What Remains by Karen Elias
Once Upon a Time in Central Greenland
“New Study Reveals Signs of an Ancient Tundra
Ecosystem Beneath Greenland’s Thickest Ice,”
Inside Climate News, 8/5/24
Moss, willows, wood shards, bits of bugs, fragments of fungi,
and you, the seed of one Arctic poppy, your future
once in deep-freeze beneath two miles of ice
but discovered this month by gleeful geologists.
Once upon a time in Central Greenland,
you thought about thriving, about blooming
bright white and yellow beneath the willows,
your cupped petals gathering warm days.
Glamorous toxicity stuck between rocks,
you yearned for sun but looked up
at a frostbitten sky, then down
at the hardening soil, then—much later
it seemed—at the paler-than-sky-blue ice
two miles deep in Central Greenland.
Sometime in Central Greenland,
someone drilled down, caught the sample
of you. “A resurrection,” you thought,
before they stuck you under their microscope
and labeled you “Discovery!”
not from the edge but the center
of their homeland’s ice sheet,
that same surface you once knew
as sky, once upon a time
in Central Greenland.
Poetry Moment host for WPSU-FM, assistant editor of Presence, and Professor Emerita of English at Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published 17 collections of poetry—including How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? (Kelsay Books), Seeing Things (Wildhouse), as well as the ekphrastic collaborations Small Earthly Space and In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind. Maddox also has published a story collection, 5 children’s books, and the anthologies Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and Keystone Poetry (co-editor w/Jerry Wemple, PSU Press). Her middle-grade biography, A Man Named Branch: The True Story of Baseball’s Great Experiment, is just out from Sunbury Press Series. www.marjoriemaddox.com
Karen Elias is an artist/activist, using photography and collage to record the beauty and fragility of the natural world and to try to make sense of life on our troubled planet. In addition to numerous publications, her award-winning work appears in private collections and galleries. Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For, and Small Earthly Space, ekphrastic collaborations with poet Marjorie Maddox, appeared in 2022 and 2025, respectively, both from Shanti Arts. She is also a writer and playwright. Several of her plays have been produced, both here in the U.S. and internationally; two are included in the anthologies The Future is Not Fixed and All Good Things Must Begin. In addition, she collaborated (as librettist) with composer Akshaya Avril Tucker, to produce a musical composition (“Night Fire”), which premiered in April 2024 in Salt Lake City with the NOVA Chamber Music Series.
Leaving the Men’s Drum Circle
Unsure of my own tempo,
I arise and go.
It isn’t my manhood I leave–
nothing I believed–,
but these rhythms no longer please.
I need the irregularity
of thunder in the distance
and thick black oak leaves, their resistance
when fall-browned, they pulse first heart-like
then go silent as they strike
the forgiving storm-soft grass.
Manuscripts of Paul Jones’ poems crashed into the moon’s surface in 2019, and in February 2024. In 2021, Jones was inducted into NC State Computer Science’s Hall of Fame. His book, Something Wonderful, was published by Redhawk Publications the same year. Something Necessary, Jones’ second book, came from Redhawk in September 2024.
Recently, Jones has published poems in Rattle, New Verse Review, Salvation South, Tar River Poetry, and Southern Poetry Review, as well as in anthologies including Best American Erotic Poems (1800-Present).
In 2024, Jones’ poem “Geode” was plagiarized multiple times by the notorious serial offender, John Kucera
More at smalljones.com and @smalljones on most of the Socials
Light or Fermat’s Principle
(with thanks to Nick)
Light takes all possible paths—
my physicist friend tells me so
Light travels both as particle and wave
The speed of light is a constant— the same everywhere
along all possible paths
All but one of light’s paths cancel each other out
Light always takes the path of least time —
that’s Fermat’s principle, he says
I strike a match in the darkness—
light a candle in memory of you my Justin
You burned bright so briefly
Tell me please where does the light go
when the candle gets blown out?
Rebecca Stilling is a feminist therapist in New Orleans whose poetry is deeply rooted in her work, her eccentric family, her native landscape and the natural world. She is a Louisiana Master Naturalist and the granddaughter of both immigrants and generational New Orleanians. At thirteen, she wrote in her journal, “ I want to be a psychotherapist and a writer”. She accomplished the first part of that goal and has been working on the second for quite some time. She’s been published in Women’s Workshop Into Print (In(her)itance Press, 2003). She also co-edited Crescent House at 40 (2019). Every November 1, she visits the family tomb, a New Orleans tradition.
So Goes the Sparrow
she was a
beautiful prison
a blank canvas
with attitude
driven by fire
running with water
a story of
various endings
having crossed
summer many times
each time taking
the secrets with her
never forgetting
to ask the
dark to stop
Dr. Roger Singer is a Poet Laureate Emeritus of Connecticut and past president of the Connecticut Shoreline Poetry Chapter, in association with the Connecticut Poetry Society. He has had over 1,600 poems published on the internet, in magazines, and in books, and is a 2017 Pushcart Prize Award Nominee.
Only a Bony Ghost
after Daniel Berrigan
I am alone and the doors are locked. Still,
it feels vulnerable to shower in the middle of the day
who knows what thoughts lurk in the corners creeping
down the walls. It’s probably only the bony ghost.
Mostly he leaves well enough alone, although he rattles
when he dances and only answers to whistled polka.
He smacks my cheek with airy kisses and urges
the bananas to brown more quickly. The ghost curls
like a cat around my shoulders when I can’t sleep
and always hopes I’ll turn on another black and white movie.
He likes to make keys sticky, thinks its funny to misplace
bookmarks and appointments. Above all he wants
attention and jaunty spiderwebs on the ceiling.
He knows it bothers me when he lets his joints creak
in unsteady patterns, but I light a candle
as he’s easily distracted by the smell of cinnamon,
by any flicker or glint. Thus occupied,
the bony ghost allows me to read my book in peace.
Allison Burris grew up in the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Oakland, California. Her poems embrace the whimsical and cozy, explore human connection, and affirm the power of stories. She received her MLIS from San Jose State University and her poetry appears or is forthcoming in various journals, including Instant Noodles, Heartline Spec, Muleskinner, After Happy Hour Review, and The Marbled Sigh. Connect with her via https://linktr.ee/allisonburris.
Static
My mama used to call it
a bad nerve day,
when the dryer is going
and the radio is talking fast
and anybody asking me,
asking any little thing
and it all rushes into me
hissing like raw wires,
like bad electricity.
I go around
turning off things,
dryer mid-cycle,
radio mid-sentence,
turn off humming lights,
the whining freezer,
tapping heater
and still.
Grey Brown has three collections of poetry and is working on her fourth. She loves teaching poetry workshops and is currently an instructor for OLLI at Duke University. Grey has been a member of the Black Sox critique group for 39 years! She lives in Chapel Hill with her cat, an unreliable muse.
I am a sticky ball
Fragility is the sensation between joy and grief
that rent of air when shrieks of laughter,
fall into tears
so flimsy, gossamer
unable to weigh down the fluttering picnic blanket edges.
My father is shrinking in annual increments.
For years he took up space, but now his body is small
better to blend with the birds he captures,
apertures open to just the right setting.
I hear the call of the Anna’s hummingbird and need to tell him,
the tiny peep peep is calling me to him.
My mother used to knit sweaters to earn a little money for luxuries
but the thick cables and beaded pearls of Aran yarn were
the purchaser’s true indulgence.
I feel the rasp of wool as I dance the needles in and out, over and under
and hover my fingers, waiting for her guidance.
It is easy to weary of being the adult,
chasing blown paper down the street,
ignoring pennies dropped in a rush too hurried to claim them.
I am a sticky ball, rolling through life collecting people and experiences;
the colors simultaneously individual, and blurred.
Kathie-Louise Clarke is a British raised writer and artist, living in Oakland, California. She is inspired to create pieces that interrogate and illuminate the human condition, with a focus on love, loss and the beauty of the natural world. Her poetry appears, or is forthcoming in various journals including Seaside Gothic, Boudin, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Tiny Seeds and Spell Jar. She also regularly teaches and presents her fine art and relief prints throughout the Bay Area.
Glossolalia
Sea grape burst, fiat foil
Rue the borzoi’s uncouth flail
Root out boars, corgis fill
Rouse tail-curved comets full
Awash, toss in cumin, come
Assure terriers concord
Azure terroir concur
Sultana tact leather
Saffron foamy lather
Heron husky feather
Berries Havanese further
Bitter to berate, tear
Crêpes layered manic
Chocolate mastiff metallic
Coffee slack organic
Khaki (s)lick orgasmic
L. Acadia is a ginger stepchild as well as lit professor at National Taiwan University, Taiwan Literature Base 2024–2025 Writer-in-Residence, and Pushcart-nominated member of the Taipei Poetry Collective with poetry in JMWW, New Orleans Review, Strange Horizons, trampset, and elsewhere. She lives with her wife and hound in the ‘literature mountain’ district of Taipei. Connect at www.acadiaink.com or on Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky: @acadialogue
Neurosurgery by Gaslight
It is all in my head:
your gloved hand
picks at my brain,
scalpel and clamps
push aside reason,
probe deep.
Thickened lenses
magnify a path
of questions,
questions only
you may answer but
choose not to.
I try to explain what
I do not know.
The growth inside
of me is simple,
cannot be ignored.
Even now—
with my head
an opened vault
of gray—you could
take that growth
away, leave me
speechless.
You say more
than I might
ever think but
I won’t hear
when you close
my mind.
Claudia M. Stanek’s work has been turned into a libretto, been part of an art exhibition, and been translated into Polish. She is the author of the chapbooks Beneath Occluded Shine and Language You Refuse to Learn. Her poems appear in Susurrus, The Windhover, Cutleaf, Ekstasis, Solum, and Book of Matches, among others. Claudia spent a Writer’s Residency in Bialystok, Poland. She holds an MFA from Bennington College. Originally from Western New York, Claudia now lives in East Tennessee with her elderly dogs, where she rescues the occasional overheated hummingbird.
The House
the same house
is a different house
the trees different
the sky different
the words spoken
describing what it is not
even though it
continues to resemble
what it always was
Bob Heman‘s most recent book is WASHING THE WINGS OF THE ANGELS (Quale Press, 2024). His collection WHAT NEEDS TO BE FOUND is scheduled for publication by MadHat Press this year.
Bargaining with Death
I hear you at night scuttling like a packrat
in the attic, the scritchings of your little
feet in the walls. I know what you are up to,
little gifts you leave on the stair to woo me
—this morning a red bottle cap,
a twist of string, a shred of tinsel.
I spend my days looking for bits of shine
to keep you busy, now you’ve moved in
to stay. A broken hairclip, a single earring
with a turquoise bead. Tit for tat,
my rascal. Little things I’m finally willing
to part with. My sons say I should call
the Exterminators! But, don’t worry,
you are safe as long as I’m still alive.
Dianne Stepp lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in various journals and reviews including Tar River Poetry, Naugatuck River Review, Cider Press Review, Sugar House Review, Glassworks and Windfall among others. She has published three chapbooks: “Half-Moon of Clay,” “Sweet Mercies,” and “The Nest’s Dark Eye.” She is also a gardener, fabric artist and beekeeper.
The Night of Night
The night of night speaks quietly
tangling stars into its mouth,
breathing its cool ecru,
spiraling an aria through my hair,
matted into the pillow while my mouth sags,
eyes twitch behind their purple lids.
The night of night pulses, scattering
into the space of a room, pulls
its smell into my throat
and I topple, ill-placed bricking
struck by the smack of the pavement.
As the moon wanes, the night of night
quarters itself into dreams of day;
green hills floating, shaking dew
like a dog, from its grassy coat.
Loralee Clark has a fourth chapbook forthcoming: Neolithic Imaginings: Mythical Explorations of the Unknown (Kelsay Press, 2026). Clark has been nominated for three 2026 Pushcart Prizes. She resides in Virginia; her website is sites.google.com/view/
March 8, 2015
On my grandson’s 10th birthday.
On a hike in City Park Couturie Forest & Arboretum,
including a climb up Gorilla Hill, which is higher than Monkey Hill,
over at the Audubon Zoo, &, at thirty feet altitude, the highest
land spot in the city, and which has a carved-in-concrete map of the city;
we talked about this as we tapped our toes on the Mississippi River,
Lake Pontchartrain, their house, our house, we are here.
On our way back to the car, kicking through the pine-needled path,
the Birthday Boy Beau proclaims it the best birthday ever,
except for the one when I fractured my leg in the bounce house;
that one was better because my Momma was still here.
Beverly Rainbolt, at age 74 calls herself a re-emerging poet. She holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop, authored a poetry collection, The Altar of this Moment (Portals Press, 2001), co-edited with Kay Murphy an anthology, Women’s Workshop Into Print (InHeritance Press, 2003) and has also been published in anthologies and literary journals, most recently, The Poetry Buffet: An Anthology of New Orleans Poetry (New Orleans Poetry Journal Press, 2024) and Hurricanes Katrina & Rita at 20: An Anthology of Louisiana Poetry with Art (Black Bayou Press, 2025).