Cover image: "Where the Mountains Meet the Clouds 6" by Louis Fiorucci
Gallery 2
Visual Art, Poetry, and Prose
Sarah Kilgallon
On a bright October day at a café in Lisbon, I sat down with Portuguese video collage artist João Pombeiro. His videos and collages defy the digital age’s fanaticism for crisp edges and bright spectacle; rather, his work delves into the less defined realms of “dream and memory.”
In his music video for the music single “Kite,” his cut-out style and multilayered effects create a spell-binding magic that the viewer sees not as an altered reality but as a reimagining of recollections and landscapes.
João spoke of being influenced by the Brutalist movement of the 1950’s: “Brutalism has something underneath holding it up. What is beauty if there’s nothing behind it?”
The music video for “Kite” displays João’s artistry for blending hard lines and soft curves that complement the song’s emotional resonance of love and loss. He explained that the singer and songwriter, Nadia Schilling, is also his partner and he created the video after the birth of their son. He devoted six months to its creation, free of deadlines and external pressures. The video, which has since won numerous awards, incorporates the use of rigid geometric lines and blocky appearance of the images, that create a subtlety and refinement.
João’s work is a combination of improvisation and instinct. He likens his process to laying down railroad tracks just ahead of a moving train. “If an image grabs my attention, I use it.” Since he takes his images from public archives and public domain websites, he worries little about an image’s original concept. “I always flip the meaning. It’s my way to create something new.”
I asked if he worried about using images that may be seen as controversial. He replied, “I don’t care what people think. I live in a small country, so there’s always an echo right away. If I worried about this, I’d be frozen as an artist.”
João is both a digital archaeologist and an explorer often spending hours letting Google take him from one image to the next. He delves into the internet to find what lies buried in the mountains of images but also forges ahead in the world of collage and animation. He journeys between memory and imagination to create the next unknown world.
His music video for “Kite” and his other award-winning work can be viewed on Vimeo and on Instagram @j_o_a_o_p_o_m_b_e_i_r_o.
Sarah Kilgallon is a Lisbon-based photographer and writer. Her work has been published in The Bark Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, and Harvard Bookstore Flash Fiction Anthologies. View her recent work at www.sarahkilgallon.com and on Instagram @sarah_kilgallon_photography.
Gwendolyn Jensen
When a Splinter
When a splinter rises to the surface;
when an Attic vase has been repaired,
leaving new parts plaster white to show
what’s real; when a flustered caged bird calms,
a paisley shawl drawn over its cage; when
a bit of shabby happens, and is allowed
to stay to tame a tidy room—
then with this coin I buy earth’s pull—it is
a patch of yellowed snow in early April,
lingering a little longer; it is
a throw rope handy on a climbing tree
whose branches are too far apart; it is
the mystery of our departure—
I have a kingdom all my own.
Gwendolyn Jensen began writing poems when she retired in 2001 from the presidency of Wilson College (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania). The places where her work has appeared include the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Harvard Review, Salamander, Sanskrit, Whistling Shade, and Measure. Her first book (Birthright, Birch Brook Press, 2011) is a letterpress edition, now in its second printing. Her second book (As If Toward Beauty, also Birch Brook Press) was published in 2015. Her third book (also published by Birch Brook Press) is Graceful Ghost, a letterpress edition published in 2018. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Emma DeBono
Sunscreen
Clenched hands make a fist. Then release.
Smooth patches between stubble from the spots I missed
while shaving. I’ve given up on trying.
Remembering I am just a primal being
who just learned to stand on my hind legs.
And how to uncage the garden
that grows silently out from my chest.
‘A’ wraps her delicate arms around my head
like a crown; like a shield.
I can smell the sunscreen she put on before coming
over, melted into her skin. When she leaves,
the sour smell lingers on everything—
my hair, my clothes, these sheets.
Even when she is gone, she is here, haunting me.
I want it all, or I want none of it.
There is no in between.
Emma DeBono is an experienced writer and content creator living in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up as an only child, she developed her love for storytelling from a very young age. Emma published her debut poetry collection, Water the Plants While I’m Away, last autumn. Emma is also a freelance writer and a full-time cat mom. Find more about Emma and her writing on www.emmadebono.com.
Louis Fiorucci
Louis Fiorucci, from artist statement:
I am a photographer diagnosed with having Narcolepsy with Cataplexy. The sleep deprivation I suffer from traps me in a limbo between the dreaming unconscious and waking life. When I sleep, I am deprived of regulated REM and deep sleep. This means my conscious mind is always aware of the dream state. I awake feeling like I lived another life, never having slept, waking to this life only to find the subconscious mind intruding on my conscious state.
My images depict life with Narcolepsy and Cataplexy. They are the physical and psychological landscapes that I navigate in a world existing between the conscious and unconscious minds. My dreaming and waking life blur together in a haze as if I am lost in the undefined boundaries between the concrete and the ethereal, in the place where the mountains meet the clouds.
Micaela Edelson
Fallen Firs
My Backyard
When I was a child, my backyard was a sanctuary rife with the flora of the temperate rainforest inhabiting the greater part of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.
Two cherry trees marked the sides, exchanging pollination in creation, displaying their beauty each April as flower petals fell like God herself blessing me with the tears of angels. Each May, my tongue was stained and belly filled as ripe red cherries replaced the silky white flowers.
In the back of my yard, small plum and apple trees planted at the births of my sister and I stood grounded in their position in the yard as the branches of my sister and I emerged from our family tree. Having been uprooted thrice before taking roots in their final place, they too were young, growing with their backs to the shade and their branches too twisted to make sense.
We never ate from the apple tree in the back-left. Poking through the corner, her immensity was obscured until one stood on the barren soil protected by her umbrella. As if her giantess yielded too great of a power, for us to eat from her fruit would be a betrayal of her being. Instead, the apples would fall in their time and the dogs would play until the fruit and fallen leaves co-mingled in decay.
But, at the very back of the yard, behind the baby plum and apple tree, behind the bushes sprouting up against the chain-link fence to supplement the mark of humanity’s constructed claims with nature’s instinctive privacy, behind even the chain-link fence confirming the neighbor’s claim instead of our own, my twin firs towered as high as the sun. They were my protectors.
~
Micaela Edelson currently works for one of the world’s largest conservation organizations. Her environmental background allows her to communicate the climate causality of the wildfires as well as the positive feedback loop that will accelerate the frequency of fires and other natural disasters. In addition to her political-philosophy blog, her work has been featured in Red Flag International Magazine and Humana Obscura literary magazine, among other publications and platforms.
Tracy Ahrens
Thicket of memories
Thickets rise,
their bony fingers splayed,
sharp nails scratching my legs,
begging for my green.
I look away, ascending towards the blue.
Descent into the brambles would bring consumption,
swirled in pain and fear, struggle and immobility.
In the sediment, souls slide softly, teasing:
the fur of a fox, feathers of a flicker, brush of a butterfly wing.
I stoop to acknowledge them and am reminded why I climb.
I want to rake through the wreckage,
clutching beauty to my core, lifting, liberating.
If only I could carry it up with me where we all could see.
So many years I struggled to ascend, cautiously carrying elements I absorbed.
The toxic things kept thriving, thickening, leeching nutrients.
I stretched onward towards the sun for sustenance,
but with the light came isolation.
Maybe this is why most won’t strive for this station, or stay.
They prefer thickets of memories, dark and deep –
the comfort of commonality.
I’ve brushed by many on this ascent, touching, briefly.
Leaves, needles, bark: memories of me have trickled down.
Some feed off them.
Some seek shelter under them.
Some stay shrouded for many seasons.
Expressways etch my trunk, allowing infection to infiltrate.
Layer by layer, my core is rotting, porous and brittle.
One day I will topple into the thickets.
They will swallow me, swinging open a doorway to the sun.
Curious souls who watched me will similarly struggle to rise.
Tracy Ahrens of Illinois has been a journalist and editor for newspapers, magazines, and websites for over 25 years. She is also an artist and author of eight books, including four children’s books. As of 2020, Tracy had won 66 writing awards statewide, locally, and nationally. Tracy has published two books of poetry through Finishing Line Press titled Nature Will Heal (2012) and I Am (2017). Her poetry has appeared in various literary magazines across the country.
Marcus Fields
Marcus Fields was born in Michigan and attended Michigan State University’s Residential College in the Arts and Humanities, where he received a bachelor’s degree combining interests in social justice, language and culture, community engagement, history, and the arts. He experiments in a range of artistic expression, including theatre, video production, photography, graphic design, and 3D modeling/printing, among others. His interest lies in finding intersections between these various mediums and allowing them to inform one another.
Samantha Madway
Head Storm
I rely on magical thinking, repeat
don’t see, don’t see, don’t see,
eventually trade up incantations—
bubble, bubble, boil wasn’t enough for me.
High frequency, I rev up, each hour aghast,
rotate fast. Circular thoughts emulate cyclones,
sever tendons and trip wires,
turn insides into disaster zones,
commemorate the whole mess
on pre-shattered plates. Pained
by barbs and blame—
but not enough to
disengage. At minimum, I rant and wage,
whisper, welcome to the war.
Conscripted
against my wishes, afraid
symptoms aren’t just symptoms anymore:
they’re status quo, weaponizing anything
a hand can hold, a permanent condition,
more fighting most.
Alphabetical Unrest
Pry people up like nails from driftwood,
beg to be blessed, Christmas list request:
rusty cut to remember them by.
My mind is a case study on false equivalence
and what happens when PSAs invoke frying pans
instead of facts. Clear my path with rock salt and silence,
grease poles to keep from getting climbed.
There’s always a catch, no clue how to release—
sweat instead of salt water, my eyes stay empty,
other people spring leaks.
Samantha Madway is working on a collection of interlinked poems and flash fiction. She loves her dogs, Freddie, Charlie, Parker, Greta, and Davey, more than anything else in the universe. Though technophobic, she attempts to be brave by having an Instagram @sometimesnight. If the profile were a plant, it would’ve died long ago. Her writing has appeared in Linden Ave, High Shelf, Sky Island Journal, SLAB, The Flexible Persona, After the Pause, and elsewhere.
Casey Mark Schultz
Casey Mark Schultz is an artist based in Brooklyn and Buffalo, New York, working primarily in painting, collage, and sculpture. He attended Parsons, The New School as well as the School of Visual Arts (BFA Visual and Critical Studies, 2016) and SVA in Rome, Italy. He has exhibited internationally, has done numerous public murals, and is a founder & director of the art/music collective Good Neighbr.
- Website: www.caseymark.com
- Instagram: @_caseymark
Daniel Grim
Apocryphal
The sky and the land were as one: cold, abyssal, and infinite. A solitary figure walked along the nothingness, the footprints it left behind creating the sole division between earth and the ash-filled atmosphere. White puddles of a tar-like fluid tracked the being’s progress; the ground upon which it stepped pulled away and stuck to the pallid flesh. Like the foot, the rest of the body was muted and grey, thin lines of muscle and sinew creating the barest sense of definition along the slim, elongated form. The hands shifted at knee level as it walked, arms connected to hunched shoulders. The head was a featureless canvas, elongated like the other limbs, completely smooth.
The wanderer had no recollection as to how long it had resided in the desolation surrounding it. There was no wind to run across its skin and the climate never changed. The only sensation it experienced was the warmth of the tearing surface upon which it traveled. All it knew to do was move, though even then it had no destination. It only existed. Alone, it believed, forgotten to time and space, remaining to wander without rest, fatigue, or sustenance. To walk proved it existed, provided it with a purpose. Perhaps there was a place to be, something to find. The innate desire for discovery overwhelmed it.
For the first time, the wanderer felt something other than the warmth of touch: a gentle pressure against the front of its body. The skin on its face tore until a mouth of grey teeth appeared, white blood staining them and pattering onto the ground. It noticed no pain.
“Who’s there?” the wanderer asked. It could not hear its own voice, but the words it spoke felt right, accurate.
“Open your eyes,” a voice replied. The voice carried no inflection, yet it was intelligible. It rang inside the wanderer’s mind.
~
Daniel Grim is currently a graduate student and teaching assistant enrolled in the MFA of Writing program at Coastal Carolina University, South Carolina. He graduated from Texas Tech University with a BA in English in 2019, with a minor in Studio Art. His end goal is to become a college professor and to keep the spirit of storytelling alive, wherever that may be. He currently resides in Conway, South Carolina with his fiancé and fifteen animals.
Judith Mikesch McKenzie
A Failure of Courage
Maybe, she thinks,
I could wait tables
somewhere
Spoon soft mounds of
potatoes
onto white plates
And slide them down
in front of
hungry eyes
Put steaming brown
mugs
in anxious hands
and collect my tips
Ride no more to battle
on weary legs
or sit alone
wondering what went wrong
Just
buttered potatoes and hot coffee
for those who can pay
There are places in your life that draw your heart right out into the world, and Judith Mikesch McKenzie was lucky enough to be born in one such place: the high mountains of western Montana. The child of working-class parents, she left home early, and has traveled to many parts of the world, but is always drawn to the mountains and valleys of the Rockies as one of the places on the planet that feeds her soul.
The combination of Irish and gypsy parents is evident in her life—outspoken, direct, and eclectic, she is drawn to friends and groups of people who reflect those characteristics. She is also a wanderer, never content to stay in one place for too long. She loves change—new places, new people, new challenges—but also has a strong connection to friends who have been in her heart for many years. Writing is her home.
Ashley Pryor Geiger
Ashley Pryor Geiger is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar (Ph.D. Philosophy, The Pennsylvania State University, 2000) who lives and works in Toledo, Ohio. Drawing on her extensive research and teaching in the humanities, her visual work uses digital collage and the manipulation of old photographic processes like calotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, and daguerreotypes to create a bridge between the past and the present—especially as it relates to those who have been forgotten, overlooked, or underrepresented in history. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print journals.
Sofia T. Romero
Debt of Gratitude
The leaves had just started to turn, falling in whispers no one heard. The trail he chose, one she had never been on before, was easy for him. They started up the path at a steady gait, but soon her thighs started to burn, she was out of breath, and her focus wavered.
Try to keep up, he said when she lagged behind. Or he sprinted ahead, she wasn’t sure which. He said a lot of words: carry your bag this way, take off your sweatshirt if you’re hot, don’t push straight up when it’s steep, avoid places that look wet. Probably all of his advice was good, she admitted to herself later, after she fell while scrambling across the slick granite.
At the top, they sat side by side on a boulder and ate the blueberry muffins she had made. Her skinned elbow burned. He pointed out all there was to see: the extended family of mountains, several lakes turned like looking glasses toward the sky, a meandering river. There was Mount Washington, its peak above the clouds. In a few weeks, it would be covered with snow. He invoked them all like a familiar mantra. Everything around here is alive, he said. It’s life.
On the way down from the summit, she kept her eyes on the ground in front of her to avoid falling again. He was the one who spotted the ghost pipe in the ground off the trail, the pale, translucent stalks pushing their way through the woody debris blanketing the ground.
If he hadn’t pointed it out, she would have missed it. And in that moment, at least, she was grateful for him—first for being someone who noticed ghost pipe on the forest floor, and then for being someone who cared it was even there. But when she looked up to tell him this, he had already walked on.
Sofia T. Romero is a writer and editor who lives in the Boston area. Her work has appeared in Blue Mountain Review, Rigorous, Waterwheel Review, and LEON Literary Review.
- Twitter: @mightyredpen & @sofiatromero
Dave Sims
A retired educator, Dave Sims makes art and music in the old mountains of central Pennsylvania. His digital art and comix appear in dozens of tangible and virtual publications, galleries and exhibitions. His fiction collection The Carcass & Other Stories is now available from Raw Art Review/Uncollected Press and 21st Century Myth Family, a wild folding map chapbook, from the A3 Press and Review. Experience more at www.tincansims.com.
Christine Weeber
Desert Pulse
Dendritic spines explode when the sky drops itself into desert washes, where the thorns of yesterday pinch and hurl against the freshly birthed current. Forced open, futures scour—all turbidity, all power, all movement, and no vision but embodied sight in the flesh of pressing, curling in, flattening out.
Junipers fledge the banks above stratigraphic, heroic time—bark feathers lifting winged boughs as stone-rooted claws release. Sun eye pierces risen wind-sculpted clay beds, powdering red chiffon. I roil through sedimentary layers: 450 million years of whispers, crashes, moonlit shadow dances, lionesses prowling or giving birth, star ceremonies, hummingbird–yucca flower lust, protective circular walls, raven quorums, sheep-dotted ridges.
Tributaries of silence and summer drought release fresh flow into my breast. My waterfalls sing staircases. Pressured alluvial fans sprawl under scrub oak leaves rubbing against wind carcasses.
My belly carves, taking time in this distance as if it were already a memory blended. I end only where the ocean mouths, the confluence of my anadromous soul. Crepuscular light ushers in new moon, blue ladders anchoring flight to ocher horizon. I am awake underneath sharp-winged bats flipping gravity, sonaring moths. Nighthawks dip close to my whitewater, drinking eternity’s wake.
Christine Weeber is the author of two poetry chapbooks, In the Understory of Her Being (in English and Spanish, from Finishing Line Press) and Sastrugi. Her poetry and prose have appeared in the Kyoto Journal, A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park, Solo: On Her Own Adventure, and other publications. Christine is an editor at SAPIENS, an online magazine that illuminates the world of anthropology for a general audience. She inhabits a small mountaintop in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Follow her on Twitter @CAWeeber, on Facebook @understoryofherbeing, and on Instagram @caweeber.
