My Brief Bio
Bill Schulz is a 6’10” power
forward for the Browntail Moths
of Maine’s Pine Tree League.
Born in Siam and raised
in a drunken bateau, Bill
writes simultaneously in
at least three languages,
including DOS and Silbo.
He is a superb whistler.
Bill has written many manifestos,
routines, and recipes in Silbo yet
mostly DOS. He reclines in
Presumptive Heights with his
alt personality ∞¶¶∞ and/or
a litter of Prince Fatta Spaniels.
GS with “Tanka” by Shizuka Omori, Translation by Yuki Tanaka
Why return to the sky if not for the birds
Composing their own choreography that
Criss crosses like skates on ice. I couldn’t
Figure eight on the pond. When I first step
Into the clouds I won’t be back
Like the Buddhist monk who saw the
Deer in his mind & transformed the second
He died into a fawn. No, to be a person
Who lived once is enough: to be the pronoun
I & know You Dear Luck if lacerated
By this life is absence like a river by
Its meaning indecipherable like lines the
Skaters make on ice, or cranes against the sunset—
Sean Thomas Dougherty's most recent book is Death Prefers the Minor Keys from BOA Editions. He works as a caregiver and Medtech in Erie, PA.
I Am That I Am (Exodus 3:14)
When I return to the quiet wholeness
that I am without thoughts, I’m holding
a gila woodpecker feather—
black, white, black bars—dropped just outside
my driver side door at the hotel.
I don’t live here anymore. Phoenix,
I used to say I hate you—your paternal heat—
but I was already inflamed with an unfinished past,
unfinished pain that birthed incessant
thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.
When I return to my little desert treasure—
daughter made of stardust—
small enough to fit in a cupped palm,
big enough to evoke God(-size awe),
I Am
watching a woman hold a feather—
her little-girl-heart looking up—
watching her search the many mesquite trees,
but there are no birds around—
just a million little leaves
that let (almost all) the light shine through.
Shagufta Mulla is the art editor of Peatsmoke Journal, a veterinarian, and a copy editor for online publications. Her poetry appears or is forthcoming in Five Points, Wild Roof Journal, Okay Donkey, Stoneboat Literary Journal, and elsewhere. She won second place in poetry for the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, and in 2021 she won Blood Orange Review’s poetry prize. A former Arizonan, Shagufta now lives in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Instagram.
