Shadowplay 2025 Issue 3

Editorial
—a cento using the works from Shadowplay Issue 3

this is where we live:
an angry earth
fracturing into
uncountable divisions
fear honed by
worsening chaos
fleeting eden
entombed in
a thousand kinds
of oblivion—black
as wet velvet

in the grief:
believe
in the hidden sun
turn blackbirds
to doves
hurl ink
into the void

all through
the dark—the dense
tenebris—the cobbled
light, golden and slow,
pushes through the cracks,
demanding to be seen:
clean sheets
wood smoke
freezer casserole
primordial love
deep water sleep
milk bottles beside green dinosaurs
the sky’s mooned eye
blooming like the slender petal
of a white flower

in this sand and anger:
become a thing of diamond
make a monument of mercy
shine like light on wet side streets
reach for it anyway
however far you think you are
from home

Christian Chase Garner
Editor-in-Chief of Shadowplay