Welcome to the Inaugural Edition of Balestra! We’re happy to have you here. This first edition is, in many ways, an experiment, throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. So we’re incredibly excited to feature a wide variety of art forms, prose, poetry, and visual art, from an incredible array of contributors.
These include Terry Trowbridge, a widely published poet offering deliciously rich and complex imagery; Madeleine Claire, a writer flipping traditional understandings of mythology and reflecting on mundane forms of destruction; KJ Hannah Greenberg, who offers visual art that is vibrant, nuanced, and texturally scrumptious; rob mclennan, a cornerstone member of the Canadian small press industry offering an intimate and reflective series of poems; k.m. Lee, an ostomy awareness advocate and emerging artist bursting onto the scene with their chillingly evocative prose poetry; Michael Edward Supranowicz, a visual artist and poet working with explosive colours and popping contrasts; Wendy Webb, a poet whose work drips with English charm and memories of long dead warriors; Ruth E. Thomas, who brings us a selection of intriguing and thought-provoking poetic narratives; Gregory Betts, an Avant Garde poet exploring the boundaries of the poetic form with fascinating and abstract visual art; Kate Hartman, whose epic prose offers the kind of violently realistic depiction of swordplay only those with personal experience can offer; Chris Litsey, a writer capturing liminal moments and the soft breaths between seconds with his elegant poetry; Wylan Clitheroe, a multimedia artist offering a vicious and uncomfortable glimpse in the experience of living in a traumatized world; B.B.F, an anonymous poet speaking truth to Smurf and exploring the nature of happiness; Kristen Brittain, a lifelong nature-lover connecting the rhythms of nature to the simple joys of human life; and Kassandra Dowell, who turns the dreadful march of time into a gentle and intimate experience with her captivating imagery.
We encourage you to comment your thoughts, share your favourite pieces, subscribe for more, and most importantly, enjoy!
Terry Trowbridge
“Pushcart Prize nominee, researcher & farmer Terry Trowbridge’s poems are in Pennsylvania Literary Journal, MasticadoresUSA, Poetry Pacific, Carousel, Lascaux Review, Carmina, untethered, Progenitor, Miracle Monocle, Orbis, Pinhole, Big Windows, Muleskinner, Brittle Star, Mathematical Intelligencer, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, New Note, Hearth and Coffin, Beatnik Cowboy, Delta Poetry Review, Stick Figure, miniMAG, and 100+ more. His lit crit is in BeZine, Erato, Amsterdam Review, Ariel, British Columbia Review, Hamilton Arts & Letters, Episteme, Studies in Social Justice, Rampike, Seeds, and The /t3mz/ Review. His Erdös number is 5. Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first two writing grants.”
Medusa Oblongata
Fossilized brain, or crenelated rock?
Both: coral.
A perfect metonymical image
of submerged states of consciousness,
slow-breath of thought, as like through an apparatus,
the heaviness of sleep,
the difficulty of critical thinking in watery cold,
the ease of kinesthetic intelligence under pressure,
the computations that wetware can do.
Madeleine Claire
“Madeleine Claire (she/her) is a writer and poet studying English at Carleton University. Her stories and poems have previously been published in journals such as Toasted Cheese and 101 words. She also self-published a poetry collection, We Are All Seeds of the Earth. She is an avid reader, writer, and lover of Greek history. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, painting, and playing with her cat.”
Medusa Reborn
I. Death of the Monster
Blood stains the cave in Sarpedon where your body decays. It leaks from your body in ribbons of black thread into the arrogant ocean ravaging the rocks below. Generations to come will weave your story, an invocation of fear, the disfigured stitching in a pantheon of beautifully crafted tapestries.
You are crownless: your scaled neck is a stump, a confounding emptiness where days ago sat a head, a flowering of gory capillaries and veins into a face, and now... nothing. Somewhere in the universe a boy—he will pass in history as a hero—holds your head in a bag, uses your stare against his enemies. Even in death you are a puppet for others.
Everything is still; the wind is but a whisper that carries your memory to villages and palaces, spreading the news: the Gorgon is slain.
II. The Hero’s Deed
The end of your story unravels, the threads unaware of their imminent fate.
Your dreams are thick and violent, filled with gods and hatred.
Carefully, the boy breathes in the brackish air of the cave, trying not to wake you. He calls to his precious goddess of war to steady his hand and, gazing into his shield, gracefully arches his sword to take his prize, his certificate of manhood.
Your nightmare ends.
Life is born of your lost life: glossy-coated Pegasus emerges, whinnying and fluttering angelic wings into the sky, and golden warrior Chrysaor too, his love of bloodshed born of your bloodshed.
III. Lamentation of the Punished
You crouch at the mouth of the cavern, a bronze claw supporting the weight of your swollen belly. When the goddess cursed you, she locked within you the seeds of the sea god, a festering reminder of your fate.
You glare at the sea with stony eyes, an unerupted scream tearing through your body. Curse the gods! Curse them! You want to yell it; you want to hurl yourself into the ocean. You’ve known the sea’s touch unwillingly before; maybe this time it will drown you. Instead, you stand here seething with unspoken rage, serpents hissing your pain.
Where now are serpents, there once was glossy hair; where scales, there once was milky skin. You used to be beautiful, not that you miss it. Beauty was a curse that allowed men and gods to think they could stick their filthy fingers into your heart. Red muscle pulsing, oozing, now hammering against your ribs, your heart is violated. Oh, to rip it out, tear it to shreds with your fangs, blood melting down your chin in a way that might appease the violence inside of you.
You turn your back from the open air and waddle into the cave, to your darkness and the calcified bodies of past invaders.
IV. Divine Wrath
Her grey eyes explode into fiery white flames that lick at your soul, and you double under the heat of her unbridled rage. “Forgive me,” you beg, over and over, “forgive me,” but the goddess is dishonoured and cannot be tamed.
It’s not your fault; you wish she would see that this was not your fault. You were taken against your will, and now, yet again, you fall at the mercy of the merciless gods. Suddenly, your skin is fire. You watch your hands, at first small and slender, gnarl into bronze talons; your arms encrust with thick scales; your hair writhes and wriggles into serpents, forked tongues licking your cheeks, venom dripping from their jaws like honey libations.
You fall to the floor of the temple that you cleaned every day for your goddess. And your loyalty meant nothing, for when the monstrous god of the sea came to steal your chastity on the sacred altar, she did not save you. She punished you.
And you are the monster now.
V. Hopeful Beginnings
The temple shines with power; the grey-eyed goddess is your protector, preserving your beautiful face from the greedy men of the world. You promise to devote yourself to her entirely.
You collect the patera filled with oxen’s thick, black blood and pour it over the altar outside, a token of thanks to your goddess. The vessel feels natural in your soft hands, like you were made for this; your elegant reflection stares hope back at you. You smile, watching your offering trickle down the altar in a dreamy, the first thread of your story.
You wonder where it will take you.
Canned Cherries
At the end of every August,
we gathered the cherries that grew
in the garden at Grandma’s cottage,
canned them in Mason jars
that collected dust in the top shelf of her kitchen.
It was a day-long process:
picking, pitting, preserving
these little red hearts
spread across the counter.
Our fingers were stained with the blood
of the fruit,
our ungracious lips, too,
in the sweet, scarlet juice.
During our long drives home,
the jars would clatter in the trunk,
hollow clang, click, clash
of tender hearts
bashed by carelessness, inattentiveness,
and I’d wince imagining the bruises
imparted on saddened, rosy flesh.
Was it revenge, then,
that the lids were impossible to open,
as if our palms were slicked in oil?
Sometimes Dad had to smash the jars,
glass cutting into cherries new scars.
“What a waste,” Mom would sigh,
pondering the hammered,
hemorrhaged flesh
curdled in the steel sink.
But we’d soon forget the lost fruit anyways,
washing the sweet juices away,
grabbing the next jar of cherries.
KJ Hannah Greenberg
“KJ Hannah Greenberg uses her trusty point-and-shoot camera to capture the order of G-d's universe, and Paint 3D to capture her personal chaos. Sometimes, it’s insufficient for her to sate herself by applying verbal whimsy to pastures where gelatinous wildebeests roam or fey hedgehogs play. Hannah’s poetry and art collections are: Miscellaneous Parlor Tricks (Seashell Books, 2024, Forthcoming), Word Magpie (Audience Askew, 2024), Subrogation (Seashell Books, 2023), and One-Handed Pianist (Hekate Publishing, 2021).”
Explosive Sentiments
Not Quite Unified
Panels
rob mclennan
“The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, rob mclennan’s most recent titles include the poetry collection World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023), a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022) and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). His collection of short stories, On Beauty (University of Alberta Press) will appear in fall 2024. robmclennan.blogspot.com”
Five poems for the moon landing
1.
In archival footage, Neil Armstrong steps forever
onto the windless surface
of humanity’s first poem. His right boot pressed
more permanent than stone.
To paraphrase Spicer: Hold to a past
that saw the future
with firm hands.
2.
Twenty years to that day, my father monologued
the moon landing in our homestead kitchen
for five minutes, before I realized
he was speaking
to me. And then he went outside,
continuing his work day
unabated.
3.
That day he landed, fell
to earth. On Adam’s Peak, a terran
counterpoint. The left foot
speculates.
4.
This half-century of origins: the eagle
has landed. Rocketman, Starman, whether
life exists on Mars.
Remember: on prime time,
a contemporary police detective
disappeared from his desk
to land at the end
of the Nixon era.
A speechless
crackling score.
5.
From lunar targets,
a search
for the good. My father
grounded, finally. A wheelchair path
through familial space.
Excuse me: a Major Tom
is here, sir. He has brought with him
a list of questions.
One giant leap
across a lesser gravity.
Find More Of rob’s Work At:
@robmclennan.bsky.social on Bluesky
@robmclennanblog on X (Formerly Twitter)
k.m. Lee
“The author of this poem goes by the pen name k.m. Lee and they've been writing poetry for about ten years. Their life had been one traumatic event after another while also being poured on by love. They try to write their poems in a way that makes it personal to themselves, while also allowing anyone reading to still be able to find a way to relate and connect to their words and give it their own meaning. They hope you find refuge in their writing, as they strive for nothing less than their entire soul on their pages.”
Content Warning: sexual assault
I dip one foot in. Hesitant. It's cold. But it's drawing me forward still. Unknowingly I'm up to my chin. Periodically I feel it veil my lips. A small leak lets in a gentle stream. I thought I closed my mouth. Oh well, it's too late now. I'll just choke it down. Chlorine. A sharp chemical, but I've tasted it before. My mom always told me not to. She told me it was bad. Maybe I should have tried harder to keep my mouth closed. I look up. The sky is turning gray. It's going to rain soon. I take a deep breath and close my eyes before I sink to the floor. Fully submerged. No going back. All of me touched by the water. I can't swim. Heavy waterlogged bones weighing me down. But maybe if I hold my breath, I can float. I count to three before finally rising to the surface. I take an exhaustive gasp of air before I hold my breath. I'll just lay here a while. Maybe the sky will change again and the rain will pass. Maybe if I don't say anything, if I just hold my breath, I can float. I can hold my breath. I sway my arms through the water softly. Like a water bug. I can't get out. I'm trapped here now. But I can float. Just hold your breath and you won't sink. I can float.
<Water Bug>
Find More Of k.m. Lee’s Work At:
Edward Michael Supranowicz
“Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, The Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet who has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.”
Night Confetti 2
Oh Really4c2
Wendy Webb
“WENDY WEBB, from the North Midlands, UK, prolific poet, experimenting with many modern and traditional forms and reading historic poets extensively. She ran a small press poetry magazine; won some awards; and is recently published with Reach, Sarasvati, Quantum Leap, Crystal, Seventh Quarry, The Journal, Frogmore Papers, Acumen and online through Wildfire Words, Littoral Magazine, Lothlorien, Atlantean, Poetry Wivenhoe, Drawn to the Light (Ireland), Seagulls (Canada) and Autumn Voices, and local radio on Poetry Place. Landscapes: Amazon.co.uk: Webb, Wendy Ann, Norris-Kay, David, Meek, CT, Meek, Norris-Kay, David: 9798851001659: Books”
Spuddle Shades Ouse Night
Daily, light bleeds into morning yawns,
milling with shops, queues, tourist
dalliance up the Shambles,
finally, settling like a curtain into shades.
Eastenders appals, like that man beneath
on a bench, routine as night and day.
Except, it’s not Blakean as little people/spectres:
one had a close shave in a barber’s chair,
another punter propped up the bar too long
(doubtless after a too-stiff drink)
in The Golden Fleece.
Crossed to the other side for phantoms
of crisps and cider with a floating cow,
sky and clouds like the Second Coming.
Awash with ancient stone, tidal as King Canute,
the view’s to die for… or to come again.
Ghouls of Romans or Vikings daily along the Ouse.
Maybe you will get there sooner...
Maybe I will see you next with the rumbling oil and leathers
as Harleys descend on Sheringham,
the clatter-shout of Vikings on the tide.
Or that well-dressed Guard blowing his whistle,
waving flag as steam spreads beneath the bridge,
along the track to Holt.
Maybe you will remember the Butcher’s shop or Chippy
at East Runton, or the Village Inn (West)
to the scurrying of field mice in the Beer Garden.
Maybe the Queen will give you that telegram, later,
although her Lady-in-Waiting wrote apologising
and – same age – you left, latterly, sooner…
Maybe Hunstanton won’t flood the campsite knee-deep
to the clatter-clack of ridge tents/sodden sleeping bags
in a field at 2am.
So perhaps we can meet there, reminisce,
or find a Bar with Family Room open on Sundays,
unlike sweat-dread North Wales of nostalgia.
Broad Summer’s Fleet
I walked slow in a heatwave to the hide:
now closed down (there’s no view), I want to try
brash flitting through deep undergrowth, to ride
dense airs broom-broad as vast East Anglian sky.
No magic (there’s no view), I want to fly;
(my stick was left behind in a parked car).
Now closed, my damselfly gait heatwaves by
vast airs, through undergrowth breathed dust-dense far.
May slowly flitting dragonflies, sky-high,
want reeds’ deep rides of broad East Anglian roots.
Then whisper, land-locked butterflies, espy
a cabbage white best seed-spot fleet for shoots.
Find More Of Wendy’s Work In:
Lothlorien Poetry Journal Volume 31
Ruth E. Thomas
"Ruth E. Thomas studied law (contributing to various academic articles) before moving into project management. She is a bibliophile and a lover of prose and poetry. Living in Wales, UK, Ruth enjoys walking beautiful coastlines and is a regular at literature festivals. You can find her often in the Town of Books.
She has work pending publication in ionosphere and Subliminal Surgery journals."
The Library of Bird Wings
The books that I borrowed are half-read and half-perused. They’re due back today. I take a left turn on the steel-faced streets. I make my way to the tomes’ home, down a homely street with trees lined up like soldiers.
I enter the yellow-brick library with its glossy, glassy windows. I realise that I don’t have the books. The plum librarian stares at my disheveled head and looks like she hates the world. My nerves ignite like burning paper. I pick up the nearest book to keep my hands and eyes busy. It’s about the Holocaust, and I think, “I hate reading about this. It’s too horrific to read about. The act of reading about it, to me, suggests that it’s digestible, manageable to read about. And it isn’t. If I read it, my body will reject it.”
My mind darts to avoid thinking about the contents pressed within those curling pages, thumbed by so many minds before. But I don’t want to upset the librarian by not being interested in her books or by making her think that I disdain the messages within their brutal bird wing pages, pages feathered with lessons. So I still look through the vibrating work with sweaty fingertips. I know that it contains lessons, but I don’t want to hear them right now; not on top of the world’s current curated chaos, not on top of my own personal, raw and bleeding griefs.
Still, the awkwardness of a judging gaze urges me on to examine the pages. I flick through, to not offend, trying to numb my eyes. As I do so, the pages transform into history...:
I see the people massing.
I see the people marching.
I see Hitler ranting.
I see it all in front of me.
The world lit up in hues of red and sadness.
I am consumed by the taste of tragedy and terror.
I spin around.
I get an idea:
If I rip out the pages, I can erase this part of history. All those unlucky, discarded people won’t have to suffer. I start to rip the pages out, but the papers fly high above me, each page becoming a paper aeroplane, floating out of history’s reach.
I heal the hurts of time.
I steal the victories of evil.
A librarian, one of history’s keepers, rushes over to me, panicked and frightened. I’m frightened too. She tries to save the pages/bird wings/aeroplanes, as I run away and hide from the stories and the lessons that they share.
Singing Like The Drowning
Their arguments don’t burn anymore, they blister; get infected and leave scars. And she picks at the reminders-to-be, over and over again, until they both feel like the drowning; screaming or singing the sea shanties of the doomed.
The day Rachel found the photographs was the day that she found out that she was pregnant. They didn’t show anything other than a family picnic, scotch eggs and picnic pie. Beer for the boys and prosecco for everyone but the kids. They sipped the bubbles from the lemonade or water from sippy cups or forgot to drink anything at all.
They were nice pictures. Amy’s hair was spun up in ribbons of blue and gold. The only problem was that Rachel was not there. The only problem was that Paul had his arm lovingly around Amy’s waist. That he kissed her on the lips in the background, near the weeping willow trees, the photographer unaware. The only problem was that Amy wore the dress that Rachel had bought as her last birthday gift. The only trouble was that they made Rachel want to kill Paul. It was a betrayal dressed up in plaid blankets and sun. Where had she been that day and what had they done?
And, you know, stress is not good for the baby.
Moments clustered around, like flies to dirty food, and she threw them all away (memories can be overwritten).
She packed her bags and left on a Sunday, leaving crumbs from her lunch on the work surface and a bunch of crumbled plans.
Paul cried for the visions of his future, each one perishing as she packed.
But now their arguments don’t burn, nor blister. They ache and quake then die. Their matted scars provide a familiar backdrop, but the blades are put away.
From an Evolutionary Perspective
I dreamt that each of my eyes was a different shape and my left eye was stalked,
I used it to look around corners and over high chromatic walls,
It was better, from an evolutionary perspective,
I dreamt that my navel was actually a button and pressing it would light my bulbous belly,
I used its glow to explore the greatest depths, full of murky beauty and grime,
It was better, from an evolutionary perspective,
I dreamt my womb was like a vending machine through which you could make a quick
exchange,
I inserted coins and out came my child, in this perfect dream, fresh and problem-free,
I guess it was better, from an evolutionary perspective,
I dreamt that just above my hairline, there was a little dial, that I could use to adjust my hearing,
I made it very sensitive and listened for the sounds of evil and eavesdropped on gossips and backstabbers,
I guess it was better, from an evolutionary perspective,
I dreamt that I had a drawer, at the bottom of my shins, and in it would drip the excess fat and poisons I consumed,
I could remove the rubbish in the night and throw it in the bin,
It was better, from an evolutionary perspective,
I dreamt that I owned five hearts,
Lub Lub Lub Lub Lub
Dub Dub Dub Dub Dub,
They all beat in a row,
Each time one was broken, the others would pick up its beats,
It was better, from an evolutionary perspective
I dreamt that I had a hundred avatars, each with my own face,
But I could decide which emotions each showed so that I could hide my pain and so that you never felt uncomfortable looking my way,
It was better, I guess, from an evolutionary perspective,
I dreamt that my memory had an editing suite and I could sit and pick you out of it,
I would barely remember you now...
Maybe it was better from an evolutionary perspective,
I dreamt that my chest was a hard leather suitcase,
Where I stored books, clothes, love, and lockets of sympathy,
I could take things out when I didn’t need them and I removed a lot of things when you abandoned me,
It was better, from an evolutionary perspective.
It was better, from an evolutionary perspective.
Find Ruth Online At:
Gregory Betts
“Gregory Betts is a poet and professor at Brock University. His work consistently explores concrete, constrained, or collaborative poetics. He is the author of 11 books of poetry, including recent titles such as BardCode (UK, 2024), Foundry (Ireland 2021), The Fabulous Op (Ireland 2021, with Gary Barwin), and Sweet Forme (Australia 2020). His poems have been stenciled into the sidewalks of St. Catharines and selected by the SETI Institute to be implanted into the surface of the moon. He performed at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, as part of the Cultural Olympiad, and has travelled and performed extensively across Canada, the US, and Europe.”
Letterals 1
Letterals 2
Find More Of Gregory’s Work At:
Bardcode from Penteract Press (2024)
Kate Hartman
“Kate Hartman is an aspiring fiction writer specializing in fantasy and historical fiction, and a foil fencer and assistant armourer with West End Swords in Mississauga, Ontario. She has been fencing since 2017 and competing on the provincial circuit since 2022. When she’s not fighting her friends, she is a PhD student in astrophysics at McMaster University, studying ancient star clusters and what they can tell us about their host galaxies.”
Pressure
The rush of fear had stopped Decianus dead in his tracks. It was constrictive, wrapping around him and pinning him in place, pressing in on his chest and making it difficult to breathe. For a moment he had thought he’d been reacting to the smoke, or maybe the earsplitting screeching of the raiders, but the pressure was constant, and as he directed his attention to the feeling, he was able to identify it as fear. His first instinct was to stand up straighter and force his lungs open, and as the air flowed in and began to neutralize the terror, Decianus paused and took stock of himself. What a strange feeling—his instructors hadn’t mentioned this, they’d said nothing about the blend of primal fear and calm clarity running through his veins now. It was both familiar and alien, a little like the fear he’d experienced when he sparred with his centurions back before he’d attained the rank, but driven not by his opponent’s expertise—Decianus knew nothing of that—and instead solely by the man’s presence.
And what a presence he had. He had no face—his helmet covered it with a silver facade, with a metallic moustache and empty half moon eye holes, pitch black voids where his eyes should have been. The sight had sent chills deep through Decianus’s body when the raider had spotted him, and it created a strange effect every time the man moved. His face was cold and lifeless, but his thoughts were plain to read in his body—he had a casual way of walking, hips rolling back and forth with every step, and he seemed unaware of the melee around him. He had been off in his own little bloodsoaked world, shield arm hanging limp at his side, sword held in three fingers like a stylus and coated in red up to the hilt. It had taken the raider a moment to notice Decianus, and in that time the centurion had noticed the silence. All of the horrible feral screaming was coming from the others—this man was silent, and it was a self-assured silence, it was the silence of someone who didn’t have to try to intimidate his adversaries.
Show him how wrong he is. Decianus had no reason to be afraid, and he knew it, that was where the sense of calm was coming from. He had fought these people before—they were showoffs, they would take big overcommitted hacks at the Romans and leave themselves vulnerable to a simpler riposte. All he had to do was trust his training. He took a deep breath and let the air out slowly, allowing the fear through, sitting with the tension and the racing pulse until it fizzled out. The only thing left now was calm. Soft focus on the chest. Trust your training.
The raider crossed the distance between them in a couple of bounds, but Decianus’s mind had sped up; he had time enough to settle in behind his shield and watch the man move. His opponent was relaxed, loose, almost careless with the way he moved, and he gave the game away a full step in advance, winding up with his sword high above his back shoulder. Decianus tucked his right foot back and crouched behind his shield, fine-tuning the distance as his opponent sprung toward him. The fear was long gone now, and so was the crushing pressure around his ribcage—
The cut came down toward Decianus’s head, and Decianus leaned backward, found the blade with his shield, and sent it sliding wide to his left. He’d misjudged the distance slightly, he’d caught his opponent’s weapon too close to the hilt and sent a shock up through his arm from the impact, but his larger square shield had done its job. Decianus pushed the blade to the left with his shield, opening up the space in front of him for a return strike, but he almost didn’t need to—the raider had put so much force behind the initial attack that he’d left himself splayed open, sword swinging out to one side and tiny oval shield to the other for balance, his torso totally exposed. He was wearing a scale armour shirt, but it was short; Decianus could aim for his belt and hit home. The centurion pointed his own blade and stepped forward to riposte—
Pressure against the blade—but not the pressure of flesh that Decianus had been expecting. As the centurion had stepped forward, his opponent had dropped into a deep crouch, thighs almost parallel to the ground, heels digging into the dirt to help the raider reverse course. The man leaned backward from the hips, shrinking away from Decianus’s sword, using the time he’d bought himself to bring his shield arm in and his blade back around to the inside. As Decianus reached full stretch, the barbarian parried outward, picking up Decianus’s sword at the tip and pinning it against his shield. The centurion had been an inch or two away from drawing blood, but now his leverage was gone, the tip of his blade felt as though it were moving away from target of its own accord as the raider redirected it. Decianus saw what was happening faster than he could move his body to prevent it; as he processed the new geometry of the tangled weaponry, his opponent levelled his own blade, still propped up against the Roman sword and shield. The man’s demeanor had changed completely—now he was coiled like a spring in his deep stance, that impassive silver face motionless as his blade led his response. The point of the sword moved first, coming down toward Decianus’s throat, and then the rest of the blade, and the raider’s arm. Decianus tensed, but his feet weren’t ready, he’d need a step to find the purchase necessary to back out of distance, and pushing back against his opponent’s weapon was doing nothing. The man’s arm reached its full extension, falling short as Decianus shifted backward, but the raider followed seamlessly with his legs—he launched himself forward, all four limbs outstretched, letting the centurion’s blade guide his own to its target. Now the pressure was back, and it was all over—enemy sword and friendly shield pressing in on his blade, throat constricting, ribs contracting, air squeezed from his lungs, distance closing faster than he could keep it open, his opponent compressed and suddenly moving with the sort of efficiency that Decianus only ever expected from another Roman—
The counterriposte felt like a punch—more thumping impact than slice. Decianus had been hit in the throat accidentally during training with practice weapons plenty of times, and it felt like that—but this time he couldn’t cough, he couldn’t swallow, this time something warm spilled down the right side of his tunic, and as he reached for his neck, his enemy’s blank silver face stared down at him for a moment—just a moment, before it started to waver and fade into the dark grey rushing inward—
Chris Litsey
“Chris Litsey is a teacher, aspiring poet, and former editor of Indiana University Purdue University Columbus’s literary magazine, Talking Leaves. He is published there and in Discretionary Love. He is also a father and a lover of reading, writing, getting tattooed, and exploring museums. He lives in Muncie, Indiana, where he teaches and writes. Follow him on Instagram: @christianlitsey”
Rot in the Marrow
Oh, how heartache settles in my bones,
A deep cancer of the marrow,
Turning all my blood into sorrow,
Cells becoming forlorn.
Pain soaks the meat,
Memories of love defining
The moments of declining
Control over my heart.
There’s a rot in the calcium.
There’s a searing pain in the skeletal
Fragments of what was once essential.
There’s a lingering body of doom.
Sounds Before Dying
The hour is late, fate is not on your side,
But death lurks at your bedside,
His manner: calm and cool,
He’s done this a trillion times before; well rehearsed.
You’re afraid, shaking terrified. He smiles and plays.
You weren’t expecting music,
But why shouldn’t it be music?
Did you imagine ghastly screams?
A cracking throat?
A gurgle; A rattle; a bitter exhale of gasses?
Why not violins? Why not chanting and singing?
Why not the melodies to which you
Danced through life? Why not music?
You can’t quite make out the tune in your
Dying ears. Maybe it’s drums, perhaps piano, or bass; a
Smooth jazz lullaby.
Maybe it’s the song your mother used to
Hum in the kitchen on lazy Sunday
Afternoons or the song you kissed your
Sweetheart to in the drenching downpour.
All you know is that it
Makes your eyelids feel like steel shutters,
Ready to close up shop on last time.
A rapid calm passes over you, a warm coldness,
Giving glowing heuristic insight.
You just need a nap,
And then you’ll rise, more powerful than
Ever, and you’ll walk out the door with that
Somber musician, hand-in-hand,
Ready to discover the melodies he
Conjures beyond your bedroom.
Just Behind Dawn
Splash, splash, splash;
Little oars dance on the water,
Solar vapors color the scene just a touch,
Enough for you to almost feel real;
A certain appealing quality
Clinging frail by a hair to the
Indention of reality,
Manufactured in the clanging machinery, the noise
Hanging in the air just
Beyond the smog,
Clouding the world in mist,
Turning the sun into God,
Hovering over us,
Telling us to be not afraid of
Its great ever-presence.
Ships roll along in the distance
Great breathers of oil slicks
Colored with the promise of hope,
Trickling in from heaven.
Mechanical monoliths wall up the world and
Within is a universe primordial,
Ushered to life by morning,
Magical, possessing the ability to
Captivate thought,
Conjuring illusions,
Consigning reality somewhere just beyond
God’s gaze.
Soggy Fall Morning
Horns blow with rapture through misty
Hours, yanking the souls right from their beds.
The lights cut across through the crossways.
Night is fleeting, yet refusing to surrender to
Monday morning. No hope, no semblance of tomorrow,
Only the miserable now and the foul odor of
Sewage and adorned crowns of coffee grounds
And slap-hazard makeup.
Everything is drenched in earth-sweat,
Fragmenting weary perceptions of the
Passage of time. A sublime sinking of
Heavy eyelids fluttering up and down,
Up and down, up and
Down the roads, rows of weariness cross the town,
Unaware, unavailable, unassailable from their
Current desolation. All that exists is the fog, the
Curses, the mourning of the past.
Dawn will rake away the last remnants of night
Leaving only a skylight haze,
But our rat-race maze will drag on,
Day after day, every dripping sunrise.
Bedrock
I spent years down in rock bottom.
They say you can’t go any lower.
I believed that.
I was beaten down into the solid foundation of earth.
It ate me up.
Made me right at home.
I thought it would be a frozen chaos,
Like in Viking myths or in the dreams of Dante.
But it was a soothing warm that met my body.
That painful, miserable place felt like home.
It was lovely, full of soft heat.
I felt like I’d freeze to death if I climbed back up.
Only years later did I realize it was so warm,
So welcoming, so wonderful,
Because I was right above hell the whole time.
Wylan Clitheroe
Facing The World
“Wylan Clitheroe is a young visual artist based in Hamilton, Ontario. They specialize in oil and acrylic painting, strongly emphasizing expressionist styles and aiming to convey emotions one cannot simply describe without art.”
B.B.F
Warning to Smurfs
Little blue men
In little cobbled houses
Shall never taste a Cheesy Gordita Crunch
Since they are blinded by rolling hills and quaint morning fogs
Have they ever seen the glory radiate from the eyes of the bachelorette’s chosen Ken?
Or read the stories of betrayal and celebrity spouses
Who even has lived if they haven’t blocked someone on Instagram over a petty hunch?
It must be so boring to authentically and familially love
Just imagine—a holographic girl on her knees,
Pointing at you with her smooth skinned finger
Her mouth above speaks words of release
As she grants your greatest sensual needs
And bids your loneliness not to linger
You see little Smurf, you shall never experience bliss
A word which describes complete and utter distraction
If you peer into your soul
Away with the depths of wonder
Forget the conscious abyss
Love will not give you traction,
It won’t keep you from falling below the reckoning hole
You will drown in the ocean of emotion
For to learn to swim involves the same motion that shot me to despair
Clandestine waters are only clear to the pure
To my heart, they are simply skewers
Beware, little Smurf
Take the sensual over the nonsensical
Don’t bother trying to tread water
For at the risk of authenticity is excruciating, mirror inducing simplicity
Kristen Brittain
Calm From The Storm
I stopped what I was doing to listen.
The first raindrops of spring began their familiar rhythm
I smiled
I knew that I was in love
All I could think of was laying in bed with you
Listening to the rain together
And feeling your heart against my cheek
Beat slightly faster with each clap of thunder
Kassandra Dowell
“Called to the stage from a young age, Kassandra seeks to escape the creative limitations of her small-town life through the imaginative worlds of poetics, visual arts and theatre. She currently attends Brock University and is in her fourth year of the concurrent education program. She hopes to pass on her love for literature and all things creative to her students and inspire the next generation of great Canadian writers.”
An Open Letter to My Aging Self
It starts small,
A ripple, a whisper.
A tingle down your spine,
An exploding laugh and smile left to linger.
The season’s first snowflake touching down on your nose
As winter’s chill spreads from frostbitten ears to toes.
A butterfly’s kiss across the blushing tulips of spring,
Hay fever sneezes and insect bites that sting.
The meddling hands of the breeze strung along the changing trees,
Cherry blossoms waking from their restful deep freeze.
A calendar’s reflection upon the clock,
A child’s silhouette stretching taller across the sun-stained sidewalk.
Youth’s bloom, its wilt, praised maternity glows,
As daughters become still portraits of mothers ever posed.
As the sun sinks below the trees,
Do the animals cry wolf with unease?
Be sure that though your prime has passed,
These pruning years you will outlast.
Ice will thaw, skin will thin,
What will yet be succeeds what has been.
Take the bull by its horns,
The birds are first to sing after storms.
While Father Time pounds upon your door,
Dearest, never fret you’ve become a bore.
Among the changing faces of your kaleidoscopic frame,
What I find most captivating, mi vida,
Are the wrinkles around your eyes, scars decorating your skin,
And the shape of your lips as you call my name.
Thanks for reading! We hope you enjoyed our first edition and we encourage you to come back for more. “The Founding” has been an attempt to showcase a wide variety of artistic mediums and styles. In doing so we aspire to highlight new styles, daring experiments, and tempo-changing voices as they break into the art scene. Please share your favourite works and don’t be afraid to submit.
Finally, a massive thanks to all of our contributors and submitters. With nearly 50 submitters and hundreds of different works to choose from, narrowing our selection down was incredibly difficult. Without all of you Balestra wouldn’t be possible and we can’t wait to see your work in future editions of Balestra and throughout the rest of the art world.
Wishing you all the best,
The Balestra Team
The detailed process of canning cherries, with fascinating details that make this poem an original. Never seen it that way before!
such a powerful poem 🫶