The snow is falling but do you care after all you are the night. The fire is burning but the stars do not warm and are insanely distant. After all you are the night of death. No one is born in a cemetery with a candle in their hands and this death continues simultaneously with the night. The river is endless. After all you are water and you are one with time. And everything around is censorship or self-censorship. And the jumping recitative of fir trees drinks the smooth surface of autumn. The last sip. But the truth does not exist. Death teaches after all death is our only teacher. Death learns hands and hands learn to sleep. Teacher or student? After all no one knows anything and this night an infinite amount of water has flowed into the future and all around is white and white. A black cry descends on the black snow. The ice cracks and the depth is endless. Minutes pour out. The years float by themselves like water in water. Seagulls cry. There are no more seagulls. There have never been seagulls before. There will be no seagulls and only beaks. Sound. The sound cracks. The forest of death noisily falls asleep and only the snowy night that touches your lips like an ellipsis. The word is your name. Cut a strand of silence and share the silence with it. Your grandmother was shot with a machine gun during the German occupation more than 70 years ago. Your daughter today looks at the sky and sees military planes shooting at the stars in the continuous darkness. Nothing has changed in the world for decades. The forest is squatting and the night shoots at the cast-iron milky back of the head at the soldiers sleeping in the barracks. The river of night floats by every second. After all. The future has never been here before. There is no future.
Mykyta Ryzhykh has been nominated for Pushcart Prize. Published many times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, TheNewVerse News.
You can find more of Mykyta’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Listen to the Children chattering With me. They share seventy Secrets about how Their mothers make meals. They say their Brother is the Biggest brother in The whole damn land. They claim to Have crowns. They say they Never fall down. They are liars lying: Everyone falls before They learn to fly.
Little Lizard
The little lizard licks The wind by my bare leg. His face furrows. It is clear that he Is as revolted of me as I am of myself.
His webbed feet pound the Dusty ground as he Zips off into the Bushy undergrowth.
I can see his little Head poking out, Watching, Waiting for me to make my move.
Slides
The stray cat has A stray heart.
Murder
You stick In my mind like You are hot tar Or golden honey on A spoiled spoon. You are the worst Itch I’ve ever felt. The doctor begs Me not to scratch but Every time I scratch diamonds Scatter in my senses. You have hair, I guess. I have hair too.
Dominik Slusarczyk is an artist who makes everything from music to painting. He was educated at The University of Nottingham where he got a degree in biochemistry. His poetry has been published in various literary magazines including California Quarterly and Taj Mahal Review. His poetry was nominated for Best of the Net by New Pop Lit. His poetry was a finalist in a couple of competitions.
You can find more of Dominik’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Like a cough turning to a sputter of acid spew from wasteland psyche- when it verged on gospel I transferred to oblivion.
Last rites before cracking the safe with colonies of termites teeming, an insight into the black holes you can’t get enough of, never enough-
shoes and starched shirts ill-fitting. The body born outside a factory in a dim-lit alley off a side street from…
Where’s that black hole end anyway?
In the middle of a pitch or field a maiden baking in the sun naked, a victim, a sacrifice, a ‘pick me’ girl in the pitch-black night: common ground for timelessness.
So when the horses go on strike it falls on candlelit vigilantism to rectify, say old van Gogh jerking in a cornfield,
since the cops always appear when you don’t need ‘em and are never there when you do.
But lack of holes won’t complement a face eager to kiss off at the finish line.
Flags don’t fit either, not on moons or ocean liners, at the races or pirated, jammed in some hole to stanch the blood, mucus, sweat, from the bottomed out quake of stormtroop marching-
uniform tight at the pits and crotch, strangling the apple, mutating the core.
Pin a medal on it to witness sudden bursts of supernova.
Old blind Rembrandt astral-projecting from the vanishing point, his varnished panel of mahogany.
Petty Crimes
Keys on the zinc counter with the Renault parked on the roof
Dogs named Socket and Brass
Small dogs, old men Talif the student Kalif the king
El trains, babel of human sewage The urge is to snarl and shred Corner bodega inviting petty crimes
I look her in the eye like from a thousand pop songs there’s been idiocy before too
and when it rains it rains like automatic weapons having a party
Dogs named Eisen and Kreuz Sordid old men
Rear-most chambre de bonne at Le Roi Cold as the walk-in reefer at the 7-11 off Saint-Augustin
the Pekingese patiently watching the sex between Genevieve and Sophie
Later queueing up for apéritifs dine-and-dash being American slang
Jay Passer‘s work has appeared in print and online periodicals and anthologies since 1988. He is the author of 12 collections of poetry and prose, most recently The Cineaste (Alien Buddha Press, 2021). Passer lives in San Francisco, the city of his birth.
You can find more of Jay’s work here on Ink Pantry.
in your mysterious eyes water walking water grows its symbols spoon-fed cubs of tigers, water, the terror of hippos, of water, of mastication, teeth of boulders, war, water, war; immaculate death come home in one piece you breathe inside the box death weighs more than water but to water you return
I am buried in the cliffs of death a solid gemstone chipped from a globe
i wanted to paint myself blue to see if I could match the sky; I could not duplicate clouds; it was a fallen sky it was a bad bacteria that followed as I ran, through the night’s quiet poison; finally a sky black enough for me, Vincent’s perfect canvas
hills that christened themselves black and green; small dignity blank as sun red as tears
How much joy is contained? How much music
still thrills the heart?
Steven Stone has been writing for a long time and has worked with many styles. Steven writes about different subjects, but seems to always come back to metaphysical type work with a generous amount of imagery.
the dreamed winter the storks sitting meekly in Africa the butterfly frozen in the marvellous pond mice write a gorgeous myth a rural boy longs for the moonglow witch apollonianly bewitched a stunning world in a moony way I am full of druidic wizardries You are like a dragonfly We are singing
the dream-like spring the storks are coming home so tenderly the butterfly awoken in glory but sitting mice write ovidian songs a rural girl yearns for afterglow in addition hex enchanted a dazzling world in a starlit way I am shrouded in this cool mystery You are such a firefly We are trilling
the dreamy summer the storks are nesting mayhap peacefully the butterfly flying over becharmed garden mice write Dionysian ode an auntie is bent upon blue hours the enchantress is conjured amusing world in a starry way I wrapped in plethora of sorcery You are Dionysian spider We are chanting
the dreamful autumn the storks are going to fly off musing the butterfly dreaming just before coming death mice write Apollo’s hymn an uncle muses about cool star the sorceress enraptured such a cute world in a moonlit way I stay under a spell of tenderness You are like a charmful bee We caroling
Paweł Markiewicz was born 1983 in Siemiatycze in Poland. He is poet who lives in Bielsk Podlaski and writes tender poems, haiku as well as long poems. Paweł has published his poetries in many magazines. He writes in English and German.
You can find more of Paweł’s work here on Ink Pantry.
his heart palpitates with each resounding pulse resonating through the sharp, pastel room
in which his chest rises and flattens as the waves retreat into the pores of the shore with the tears of mine staining the meshed layers that wrap his arms tightly as a cicada in despair
droning for my name, for the touch of my hands to interlace once again, a mishap under the knife motionless with skull left behind he lives.
in a coma, ready to sink away I pray.
I pray to let him live, to not walk but breathe, to sleep but not wake, to take me to the past so I could be…
smothered the dying smoke off the tray smashed the screen off the nights embraced him a final despairing time to snuff the waning flame that sits upon the tepid pool of wax
warmth under the damp sheets, machine breathing, chest rising.
I gaze at his darkened silhouette walking to the evening sun
knowing that he is dreaming. a life to undo the blue he has stained.
Elegy to Johnny in “One” by Metallica
ice bullets piercing through the stifling heat foliage meshing over the placid blue sky lying there.
hold my breath as I wish for death fluttering down my eyes the dirt from the mine As the chime of silence rings nothing is real but pain
mesh over face bed under corpse taken my arms, my legs, my soul left alone in a chamber of my own I can’t see but myself over and over and Over.
the soft angelic voice above in the world unseen murmurs in dreams as what seems unreal in light seems real in darkness
can’t seem to remember the lips of the girl as gone arms cradle a final time
back and forth vibrating my mind all is hell in living death now the world is gone, I’m just
One.
Sweating Dasani
that morning hour
water, in crystal streams, softly skim the ridges of my fingers as I stare into her,
eyes as lucid as tap flowing in docile funneled vapors vivid as the bursting of a firefly twirling in the damp midnight air she was,
the flickering of a candle wavering in that, dusky room waiting to be reached.
I remember the red streaks in her hair, the supple lips of her kiss the warmth as she pressed each breath eroded in elastic ocean waves
it was first Love.
the bottle slipping out my hand crashing, carelessly on the floor I saw
the slicing of my life the spinning of my mind
as eyes closed
it was it is the dawn where I took flight and tapped the dis- -tant light of Bliss.
David Kim is a high school student attending an International School in South Korea who has a passion for writing. He is currently working hard to build his portfolio for university applications. When he is not writing, David can be found listening to music, playing video games, or exploring new places in the city. He is excited to see where his writing journey takes him and hopes to share his work with others through your publication.
Even if I were to bark up the wrong tree, so be it as long as I am barking something. I don’t know how to climb a tree. Wrongs can’t be right until a climb has ensued. I slide many times before I correct my path. A really steep climb, all the way up, reaching out to save my children who lie here at the top.
Giants take my children from me and put them there. Too strong for me, I can’t fight back. No big deal for them ’cause they don’t need to climb the tree; standing on the ground, they simply roll ’em over to the nestled leaves. But I must stand my ground if I were to win this war. It is a war now that they have taken them from me.
I hold on to the bark for dear life. As much as I want, I can’t let go of it. I don’t know how to. Fear is all around me. Fear is swelling inside of me; my children, taken from me. I slide. I slide all the way down. The bark is flimsy. It comes off easily. Just as well, I spring right up, get back on with the climb. My nails dig deep, clawing into its russet skin.
Some bark comes straight off and exposes a stark tree which in turn shows a clear pathway to me. The tree gives me some stability, as I get my bearings back on it. Half way up, I hear my children sing, “I love you Mummy. My only sweet Mummy. I love yoouu when the days are sunny. In winter, I love you some more”. Sweats run down my forehead. Trepidations rise as I hear their voice. They sing out loud; I yell that I am coming to rescue them. They tell me that the time is right now, ’cause the monsters are out to pick berries in the woodlands.
Time is of the essence. How soon before the giants return? Amla in Bangla, and rich in Ayurvedic properties, the giants know about it only too well. They are after the ripened fruit—the reds, not the greens. They have a huge appetite to whet. I inch up and slide back; quick to resume, I stay the course. Gently treading this time, afraid to fall. The tree seems to be growing on me. I feel dwarfed against it, obviously unlike the giants as tall as the tree.
What better lure than to secure my children’s destiny from the giants who would make a meal out of their tender bones, and red gooseberry even before the evening is out? This impossible climb bruises me from head to toe. Lean times, a lean tree. Weary of the chase, I turn my gaze upon the woodlands. From this height, I can’t see the gooseberry anymore; minutely microscope, they seem to disappear on the stretch.
The tree is tall; too tall for me. Giants have no patience, and perspire in vain. I see clearly how distraught they are, trampling the shrubbery in anger because they don’t see it. The fruit is massacred underneath their giant feet. Towering tall, they don’t see what I see. I see my children. They see me. I make them a few gooseberry pies picked from the same shrubbery.
Multiple contests’ winner for short fiction, Mehreen Ahmed is an award-winning Australian novelist born in Bangladesh. Her historical fiction, The Pacifist, is an audible bestseller. Included in The Best Asian Speculative Fiction Anthology, her works have also been acclaimed by Midwest Book Review, and DD Magazine, translated into German, Greek, and Bangla, her works have been reprinted, anthologized, selected as Editor’s Pick, Best ofs, and made the top 10 reads multiple times. Additionally, her works have been nominated for Pushcart, botN and James Tait. She has authored eight books and has been twice a reader and juror for international awards. Her recent publications are with Litro, Otoliths, Popshot Quarterly, and Alien Buddha.
You can find more of Mehreen’s work here on Ink Pantry.
He had hoped the night would end his torment. It didn’t. He thought the storm in his mind might calm with the dawn. But the storm raged on. Standing rigid behind his gun, his lifeless gaze locked on the barrel jutting out from the narrow window of the muddy bunker, perched high on the mountaintop.
In the beginning, he found a strange comfort in staring at the barren, lifeless slope on the enemy’s side, its dry earth stretching into an endless desolation. The enemy pickets, hidden among the distant rocky precipices, visible only through his binoculars, rarely troubled him. But the world beyond those jagged peaks—untouchable, unreachable—haunted him more than any threat of war. Oddly, their own side of the mountain unsettled him the most. The lush green slope, dense with deodar trees, the shimmering stream weaving through the valley below—it all felt like a scene from someone else’s life. A life he no longer belonged to. Yet the tiny houses, no larger than matchboxes from his vantage, always drew his eye. There was something about them. He couldn’t say what. Maybe it was the thought that people still lived inside those fragile shells, even while he stood alone, staring at a world that no longer made sense.
He wanted to squeeze the trigger, to empty the entire LMG into the misty mountainside. Reload. Fire again. Anything to silence the restless storm inside him. But nothing would settle. His anger simmered just beneath the surface, a volatile mix of frustration and suffocating boredom. The night stretched on, endless and consuming, swallowing him in its choking darkness—a darkness that burned like fire, thick with smoke he couldn’t escape.
In the filthy, abandoned barrack at the far corner of the camp, his comrades would be gathered—drinking, gambling, losing themselves in the haze of liquor and late-night revelry. He would imagine the door still ajar, the stench of spilled blood thickening the air. He could see his father, the hypochondriac, pacing madly, unable to bear the sight. He thought of him, and the memory sent a twisted satisfaction through him. He could almost hear the echo of his father’s frantic mutterings.
But none of it mattered. Not the men, not the barracks, not the maddening silence. The only thing that held his focus now was the gun. His fingers twitched on the trigger, drawn to the cold, familiar steel. It fascinated him, how easy it would be to let loose, to unleash all that rage in a single violent burst.
He wanted to scream. To tell them all—his comrades, his father, anyone—that they didn’t know, that no one could understand how hard it was to be him, to be stuck in this place, in this skin, under this endless, heavy sky. But the words wouldn’t come. All that filled him was the blackness of the night, sinking deeper into his heart, his mind, his soul.
And still, he couldn’t fire. The darkness only deepened.
Some things aren’t meant to be, some are beyond your control, and others—utterly unnecessary—are thrust upon you to break you. Bloody fate. No, not fate—it was helplessness that wasn’t part of the plan. It was forced there. A soldier has no fate of his own. It’s shaped for him in the grandest of words, dressed up in promises of purpose, but concealing the bitter truth beneath—the agony.
What better place to amplify his suffering than this barren hilltop, overlooking a few distant enemy pickets on one side and a valley on the other—so still, so detached from the world that even the small cluster of Gujjars seemed forgotten by time. He had his answer: there was no better place because, after that night, he knew he had nowhere to go.
Fifteen days and nights—that’s all. Then he would return. It felt like a cruel transaction: sacrificing something precious just to cling to something that had become a necessity. He felt trapped between the two, caught in the limbo of a twisted bargain. Bloody fate wasn’t written in his stars; it was abandoned here, on this godforsaken hill.
There was something deeply wicked—at least, disgustingly unfair—about trying to justify anyone’s misery by calling it fate. It was easier to blame fate than admit the truth: that none of this should have happened. And yet here he stood, his fate written in the nothingness of this place, while the world spun on, indifferent.
He had loved everything about the marriage—the preparations, the way tradition blended with longing, how emotion intertwined with involvement, excitement with anticipation. The house had been alive, glowing with lights that, in the night, seemed like a flame burning bright in the dark furnace of the world. Everything overflowed with warmth, every corner brimming with life.
Now, back in the cold isolation of the mountain wilderness, that warmth felt like a distant memory. His body ached, and his soul felt hollow. This place, which once held some purpose, now seemed devoid of meaning. The endless days blurred into weeks, weeks into months, as the wilderness stretched out before him, tired and lifeless. He hadn’t noticed before how utterly empty it was. The enemy side, often shrouded in impenetrable mist for weeks at a time, had become as distant as his own sense of duty. Even the valley below, with its stream cutting through the foothills, felt as unreachable as home.
The separation changed him. It warped his perceptions—about duty, about his nation and its bond with this barren land, about marriage, home, and even his beloved wife. Doubt gnawed at his mind. In the loneliness of his cold bunker, sitting behind the big gun, he began to realize that doubting was its own form of journey. A slow, painful descent into self-realization, into the fragility of self-worth. He imagined the bullets in the magazine rusting, just like his own purpose.
He thought now that perhaps all this—the grand ideals, the noble duty, the sacrifices—meant nothing. Perhaps they had never meant anything at all, just illusions propped up to give shape to something hollow. And maybe they would remain that way for ages, lost to time and meaning, continuing on as empty echoes.
Integrity? To hell with it. Nothing, no one – not even the indifferent elements of nature – remains consistent. Inconsistency is woven into the fabric of existence. Yet we humans crave stability, especially in relationships. We demand it and cling to it, despite knowing that nothing endures unchanged. Yes, for as long as one can, one should hold onto it. But even the strongest relationships, the ones built on trust and loyalty, inevitably buckle under the weight of inconsistency. His doubts, once quiet whispers, grew into an obsession, filling the barren wilderness of his soul. The desolate landscape around the bunker only served to amplify the inner turmoil. He withdrew from the rowdy late-night gatherings in the abundant barracks, no longer drinking, no longer gambling. He stopped caring about the numbers in his salary account or what remained of his connection to the world outside.
The thought of betrayal gnawed at him like a wound that refused to heal. His mobile phone, once a link to the distant world, now seemed like a mocking presence, incapable of guiding him through the shadows of his mind. Doubt, he realised, was a journey – a descent into the primal, crude essence of one’s being. And it terrified him.
The doubt became real. Palpable. Like a river swelling with the pressure of a coming flood, it built within him, threatening to burst its banks. Betrayal – the one thing he couldn’t bear. The one thing he saw, he would never tolerate – loomed over him like a spectre. Sometimes, alone in the bunker, he wept behind the big gun, feeling smaller, more insignificant with every sob. A man lost, shaded by the large hat that he pulled down to his chin as if trying to hide from the world and from himself.
The doubt grew unbearable. And so, one night, without telling anyone, he slipped away from the camp. Two days later, in the dead of night, he murdered them both in their bed. His suspicions, his fears, had been true all along. He left the dagger buried in her stomach, a twisted sense of justice searing through him as he made his way back to the mountain wilderness.
The camp did not report him missing. They found him, questioned him, but never spoke of it. He didn’t care. His soul had been hollowed out, and the man he once was had vanished. The night never ended for him after that. He was trapped in it, suffering, endlessly suffering. And when the weight of it all became too much, when he could no longer endure the darkness pressing in on every side, he turned the gun on himself in that cold muddy bunker.
As the final shot echoed across the empty mountains, he screamed, “Oh great mountains! I am sorry. I couldn’t protect you.”
Ghulam Mohammad Khan was born and raised in Sonawari (Bandipora); an outlying town located on the wide shores of the beautiful Wullar Lake. Ghulam Mohammad believes that literature is the most original and enduring repository of human memory. He loves the inherent intricacies of language and the endless possibilities of meaning. In his writing, he mainly focuses on mini-narratives, local practices and small-scale events that could otherwise be lost forever to the oblivion of untold histories. Ghulam Mohammad considers his hometown, faith, and family to be the most important things to him. He writes for a few local magazines and newspapers. His short story collection titled The Cankered Rose is his first major forthcoming work.
You can find more of Ghulam’s work here on Ink Pantry.
when I think love, I think crosswalks. crosswalks at an intersection. intersections folding into home. bakeries. picking up sourdough at a le pain asser. crosswalks folding crisply like the crackling of sourdough starter. I think rich. downed & drunk on awkward street signs. korean spelled to sound like fancy french. out-of-business oscar motels. napkins bunched under rolled-up pasta. poor imitations of gelato. restaurants dedicated entirely to seaweed soup. restaurants that live. restaurants that forgot to live. overhyped soba noodles & udon. people. visiting from other intersections. people standing in line for cheap coffee. people overcompensating richness with cold yogurt blends. mothers with their children. children with convenience store rice triangles & unauthentic yellow banana milk. mothers with half-assed plastic cup white wine. crossing a crosswalk. at night: unlived underground karaoke bars. sweaty men slapping backs & smoking through tobacco teeth. I think love in day & night. intersections licking corners with stray cat piss stains. a dog barking somewhere a streetlamp lives. women enjoying unadulterated drunkenness. businessmen that kill neon streetlights. children in bed. adults slipping into each breath. the people of montmartre; in this moment they are everywhere all at once. we wander like strays. I am born as a stranger in a new intersection everyday.
Flower Language
Gone, I whisper and walk towards the bed of belladonnas, close enough to listen to their gentle
inquisitive conversation. I listen to their arms fan widely above and over their mystery fruits:
magnolias, singing. They indulge in noiseless chatter while I swaddle in dahlias overwinter crisp
newspaper. The children have made a home out of miniature sunflowers— only ones that could afford real blooms
instead of the silk imitations sold in the supermarket. The wind praises the gray foliage and the knee-length weeds.
Lavender: the height of a spine and the way it tickles the sky on a whim grounds the stalks into more purple
than they are. The pine with hipbone steps turns enwrapped in a fragrance— breathe. The garden is nothing concrete
but a moment all at once. I bury my nails in clay ripples thoroughly spoiling myself
with Earth.
Praise
Praise the stories. Praise the stories I read and tell, subtly.
Praise the night. Praise the night beneath little black shell bodies.
Praise the waters under the caps of my shoulders, under consciousness.
Wrap real rain around my finger, let it sluice down the sidewalk.
Praise the parting of eyes and the turning of the sea, they are altering
my world.
Yoon Park is a dynamic high school student enrolled at Seoul Academy in Seoul, South Korea. She channels her creative energy into writing and visual art and finds joy in expressing herself through these mediums. Additionally, she has a passion for music and spends her spare time playing the piano or the guitar. Her dedication to her craft has earned her recognition and admission into the prestigious Iowa Young Writers Studio, the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program, and Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop.
To bestow beauty and lambency For he will continually lust And be doomed to regress Living dignity may dawn anew
Perfection
To bestow grace and purity For he will continually lust And be doomed to regress Living perfection may dawn anew
Fly
The feathers, they fell with starlight Baptizing them one with grace and disorder With the lambency of your final flight You leave behind love in your wake
Fear not the earth and sea beneath you For you shall fear only fear itself And though your wings may be clipped Even Icarus flew in his last moments
Be christened in the chime of your Final hour, the shine of your Blood sweat and tears may christen you Human, even as the vestiges of life leave
A celebration of life is not true Without the clouds of finality on the horizon Remember your fortune, as you wander the skies For one can only live for having died
Seungmin Kim is a diligent scholar who is enrolled in an international school in Hong Kong. He is meticulously curating his compilation of written works to fortify his candidacy for admission to esteemed academic institutions.
