Dashboard Horus: A Bird's Eye View of the Universe

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review,  and Sheepshead Review. Latest books, Between Two Fires , Covert , and  Memory Outside The Head , are available through Amazon. Grey has work forthcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and California Quarterly . In Greenwich Village Away from grid smoke and subway rumble, I find chess players in Washington Square, bongo players drumming up a beat I first heard many years ago, a guy strumming a guitar with cap at his feet, and pigeons… so many pigeons, so much pigeon droppings. I drink coffee in a downstairs café, nibble the glaze off a stale donut, look around at the clientele, aging bohemians mostly, paying for java out of their social security checks. Then I stroll the narrow streets, am constantly reminded how far the world has come from this neighborhood’s heyday. The last record store is boarded up. The bookstore window offers Marxist tracts dirt cheap. What w

                                                                     photo © Andrea Vanacore Barbara Anna Gaiardoni alias @bag is an Italian pedagogist and author. Winner of the First Prize in the 2023 “Zheng Nian Cup National Literature Price”. She began writing Japanese-style poems in 2019 and since has been published in Asahi Haikuist Network, Haiku Dialogue THF,The Japan Society UK, Drifting Sands Haibun, and 75 other international journals. Her works are been translated on Japanese, Romanian, Arabic, Malayalam, Hindi, French and in Spanish languages. Drawing, swimmer and walking in nature are her passions. Her motto is "I can, I must, I will do it.” Made in Italy “Cakes, biscuits and chocolates, all personalised in musical instruments shapes, notes, pentagrams and treble clef”, scream a peddler. If you're not already familiar with the italian markets, you will be fascinated by the very special atmosphere: colours and fragrances mingle with the shouts and banter of the ve