Monthly Archives: August 2026

Shape of the Wind


Now, I take up the task I was born to find,
here, where the light says nothing about tomorrow.
How happily I lose myself in a sea of higher being
until the rivers become my hands
and the mountain of my body lifts itself to pierce the clouds.

I have fallen in love with a secret even the mouse knows,
and the slow tortoise munching the grass:
this world wasn’t born to sorrow.
It is a song made real in the rising of a thousand voices.
We are kites that in our dancing reveal the shape of the wind.

Doubt drops easily from my shoulders now,
a ragged cloak I was taught to wear that no longer fits me.
Naked as pure light, I whisper my smile to the stars.
May everyone who sees me
recognize their soul.

Alfred Fournier is a writer and community volunteer in Phoenix, Arizona. His poems and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Indianapolis Review, Hole in the Head Review, The Sunlight Press, Delmarva Review, New Flash Fiction Review and elsewhere. Poetry publications include A Summons on the Wind (2023, Kelsay Books) and King of Beers (2025, Rinky Dink Press). He lives in the foothills of South Mountain with his wife and daughter and two birdwatching cats.

A Sermon on Jellyfish 

King’s Cross, upper gallery 
we sip watery cofffee.
Waves of arrivals and departures 
bob psychedelic bonnets below.  

I said the wrong thing; it flared him
into a parachute of contempt 
with a cascade of pellucid curls,
ringing bells of animus, 
ribbons of savage stings.


I floundered on the abyss, paralysed
while he pulsated at distance.
The poison which circulated left me
in the midst
of a mass of Pacific sea nettles.
Those dark mushrooms that narcotise
with feelings of inadequacy.
Even when torpid, 
their cells resuscitate
to wound the aura again.
How to subjugate the smack 
of jellyfish;
their umbrellas of orange gold 
pain lined with a love 
that feels dead?
One day instead 
of protecting my skin
I agreed to let the toxic feelers in,
explore the origin of the sting.
and began to understand
That his intense distress   
had produced an umbrella 
of uprootedness
which could not suck the marrow 
from my vertebrae. 
The shame 
eating away at me
needed to stop 
taking things personally.


I read Matthew 5/38-48 NIV.
Jelly no longer threatened. 
The other cheek beckoned.

Kate Hill-Charalambides is an English teacher of dual nationality who lives in Alsace. She has worked for an association against human trafficking which is recognized as being of public utility. Her poetry focuses on human rights, spirituality and feminism. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in DREICH 3 SEASON 9 (No.99), SNAKESKIN, Cerasus Poetry #4 and #5 ; Piker Press; The Dawn Treader, The Hyacinth Review and Outposts.