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Short Fiction and Poetry
Family Court by Laura Michiels
A summons to my own trial
without as much as a day’s notice.
No time to prep my defence. [...]
Shortlist Saturdays: The Music of Birds in Exile by Ewa Gerald Onyebuchi
mama is not dead.
she sits under the plum tree beside my window.
she’s a bird with prominent feathers; she’s a girl of fifteen [...]
Uninvited by April Bell
When I was 11
I was uninvited to a birthday party [...]
Vigora by Annika Bey
An altar, in a polished frame: a photo of you
on a dock
smiling at a camera over your shoulder.
Shortlist Saturdays: Erasure Poem by Lawrence Moore
I’m here now and I know you’ve been waiting so long
that the leaves have fallen, the lawnmowers turned to rust, [...]
Derelict by Mark J. Mitchell
Like a language you don’t speak, sorrow claims
your tongue. You don’t know how it arrived here. [...]
Rage by Paul Smith
Whoever warned us not to
‘go gently into the night’
never went there himself
so he doesn’t know [...]
And the poetry winner is...I Would Bring A Lamb by Adele Evershed!
DarkWinter Lit is thrilled to announce that I Would Bring A Lamb by Adele Evershed was chosen as the winning entry in our 4th Anniversary Poetry Contest! [...]
Ghost of a Still Life by Doug Tanoury
We live in a house where everything is white
like a still life by Giorgio Morandi.
The roof line is snow on a mountain
Wind Chimes; Dream On by Michael Lee Johnson
The wind chimes,
silver-tongued
on the balcony today,
different sounds—[...]
Edges by Aislinn McDougall
At eight, I found a knife nestled in the grass
near the merry-go-round,
after school.
It must have winked at me, where I flew high on the swings.[...]
A Ghost Town in Nevada; Roadkill Alley by John Grey
Sun rises lazy over
bones of sagging rooftops,
slowly burnishes
the dust of Main Street, [...]
After the Chinese Poet Liu Yong by George Freek
Crows pick at the bones
of one of their kind.
He is gazing at the stars,
But with sightless eyes, [...]
Knowing; The Same Old Question; Still No Comfort At All by Jeffrey Zable
During my season in hell I ran into Rimbaud
who I immediately called Rambo— and as he went
for my throat, I blocked his hand [...]
Saskatchewan by Gregg Norman
Home to a hobby farm
From a small-town 9 to 5
Gravel crunching under wheels
Long dust boiling out behind [...]
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Lena Solomon
Through yet unimagined,
particles of sound, or waves,
if you will
the calls of bells
blast out of every flower, [...]
Frankenstein Reawakened by Kenneth Vincent Walker
A hideous, disfigured,
Creature made of limbs
And spare parts; a lump
Of grotesque flesh [...]
Magpie Dreams by Joan Harvey
The snow moves in
Light drifts through fog
I wake too early
I sleep too late. [...]
Polaroids of Tomorrow by Andrew John Lafleche
aunt joan died last night
2 a.m. crying in her sleep
five days shy of august [...]
Art Therapy Poetry by Crystal Hurdle
Magda is hospitalized
her body colonized
her head on fire.
She flails.
Her busy hands claw empty air. [...]
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