KAREN TUCKER: Birds

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

A bright pink moulting boa constricts her long and scrawny neck. His battered trilby sports bedraggled pheasant’s plumage.

Perfectly matched, they strut the High Street, clucking falsetto greetings at flocks of old biddies.

At dusk, they return to roost in the nest from which no chick was born to fly.

Karen Tucker has been reading since pre-school and a writer from an early age. She is delighted, so many years later, to have two published full-length novels and five short collections of short stories for sale, mostly on Amazon UK and Amazon USA. She lives in Tunbridge Wells with her partner, and has no children or animals, but a growing collection of interesting friends. Her website is karentucker.me.uk.

MICHAEL A YARRANTON: Rain

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

I love “people-watching” on rainy afternoons.

Some of them walk with a run, their collars up, heads in shoulders, hands in pockets, then they scatter into doorways and bus shelters.

Some look up into the falling drops with outstretched hands.

Some open their umbrellas and just get on with life.

Over the last few years, Michael has completed a YA psychological thriller and a couple of children’s (animal and toy protagonists) chapter books. He is currently working on a 1930s-themed sci-fi. Michael is living with heart failure, but confesses: “I love writing!”

RAN WALKER: Butter Me Up

Amusing, Submissions, , ,

It was only after Mrs. Fennelly’s prize-winning butter sculpture “A Day in the Life of My Family” had melted that the clean-up crew at the Iowa State Fair discovered the likenesses of her four family members were the direct result of her having actually used each of her family members.

Ran Walker is the author of sixteen books. He currently teaches creative writing at Hampton University. He can be reached at ranwalker.com.

IFEDIBA ZUBE: Jungle Justice

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Four boys parade the street naked, their dicks swinging this way and that. At first they try covering them with their hands but when the severity of their situation sets in, they fold their hands in prayer, pleading for mercy.

Behind them, cowhide whips cut through flesh, bone, and will.

Ifediba Zube writes from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital Nigeria. When she is not neck deep in clinical postings she is in hiding with a good book. She has been published in Hektoen International Journal of Medical Humanities, Windmill Journal, Bridge Literary Journal, Kalahari Review and Expound Magazine of Arts and Aesthetics.

HANNAH WHITEOAK: Green

Artistic, Odd, Submissions, , , ,

No one knows why color disappeared. Leaves browned. Flowers faded. Clothing looked washed-out. Even blood turned beige.

My son’s never seen a sunset, only gray skies.

The last green shoot attracted longer lines than the Mona Lisa. When I took my son to see it, he scrunched his nose. “Gross.”

Hannah Whiteoak is a freelance writer and poet from Sheffield, UK. Follow her at @hannahwhiteoak.

ALL PRICE: A Teardrop

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Time dripped away for Carol. A leaking tap. A drain. So much not done; and she turning forty.

No drink today.

Rain plopped from branches outside her window. Beautiful. Free-flow. Timeless. A wistful tear.

She dropped her bucket list, penned in outrageous swirls, out the window to soak in simplicity.

All Price has been published in Crannog Magazine and Foxglove Journal.

RICHARD DAY GORE: God in Skinny Jeans

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

God sits in a diner, wearing skinny jeans, developing universes on an old PC.

Nearby, Betsy gathers strength for a breakup, a traumatic severing.

Her apparent anguish moves him to abandon godhood, connect as a human.

He stands. She leaves.

Her Bible follows her empty coffee cup into the trash.

After chasing his muse from Virginia to Manhattan, Richard Day Gore settled in Southern California, where he spends his time pushing
around words, paint brushes, and guitar strings. See more at richarddaygore.com.

TAMARA SELLMAN: Onset of Multiple Sclerosis, 1975

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Grandmother said, Raise your arms!

Still, the pain seized the girl, her ribcage spasming. She dropped to the parquet floor, a cat on all fours writhing inside an invisible vice.

Then: release.

She heaved, young lungs refreshing, involuntary tears like raindrops to parquet.

Grandmother shrugged. Just a touch of pleurisy.

Tamara Sellman is a widely published poet and writer who works as a sleep health educator, healthcare writer, and MS advocate/columnist when she’s not crafting creative work.

PERRY McDAID: Nadia

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

Rage thrust brush through canvas.

A puncture through three days’ work: portrait of she who had gathered her stuff while he slept. Gone… yet she persisted like thallium poisoning.

Almost serenely he deposited the brush – loaded with the colour of his crappy life – beside the open tube of Prussian Blue.

Irish writer Perry McDaid lives in Derry under the brooding brows of Donegal hills which he occasionally hikes in search of druidic inspiration. He even finds it on occasion.