A Late Night Poem About Morning 3 Poems by Kushal Poddar

A Late Night Poem About Morning 

Instead of pasting Goodmorning!
on your lips and ripping out mine
at the first urge to breathe we discover
sending pics.

You send a photo of a strand of my white 
on the black pillow case. A white cane
for a blind lane and for the piers dark with
wetness, water rippling, a few river gulls,
all tide in my mind. Sun walks in my head,
and its sweat beads explode, startle 
our alley cat, pregnant and sad 
as if it already knows the fate of its kittens. 

In a Landscape of Red, White and Grey

The red balloon moon 
keeps the boat afloat.
Snow steps into the slate.

Dream hands over its 
mutinous pamphlets 
to the flesh and drags 
its cold gnawed feet 
towards the ferry.

Now a wind will chase the shine. 
Now I'll wake up with 
a mouthful of slogans 
and "Bella Ciao" stuck in my glottis.

Thirteen Dogs' Piss Mark This Block

The dayspring birds surround silence,
now almost blind, now bewildered
and looking for the home all go in the end
to begin again.

The street lights still burn. The early
tramlines connect the horizon
with the broad mouth of the junction. 
One mad man seeks for the moon beams
last seen electric on these long metals. 
From his left hand hangs a brown teddy 
wrapped in a thin plastic. The locality 
is demarcated by thirteen dogs' piss.
They ask him who he is, and that he doesn't know.

Kushal Poddar ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost Animals’, ‘Understanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems‘ and ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’. Find and follow him https://www.amazon.com/Kushal-Poddar The author of ‘Postmarked Quarantine’ has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe.
Twitter- https://twitter.com/Kushalpoe

Transfigured Face. Bilingual Poems from Spanish by Ángel Huerga

(i.)

don’t want		not to go		don’t want
can’t		not be		no
dancing to this blood divides
sequences dreams cloud by cloud
enclosed behind fingers		last night
crossed the pavement on the corner
perplexed to see you again on the screen
as if someone had been silhouetted against the sky
or a bulldozer had piled up all the light of the slowness as it passed through

(i.)

no quiero 			no ir 		no quiero
no puedo 		no estar 	no
bailar en esta sangre divide 
secuencia el sueño nube a nube
enrejado entre dedos			anoche
crucé la acera	justo en la esquina
perplejo al re-mirarte en la pantalla
como si hubiera ido surgiendo alguien en lo alto
o una excavadora hubiera apilado toda la luz de lo lento al pasar
(ii.)

where you touch is not mine		i just want
you to be an other		willing to explore something new
perhaps what used to be constant 	may explode into shared fire 		
the helipad where we used to get dressed
i just want		the fuel of breath	breath		breath
to flare up

(ii.)

donde tocas no es mío		pretendo	
que seas otro		para algo nuevo que explorar
quizá explosione en incendio común	   lo que solía ser constante
la helisuperficie donde solíamos vestirnos
solo pretendo 		que sea brote
el combustible de respirar	respirar	respirar
(iii.)

he kept on talking about movies
amenabar		juliette binoche		cary grant
alice in wonderland
[alice’s adventures under ground]
sit down		tie my shoes
he pretended to fly like an airplane 	    with his arms outstretched 
north by northwest
get on your knees 		why are you crying?
did I tell you not to go? 

[I have all your pictures and emails.
And don’t tell me you have no father, ‘cause I know he goes by Arturo and 
he’s a delivery man.
I have all the information needed for the danse macabre to start.
Will you please take off your t-shirt?]

(iii.)

hablaba de cine
amenabar		juliette binoche		cary grant
alicia en el país de las maravillas
[las aventuras de alicia bajo tierra]
siéntate			átame los cordones
imitaba el vuelo de un avión		con los brazos extendidos
con la muerte en los talones
ponte de rodillas			¿por qué lloras?
¿te he dicho yo que no puedes irte?	

[Tengo todas tus fotos y tus correos. 
Y no me digas que no tienes padre porque sé que se llama Arturo y que 
es repartidor de café. 
Tengo toda la información necesaria para que empiece la danse macabre. 
¿Puedes subirte la camiseta?]
(iv.)
                                                       to the seasoned traveller
                                                       a destination is
                                                       at best
                                                       a rumour

the real issue is 
structure
how to locate the narrative line that allows for a beamline beneath the door
we’re talking about infinite degrees of freedom here
you can rotate it
but
it’ll remain in the same place
do we know the rules? who’s up or down? who’s at the steering wheel?
we can look for (all the) tracks in the carpet
the traces they left we left		a return covenant	       quizá
but
blah blah blah 		blah blah blah
line = broken line
we retrace our steps and nothing is familiar nothing
which crossbars will be forded		by our caesura?

(iv.)
                                                   para el viajero con experiencia
                                                   un destino es 
                                                   en el mejor de los casos
                                                   un mero rumor

en el fondo 
se trata de la estructura
de localizar la línea narrativa que deje la línea de luz bajo la puerta
hablamos con un grado de libertad infinito	aquí
puedes rotarlo una mil veces	
pero
sigue en el mismo sitio mismo
¿sabemos las reglas?	¿quién sube/baja? ¿quién sigue al volante?
podemos buscar (todas) las huellas en la alfombra
huellas que dejen dejemos		un pacto de vuelta		       maybe
pero
bla bla bla 		bla bla bla
línea = línea rota
re-trazamos los pasos	 y nada familiar nada
¿qué travesaños vadeará		nuestra cesura?
(v.)

helicopter. beach. he was walking alone. sometimes we need just one reason to quit. 
an aim over which the skin can be spread. it was just a breeze. smell of newly purchased salt. 
as if uncovering waves. why create such a stir. walking. crime against public health. 
remote database access. they landed. they escorted him. from both sides. just in case. 
in view of the risk. in the line of duty. 

(v.)

helicóptero. playa. caminaba solo. a veces basta con una razón para huir. 
un objetivo en el que extender la piel. solo era brisa. olor a sal recién comprada. como destapar olas. 
por qué tanto revuelo. caminar. delito contra la salud pública. acceso remoto a todos sus datos. 
aterrizaron. le acompañaron. a ambos lados. por si acaso. por si el peligro. en cumplimiento del deber.
(vi.)

transfigured face
head and floor separated by a trickle of blood
the gaze walled by an animal silence 

do you believe in life or death?
in life, definitely

both the fall and the body embalmed by the blasting
until the parquet floor pattern is reached

what is it that remains after the last anchoring?

face down he expects something to move
the start of a sob, or a void, or a question
or a delay as abrupt as an ending

(vi.)

se desvive la cara 
un hilo de sangre separa cabeza y suelo
un silencio animal cubre de pared la mirada

¿crees en la vida o en la muerte?
en la vida, por supuesto

la detonación embalsama caída y cuerpo
hasta el patrón del parqué

¿qué permanece en el último anclaje?

bocabajo espera algún movimiento
un principio de llanto o de vacío o de pregunta
o una espera tan simple como un final

Editor’s Note: The latter two poems were performed at the online venue Transforming with Poetry
8/1/21. by the author. See Facebook page.

Ángel Huerga (León, 1971) has collaborated in literary magazines such as Nayagua (Fundación Centro de Poesía José Hierro, nº 33), Solaria, Siete de Siete.net, and Las hojas del foro, as well as in the book of essays Poetas asturianos para el siglo XXI (Ed. Trea, 2009). Currently, he attends the Camaleones en la Azotea poetry workshop in Madrid, Spain, where he is based, and has contributed to the release of the a4rismos cardboard book edition (Fundación Sindical Ateneo 1º de Mayo y Taller de Poesía Camaleones en la Azotea, 2022).

He is a lyricist for Asturian-based band Fantástico Mundo de Mierda (FMM) (https://fantasticomundodemierda.bandcamp.com/), which has released the following albums: New Software (Lloria Discos, 2005), La Furia del Fin (Algamar Producciones, 2013), and La Fortaleza (self-released, 2018).

Additionally, he has contributed to translating into English some sections of the following works: El genio austrohúngaro. Historia social e intelectual (1848-1938), by William M. Johnston (KRK Ediciones, 2009), and “In bello fortis”: la vida del teniente general irlandés Sir William Parker Carrol (1776-1842), by A. Laspra and B. O’Connell (Fundación Gustavo Bueno, 2009).

Three Poems Excerpts from Wrappings in Bespoke Collected Poems by Sanjeev Sethi

Asafetida

Investing emotions when other operating levers exist, 
loving without the privilege of parenthood is an essay
in emptiness. In some eyes, I can see myself. I’m inured 
to their throes. Come, let us camouflage grief in girdles 
of guffaw. Let this be our memory.

You and I inhaled prescriptions scried by sources beyond 
our breath. By then, my sight was misted by the smoke 
of your sticky tune. As with passive smokers, we nip and 
sometimes nurse. An opisthograph on love is not enough: 
lived lives have other needs. 


Allopatry

There was a phase, longish period when I read,
I scrived but didn’t put it in print. Tick-tock of 
my pendulum was on a cerebrational mode. 
Like a bodhi of sorts, I built a blindstory, 
quieter than all the calm there is. College 
friend, a bureaucrat, called. My apodictic 
response was to share not show-off. While 
cutting off, his har-de-har translated as loser. 

Marionette

In the statuary of my branular orb, your figurine shines the sharpest.
When fate conspires to have us face to face, you bring to naught 
the herringbone fabric I primp your mannequin with. I like the layers 
I pad you with: you’re you, plus my decoupage. This suits our setting.
The dominion of physical distance invigorates our weal with you 
chirking best inside me, heedful of my heart as your homestead. 

Sanjeev Sethi has authored seven books of poetry. His latest is Wrappings in Bespoke (The Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK, August 2022). He has been published in over thirty countries. His poems have found a home in more than 400 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. He edited Dreich Planet #1, an anthology for Hybriddreich, Scotland, in December 2022. He is the joint winner of the Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK. In 2023, he won the First Prize in a Poetry Competition by the prestigious National Defence Academy, Pune. He was recently conferred the 2023 Setu Award for Excellence. He lives in Mumbai, India.
 
X/ Twitter @sanjeevpoems3 || Instagram sanjeevsethipoems

The Seaboard Magic Poems by Sterling Warner

Seaboard Magic

Allure

Beachfront bravado to the left and right
waves curl onto shore shifting sand
wiping hand drawn engravings in grit 
as clean as a dull grey etch-a-sketch,
leaving a damp coastline, pristine
and refreshed while high and low tides
move in sets of seven, bowing to the moon’s
majesty, rising, rolling, and crashing
like a seaside symphony conducted
by Luna and her gravitational forces
like a solar maestro—directing 
heaven sent crescendos exerted 
from the nocturnal orb or diurnal daystar  
rays enchanting Jean and I as we walked
along the brackish strand arm in arm, 
examining remains of kelp forests torn, 
severed, and dislodged by brutal currents
by tropical tempests, and El Niño storms:
Violent
Dynamic
Destructive.

 Charmed       

Cooling tired, bare feet in sudsy surf
Jean and I imagine life on a deserted island
while we search for elusive messages bottled 
by humans, battered by natural elements,
propelled by Poseidon from coral groves 
to dryland with other oceanic treasures washed 
aground, rest shoulder to shoulder next to 
empty shells, horseshoe crab exoskeletons, 
smooth rocks, sand dollars, and starfish 
that frame a familiar yet extraordinary stone
with a halo; gulls circle overhead as we
picked up the quartz gem, kissed it thrice 
impulsively shut our eyes, and conferred
silent wishes upon the castaway tetrahedron
worn by pebbles, time, and space, then tossed
the worn talisman back into the saltwater fray
lowering our heads in reverence, listening,
breathing the Pacific Ocean’s ethereal song: 
rhythmic 
soothing
Enduring.

Nocturnal Expeditions

Each night I go on safari in dreams
hoofing it though savannas, I photograph 
big game, immortalize wildlife, 
honor existence over bagging trophies,
confine my conquests to shutter-release shots.

From grasslands to rainforests, 
I advance through foliage like a tropical ecologist, 
inhale the damp, intoxicating fragrance 
of fresh blossoms and decaying vegetation
listen to croaking frogs buzzing insects, chirping birds.

           Dragons nest trees feature purple petals
               that pop alongside giant jungle roses.

           I wipe forehead sweat with velvet petal plants, 
               absorbing perspiration in striking emerald fibers.

My gloved hands part vine walls, prevent
chill nettles from stinging & numbing
bare skin, avoiding slimy lizards tongue leaves, 
marveling how green fountain bushes 
gush between matted, detritus undergrowth.

Jacksonville feral infant, I imagined a childhood
reared by Seeonee wolves or Mangani great apes
heeding jungle law and administering frontier justice
laid down by Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs
a code unsustainable during metropolitan daylight hours.


Nadia & I

Nadia Comăneci sought me out in a dream
to tell me she treasured a letter I’d written
in college when she, still just a teen, had 
mystified Montreal Olympic spectators 
in frigid stands, dorms, warm living rooms,
and smoky bars as they watched miss impeccable’s
balance beam heroics & uneven bars magic.

The perfect ten approached me, tossed
a pair of lycra leotards on my mattress, 
then bid me to rise, dress & stretch; 
“Bart Connors, you ain’t,” she winked & grinned,
yet assured me our overdue exercise would
commence unimpeded by my lackluster talent,
present confusion, or enduring admiration.

Throwing a Moldavian folk scarf onto my rug
she slipped a body shawl off her shoulders
displaying arms, legs & chest pectoral muscles
still supple, toned, lean, femininely defined; 
awestruck, her statuesque figure morphed 
from a woman to an adolescent as “Nadia’s Theme”
floated through my enchanted furnace grate.

Tears welled in my eyes recalling how Grandma Leedom
would hum the self-same tune to The Young and the Restless
before piano notes & Nadia’s touch transformed my carpet,
she took both my hands & we fell in sync on a foam mat; 
out-of-body I watched as we hit the floor—gymnastic youths—
doing backsprings, forward rolls, cartwheels & handstands 
till music stooped & I awoke middle-aged, exhausted, alone.


Purdy Creek Choka

Northwest white polars
lean like elderly people
attempting to keep upright
when muddy currents
clutch waterlogged feeble trunks 
pull tired legs alike asunder
like flagpoles planted
in insubstantial soil
both endure flash floods
while otters back float
bouncing off impediments 
like brightly lit pin balls
joyriding the river’s surge
carrying them to the sea.

An award-winning author, poet, and educator, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies including Danse Macabre, Poetry Life and Times, Ekphrastic Review, and Sparks of Calliope. Warner’s collections of poetry include Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori: A Chapbook Redux, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps, and Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction 2019-2022—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories. Currently, Warner writes, participates in “virtual” poetry readings, and enjoys retirement in Washington.

Sterling Warner’s Author Website
https://www.amazon.com/author/amazon.com_sterling.warner

The Prose Poems of EM Schorb

AT HEART, SPEED

At heart, speed is about being where you are going sooner than you can get there, and putting it all behind you. As you race forward to get where you are going, much is dropping behind, falling away from your frontal interest, as it were. If you were as fast as an atom, say, you could probably spin back and pick up some of what you have left behind and so take it with you as you propel forward, wherever that is now—for we have thoroughly muddled the issue in having gone back to pick up what was left behind because in having gone back we have made back forward, forward back. At heart, speed is an attempt to avoid as much as possible until we get to something we may or may not have in mind and stop there, but of course as we arrive there we find that we have just left and are now on our way to something that resembles in its lack of interest to us all that we have attempted to leave behind, so, in a sense, we are going backward, or, we should be going backward, toward what we wanted to get to in the first place. At heart, speed is our heart beating and speeding its beat until it has run out of beats. At heart, then, speed is our heart excitedly beating a trail to its end.

THE MURDER OF GARCIA LORCA
No es sueño la vida.
¡Alerta! ¡Alerta! ¡Alerta!

I tug the strings of my fear, my bad puppet, Diablo, and tap him about this space, my first and last stage, last props, last lights, behind and in front of my painted screen. See, I pull up a leg and he hops, hops, hops! Who are you, Diablo? Herr Hitler, con permiso. Then hop, Hitler, hop! Garcia will be dead when I do this jig under the Arc de Triomphe. Not amusing, Diablo. Be something else. I want light and color! Then look at my gypsy dress, all layered, laced, ribboned, and brocaded—scarlet, gold, and green. Feel the wide wind of my rich fan. Hear my diamonded castanets! When did you put that on? An instant ago, behind the screen, when you were talking. But now I’ll be Franco and rise against the Republic. Another ugly joke! But in an instant, true! Just let me don this uniform. I love good fun, but this is wicked. Night must fall, Federico, even if it frightens you. Diablo, I command you, take off that uniform, with its golden shoulder-mops and scrambled eggs and salads. I wish I could drop the reins of your dark horse. Who am I now? Wait, I recognize you. You’re a man from my hometown, a granadino. Your name is. . . Diablo! Yes, and I am jealous of your genius. I call you out! I name you Red! Red, red, red! I am a poet. I hate politics. Nevertheless, I charge you, Federico Garcia Lorca, with crimes against the state . . . of my ego. And what now? Bang, bang, you’re dead! Am I dead, Diablo? In an unmarked grave! Is it dark, Federico? No darker than this dark century, Diablo.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A MUS
E

A muse has responsibilities, too. She owes her worker a few but important debts of honor. If a muse is going to come to an artist, thinker, dancer, or whatever, she owes it to that worker to stay until the job is done, not desert at the first opportunity. She owes him, who has been loyal to her, her loyalty. She owes it to him not to play such tricks as muses are known to play, i.e., not to inspire him with false inspiration, so that his work is false; and she owes it to him to give of herself freely and not to tease him with half measures. Muses are notoriously whimsical, and they must be brought to book on this account. It is high time that they grew up, that they realized they are playing games with someone’s life, for an artist’s work is his or her life. Muses should be answerable to somebody. They should be compelled to file reports on the progress of their workers at least once a year. Has he taken you up on your offer of an epic? Has she recruited enough dancers for the show? Questions such as these should be posed. Also, have you offered an epic lately? Have you found the requisite number of dancers? Responsibility for the ultimate work must be shared, and shame to the muse who refuses to share. I am calling in all that you owe me, O Muse, a lifetime of suffering in your name.

BADA-BING BONES

A stripper stripped down to her skin, then began to remove her skin by means of a zipper up the back and two more down the backs of the legs. Then she began to remove the muscles, unhooking them from the joints, like springs, and laying them out on the stage. What throbbing music! An old man in the front row fainted. A doctor in the back row called Stop! But the stripper proceeded to strip down to the bone, so that all that was left on the stage was a dancing skeleton. Somebody said it was a trick. But her skull-face called back, Dig it, boys—this is the real thing! Then the stripper snapped some bones out, one of her thighbones, one of her arm bones. A collar bone flew into the air to the sound of a drumroll. She picked up the collar bone, broke it, and shook some marrow from it. Then she called, That’s it for tonight, boys. And as the curtains swooped down and closed, she was heard by the audience to order the attendants backstage to gather up her things. Hurry, she was overheard to say, I’ve got a heavy date.

THE ORBITING X

Hallelujah! saw X twenty-two thousand five-hundred miles off blue Earth, heavenly luminous body, nebulous, long-tailed, fiery Cross, cross Heaven like a comet, airless incandescent meteor-Messiah, whirling Aether, leagues-arcing rainbow-halo of lights, sprites, rolling, rolled into one long-suffering, fragmented Star, returning & returning. The ecumenical others, crew of All Faiths, bound out for the dead red planet, Mars, doubters, saw the Un-identifiable Flying Object, too, but cautioned: a star-cluster, an optical illusion, looking really more like a scimitar, caduceus, fylfot, The Wisdom Tree, a whirling glowing Saucer! Hallelujah! he cried at the infinite night. The links of stars, like bars, crossed everywhere . . . and beyond them, galactic webs, far glittering spiders climbing space. In this vastness, this immensity of lights, his soul seemed unmeterable, or an impertinence imprisoned in endlessness. The others kept bitten-tongued silence in face of this—this what? Vision? Hallucination? Madness? What should they bear witness to? It was too late to abort Mission Mars, too late to turn back. The dead red planet loomed ahead.

Biography

E. M. Schorb attended New York University, where he fell in with a group of actors and became a professional actor. During this time, he attended several top-ranking drama schools, which led to industrial films and eventually into sales and business. He has remained in business on and off ever since, but started writing poetry when he was a teenager and has never stopped. His collection, Time and Fevers, was a 2007 recipient of an Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing and also won the “Writer’s Digest” Award for Self-Published Books in Poetry. An earlier collection, Murderer’s Day, was awarded the Verna Emery Poetry Prize and published by Purdue University Press. Other collections include Reflections in a Doubtful I, The Ideologues, The Journey, Manhattan Spleen: Prose Poems, 50 Poems, and The Poor Boy and Other Poems.

Schorb’s work has appeared widely in such journals as The Yale Review, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Chicago Review, The Sewanee Review, The American Scholar, and The Hudson Review.

At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2000, his novel, Paradise Square, was the winner of the Grand Prize for fiction from the International eBook Award Foundation, and later, A Portable Chaos won the Eric Hoffer Award for Fiction in 2004.

Schorb has received fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the North Carolina Arts Council; grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the Carnegie Fund, Robert Rauschenberg & Change, Inc. (for drawings), and The Dramatists Guild, among others. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets, and the Poetry Society of America.

PRIZE-WINNING BOOKS
BY E.M. SCHORB
Books available at Amazon.com
_______________________________________

Dates and Dreams, Writer’s Digest International Self-
Published Book Award for Poetry, First Prize

Paradise Square, International eBook Award
Foundation, Grand Prize, Fiction, Frankfurt Book Fair

A Portable Chaos, The Eric Hoffer Award for Fiction,
First Prize

Murderer’s Day, Verna Emery Poetry Prize, Purdue
University Press

Time and Fevers, The Eric Hoffer Award for Poetry
and Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book
Award for Poetry, each First Prize
 
visit www.emschorb.com.

 

5 sonnets from the poetry of R.W.Haynes

1]

The Knife and the Retreat

One awaits the knife, not that that
Is all that dramatic, cathartic, or just.
But anticipation can miss surprise in the dust
And there it pops up, wagging its hat.
And that’s the great crisis right then, of course,
That jolt of suddenly being unprepared
To cope with emotion one had never cared
To consider might land with unexpected force.
“I’d rather be a Stoic,” old Wordsworth might say,
His teeth clamping down on his old corncob pipe,
“Than be clotheslined to whimper and to gripe
While my sweet fantasies evaporate away.”
Now retreat and recover, live, do not die.
Be that imagined hermit, lonely by the Wye.


2]

The Cliffside Stroll

Her sonnets struggled along the cliffside path,
Shells and flowers tracking her aimless way,
As a dark spirit followed in shadows of the day,
And blue jays whispered, choking back their wrath.
But the bright sun vanquished in the blue sky,
And earthquakes held themselves in control
As she nibbled wafers and prayed for his soul
A little, and watched the hungry seagulls fly.
Below her, breakers gnashed at the rock,
And old prayers ascended upward as mere mist,
And memory quietly reft how they’d been
One sweet time, never to come again,
Since they’d looked at each other and kissed.
But now the jays can resume their clamor
And earthquakes swing their devastating hammer.


3]

Barks

So there is madness in exaggeration
And some cold, bold sanity, too.
Get unexcited by unthinking silence
Till the dogs start barking madly at you.
They know, these dogs, what’s in your mind.
They hear everything, and they’re not blind.
They smell all the aromas of violence
And long for the bite of imagination.
It is the bark of time that philosophy
Avoids waking us with to keep us free
From madness and unleashed disorientation,
One kind of wisdom, our mortal enemy.


4]

Last Conversation

Do we mix admiration and regret
For prudence managed half-heroically?
For half-blind pleasure felt half-painfully?
Ha ha, no paradise has come here yet,
Nor has a fatal drama played for us
With gestures, shouts, soliloquies,
Devastating recognitions—no, none of these
Has come, no, no bother, no fuss.
One turns away, right, when warning lights
Blink in the guts, and one’s breathtaking act
Of false control works to distract
Destructive impulse as it wildly fights.
And, O you craven philosophic Judas,
You let the grinning Fates come burn and loot us.


5]

The Quicksa-a-a-and of Laughter

One cannot keep writing sonnets.
			Tennessee Williams

The double-Debbie’s dud dude did
What he could and whenever he could
And sped sometimes up to no damn good,
And they all laughed hard wherever they hid,
Laughing like lobsters with haha like crows,
In musical moonlight uttering chuckles and snorts
And torrents of turbulent hilarious sports
In musical starlight until the sun rose.
“The operation of masks,” he nervously spoke,
“Is best done by women, whose all-wily wits
Confound men’s arguments and logical fits
Like music the mad game of mirror and smoke.
Get away, Cassandra!” he shrieked in agony.
“All right, brother—have you no faith in me?” 

R. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, has published poetry in many journals in the United States and in other countries. As an academic scholar, he specializes in British Renaissance literature, and he has also taught extensively in such areas as medieval thought, Southern literature, classical poetry, and writing. Since 1992, he has offered regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, as well as seminars in Ibsen, Chaucer, Spenser, rhetoric, and other topics. In 2004, Haynes met Texas playwright/screenwriter Horton Foote and has since become a leading scholar of that author’s remarkable oeuvre, publishing a book on Foote’s plays in 2010 and editing a collection of essays on his works in 2016. Haynes also writes plays and fiction. In 2016, he received the SCMLA Poetry Award ($500) at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference In 2019, two collections of his poetry were published, Laredo Light (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape (Finishing Line Press). His Latest collected works are Heidegger Looks at the Moon (Finishing Line Press 2022 ) The Deadly Shadow of the Wall (finishing Line Press 2023)

Press. Excerpts from Seasons in the Sun. Winter’s Breath 3 Poems by Annest Gwilym

Days like this to be read as honey

For the child I never had
    I would give you: the honeydrip of low sun on the horizon; a cold that sugar-coats mountain tops, collides cells and atoms; all the tree-lined hours of your dreams; a moonsuck and sunstruck clock stuck at youth; four seasons in a day. In my witchery I would line up jars of bright starshine on your windowsill; conjure Caravaggio days, raining pomegranate seeds; trap it all in amber. And if you ever lived, you could live it too.
First published in the PK Project Quixotic Travellers, December 2018. Also published in Caught in the Net, November 2019. In the Immensity of Night
    Things with invisible hands unlatch the doors unseen Creep on silent feet around my floating bed Tap their long, strong nails on my wooden headboard Whisper poetry in my sleep which evaporates at dawn A crinkle of leaves gathers at the base of the bed While the sea laps at my front door lost and miles from home Baby crabs with tiny pincers knock, want to enter The herons are watching as gulls tear candy-floss clouds Outside is dangerous, static-filled inside is better I pull the duvet under my chin I think I’ll stay here
Winter’s Breath
    Winter’s breath is snow-dust prophecy, humus and moss-scented ache of leaf mould from autumn on the floor. Under the cold, clear fire of stars its wind corrugates the sea’s iron in the silent meadows of the night. Winter’s woods are antlered, dark, fox-sharp, full of long, wolfish shadows that follow you home. Its eye is pale, glaucous; air salted with frost, whose sharp proboscis probes every crack and crevice. Winter is a black and white country. The old know this: it strips flesh from trees, flowers, bones.

Click on Image to view large:

https://carreg-gwalch.cymru/seasons-in-the-sun-3008-p.asp

Annest Gwilym is the author of three books of poetry. Surfacing (2018) and What the Owl Taught Me (2020), were both published by Lapwing Publications. What the Owl Taught Me was Poetry Kit’s Book of the Month in June 2020 and one of North of Oxford’s summer reading recommendations in 2020. Annest has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies, both online and in print, and placed in several writing competitions, winning one. She was the editor of the webzine Nine Muses Poetry from 2018-2020. She was a nominee for Best of the Net 2021. Her third book of poetry – Seasons in the Sun – was published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch in September 2023 and was Poetry Kit’s Book of the Month in November 2023 as well as being one of their Christmas reading recommendations. She has been nominated for the Wales Book of the Year Award 2024/Gwobr Llyfr y Flwyddyn 2024. Seasons in the Sun is available from Amazon and other places. It is also available from all bookshops in Wales.

When the Messiah Comes poems from Aieka by Daniela Ema Aguinsky Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arróspide & Robin Ouzman Hislop

i.

La foto de mi abuela el día de su casamiento

Sé que no lo deseabas
pero lo hiciste.
El buen chico judío asignado
no resultó
tan buen chico.

Pasé tu edad
no me casé con el mío.
Lo deje ir lejos
una noche de luna
en la terraza
tomó mi mano y dijo

no me gustan las chicas
con las uñas pintadas.

Las mías
eran rojas
y dejaban marcas
en las paredes de su intestino.

A veces recuerdo al goy
de la fábrica de máquinas de coser
gritaba tu nombre
en la cueva privada de su boca.

Alegre
soprano de interiores
fósforo
en una caja húmeda
durante un corte de luz

vos empezás a irte
yo recién estoy llegando. 

i.

The photo of my grandmother on her wedding day

I know you didn't want to
but you still did.
The assigned good Jewish boy
did not turn out to be
such a good boy.

I am past your age
I didn't marry mine.
I let him get away
a moonlit night
on the terrace
he took my hand and said

I don't like girls
with painted nails.

Mine
were red
and left marks
on the walls of his intestine.

Sometimes I remember the goi*
from the sewing machine factory
he screamed your name
in the private cave of his mouth.

Cheerful
indoor soprano
a match
in a wet match box
when there is a fuse

you begin to depart
I'm just arriving.


* Goi (non Jewish boy)

ii.

Palimpsesto

Me tiré ácido
me raspé la piel
y me escribí encima.

Abajo quedaron huellas
los textos que no llegaron
al canon de mi existencia.

Que vengan los cabalistas
los estudiantes de Talmud
voy a desplegarme sobre la mesa,
una escritura sagrada.

Desnúdenme con cuidado
rastreen los indicios
discutan el estado original
de esta mujer borrada.

ii.

Palimpsest

I threw acid on myself
scraped my skin
and wrote on it.

Traces were left below
the texts that did not make it
to the canon of my existence.

Let the Cabalists come
students of the Talmud
I'm going to spread myself on a table,
a sacred script

Undress me with care
track the signs
discuss the original state
of this erased woman.

iii.

Las copas están hechas para romperse

Lo sé
desde que mi abuela guardaba la vajilla
de su abuela, en un aparador especial
que nunca se abría
por lo delicadas que eran
esas copitas verdes de tallos finos como lirios
capacidad mínima, brillantes.

Nada ameritaba
perturbarlas
de su estado decorativo
los nietos no le habíamos dado
una jupá, un compromiso, un nacimiento.
No le habíamos dado nada.

Pero mi abuela sabía mejor que nadie
que las copas
están hechas
para romperse:

van a quebrarse
mientras lavás los platos
o estallar contra el piso cuando levantás la mesa
un día que estás sobrepasada
o se le van a caer a tu nieta, dentro de veinte años,
cuando se mude sola a su primer departamento.

Van a resistir
como las personas viejas resisten
hasta quebrarse
un día cualquiera de sol.

iii.

GLASSWARE  ARE  MADE TO BE BROKEN

I know
since my grandmother put away the crockery
of her grandmother, in a special sideboard
she never opened
because of how delicate they were
those little green glasses with thin stems like lilies
bright in miniature capacity 

Nothing was worth
disturbing them
from their ornamental state     
grandchildren hadn´t give her
a chuppah*, an engagement, a birth. 
We hadn't given her anything.

But my grandmother knew better than anyone
that glassware
are made to be broken

they are going to break
while you wash the dishes
or explode on the floor when you ´re clearing the table
stressed out
or your granddaughter will drop them in twenty years´ time
when she moves into her first apartment alone.

They will resist
as old people resist
until breaking
any sunny day.

* chuppah: a Jewish wedding

iv.

                Cuando venga el Mesías van a curarse todos los enfermos
                     pero el tonto va a seguir siendo tonto.
                      Refrán Idish

Cuando venga el Mesías

y reconstruyan el Tercer Templo
no quiero estar arriba
mirando a los hombres rezar
en círculos que cantan y bailan
mientras mujeres charlan
y chicos gritan.

Cuando venga el Mesías
no quiero estar arriba
con el humo de los sacrificios
abajo los sacerdotes entran
y salen como amantes
pronunciando
el nombre sagrado.

Cuando venga el Mesías
y todos retornemos a la tierra
quiero estar en la tierra de este mundo.

iv.

                   When the Messiah comes, all the sick will be cured.
                        but the fool will remain a fool.
                         Yiddish saying

When the Messiah comes

and they rebuild the Third Temple
I don't want to be above
watching men pray
in circles singing and dancing
while women chat
and children shout

When the Messiah comes
I don't want to be above
with the smoke of sacrifices
the priests entering below
and exiting like lovers
pronouncing
the sacred name.

When the Messiah comes
and we all return to earth
I want to be on the earth of this world.

v.

Teléfono fijo

Mis papás me dieron un teléfono fijo
la línea está incluída dijeron
tenelo por las dudas
y quedó en el piso

cuando suena, rara vez
sé que son ellos
(nadie más tiene el número)
me siento en el sillón
espero tres tonos y atiendo

a veces una noticia terrible otras
una invitación para almorzar
lo único fijo este teléfono.

v.

Landline

My parents gave me a landline
the line is paid for they said
keep it just in case
and it stayed on  the floor

when it rings, rarely
I know it's them
(no one else has its number)
I sit on the couch
I wait three rings and answer

sometimes terrible news other times
an invitation for lunch

The only fixed thing this phone. 

Daniela Ema Aguinsky (Buenos Aires, 1993) is a writer and filmmaker based in Argentina. She Directed the shorts Virtual Guard, Hurricane Berta, 7 Tinder Dates, and several others. She published Amante japonés, Aieka (2023) and Terapia con animales (2022) in Argentina, Mexico and Spain, book that won The National Poetry Prize Storni in 2021. She is also the spanish translator to the California based poet Ellen Bass; Todos los platos del menú (Gog & Magog, 2021). Twitter: laglu Instagram: laglus

 
 
Amparo Arróspide (born in Buenos Aires) is an M.Phil. by the University of Salford. As well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines, she has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento. The latter is part of a trilogy together with Jacuzzi and Hormigas en diaspora, which are in the course of being published. In 2010 she acted as a co-editor of webzine Poetry Life Times, where many of her translations of Spanish poems have appeared, she has translated authors such as Margaret Atwood, Stevie Smith and James Stephens into Spanish, and others such as Guadalupe Grande, Ángel Minaya, Francisca Aguirre, Carmen Crespo, Javier Díaz Gil into English. She takes part in poetry festivals, recently Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
 
 
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

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