After every finished poem, ashes smile. My numbed limbs find shelter in fugitive lyrics, inside ashes. I want to jump out to the world, where stages have been set up to accommodate words; where flowers and chairs have been arranged to welcome lyrics. I search new syllables inside flowers; — in vain. I find new sense of burnt out lines drowned in ashes.
They come up like fresh twilight in a summer evening. I realize ashes have a different warmth, full of love and the magical depth of twilight.
Resuscitated, I feel like rising from the ashes.
These Lines Are Bitter
Do not sail your tongue over these lines. These lines are bitter. They contain black smoke from every battlefield schemed by us. They have deep wounds, visible and invisible. From every wound visible, blood drips. Do not sail your tongue in blood. It’s thick and bitter. Here, flowers have refused to bloom. Agonies only carry these lines, aptly.
Do not touch these with your decorated eyes. These are full of tear gas
and failed promises.
Obscure Book
You are a chair. I’m all dust on the soil. You’re a designation. I’m the obscure book looking from the corner of a tinned rack. You’re a crowd. I’m the lonely bush by the side of the road. You’re a festival.
I’m still searching the festive light.
Unscripted
Here you come, slowly like long-awaited thoughts, yet to bloom in a poem.
I’ve seen you already, — like clouds see the river, — from a secret 3rd floor window.
I’ve seen you long ago, like the sudden childhood flower, yet to acquire a name.
I’m also searching the name of the river and the unscripted poem. in my secret chamber
But I’m sure they will forever remain untitled.
Aneek Chatterjee is from Kolkata, India. He has published more than five hundred poems in reputed literary magazines and poetry anthologies. He authored and edited 16 books including five poetry collections. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Dr. Chatterjee received the Alfredo Pasilono Memorial International Literary Award. He was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia, USA, and a recipient of the ICCR Chair (Govt. of India) to teach abroad.
Nobody is reading poetry, I reiterate in my bed, my head repelling the pillow with multiple authorships at stake. This is the age of ridicule and trendy trivialities readily uploaded on the internet. I sigh and with difficulty close my reluctant eyelids.
Nobody is reading poetry which is being bled at the altar of social medias that are preoccupied with current affairs, such as posers, disasters, and pointed fingernails. I think of ailing Muses desperately awaiting remedies that resuscitate in vain.
This Siege
‘This siege,’ I state. He attempts to interrupt with a piercing gaze. ‘This siege’, I repeat. He beckons with his forefinger to me to discontinue. ‘This siege has not weakened me,’ looking him in the face. ‘Can’t you see that pressure has not made me yield. What have you gained from the deaths of my peers, the crucifixion of my dreams, and the maiming of my career?’
His features twist with a menace that he fails to conceal.
‘Intimidation and blackmail are not the way, to win people over to the implementation of your ideals. What’s so successful about your enterprise, a fraternity of slaves, whose loyalty is enjoined by subtle threats and fear? What a waste!’
Earthquake Tremors
They aim at that part of the brain that maintains balance and equilibrium and make the strings of hearts vibrate to its contagious electricity.
I sway tremulous like a half-cut tree on the onset of an eternal delirium.
These headaches I have that harass my day, the weakened joints, the lethargic ankles, the feeble feet that now feel faint the bewildered eyes, the reluctant tongue are my own unacknowledged diagnoses of the Tremor-Shock Syndrome, TSS.
DrSusie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a PhD on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.
Susie’s first book (adapted for film), Classic Adaptations, includes Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.
I could have been better. I know that. But I was asking questions that could not be answered. My spells turned out to be voluntary and self-sustaining. The vast fields I traversed were greener than my waistcoat traded from an armless man who needed fresh shoes.
We all live in our own little dream. If I gaze at my hands I feel waves of blue-grey guilt, and a wish to run at the field ram harassing the billowy sheep in order to relieve myself of this feeling. The ram always wins, so no guilt would stem from that collision.
Yoga Mat
Give me shelter or simply take away my boots so I may better freeze to death on this yoga mat and leave all my worldly belongings to another broken person, or a cat who needs somewhere to rest it’s little head. I’m easy to please, man, just give me a chance to show you I’m as human as anyone else on the planet, albeit I’m nowhere as good as most people. My mother dropped me on my head when I was a toddler, after my father dropped her on her head. What goes around, they say, those people who always have something to add that makes no difference to anything. Hey, don’t get down watching me lie upon a stinking yoga mat I found in a trashcan. I wore it like Rambo for a while, but it lacked gravitas and made it hard to defend myself against gremlins and demons and warlocks. They all come for me at night, that’s the thing. They won’t leave me alone. In the pitch black darkness they can handle me with many hands. Otherwise the tiger in the tank reverses course and without delay roars out from the gas cap. That’s the story from the jungle, friends. Take us home now, Jerome, we have horses to feed and cows to milk and a small black cat waiting for a cozy yoga mat to call it a day.
Comforting the Enemy
Show me the way to the bedroom, I’m so tired I could sleep for a year.
Don’t be afraid of the bandages. Tomorrow, medics will change them.
But show me the way to the bedroom, don’t be afraid, I will not harm you.
Don’t be alarmed, we are just people. Yes, I am less than I was, nevertheless …
I only want to sleep the sleep of the nearly doomed, of the blessed.
Fluff up the pillow for me, please, my hands were lost in the war.
Some say the war isn’t over, I say it’s over for me. Do you agree?
Pull the blankets to my throat, dear, same reason as before.
Sicilian Canadian poet and short story writer Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto, Canada. Recent work appears in RHINO Poetry, Third Wednesday, and E-ratio.
So me and Hazel. Here we are. Sitting on a bench at the new mall.
Saturday morning. First the dog park. Then the mall for compensation.
The sweet kind. Ice cream. Chocolate Cookie Dough for me. Pup cup for Hazel.
Ice cream. The best cure for bad dates. Can’t believe his dog bit Hazel. Geez.
Dating. Not my thing. Should have listened to myself. Why didn’t I? Why?
Well, I’m listening now. No more dates. No more men. None. I’m done. Promise!
Ice cream and Hazel. She’s the best date. No stress. Yeah. Dogs are much more fun.
Laura Stamps is a poet and novelist and the author of over 65 books. Most recently: THE GOOD DOG (Prolific Pulse Press, 2023), ADDICTED TO DOG MAGAZINES (Impspired, 2023), and MY FRIEND TELLS ME SHE WANTS A DOG (Kittyfeather Press, 2023). She is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination and 7 Pushcart Prize nominations.
You can find more of Laura’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Clutching at tree branches, dropping across her visage.
But alas, it is too late, tonight I have lost my grip on reality.
Tonight, the river shall devour me, as slowly I slip into her icy clutches.
Tonight, I am hers for all eternity, breathing in her liquid allure-
as slowly, I slip into unconscious slumber, fading out into the dawning of a new day, that bleeds into being.
Observations
The dogwoods naked and unperturbed, basking in the silence of slumber; a skyline born again, rising from the throes of slate grey.
Grassy knolls and footpaths coexisting, until the loud rebirth of Spring time, breaks their drab attire.
In the distance, the lazy haze grey factory is looming; like ominous death birds hovering; fading red brick at its base; smoke stacks
reaching, indifferent into the dreamscape sky, hovering always, like an unpredictable
friend.
Memories of Floridian Nights
Spanish moss, strewn throughout whispering branches of live oak and pine.
The concerto is in full swing, down at the boggy marshes, tonight.
Glow bugs are dying stars, counting down the apocalypse; in frantic strobe lit code.
Frogs croak with supreme confidence, convinced that they are indeed one of the famed Three Tenors; reincarnated.
Crickets rubbing their sleek wings in chirping cadence, the shrillness could awaken the dead.
An acorn drops out, from the nestled safety of a towering oak tree; it splats into the swamp below-
parting the dark green algae and lily pad tainted waters in the night.
Parting my thoughts, scattered on the warm Florida breeze, like memories evaporating within the mist of time.
Wayne Russell is the author of the poetry book 2020’s “Where Angels Fear” via Guerilla Genius Press, available for purchase on Amazon; his second book “Splinter of the Moon” published by Silver Bow Publishing; has just been released and also can be found at Amazon in both Kindle and paperback edition.
‘We adapt. We improvise. We adjust to the circumstances in which we find ourselves’.
It’s always a complete pleasure to review Michael’s literary releases and his latest publication, ‘Flashes of Insight’ simply adds to the joy for us humble book reviewers, alongside masses of the general public who have delighted in his work for years, and those new readers yet to find the delights of his books. Here, Michael has compiled fifty-two short pieces of writing, aimed to be ‘a gateway to awareness, to mindfulness, to the deeper places inside you’. Each piece carries specific messages and inspiration for the reader; a veritable ‘toolbox’ of support, encouragement and inspiration for everyone to draw from, as we go about our daily lives.
An early example arrives in Chapter Two, entitled ‘Catching the Butterfly’, where Michael talks about the preparatory process for his writing, immediately after the ritual of consuming buttered wholemeal toast.
‘I could be in church at this moment, or temple, in a synagogue, or a Zendo. All places of ritual, all in some sense sacred spaces, set aside from the humdrum and rush. We release our preoccupation with the superficially important to concentrate upon the moment and what dwells in the moment,outside of time, encompassing timing, outside of activity, wrapping its now-ness around the silence’.
Michael strongly pushes the focus for readers to concentrate on their own energies, in order to promote personal wellbeing. A beautiful example concerning the focus upon our inner happiness is given in Chapter Five – ‘Court Holy Water In A Dry House’.
‘It takes so little to create happiness. Yet we spend our lives pursuing it as if it were some quarry that we have to run to ground. We employ dog packs of activity to pursue it, hoping to corner it in some remote, inaccessible location, only to find that it has moved on just moments before our arrival. So we pursue it with the next trinket, the next project, the next holiday, angst-laden in our fear that it will always remain one step ahead and will always evade our pursuit’.
It’s impossible to read through this book without hearing Michael’s personal voice shining through every line; a voice embedded with knowledge, wisdom and empathy. Here lies a voice which has observed the world with wonder and learned much from his life’s unique pathway. Here is a voice which aims to share what he knows, what he has learned and what he hopes for the future. It’s simply a divine book and one to dip into on regular, frequent occasions. If a single paragraph, or chapter, sets the tone to create a positive Tuesday, or an optimistic Friday, then Michael’s efforts are truly rewarded.
If humanity is to truly progress then this book should be given to schoolchildren at an early age. Hey children! Go out there. Learn. Grow. Be aware. Be kind.
It’s a divine piece of writing and Michael should be extremely proud of himself for expressing it for the world to read, understand and learn from it.
‘Perhaps we undertake both roles at different times in our lives – the crushed and the crusher – in an endless cycle of destructiveness that ensures the psychological scarring of each new generation, carrying the sins of the fathers onto the children until the 3rd or 4th generation. Until, that is, we see it and make the active decision to break the cycle. Until we choose to build up someone we perceive to be weaker, rather than break them down. Until we choose to encourage rather than discourage. Until we choose to heal rather than hurt, to bind up the wounds of the broken to permit that healing, rather than grinding dirt into their open sores’.
You can find more of Michael Forester’s work, reviewed and interviewed by Kev Milsom, here on Ink Pantry.
In the crook of Italy, the coffee capital of Illy and Hausbrandt, that dark rich brew of a city huddled in a demitasse cup – home of Italian ceramics, Istrian truffles and old world grandeur, Architecture comes with a mixed message: Mitteleuropa with mansard windows meets full-on Italian Liberty style where a gale force katabatic wind cups its resonance round open squares fresh off the mountains of Europe.
Trieste II
Those glory days of Belle époch posters, tariff lists and liners reminders of an eclectic era from the shipyards of old is where East meets West and everyone shouts ‘Trst je naš!’ Trieste is ours: a landscape in limbo – the last ring on the rail that held up the Iron Curtain – a deep-water port of Latin, Slavic and German cultures and everywhere the sea, the blue-dazed beauty of it, dazzling stars.
The big question now: Do you lean towards Ljubljana or run back to Rome? Which is it to be?
Swing by for a week and you might just stay forever.
Stopping for Lunch in Vipiteno
Twinned with Kitzbühel, the city boasts two names: Sterzing / Vipiteno – a place more Austrian than Italian snuggled by mountains in the province of Bolzano, South Tyrol.
Coming out of Café Mondschein where the menu is still in German, we walk beneath the Tower of Twelve known for its midday chimes.
A firebreak between two worlds with views into the hills.
Neil Leadbeater was born and brought up in Wolverhampton, England. He was educated at Repton and is an English graduate from the University of London. He now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. His short stories, articles and poems have been published widely in anthologies and journals both at home and abroad. His publications include Librettos for the Black Madonna (White Adder Press, 2011); The Loveliest Vein of Our Lives (Poetry Space, 2014), Finding the River Horse (Littoral Press, 2017), Punching Cork Stoppers (Original Plus, 2018) River Hoard (Cyberwit.net, Allahabad, India, 2019), Reading Between the Lines (Littoral Press, 2020) and Journeys in Europe (co-authored with Monica Manolachi) (Editura Bifrost , Bucharest, Romania, 2022). His work has been translated into several languages. He is a member of the Federation of Writers Scotland and he is a regular reviewer for several journals including Quill & Parchment (USA), The Halo-Halo Review (USA), Write Out Loud (UK) and The Poet (UK). His many and varied interests embrace most aspects of the arts and, on winter evenings, he enjoys the challenge of getting to grips with ancient, medieval and modern languages.
You can find more of Neil’s work here on Ink Pantry.
Vibrant colours and geometric prints burst from the curated and manicured environment. Fanciful flower stems and lucky turtles lovingly adorn a plain corner. Intricate patterns made with mathematical formulas. A randomly placed, colourful floor tile, next to a gumball machine catches her eye, and her mouth curls up on one side with a smirk, remembering times long ago.
Portraits, collages, stories, and whole histories are sewn into the quilts, with nimble fingers, yet they aren’t used on a bed or couch to curl under for warmth and security, they are presented on the wall as fine art, a fabric mosaic masterpiece.
Tiny chairs in primary colours and toddler tables are tucked in a children’s corner with blocks, Legos, a toy truck, and baby dolls so carefully packed, yet quiet and still, oddly waiting for a playful child to return? Mother’s apron is carefully sewn from burnt orange and gold cloth with a beautiful rosette decoration. The smock has pockets, like a pouch in the front, and ties with ribbons at the sides. Her lovely work shirt, soft and light to the touch with bright colours for the child’s eyes to admire. She wants to be present for them, sturdy, kind, creative and accepting, so when she can’t be there, they will remember the calm and warmth of the golden smock, like a shining sunset. It is her armour, her uniform that gives her courage and confidence to be better and wiser for them, for herself. She touches her fingertips to her chest where a miniature sun resides within, and she knows she is changing. She calls upon that sun to guide and nourish her motivations. When it sets, the moon’s silver glow shows the way until morning.
Kind Souls
Socks and shoes are soggy wet. Thunder rumbles and lightning flashes. It sounds like a tall oak snapped in half. Today I am uneasy, not knowing which way to go on almost every decision, so I try different directions to see what works. The first one didn’t seem right so I start over and try again in a safer place. I found a kind face, who took pity on me, and a nice helper who sewed thread onto my torn apron string with stiff, swift fingers. I feel my body is weak. I need wholesome food for nourishment and to settle the knot in my stomach. I had a bad night. Up intermittently, but never knew the time. I had sweats then a jolt of chill. I slept in late and wrong footed the day.
A river of water flows down the street. I am only half prepared. I have a large umbrella, found in the trunk from father, but I am dressed for a sunny summer day in a jumper and white sneakers! Can’t step in a puddle or they will be ruined, so I turn back for cover like an alley cat crouched in the doorway with big eyes looking out onto the world, hoping for kind souls to cross my path, not nasty boars with sharp tusks. The storm tricked me. Just when I thought it would let up, it struck again and rain came pouring down on the town, on the town, on the town.
The sun tried to come out again and clear up the mess. Plans dashed and confusion came over me again. My mind went to a sick child at home and my parents worry for me being alone. They tell me to leave early and come home. They do not understand this place. My husband says to stay, do my work, take the journey, but the tone in his voice sounds impatient that I am hesitating and checking in. Communication is strained. Which way should I go? I am happy to be here on this quest with these characters in the play. They are trying to figure out the puzzle too.
It is calm now and a little boy bends down into a puddle and splashes water with his hand, so does father. Rose pink glasses catch the setting sunlight at the dinner table and it provides hope tomorrow will be a better day.
Low Country
Driving carefully through the storm. Lines of swollen clouds like black and grey ribbons. Take me home angels. Don’t let me go off course. Follow the map as it guides me through the countryside. Dark trees with green buds. I saw a mare standing over her foal as protection in the rain. The thunder scares me but I have to drive straight through it to get to the other side. A fire smouldered in the rain and filled my nostrils with smoke from an old brick chimney, years ago in a northern village. Large black crows swoop from the pine tree tops. I am embarrassed that I left early, but I know myself. I know what I came to do. I accomplished it and I am ready to go home, even though I could sense in his voice he was disappointed in me, not achieving the miracle. Broken rooftops and cottages sag by the roadside. There are some white picket fences that are kept with care. Lone scary cypress and Tuscan orange grass sprout up like an Italian countryside, yet the pines and thunder clouds remind me I’m in the low country. Ditches are swelled with water in this ghost town. Rusted tin awnings and decaying black iron balconies are on my view as I creep around the storm toward home, home, home. Safety of city lights, places I know and the tender faces I love, love, love.
Plucked Pebble
Round like a gumdrop or lozenge Old and wrinkled and yellowed with time, like cracked and chipping wallpaper. If it had a smell it would be one of lingering cigarette smoke, or dust. I’m not sure why I picked this pebble. It was in a sunny spot on the ground. It is golden in colour, like a warm beach. Smooth like a bathtub but hard, like a bone. My two-year old daughter presses her fingers to my collarbone or to my wrist and says, “Bones in there.” It’s a tiny thing, just a nothing from the dirt. Yet, I picked it and study it like it is special. Doesn’t it feel nice to be picked, as special? To be regarded with care? To spend time with this nothing pebble? Then, I vow to spend this quality time with the people I love, with myself. Take time to understand the ugly and beautiful. That is where connection is knitted. I haven’t said a word, yet I understand this pebble. It will sink to the bottom of the creek if I toss it there. Probably, no one on Earth will hold it or look at it so closely ever again. Then, make the most out of this immediate time. This moment matters. All moments matter. If this pebble has meaning, then zoom out and everything in my eyesight has meaning and significance. Everything and everyone special to me, is worthy of notice.
Dana Zullo is an educator and mother in Georgia. Her poems have been published in Paprika Southern and Literary Yard. Her artist biographies are seen in printmaking guides at Crown Point Press. She received artist residencies at South Porch Artists in SC and Dairy Hollow, AR. She also creates floral art with the Ichiyo School of Ikebana and previously taught art in the Peace Corps in Ghana. Inspired by personal development, motherhood, and the natural world, her writing and designs are found on Instagram.
In practice, are you a proactive nationalist? Are you a happy, patriotic person- Who is bursting with intense emotions of patriotism? Are you a man with socialist ideology? Do you think like a conservative or a democratic man? Alternatively, do you take pride in the culture and- religion you were raised in from birth?
Apart from our identity as a social being, You might also identify yourself in a different orchestra. What do you believe your true self to be? Oh Humanity! full of rain-soaked nature, What do you say about your real identity?
Is our absolute identity based on— being nationalist, democratic, religious, or culturalist? Or are these the identities that are imposed on us- To align the structural power with the demands of the wider society.
We are happy to identify ourselves with the relative identity— that is created within the limited reality of the cosmos. While —The Absolute Identity —We Have, May haven’t been unleashed yet. Be it in the fertile land of policy making, Or- ‘Social Contract’. This is the real seed of every chaos we harvest
Our true identity is, of course, our personality. And, It is defined by the quality of our ‘Soul Thoughts’. But the absolute identity we might have, Lies within the quality of our—’Soul Awareness’.
Rajendra Ojha (Nayan) is a Nepalese poet, philosopher, social researcher, social worker, and EU-certified trainer. He also served as a citizen diplomat for three months under the ‘Ministry of Population and Environment’ in 2018 in Switzerland for the diplomatic program of the Minamata Convention, which was held in Geneva, Switzerland. Poems and philosophical writings of Rajendra Ojha have been published in various national as well as international literary journals from Nepal, the U.S.A., India, China, Russia, Spain, Myanmar, and Pakistan in both Nepalese and English. He has also published two anthologies, ‘Through the World’ (a collection of experimental poems) and ‘Words of Tiger’ (a collection of philosophical and psychological poems), in 2011 and 2019, respectively. Mr. Rajendra Ojha has been honoured by two major prestigious awards named ‘Asia’s Outstanding Internship Solution Provider Award 2020/21’ and ‘Dadasaheb Phalke Television Award 2023’ respectively for his work as a ‘Social Researcher’ as well as a ‘Social Worker’ (activities related to social responsibility), respectively, in 2021 and 2023.
Here is a private hut staring at me, twigs & branches over the top— naked & alone.
I respond to an old 60s doo-wop song: In the Still of the Night Fred Parris and The Satins.
Storms are written in narratives, old ears closed to a full hearing. I’m but a shelter cringing. In age, nightmare pre-warned redemption. Let’s call it the Jesus factor, not LGBT symbols in Biden’s world. I lost my way close to the end. Here is this shelter in heaven poetry imagined spaces prematurely still not all the words fit, in childhood in abuse lack of reason for bruises rough hills, carp that didn’t bite, and Schwinn bike rides flat tires, chains fall off, spokes collapse— this thunder, those storms.
Find me a thumbnail image of myself in centuries of dust. Stand weakened by nature of change glossed over, sealed. Archives. Old men, like a luxurious battery, die hard, but with years, they too, fade away.
California Summer
Coastal warm breeze off Santa Monica, California the sun turns salt shaker upside down and it rains white smog, a humid mist. No thunder, no lightening, nothing else to do except for sashay forward into liquid and swim into eternal days like this.
Four Leaf Clover
I found your life smiling inside a four-leaf clover. Here you hibernate in sin. You were dancing in the orange fields of the sun. You lock into your history, your past, withdrawal, taste honeycomb, then cow salt lick. All your life, you have danced in your soft shoes. Find free lottery tickets in the pockets of poor men and strangers. Numbers rhyme like winners, but they are just losers. Positive numbers tug like grey blankets, poor horses coming in 1st. Private angry walls; desperate is the night. You control intellect, josser men. You take them in, push them out, circle them with silliness. Everything turns indigo blue in grief. I hear your voice, fragmented words in thunder. An actress buried in degrees of lousy weather and blindness. I leave you alone, wander the prairie path by myself. Pray for wildflowers, the simple types. No one cares. Purple colours, false colours, hibiscus on guard, lilacs are freedom seekers, now no howls in death. You are the cookie crumble of my dreams. Three marriages in the past. I hear you knocking my walls down, heaven stars creating dreams. Once beautiful in the rainbow sun, my face, even snow now cast in banners, blank, fire, and flames. I cycle a self-absorbed nest of words.
Casket of Love
This moon, clinging to a cloudless sky, offers the light by which we love. In this park, grass knees high, tickling bare feet, offers the place we pass pleasant smiles. Sir Winston Churchill would have saluted the stately manner this fog lifts, marching in time across this pond layering its ghostly body over us cuddled by the water’s edge, as if we are burdened by this sealed casket called love. Frogs in the marsh, crickets beneath the crocuses trumpet the last farewell. A flock of Canadian geese flies overhead in military V formation. Yet how lively your lips tremble against my skin in a manner no sane soldier dare deny.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era. Today he is a poet in the greater Chicagoland area, IL. He has 298 YouTube poetry videos. Michael Lee Johnson is an internationally published poet in 45 countries, a song lyricist, has several published poetry books, has been nominated for 7 Pushcart Prize awards, and 6 Best of the Net nominations. He is editor-in-chief of 3 poetry anthologies, all available on Amazon, and has several poetry books and chapbooks. He has over 453 published poems. Michael is the administrator of 6 Facebook Poetry groups. Member of Illinois State Poetry Society: Remember to consider me for Best of the Net or Pushcart nomination!
You can find more of Michael’s work here on Ink Pantry.
