Gossamer Arts
Issue 2
"Roots of the Mythical Ribbon" by Christopher Woods
Gossamer Arts
Issue 2
Theme: Lockets
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Contributors:
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“Ketch and Yawl” by William Doreski
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“Vivisection Is A Beautiful Word” by Bee Wright
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“Roots of the Mythical Ribbon Tree” by Christopher Woods
“Uproar is your only music” by Miranda Saake
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“Down South” by Danny P. Barbare
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“wondering after dreams” by Ed Higgins
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“Omniscience” and "Managerial" by Michael Moreth
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William Doreski
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Ketch and Yawl
The thick and paddle-shaped leaves
of the afternoon try to shade us,
but we keep moving despite
our best interests, which otherwise
would shield our flesh from itself
and each other. The summer day
prolongs in conversations that sail
like ketch and yawl, dodging
with the whims of windy currents.
Those leaves could, in fact, be sails,
trying to entice us to set forth
on the shallow river fussing
and slopping at the edge of town.
We don’t stand still long enough
to rig a boat that wouldn’t sink
under the weight of our politics.
The plants that bear those massive leaves
spread the word underground where
nearly every plot originates,
even those requiring running water
and a grave sense of humor.
to ripen themselves into action.
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William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.
Bee Wright
Vivisection Is A Beautiful Word
If you cut my heart down the coronal plane.
Laid the halves out locket-style,
You would find cat hair,
Cigarette ash,
And a DVD box set of The Simpsons, seasons 1-10.
Taco Bell receipts from 2023,
Those flimsy plastic bracelets doormen wrap around my wrist at every show,
And the unmistakable smell of fear.
A tape recorder that only plays back the sound of my best friend’s laugh,
A sticky note detailing the bones of the next great American novel,
And finally,
Underneath it all,
A circular compact mirror.
Everything I love and everything I do is a reflection.
I have a scavenger’s heart.
I’m just borrowing things.
That really funny joke I made two weeks ago was probably a line I heard on a podcast while
driving home from work.
You flip the mirror over.
Engraved on the back are the words “You look good today.”
Even after you cut me open,
I’ll still find something nice to say about you.
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Bee Wright is a non-binary spoken word artist and creative organizer based in Denton, Texas. They often perform around town in venues like Bramblitt’s Yellow Dog Art Bar & Gallery, Patchouli Joe’s, Aura Coffee, and the iconic Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios. Their work explores loss, transformation, and the full spectrum of emotion. Their writing aims to connect to their readers, reminding them they are never truly alone. You can find their poems in the Yellow Dog Literary Zine (Issue One) and on their Instagram @beewrightofficial.
Christopher Woods
Roots of the Mythical Ribbon Tree
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Christopher Woods is a writer and photographer based in Texas. His monologue show, "Twelve from Texas" was performed recently in NYC by Equity Library Theatre. His poetry collection, Maybe Birds Would Carry It Away, was published by Kelsay Books.
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Find his visual gallery at - https://christopherwoods.zenfolio.com/f861509283
Miranda Saake
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Uproar is your only music
Nothing more terrifying
than a woman’s desire.
Electric thrush
song
Not for your pleiades
efforts will she bend
to your will. No secret
escapes her grasp.
Only
scent of citrus, burning
woods, two halves
of a locket. How many
crescent sorrows
has she weathered
to remain
this free?
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Miranda Saake is a writer, teacher, and mother from Northern California. She began writing as a child, and has never stopped. Her work is deeply inspired by mythology, tarot, memory, rage, sex, love, and the unending beauty of the human world.
Danny P. Barbare
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Down South
Just make it
simple
says the poet
blossoms
on a magnolia
and sweet gardenias
words of
a poem in
summer
down South.
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Danny P. Barbare is an award winning poet. His poetry has appeared in California Quarterly, Cardinal Sins, Birmingham Arts Journal, and The Grey Hound.
Ed Higgins
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wondering after dreams
once again
I find you troubling my dreams
more often now
that you are so distant
only the remembered
whisper of your light breathing
lying here beside me
vanished, wanting to call you back
my own lungs
like yeast feeding on loss
the fermentation
dull, left too long, unrisen
you still rise and fall
in broken dreams of remembering
the lonely strangeness
of rising awake alone by myself
and already my dreams
have become less true
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Ed Higgins' poems and short fiction have appeared in various print and online journals. Ed is Asst. Fiction Editor for Brilliant Flash Fiction. He has a small organic farm in Yamhill, OR, raising a menagerie of animals—including a rooster named StarTrek. A collection of his poems, “Near Truth Only,” has recently been published by Fernwood Press, Dec., 2022.
Jeff Burt
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Rosary
A small necklace of ladybugs
plump from harvesting aphids
rings the rose bud, twenty
or more threaded like a thick chain,
baubles, not showy stones
but a rosary worn by fingers,
their humped backs in humble
posture soon to wing,
perhaps relieved of regret and grief
by a power not their own.
I hesitate to prune, hold the clippers
to my side, sit in the sunshine
on the rock wall, breathe deeply.
With the ladybugs, I count, recite.
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Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He has contributed to Williwaw Journal, Dog Throat Journal, Lowestoft Chronicle, Main Street Rag, and won the 2017 Cold Mountain Review Narrative Poetry Prize. More work of his can be found at https://www.jeff-burt.com
Michael Moreth
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Omniscience and Managerial
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​​Michael Moreth is a recovering Chicagoan living in the rural, micropolitan city of Sterling, the Paris of Northwest Illinois.
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Stasia Todd
nocturne
still afraid of the dark
still frightened by night
to fear what I can not see
I must shiver at the thought of
a mirror
most fearing who can look
back at me
terrified at what little moonlight
I may feel
the same night that bats crave
a night full of beauty and feast
not contained to only a cave
when freedom is in reach
to aviate little brown wings
without mankind burdening,
and looking at me
like I am the one who is diseased,
some sort of flesh eating beast
why can’t man see I am worthy too
I pollinate just like bees
I am part of dusks painting
of midnights colors and hues
the night a religious experience
cascading its dark
with or
without you
the night crickets
mute the silence
with song
like nature piano keys,
some of us do belong
nocturnal light
so withered and sparse
may be scary for someone like me
a product of man
I do not see the same hues
as a more virtuous creature
who can appreciate the night
of all of its foreign blues
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Stasia/Stacie Todd is a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design. She spends her days making art, writing poetry, and sitting in nature. Poetry is one of her only true escapes; the most vulnerable part of her expression.
