IHRAM Press Literary Magazine

IT’S AN HONOR TO introduce the last Literary Magazine for 2025—this Fourth Quarter Magazine fosters an empathic conversation for people who are unhoused, regardless of their gender, identity, or ethnicity. Everyone deserves to have a permanent home, a cupboard filled with food, and a supportive community. The authors and artists in this literary magazine document personal experiences and depict reflections on homelessness through lyrical narratives and affirming poetry. They start a sensitive conversation that uplift the stories of those who are unhoused: from people who had to make a home on cold streets, turn a local shelter into their haven, or reimagine reality into dreams as a temporary comfort. We hope these themes resonate with you as much as they have with us, and it has been an honor to…

I could romanticize the roofless ceilings Where the stars are a cathedral’s vault. I could embellish a goodnight kiss from frostbite, Eerily reminiscent of a mother’s lips. I could paint the rats with gold So they seem warmer than they are. I could frame it all as poetic, Singing of quiet death Slowly creeping into sleep From a propane heater trapped within tent walls. It’s never quite as lovely as the poets make it out to be. Though I haven’t used a hotplate as a stove Or spent a night wandering from bench to bench, I know what it’s like to be without a home. There’s an emptiness, as if there was no paint on the walls, Like every piece of furniture is only pretending to be furniture. Like it’s…

let the wind father my ashes. let your fist unclench. —Ismail Yusuf Olumoh You dwell among the stars & flowers now— Soul gleaming in the threshold of beatitude. The world is no longer a thorn prickling your tender skin. Peace to the last drop of your silence, trickling down to the bay of tepid arrivals, like a river of consciousness. Peace to the soils that sail your footprints to the shore of birds’ chirpings, in the groove fields, to the bar of possibilities. We will meet again as light buds, I swear, under the Tenent of God’s glory where a bouquet of pleasure lulls, like lullabies, our trepidation to sleep. There, in the garden of primroses, of how life flings, shapes, sifts, & spring us into the vermillion of becoming,…

A beloved mother, a cherished daughter, the smile in some man’s eyes, lying abandoned beside the path, opposite the shops selling colorful skirts and tops, stained sari tied loosely around the waist, hanging low, snaking formlessly around the torso, to bunch beneath the neck. Greasy hair Medusa style halo-ing around the smooth forehead, the wide-open eyes, the grinning mouth, mumbling lips, hands splayed, delicate fingers curving over the lined palm, feet facing north, revealing decent ankles, sharp nails and dusty soles. Ramblers politely avert their eyes, not wishing to think of this woman sprawled in utter abandon, on their daily morning walk at the Marine Drive promenade. Who is she? Where did she live? Ask the dust collectors picking up the body. The truth— she was a migrant in her…

leave no trace why this cardboard under the juniper tree? flat brown panels from a refrigerator box layered upon each other placed so perfectly like a boy scout who sets up camp in the wild finding level ground beneath a tree, or a blanket of pine needles. this cardboard footprint with that impression long and strong, worn into the surface. overhead, debris dangling from the branches plastic bags filled with empty cans and food wrappers, below, soda bottles with your fluids— all capped—tidy really, side by side lining the base of the tree as if you had always known to respect the land you lay upon yet traces of you everywhere as if you wanted to display your things within your makeshift home as if in flight you said: I…

Every poem from this project has a companion. BOY SCOUT and STEREOTYPES are from this unpublished collection. According to Jules, “In reflecting on our collaborative work, we realized that the role of art in any form can help others see what might not have been seen before in their daily interactions. Art can raise awareness, stimulate conversation, encourage action, and inspire solutions that we may never have considered.” Annemarie notes, “We simply let our poems and art flow out of us as we thought about the human condition in our current social milieu—a global environment of haste, waste, and destruction that has favored fending for one’s self at the cost of other human lives, especially the lives of those living on the street.”…