A blanket per head

Poem by Ana Marcela Ramírez, Inspired by René Magritte’s “The Lovers II”

Death has lost his trade amongst sheets,

Lovers, materialising our dreams.

I suffer the disgrace of your suffocating love,

Bitter triumphant laughter still left in my lungs.


Poets would call us faceless pioneers,

The August sky in Brussels never seemed so clear.

Your suit — à la mode — reminds me of a cigar,

My wine dress beseeches “vamos a jugar”.


Mellifluous love is a fraudulent game,

Contorting without you seems violent, insane.

Guards dangle the keys just out of reach,

How vexing our temples will never meet.


A pair of lips and a blanket per head,

Discerning those whispers, I wish I were dead.

Eyes shut, our flesh turned to whimpers,

Sentenced not to witness the part of you that lingers.

Sunset Shimmer

Poem by Lyndsie L. Conklin 

Skylights, dressed in orange,
reach for her twilight lover.
His eyes reflect the small joy
of her cheek, the smallest epic
of feeling; a tragedy.

They dance–the pink gray clouds
become the only flowing evidence
of their rehearsed waltz.

Her dress flows across the sky
and burns ever brighter
as their dance climaxes. His dusk
coattails mix with her burning drapes.

They spin and spin until their feet
cannot carry them. They rest
atop a mountain, colors dangle
in motionless sprawl. Her orange glow
fades wary and he stands alone, black
in the evening shadow. Yet little embers
sprinkle across the floor,
reminding him where her foot
had once followed him.

Flat 2

A poem by Rosie Etheridge

Flat 2,
the rotting wood door
Daisies on the bed sheets
Set an oasis forevermore
Piles of gig tickets
Hours long queues
For a hazed glimpse of you

Outside, pale blossom falls
On loves accepting their curtain call

In Flat 2
pancakes still burn
Because kisses took priority
Roses still bloom
Months after you gave them to me
I wear your jacket
Over my silver dresses
Hard working hands make soft caresses

I hope we never close the door
On Flat 2
Haunt the creaking floor
Watch the spring flowers wilt
Gradually lose this gold
In the world of silt
Climb the winding stairs
To a home no longer there

So,
Aching, I hand you the keys
You make Flat 2 everywhere.

Look at Me

Poem by Lejla Aljel Muta

I think of you and i want to be by your side

We couldn’t leave each other’s company

We were longing for an audience, but not just any audience

one we could identify ourselves with.

We were looking at our own reflections.

You in my eyes and I in yours.

I was happy to look at you, show you yourself

look at my face, my pain, my joy.

I existed because of the space you were denying me

You took the air I wasn’t breathing. 

We warmed each others bodies when we were colder than we should have been

we keep alert to let the other one exist.

we didn’t know we both really wanted to sleep.

I missed having someone,

looking at someone watching me exist.

It’s not love, it’s ego.

Was It Worth It?

Poem by Varrick Kwang

Was it worth it:

Five years of hard training
Five hours per session
With all the sweat dropped per lesson
Getting stronger is the reason.

Two years of my life,
Fighting under the hot sun in a burning uniform.
All for the pay of peanuts

The bank is broken
The Wallet has holes in it
And for what?
Just to feel good?
Just to have my body bashed in every time?

Some people admire me,
Some look at me with scorn, calling me a brute.
Most people don’t care.
But it is seen as manly, right?
To train and fight for a flag?

But their words mean nothing when I am the one putting my life and body at the front, I’ve found.

Who cares if something happens to me? Will the same people who praised me share the burden of pain?
Who will care about me?
After all, I’m just another one of the billion idiots.

MAYBE THIS WILL BE BETTER THAN THE LAST

Poem by Paris LeClaire

I said, in vain, of course, but
Already I had mispelled the title
And the word “misspelled” and all
I can think to write is the quiet
Word “ephemeral.”

There is no greater loss than that
Of the language through which we
Breathe, except, perhaps, for the dirt stain
Creeping up on the clean white of my
Sandals. Perhaps.

Poetry is the controlled flight
Of the albatross
Over that which cannot be controlled
But it is also the ability to
Describe our graves as a
Deathly brown.

Fluffy Affections

Poem by Varrick Kwang

Fluffy Boy

Cute fluffy boy
Playing with yarn of a toy
As your clean white hair rustle with the wind
As you bear brown little markings look like a marshmallow.

Cute Fluffy boy
How carefree must you be
To sleep in the middle of the corridor where the humans walk.
To loaf with such ease
To sploot with such grace

Cute Fluffy Boy
You close your eyes.
You smile as much as you could.
As my hand strokes the fur on your little head
You slow blink at me after I am done.
And my heart flutters.
But I know I am not your chosen family.
But I know I am not the one you will sleep and cuddle with.

And indeed, after a minute, you run off to another corner of the sidewalk where you can sleep alone.

I see the ball of fluff goes back to his lovely little slumber.
Amongst the sidewalk with birds, trees and potted plants.
As the rays of sunbathe you.
How blissful

I imagine when you wake up and run home.

You ask your family for snacks.
They gave you all the yummy
Just look at that tummy

You are free to sleep, free to eat and free to clean.

So unconstrained by the unseen chains of the bipedal.
So unrestricted by any paper laws that hover over heads
So unbound from the cuffs for two legs.

Our chase for money will never end,
They say money has four legs, just like you.
Perhaps just like you, money will elude our gestures for affections.
Perhaps just like you, only a small minority will experience your affections.