UNREAL REALITY

by Lynn White

unreal? reality?

Dead or alive,

seems it no longer matters.

Perhaps it never did.

And now AI is a perfect fit,

to get the job every time,

no live performance needed now.

And it was always a performance,

live or film or funny cartoon,

always staged,

unreal.

Dead or alive.

Perhaps some of it was once real.

Perhaps once it mattered.

Perhaps it still does,

real or unreal

reality

dead or alive.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

THE LADDER

by Kavita Ratna

The ladder

against the wall

leaves 

misshapen 

shadows,

slanted in 

impossible angles.

 

The rungs

of the real and

the surreal

end

in the middle of

a blankness.

 

Rising begins

where 

the climb ends.

Kavita Ratna is a children's rights activist, poet, and a theatre enthusiast. Sea Glass is her collection of poems published by Red River. Her poems have appeared in The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess within, A little book of serendipity, The Wise Owl, Triveni Hakai India, Haiku in Action, the Scarlet Dragonfly, the Cold Moon Journal, Five Fleas Itchy poetry, Stardust Haiku, Leaf (Journal of The Daily Haiku), and Parcham.

SESTINA FOR THIS SCHOOL YEAR

by Jen Gupta

Cartoon by Mark Knight, Kids News, May 28, 2020.

Everything was in twos this year, 

split into a before and after: 

two versions of each kid, one virtual 

forehead, pale ceiling, one real— 

three dimensional and so loud, silence 

something they saved for their homes.

At first, school had no home

lived on a bed or kitchen table, a year 

where every one was a muted silence,

a vacant square and it wasn’t until after

the panic, that we all became real,

more than a nuisance, virtually

everything changed when we were virtual,

each student tucked into a different home

life, some warm and orderly some real 

terrible, some a black and blue year

hidden under a black square and after 

it ended, they stayed silent.

Even us teachers were silent,

working nights to make virtual

every paper worksheet, after 

all, we had nothing at home,

just head down waiting for the year

to end, wishing for children more real

and then, finally, they were real,

the shattering of silence 

like September at the end of the year,

voices piercing through the virtual

nightmare, everyone happy to leave home,

to feel smiles under their masks, after

so long apart, we were sensitive. After

it ended, we couldn’t believe we had really

seen the insides of each other’s homes,

killed time in so much silence,

only known each other as virtual

in this gritty imitation of a year.

After the silence of this virtual year, 

we found home in each real moment, 

in the noise of three dimensional bliss.

Jen Gupta (she/her) is a middle school English teacher, writer, avid hiker, and horse lover. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with her husband and their seven houseplants. Her work has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic and is forthcoming at Sledgehammer.