Category: Poems

A hyper-realistic photograph-like image: A bare forearm rises diagonally from the lower left toward a clenched fist near the upper center-right. The fist is crushing an enormous handful of intensely saturated electric-blue Slurpee. The blue ice bulges extravagantly between essentially every finger, with chunks breaking away and suspended droplets falling beneath the hand. The fingernails are painted glossy black with multicolored glitter, but the polish is chipped and irregular, exposing portions of the nails. Blue syrup and ice flecks stain the fingers. Melted blue liquid pours down the wrist and forearm in thick, irregular streams. The skin is very wet and shiny, with strong sunlight picking out pores, creases, hairs, and reflections. Behind the arm is a warm cream/off-white concrete wall, softly out of focus. It has stains, small dark marks, seams and weathering, but nothing that competes with the hand. A narrow gray-brown strip of ground appears along the bottom. The blue is astonishing. Created with ChatGPT for “slurpees.”

“Slurpees” * Poetry * Riley Fable

aromatica poetica August 12, 2026

slurpees coca cola slurpee brown, the green on an apple flavored candy, like the soda but with small pieces of ice, the slush stays in your mouth for a bit longer; cold against your lips, tangy taste coating your whole tongue; premier blue like the ocean on its brightest days, the harsh lights of an excitingly luminescent crystal, frozen liquid that you really shouldn’t drink again. I see the same emptiness by the hotel exit, I don’t know whether I’ll …

A triptych of cyanotypes from Anna Atkins’s Photographs of British Algae presents three seaweed specimens—large marine algae—rendered as white silhouettes against deep blue. From left to right: Cystoseira ericoides, Sargassum bacciferum, and Cystoseira granulata. Their forms grow increasingly dense and intricate, while faint handwritten labels quietly anchor the images in scientific taxonomy.

Blue Blades, Blue Times * Poems by Gabriella Garofalo * Cyanotypes by Anna Atkins

aromatica poetica April 28, 2026

To P. Are words partners in crime with life? A heated argument going on, While the rough wild sea can’t wait For souls to dive in and on no accounts Can flowers rise- No funny ghosts, but real wrath and hunger If over here, away to the left, In the lane alongside your fields, Maudlin ballads or garish sunsets keep shouting At full blast that life is wonderful, the trick of blue gamblers- But hush now, look, hope and desire …

“Petri Dish Emotions” is a vibrant, collage-like composition that fills the frame, structured around four large circular forms resembling petri dishes or cells. Each circle contains layered spirals and fragments of cut paper—snippets of printed text with phrases such as: “A Wild Love,” “connect,” “research,” “deep time”, and organic shapes—arranged in swirling motions. The background is densely textured with crayon or pastel marks in green, yellow, pink, and blue, creating a sense of energetic movement between the circles. Smaller circular cutouts scatter across the surface, especially in the lower right, adding rhythm and variation. The overall effect is playful yet intricate, evoking microscopic life, growth, and interconnected systems.

“Petri Dish Emotions” & “Eating Emotions” * Art & Poetry * Janina Aza Karpinska

aromatica poetica April 3, 2026

Note from the author to the editor: I had in mind that I might send you “Eating Emotions,” originally published in Magma 85—a schools edition, but reworked since looking at it again. This morning when I lifted my head I noticed a piece of artwork I’d made, Petri Dish Emotions, that held my eye in a way that only made sense later in the day when I saw a short video clip of a TED talk by Brené Brown and …

On a chipped porcelain tray edged in worn gold and dotted with tiny painted flowers, a glossy black volcano rises where a perfume bottle might stand. Molten lava glows in oversaturated reds and oranges, spilling thickly over its sides and pooling across the tray. Around it, elegant glass perfume bottles—amber, blue, and crystal—remain poised and intact, their refinement contrasting with the central eruption. Created and described by ChatGPT for “The Woman in the Perfume Department Asks What I’m Looking For.”

“The Woman in the Perfume Department Asks What I’m Looking For” * Poetry * Annie Przypyszny

aromatica poetica March 3, 2026

Something brash with a touch of bashful. An active volcano hushed by alpine snows, or some other less aggressive sister of cinnamon. But that’s for special occasions: my twenty-ninth birthday, my second twenty-ninth birthday. For everyday, I want to smell like a sixteen-year-old girl at the beach. You get what I mean— Like a saltwaterlogged corsage; like honeysuckle forced to walk the plank; like gardenias flung amok in a mid- summer sunshower. I remember hearing from some old man that …

Photo of Mike's pencil collection: A cozy, creative, and cluttered wooden shelf packed with art and stationery supplies, giving a warm, lived-in workspace feel. On the center-right there are lots of pencils and colored pencils standing upright in holders, with stacks of small notebooks or boxes nearby. In the middle sits a small gnome/elf figurine. Along the left side are books and containers holding pens and brushes. Near the bottom of the photo you can see several small white animal figurines lined up, a red/orange jar or candle, and a few small bottles. At the bottom right there’s a colorful drawing/print of a building.

Pencil Poems by Mike Lewis-Beck

aromatica poetica February 11, 2026

SMELL OF PENCILS I reek of pencils. I smell of pencils. I collect pencils— thousands by now. My first, a drawing pencil, French: Conté, forest green, an HB. Hone from cedar. Smells like incense sharpened. Shavings fill the sharpener. I throw them on a fall fire, a burning pencil smell— of pine resin or old mold. The lead doesn’t smell like lead. A mix of graphite and clay, its burn can stink of sulfur, paint impurities. Between my finger and …

A stylized garlic blossom rises like a botanical icon, its bulb rendered in creamy whites and purplish reds that swirl into curved, sensual segments. From this plump, glowing base, two deep-green leaves flare upward, framing a tall stem topped with a dense, spherical cluster of small violet-magenta flowers. The piece appears as a soft-toned triptych, each panel darkening progressively from left to right, giving the central image a luminous, almost devotional presence. Created and described with ChatGPT for “The Transformation.”

“The Transformation” * Poetry * Sambhu Ramachandran

aromatica poetica November 14, 2025

your gaze has gone straight through me like a vampire’s flashing fangs through a blue throbbing vein embossed on a bare slanted neck slick with sweat & I am already waiting feverishly in love’s unventilated vestibule for the moment of transformation the full moon night of losing myself in you that will rend me apart terrorising me with its blend of weakness and strength ecstasy & escalation of pain the senses grow suddenly sharper now I can hear your heart …

The image is a playful collage poem made from cut-out words and phrases arranged on a muted green background. Each scrap of text is torn from a different printed source, giving the composition a fragmented, tactile feel. The poem moves vertically down the page in a meandering path, beginning with the bold declaration “poetry was appetite” and ending with the surreal punchline “the moon was a meatball.” The piece mixes lofty themes—poetry, memoir, hard work, the moon—with earthy, humorous imagery of bread and meatballs, creating a whimsical tension between the profound and the absurd.

“poetry was appetite” and Other Visual Poems by J.I. Kleinberg

aromatica poetica October 1, 2025

Author’s note: “poetry was appetite” and the other four visual poems below are from an ongoing series of collages (2900+) built from phrases created through the happenstance of magazine page design. Each contiguous fragment of text (transcribed as a poetic line) is entirely removed from its original sense and syntax. The text is not altered (except for the occasional deletion of prefixes, suffixes, or punctuation) and includes no attributable phrases. The lines of each collage are, in most cases, sourced …

A serene and somewhat eerie landscape of a graveyard with rolling hills. The scene is depicted in shades of black, gray, and blue, giving it a watercolor effect. Numerous tombstones with crosses are scattered across the hills, some in the foreground and others fading into the distance. Bare trees with thin branches stand among the graves, adding to the somber atmosphere. In the sky, a few birds are flying, enhancing the tranquil yet haunting feel of the scene. Tall grasses and plants are visible in the foreground, swaying gently as if moved by the wind. Created with ChatGPT for this review of Sapphires on the Graves.

‘Sapphires on the Graves’ by Scott Ferry * Review by Peter Mladinic

aromatica poetica April 9, 2025

God and I, earth and sky, and family are all-significant in Scott Ferry’s book of poems, Sapphires on the Graves (Glass Lyre Press, 2024). A book of prose poems stylistically void of capital letters, the lower case g for God, complemented by the lower case i, suggests poetry is more about questions than answers. Ferry’s lower case g suggests the secular, an entity in the universe, a creator of all or nothing. His lower case i connotes we; he writes from …

Five tea bag mini paintings by Oormila that, according to ChatGPT, “combine organic textures, delicate botanical illustrations, and an ephemeral quality, transforming an everyday object into a work of art.” Read full descriptions of each at the end of the post.

Five Botanical Micros + Mini Tea Bag Paintings by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

aromatica poetica February 20, 2025

A note from Oormila: Each of these micros has been paired with a miniature painting I made in mixed-media, on used and dried tea bag silk. These are part of a series of over 150 paintings that I painted on tea bags last year when I weaned myself off coffee and started drinking tea. I wanted to recycle the tea bags and I had the idea for making them into mini-canvases. The paintings in this submission have the same title as the micros …

The image depicts a surreal scene of a barren tree in a snowy winter landscape with Canadian banknotes hanging from its branches, as if they were wilting leaves. The banknotes include denominations of 5, 20, and 50 Canadian dollars, each featuring the iconic maple leaf symbol. The scene is set at night, with a dimly lit road stretching into the distance, lined with utility poles. The overall atmosphere is cold and mysterious, with a sense of isolation emphasized by the snow-covered ground and the dark, expansive sky. By Godin plus ChatGPT

“2 a.m. Uber on a Winter Night” * Poetry * Leah Mosier-Farquharson

aromatica poetica February 5, 2025

You can’t have expectations for a 2 a.m. pick-upand so it should’ve seemed entirely natural,greased Dali moustache, red-leather interior,the neutral Honda,low to the curb like an anesthetized drunk in their 20son a winter night. We climbed in the backseat,the driver’s ensuing monologue making ustravelling disciples. Secular wine-drunk,looking for a good story or something to believe in. Our fault for asking, “How are you?”The bait, his response; “Not good.”We didn’t even need to provoke, the answers came as freelyas the air’s …