Once a gypsy visioned there a living hell fire.
Twitching eyes unfolded of fluttering black moths.
Roasted lips redden with brute-blades of smooches,
Her back now an exquisite cherry orchard,
buried with suppressed shrieks of happy conjugal.
All comes with gifts of domesticity, they say:
“Merely her figment of poppy dreams or
Signs of acute malady of witchcraft!”
resounded chatters thumped and stumped
Over barren wombs of nauseating petit deaths.
Yesterday onerous drops came with her gusty punch in which floated sanctity of rings.
Undone knobs, stranded curtains, cracked tubs,
Now pinned on a long traumatic gyre.
Andrew Kurtz (USA)
THE PORTAL
One of Andrew Kurtz’s greatest passions is horror. He enjoys watching movies, reading literature, and now writing stories.
He is a very new author and has three published works as of now: Dark Valentine Holiday Horror Collection: A Flash Fiction Anthology by Eleanor Merry, Books of Horror Community Anthology Volume 1 by R.J. Roles, and Scary Snippets: Valentine’s Edition.
His favorite authors are Stephen King, Clive Barker, H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Richard Matheson.
https://www.amazon.com/author/splatter
I have a new invention,
It is opening dimensions.
I want to allow the monstrosities from out there,
To come to our world to destroy without any care.
Are they beings with many arms,
Or do they resemble animals found on farms?
Do they have more than one head,
Or eyes that are different shades of red?
Do they want to be worshiped as Gods,
And arrive here in life pods?
What language will they speak,
And will they appear very weak?
Will they be twenty feet tall,
Or the size of a ping pong ball?
Will they eat us as a meal,
Or make us slaves to turn a wheel?
What colors will they be,
And are they colors humans can see?
The portal is open and I await,
To see what emerges from this interdimensional gate.
Alan Dunnett (England)
BETTER NOT TAKE THE TRAIN
Alan Dunnett has worked as a theatre director, and as an acting tutor at several drama schools. He wrote/voiced Interrogation, Best Experimental Film at the Verona International Film Festival 2019. “Shot in the Head”, informed by Narratives from Columbians Displaced by Violence, is in The Very Edge, Flying Ketchup Press, 2020. Other poems have appeared in The Crank, Ink Sweat & Tears, The New European, Skylight 47, Stand, The Recusant, The Rialto. A collection, A Third Colour, was published by Culture Matters in 2018.
It is during the last days that I sit
in the darkness of a train carriage
underground. Everyone is quiet
except for a baby. The monster’s blood
is dripping down the door like octopus
ink. The roof creaks as its viscous weight sprawled
above shifts. A woman breathes in quickly.
Are you lost, little boy, said the nice lady
a long time ago. I am smelling toast
on bent fingers. The veins of a big eye
press against the windows. It is hot here
in the damp stillness of bodies waiting.
You are grappling with strangers in the night,
crying unintelligibly for help.
Nerisha Kemraj (South Africa)
RED
Short-fiction author, and poet, Nerisha Kemraj, hails from Durban, South Africa. She is the mother of procrastination, and two beautiful girls.
She fell in love,
the colour red
suddenly appealing
like the light red blush
on her glowing face
A little red dress for a memorable date
Red roses
on a red table cloth
Red wine and fine dining 
