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Nick Bantock, Cory Hutchinson-Reuss, John Muro


PARADISE LOST AND FOUND, NICK BANTOCK
PARADISE LOST AND FOUND, NICK BANTOCK

ICON FOR BEING TRANSFORMED INTO FALCONS OF GOLD

Cory Hutchinson-Reuss


Exculpate the gold vein. Harvest the bronzed wheat as wings, the whole field flies up. We

thresh sorghum into gold syrup, our mouths lengthen and curve into beaks, sip nectar into

our reedy throats, the field thickens its thin stalks into bodies that ruffle and pulse with

generations. Seeds become eyes, iridescent, keen sight, the people. Having grown heavy with

implements of fear and distance. We set them on the ground, we let ourselves rise as the

entire field, as falcons alchemized in the sun, with molten, streaming feathers. With new

heads. Who won’t fly when the field honeys into life? When the grain rides the wind when

bellies become lamps. Who won’t believe it with falcon eyes, not hope for it? Who won’t join

a river of birds in its sculptured motion, flux the boundaries through which.



THE EVANESCENT

 John Muro


How best to preserve a day that’s unfurling 

in lateral light, spreading across the water 

like sterling poured from a crucible fastened 

to the horizon and the frantic flares that 

madly scatter and ambush the eye or the 

graceful egret, with its wide, sensual wings, 

appraising with indifference the coastline’s

stillness and the open spaces that seem to 

float between inlets and the thick bouquets 

of violet impasto – glazed clusters of mussels 

exposed by the receding tide – all bound 

together by translucent strands of sugar kelp 

and the sweeter scents of wind-bitten cedar 

while I stand awestruck and thankful that 

this luminous and indifferent world still has 

the power to stir the soul, now convinced 

this life is one worth living even though such 

marvel and wonder are difficult to keep and 

appear to be continually moving away from us?

Nick Bantock was schooled in England and has a BA in Fine Art (painting). He's authored 30 books, 11 of which have appeared on the best seller lists, including 3 books on the New York Times top ten at one time. The best selling ‘Griffin and Sabine’ stayed on that list for over two years. His works have been translated into 13 languages and over 5 million have been sold worldwide. Once named by the classic SF magazine Weird Tales as one of the best 85 storytellers of the century. He has written articles and stories for numerous international newspapers and magazine’s. His paintings, drawings, sculptures, collages and prints have been exhibited in shows in UK, France and North America. Nick has a lifetime BAFTA (British Oscar) for CD Rom ‘Ceremony of Innocence’, created with Peter Gabriel’s Real World. For 20 years he’s spoken and read to audiences throughout North America, Europe and Australia. Given keynote and motivational speeches to corporations and teachers state conferences. He’s worked in a betting shop in the East End of London, trained as a psychotherapist, designed a house that combined an Indonesian temple, an English cricket pavilion and a New Orleans bordello. Between 2007 and 2010 he was one of the twelve committee members responsible for selecting Canada’s postage stamps. Among the things he can’t do: Can’t swim, never ridden a horse, his spelling is dreadful and his singing voice is flat as a pancake.


Cory Hutchinson-Reuss is the author of Triptych, forthcoming from Milk &amp; Cake Press in 2025. A collaborative chapbook of her poems and the visual art of Giselle Simón was published in 2022 as part of the Prompt Press Gallery Series. Originally from Arkansas, she holds a PhD in English from the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City, where she is an adjunct assistant professor at the University and serves as Associate Poetry Editor for Brink. Find her at coryhutchinsonreuss.com and on Instagram @atasteforthebitters.


John Muro is a resident of Connecticut and has authored two volumes of poems – In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite – in 2020 and 2022, respectively. He has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net Award, and, in 2023, he received a Grantchester Award. John's work has appeared in numerous journals, including Acumen, Barnstorm, Connecticut River, Delmarva, River Heron, Sky Island and the Valparaiso Review.

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