I am having to most likely be coming to a tough decision. Due to how this year has gone, a website burnout, lack of funding/finances. I may be closing the website for a bit.
I am sure most of the material is safe on here, but I don’t think I am adding anything new for the time being. I am finding renewed energy in writing and creating outside of using the website. The divorce, single parenting, writing and creating my own stuff and posting on instagram, x, Facebook & Bluesky, the Community Organization roles I have taken on has taken a big chunk of my time. I enjoy promoting other poets and will continue to share and possibly do some fun stuff on the socials in the future. I need to work on me and my writing endeavors a little more than I had in the past.
Social Media includes: twitter/x is @feversof editor: David L O'Nan is @davidLOnan1 our Facebook Group is Fevers of the Mind Poetry, Arts & Music Group. Facebook Author Pages: @David L O'Nan and Fevers of the Mind Poetry, Art & Music (www.feversofthemind.com Poetry, Arts & Music Group) Instagram and Threads @feversofthemind Bluesky: feversof.bsky.social
Send any submissions to [email protected] and always include a bio. If submitting preferably 3-5 poems for a poetry showcase see guidelines on what is usually acceptable.
This includes all forms of Poetry & Writing (haiku, prose, short stories, interviews, book reviews) Art and Music (reviews, interviews)
This is an all inclusive zone. No hate speech, don't be overly sexualized with posts, No racism, homophobia, or any type of holier than thou bullying. These will be immediately rejected!
Keep an eye out for any personal prompts that we come up with for any upcoming anthologies!
*please send any submissions in word doc format or in body of an email and mostly a traditional style for easier translation to wordpress page as possible. Pdfs/Google docs work, but sometimes things don't translate over as well.
* We accept previously published pieces as long as you let us know where and when they were published previously. Sometimes these will not be accepted according to copyrights.
Bio: David L O’Nan is a writer/poet currently in Southern Indiana, born in Kentucky with a stop in New Orleans in between. He has been writing/editing for over 20 years including this website “Fevers of the Mind” which has also put out collective anthologies of poetry & art. Inspired by Anthologies for greats such as Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joy Division, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Miles Davis, Townes Van Zandt, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Elliott Smith, Chris Cornell, Andy Warhol & the Factory, Sylvia Plath/Anne Sexton, Jack Kerouac, etc. He mostly spends time trying to find time to write these days. Editing and posting for the Fevers of the Mind website. He also has several books self-published. “Before the Bridges Fell” “The Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers” “Cursed Houses” “Our Fears in Tunnels” “Taking Pictures in the Dark” “The Cartoon Diaries” “New Disease Streets” & “Lost Reflections” among compilation collections. I’ve had work published in Icefloe Press, Dark Marrow, Truly U, 3 Moon Magazine, Elephants Never, Royal Rose Mag, Spillwords website, Ghost City Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, Cajun Mutt Press, Punk Noir, Voices from the Fire, featured on Wombwell Rainbow, The Poetry Question, Grains of Sand, The Poetry Life & Times, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal and is a 4 time nominee for Best of the Net throughout the years. He has edited poetry collections for writers HilLesha O’Nan and Lennon Stravato.
Lawrence Moore was something of a dilettante until he reached the age of forty. Since nestling upon poetry’s bough, his work has appeared in a number of publications including Roi Fainéant Press, Fahmidan Journal and The Madrigal. He has a new full-length poetry collection, This Joyful Interlude, published by Jane’s Studio Press in November 2025.
Balloon Ride
Liftoff above the fairground, the trees, these patchwork fields, fears thrust downwards beyond all points of relevance until I am drifting, floating, smiling towards neighbouring clouds, ready to reach out and fold them within my arms.
The distant laughter of children long ago reminds me that we were children once, though that was then.
Seconds grinding by, it takes two seagulls' plaintive cries before I remember you may forget, begin to float once more past rivers, churches, windmills, cares, that moment when all smiles, transcending tears, grow crystalised.
The aeronaut clips her flame and as we descend, truth slowly dawns; that pending his next balloon ride, Grumpy Great Uncle is now restored.
Patchwork Coat
Eight-year-old stands alone in the playground, waves of self-consciousness welcomed like long-lost friends.
Twelve-year-old watches another pass by, pines to say something; lacks gumption for such an intrusion upon the air.
Middle-aged man gazes back, watches menagerie of moments that never happened dwindle slowly out of memory.
Before dawn, he must assemble these separate fragments, weaving them into a patchwork coat, so that when temptation next arises, he will always be within reach of absent kin.
Ignited
Vague paradise I have no right to sell, this host of petty flaws you couldn't love. Incompetence, but arrogance as well; afraid if punches thrown, push comes to shove. There also hides another tale to tell, a story viewed more kindly from above.
It isn't plump of flesh, comes from a book which isn't finished yet, might never be (hypothesis regarding final look assembles dimly, indiscernibly), still struggles under fence, then over brook ignited by mere thought of you and me.
This Religion
is a secret, held only by me, reimagined come sleep in the absence of toss and turn.
Old embers of agitation so gladly burned, but rarely fuelled; my progression of stillness, cool to touch, now ushers out the night.
Where once was smog, next morning's skies u n r a v e l, brisk and lucid, revealing undiscovered path never fully comprehended, forever intimately known.
Still yet grow times that endure no solace, when a mind proves receptive to any given doubt, sensing mountains too steep, futility taunting the heart of each endeavour, forgetting, upon inclement weather's midst, our faith betrays true worth.
The World Smiles Back (Pushcart nominee)
Was drowning neath the sea of small concerns, fixated on the fears that weighed me down, ignoring every lifebuoy thrown to me.
I’m not quite sure what happened in between (perhaps it was the moon as people say), but something caused reversal of the tides,
for here, instead of strain, short bitten nails, suspicion such a world would suss me out, I shine before reluctance has a chance
and everything seems new and brash and brave and everything runs crude and coarse and free, but nothing shall dissuade me now. You’ll see.
Somewhere, beneath Orion gazing proud, where mermaids sing and pirates rule the waves, you smile upon the world, the world smiles back.
Igor Marković was born in 1988 in Leskovac, Serbia. He is a poet and columnist. From 2005 to 2012, he was one of the lead editors of the radio show “Mic Check”, dedicated to culture and urban music. He is the author of the audio poetry collection When Words Come Alive, created for people with visual impairments and published in 2023. His acclaimed poetry collection The Right to Replication was published in 2024.
Petar Penda is a literary scholar, translator, critic, and poet who teaches English literature at the University of Banja Luka. He holds a PhD in English and American Modernism, with expertise in Shakespeare, literary modernism, and contemporary Anglo-American poetry. He has authored and edited numerous scholarly works, including books on T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, and has translated over a dozen literary works between English and Serbian. His own poetry and translations have been widely published in both regional and international literary journals. He is the author of the novel titled Oak Tree published in Montenegro and Serbia.
VIGIL
The earth sank into a netherworld dusk It shuddered And turned, haunted by solitude Its words rang against the ramparts with a howl of rusted hands from the rooftops of entombed oaks when it gave voice Here, the age of heroism reigns no more!! Stray passersby dream within me Ignorant wardens of prehistory Observers of bone monuments And rearrangers of long-dead horrors Here we are alone within transience
I will open to you my nape when you forget the craft of breathing And the meaning of the eternal shifting of the future For time blindly believes in space While death repays a debt to my throat for keeping memories by forgetting the Past
БДЕЊЕ
Земља утону у загробни сумрак Протресе се И осврну уклета од самоће Одјекнуше од зидина њене речи хуком зарђалих руку са кровова укопаних храстова кaд изусти Овде више не царује доба херојства!! у мени сањају случајни пролазници неуки клисари пра-историје посматрачи монумената од костију И преслагачи минулог згражавања Овде смо сами у пролазности Отворићу и Вама свој потиљак када заборавите занат дисања И значај вечитог претакања будућности Јер време слепо простору верује Док смрт мом грлу враћа дуг за чување успомена заборавом од Прошлости
Bio: Alan Hardy has for many years run an English language school for foreign students (in UK). As well as Feversofthemind, he’s been published in such magazines as Ink Sweat & Tears, Envoi, Iota, Poetry Salzburg, The Interpreter’s House, Littoral, Orbis, South, Pulsar, Lothlorien, 100subtexts, Fixator, Chewers, Suburban Witchcraft and others. Poetry pamphlets Wasted Leaves (1996) and I Went with Her (2007). Though he has just recently started submitting again (after a little pause), he has always kept writing (and reading) poems.
SPECIAL
They’ve left me alone to regret I can’t awaken that feel it had once.
It was the peace after the guns, the pause after the slaughter, the time after after the horrors, and the fear vomited on me.
It was special, to be anticipated, like a tiptoe to the fridge to snatch a bite or two while others sleep, but it was never ever the same.
When nightmares happen, and happen again and again, it’s only the first time’s after-peace, its precious stillness, and calm, its aloneness, that’s special. The horrors always shock, a horrid dream’s repeated jolting newness, but the becalmed after-shock is only ever a memory I chase.
EXPECTATION
Those high-pitched children’s screams outside are muffled by expectation. One is used to children’s sounds sounding deranged.
She plonks her glass of water down loudly, and herself, squeezing a sigh out of couch’s leather cushiony squeal.
Fingers are kept crossed nothing jolting nothing scary will happen.
A glass on a glass table doesn’t express how she feels inside, does it? Its abrupt clang is ominous. For the moment, pent-up.
It’s the silence which really terrorizes. You don’t know what to expect, which way it’ll turn out. You know where you are with crazed children’s cries, and the shock it gives you when the silence is broken.
MEMORY
Like raising herself out of sleep, shuddering into life, open-eyed, she voiced a memory, shapeless, meaningless, something brought up with her out of dreams.
Eyes glint and glare, shoulders are pushed back, lips selfishly smile.
The words she recalled stay in the air, from nowhere to nowhere.
We make conversation around them, ape a swirling mist to smother them in, let them pass without consequence, as I walk up the stairs away from memories of her.
Fatmir R. Gjata was born on March 3, 1966, in Fier, Albania. He completed his studies in his hometown and began working in the petroleum industry, eventually becoming the head of an oil and gas exploration group. From a young age, he was involved in political activities, and in 1990, he became the treasurer of the Republican Party branch in Fier, one of the largest and most influential in the country. He also started writing early, contributing to the newspapers of the time, and played an active role during the political transformations that swept Albania. In 1991, he moved to Italy, where he still lives. For 25 years, he worked as the caretaker of the historic Pino d’Asti Castle, while continuing his studies in political science. Although he eventually left academia, he chose to devote himself fully to literature. Over the years, he has become a prominent voice in Albanian literature. With 11 published books, he stands as a significant figure in the country’s literary landscape. His work has earned him numerous awards across several countries, including Germany, Kosovo, Albania, and Italy, and he has also been honored with the title of Ambassador of Peace.
RUN, BOY
Run boy, run, from your house, from your neighborhood Make out of the city your nest, of the state your season Don’t say goodbye to your parents, to your old man, to your crying mother You will find them in the next season, by the pond Where they will ask charity to the swans.
Fly boy, fly, surprise yourself til you can Of great loves and shining dreams Now that you can ride the time Now that you can fall and rise In a moment alone, like tomorrow Is indefinite and traited By the value of smiles.
Go boy, go, now that you can draw your horizon With the signs taken by scrolls, drink what you know In the glass half full that remained for goodbyes And for the triumphant music that flood the spirit That becomes torrent, that sweeps the margins Of sins, without spite. And when the world will stop you, look at yourself as a man Go back and think of journeys, of woads, of rivers Of the miles you traveled, of ages undefined In small stories, in front of graves Without names, where you will finally find The courage to apologize.
Mine is the journey, the end is others’
The dust deposed in the knuckes, the sight Of winters and soltrices passing, a sense maybe Must leave footsteps, in the sunsets Before the night swallows all, a whisper.
The restleness of the sun, would be weird To becomes visible before disappearing Over the mountains of the north, still spotless from the lasts rains Hidden in the buzzer of the invisibles.
Why controlling the arms in the beginning, better To let them roam free to look for other fates, knowing That is unique to all mortals, arisen Together with the birth, becoming shadow.
To hope?! It would be the end To what?! It would be the beginning So i take delight in the only thing that really belongs to me: the journey.
Defeated
Look at me go, a flag without wing In all the places i loved, missing Since a thousand years, with a thousand faces, there i reincarnated And i will be reborn a water bird in the next life Over the boats, to the edge.
I can’t be silent, way too optimistic yet tired, of wars, incense, dreams
Of the open plagues on the legs It’s not enough a smile to wrap them It’s not enough either the illusion of falling Down on a lover’s arms.
I’m one of the losers’ army, the armour rusty on some corner, the helmet is In some camp hospital where the survivors Crap spelling nonsense About glory, about people, about enemies.
My idols were not heroes, they were Folk from the countryside, kind and restless With salt in their hair, with hay in their nostrils And maybe With the same torments and false hopes They still pray under a tree with its immense foliage Because they still believe their wanderer to be God Incognito, to watch over creation.
WAR
When the world was in war and terror, i was making love some lights left on the ground, in the black sky. And the commanders shouted: - In line! Line up, soldiers! - the length in the middle was halved, injured and killed.
When the world was at peace again, i was making love fireworks were going off all around, they sang for freedom. But still we could not find freedom, where we went we don't know in war it was endless death, now it's sobbing.
Now the trains go between the tracks, i can't find my station so I talk to myself among you, as I said at the beginning. They called me a deacon and a traitor, I survived the war, why didn't I take a rifle and grenades, Why didn't I put a star on my forehead?
Now you are all heroes, with marks, with wounds full of blood, i always stay in my world call me a coward. I always ask you very resentfully: - This world is better!? - nobody answers me either, that it is difficult.
What war will you go to today, wretch, it's war again!? Many other heroes were born, killed by volleys. I will come with you this time, full of anger and bile, to ask you right there in the middle of the battle: - What do you feel this time?
My address
If you ask me some day, and you can't find me I will be in a city full of light, wandering in vain
In the last city to trust, maybe it's in the fairy tale In a neighborhood called hope, and on the street called nostalgia.
There will be no stone castles, nor the villas of the rich I'll be alone by the woven river, some verses with words and music.
Even the river will take me and go, through endless seas and memories I call despair with my mouth, take me through my country.
That I don't know where I was born, oh I don't know I had my eyes closed, I think I never sought the black fate, a lifetime was enough for me.
And this life is looking for the third one, through foam-twisted waves You were looking for a place and address, find string runaway sleepless.
Let him be confused to the end, wandering to the end for wonder That this life often seems a torn garment, when he lives without an address or border.
The bust of the dictator fell.
The dictator's bust fell and they dragged it away Who screamed to the sky, who remained crying Freedom, God, freedom, they shouted in the square I don't know why he became a shadow and lives among us.
The bust of the dictator fell and who had no mercy Books were burned in the fire with anxiety and desire What was not written was left as a gift Let's be like the whole world called that night.
There was a bust of the dictator in bronze and metal And maybe they melted it and threw it in the swamp But dictatorships are known to live on In invisible souls with anxiety and sadness.
The bust of the dictator is being erected again For kings and princes, for ordinary docks They also sing songs that are envious Same as falling in the war, over the black monster.
The bust of the dictator fell and the people were amazed A beautiful time would come with happiness and light But we still remained the same, the same as then Someone became rich, someone remained poor.
The bust of the dictator fell, but his offspring is alive There is no full power, there is not even a star on the forehead He is waiting for the right opportunity to return his time To kill and wait, resurrected again.
O strange people, O people of my country You knocked the king from the throne, full of joy and curse Watch hundreds of kings being dethroned as saints While you are the same, poor and miserable.
I remember
I remember how many times I drowned in nameless seas I remember the stopped breath and what I felt in my heart Remember all the mistakes oh miraculous light I remember all the sins committed by witchcraft.
But you poor people who have never been wrong Tell me; ohhh how much life, you will have to live I remember sins, what do you remember? That the feathers fly but the stone remains in place.
And stones turn to dust in the afterlife If heaven is beautiful, I will find sin That the world is for persons, beautiful and poets Don't say I didn't tell you, in time you poor people.
*** The cherry mouth, colored of lament, I light a match A prayer undone, a breath grown laboured, the bites without a trace. The weightless soul, across infinite spaces, on a freed moan; The sun hides, fear and shame, hold still together.
The senses went mad, they search in vain, they taste perfumes In a timeless flight, forgetful fallen, lost in the maze Of whispered caresses. Oh, who are you truly, and certain is the existence Of the God of lovers, of winged angels, in the sky above us.
Time to create a God
It is time to tear the soul apart and let autumn yellow the hopeless pages, while morning mists leave drops to drink in a single breath.
And the moment that will never flee, memory will align sensations, perfecting them, and in sin will search for the last virtues to create a new God.
Perhaps that is why I look for signs of a time, since history repeats itself and redundant, it makes the pettiness of ugly things shine, forgetting and recreating for the time that remains.
***
There are torches that stay lit Though days of dreams and waking nights while the eyes never cease to gaze icons with calm impenetrable faces, where impossibility and totality rise, divided by a smile.
***
Surrendered to fate, the shadow walks me to the lake, to make me watched by swans. And they, leave me crumbs of soaked bread on the evening shore. And I start to rock the waves, singing lullabies to send them sleep, in a serene pact.
the third step from the bottom of the staircase to the third floor scoffs at me with his endlessly startling creak
there are nails in most of the walls
it took 20 hours to drive the fine paintings and sculptures safely
yet my beloved pieces of oils and acrylics are still sitting in the garage
the nails still naked and bare revealing 1/2 an inch of space into the drywall
we are just too tired to hang anything up right now
we opt out so we can climb into bed and touch legs under the covers
its hurricane season, and that might contribute to the river rising behind the picket fence
when i heard it was hurricane season
my husband and I brainstormed ways to keep our furniture upright on the dock
i suggested we tie a fishing line with a bobber into each cushion and chair leg
this way we can see where the winds took our belongings based on the colored floating pokeball shaped objects circling with the whirlpools and the tides
he suggested nails
so we can permanently secure our furniture against the storms and against my far out ideas
i think thats why we work
even in a house falling apart, we aren’t.
because even if only one of us can remember what we actually need in a given moment
I know we will both remember that we need each other at every moment.
“down with the cold”
she came down with the cold
we blink in constant flutters trying to flash backwards in our memories the way we’d imagine in an old sci fi film
walking backwards in the snow hiding in a bush so we can hope to confuse our monsters without confusing ourselves as well
initially she bubbled at the rate of bachelorette champagne
screams were out of sheer excitement and fury belonged to the fits of laughter
originally her nails came pristine, her skin youthful and well moisturized
shed never thought to wear pants or gloves, didn’t own a scarf or winter coats
she wore shorts, because shed never been looked at by a strange man in ways that gave her goosebumps
her shirt need not be too long in the sleeves yet, no desire to hide her tightly scrunched fists inside the fabrics of the day
the first time her skin crawled was the second day one man whom she previously had no interaction with decided the fastest way to touch a woman was to just do it whenever he felt the urge
his urge turned her urgency to get off the train a town too early into a best case scenario
30 miles from home, but shed at least face the foot deep snow in the safety of her own company
she was already feeling frost bitten, but nothing a warm cup of herbal tea and an affirmation meditation couldn’t kick
or after a few days of disassociating from any part of her had previously utilized the railways
a week later she gets herself a bus pass the towns move by much slower this way but she quietly enjoyed seeing trees holding their ground blur in flashes she told herself that a jacket happens sometimes that she can be strong and let parts of herself blur past
the bus driver offers her a free week of transit in exchange for a free night of her time
he seemed fine but it wasn’t until after that line, she realized the weather was changing in front of her eyes
what first could be spring, a route of life not endangered or forcibly shared turned winter, where any fruit unpicked might as well be dead with the fields
we recall her lively self when she was warm but she didn’t even call us to help her get herself down off the weakening stem supporting her blooms
and so we will always remember how it happened
when she came down with the cold
“Finding the light”
Finding the light.
I wrote the words
but I felt as though I was writing out false scripture
“looking for the light” sure
“does light ever come?” absolutely
but being in the now and the present tense verbiage of finding the light
its surreal.
and a bit comical. it looks nothing at all like i thought it would
yet when I saw it and recognized it as my own
Familiarity finally found me.
The sunshine flooding my body
giving me a first glimpse of the carvings on walls
the very ones id been blindly etching in for decades
the scratches in the bricks weren’t as finite as I had previously accepted
I had made peace with the brutality of squinting to counteract my bad eye sight
to convince my eyes that the depths of the shadows must have been objects
even if they weren’t there
even if their existence doesn’t matter in the slightest
the designs of my surroundings was almost the hill I had chosen to die on
Fevers of the Mind 