by Jan Hassmann

Write about autumn, but
not the trees trembling.
Write about the strays born
with the first fog,
pleading why,
why, why this world?
Write about biding.

Write about autumn, but
not the leaves failing.
Write about the mold in
damp corners and the toadstools
rising from lone bodies.
Write about all life.

Write about autumn, but
not the eve glowing.
Write about the stout candles in
early-dusked windows,
ever wistfully steering.
Write about mothers.

Write about autumn, but
not the log fire burning.
Write about the moths and the grief returning,
every fucking year,
through bolted doors and latched shutters.
Write about dust.

Write about autumn, but
not the stew churning.
Write about mum still setting out
three sets of plates
and all the other things she’s forgetting.
Write about bliss.

Jan Hassmann first studied and then taught English Literature at universities far from home. He has recently returned to Europe, where he runs an amicable poetry club in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Some of his poems have gotten away, and more seem poised to do so.

by Eugenia Pozas

i’m always chronically late,
even to my own thoughts and feelings.
when i first saw my husband’s desk,
his stationery was all in order,
pen perpendicularly aligned
with the pages and its corners.
he never imagined it quite like this:
wind scattering papers and clips,
vines shattering the windows,
a blooming, green storm.
or maybe that’s why he wanted me,
fruit-scented and alive like a bonfire,
i saw in him dreams of copper,
the last rays of madness ascending,
and for weeks after i was gone
the hounds barked at nothing,
and he would sit in his quiet office,
eyes searching for me in all the hollows.
now spring has closed its mouth shut.

it’s no wonder the trees shake like candles,
no wonder he’s so rattled:
i’m coming.

Eugenia Pozas is a bilingual writer based in Monterrey, Mexico. Her first poetry collection in Spanish – Náufragos (Castaways) – was published in 2022 with 42 Líneas. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Dust Poetry Magazine, The Basilisk Tree, Kaleidotrope, Sontag Mag, and Crowstep Journal. You can find her on Instagram and X as @eugepozas.

by Jessica Coles

We cannot read the darkness. We cannot read it. It is a form of madness, albeit a common one, that we try.
– “130” Bluets, Maggie Nelson

We crouch in a corner of light,
cannot lift arms into shadow. We attempt to
read answers with contrast so high that
the bright blots out
darkness, a dance of vision:

We stared at the sun even though he said you
cannot look directly into and there’s no future to be
read in that kind of fire, but when we looked,
it held a fortune of aurora.

It predicted questions: What
is language when we look at the sky?
A flock of swallows lacing depths of blue with a new
form of divination. This pattern
of belief predicts possibility not
madness; this faith in shadow-weaving,
albeit lacking vocabulary, opens
a fresh birth of light, so
common that we don’t perceive the difference:
one transmutes the other so
that, unpredictably, our vision wavers while
we enlighten ourselves with dim incantations.

Try again. These shimmers chant psalms of darkness.

Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet from Edmonton (Treaty 6 territory), where she lives with her family, a tuxedo cat named Miss Bennet, and a tarantula named Miss Dashwood. She takes inspiration from linguistics, music, folklore, science, and nature. Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, Moist Poetry Journal, Full Mood Mag, atmospheric quarterly, Stone Circle Review, CV2, The Fiddlehead, Ghost City Review, and elsewhere. Her two self-published chapbooks are available through Prairie Vixen Press. Find her on Bluesky: @prairievixen.bsky.social

by T. R. Poulson

After Mary Oliver’s “Swan” and Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”

Did you see her dance with the wild prince
in stained light, hair side-swept
on her scarred back, as immaculate satin
curved in waves to hold her like a bouquet of love
in mist or columbine, a few calla lilies cascading
to the hem? Did you hear lace
whisper to feathers near puddles where wine
mist ached in cloud-split rays?

Did you see her bend her neck in flight
to find the prince? Hooves danced droplets
like diamonds denied. The black
owl cries in angled branches. I remember knotting
ribbed ribbons tight and thinking
they were everything.

T. R. Poulson, a University of Nevada alum and proud Wolf Pack fan, supports her writing habit by delivering for UPS in Woodside, California. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, and Booth. She is currently seeking a publisher for her first manuscript, tentatively titled At Starvation Falls. Find her at trpoulson.com and on social media as @trpoulson.

by John Simmons

I woke in the dead of night, as often I do,
lying there in the deep duvet darkness, listening,
listening to shells telling the most dreadful stories
from far away, oceans away, borne on tides
and surging seas under a gunmetal moon,
where the heavy missiles are booming, where
pistol cracks are nothing, nothing unusual
in the rolling roiling tracks of time ticking
over till another dawn might start to break
and make us all forget this present
but, until then, close by, under the steamy
breath of unknown mammal, a howl
upon the middle-night wind, the beating
of a cloaked bird’s wing, the undercover
spy who sees everything despite the smother
of clouds above but here below the window
rattles in frame, shaking to burst free, not alone
in wishing to rock back to the wildness of
night’s inky fingers whose black blots make
marks on the bleached-out skyline of roof
tops and chimney pots that no longer function
except as eerie roosts for the murdering
murmuring crows whose yellow eyes
blink at the bleakness of the city, the owls
in pitiless pursuit, the mice hunted and haunted,
as the collective breath nestles down beneath
white sheets, the breath of those willing to be lost
in dreams and last night, last night still to my surprise
the city foxes were noisy, so excited by the kill.

John Simmons is the co-founder of two influential writing organisations – Dark Angels and 26. He lives in London, England, and is a contributor and editor for Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets and And So We Grow (Paekakariki Press, London). His books on writing include We, Me, Them & It, and he’s the author of three novels. His latest pamphlet Berliners was shortlisted for the Live Canon award and was launched at the 2024 Bloomsbury Festival. Instagram/Threads @simmons25248.