April 2022 | poetry
Octopus Ink at Dawn
I’m in the garden on a bench with green leaves
dripping diamonds of lemon sun.
Grandfather’s beard is growing on the fence and I’ve
Put out the umbrella I found at Bunnings.
It’s my red Japanese parasol that I pretend with.
A bee is buzzing somewhere, and I take photos of
Myself looking back at a phone to see someone new.
I think about making one of them my new profile pic
When the kitchen bench begins to swarm. I look
Back and I’m standing there, dress round my ankles
Not wearing any underwear. Thankfully, it’s all in my mind
But I’m by the sink; it’s true I shouldn’t try to think
So much when I should be sleeping, but I tell myself
The morning glow will soon wear off and while
I’m here smoking I can still feel the night snow.
A night of ploughing through the sleet at my computer
Makes me realise there’s jewels in my eyes, but
Then I cough and wonder how soon my last little
Breath might come, and how silly it would seem then for
Me to be sitting here singing about dream dragons.
On the news last night was a boy down the road
And a girl in a barrel, and I’ve put too much lemon
In my whiskey sour. It’s awful, but not like that.
I want to live but still be awake for tomorrow in this brand
New day. I might find another way to see the trees
Through the sun. But now it’s way past dawn and
The fire breathing clouds keep on hanging
Beyond the tree that keeps on waving,
And butterflies are still light and flying around
In the shining sun. It makes me like it here
Sitting and thinking on octopus ink,
Hoping I won’t take my last breath till
The very last run of the clock that is turning
Around and around like a kaleidoscope
Spinning down into a rabbit hole at the
Bottom of the garden. I’ve got to realise
Something surely. So I’ve got sage clouds burning,
And incense sticks are sending clouds to the
Sky to smudge the dark rain away.
‘I love you anyway,’ I say to the tentacles,
Eely snakes swirling across the blue horizon.
I pray to them, a poet caught in a too hot
Fire that floats in the gentle yellow wings
Of flying insects before anyone knew they
Were born: just a well worn truth, I guess,
A fact of nature and a limitless plate of
Blue where alligators pounced on a swimmer
Who never knew that the water hid a hungry
Limb that was ready for a person such as you.
And I knew that I was you too.
Like the coo of a pigeon in distant lemonade,
All that was missing was the image of your cry.
But I really must go now even though it’s
A veritable shame, as sad as the bees and the crow
That caws all alone, a flapping black omen of morning.
Ariel’s Revenge
no work today but dystopia flagellation
coming in close to home,
oscilloscope arriving
Kate Durbin stethoscope
toming on a throne for a seat
for an ‘I’ for an iPrincess
‘Me’
fat red lips
smeared frog green;
trout blood wax layered about
smacking pout:
‘Beautiful’
sigh – still life bowl
where all the refuse goes
Seraphim stickers I watch
flush away
close up, flying
into churn of phosphorescent
tubes of web worms’ hole
draining down heaven’s
apocalyptic vision
sick day today
procrastinate everyway
so funny:
raster ray babes diagnosing
disease with electron gun parody
silly me
girls, effigies
mutilated dolls, doppelganger
cyber-fracking trolls
wishing back into being
little mermaid complete
another video to pastiche:
Lara Glenum’s orange fish
swim on Paris Hilton hair
with scissors
with Ariel standing over her doctor’s
corpse: sea foam, daughter of air
reaching for dry land –
she revived during the dissection
to see two self-sliced
legs live streaming for her defection
Megan Anning
Megan Anning is an Australian writer who is fascinated by Bohemianism and the romantic idea of the ‘starving artist’. Her stories and poetry often incorporate intertextuality and have appeared in Text Journal, FIVE:2:ONE, October Hill Magazine, The Citron Review, The Closed Eye Open, The Dope Fiend Daily and The West End Magazine. She has an MA in Creative Writing and is completing her first novel as part of her PhD at Griffith University, Queensland.
April 2022 | fiction
Mia blows gently on the bus shelter window. Her warm breath crystallizes on the cold glass, distorting the glare of the red and white lights of passing cars. Isobel watches as her daughter rounds her finger over a central point, drawing endless circles in the mist.
Isobel looks down the road as the sixty-five approaches. She follows her daughter past the driver’s cab and up the narrow staircase to the front seat. They settle in, bags on the floor, warm breath blowing onto cold hands as the driver below shouts for a straggler to hurry.
The bus bows a little under the weight of its newest passenger. Doors hiss as they close behind him, a sneer at his tardiness. And then she hears him speak: a rich baritone that filters through the bus. He speaks in short, staccato sentences, answering the tin rattle of another voice muddled by the noise of the engine. As he speaks, a familiar melody pours through Isobel’s memory: a flush trill sonata that flutters in time with the beating of her heart. His distinct tone grows louder, accompanied by the measured timpani of footsteps climbing the stairs. A chorus of strings are set to symphony as the brakes are released and the bus jolts into motion.
His voice is so like another that has etched its mark on Isobel’s heart, but she will not look back. She will not turn to him and smile, as she once did on a summer’s day, when a boy with blonde hair and thick, evening stubble returned a playful grin as he moved to sit next to her. She will not look back to that first kiss shared outside the off-licence, to the bristle of his rough cheek against her thigh, to the weight of his body on hers. To intertwined fingers held up to block the morning sunlight. To gentle arms that held her close when two pink lines appeared on a white stick. To the tear he quickly wiped away when a white spot hovered in a black cave, its centre pumping rhythmically, like a metronome setting the beat. She will not look back to the shattered glass on the roadside, to red and blue flashing lights illuminating his bloodied, motionless hand. To Mia’s first wails as she was pulled from the womb, her cry full of sorrow, as though she already knew, was already mourning.
As the symphony reaches its climax, Isobel chances a glance to the window. She sees the reflection of a tall figure with black hair. He descends down the narrow staircase, his phone held tight against his ear. The weight of the bus lifts as he steps out onto the pavement. The closing doors hiss again, and Isobel allows herself to breathe.
Mia blows gently on the window. Her warm breath crystallizes on the cold glass. Isobel watches as her daughter rounds her finger over a central point, drawing endless circles in the mist.
Natasha O’Brien
Natasha O’Brien grew up in the United States but returned to her native England in 2012 and has been pursuing her academic and creative writing ambitions since. She is currently studying for an MA in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Suffolk, and in 2020 obtained a MA in Medieval and Early Modern Textual Culture from the University of East Anglia. Her creative work has appeared in the online literary magazine “The Write Launch”, and she was longlisted for the 2022 Student New Angle Prize. She is currently working on her first novel, a historical fiction set in the 17th century. Natasha lives with her husband, daughter, and two dogs near the Suffolk coast.
April 2022 | poetry
Clear skies—who would’ve thought?
It’s not every day we get the chance to ride
in a hot air balloon.
High winds and clouds of grey
delay the hopeful balloonist;
just as overcast dreams and a
whirlwind of worries stall
the engines of the mind.
How easy it is to forget that
although we are grounded, we are not
overburdened. We are not
pinned.
All it takes is a gentle flame
under the skin for our wildest
dreams to take flight.
A sky of clear blue silence for our thoughts
to gently roam, raw and free.
Higher and higher, the balloons fly—
waves of cotton with quilted panels, a
sea of flames wandering in perfect sync.
They hover on the horizon like splatters
of paint on a canvas.
A gesso of milk and pallid paints
smear the heavens with hues of
sherbet and lavender. Drops of color rain
down to the emerald earth below,
while others cling
to the twinkling jewels of the dark beyond.
Waiting to be seen.
Azriel Cervantes
Azriel Cervantes is a writing and design professional with ASD living in the mountainous state of Colorado. He currently writes web content for dozens of law firms throughout the United States. Azriel’s poems have been featured in The Plentitudes Journal, SPLASH!, and Cathexis Northwest Press. His obsessions with nature, music, history, and psychology are what primarily influence his work. When not researching legal statutes, he spends his free time writing poetry, practicing various instruments, and taking care of his pepper garden.
April 2022 | nonfiction
It was a wedding, my cousin’s wedding. He was marrying a girl he knew for nine years. He proposed in Disney World at Cinderella’s Castle. The ring came to her in a glass slipper. I was a bridesmaid. All the bridesmaids had their makeup done like parrots. I wore a magenta dress and orange eye shadow. My brother was there, and his girlfriend Kay, and I watched him eat macaroni and cheese off an hors d’oeuvre spoon, his eyes closed, opened, closed again, then opened less wide than before. Something was happening to him, and Kay grabbed a microphone and sang, “…they were young and they had each other, who could ask for more?” She threw her white curls back and gyrated. I ate chocolate covered strawberries, one after another, and sucked the chocolate down and left the red berry dry. I thought about God, how if he was real, why was he letting my brother live this way, still, anymore, at all? I wanted answers but I wasn’t Jewish enough to conjure a parable, make use of a prayer and adapt meaning to my suffering. Later, I would move to California, not once, but twice, and the second time I’d live out in Pasadena and hike the Bridge to Nowhere, part of the San Gabriel Mountains. I’d hike alone, even though my mother begged me not to. But it was then I learned how to pray, how to ask the earth for something, how to live off water.
Brittany Ackerman
Brittany Ackerman is a writer from Riverdale, New York. She earned her BA in English from Indiana University and graduated from Florida Atlantic University’s MFA program in Creative Writing. She teaches General Education at AMDA College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Hollywood, CA. She was the 2017 Nonfiction Award Winner for Red Hen Press, as well as the AWP Intro Journals Project Award Nominee in 2015. Her work has been featured in Electric Literature, Jewish Book Council, Lit Hub, Entropy, The Los Angeles Review, No Tokens, Hobart, Cosmonauts Ave, and more. Her first collection of essays entitled The Perpetual Motion Machine was published with Red Hen Press in 2018, and her debut novel The Brittanys is out now with Vintage.
