on top of the earth resting in uncertainty

uneasy as poseidon’s flat, i breathe, in ocean air & bear terror in
paradise. everyone / i know knows someone with a raspy voice. we’re

all, fleeing to forests & pouring wine over cracked hands. the numbers the
numbers is all that falls from mouths. me n g wake from

slumber with / the essence of our dreams twisted with city dread. we
left / everyone more or less in search of a flattened curve. the

tension stays with us in bed, bunched sheets even with fresh air
coming in, the beauty only serves us in the daytime, at dusk

it’s all shaken words, full screens, & janused declarations. i don’t
know what to believe anymore. my body has never been more animated /

my brain has never been so extinct. slowly spudding moss from the
folds, i drink elixirs that make the time pass like mad / made

to hold liquid droplets inside, these days exuberance is deemed a
liability. these days i have 12 of everything & somehow still am

running low, the numbers the numbers keep people in line, i suppose
they always have / boxes revealed by mayhem / known. these days even

at the summit of the earth, the crows cry of heavy skies / remaining.
the clouds hold awareness of senescence, & it has just begun to rain.

By Colette Chien

Biography:

My name is Colette Chien. I am a senior at Sarah Lawrence College with a concentration in poetry and wildlife ecology. My previous published work includes my chapbook, “the poison in our houses” in Silent Actions Magazine, the poem, “i was born into this place a bit of fire & a cancer” into Love and Squalor magazine, and the poem, “visceral fears & ampersands have nothing to do with this” in The Sarah Lawrence College Literary Review.

Let’s be monsters

Let’s be monsters.
Let’s be witches and bitches
and crones
and just
hideous.

Let’s be powerful.
Let’s take and take and take
and grab the world,
just
fucking hold on with claws
and teeth
and refuse to let go.

And let’s be gluttonous.
Let’s devour.
Let’s see what we want,
what delights us,
and let’s inhale it with no
regard for propriety.

With no regard for you.

Let’s be insolent.
Let’s be wanton.
Let’s be ugly.
Let’s show our teeth as a warning sign
before we sink them into your neck.
Let’s be savage and angry.

Let’s say,
This is for me.
This is because I want.
This is because I exist.
This is because I take up space,
as much as I want, and more,
and I survive despite your best efforts
to tamp me down,
and I will fucking wear my defiance
like a punch to the gut
or I will slaughter you.

By Maia Brown-Jackson

Biography:

Maia Brown-Jackson is a cynical idealist who tries to save people and butterflies and bumblebees. She has a degree in human rights and is currently recovering from covid-19 in D.C.

STATE FLAG

They shot the last grizzly on Mt. Diablo
because somebody said it was there.

Cut off from the salmon.
In a world of no elk.

Watching the marshes drained,
the river made straight.

This is a strawberry.
These are grapes.

That’s the canal,
cutting to Stockton.

The black smoke is oil.
The brown is oak.

Rent a self-driving car
and ride it to the top.

Look out—
a land where all the beasts are gone.

By Nicholas Kasimatis

Biography:

Nicholas Kasimatis participated in Kim Addonizio’s workshop “Art of the Short Poem.” He graduated from Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo with a bachelor’s degree in architecture and has worked as a construction engineer, gallery attendant, and art director. After the day job and the joys of being a husband and father, Nick spends his time fly-fishing, painting, and writing.

Seafarer

something changed in the space between
us when you traced your fingers along
coastal contours where the wet world ached
around us as you, seafarer, swept me away
in a spit-slick current

or maybe it was my treacherous
fin-feet that swam me to you across
underwater volcanoes and murky planets
too wicked to see
so deep there’s no shell-soft pink to be found

so you want to know how far down
the mariana trench goes? let me show you
let’s go down until the colours disappear
let’s sink until nobody can find us in
our submarine

as the strange sea-creatures emerge from the green
and bare their teeth and blind eyes and
if i wonder if they see us
what we look like through distorted glass
it’s only for a moment

it’s you and i in this flimsy metal embrace
and maybe
we won’t come up for air

By E.M. Roy

Biography:

E. M. Roy is a British-Indian poet currently living between Singapore and Pennsylvania. Her work centres around loss, colonisation and third-culture identity. She can be found on Instagram at @emroypoet.

Worlds Away

How am I to feel the rain? The quaking
Drab of day, so critical past my curtains.
Once abandoned, near and along the widened
World, I saw treasure.

Castles tall and wondrously bold, resplendent.
Cloaked in sunrise, glorious – dreaming aimless,
Passing time by driftwood and embers, picture
Perfect but gone now.

Magical and innocent, softly laying
Here beneath the willow, to wake and find a
Dream destroyed by growing old, snow that keeps on
Falling with pity.

I hear songs that torture my poorly beating
Heart, so shattered daydream and soul I linger,
Caught between the worlds in which sweet and pensive
Visions are dancing.

By Emma Mayer

Biography:

Biography: Emma Mayer is a junior double majoring in English and Communication in Colorado. She has been writing poetry ever since she could remember and believes words have the power to change the world. You can follow her on Twitter @emmamayer1996 and Instagram @__shmayerxx.

Yearning for Peace

There will be a day
When the moon shines brighter than the sun in the day,
And my heart aches for more hope at night rather than pain.

There will be a day
When my eyes will not wake up to watching the demolition of the valleys of Kashmir,
And my ears listening to the screams of children running in jubilation instead of fear.

There will be a day
When the trees are no longer holding on to the secrets of pain of people,
And the mountains are not a witness to the sounds of firearms and weapons.

There will be a day
When I will weep again as I always do as the dawn touches upon the sky,
But this time, the tears will be for winning the battle.

There will be a day
When this heart doesn’t struggle to pound,
And the blood flows through my veins like filling up a dried well after ages.

There will be a day
When I will fathom the misery of this labyrinth,
And live in reality instead.
There will be a day, a day
When birds will sing the songs in ecstasy and not in despair.

By Tayyaba Barqi

Biography:

Tayyaba Barqi is a law student who is an aspiring poet and who talks about the misery of people in various parts of the world especially war-torn countries with the help of her poems. You can find her on instagram @logophilepoet