Cleo Griffith

October 2026 | poetry

The Hastening

Gleeful spiral of spring growth,

flattened stalks under summer’s blasts,

dazzle of yellow as Gingkoes toast autumn,

closeness of wide cold winter sky,

each so short, time on fast track.

I can’t keep up, can’t turn the pages

of the calendars and datebooks fast enough!

New sprouts hasten to wither,

seasons tumble against each other, rush,

trample over nature, tumultuous as man-kind.

Destruction seems our destiny.

Speed takes our breath, does not return it.

I am at odds with the world,

whirl-winded toward my mortal end.

New years begin every day, new lives,

hours devour months at a bite,

I am dizzy, the merry-go-round no longer fun,

going round and up and down and forward,

always fast-forward.

Nature itself hurries toward a day,

the day already written in sand, in sky,

when I will leave this heaven and finally face

the unknown. Oh, dear trees and birds, be not so hurried,

pause and let me be with you one more day,

just one more day.

Cleo Griffith

Cleo Griffith lives in California’s Central Valley. Widely published in such journals as Main Street Rag, Straylight and Westward Quarterly, she has been on the editorial board of Song of the San Joaquin since it began in 2003. Her first book, The Yellow Dress, was published in September 2025.

Chris Dungey

October 2026 | poetry

Waste Management

At five o’clock in the morning

I am awakened by a distant thunder.

Rather, by a sound like approaching thunder

heard at a distance of five or so miles.

But there is six inches of snow on the ground,

temperature in single digits. Could this be it,

my first bomb cyclone? No luck. I watch

as a garbage truck empties it’s green, steel

boxes at the township primary school

across the road. Long, forklift arms raise

the bins over the compactor—like a wrestler

poised to body slam a heel or fling

him over the ropes. Out fall milk cartons,

pencil sharpener grindings, flattened

juice pouches, Kleenex wads, more treacly

silt they can’t recycle. The lids dangle

aloft, shivering the backstage sound effects

that woke me. My alarm would allow another

hour but I start coffee, nurse my chagrin

that the newest weather phenomenon

was just more landfill. At least

the polar vortex is quiet.

Chris Dungey

Chris Dungey is a retired autoworker in Michigan. He rides a mountain bike to work on his fupa and a Honda Ruckus for the planet. More than 160 of his poems have found publication in litmags and online, most recently in Thimble Lit Mag, Penman Review, Argyle Review, and Macrame Review.

Barbara Daniels

October 2026 | poetry

It’s Not a War

What’s inside me? Surgery clips, a stent trail,

stones, plastic. All the people inside me are

clamoring to get out, sliding little doors open

in my belly, lurching onto the bed, red dressed,

blue uniformed, drums throbbing, trumpets lifting

and blaring. That’s why I don’t think of illness

as war: the anarchic little army on my side

get their steps mixed up and then forget to salute.

When I was a child, everybody had a doll

with a big crocheted skirt to hide a roll of toilet paper.

Yes, the toilet paper doll. That’s how I learned not to

love my belongings. Who needs a clock striking

and striking, new doeskin gloves. sad little parodies

of dress-up clothes? That blood in my urine. I like

to think it’s just an infection, something slipped into

my body. Decades ago the tip of a Foley catheter bounced

in my bladder for three years. A nurse didn’t notice it

when she smoothly pulled out the catheter. It was bad luck,

not some lost battle. I got the crumbs that slid off a table.

I got the duck bone, white in my broth. The forecast is

healing. I admit that’s only a theory, a grasping at straws.

But there’s no need to wash my hands of hope. I read

about a tornado, fires in New Mexico, smoke moving east.

l get it. I’ll breathe till I stop that breathing, turn to what’s

blooming, put purple blossoms into my hands. The dirt

smells like rain and pine fronds. Just beyond there’s a dune

and the salt-sand. Wind keeps shaping it. Spindrift froths up.

Barbara Daniels

Barbara Daniels’ Talk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. Among her other books are Rose Fever: Poems and four chapbooks: Moon Kitchen, Black Sails, Quinn & Marie, and The Woman Who Tries to Believe. Her poems have appeared in Good River Review, Neologism, Rust & Moth, Lake, and elsewhere. She received four fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Josje Weusten

April 2026 | poetry

Cardboard Car Hanger

Its needle-sharp smell

penetrates the cheap shop,

the type where people riffle

through racks,

thoughtlessly throwing

underpriced things into carts.

Intended purchases left behind
in places different

from where they were picked up.

It isn’t supposed to be lying

between the car window screens,

let alone stripped

of its plastic wrapper.

In my father’s post-divorce car,

its cardboard twin had dangled

along with turns,

unexpected,

like the changes in his mood.

As I tense up,

my three-year-old squeezes my hand,

pleadingly persuading me

to leave

with Miffy-shaped screens,

the hanger staying

where it belongs.

Josje Weusten

Josje Weusten (she/her) is a Dutch writer/poet living in Belgium together with her partner and two daughters. She holds a PhD in literary studies, is an alumna of Faber Academy London, and teaches English literature and creative writing at Maastricht University. Her debut novel, ‘Fake Fish’, was published internationally by Sparsile Books (UK) in 2024. Her poems and shorts have appeared in various publications, including Litbreak Magazine, The Bookends Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Brussels Times. In 2025, she won the Short Story of Belgium Competition 2025. For more information about her work: https://josjeweusten.co.uk/

Daniel Thompson

April 2026 | poetry

Bettor in the Giant’s Den

The heart of the stone sweats

In the foothills of some place or another

(I forgot where now in Nevada).

The wet stone, moldy-in-sweat,

Moss drenched, marinated in

Fungus-warmth, red-splotched.

The casino is a lichen (or a mold)

In dragon colors and scaly,

Smelling of synthetic pine.

Somewhere in neon exuberance,

A casino ca-chinging or so,

Cradling addiction in the harmony

Of cigarettes and vapes, all tabac

And forth, back and forth,

Coral ashtrays, and a deck of dealts.

Tobacco and the backs of cards,

The intricate carpets like soil:

Straight spades almost flushed through

And digging into the foundations.

The casino sweats like a

Filthy giant lying down naked,

Slathered in Axe Body Spray

Lazing across the rocks.

Daniel Thompson

Daniel Thompson was born in Tübingen in the Black Forest of southern Germany and moved to New Orleans at six years old. He lives and writes poetry there to this day. His latest work can be read in The Banyan Review, Sojourners Magazine, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and will be upcoming in The Chiron Review, New Square, and The Delta Review.