KN Magazine: Poetry
NIGHTPLANTER
A laborer pauses in a pine grove, struggling against weakness while continuing the quiet, necessary work of cutting stalks so they may grow again. In “Nightplanter,” Al Baron reflects on unseen labor, endurance, and the tension between personal memory and the anonymous work history requires.
FRANKLIN, ALONE?
In “Franklin, Alone?” John Grey crafts a haunting meditation on identity, memory, and isolation. Through surreal imagery—frost that deceives, an owl singing backward, and a hare leaving no trace—the poem explores the fragile line between reality and forgetting. As the speaker questions whether the name “Franklin” belongs to him or merely to the room around him, the poem drifts into a quiet psychological mystery about the erosion of self.
Butterflies
In “Butterflies,” Holly Day twists beauty and decay into a startling meditation on death. Imagining a world where brilliant moths and jewel-toned butterflies emerge from human corpses, this provocative poem challenges our revulsion toward mortality and asks whether transformation would change the way we grieve. Lyrical, unsettling, and philosophical, it confronts the thin boundary between horror and wonder.
BARHOPPING
In “Barhopping,” Al Baron traces a restless night through numbered bars, blurred memories, and unresolved ghosts. What begins as casual drinking becomes an uneasy reckoning with the past—old wounds, shared trauma, and the illusion of escape. Sharp, surreal, and darkly reflective, this poem explores guilt, repetition, and the way entrances and exits can feel equally impossible.
THE DIMMER GLOW
A twilight meditation where landscape, memory, and unease converge. “The Dimmer Glow” moves through dusk and darkness, blurring the line between what is seen and what is remembered, as the mind turns inward and finds meaning not in brilliance, but in the quiet pull of fading light.
Concerning Love
In spare, meditative lines, Concerning Love explores silence, memory, and tenderness as acts of listening. This poem reflects on what remains unspoken, suggesting that love endures not through declaration, but through the quiet depths that bind the anguished heart.
exploring the heart with clinical precision
A visceral, intimate poem that uses medical imagery and anatomy to explore vulnerability, trust, love, and the delicate work of healing emotional wounds without leaving scars.
Dust to Dust: Milepost 466
A haunting desert drive becomes a collision of memory, myth, and terror as a lone traveler confronts the revenants of her past and something far darker lurking on Route 264. A poem of place, dread, and the thin veil between the living and what listens in the night.
Rapeseed
In Rapeseed, Olivia Pierce Graham reflects on memory, voice, and self-interrogation through lyrical precision and haunting restraint. The poem’s quiet intensity explores how identity and sincerity shift across time—what remains, what disappears, and what still speaks back from the page.
Wounded, The Morning
In Wounded, The Morning, poet Clark Hays captures the fragile beauty and quiet brutality of dawn in an urban landscape. Through imagery of shattered glass and blooming flowers, Hays contrasts destruction and renewal, revealing how even a city shaped like a broken heart can glow with light, resilience, and rebirth.
AVOID THE TREES
In Avoid the Trees, Al Baron delivers a striking poem of observation and memory. Through eucalyptus trees, smoke, and the weight of aftermath, the poem confronts both imagination and reality—reminding us it’s sometimes safer to turn away than to face what remains.
YOU’RE JUST A PHOTOGRAPH AFTER ALL
In You’re Just a Photograph After All by John Grey, a haunting image comes alive in memory. The poem explores grief, intimacy, and the unsettling persistence of presence after death.
Timeless Butterfly
In Timeless Butterfly, Gary Ramsey reflects on aging, memory, and enduring beauty through the quiet admiration of a woman transformed by time. With lyrical grace, the poem celebrates resilience, wisdom, and the unseen radiance that persists beneath life’s surface.
Paper Birds
In Paper Birds, Claudia Wysocky delivers a powerful meditation on freedom, fragility, and the pursuit of dreams. Soaring with rich imagery and emotional depth, the poem explores what it means to chase transcendence in a world bound by gravity, time, and impermanence.
TURNIPS IN SOUTHERN TENNESSEE STILL
In Turnips in Southern Tennessee Still, poet Michael Lee Johnson weaves imagery of moonshine, memory, and spiritual doubt into a haunting meditation on the Southern landscape. With echoes of violence, history, and surreal reflection, this poem explores the blurry lines between faith, myth, and rural truth.
TRAUMA: SEE MEDICAL FOOTNOTE
A ruptured relationship leaves behind more than emotional bruises in TRAUMA: SEE MEDICAL FOOTNOTE. Cary B. Ziter’s visceral poem fuses medical metaphor and emotional wreckage in a raw, surreal meditation on heartbreak, memory, and the lingering heat of a love turned catastrophic.
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