KN Magazine: Poetry

John Grey Shane McKnight John Grey Shane McKnight

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.

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Holly Day Shane McKnight Holly Day Shane McKnight

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.

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Al Baron Shane McKnight Al Baron Shane McKnight

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.

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John Grey Shane McKnight John Grey Shane McKnight

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.

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Cary B. Ziter Shane McKnight Cary B. Ziter Shane McKnight

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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