Ash Margaret Cheatham

January 2022 | visual art

GMO Picnic

 

Ash Margaret Cheatham

Gently Seeping, depicts the delusional state that many people are blissfully unaware they are in. Ash Margaret displays vivid scenes characterizing the things we do to nurture ourselves, yet simultaneously destroy. Covid exposed a “save yourself” mentality that has us at war against each other. Ash chose the gas mask without its filter to portray the relentless bare minimum mindset society continues to display. The mask illustrates a positive action but is then rendered useless by other choices. The smoke represents the danger we allow to seep into our lives while feeling protected with our faulty gas mask. This series is set in an indistinct time period. Ash mixes vintage with modern aesthetic, combining for an almost post-apocalyptic feel with a cross-processed quality. These windows of augmented reality express what life obscures.

Doug Dabbs

January 2022 | visual art

Blueish

Rose

 

Doug Dabbs

Doug Dabbs is a comic book artist, illustrator, and university professor who has taught visual storytelling and illustration in higher education for over a decade. His comic book artwork has been published by Image Comics, Oni Press, 12 Gauge Comics, and Desperado Publishing, and his work has been displayed in over 30 national and international exhibitions; most recently the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art Museum (South Korea), Shockboxx Gallery (California) and the National Gallery of North Macedonia. His work has been featured in numerous juried art publications including ArtAscent Art and Literature Journal, Coffin Bell Journal, Brightness Magazine, High Shelf, Pittville Press, and Sand Hills Literary Magazine. Additionally, his work has been recognized by international illustration competitions including American Illustration, 3×3, Cheltenham Illustration Awards, Brightness Illustration Awards, Creative Quarterly, and Communication Arts. Dabbs’ artwork and research focus on methods of visual storytelling through the exploration of the human figure and environments. His art isn’t about perfecting each mark individually, but instead, using collective mark-making to communicate themes, emotions, and narratives. He investigates the effects positive and negative space have on compositions, mood, and storytelling, and how these components invite active viewer participation and analysis. He is interested in challenging traditional illustrative rendering methods that typically rely on color. Utilizing arguably one of the more vulnerable art approaches—black and white line art—marks cannot be hidden by additional media and color applications. The result is an intimate view of his hand and vision that is not obscured by further rendering.

I See Angels

January 2022 | poetry

The way clouds seep through in wings

Fringe of shadow After summer Fall camouflage

 

I see me

Outside a window looking in

My first baby

Sam the dog

Trusting Wandering

 

Snow Ice Branches littered Trees

From storms Bowed

 

I see snowmen and snow angels One more child

Packed in a snowsuit Dad on skates

Burning trash Sitting with a beer

On a summer night

My mother kneels

offers her flowers to bees Waits

One second

Another needy plant

Calls her eye

 

Small flutter Leaves

Petals rise light Hallowed breaths

 

I see the wooden man

Whirligig White canoe Saw cut

Feathers Slipped halo

He rides lopsided

Above my mother’s garden

 

Like a wing

One lone paddle

Lifts the sky

 

Sheryl L. White

Sheryl L. White is an artist and writer living in Boston. Her writing has been published in The Comstock Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, The Boston Globe, Split Rock Review, Great Lakes Review, The Woven Tale Press Journal, The Roanoke Review, among others. She was a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Finalist Grant and was twice selected for the Mayor of Boston Poetry Program. In 2019, she was a Pushcart nominee and in 2021, a Best of the Net Nominee. Her chapbook, Sky gone, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.

A Beach in Search of its Soul

January 2022 | poetry

The sun had already vanished behind

the lights, while we were busy arguing over

a meal gone wrong. I turn to the sea

after the goodbyes with no handshakes or

kisses. The bins aren’t empty yet, of

the plastic bottles and spoons, paper cups,

sandwich wraps, and other unnamable

stuff. A lone seagull hovers above, but I’m

the least bit worried. An artist, with a

fast-burning cigarette in his mouth, carries

his unsold paintings – ‘Jesus and Uncle

Mephisto on a Fishing Trip’, ‘Amy

Winehouse’s Inward Gaze’, ‘Self-Portrait of

a Frog as an Artist’ and so on – back

to the store that’s going to be his studio at

night. There’s a man persuading

a reluctant dog on a leash to get back home,

to end its inane engagement with

a piece of dirtied cloth that looks like

a headscarf that must’ve flown off

too far from someone who might not have

bothered to get it back, or to cover

their head again. I let the dialogues, tones,

gestures, omission of words, choice

of food, and length of sighs from my recent

memories lap against a receding

conscience. They froth over the signs, soon

to be washed off like footprints on

the sand; the very same signs that’d pushed

me to this vast emptiness where a stale

breeze caresses me, amidst what’s lost, torn

apart, stolen, relinquished, or thrown

away for no reason, to the smug black bins.

 

Jose Varghese

Jose Varghese is an Indian author who has worked as an English teacher in colleges and universities in India and the Middle East. He is the author of ‘Silver Painted Gandhi and Other Poems’ and his short story manuscript ‘In/Sane’ was a finalist in the 2018 Beverly International Prize. He was a finalist twice in the London Independent Story Prize (LISP), a runner-up in the Salt Prize, and was commended in the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize. His works are published in Litro, Joao Roque Literary Journal, Haunted Waters Press, Tempered Runes Press, Cathexis Northwest Press, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, The Best Asian Short Story Anthology (2019 and 2021), The Best Asian Poetry Anthology (2021), Dreich, Live Encounters, Meridian – The APWT Drunken Boat Anthology, Unthology 5, Unveiled, Reflex Fiction, Faber QuickFic, and Flash Fiction Magazine.

A Silver-haired bat out of Hell’s Kitchen

January 2022 | poetry

took a shortcut through Central Park, stopping briefly for brunch

at the old sheepfold aka Tavern on the Green. (Ever hard to please

New Yorkers prefer Cavern on the Green). Well pleased he was

with the new menu from which he sampled the warm squid salad,

 

followed by a small plate of Cremini mushrooms with Cabrales cheese

and red chili. Since he was nearby, and the museums beckoned

he returned their calling there to hang from lights and ponder

the Phillips Collection, most especially the Rothko Room. Once more

 

filled with awe, the bat out of Hell set sail for the Guggenheim’s

Twombly collection. His favorite palate chaser after the quiet room.

No one expects a bat, one on a day-pass from Hell, to be out

during the day, much less face to face, with canvas and frame, although

 

some find the orange tinted sunglasses off-putting and over the top,

even for a bat out of Hell. As a card-carrying Patron level member,

he is entitled as such to see what can be seen, and often more.

 

Richard Weaver

The author hopes to one day once again volunteer with the Maryland Book Bank, CityLit, the Baltimore Book Festival, and return as writer-in-residence at the James Joyce Pub. His pubs: North American Review, crazyhorse, New England Review, Southern Quarterly, Loch Raven Review, & Poetry Magazine. He’s the author of The Stars Undone (Duende Press, 1992), and provided the libretto for a symphony, Of Sea and Stars (2005), performed 4 times to date. Recently his 135th {Ir}Rational Narrative, aka prose poem, was published. He was one of the founders and PEd of the Black Warrior Review.