‘Sonnet on the wind’, ‘Sonnet for a change’, & ‘Sonnet for a crayon’

Sherri Harvey is an educator, freelance writer, photographer, and eco storyteller. She travels the world for projects that tell the stories of an environment in crisis and the people helping to save it, especially women. Over the past few years, she lived with a sociocracy struggling to find solutions for the water crisis in Spain, traveled to villages throughout West Africa learning about the plight of women in remote villages, worked with Orangutan Odysseys in Borneo to highlight the crisis of deforestation and orangutans, and followed a vet crew around the island of Phuket to create the documentary film, Accidental Advoctes in Phuket. The power of stories can unite cultures, share communion, and promote eco-change. Please see www.sherriharvey.com or @sherricoyote for more info.

Sonnet on the wind

“And there arose a great storm of wind,
and the waves beat into the ship,
so that it was now full.”
Mark 4:37

This morn I heard, while meditating, sounds
of weather, marching outside, wind so fierce
with voice both loud and sure, enough to ground
my try at centering my thoughts. It pierced
the calm that I was building, inside, tossed
it like a pile of leaves, and scattered it
among the houses on my block. No loss,
I thought, I’ll simply grab a tiny bit
of time while I’m at work, yet sitting in
my office, now, the wind remains, but here
it’s joined by massive rains that drum my win-
dow, pounding with a ragged rhythm, pierc-
ing every thought before it’s formed, before
to bore a hole and hollow out my core.

Sonnet for a change

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.
Proverb

They say tomorrow there’ll be rain, that clouds
will fill the skies and cooler winds will come,
that shirtsleeve days are not quite here; the crowds
that lined the streets will disappear, but some,
like me, will stay to revel in the change
of seasons, cycles turning inside wheels.
I watch as days begin to thin, arrange
the rise and set to maximum appeal,
and like those crowds, feel deep release to walk
about without a coat or jacket, free
to smell the soil, and like the red-tailed hawk
soar higher, higher over warming trees,
to watch the quick retreat of winter snow
as life returns to Mother Earth below.

Sonnet for a crayon

With crayon grasped within his stubby paw,
he lashes out and strikes the paper, red
marks flying back and forth, then searches for
the yellow. Can’t find yellow. Takes instead
the one that’s blue, and colors in the sky,
then grabs the green and adds some leaves for trees,
then adds the darker brown that signifies
the massive trunks that dwarf the sky. Then sees
the yellow, finally, and adds a sun,
a tiny one, up right. Then starts to pick
up random colors, adding flowers, one
by one, until a field emerges. Sticks
his finger in his nose and smiles and laughs
at what his hands have done on his behalf.

William Joel

‘Horse School’, ‘Heart Study’& ‘The Secrets of Water and Air’

Sherri Harvey is an educator, freelance writer, photographer, and eco storyteller. She travels the world for projects that tell the stories of an environment in crisis and the people helping to save it, especially women. Over the past few years, she lived with a sociocracy struggling to find solutions for the water crisis in Spain, traveled to villages throughout West Africa learning about the plight of women in remote villages, worked with Orangutan Odysseys in Borneo to highlight the crisis of deforestation and orangutans, and followed a vet crew around the island of Phuket to create the documentary film, Accidental Advoctes in Phuket. The power of stories can unite cultures, share communion, and promote eco-change. Please see www.sherriharvey.com or @sherricoyote for more info.

Horse School

Joy trailed behind Faith
in elementary school. Older girls
taught them to canter and gallop and trot.
Fierce fillies in bell-bottoms and sneakers,
they pranced across the grass.
Other voices gave way
when their neighs saturated the air.
While they whinnied and nickered,
winter winds whipped
Faith’s hair like a mare’s rippling mane,
bared her slim ankles
with its trouser-tugging teeth.

The following spring
as Joy stood at their playground’s edge,
warming her back in the sun,
Faith arrived with a Boy Scout
ring on her lazy man finger.
“Billy asked me to go steady!” she squealed.
Joy snorted and pawed the ground.
Placing her hand on Joy’s arm,
Faith said with a sigh, “Oh, Joy,
we’re too old for horse school

now.” In the blurry recesses
of her mind, Joy still sees
the yellow yarn Faith wrapped
around the band to make that ring fit,
fiber fraying like the jute halters
horse trainers use
before moving on to the harder tack
of bridles and reins and bits.

Heart Study

Anxious to participate,
I enter the atrium—
all windows and light—
at the National Institutes of Health.
Pulse taken,
blood drawn,
echo- and electro-
cardiograms done,
I complete the stress test, then

proceed to an examination room.
A research nurse in maroon scrubs
slides a heart monitor from a six-inch packet,
places the device
in the space between my breasts,
points to the dime-sized silver circle
sitting like a doorbell button
at the center of my chest,
tells me, “Tap this disk to document

irregularities.” Back home,
I press that button
to record the arrhythmia I feel
each time my daughter leaves the house—
her wavy hair held back from her hopeful face
with a bright butterfly clip.
Beyond our threshold lies
a country where youthful dreams are
flatlined with guns and greed and grift.

The Secrets of Water and Air

Like a sleepwalker,
Delores Marah lumbers
along the trails of Shady Grove,
threads her way through tombstones,
stops at one
bearing her daughter’s name.
Mallory Dawn Marah,
engraved on a granite slab—a birthdate
followed by a dash.
Unrecovered, Mallory’s body
lies at the bottom of Lowe Lake
beyond the cemetery’s edge.

Phantoms fly from their graves.
Haunted whispers of remorse
swirl from inaudible tongues,
stir up summer leaves. Memories
of Mallory in a pink maillot
sprinting across the high dive
vault and spin and crash.
Dolores taught Mallory to tread water.
No one taught Mallory
to paddle fast enough to escape
the man who held her under water so long
she couldn’t swim away.

Never apprehended,
the man fled. The cops
closed the case, convinced
Mallory was just another runaway.
Mute swans snort and hiss.
Dolores trudges to the water’s rim.
She shields her eyes from the white
glare of the morning sun,
watches the swans lift off.
Faint voices buzz and hum,
carried away on the wings
of heavy bodies in flight.

Teresa Burns Murphy is the author of a novel, The Secret to Flying (TigerEye Publications). Her writing has been published in several places, including Chicago Quarterly Review, Evening Street Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Literary Mama, The Literary Nest, The Opiate, Southern Women’s Review, Sparks of Calliope, Stirring: A Literary Collection, and The Write City Review (Volume 4). Visit her at https://www.teresaburnsmurphy.com.

‘The Hollow of a Heartbeat’

Dylan Hoover (he/him) is a fiction writer from Erie, PA. He graduated in 2023 from Allegheny College, where he earned a BA in English and Creative Writing. During the heart of the pandemic, he studied abroad at Lancaster University in England. There, he unearthed interests in British culture, as well as a passion to write historical fiction. Dylan’s fiction has appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review, and his forthcoming photography in Great Lakes Review. He currently is a second-year MFA student at the University of New Hampshire. Instagram: dylhoov96

The Hollow of a Heartbeat

In the hollow where a heartbeat should have echoed,
I learned to dance in the silence of your absence.
The world, a canvas unpainted by your hues,
Left me colorblind in a kaleidoscope of what-ifs.

In the playground of forgotten whispers,
I swung high on swings of solitude,
Soaring into skies that tasted like lost lullabies,
Chasing clouds that resembled your fading smile.

I became an architect of imaginary embraces,
Building castles from the sands of your missed bedtime stories.
Each grain a testament to the nights
I wrapped myself in the quilt of your unsung songs.

In the garden of untended dreams,

I bloomed in the shade of an invisible sun,
Rooted in the soil of your unspoken apologies,
Watering my soul with tears of resilience.

Yet, in this mosaic of fractured fairy tales,
I found strength in the reflection of my own spirit,
A phoenix rising from the ashes of abandonment,
Wearing my scars like medals of survival.

Frances Locke is a Queens-based writer and artist, known for her evocative poetry and gripping fiction. Her work explores the complexities of human nature and the intricacies of everyday life, often drawing inspiration from her vibrant New York surroundings. Frances's writing has been published in various literary magazines, captivating readers with its unique blend of wit and depth. When she's not crafting stories, she enjoys hunting for vintage treasures and creating handcrafted goods.

‘Acid Graduation’

Photographer- Tall Eric

Acid Graduation

When the Youth Pastor of our Bible Study Team encountered LSD
at age 17
the evangelical fervor he'd developed sharing the word of God
shifted to a new savior

Our Oklahoma panhandle town held 7,000 souls
serviced by 11 churches and
a high school with 78 people in the Senior Class
74 of which our former Youth Pastor managed to convert
to acid
at the commencement ceremony in the florally decorated gym
where one speaker after another
including the valedictorian and students' choice winner
assured the congregation
we will all eventually be redeemed
because good news
they could personally testify
there really is a true path to heaven

MK Punky is the co-founder of the 80's hardcore band The Clitboys and author of thirteen books of fiction, memoir and journalism, MK PUNKY is the creator of the 365-poem interactive art experience "The Year of When."

‘Our; or, Upon Failing to Understand Adiabatics at a Cursory Search’, ‘Anthropic’, & ‘Mistaken’

Katie Hughbanks (she/her) is a writer, photographer, and teacher whose photography has been recognized nationally and internationally. Her photos appear in more than 40 publications, including in Peatsmoke Journal, Cool Beans Lit, In Parentheses, L'Esprit Literary Review, New Feathers Anthology, Glassworks Magazine, Azahares, Moonday Mag, and Black Fork Review. She is the author of two books, Blackbird Songs (2019) and It's Time (2024). She teaches English and Creative Writing in Louisville, Kentucky US.

Our; or, Upon Failing to Understand Adiabatics at a Cursory Search

Something in this
/// \\\ train of thought
/// we are \\\ screams
/// like
|| mercury
|| coalescing
// each \\ on the trunk of
// other’s
| tongue,
lumps of sugar
/ \ salivating
/ \ for the
/ \ sweet
/ \ abandon
/ in being \ of this
/ and-not-being \ madness
/ and/burning
allthesame.

Anthropic

one man
feeds another
in a desperate
display of power
hungry
foolishness

Mistaken

When did it begin to take root?
Was it growing with the clovers
across the mud-choked fields?
We tasted them too often.
Did it cinch itself over Huron
while we angled ourselves pontooned?
Crisping in the last week of summer,
our hands silvered with minnows.
Did the blaze of stars and campfire
fuel this rampage under your skin?
A surfeit of skunks presented
the danger we mistook for real.
Did it press upon your shoulder
when your arm slumped from its socket?
Was it not mud that freckled your neck
as you rode off alone? Your limp fingers
clacked among spoked trading cards
the rest of us kept pretending to be.

Now, don’t take this moment to gloat.
There’s no high road for you here.
My memory’s failed to collapse
like I did in the one grass stain of shadow
on our newly paved way home.
You left me behind, knowing
I didn’t have the backbone for it.
But should I have seen it then, digging
at the base of your bobbing blond skull?
Did it chase you down in your furious sprint
through the sun’s broad stroke of August?
Swathed by the hazy, bulldozed ghost
our asbestos-stuffed school had become,
you moved at a speed I’ve never learned to match.

I didn’t see you come back
by the time of my revival,
but there you were, staking claim
to your own crush of green
beneath sugar maple mercy,
sunburnt and smirking beside me.

Steven O. Young Jr. is knitted within the Great Lakes' mitten, where he earned an MA from Oakland University and occasionally slathers soundstages with his body weight's worth of paint. His latest literary homes include Revolute, Barzakh Magazine, Havik, 300 Days of Sun, and Washington Square Review.