Gregor Wakes / When Aidoneus Fastened His Fate to Mine by Carrie Farrar

Gregor Wakes

He dreamed of trains
and woke to legs
that twitched like wires.

The sun was already
creeping across
his insect shell—
as if nothing had changed.

He tried to speak,
but the words dripped
from his mandibles
like rotted fruit.

Behind the door,
his sister’s voice
was still kind,
but already dimmed
by the weight
of what he had become.

He was still him.
But no one believed him.
And that
was worse than the body.

So he crawled beneath
the couch,
where dust gave
no judgment.

And listened
as the world
rearranged itself
to forget him.

When Aidoneus Fastened His Fate to Mine

He raised a castle of granite, stone on stone,
and within its echoing halls I wandered
my steps unbound.

His first words were low heat and iron:
Your history ends here. Nothing follows pain.

He coaxed the dark to bloom in veils:
branches trembling, lunar hush,
whole galaxies breathing above us,
believing I would learn to sleep in such radiance.

He sought out my rage; it rivaled his.
My attachment to the light beleaguered him.
So he seduced me until I became his.

Then I met you
and our demons embraced,
chanting the same lies.

You hardened fast
and soon he seduced you, too.

Through shadows you groped,
sharing Persephone’s fate,
your soul exposed to the empty winds.

I saw you shift
skin to ember, ember to ash,
fingers lengthening into ivory shards
glimmering with hunger.

We became beasts,
feasting on each other’s kindness
until we were bone and sinew.

Thrown into shadow,
our bodies crawled,
seeking the sun of suns.

I moved with predatory patience,
weaving webs of shadow disguised as light,
wanting you to see in me
the things you most despised.

For I am a sculpted mass of thorns,
the only extinct creature
in Earth’s bleak bestiary,
forging my own path

through its false mythology.

Carrie Farrar is a Los Angeles poet writing about ruin, resilience, and the strange beauty in what breaks. Her work explores trauma, neurodivergence, and devotion, driven by image, lyric pulse, and a desire to name what others turn from.

Pinecones by Terry Jude Miller

Chamber of infant trees,
a cough from limbs litters
them across dry needles—
pick-up-sticks, interlaced
into a dun thatch of receiving.

My grandchildren, the wisest of us,
gather the fallen into shirtfronts fashioned
into baskets, they count each treasure,
place them on the porch.

Then meticulously arrange them,
sort by size, smallest to largest,
each having a distinct personality
of a possible forest.

What’s at stake in such collections?
I consider what the children of Ukraine
and Gaza gather in lieu of lost trees.
What fills their tattered cloth baskets?
What do they bring to savaged fields?

My grandchildren prepare silent earth
for the planting of freed pinyons,
place lovingly each like a wrapped corpse
in cool soil, where, in the exuberance
of time, the buried will be forgotten.

 

Terry Jude Miller, lives in Houston, working in academia. His poems have received multiple Pushcart nominations. One of Miller’s poems will appear in the Spring 2026 issue of Rattle. In 2024, his work was published in Sontag Mag, Feed the Holy, Encore, Equinox, Trigger Warning Magazine, Exomorphosis, Ars Sententia, The Nature of Things, The Bayou Review, Boundless, the Poetry At Round Top Anthology, and several other literary publications. Miller is the former 1st Vice Chancellor of the National Federation of States Poetry Societies.

Purgatory Blvd by Craig Kirchner

It’s foggy, everything is vague and soft,
doesn’t know how he got here,
but thankfully, there is no pain.
The street sign comes into view -
Purgatory Blvd, with an arrow.

Between here and Heaven could be vast,
or right around the corner, no cross streets,
just various stark stone street signs pointing the way.
Is he here alone, or will he be joined by others,
in the same state of puzzled sinfulness?

Is there a sponsor to tell him how he’s doing,
and what the program is? Twelve points,
a stop-over for the unchaste,
a difficult journey taking decades,
or centuries of constructing wholesomeness?

Suffering was always implied as part of the process.
The possibilities seem to range,
from a long walk alone, to torture.
It does seem to come with a guarantee, that he
won’t end up burning in Hell, or he’d be there.

But it seems clear, he won’t know Heavenly Bliss
until he walks the miles and suffers.
He has never been a joiner, not much on authority,
or contrition - this could end up being,
a particularly tough stage in his development.

Craig Kirchner has been nominated three times for Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. He’s been published in Chiron Review, in parentheses, Main Street Rag and dozens of other journals. Craig can be found on Bluesky.

Diminishing / Final Exit by Michael Keshigian

Diminishing 

Not to touch

what was once touched,

never to see

what was once seen,

or failing to realize a feeling

once fulfilling,

creates a void in the soul,

a ghost within,

meandering throughout

the darkness of the heart

to slowly empty

fond memories

collected throughout

the pitcher of years

and with sight ever faltering,

those endeared emotions

grow damp and indistinct

with each attempt of recollection,

the webbed caverns of recall,

falling prey

to the acres of emptiness

passing years present

even as the fading light

strives valiantly

to illuminate

those diminishing sensations.

Final Exit

 

He wondered how his final exit might occur,

violent and heinous

or silent and alone.

Would crimson brilliance dominate

with intense pain

in red rivers of helpless realization

or will each breath dwindling

sleepily shorten

in a count down toward final drift off

in life’s conclusive irony.

Might images which plagued him daily

finally evaporate

or eternally bound his fleeting soul

which would rise and fall

or hover about the room

till retrieved by an unseen host,

opening doors to unseen worlds,

perhaps exiting

through a starlit entrance

in a reversal of fortune,

no fanfare accompanying departure

as he might drift

amid the moon and stars,

twinkling indifferently

to his arriving vapor,

revealing no secrets,

and might he realize the scene

to describe with poetic intensity

or will he float endlessly

as a gaseous haze

above the lugubrious whimpers.

Michael Keshigian has recently been published in The California Quarterly, Chiron Review, San Pedro River Review, and Panoply as well as many other national and international journals. He is the author of 14 poetry collections and has been nominated 7 times for a Pushcart prize and 3 times for Best of the Net.

Catacombs, Paris by Sandy Hiss

Over 180 miles of tunnels
traverse like snakes through dirt paths.
Some will lead to wine cellars, large murals,
mushroom farms or faces of death.

I am one of those faces
in this chaos of bone and memory,
just another skull in a crowd of six million
piled atop broken femurs and tibias.

It is always midnight cold here
in this garden of limestone;
the moon will cast a beacon of light
when it tires of a quiet, starless sky.

That is when the voices grow louder,
when the moaning becomes endless.
It is an opera of the dead
with no audience or standing ovation

Sandy Hiss writes lyrical poetry and short fiction in various genres such as horror, paranormal, and fantasy. Her fiction includes The Rosegiver and The Haunting of Meredith. She finds forests, gardens with stone statues, and old world architecture to be hauntingly beautiful.

Art: The Mithering by Stephen Mackey

 

Artist: Stephen Mackey (Born 1968)

Stephen Mackey is a self-taught artist currently living in the UK. Inspired by the great French, Dutch and Italian masters of the Renaissance...

- "The Mithering"

Oil on board

Winter by Brian Duncan

The pumpkin sags softly over the porch rail.
In quiet corners, brown leaves huddle.

Black sheep winds probe walls for weak points.
Leaden sky hugs iron ground.

Hunched figures, arms drawn tight, search for warmth.
Squirrels make last-minute forays.

Pale sun leaves no mark,
no memory.

Brian Duncan lives in Kendall Park, New Jersey with his wife, Margie, and two cats. He worked in a virology laboratory at Princeton University for many years and is now happily retired. He enjoys devoting his time to poetry, gardening, hiking, and reminiscing.

Requiem for a Childhood Home / Braille Image by Laura Stringfellow

Requiem for a Childhood Home

House on a hill of thorns, columns of ash.
Inside, a carpet of crushed roses
attempts its blossoming. The back
yard is sharp with hair of palmetto,
brittle from the sun. Thistles

slide along the edge of the house,
brackish with grief. There are splinters
in the yard, I believe, which assemble
themselves into bones, even as shadows
disappear and the land

darkens. It’s all a dream
under which the cloud of reason
is shaken, broken to bits. Shattered—
like a mirror that tries too hard to see.

A woman strokes the remnants
of a dismembered photograph, the roots
of my mother's hand disheveling time,
alchemies of earth grown rough by wind.


* Previously published in the Summer 2021 Issue of Déraciné

Braille Image

I am my sad dream walking
the blind. Their hands and arms
vanish. At dawn, they disappear
down the dark road, scattering
mud from tattered shoes.

The blind belong to the roses
and the fields
which, cruelly, they cannot see.

In my waking, they think
nightmares. Without feet,
without maps, the eyes
of the swirling invisible storms
of their fingertips do see.

With our hands, we only touch.

Nightly, I dream for them
these blooming things--
the opening red anemones of hearts,
burgundy buds of tongues into roses,
rising continents of azaleas in spring.

Laura Stringfellow writes both verse and prose poetry, holds an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry, and hails from the muggy strangelands of the Southern U.S. Her work has appeared in various literary journals and magazines, including Déraciné, FERAL, Right Hand Pointing, and Coffin Bell: a journal of dark literature.

Happy Halloween!

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The Calling / Sugar Snakes by Stephen Jarrell Williams

The Calling

His cold hands

carrying flowers

upon the path

along the cliffs

up to the main peak

overlooking the sea

continual winds

he remembers yesterdays

sitting the flowers down

beside a handmade cross

bent by the years

when memories become alive

he senses her

loving presence

tears forming

rolling slowly down

with the far below

rush of the sea

he swallows hard

wondering if he should jump

but her voice comes

softly

Someday

We'll be together again 

her words

keeping his soul

and heart warm.

Sugar Snakes

Halloween candy

millions chewing

mouthfuls of stories

masks covering

grinning

sugar snakes.

Stephen Jarrell Williams writes at night, waking from his dreams, before they consume him.  He can be found @papapoet on Twitter X.