Publia Cantos II

July 4th, Anno Domini 2026

“Under white clouds, cielo di Pisa
out of all this beauty something must come”

The beauty of creation is already here, everything between the firmament and the dirt is a beautiful canvas waiting to be filled with vitality by those living in it.
We will be between flowing water and cielo di Manistee when this goes up, while we enjoy the beauty of nature, please enjoy this beauty of man.

Il Vate

When the tree fell for the axe

By Om

If after death I turn into a tree,

Untamed, tall, wild and free,

Would you finally sit under my shade?

Would you finally let amends be made?

Would you let me give you a peck,

With my flowers, on your neck,

Or would you relish a fruit of mine?

At your sight my eyes sparkled, now my leaves shine.

Would you be the grass that grows beneath me,

Or the vulture which flies above, or a honey bee?

Would you be the squirrel which rests in my cavity?

Would you be the ripe fruit which makes me bow with gravity?

If you were a grass, then I'd cherish you more than my leaves,

Become a vulture and I'd betray each sheltered animal which lives,

I'd offer them beneath your feet like delicacies fine,

If a bee, would you build a hive on me and take this nectar of mine?

But if you were a squirrel, I'd let you build within me a loft,

Make you a wreath though it's too rough for your fur so soft,

I'd be just a wretched tree, you're the ripe fruit I'd beckon,

If someone were to pluck you, I'd fall on earth that very second.

But if you could be none of this and only one of the things,

I'd want you to be the axe which the woodcutter brings,

I'd let him destroy me with you, no tantrums made,

Knowing I'd still be a tree in the next life just for your blade.

Il Prosista

The Shape of Forgotten Things

By Pri Drummond

I don’t remember it very well. Or at least I’m not sure if I do. If what I remember actually happened. Or if what happened was how I remember. So much of our memory is just filling in the blanks. One version of so many possible stories. All I do remember is what is here now.

There’s a house that’s been abandoned for a long time. I can hear the echo of my footsteps as I walk in and the floorboards creek for longer than you’d expect them to. It smells damp. The photographs have faded so much I can’t tell who’s who. The furniture’s been covered with once white sheets - to protect it from what exactly, dust? Well, it’s everywhere. Thick layers of it. I run my finger on the window sill and watch it accumulate grey fluff. God only knows what really happened here. Where everyone’s gone, why they had to leave. I wish they’d come back, I think. I wish I could have said goodbye. I can feel my chest growing heavy and I start feeling like I don’t want to be here anymore. I worry about the walls and whether they remember things that I don’t. I try to reign in my curiosity but my petulance and impatience has me pulling one of the sheets and sending decades worth of dust now flying in the air, obscuring my view and making my eyes sting. I can’t help inhaling some of it and the damp smell is now a taste in my mouth. I run outside, gasping for air in a less than graceful coughing fit and my skin feels sticky.

I don’t really know why I keep coming back here. I don’t know what I think I’ll find in this place. So I walk away and tell myself I’m done trying to remember things I can’t possibly know. One day I’ll learn to live without answers.

Il Profeta

The love that I crave - Does it even exist?

By Riley

I look around me and I see people, lots and lots of people and I can’t help but think, does the excruciating yearn to experience a soulful love not bother them as much as it bothers me? Or have they already achieved it? Or does it even exist?

My perception of romance is shaped by countless books, romcoms and my daydreams in which I imagine being loved the “right” way. For someone who is not a teenager anymore, I have never really experienced romantic love & dating, which I think is an awful setback for someone who is writing about love. But, the point is, how would I know that the kind of love that I crave for even exists?

For me, love is an intermingling of souls, it is late-night conversations of passions, goals, dreams, fears, thoughts. It is the absolute divinity of human connection where life seems bliss on the darkest day because of that one person merely existing. It is understanding that the universe brought two pieces of nothing together to make everything.

By this I do not mean to say that the two individuals had no aspirations or value before they met each other. By this, I mean that two whole beings, complete in their own lives formed a union to create a connection that gives meaning to their lives.

We have seen love making people deranged, to be able to kill or be killed, I want a love that heals every part of my lover’s existence which aches from the roughness of this cruel world. I want love to create my own world, with a person that knows me more than a piece of my soul, one that knows my darkness, my depth, my eternal drive to face this life as a cascading wave and stands beside me, with all their belief & faith, to dream with me of defeating any ocean of sorrow that challenges me, & I dream to do the same with them.

Which is why betrayals of love make no sense to me. Talking stages, situationships, micro cheating, disrespecting partners, and other imprudent actions of people pretending to love is eternally exhausting. When a person loves, their mind and heart and soul is taken over by their lover’s comfort, and happiness. Their joy is a reward that fulfills one in a way that no other power or blessing in the universe can. How can one call it love when it is anything less than something that completely consumes you, and makes you want to channel the best version of yourself just so you could deserve them & offer them every speck of your soul to know and to love?

Is love like this only in the pieces of fiction that I have subjected my silly heart to? Or does this love exist and is waiting for me in a timeline that I haven’t yet reached.

Il Fabbro

This issue brings us work from Tina Heissler, an artist whose work feels alive at first glance, whose painted fire feels alive and the brush strokes that carry its light bring life to that which they touch.

Thank you for being here at the start. Publia Cantos is new and small and intends to stay small enough to maintain our vitality, one good piece at a time. If something in this issue moved you, check out the artist who did the moving. If you have work, send it to us.

None of this exists without the writers and artists who trusted us with their work. Our gratitude to Tina Heissler, Riley, Pri Drummond and Om, Find more of their work at the links below.

Tina Heissler           https://substack.com/@tinaheissler
Riley                        https://substack.com/@rileyyrecords
Pri Drummond         https://substack.com/@wheretheforestsplits
Om                          https://substack.com/@echoesofom

All works published in Publia Cantos remain the sole property of their respective authors. Republication without permission of the original author is prohibited.