by Anne Roscoe 

the hive has relocated 
itself again
i’m used to it by now 
the swarming weight 
near my heart
and anyway, the cloud 
is still, sluggish 
from the chill
no need to worry
i can just reach a hand 
into that dull buzz
move it all from sight 
once more
in crawling handfuls
carefully, gingerly
i keep them for the honey
but you shouldn’t
get too close
if one memory starts 
to sting 
then the rest will soon follow
​
Anna Roscoe's work appears or is forthcoming in Going Down Swinging, swim meet lit mag, and Aniko Press. Her writing often uses natural elements to explore emotions and memories. She grew up in Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung country, but now lives in Asia. 

by Javier Bateman
After Milo and Ocean Vuong

You are a plate scraped clean.
Dog-eared, folded,
a ‘come back to me later—please’ sorta guy.
He runs his thumb across your back
like it is some small thing, like it is
nothing at all.
Your mouth opens like a wound
 
He says,
all smooth and terrible,
‘I am Abel and my brother is Cain.’
And for a moment you can misremember
his hand in your hair,
the rock orbiting your skull,
and how the night overhead
was punctured by the white teeth of starlight.

Javier Bateman (They/He) is a queer, chronically ill, trans-nonbinary academic and poet living on unceded Whadjuk Nyungar Boodjar. Javier's poetry deals with diverse themes of grief, gender and gender identity, love, obsession and occasionally, Keanu Reeves. In his downtime, Javier is often found at home consuming media about sad cowboys.

by Aries Gacutan

HATE ME! HATE ME! HATE ME!

im full up on berrylove
            cheeks puffed with whipped cream
ive got enough light’n’airy
sweets to last me lifetimes––
i wanna see lemon juice and rusty nails
i wanna taste phlegm
            at the back of my throat
i aint never been so
            clean-cut
            don’t-care
never gave so little
never wanted u to give so much
                                                                        (spit it out, kid
                                                                        or crunch down hard)
why dyou think digestibility mattered?
why dyou wanna whip urself clean––
                        slop down easy like yoghurt––
who told u its impossible for ppl to love hard edges???

poem for a bartender

sun over the lake painting the sky in gold & grey // & the wind thru the open door sets all the glasses jangling // there’s music here but u gotta pay attention // to catch it // past the here-there-rush-hour rhythm of the evening // take a seat // take me away // it’s too easy to forget to pay attention // guy behind the bar’s singing out to whitney houston // what song does a cocktail sing? // what beat is the coffee machine // tapping out // staccato // with verve? // he self-styles as an observer & a charmer // he watches warm hands meet in the middle // the dishwasher hums // the guy behind the bar harmonises with the ducks // on the lake // as they cut placid streams thru the water.
the orders keep rolling in.
everything’s a song if u try hard enough.

Aries Gacutan (they/them) is a writer and editor based in Wathaurong country. Their work has been featured in Meanjin, Voiceworks, Archer (forthcoming), #EnbyLife and Baby Teeth Journal, among others. They enjoy pondering the complexities of gender and eating strawberries. On occasion, they will play a video game.

by Jack Greer

Cauliflower tastes like a cave;
a mouth like dry sex
and the taste of soil like the taste
of bad books on sex,
and falling and
polishing your knee
cricket-ball red;
wriggling, ring-teethed albinism
which nibbles
on your weak, desperate body;
how the flashlight,
just beyond reach,
shines a collage of long paper shreds;
the fitting of joints and bones
in under-sized stone holsters
like the wrongness of a crooked
Rubik’s cube;
waiting and hoping
and listening to the tinkling ballet of drips;
cherishing the last human notes:
keep the change,
want a sip,
watch your head,
we’ll come get you,
don’t worry,
I’ll be back;
like a Sunday afternoon spent
caving with acquaintances.

Jack Greer (he/him) is a recent graduate of the University of Queensland where he completed his Bachelor of Arts majoring in Creative Writing and English Literature. He is interested in creating other worlds within the ones we already inhabit.

by Nicole Jacobsen

His living room is a vivarium
full of filtered sunshine

gasping through storm clouds,
releasing rain that trembles

puddles on cement, warping sky.
Water circles clutch glass

like suctioned starfish, we kiss
as he passes. I scratch poetry

between blue lines, deliberating 
the nucleus of a syllable.

Menthol breeze ripples 
my arms and small hairs, raising 

bubble wrap skin. Synaesthesia insists 
his footsteps are pine.

I’m fine here, while he works, watching peace 
lilies animate on the table, 

my body creaking
like a new home beginning to settle. 

Nicole Jacobsen is a Brisbane artist, writer, poet, and aspiring editor who regularly finds herself re-befuddled by the difference between who and whom. Her background in Psychology emerges through character studies, obsessive bouts of self-reflection, and recurrent themes of mental health in her work.

by Natalie Bühler 
After the tradition of burning an effigy at the end of carnival to mark the beginning of spring in Central Switzerland.

In afternoon dark, we gather
around the crackling head,
his papier-mâché crown glinting

in the flames. Teasing us, 
he delays his broadcast 
of spring’s arrival, so the jesters 

put inflated pig bladders to rest, 
hold hands and dance 
tightening rings around the pyre.

Carved smiles on turnip masks 
hide uncles, aunts, my brother 
who’s old enough to join them.

Fire melts confetti-stained snow
into wet socks; my hands 
in silent rosary prayer 

with the pink plastic beads
on my princess dress, pulled over
ski jacket and thermals, catching

tiny yarn loops on sequin edges.
This is the last dress
my grandma will sew for me.

Already, her finger joints are swollen,
but I haven’t faded into a stranger
yet. This morning, she was on her float,

carnival queen of adopted home,
adopted myth, adopted accent.
Her consort is Lothar, who still knows 

exactly how to call her 
chérie. They stand there,
waiting for spring to explode

out of the king’s head. 

Natalie Bühler is an emerging writer and arts administrator living on unceded Gadigal land in Sydney. She works at the Sydney-based organisation Red Room Poetry and incorporates her native Swiss German, which does not have a standardised written form, into her English writing.

by Ashley Chew

before i know it i am spinning,
arms akimbo,
dying a dizzy-dim death
under neon-pink lights.
i am wearing my grief coat tonight -
i share it with a dark stranger.
she finds shelter in it.
the night breathes different without you.
i still feel blindly for your face.
a single glittery disco ball spins from the middle of the ceiling,
like an uneven moon,
spilling stardust all over us,
our grief coats,
grief smiles,
over me,
on my wobbly heels,
holding me up,
full weight of a human body,
gingerly,
lightly.
my mouth is spangled with your stars.

​Ashley Chew lives on the sunny island city of Singapore. She holds a Master of Arts degree in English Literature and clearly could not keep away from books for long for she is at present an associate librarian at the National Library Board of Singapore. Ashley’s bursting email inbox is always open to you if your subject header is in all caps and contains at least 5 exclamation marks, no less: ashleycwq@gmail.com. 

by Dee Allen

There have been times--
Musical, foot-stomping, joyous times--
At strobe-lit spaces
Goths and Rivetheads
Were known to congregate
When I was welcomed
And felt accepted
As one of their own.
 
And at other times
At such spaces--
Times I wish
Were erased from my memory--
When I passed through
The dancing, undulating, spiked & pierced
Lot unnoticed,
Double-black--
Black garments moving,
Covering Black skin,
Except for the face--
And a superpower
I never counted on having
Kicked in around the decorative, mostly
Pale elitist ones
Uniformed in the shade of midnight:
 
Invisibility.
​
African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California U.S.A. Active on creative writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s. Author of 7 books--Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black, Elohi Unitsi and his 2 newest, Rusty Gallows and Plans--and 66 anthology appearances. Currently seeking a new publisher.

by Maree Reedman 

My backyard is blanketed 
in lavender flowers, little trumpets, 
heralding memories of university days,
exam time, the year ending, and 
my mother,

who liked purple and blue,
how she cut down the majestic
jacaranda on her footpath
because it was close to the power lines.

There’s a family of frogmouths
in the paperbarks at work.
My niece and nephew
are getting their licences,
Dad’s going on another cruise.

My mother died in the dead 
of winter, she wouldn’t wait 
for the frangipani to sprout green leaves 
at the end 
of its old fingers.

Maree Reedman lives in Brisbane with one husband, two cockatiels, and five ukuleles. Her poetry has been published in the United States and Australia in Chiron Review, Naugatuck River Review, Unbroken, Stickman Review, Grieve, Hecate, StylusLit, and has won Ipswich Poetry Feast awards, including a mentorship with Carmen Leigh Keates. 

by Emily MacGriff

I saw water music
whomping women
women wearing leaves
and their hair breathing 
in baritone stretches of precipitate
I shook the waves –
rubber and rudder 
pointed in from the surf
wanting to call back in
stomp, brush, slap
scoop, smack
gulp, spray, gasp 
wanting an answer 
swish, smash, sing
sway, say something, just
arms 
                                           leaf
            head 
                           leaves
                                                   breast 
                                     bottom
                                                          belly 
                                                  leaves
the strings of music in the empty 
bits of me, my history and feet 
be silent, it’s all
the engine drop,
                            rain, 
                           my own chest’s cascade
it’s all
the chimes I cry,
and cloud. 

Emily’s work pulls largely from her experience working aboard expedition ships as a marine biologist/wilderness guide in the polar regions, South Pacific and British Isles. She is mostly retired from shipbound work and focused on navigating life as a woman, artist and mother.  She’s based in Detroit and received an MFAW from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022.