sun on roses

Photography By Hans Krueger

Poetry By Tracy Fahey

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younger

i thought love would happen

naturally

 

lying among velvet roses

it would appear

like the sun

piercing between leaves

 

older

love is an indoor game

without smiles

 

we sit facing

in darkened rooms

plots and counterplots

words like knives

hands clenched around dice

afraid to throw

 

somehow 

the light among the leaves

has become weak and white 

the jag of thorns on flesh

lacing my skin

 

 

i am a pale traitor

 

to that younger self

who dreamed sun on roses

Hans Krueger works in the medium of photography but also constructs the sets and designs the make up and hair his friends featured in his art. His work reflects the relationship between humans and their connection to the plant and animal kingdom.

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Tracy Fahey is an Irish writer. In 2017, her debut collection The Unheimlich Manoeuvre was shortlisted for a British Fantasy Award. Two of her short stories were longlisted by Ellen Datlow for Honourable Mentions in The Best Horror of the Year Volume 8. She is published in over twenty Irish, US and UK anthologies and her work has been reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement. Her first novel, The Girl in the Fort, was released by Fox Spirit Press in 2017. Her second collection, New Music For Old Rituals, was published in 2018 by Black Shuck Books.

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Issue IX