A.R. Arthur is a tired writer who often finds solace in knowing his minute contributions to greater equality are doing something, anything to change the white american male dominated nature of the literary community and global publishing industry. A.R. Arthur has had a great deal of negative experiences working, volunteering, and publishing in the literary community and has channeled this frustration into making his own Journal/Publishing enterprise enquitable, fair and propagating greater Female & Gen Z representation beyond the abysmal representation currently present. A.R. Arthur has often struggled, despite publication rate, to find an audience for his more philosophical, sociological and meaningful poetry due to the heavy emphasis and preference by the millenial dominated online literary community for pop-culture writing. Instead, A.R. Arthur has tried to cultivate greater representation and change from his frustrations rather than have them put him off. From teaching to consulting and editing, A.R. Arthur has continued to channel his frustrations into meaningful change.

Death in Lento

by A.R. Arthur

The scars of childhood still tarnish my soul
with the failures of those who should never have reproduced

(Lilac bruises decorate my dermis tattered)

These aggressions were not acts of love,
but bitter brutalisms now banished to the darkrooms of the mind

(These nightmares that still warp worlds)

These acts of loving violence sutured a heart shut,
silencing dreams of empathy, awakening garish nightmares

(Bruises no longer skin deep)

These memories that make safety elusive,
These carmine slashes still invalidate

(But we didn't beat you that much!)

Scarred flesh doused in ailments copious speaks to suffering endured,
Speaks to the ever-growing chasm between forgetting and moving on

(Maybe if I had a stable upbringing, I wouldn't be dying in lento)

Fathers deny calculated abuse
and mothers claim ignorance despite willingness

(These are betrayals cyclical of children immemorial)

A.R. Arthur is a mixed-race poet & writer who has spent most of his life in Kuwait, jostling between the UK and the Netherlands. A.R.’s writing and reviews have been published over 420 times internationally. A.R.’s flash fiction was shortlisted and received an honorable mention in the 2022 Dillydoun Flash Fiction Prize Competition. A.R.’s has published chapbooks titled, The Great Northern Journey (Lazy Adventurer Publishing, 2020) & Vultures (Roaring Junior Press, 2021), a novel, The Sands of Change' (Alien Buddha Press, 2021), and a collection of sociology essays titled Ideology, Spontaneity & Meaning in Hyper Reality: Collected Essays on Globalisation & Postmodernity. A.R.’s Chapbook Half Bred was the winner of the 2021 The Poetry Question Chapbook contest. A.R. is the EIC of Fahmidan Journal/Publishing & Co and a senior poetry editor at Harbor Review. A.R. is a trustee at The Thyroid Trust UK.