Landscapes

Oh, hapless world, the butcher’s block,

The sickle, scythe, harpoon,

The barren fields, the culled livestock,

The blood red harvest moon.

The ocean deep, a darkened heart,

A sore that festers cold,

A slumbered age, a violent art,

Into all things behold:

The forests wild, the stalking hunt,

The arrow cut from stone,

The bloody rib, the final grunt,

A death in whimpered groan.

The mountain peaks, a falling height,

The air in sky dissolved,

A winter wind, a bitter blight,

Let no sin be absolved.

The city streets, the graveyard paths,

The linen beds of wards,

The gowns of white, the final baths,

The oak in coffin boards.

• April 2025

Submission History

Date	Publication	Status
April 7, 2025	Paris Review	Rejected
April 7, 2025	The New Yorker	Pending
May 10, 2025	North Appalachia Review	Pending
June 4, 2025	Swan Scythe Press	Rejected
October 6th, 2025	Skummel Magazine	Rejected

Responses

Hi Grant,

Thank you for sending Landscapes/Cathedral/Ode to Death/Eulogy to SKUMMEL. Your piece stayed with us, haunting the room in the best way. While we decided not to accept it this time, it came close. We kept returning to it during our final reads. If you know what a personal rejection is, this is that.

We’d love to see more from you in the future. Consider this an open invitation to send us your next work.

Our pages are shaped by the voices that linger. Yours is one we hope will return.

—The Editors, SKUMMEL