Lisa Lahey's short stories and poetry have been published in 34th Parallel Magazine, Five on the Fifth, Bindweed Anthology, Spadina Literary Review, Vita Poetica, Ariel Chart Review, VerbalArt Journal, and Altered Reality.

by Sarah Das Gupta

Witches steal the milk from cattle,
shapeshift into brown hares.
In the hidden witches’ garden
grow pink foxglove fingers,
yellow clumps of spindly ragwort,
deadly to man or beast.
Witches ride in the Wild Hunt
high in inky darkness,
they form dark silhouettes
across the face of the harvest moon.
In elder trees they hide,
under the spiked blackthorn,
among monkshood and aconitum,
mixing strange concoctions,
bringing certain death and gloom.
Yellow and red flames
consumed them once.
Yet in the darkness of the pinewood,
in that other land under the hill,
they survive, to curse and cure us still.

* * *

Sarah Das Gupta is a slowly emerging poet from Cambridge, UK who started writing a year ago when her mobility became limited to 20 metres. Her work has been published in over 20 countries and she has been nominated this year for Best of the Net and a Dwarf Star award.

by Cortni Merritt

I saw you with the box today,
pink and mirrored,
dark-skinned figure,
twirling to that tune I know but not by name.
It was in your hand but it held something you'd forgotten or maybe misplaced,
a dream or a wish or a past person you thought you would be.
I pretended not to see you
wipe your eyes when you asked, 
"Do you think she'll like it?" and you whispered,
"my little girl." 
It was perfect, even though empty. 

* * *

Cortni is a mother, writer, editor, and college instructor living in Central Florida. She enjoys cats, karate, and a well-cooked curry. Find her at www.srdeditingservices.com.

by Lynn White

​Just a raindrop
falling,
falling into wetness.
A silvery teardrop
which splatters
then disappears
into wetness,
to become invisible
as if by magic.

​* * *

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. Visit Lynn's Facebook Poetry Page here. 

by Petra F. Bagnardi

Under the moonlight you showed me the line of your story;
it appeared not like the silvery path of a boy,
and it did not look like the tale of a purple girl.
It involved a complicated soul and the broken being of a human.
It took all your courage to tell me about your journey;
and for your brave honesty, I loved you.

* * *

Petra F. Bagnardi is a screenwriter, a theater playwright and actress, and a poet. She was short-listed in the Enfield Poets' Twentieth Anniversary Poetry Competition, and her poems are featured in numerous literary journals.

by John Grey

Trilling air
in morning fog
flutters the treetops.
 
Then mist lifts,
warblers emerge,
lake mirrors sky
from here
to the mountain foothills
 
And huge vistas
now encompass the small,
from a beetle on a leaf
to the roses in a garden.
 
The opaque has its charms
but clarity gives voice
to depth and distance
 
With light in abundance,
all colors are accounted for.
 
And ghosts are now people
with long lives ahead of them.

* * *

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Tenth Muse. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa and Shot Glass Journal.

by Joshua St. Claire

summer revival
a cicada
thrums down the sky

cosmic strings
a daddy-long-legs casts shadows
onto asbestos shingles

a common swallowtail floats
through the hydrangea sky
deepening blue

sunset
the horizon bent under
the weight of peaches

dog days
the islands of the Susquehanna
lost in their haze

Shakespeare in the park
a red-winged blackbird becomes
the king of infinite space 

the sky
growing violet at the edges
crowcaw

golden hour
an evening primrose blossoms
into deep time

the press of blue on blue hydrangea moon

* * *
​
Joshua St. Claire is an accountant from Pennsylvania. His haiku have been published broadly including in Frogpond, Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, and Mayfly. His favorite thing to write about is the sky.

by E.C. Traganas

​That look of yours!
As if the whole forest
would bow in your presence 
willows waving their hands 
in salute, larch trees
snapping to attention,
a copper beech in deep,
resplendent curtsy.

How like an unsuspecting moth
was I, a simple speck
on that faraway bark;
Aiming high, flying straight 
and swift like a pin, burning,
falling dead at your feet.

Such were the magnets
of your eyes.

* * *

Author of the debut novel Twelfth House and Shaded Pergola, a collection of short poetry with original illustrations, E.C. Traganas has published in a multitude of literary journals. She enjoys a professional career as a Juilliard-trained concert pianist & composer, and is the founder/director of Woodside Writers, a literary forum based in New York.