Dear Reader

At dusk, she knows this place as beautiful. Trees begin to speak as silhouettes, a dark weaving across the sky’s loom. The sun slinks, wolf-like, away from her eyes. The house smells of the day’s work, a comfort of cinnamon and yeast. She wonders about decisions, here on the front step, looking at the play of shapes that branches make as they lose light. In daylight, she is so sure of herself. Her plans spark like rays of sun flickering through spaces between trees. Images flash as a new home, a wedding band, a cub. But now she wraps her hooded cloak tighter against the chill. Even red disappears as the sun sets. --- Claire Walker's poetry has been published widely. She has two pamphlets published by V. Press - The Girl Who Grew Into A Crocodile (2015), and Somewhere Between Rose and Black (2017), which was shortlisted for Best Poetry Pamphlet at the 2018 Saboteur Awards. Her third pamphlet, Collision, is due in September 2019 from A

We water down thoughts to ‘nice’ and ‘pretty’ – they don’t mean much so we speak with our hands and eyes, wide and sparkling with expression. We chortle because we love the same person and you hug me because I hold him for you, when you are seas away. --- Isabelle is the author of This is not a Spectacle, Micro chapbook, The Trees Whispered (Origami Poetry Press) and Digging Holes To Another Continent (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, New York). She is the editor of Fly on the Wall Press. Her poems have been published in poetry anthologies such as The Road To Clevedon Pier and Verve Poetry Press. She has had poems published in literary journals such as Eunoia Review, FoxTrott Uniform, Mojave Heart Review, The Blue Nib, The Pangolin Review, I Am Not A Silent Poet, Eskimo Pie, Scrittura, Anti - Heroin Chic, Bewildering Stories and Literary Yard

You recovered from those formative and dumb years: now here’s to many more. Your soul that rends and mends all grassroots and punk gives you nary a dull moment, except when you feel dead; but sweet hubris might say it’s all in your head. Now count the few ways you love yourself: sports, poems, and sex. Only two can actually kill you, so relax: you concern yourself so much with death that birth means less and less. Remember: dad saw ghosts, your mom’s, and told you he felt blessed. When you meet your other brother, maker, or see the damned wraiths yourself, own up: you’ve probably relapsed. Or just regressed. --- Tyler Wettig resides in Michigan. His latest chapbook is  The Adult Table  (Zetataurus, 2018). Tyler's website:  https://www.tylerwettig. wordpress.com .

This is how dreams appear. Figures, dragged across a storyboard, then left to fade. Unrecognised, they stretch and seize their spaces. As darker, fuller, outlines huddle, in fear of movement. This is how dreams emerge. Trusting in sketches and shadows, debated in columns and corridors. In the shrinking middle ground between narcolepsy and insomnia. Response to “Studies of a Sleeping Apostle and Other Figures” (Buonarotti, Michelangelo) --- Chris Hemingway is a poet and songwriter from Cheltenham.  His first pamphlet “Party in the Diaryhouse” was published by Picaroon Poetry in 2018, and he has previously self-published two collections, “The Future” and “Cigarettes and Daffodils”. He helps run Gloucestershire Writers Network, Cheltenham Poetry Festival and the “Squiffy Gnu” poetry prompt blog.  You can find out more about Chris by visiting his personal website just here .