Richard Remembers My Mother Singing
Was it the crane
“Groong” by Father Gomidas?
“O crane, whence have you come?
I heed your call.
“O crane, what word
from our homeland?
“You did not answer,
rising like the wind.
“Fly crane,
further from our land.”
Or was it the song
about the rose,
the one that still unspools
from her cassette?
*
Have you seen the clearcut
to the north of Sandwich Road?
Dead wood is all that’s left.
But the line of the hills beyond,
he says with his Irish lilt,
you can see it now,
and draws his hand through air—
I see the hills I see a bird aloft
–Susan Barba
Susan Barba is the author of two poetry collections, Fair Sun and geode, which was a finalist for the New England Book Awards and the Massachusetts Book Awards. She is the editor of American Wildflowers: A Literary Field Guide, which won the 2023 American Horticultural Society Book Award. Her poems and prose have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Poetry, The New Republic, PN Review, and elsewhere. She works as a senior editor for The New York Review of Books.
A Comment Beneath a Painting by Mahmoud Sabri
I have an appointment with you in the future,
but isn’t that future
the same
as this past we’ve just entered?
***
Women in colors of mourning
emerge from your painting
and sit down
on the sofas in my room.
I’ve often seen their faces
in the Good Friday icons,
and in elevations of color
that sweep their silent lamentations
between two cities that just might be
Baghdad and Jerusalem,
or any two sisters
born beneath the sign of Saturn.
***
The women
came down from the icons
and into the slaughter.
***
I think these cups, brimming with wine,
are poisoned as well.
In the empty spaces
between the lines of exile
I have an appointment
with you.
–Najwan Darwish, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid
Najwan Darwish is a poet from Jerusalem, Palestine. He has published nine poetry books in Arabic and his work has been translated into over twenty languages. New York Review Books, which published the English translation of his books Nothing More to Lose (NYRB Poets, 2014) and Exhausted on the Cross (NYRB Poets, 2021) describes him as, “one of the foremost Arabic-language poets”. He has received several awards, most recently The Sarah Maguire Prize (UK, 2022), the Cilento International Poetry Prize (Italy, 2023), and Le Grand prix de Poésie étrangère (France, 2024). Najwan Darwish co-founded and directed several cultural and artistic projects throughout the Arab world and served as an advisor to several Palestinian and Arab cultural initiatives and literary Festivals. He has held several key positions in cultural journalism and has been the Chief Cultural Editor of the Arabic-language London-based newspaper Al Araby Al Jadeed since 2014.
Kareem James Abu-Zeid, PhD, is an award-winning translator of poets and novelists from across the Arab world. He has received the Sarah Maguire Prize, PEN Center USA's translation prize, Poetry Magazine's translation prize, a Fulbright Fellowship, and an NEA translation grant, and has thrice been a finalist for the PEN America Translation Prize. His translation of Najwan Darwish’s No One Will Know You Tomorrow: Selected Poems 2014 – 2024 (Yale Margellos, 2024) is currently a finalist for the 2025 PEN America Translation Prize in Poetry. He is also the author of the book The Poetics of Adonis and Yves Bonnefoy: Poetry as Spiritual Practice.
A Patch of Gray
How long will we walk with the stars in the dead of night? – Al-Mutanabbi
This light gray in the clouds
and Shakespeare’s green summer—
in a little while a blade from the play
will come down on you.
Don’t trust a stone from the sonnets,
and don’t believe you’re coming home from school in the eighties.
You’ve started getting used to it,
the new rhythm of your name.
You look at the sky: a dark patch of gray.
You look at the earth: a perilous piece of steel.
And you say: How long, how long without the stars?
How long, how long without us?
A patch of gray,
light gray in the clouds.
–Najwan Darwish, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid
Najwan Darwish is a poet from Jerusalem, Palestine. He has published nine poetry books in Arabic and his work has been translated into over twenty languages. New York Review Books, which published the English translation of his books Nothing More to Lose (NYRB Poets, 2014) and Exhausted on the Cross (NYRB Poets, 2021) describes him as, “one of the foremost Arabic-language poets”. He has received several awards, most recently The Sarah Maguire Prize (UK, 2022), the Cilento International Poetry Prize (Italy, 2023), and Le Grand prix de Poésie étrangère (France, 2024). Najwan Darwish co-founded and directed several cultural and artistic projects throughout the Arab world and served as an advisor to several Palestinian and Arab cultural initiatives and literary Festivals. He has held several key positions in cultural journalism and has been the Chief Cultural Editor of the Arabic-language London-based newspaper Al Araby Al Jadeed since 2014.
Kareem James Abu-Zeid, PhD, is an award-winning translator of poets and novelists from across the Arab world. He has received the Sarah Maguire Prize, PEN Center USA's translation prize, Poetry Magazine's translation prize, a Fulbright Fellowship, and an NEA translation grant, and has thrice been a finalist for the PEN America Translation Prize. His translation of Najwan Darwish’s No One Will Know You Tomorrow: Selected Poems 2014 – 2024 (Yale Margellos, 2024) is currently a finalist for the 2025 PEN America Translation Prize in Poetry. He is also the author of the book The Poetics of Adonis and Yves Bonnefoy: Poetry as Spiritual Practice.
so gone
Tell my old institute
I appreciate all they’ve done
But as for right now
I am so gone
I can’t even be found
By tomorrow.
–Eugene Goldin
Eugene Goldin is a poet who lives on Long Island. He has taught at several colleges and several yoga studios. His poems have been published in numerous journals, including the Ilanot Review, the American Aesthetic, and the Tipton Poetry Journal.
Early May
A cardinal sat on the fence and
I measured your height with blue chalk
outside, the golden yellow sun
as you collected pebbles
I tried to write
while you pulled out your pink baby pool.
This is the only spring when you will be two.
The green grass keeps on growing, and,
after a long, dark winter
the air smells of oranges and lilacs.
I open the deck umbrella,
and a bee flies out.
–Julie Foster
Julie Foster (maiden name "Canaris") is a poet and fiction writer from Long Island, New York who has been teaching 10th and 12th grade English for the past 12 years. Originally trained in classical piano, she switched majors in college to focus on theatre and creative writing. She is a proud second generation Greek/Cypriot American who likes to infuse her culture, music, rhythm, color, and food in her works. She has been recently published in The Lyric Magazine. She wrote "Early May" when her oldest child was two, and two years after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on her home. Julie is honored to be published by The Columbia Review.
my belly eye is a teenage priest and
–Zixuan Xin
Zixuan (Angel) Xin is the founder and host of proVERSE and the poetry editor of The Lit, a student-run literary magazine based in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. She is also a poetry mentee with The Adroit Journal. Her works are forthcoming or featured in Milk Press, Eunoia Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and Great Plains Review. She has been recognized by Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, The Poetry Society of New York, Roanoke College, The John Locke Institute, ONLY POEMS, and Scholastics Arts and Writing.
How Capitalism Did End
This work is an excerpt from How Capitalism Did End by Ben Miller.
Synopsis of How Capitalism Did End:
While the planet perishes from the nihilism of greed, pollution, and violence targeting vulnerable populations, an anonymous citizen—in an act of urgent archivism—transcribes portions of the Internet by hand to create a hard-copy that cannot be erased when the Cloud goes down. Recorded here are craven products and absurd services designed both to distract people from the disaster’s gravity and to squeeze final fat profits out of faltering societies. But is the antic catalog less anthropological artifact than intimate evidence of how barrages of marketing polyphony distend (or mutilate) emotions and sensory perceptions in epic fashion? Among antecedents to this montage form of ethical exploration are Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain, Cane by Jean Toomer, The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, Wacky Packages stickers (circa 1970s) and the unstoppable blues of Abbey Lincoln, dissolver of notes to make melodies sing of harrowing things.
Ben Miller is the author of the recently released Pandemonium Logs: Sioux Falls, South Dakota 2020-2022 (Raritan Skiff Books, an imprint of Rutgers University Press) and River Bend Chronicle: The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll Amid the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa (Lookout Books). His writing has been anthologized in Best American Essays and Best American Experimental Writing, and his awards include fellowships from the NEA and the Radcliffe Institute.
At the Café Huracán across from Salomeja Neris (“The Traitor”) High School
Pietro’s cigar smoke hardly made a dent in the air.
This is Griselda, he said (I think), leaning back
on the wooden bench, saying – your colleague,
Vilnius University, Lithuanian philology.
But you’re in translation studies, poetry, yes?
Yes, but I don’t think Griselda was impressed,
her hair settled to the tonal range of our clouds,
her body swaddled tight against the sharp
autumn day, her smile making me hunch
like the wind that whipped the roofs of German Street
as she mentioned how happy she was that Latakas won
the Jotvingian Prize this year (he seems post-modernly
atavistic to me, which, I admit, is kind of interesting),
and how she loves Stankevičius no matter what anyone says
(ah, it starts to make sense, I thought: the old lady who loves
the powerfully elevated voice, the one which I once
tried to capture in English, but it fled from me like Keats’ bird),
and she talked of living in this Soviet block-building
(built over the ghetto’s ruins) as a young woman,
of how Širvys came to her apartment to watch soccer
because he never had a TV, how Vačiūnaitė lived
just upstairs, how Marcinkevičius would drop by,
how so-and-so would play chess with her,
and so-and-so brought so many books from the library
(ones that were not so easy to get, I was meant to understand),
and she would read and read, a straight A book nerd
reminiscing about the house with the writers –
because the Soviets liked to keep them
all in one place. Oh the impromptu recitals!
The parties they had! The memory of Vačiūnaitė
giving birth before her very eyes made
those now dimmed salon lights sparkle and flare
like candles before they go out. The memory
of the lesser poet jumping off the balcony
brought the shadow of a broken body
to the mirror of her memory. But it was all
as it had to be, for this is what is expected of poets.
And you couldn’t help but feel that this had been
the best time of her life, even as the translator
from Italy tried to moderate her: “That’s how it looks
to you now.” But I knew that’s how it was for her,
the young woman in love with words
fawning over the inspired native tongues
of a colonized nation (remember how Sartre
told Plečkaitis they should write in Russian),
being accepted even if it meant smuggling
Širvys’s booze into the Vilnius Žalgiris match
because he was too big to be caught with such a thing,
and she, well, she was she and is still so.
I don’t think she ever moved out.
–Rimas Uzgiris
Rimas Uzgiris is a poet and translator, author of North of Paradise (Kelsay Books), Tarp (poems translated into Lithuanian), translator of eight poetry collections from Lithuanian, and the Venice Biennale Golden Lion winning opera Sun and Sea. Uzgiris was born and raised in the USA, holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, and an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers-Newark. Recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant and NEA Translation Fellowship, he teaches at Vilnius University.
maiden voyage
mythology like
there is no version of this
story where i am not iphigenia
daughtered, martyred
paling in the crescent light
dear to someone
& still culled
who ever did
what they intended
& got away with their life?
his own son’s cup
wouldn’t pass
the stories that cling
always have something
to do with the doling out
of belated salvation
i mean to say
i learned the verses & hymns
& never felt clean
i mean to say
my shame had teeth
& i was all meat on bone
i cross my t’s and pray to
them. it would take a bleeding
man to make me clean
another kindness
i am told my life has been
full of them
i count them before i sleep
waking only to cut garlic
on the wrong board
souring future fruits
write a poem into the space
between my breath & the rest
of the world
intent, the way a child is,
on making a home of this
vessel
leaving home a girl &
returning with a reddened
maw
sometimes you can hear the
bite in abide
my purity as good as cream
in the desert
i mean to say
when a body was a decision
i could make, i joined
mine to his & tore
like a perforated line
no watershed
no veil in the temple
splitting in two
just a viscous blush
on the altar of a man
i once found beautiful
–Imani Nikelle
Imani Nikelle is a southern-born, East Coast dwelling poet & filmmaker. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Callaloo, Poet Lore, Cordite Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She is currently earning an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown University.
Panic Ricochets at the Mall
it’s okay, it’s just, it’s okay, it’s OKAY, it’s okay, uh guys, it’s okay, laugh! it’s okay, wait why, it’s okay, a stain, it’s okay, I heard, it’s okay, what, it’s okay, maybe if, it’s okay, are you, it’s okay, we can, it’s okay, you, it’s okay, is going, it’s okay, we make, it’s okay, laughing, it’s okay okay, wash it, it’s okay, I am, it’s okay, on? it’s okay, her laugh, it’s okay, at, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, she’ll, it’s okay, trying, it’s okay, omg, it’s okay, we can, it’s okay, me? it's okay, it’s okay, come, it’s okay, it’s OKAY, it’s okay, what, it’s okay, all, it’s okay, guys, it’s okay, it’s okay, out I, it’s okay, please, it’s okay, happened? it’s okay, calm , it’s okay, please, it’s okay, it’s okay, think! it’s okay, give me, it’s okay, is okay, it’s okay, down, it’s okay, don’t, it’s okay, it’s okay, please, it’s okay, time, it’s okay, that, it’s okay, and eat, it’s okay, laugh, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, more, it’s okay, soy sauce? it’s okay, oh, it’s okay, stop I, it’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, time, it’s okay, oh no, it’s okay, yes let’s, it’s okay, wait guys, it’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, is it? it’s okay, eat before, it’s okay, I can’t, it’s okay, I need to, it’s okay, I know, it’s okay, on your, it’s okay, we, it’s okay, If you, it’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, to just, it’s okay, skirt? it’s okay, lose our, it’s okay, laugh, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, oh no! it’s okay, minds, it’s okay, then, it’s okay, it’s okay, she’ll, it’s okay, but I, it’s okay, are you, it’s okay, over, it’s okay, I laugh, it’s okay, it’s okay, come out, it’s okay, love this, it’s okay? it’s okay, something silly, it’s okay, breathe, it’s okay, her, it’s okay, skirt and, it’s okay, no don’t be, it’s okay, now point, it’s okay, they’re it’s okay, shell, it’s okay, it might be, it’s okay, sad, it’s okay, yes! it’s okay, trying to help, it’s okay, soon, it’s okay, ruined, it’s okay, please, it’s okay, point! it’s okay, just laugh, it’s okay.
–Alejandro Borge Osorio
Alejandro Borge Osorio is studying Critical Ethnic Studies and Creative Writing. They are from Barranquilla, Colombia and Demorest, GA. They are a poet and artist who is committed to exploring all avenues of artistic and academic expression. They encourage you to check out Roots, The Ethnicity and Race studies journal. They enjoy thrifting, going on adventures and meeting new people. Follow them in this life @jbo.03.
On the Days When I'm Not Me I Rejoice
This poem was written in Greek by Danae Sioziou and translated by Panagiota Stoltidou.
Some days I’m hard on myself
it happens now and then and it’s a godsent.
Those are the days when winter
makes sense within you. You say, there,
this snow that I extract from my body,
exfoliating it, the snow that falls as
my bones are rubbing together and my hand is scratching
my stubborn head
it is this snow, I’m afraid, that will cover me
from head to toe, and won’t stop
nor melt, life will perish here.
Then you lick yourself sweetly
until the last of the ice is gone from your body.
Some days I’m easy on myself.
It’s no use. No season lasts.
Κάποιες μέρες είμαι σκληρή με τον εαυτό μου
συμβαίνει πού και πού και είναι θείο δώρο.
Είναι οι μέρες που ο χειμώνας
αποκτά νόημα μέσα σου. Λες, να,
αυτό το χιόνι που βγάζω απολεπίζοντας
το σώμα μου, το χιόνι που πέφτει καθώς
τρίβονται τα οστά μου και το χέρι μου ξύνει
το αγύριστο κεφάλι μου
αυτό το χιόνι φοβάμαι θα με καλύψει
από τα νύχια ώς την κορφή, και δεν θα σταματήσει
ούτε θα λιώσει, εδώ θα σβήσει η ζωή.
Ύστερα γλυκά σε γλείφεις
ώσπου να φύγουν και οι τελευταίοι πάγοι από πάνω σου.
Κάποιες μέρες είμαι καλή με τον εαυτό μου.
Δώρο άδωρο. Καμία εποχή δεν διαρκεί.
Panagiota Stoltidou read Literary Studies and Sociolinguistics at Freie Universität Berlin and Columbia University in New York City. Her research, reviews and poetry have appeared in Comparative Literature Review, Hopscotch Translation, and elsewhere. A German Academic Scholarship Holder since 2023, she is currently pursuing a master’s in Comparative Literature in Berlin and Zurich. She is the editor-in-chief of Filmpost Berlin.
Greek Dream
This poem was written in Greek by Danae Sioziou and translated by Panagiota Stoltidou.
I remember you driving in the mountains
tracing circles into hairpin turns.
I’m a little dizzy.
Your voice fills the car
like old spring snow.
There is a town with a lake like a mirror,
where you return to find
all that you left behind,
all that was not enough.
I know exactly what wasn’t enough,
what was left out, what you held onto.
If I look back, my gaze slides
to the end of the route floating like a ribbon—
I see you on the balcony.
You’re silent like the future.
I walk past the blond kids,
the wife, the small provincial house,
the Greek dream, your life.
I walk decisively towards you
my feet bleed as if I’m walking on snow,
I cover your eyes with my hand and embrace you:
I’m ready to become all this old spring snow.
It’s simple: we don’t know how to love each other.
You remain silent.
I know that if you could you would return
to the village of your childhood,
long before the Greek dream.
I know it, because I look at you
through the eye of the talisman,
the eye of an animal,
you are silent like a secret
folding into itself.
You shouldn’t have left anything behind.
You should have just kept the secret.
Even now you can walk up to the small house.
The animal within you can guide you,
like the eye of the talisman.
If you get there, you’ll be on your own
If you get there, stay
It’s not too late and this is no longer
the dream for which you gave your life
it is a dream you carry up the mountain
where, again, you become nobody.
Then you’re back in your village
where you prayed to be somebody.
Then I’m back in the car
where I prayed to be your son.
Your voice no longer fills the car
like old spring snow.
We’re silent like the future.
Σε θυμάμαι να οδηγείς το αυτοκίνητο πάνω στο βουνό
διαγράφοντας κύκλους σε απότομες στροφές.
Είμαι κάπως ζαλισμένη.
Η φωνή σου γεμίζει το αμάξι
σαν παλιό ανοιξιάτικο χιόνι.
Υπάρχει μια πόλη με λίμνη σαν καθρέφτη,
όπου επιστρέφεις για να βρεις
όλα όσα εγκατέλειψες,
όσα δεν ήταν αρκετά.
Ξέρω ακριβώς τι δεν ήταν αρκετό
τι περίσσεψε, από τι κρατήθηκες.
Αν κοιτάξω πίσω, το βλέμμα μου γλιστράει
ώς την άκρη της διαδρομής που κυματίζει σαν κορδέλα,
τότε σε βλέπω στο μπαλκόνι.
Είσαι σιωπηλός σαν το μέλλον.
Προσπερνώ τα ξανθά παιδιά,
τη σύζυγο, το μικρό επαρχιακό σπίτι,
το ελληνικό όνειρο, τη ζωή σας.
Προχωρώ αποφασιστικά προς το μέρος σου
τα πόδια μου ματώνουν σαν να περπατάω στο χιόνι,
καλύπτω τα μάτια σου με το χέρι μου και σ’ αγκαλιάζω:
είμαι έτοιμη να γίνω όλο αυτό το παλιό ανοιξιάτικο χιόνι.
Είναι απλό: δεν ξέρουμε πώς να αγαπηθούμε.
Σωπαίνεις.
Ξέρω ότι αν μπορούσες θα επέστρεφες
στο χωριό των παιδικών σου χρόνων,
πολύ πριν το ελληνικό όνειρο.
Το ξέρω, γιατί σε κοιτάζω
με το μάτι του φυλαχτού,
το μάτι ενός ζώου,
εσύ σωπαίνεις όπως ένα μυστικό
που κουλουριάζεται στον εαυτό του.
Δεν έπρεπε να εγκαταλείψεις τίποτα.
Έπρεπε μόνο να κρατήσεις το μυστικό.
Μπορείς και τώρα να περπατήσεις ώς το μικρό σπίτι.
Το ζώο μέσα σου σαν το μάτι του φυλαχτού
μπορεί να σε οδηγήσει.\
Αν φτάσεις θα είσαι μόνος
αν φτάσεις μείνε εκεί.\
Δεν είναι πολύ αργά κι αυτό δεν είναι πια
το όνειρο για το οποίο έδωσες τη ζωή σου
είναι ένα όνειρο που το κουβαλάς στο βουνό
εκεί όπου ξαναγίνεσαι ο κανένας.
Τότε είσαι πίσω στο χωριό σου
εκεί όπου προσευχήθηκες να ήσουν κάποιος.
Τότε είμαι πίσω στο αυτοκίνητο
εκεί όπου προσευχήθηκα να ήμουν γιος σου.
Η φωνή σου παύει να γεμίζει το αυτοκίνητο
σαν παλιό ανοιξιάτικο χιόνι.
Είμαστε σιωπηλοί σαν το μέλλον.
Panagiota Stoltidou read Literary Studies and Sociolinguistics at Freie Universität Berlin and Columbia University in New York City. Her research, reviews and poetry have appeared in Comparative Literature Review, Hopscotch Translation, and elsewhere. A German Academic Scholarship Holder since 2023, she is currently pursuing a master’s in Comparative Literature in Berlin and Zurich. She is the editor-in-chief of Filmpost Berlin.
shells and shields
sippin’ mint tea from a tmnt || soup mug pickin’ || popcorn kernels flickin’ || slobbery debris
flyin’ || from gummy molar graves || amidst this || stupid || barbed || wire || infra-struct-ure || that
poker holds and folds || these stubborn chompers || like the stiff deck o’ cards they are || gotta
keep ‘em (in) l i n e || ‘cause even a mouth full of teeth || needs a leo to lead || but that last buttery
scrap || is one tedious son of a gun || —a foreign fragment filament— || which i lollipop lick and
lick || and flick some more || tonguing it with the same insistence in which || i pinball-flipper
toggle light switches || when the power goes out || busying myself with || calling electricity’s bluff
and in the flickering candlelight || we start a war || of obstinance || with these funky foot clan
foreigners || who threaten the security of my sewer lair || to such an extent that we || must enlist
every last || appendage to help || excavate, to help || pluck ‘em out with surgical precision || until
the wet caved worm grows sore || (at me) || all irritated and agitated || (at me, brother) || because
as much as i’d like it to be || a grooved pickaxe || it’s not. || but despite the whole || wrong-tool-
for-the-job thing || we’ve gone and weaponized it anyway || ‘cause if there’s one thing || we can’t
stand || it’s a god-damn alien
occupying our homeland— || this mere microscopic invader || who’s got no business here || in the
sloppy terrain of my mouth || so step back || strap your safety goggles on || and watch || me take
this thing || this innocent bystander || who’s relatively harmless || and blow this hardly-a-crime
scene || w i d e o p e n || we’re talkin’ FBI-file wide || a senseless investigation led by || none
other than || mister the truth is out there || mister(y) fox mulder || whom i’ll take and easy-bake ||
into a full-fledged self-harm obsession || here, lemme jus’ form the coven of duchovny || right
quick
and yes, yes, yes, i know || like my fifth meeting today without meaning || this, too, has gotten
offtrack || and you never asked, but hey || that’s alright, i’ll forgive your lack of consideration ||
(this time) || —the turtle on the mug in question || is raph || (of course) || good ol’ riff raph, rough
raph, tough raph, never-thought-he-was-enough raph || that bodacious dude with a mindset
hellbent || on tough exterior maintenance || (with tenacity tougher than that damn shell of a back)
|| armed with that militarized show-no-weakness men-tal || -ity, that do-or-die to-tal-ity || that
quick fuse, that || gotta-sequester-myself-before-any-tears-leak-out act || ‘cause new yorkers?
never cry.
and okay, yeah we know (now) || just how problematic || that cramped headspace can be ||
...but... || raphael’s still my go-to pal || still a lovable goofball gumball || despite that brick-thick
shell || ain’t nunna that gunna change now || the red in him || clued me in || on the broken || and
that whole pain-equals-depth thing || (the tortured’s favorite pocketed delusion) || and yeah, there
was an attraction || not to his turtleness || don’t be weird ya perve || not to his ninjaness either ||
just his essential raphness
because let’s face it: || part of crawling out || of a broken home is || being lured in || by those with
|| crowded hearts || because you’ve got a shell-shocked history, too || where love was a rarity ||
and so || you continue || to seek affection from those || who can’t || deliver || —until your version
of priceless nineties collectibles || mutates into this wild ebay assortment of damaged goods ||
where you specialize in || relations with || the clinically detached || and you do it for no other
reason than || the familiarity of it all || and yah, that too || is tricky-sticky territory || slippery
slope, ya dope! || but you try tellin’ the attraction that || see if it responds || or goes and plows
right on through || in its own stubborn ways || in its own twisted gps-routed path
so anyway || back to the wrath of raph— || he is me || and we are he || and we are here || with our
pained grimace grins || sip sip sippin’ our tea || in this never-ending endeavor || to soothe || our
inconsolable angst || and sure, it scorches our tongues || we, the self-shredded || are, after all ||
byproducts of || our own impatience || and we the turtly people of united rage || sheathe our
sensitivity || with these cloth masks sewn || from years and years of tears withheld || we, this
nation of modern indignation!
but the truth of the matter here is || we’ve been stuck in these sewers || long enough to know ||
that the enemy we face || time and time again || isn’t shredder. || shredder’s nothing || nothing
but another opponent to tackle || this totally beatable—external—entity || but that thing? || in the
mirror? || that reflection? || in the glass? || that’s our top villainous threat.
and it’s a hell of a lot tougher || than that damn kernel || that’ll dislodge itself—eventually || (in its
own time) || but creatures like us we || just can’t let things be we || toil and disrupt the flow ‘cause
|| fuck you and fuck patience || we didn’t suffer that puddle of ooze || just to sit back and watch ||
as our backs bend || and break || beneath the toxic weight || of socie-tea || —especiall-ea when it’s
all ass-backwards || and painfull-ea arbitrar-ea
–Abbie Doll
Abbie Doll is a writer residing in Columbus, OH, with an MFA from Lindenwood University and is a Fiction Editor at Identity Theory. Her work has been featured in Door Is a Jar Magazine, 3:AM Magazine, and Pinch Journal Online, among others; it has also been longlisted for The Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for The Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and the Pushcart Prize. Connect on socials @AbbieDollWrites.
winter renewed
no birds but smoke
from a fire. the air is
cold sun melting snow
on asphalt. shopping
carts spun out in the
slush and exhaustion.
no birds but smoke
from a fire. the air is
cold sun melting snow
on asphalt. shopping
carts spun out in the
slush and exhaustion.
this is the anticipation
of spit. this day is a lost
city. this was always midnight
solstice. fire engines so tired
they slip by without lights
without sirens only the
tambourines louder
now over every pothole.
Joshua Anthony holds (precariously) an MFA from Eastern Washington University. Josh has appeared in a fingerful of magazines such as Crab Fat Magazine, Gone Lawn, and Slipstream, among others. Josh teaches at Gonzaga University.
NOLI ME TANGERE
…when we touch/ we enter touch entirely. No one’s alone.
Anne Sexton, “The Truth the Dead Know”
The crack at the edge of the entrance stone
is like a filament of awareness, right at the cusp
where it burns itself out. Day, night, day again. Night.
You wait. You do not pray because you cannot pray.
You can as a thing only lay where you’ve been laid,
a slick of oil daubed onto your forehead for luck
wicking itself into the linen. The filament flickering,
trying to go out. Not trying, really. Just going out. There
were signs. A kiss under the abiding olive trees.
A woman who had held seven different demons inside
the well of her mind, each one a wish that she hadn’t
thought to ask, arriving there to be apostle to the apostles
who loved only suffering. Who, like you, were fishers
of men, untouched and untouchable in any version of this
that gets told. The air that seeps in is dusted with pollen
and a scent like myrrh or prophecy or whatever unwashed
dream plays the part. Mostly, though, with nothing much at all,
like the rumored hollow bones of angels, made so that like
raptors their wings can lift and carry away. Let vacancy tell
its story in its own way, as a palimpsest of every other story
of miracles scribbled on scroll and tablet and funerary wall.
An empty slab is its own kind of weather, astonishing and ruinous,
sprinkled invisibly with skin cells. Touch me not, O touch me not.
Death is an obligation, beloved one, not a victory. It is a failure
in how we know the world. We are born, we die, we rise again,
like pollen drifted from the flowers called everlasting, immortelle,
and strawflower, insistent on being, like them, our own way back.
To see is to believe, but to touch is a potter’s field of consequences,
filled with all we’ve tried to forget. What you’ve learned is that you
are never alone and so very alone, shaking with a cold that stiffens
every stalk and hollow, wondering at how they always know what
they want from this world, how you have come to stand here
again in this heartbreaking light just so they can have it.
–John Blair
John Blair’s seventh book, The Shape of Things to Come, was published last fall by Gival Press.
Levee in Yellow
I know I’ve got it all
wrong. Hello, wildness.
Nature does not stop.
Even the toes insistent
on defying the flight of
life. Head broken off at
the neck. Trumpet
pitched over. The stage
is just one room. Behind
the door is a wall. In the
shoe is a foot. I hear
horns, though they only
became distinct to me
just now, just right now,
rounding the bend.
–Emiliana Renuart
Emiliana Renuart lives in St. Louis, Missouri where she works with STL’s oldest indie bookstore. She is originally from Michigan, where she attended Kalamazoo College and worked with and advocated for young readers and writers.
I HAVE NO CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT
after Kim Hyesoon
once more, he repeated that delimiting the now
of contemporaneity was of the utmost—
wriggling concept clusters, that’s the spirit,
tingling loins of liminality, how else could we possibly sex this life?
what is the air when you could have a think dank? he orates
and I boing boing boing cutting my cuticles out of my square thumb
I have a theory I say, a crusty-video-mall theory, a bloody-nose-party theory
a gawking-teen-maximal-angst theory, a tarmac-sun-squish theory
have you heard of my theory? I ask
swivel-chair-mammoth theory, duh, the catastrophic-lollipop theory
I pull out the last lisa frank notebook in the world from my backpack
covered in pencil shavings and eraser dust and sour patch
birth control sugar
he has equated the transnational with the asymmetrical
the subjectivity with the rejection of historicity
he repeats the axioms of the past and future theories—
I belch into the videogame void
the toggle is mine to generate over this licorice vice
press A, sequence engaged heroine theory
which heroine? which one is it?
he rips the controller from my hands
are you triumph or intravenous-death theory?
rotting-plotless theory, I wolf out into the night.
–Alex Niemi
Alex Niemi is a writer and award-winning translator. Her translations include For the Shrew and Hekate by Anna Glazova (Zephyr Press and Toad Press/Veliz Books), as well as The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé (Autumn Hill Books). She is also the author of the poetry chapbook Elephant (dancing girl press). Her translation work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and nominated for the Best of the Net.
AFTER FRANK O’HARA
HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?
when I have no cash
and some leftover fish
there’s a lesson in that, isn’t there
an invitation to lunch
HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?
when I have no cash
and some leftover fish
there’s a lesson in that, isn’t there
a Chinese poet stands alone
in a field in the Tang dynasty
torn between heaven and earth
(mainly because some errant
translator kept him there)
and I’ve got two-day-old fish
that must be eaten before
it begins to rot
–Norman Minnick
Norman Minnick is the author of three collections of poetry and editor of several anthologies, most recently, The Lost Etheridge: Uncollected Poems of Etheridge Knight. His poems and essays have been published in The Georgia Review, The Sun, World Literature Today, The Writer’s Chronicle, Oxford American, and New World Writing, among others. He was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Visit www.buzzminnick.com for more information.