Maria is an international adoptee from Brazil that has called Michigan home since a baby. She holds a BFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. An artist and poet, Maria’s latest poetry has recently been published or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, SIAMB!, Strange Horizons, Breadfruit Mag, Feral: A Journal of Poetry And Art,& elsewhere. Maria’s first chapbook will be published by Ethel Zine’s Micro Press in December ‘23. Maria is an “It List” Writer for Detroitisit.com https://detroitisit.com.
Socials
IG: @Maria_Kornacki https://www.instagram.com/mar_kor12/
and @mariamakes_faces https://www.instagram.com/mariamakes_faces/
Twitter: @MRKornacki
an erasure handmade from a page of Bluets by Maggie Nelson
Bernard Pearson’s work appears in over seventy publications worldwide, including; Aesthetica Magazine, The Edinburgh Review, Crossways, North West Words and FourxFour and The New Critique I. In 2019 he won second prize in The Aurora Prize for Writing
Joni
Her voice gets
Inside you like a scalpel,
She has no sky
Into which her songs
Cannot reach,
Her words are
A litany for the lonely,
Freed now to rise,
From clothes left on
A far away beach.
Bio: Patrick Wright has a poetry collection, Full Sight of Her (Eyewear), which was nominated for the John Pollard Prize. He has also been twice shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Southword, Agenda, Wasafiri, London Magazine, and The Reader. He teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the Open University.
@saturnineone
SepulchralAfter Bernard Pierre Wolff
Rain on benches in gardens of remembrance
reflects small portions of sky.
A chimney in the distance, belching out blackness
as if part of some regime.
Give me stars as casual gifts.
I fear a plateau: no hill to climb.
Place me on a precipice.
Cut me down for lamentation.
Who’s the angel? Her arm draped over her brow
& now fallen on marble.
Trees quiver gran mal seizures.
No-one offers stark witness:
a weight of words too heavy to lift.
No-one wants hearts anymore
or knows anything of myth.
In a corner a columbarium calls.
Arches like ventricles I’ll hide behind.
Kneeling on my catafalque
she’ll let her tears escape their walls.
Bio: HilLesha O’Nan is a blogger, writer, photographer & marketer. She is co-editor/founder of Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art. She runs the blog tothemotherhood.com for over 15 years
Catching the Sunrise
In the year 1987, on a dark night, two lovers were driving down Green River Rd. with wildness in their abandoned hearts. The wind was blowing through their hair, and the music of Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again” filled the car.
As they drove, they talked about their love and their hopes for the future. They knew that life was unpredictable, but they were determined to enjoy the moment and the freedom of the open road.
The music played on as they drove, the beat of the drums and the synth sounds pounding their hearts with energy. They sang along with the lyrics, feeling the passion and the emotion in the words.
As the night wore on, they continued to drive, lost in the music and the moment. They watched the sky turn from black to deep blue, and then, as the sun began to rise, they knew that their journey was coming to an end.
But they didn’t want it to end. They wanted to keep driving, to keep listening to the music, and to keep feeling the wind in their hair. They wanted to hold onto this moment forever, to never let it go.
As the sun finally rose above the horizon, they knew that they had experienced serenity through what was hopelessness before. Something that they would never forget. They had driven with new love and promise in their touch, and the music had been their guide.
And as they drove back home, with the sunrise behind them, they knew that they would always have this memory to hold onto. A memory of a night when they had driven with wild abandon, and the music of Depeche Mode had led them on their journey of love and hope.
Bio: w v sutra was born in Africa and raised in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, borne hither and thither on the surging tides of cold war and soft power. He has been at various times a rock musician, a public health professional, and an educator. He began writing poetry during the Covid-19 lockdown. His work can be found in various online journals and at wvsutra.com . He lives and works on a horse farm on the shoulders of the Holston Mountains in East Tennessee. Twitter @w_v_sutra
andy and the iron wig
he of the honest gaze can be real about fortune
who cannot stop dancing or drinking or gazing at others
when truly in love one can easily claim the beloved
the object the thing the content the art undiscovered
when the hair leaves the head a replacement is made of real metal
the image compulsively rendered through glass onto silk
inevitability looms on a clockwork fuse
explosion the price to pay for the hangers on
he who lives by the scope makes a bargain with fashion
modes of exchange undetected by those who must pay
strange to be seen by others who lack the equipment
hopefuls and losers lie equally under his wing
hobgoblin lords over stages of power deployed
the dead are exploited and left to be made into song
zen and the art of shooting or falling to shots
but how exclusive the mess that was made of it all
Fevers of the Mind 