the seas of drunken greens by Sudeep Adhlkari

Carpet of Moss by Drew Brayshaw

an astral walk along the carpet
of green. its fibers sway
in sines, summoning the ancient
arithmetic of trembling
cleaves on their fragile legs.

the trees thicken inside their own
universe, and melt

with love, as they become
the water of my veins; all green. 

i can hear the whole universe
speaking; from the old
space-time churns, to the cry
of the first wiggle

in wormy hyper-seas. i am
not lost. i am,
where i am always supposed to be.

*****

Sudeep Adhikari is a structural engineer/Lecturer from Kathmandu, Nepal. Also a Pushcart Prize nominee for the year 2018, Sudeep is currently working on his 4th poetry-book Hyper-Real Reboots, which is scheduled for publication in September 2018 through Weasel Press, Texas, USA.

Passing by Stephen Mead

sleepwalk-dreams-subconscious by r.nial bradshaw

At last no recognition,
no glint in the other's eye
for desire & its poison,
only ghost life, glass made
flesh & I drowned as my sister
in fevers quelled, the dear mad
bliss of blankness
for infatuation full
of heart, head, tempests,
perilous, the misplaced
seed, system-sewn, an Oedipus
blindness, an awareness distressed
that kills, kills
while the body goes on
to its own askew melody
being lost out of mind
at a somnambulist's crosswalks.

*****

Stephen Mead: Author Central Page: Visit Amazon.com's Stephen Mead Page and shop for all Stephen Mead books. Check out pictures, bibliography, and ... Stephen Mead is an Outsider multi-media artist and writer.  Since the 1990s he's been grateful to many editors for publishing his work in print zines and eventually online.  He is also grateful to have managed to keep various day jobs for the Health Insurance.  Poetry on the Line, Stephen MeadPoetry on the Line, Stephen MeadWriting, even publishing, poetry, is not something I've ever been able to take much pride in. When a person is...

Datura: Blooming

General submission guidelines for datura literary journal

Send five poems or artwork, three fiction, reviews, essays to mgversion2datura at gmail dot com. Previously published work OK as long as you give publishing background. Simultaneous submissions OK just make sure you tell me if your work is accepted elsewhere.

Write your full name and submission type in the header of your email. Name your attachment with latsname_firstname_title_datura. Make sure the title of the piece you send appears at the top of the page. No more than one poem per page.

Send all submissions in a txt, doc or odt file, attached to your mail. Don't copy/paste as formatting tends to get awkward, and hard to manage afterwards.

A short biography (very short -- essential only: where you are from (city, [state/province], country), a link to your blog/website, your latest publication...) is welcome but not necessary.

Read the former journal mgversion2>datura or the literary blogs Beakful or Urtica, and the books published through mgv2>publishing or Beakful and Urtica to get a sense of what I am used to publishing.

I don't retain any rights, your writing is your creation. You are welcome to cite the original publishing place in case you reprinted your work.

Submissions read year round. Response time may vary a lot. https://daturaliteraryjournal.blogspot.com/

Alibi by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Everything is either dead or hibernating,
that is what I like about winter.  No bugs
buzzing off with chunks of your face while you
parade under patterned awning that seems scared of the rain.
Like walking into a Sartre novel and wondering why
everyone has to be the murderer.  Dr. Holmes can take
a holiday with this one.  You just know he has the best
alibi of all, the same way you walk past the perfume ladies
in the department store knowing they will smell
better than everyone else you will meet today. 
Ever seen a purse snatcher huddled in the bushes
in the dead cold of January?  There are time constraints
governed by frostbite. Everything is brought inside.
Smokers and all their cigarettes.  Accusations
over unmade beds.  Plastic chairs for all the plants
to sit in.  In the corner, by a box of old pictures
no one can remember taking.

*****

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review and The New York Quarterly.

Decathexis by Sanjeev Sethi

first published in After the Pause

In long-established fasteners
of familial zippers, my alone-
ness leaves me unfurled. We
are so easily robbed when we
give ourselves to others. Who
will want to be a professional
boxer if epistaxis is the only
reward? When kindness is home
no one eyes the egress.

*****

Sanjeev Sethi is the author of three books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015). His poems are in venues around the world:  Poetry Super Highway, Outlaw Poetry, 48th Street Press, The Metaworker, Vox Poetica, The Five-Two, A Restricted View From Under The Hedge, Ink Pantry, Ethos Literary Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Renters by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

I am thrilled to be dying so fast

Malignancy is a thrill ride

Acceleration is all

A realtor once brought me to an AIDS house

Two gay men were dying

one on each floor

Each was full of holy suffering

each attended by friends

who turned from their grief 

to give me serious stink-eye

One turned on me: 

Can’t you wait for him to die? You vulture!

This was Key West 

I left the house furious

I ordered my wife

to fire the realtor

But my wife was having an affair with her

so she refused 

and the three of us stayed in an uneasy imbalance

I was secretly happy that the realtor was fat and homely

and had a stupid name 

and a stupid Southern accent

I was happy that my wife couldn’t do any better than that

We never bought a house

We just kept renting

as property values 

and rents

skyrocketed  

*****

Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois  has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and. was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. To read more of his work, Google Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.