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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 18h

ah, more coffee--I said ghost story, but maybe haunted house is more accurate. It's both, and more!

james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 18h

The newest issue of @anmlymag.bsky.social is here! There are many excellent poems in this issue. I want to shout out them all, but I'll start with McLeod Logue's "Descent" a ghost story in the shape of a chasm, a poem that floored me the first time I read it

McLeod Logue
Descent

Night glows gold like blood stains, like first lost
tooth. The crunch of a change: brutal. Begin again.
I hear the slow essence of retraction. It glistens.
This morning I make eggs in bare feet, wilt white
onto windowsill. The slim reap of my body. I’m
seeing faces that aren’t mine in the mirror, some
other me who scabbed and started fresh.
I feel my blood pumping, every heartbeat
the same lonely terror. The eggs cool.
The whole house sighs. I can feel
my nested wandering, the ghost’s
shadow stretching, making moods
that affix. The wind chimes move,
catch shapes I couldn’t see. The noose
of a song slopes, creeks a stair
that wasn’t loose before. I feel
the hollow calling: the hole
in my stomach eating itself.

You want me
to describe my
white cotton
panties, tangled
mass of hair. My
bones. You want
to hear the ways
I opened myself,
let light into vein
and perfect pink.
Here:

The first time I ever opened the door, there was an endless dark.
A sinking deepness that flattened. I mean, when it creaked on
its hinge, the whole house numbed. How do you describe eternity?
How do you live in a place that creases the fold? That swallows it.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 4d

Wow, these are really incredible. can't wait to read the full series in the book 💛

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summer farah @summ.bsky.social · 5d

I have two poems in the ANIMALIA folio edited by @sannawani.bsky.social at @ex-puritan.bsky.social 🐦 ex-puritan.ca/the-birds-ar...

"THE BIRDS ARE CALLING" and "THE BIRDS ARE CALLING"

Read Summer Farah's poems "THE BIRDS ARE CALLING" and "THE BIRDS ARE CALLING" in The Ex-Puritan's special issue Animalia, then check out the 2025 Austin Clarke Prize in Literary Excellence!

ex-puritan.ca

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 5d

not to be a sad sack but long covid sucks, my brain still has really bad days quite often. I often feel like studying anything is a matter of squeezing my brain like a dry stone for water

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ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · 12d

ANMLY is now open for new work!

We're especially seeking more from writers outside of the US, more nonfiction, & more translation!

> anmly.submittable.com

*Fee waivers available*

Check out our latest issue to see what we're into!

> anmly.org/ap40

ANMLY Submission Manager

**ANNOUNCEMENT: Fees will be waived for all Black and Indigenous writers, and writers of Palestinian descent, to support those most targeted by state violence. Email editor [at] anomalouspress [dot] o...

anmly.submittable.com

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 11d

Venus, take me in your summer gown

Sally Wen Mao

Valentine for a Flytrap

You are a hairy painting. I belong to your jaw.
Nothing slakes you—no fruit fly, no cricket,
not even tarantula. You are the caryatid
I want to duel, dew-wet, in tongues. Luxurious
spider bed, blooming from the ossuaries
of peat moss, I love how you swindle
the moths! This why you were named
for a goddess: not Botticelli’s Venus,
not any soft waif in the Uffizi. There’s voltage
in your flowers: mulch skeins, armory
for cunning loves. Your mouth pins every sticky
body, swallowing iridescence, digesting
light. Venus, let me swim in your solarium.
Venus, take me in your summer gown.

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Lambda Literary @lambdaliterary.org · 11d

🎉🎉🎉 Congratulations to the 2025 Lambda Literary Award Winner for Transgender Nonfiction: Pretty by KB Brookins! 🎉🎉🎉 #Lammys2025 #LammyAwards

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ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · 22d

we'll be opening for new work on october 1.

get your best ready. get your worst ready. we want to read you.

anmly.submittable.com/submit

ANMLY Submission Manager

ANMLY Submission Manager Powered By Submittable - Accept and Curate Digital Content

anmly.submittable.com

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 24d

Nora Hikari

@systemwires.bsky.social

A poem breaks
After Claire Heinzerling

Along the places most tend
er. A poem peel
s like fruit. Fingers dug
into the softest parts, war
m and flowing. The man
ner of violence is quiet.
Gentle, even. “Son” the kin
g of a poem says.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · 28d

depression is weird because there are a thousand things that should be making me cry right now but the only thing that seems to have the power to actually do it is the soundtrack from a video game series about bugs experiencing Catholicism

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · Sep 16

to be honest I’m almost 20 hours in and I think Silksong is fantastic and I genuinely don’t understand what people are complaining about

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · Sep 14

I hope the tailless whip scorpions know that as much as I admire their beauty and grace I Do Not Want Them In My House

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onion person @junlper.beer · Sep 10

be very careful about what you post online

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ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · Sep 9

"we don’t question death for the pain inflicted by man;
for the hollow dug in our hearts by man; because, sometimes,
death fruits peace & mostly, all that man has given birth to is chaos."

—Abdulbasit Oluwanishola

anmly.org/ap40/abdulba...

Abdulbasit Oluwanishola – ANMLY

anmly.org

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ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · Sep 8

Congratulations to ANMLY's 2025 Pushcart Prize nominees!

Aida Bardissi
Anton Lushankin
Olga Zilberbourg translating Olga Bragina
Ági Bori translating Miklós Vámos
MK Kuol
Curtis Emery & Laura Wetherington

Read their work at anmly.org

Lavender background with a pastel illustration of a crow. Text that reads:

ANMLY's 2026 Pushcart Nominees

Aida Bardissi
Anton Lushankin
Olga Zilberbourg translating Olga Bragina
Ági Bori translating Miklós Vámos
MK Kuol
Curtis Emery & Laura Wetherington

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Asa Drake @asaldrake.bsky.social · Sep 6

This is one of my favorite poems I wrote this winter. It's a little messy but also one I was resistant to change? So glad @cerena.bsky.social and Poet Lore gave it a home in its current form. Every once in a while, I need to protect a sentimental poem.

Year of the Snake

Is it best to plan for the worst? Maybe the plainer sentiment is,
I will be using my strongest voice
from here on out. I will make much work in a familiar pattern.
Assignments, invitations, my own
autonomy to step behind the stanchion (a stop-gap) (a doubleness).
All my life, I have feared the uncanny
valley. I have feared being mistaken or a mistake. But the valley is green
and full of objective facts. Blessed
be the land of conception, green cards and confrontations. I receive messages
from loved ones asking permission
to turn off a camera during a conference call, to delay an email, to refuse
a request. I try not to let the world punish them.
I haven't been reading lately. Except dates. I'm so happy Mom
will be able to breathe again on Wednesday,
but since the fires, she’s stopped taking photos of sunsets. Last night, the air
was so dry I woke up to apply expired lotion.
This morning, I prepared a tray of jiffy pods. Plump with water,
they’re seven times their pre-hydration size.
The way I show control is so, so human. I plan for the next season.
Best by dates indicate I’m doing everything late.
Frequently, the sentiment is like this. I try to imagine the future.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · Sep 4

actually got a submission in to the Cincinnati Review before they fill up for the time in like over 3 years. small victories D:

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ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · Sep 3

"we communicate
over the Internet and to you the howls
of snow and wind are something unheard of–it all reminds
a quiet air alert. Finally, you come back
disappointed and together we belatedly
raise our kids hoping to outrace the time."

—Anton Lushankin

anmly.org/ap40/anton-l...

Anton Lushankin – ANMLY

anmly.org

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · Aug 31

I don’t often post about whatever activism I do because I worry about being bragging about it and/or flattering my ego, which is fine, but sometimes I remember other people probably do this too; that people are working harder than is visible to make things better

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · Aug 30

thank you so much!!

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · Aug 16

Fortunate to have a poem that's very special to me in the newest issue of Four Way Review 💙

fourwayreview.com/issue-33/

BLUE PERIOD by James O’Leary

It’s 9:31 PM where the end
of the city tinges the sea. An empty

spiderweb hangs motionless between
the blinds & the closed window leaking

the street’s neon onto the unmade bed. No
moon. Not even the comfort of wine,

bottles shaped like the body I want,
& will never have. I keep thinking about

the group of boys I passed huddled
around their broken car like priests over

an altar. I want to drink, to forget;
it makes the fashion of my sadness

tolerable. Driving on the highway, city
-fluxed, sober, trying to ignore my engine

light, my mind’s tidal drift reminds me
I never made it to my childhood

best friend’s funeral. Avoided it,
so I didn’t have to see his family,

the sharp angles of his still face. The radio
asks where the joy has gone; I try

to find it, I do, admire clouds, make food
for the people I claim to love. & the difference

between a claim & a lie is my hands,
their learned fluency in devotion

under the passage of each spent moon.
& the difference between the end of the sea

& the start of the sea, is how I feel
when I open the window & listen

to the pages of the water turn. Tonight
the sky tastes like ozone & time—I buy

a bouquet of chrysanthemums
for my beloved, a full tank of gas.

There’s safety from suicidal ideation
in imagining the material reality of the other

drivers, the names of their daughters
or sons as strange as wildflowers

a loved one might leave
on their sudden tombs. After

I spend the night piecing back together
what fragments I can still

recall of my first friend’s face,
I am however sober it takes

to watch the ghosts
of our hometown retreat

from the blanket of the rising sun.

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james o @jamesolearypoet.bsky.social · Aug 30

this weekend I’m playing in my first chess tournament since I was like 11 years old. Just won my first game :)

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beestung @beestung.bsky.social · Aug 29

"Alternative title: You become a queer elder by accident, not because you are good at living but because you are slow at dying."

—Loren Maria Guay

beestungmag.com/issue24/one-...

One Poem by Loren Maria Guay – beestung

beestungmag.com

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