Four Poems by Lauren Arienzale

simple

to live one hundred years
in a quarter of the time

and still savor tomorrow

that is my gift

containing

and here i am,
spilling the confetti of my psyche
wild and colorful and violently messy
on the floor of your office

and here you are,
calling my chaos wonderful
and holding up my madness
with the upmost care

queer experience

the words leave your mouth
how i imagine
fire must spread

it is an ember of good intentions
and then
a forest fire of twisted holiness

because you say, “i’ll pray for you,”
but really mean,
“we’ll never meet in heaven.”

bloodline

the day you died
i stood by the body
while they cried and prayed and argued

the plague was only in its first summer
then, and i was foolishly hopeful

wishing on shooting stars in the backyard
and begging the solar system to make me braver.

---

Lauren Arienzale is a cat mom, doctoral student in clinical psychology, former organic farmer, and lifelong poet. She is the author of the independently published poetry collection, "Mud Pie.” Her work has also appeared in Scapegoat Review, The Closed Eye Open (Maya’s Micros), and A Plate of Pandemic. Check out her website: laurenarienzale.com

"Forever Spring" by Vincent Jobson

SNHU Mountainview MFA Student

See there just now. Be still, take a breath.
Witness the flower as it grows to the light.
Above its stem to rise, witness all the wonder of life.

New in its form not ready to bloom, it must decide of its own heart the form it shall assume. As in mystery it grows within, doth not it resembles the others of the bed?
Yet when the moment arrives, will not its countenance be unique and pleasing to behold?
Behold the fullness, as the wind caresses its beauty and draws forth its essence that it might begin again.

Look there and be still. Whilst wind and rain and moon and tide do change, life awaits still.
And shall from yore make complete, all that once was be again.
Yet still repeat with its own unique countenance.

See there just now. Take heed and remember.
Exhale, for life is ever-changing as the river and the moon.
Always similar, yet never the same.

---

Vincent is an Aviation Maintenance professional who has enjoyed a distinguished career for the last twenty-five years. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing/English in February 2023 and is now in his second semester of graduate school at SNHU pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing. Though his chosen genre remains Mystery/Thrillers, Vincent enjoys the challenge of trying new types of writing including Non-Fiction, Essay, and the occasional poem. He says his fascination for interdisciplinary writing stems from his favorite quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

"Knock, Knock" by Laine Derr

She compared in poems
her vagina to a grapefruit (so)
I brought sugar to her door.

---

Laine Derr holds an MFA from Northern Arizona University and has published interviews with Carl Phillips, Ross Gay, Ted Kooser, and Robert Pinsky. Work has appeared or is forthcoming from The Amistad, Mantis, J Journal, Full Bleed + The Phillips Collection, ZYZZYVA, Portland Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.

"Shower Orange" by Mia Stone-Molloy

We step in still undressing
The time to take on risk
Running out

Her hands are small like mine
Half of our fingers interlaced
Her other five wrapped around an orange–
Bright like bait and sweet as a strategy;
Palm-shaped and water-full

The steam carries the citric mist
Hissing when we crack it open
We let the peel fall
Resting around our feet
Like the butchered map of a round world

And we eat like
It's the only thing we can say to our ancestors
Divided by everything flowing and breaking in the earth
And we eat like
3000 years of guilt
Is gathering in the drain

We hold each other while the window rattles
While something small inside us shivers
And I know
God will find the goodness between us
In the same unconditional way
I must love everyone to love someone shifting
And I know
Evolution will find a purpose within us
In the same unthinking way
It lets things live that are good at living

But we do not ask permission to be enticed
We let the stickiness spill
And trust the falling water to keep us clean

---

Mia Stone-Molloy (she/her) is a labor organizer and poet with a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science from Brown University and a passion for the connection between personal and societal healing. Equally important to understanding who she is and what she writes, she is Brazilian, queer, neurodivergent, a reader of tarot, a lover of nature, and a defender of human goodness. Her poetry and prose can soon be found in “An Encyclopedia of Radical Helping,” to be published by Thick Press in the fall.

"Limits of Vibration" by Samuel Gilpin

there is this
violent hierarchy
among the life
of vision,
in the willingness
to sacrifice
its only reference—

still, the noun
echoes
the pine,

still, the windows
steam, responding
to some sun
in its masking—

everything
remains on its scale—

I am not trained
to endure frustration,
please,
tell me my dreams
do not exist—

---

Samuel Gilpin is a poet living in Portland, OR, who holds a Ph.D. in English Lit. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which explains why he works as a door to door salesman. A Prism Review Poetry Contest winner, he has served as the Poetry Editor of Witness Magazine and Book Review Editor of Interim. A Cleveland State University First Book Award finalist, his work has appeared in various journals and magazines, most recently in The Bombay Gin, Omniverse, and Colorado Review. His chapbook Self-Portraits as a Reddening Sky will be out soon from Cathexis Press.

"untitled for baths" by Emma Durbin

I used to run into the woods and sing with the trees.
I used to return home, run the tap, and steam my problems away.
I used to love baths.

Now I have a cheap tub,
aged caulk,
too many roommates,
and an aching block of anxiety across my chest.

I used to love baths.
But now all I can do is shower and remember:
That outdoor rain-head in Italy
with the lemon shampoo
and my almost private view of Vesuvio.

But now all I can do is shower and remember:
That hot tub in Washington,
open and under the stars.

But now all I can do is shower and daydream: A hot spring.
Bright and colorful lights dancing above our heads.
The taste of sweat and rain and forest on your breath.
Wishing it was me there, with you.

---

Emma Durbin (they/them) is a Chicago-based playwright, poet, dramaturg, and theatre producer. Their writing often centers women and people who are experiencing gender marginalization, and the bonds they form in search of survival, community, and joy. Plays in development include: landscape (workshopped at Mirrorbox Theatre and Valdez Theatre Conference, 2022 Premiere Play Festival semi-finalist, 2024 Irons in the Fire at Fault Line Theatre semifinalist, 2023 NAP Series at Normal Ave finalist, and 2023 LAB Series at The Inkwell Theater finalist), Witchcraft, Bitchcraft (2022 commission by Pocket Theatre VR), and overgrown (winter 2023 Jackalope Playwrights Lab). Emma is a co-founder and artistic producer of Freshly Brewed, a new play development series for emerging Chicago writers, produced by The Understudy Coffee and Books and fiscally sponsored by Raven Theatre. Emma attended the New Play Dramaturgy Intensive at the Kennedy Center with Mark Bly and has a BFA in Playwriting from The Theatre School at DePaul University Dean’s Prize Recipient). Please visit emmadurbin.com to learn more.

"Coke in Time" by L. Lois

“Renewal” contributor

hours slowed
to a crawl
as I waited
unable to work
without a car
high in the hills
of East Africa

what could I do
until the permits
and colleagues
arrived to whisk
us all into
action
with the sun setting the beat

every day
I thanked my hosts for breakfast
and walked
the dusty roads
coming back at three o'clock
precisely, with a whiff of desperation
for an unrefrigerated Coke in its glass bottle

L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting through her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies, nor time. Her essays have appeared in the Globe and Mail, her recent poetry In Parentheses and Woodland Pattern.

"Exquisite Corpse #05" by Ruth Towne

“Renewal” contributor

this is what I worked out in secret
gravity is part of the falls
flame devours vapor to make the light

now my passport is blank
so is the ancient map

I folded on its even creases
thin troughs soft as riverbeds

geothermal steam rises around me
from earth, a vapor like sunrise
as delicate, as brief

by this river, down this path
I’ve been running barefoot,
like how we used to swim then
when we were small children

leaping in tumbling seas
our salt-wet skin glinting like scales

then, when we were secretless
creatures content in their make believe play
daughters of the water swimming
with mermaids in the waves

this is what I worked out in secret
we have more to be because we are here
we have never been as much as we are

Ruth Towne is an emerging poet. Her poem "J°@n M!r°'s Mannequin" appeared in Assignment Literary Magazine's summer issue "Renewal." Her debut collection, Resurrection of the Mannequins, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books. Other poems from her project have been published by the The Lily Poetry Review, Decadent Review, New Feathers Anthology, Coffin Bell Journal, Arboreal Literary Magazine, and Anodyne Magazine.She is currently the co-editor of poetry for the Stonecoast Review.

"Casio 1301 MTA-4000" by Agniv Sarkar

Last night I was locked in my father’s watch,
hidden away in a dark drawer,
counting blind.
The timer started to roll over as soon as
its hands began to approach the hour.

I woke up from the dream,
sickly sweat under the watch.
It was scared of its half-truths,
from analog to digital,
from form to function.

Once, time slipped from my grasp,
but still it clung to me.
The watch was old and it kept
the old time, so it felt heavy on the hand.
Without it, the lightness felt dizzying,
the time lost.

As soon as I could, I reclaimed the time
I aimed to make it mine.
And those who saw it paused.
Gave it more than a seconds thought (the watch knew),
and it had moved on from being my father’s.

Agniv Sarkar is a student of mathematics and philosophy, leaving high school early to further these pursuits. He found poetry through philosophy and found the intersection of the two able to create the most beautiful artwork.