Near Window
An online journal of essays, fiction, poetry, art, and other things that offer a perspective through the nearest window – real or imagined.
Firmly Planted by Streams of Water
Milo Gorgevska lives in the dreary suburbs outside of Toronto, Ontario. Nonbinary and queer, they identify as a menace to society’s traditions. As a jack-of-all-trades, they are an author, director, poet & screenwriter. Previously, their writing under the pen name ‘Kara Petrovic’ has been published in Philadelphia Stories, Train: A Poetry Journal & others. Their…
Seven Ways of Looking at a Hippopotamus
by Leah Mueller The absurdity of being so round, with such an eager mouth. The hippo looks like it’s about to bite into something, but it’s also smiling, like it’s goddamned delighted to be the most ridiculous animal in the room.Relentlessly positive New Agers see these beasts as noble creatures. Their essays claim that hippos…
Patio Furniture in a Mid-April Cold Snap
Patio Furniture in a Mid-April Cold Snap by Kelly Burdick sit in the outdoor seating areaof the only fast-food restaurantin a single traffic signal townafter hours in the darkalways the neon lights alwaysthe sound of water alwaysthe trees the road the cars the windhere no one knows you herethere are night birds hereis a little…
Meshwork
Meshwork by Soramimi Hanarejima In the cozy diner, breakfast with you is its customary languid affair of savory omelets and occasional quiet conversation—until coffee has coaxed me into greater wakefulness. Then I notice a lavender filament extending from you towards the tech district—a direction none of your strands has ever gone in. I know the…
Opossum
by Zach Murphy Pete and Richard’s orange safety vests glowed a blinding light under the scorching sun, and their sweat dripped onto the pavement as they stood in the middle of the right lane on Highway 61, staring at an opossum lying stiffly on its side. Richard handed Pete a dirty shovel. “Scoop it up,”…
3 Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife
3 Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife by Alex Stolis. Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s WifeAugust 1 – St. John, N.B. Canada I keep all your letters in a cigar box under our bednext to grandmother’s wedding dress. This is a cityof ghosts of bars of brown pastures. You send mepostcards from all the places I’ll never…
Houseplants
Houseplants By Jan Ball The houseplants thanked mein their particular green way,for your unexpected aspirationson the climbing philodendronin the guest room where you sleptlast night and for your fragrant exhalationsof carbon dioxide on the spiderwortpotted in the living roomwhen we companionably watchedThe Kominsky Method with Alan Aldaand Michael Douglas, laughing togetherat Douglas’ frequent visits to…
Unlatched
Written by Lucy Wallis Illustrated by Lucy McDonald I held your diary in my hand but I didn’t read it. I imagine stored there within tiny fragments of your days, a kaleidoscope of being. Daily weather reports, and bird sightings, jumbled up with the minutiae of thought that flickers along the inside of your eyes…
You are HERE
by Bridie Donaghy The gun has been fired.The gates open and me and the other hounds are set free. But I don’t feel much like running, not in a race – which this is. Forward…or backward… I can’t remember which, but a race away from this point, this moment…from here.Whenever I look at one of…
Magic Carpet
Joseph Turrent (he/him) is a London-based poet. His book The Moth Apocalypse (HVTN Books) reprocesses the language of Twitter to imagine various cataclysmic scenarios as they might appear on social media. Recentwork has appeared in Firmament magazine, and The Mouth of a Lion, an anthology of visual poems published by Steel Incisors.
Bones For Arcadia
by Christopher D.Z. Mason I’m at the table after dinner and through the window to my left I see hued layers of green going back into a smoked-blue haze. First is the back fence, festooned with creeping old man’s beard that grew with such groping vigour in the spring. Behind it is the top of…
Mid Wales
Mid Wales by Bernard Pearson Driving through the girth Of Powis in new July I see the land set As a table for some banquet This is a Marie Celeste County Groaning under nothing but the green. Full of people not there now resting in the care Of some churchyard yew, Seeded in the time…
fuel injected fury
Adrenaline was running high, like a kite without a string. His sisters laughed at his hammering, his vivid drawings of aliens but the batteries were humming, electricity sizzling and gas tanks shuddering as his creation cranked into gear and took shape beneath his slippery fingers and sweaty behind. Fumes bit the air anxiously, dogs on…
In Through & Out
Karin Hedetniemi (she/her) is a writer, poet, and street photographer from Vancouver Island, Canada. She’s inspired by the sea, and ordinary beauty in quiet places. Karin’s photos are published in CutBank, Invisible City, and elsewhere. Her cover art has been nominated for Best of the Net. Find her at AGoldenHour.com or on Twitter/ Instagram @karinhedet.
Notes For Sunday
I was seventeen years old, utterly drawn to the closing scenes of The Sandlot (1993), when the narrator explains what happened to everyone after the sandlot becomes a location of boyhood. Bertrum said to have “gotten really into the ’60s, and nobody ever saw him again.” was one of the many lines that stuck to…
Sand with Mist – Rezia Wahid
Rezia Wahid is an artist and weaver from London. She was awarded an MBE for Arts in London 2005, had a Solo Show in 2007 at Crafts Study Centre ‘Mosque in Rome’ collected by RISD 2009. New work collected by TateEdit 2019. Find her on Twitter @ReziaWahidWeave
The Long Light of Morning
Flowers radiatewith the sun’s teethopeningthe sky shiningwith sleepingstars’ hopesand bright redseeds’ echoesburied in the dry dirt.After long nightsin a lonely cabinI drive my childrenthrough crooked roadsto a high mountainoverlookingthe desert cityand watch themsled on new snow,seeing once againthe pink pointeddawn. Natalie Marino (she/her) is a poet, physician, and mother. Her work appears in Barren Magazine,…
Inbetween – Some Photos
These are some photos by Bri Bruce, that were included in the 2nd Edition of Near Window, Inbetween. Award-winning author and Pushcart Prize nominee, California poet Bri Bruce has been deemed the “heiress of Mary Oliver.” With a bachelor’s degree in literature and creative writing from the University of California at SantaCruz, her work has…
Kintsugi with Weeds & Moss
I’m pulling weeds and moss from the cracks in the patioEven though I know they will grow again.It feels important to pay attentionTo these spacesThe in-between placesThat overgrow and can be hidden,NeglectedTheir meaning lost in relation to the whole.And I think of youWith your neural network of old fine cracksA barely visible historyThat could shatter…
Play Life
You utter grievances of restrictionsfrom holding a friend’s child. You keep himat a safe—safe—distance, laughingas he chases you.Home is a bunker detached from reality.You suffer under a warm, gentle glow;my sunlight is filtered through glass,splintered into fragments on my skin.Your loneliness echoes in open fields,reverberating from people two metres apart;mine rings within these walls, clanginglouder,…
Cheat Codes – A Found Poem
by Lucy Heuschen I find a single sheet of A4 paper, printed on one side in cheap ink.Unlock All ArenasUnlock All Bonus StagesHe must have done it at school, or maybe a friend gave it to him in the playground.Unlock All Concept ArtI like the idea of concept art. I do. Although: it’s the kind…
A Story to Tell
A Story to Tell The man in 16B leaned over and spoke to the man in 16C. “I have a story to tell,” he said. 16C looked up from his Sky Mall catalog. He leaned away from the first man, trying to preserve his scant personal space. “Everyone has a story to tell,” he said.…
Goodbye, Frenetikov
I should feel happier. The days of rain have ended. There is sunlight. There is also the wonderful aroma of freshly brewed sulawesi toraja coffee. Beetroot-coloured, butterfly-like triangularis leaves flutter about my ears. Piped trip-hop evokes idyllic beach scenes with the promise of wild parties later on. The conceptual artwork is indescribable, as it should…
Caught Napping
the bird on the roof; the lamp pointingupwards; the pen going on a journey;the keys; two pink clothes pegs a long wayfrom the line; an acknowledgement; thebooks that stick out from the shelf;the waiting weights; the thigh thatmoonlights as a writing desk; the ladywho organised this; the taste of thecoupon; the wave; the flip flops…
In Rotation
In Rotation By Zach Murphy Aria caught the city bus as the sky donned a pinkish glow before the day’s final gasp. Her daughter Millie sat on her lap, gripping her wrinkled hospital scrubs — the ones with the cat patterns on them. Millie had entered that age where she often asked all the difficult…
Middle Child
Middle child by Emily Uduwana My mother used to say that I fellbetween a rockand a hard place,as if my bodyhad grown crookedto accommodatethe boulders that huddledaround meand she promised:the Lord is your rockas if the weightof limestonethat settledupon my chesthad not placeda single footat the base of my throat,like the elephantin those Godforsakenasthma commercialsthat…
Trajectory
Trajectory It must be fulfilling knowing whom to love, thatone’s calling in life is to guard and growl. JohnWayne had a dog named Dog. A clever thing ableto translate Dog! meaning Attack! from Dog!meaning Get your ass over here, I’m leaving. Whatdoes it mean to name that which obeys their lovedones? They seduced a dog…
3.8
Valentin Fauque is a French Anglophile. He can be spotted living his best life between the Sorbonne and the American Centre in Paris. He still can’t tell a bop from a banger. Find him on twitter @intercompareAY. Liana Maher is a London-based artist who works to capture the myriad expressions of femininity and the dream…
Grow
GrowGrow. Like the bristles on your chin,Or the awkward toenail on my leftfoot.Each morning as you pad downstairs,You stop to water the pak-choi on the roofBefore assuming station at the table by the window.Send me that virtual newspaper clipping.Gather a veritable feast of sounds -The crinkle, the crunch, the plop of an oliveDiving back into…
Rain, Rain
The “Rain Phenomenon” baffled scientists. They clamored over each other with their theories. They listed their credentials in all-too-earnest videos thatsplashed across the internet, lingering for a moment only to be forgotten within days, their efforts futile. Despite the best work of the top minds, the rain continued.According to the newspapers, the root cause was…
YES THE QUARANTINE IS GOING FINE IN FACT I DON’T CARE IF I NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE AGAIN…
YES THE QUARANTINE IS GOING FINE IN FACT I DON’T CARE IF I NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE AGAIN… by Shawn Bermanit is day whatever of a government-mandatedquarantine and now everyone wants to know whatintroverts like me do for funlike i would ever tell people my secrets that easilylike i would ever spill the beansand divulge…
Light Between
Ryan Rivera is a New York City native and a graduate of Macaulay Honors College at Queens College. He began writing poetry as a teenager to better understand his feelings and the ever-changing world around him. In addition to poetry, Ryan also utilises photography as a creative outlet and often finds his words inspired by…
Reclining at the Window
Liana Maher is a London-based artist who works to capture the myriad expressions of femininity and the dream state wanderings of the mind. Her black and white drawings composed of simple yet surreal lines create a world that can be stepped into and out of. You can see more of her work at @lianamaher_artist
Liberation
by Georgia ConlonIllustrated by Liana Maher Georgia Conlon is a senior school English teacher based in London. She writes at her blog theisolationbookclub.wordpress.com. Georgia had her first poetry win in 2019, in the Swanwick and Writing Magazine annual poetry prize with her poem ‘Young Love Vs’. Liana Maher is a London-based artist who works to…
Large Window
Joe Lewis is a documentary filmmaker and photographer from Columbus, Ohio. Joe loves moments of wandering and observing, from light, to architectural shapes, to humans. He is focused on making imagery that draws from and comments on cultural anthropology and how ne moves through social engagements of space. You can find him and his work…
A visitor
A fly came to visit this afternoon; a clandestine rendezvous. I had nothing to offer him but a cracker, not knowing what flies like, and not wanting to make tea. Bonjour monsieur fly, say I, would you like to stay for a cracker? The fly whizzes around the room in response – which I take…
Extract from Sketchbook (Optical Telegraphs by the Sea)
Robyn McKenzie is a mixed media artist from Nottingham, who lives and works in London. They graduated from Wimbledon College of Art and has exhibited in a number of group exhibitions, including the Slate Project’s exhibition Demimonde. Their work currently focuses on depict the flotsam and jetsam of history and the way they wash up…
Adam Driver & other obsessions
by Bridie Donaghy I have become obsessed with Adam Driver. I don’t know if it’s my age or the isolation or what, but I am obsessed. If you go into the search part of my Instagram, it is literally all Adam Driver based content; ‘Adam Driver as Kylo Ren’, ‘Adam Driver SNL’, ‘Adam Driver topless…
avo on toast
Al Anderson is a writer from Birmingham. He has recently published his first chap book with Blush Lit, Tenderloin, in which this poem features. Some recent poetry can be found in DATABLEED, Lighthouse, No Issue and two anthologies from Pilot Press.He is a PhD candidate in Creative and Critical writing at the University of East…
Near Window 