July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Today, in the safety of noon’s optimism
I allowed my thoughts to return to December
Though I never felt her winter,
I knew, she was colder than most.
Children built snowmen,
From my window, I watched
Carrots that once served as noses,
Sinking in sleet.
December’s evenings brought
Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, Friends.
They all came to say hello and goodbye.
Some hellos were the first in years
Their goodbyes, surely, the last.
And when dawn arrived,
New snowmen were built.
Some with twigs as arms,
And others,
without.
Their coal eyes longing for limbs
To move freely, as humans should.
Day by day, I watched snowmen melt
Drooping eyes, withering arms
And silly scarves.
From my window,
I wondered what it would be like,
To be rooted in one spot
A mouth full of pebbles
And memories evaporating like snow
–Maria del Canto
Maria del Canto has been published in the literary magazine The Battered Suitcase as well as New York University’s journal for creative writing.
July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
of an animal mind
inside our animal bodies
there is a tumbling fire:
it roves our skinwalls
like a lighthouse,
it creeps across us
in waves of tingling
it accumulates in the folds
of our darker parts
this is why we will never
be separate from them: i
have always felt this heat,
and seen it in every feral
eye i found: we are all
wild. our jowls fill with
purpose. we know the rules
of the hunt: kill or give
yourself to the light.
the blood in your teeth
is the trophy of your
own trembling existence.
i like glinting in the brake:
i am in wait.
the darkness and the light
hum in unison inside me,
they are binary and seethe
with equal fervor: i am free.
a motion
you give your eager motion
to the salty requirement
of being alive: it is a
terrible dance we all hate
the steps of. there is no
thing so impossible, to you,
as the inaccurate roundness
of the moon. the way she
balloons makes you believe
in the candor of science.
i calculated the apex of your
natural life and you were
disappointed. surely not
so long to wait! the light
grows tiresome and i am
late for the party. the clouds
are moving now: they shuffle
together like a deck
of cards.
the tincture will not reverse the feathers
my lungs are full of feathers
&when i inhale i begin to flutter
everso upwards, the light thickening
on my tongue like a syrup:
i am becoming a bird from the inside out!
there is a tincture that coats me like a nightgown:
they have given it to me to reverse this process.
but i feel hollow quills growing
in my throat: my teeth elongate everso
unnoticeably and harden towards a beak.
in the places i used to feel sexual now
i feel only the throb of coming spring.
and sky, o sky! you are mine and i am yours
and soon we will rub our bodies together and
we will taste the salt of each other and crash
like waves into each other as long as we live.
my bones are emptying of marrow.
now there are the hollow spaces
in to which i stuff wild tufts of air
&my fingers grow too long and thin
to do human work.
David Courtright is a young poet & musician from Atlanta. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Marco Polo Quarterly, Barrier Islands Review, and The Sun Magazine.
July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
toska
to hell with stolen hearts,
broken hearts,
the beautiful and the
damned.
to hell with thieves,
the wreckers, their grand larceny, a
sham.
i’m curious, girls, what were you
thinking, where did you go wrong, how
could it turn right?
unplug the telephone, turn
down the heat, your house is
on fire, so bright, so
bright.
‘listen asshole:
“you were my worst mistake, my
favourite crime, raised me
like ecstasy, dragged my
soul through the Styx.”
‘dearest jerkface:
“a seed for every sin, pomegranate
for sanity, a coin for Charon, for
you, a coin for the
prick.”
to the dearly departed, those are
crimson cries, your ache and break, in
diaries, letters, in
death’s slow wake. see,
Troy only burned when a horse rode in, its
pillars its columns its trysts
made faint; and he was your flame, your
white shining horse, the devil
posed like an angel, like a
fucking saint.
it burned, did it not, the plums and
tangerines, the coal in the orchard, like
apples in the grave.
it burned, how the fire burned,
raw and relentless, but
never ate away.
there was coal in the orchard, licked by the
flame, grazed and caressed with fire’s heated
grace. that was the way he kissed you, the
way you echoed back, the way he gazed, the
honeysuckle taste. the same way the flame
receded when it gave coal its all, it’s
a dance of desire, the dance of
its fall.
i say, don’t go weeping, don’t
douse what was yours, remember the
flame quivered, remember it
adored. it’s how
you get by, the lingering
truth, the shimmering layer
above any lie. remember
the soft flicker, the
flicker in the flame, remember the
tears of the wicker, remember the flame
flickered all the same.
1. when your eyes meet his across the crowded bar
when your eyes meet his across the crowded bar
you are alky and he is flame
a guy in your psych class is
going at it against the wall
with a girl in lace tights and
smeared lipstick, and
you wish they wouldn’t, haphazard
under the strobe lights
people give themselves away too easily and
the world is too big to find a soul that has let away
when your friends are blaring off-tune about the bludgeoned and
broken, welcome the darkness, welcome
to the dark parade as
the girls outside blow out smoke swirls with
their eyes closed, the truth is
you know what they’re seeing
you know what they’re singing about
inside, the glass floor with neon lights is a battlefield
of terracotta soldiers with bullet holes for
hearts, and
you’ve walked their walk before,
it isn’t a happy one, it isn’t even
sad, lipstick and bruises ought to
scream out
and it’s something at the cusp of your tongue that sours when
you realize they only whisper
they’re dreaming they’re awake
2. when your eyes meet his across the crowded bar
when your eyes meet his across the crowded bar
space and time and distance meld
into one and the only divination
the only dimension plotted is
the displacement in between
his gaze is a hundred luster beams
a thousand voltaic pulses
the incandescent flare of something lit up by nothing as
your nose grazes his
you aren’t two ships passing in the twilight
when your eyes meet his across the crowded bar
you are
two parts of a ship coming together
again and again and
again
aether drifting among the mortally broken, the
drizzle before the storm, a
supernova waiting to happen
but before the big bang, the explosive splay
a cosmic aurora dancing above earth
when your eyes meet his
there is a moment
where darkness flickers and
whispers fade
all around, lights go out, one
by one, nameless faceless terracottas dragged
by the ends of their coats, the
weight of their bullet-ridden chests
you are two entities
gravitating towards each
other in the moonshine, so
don’t hasten your steps, don’t
dash for flight, take
into your palms these
violent delights, for
in the beginning you plunged
into the black sea of
gunpowder cries, and
tonight
you are coming together
a soft respite.
the beginning
shadows recede, the first day of spring
endless waiting, shadows aren’t shadows
when they materialize into things, and
things with affinity always
come back and voices
in your head whimper, not yet
this is hard,
the mind, in tune with the gods
above, as the door opens
it sighs finally,
finally
and for you, it wasn’t the brightness of day or
the way the clouds skipped and hugged the trees
and earth that marked the start of spring
when the door opens
you are on wings
this is where spring begins
the heart is a chorus of crickets
it sings, sings and sings.
full circle
before the hollow amber glass spins,
its final round
this time settling
unmistakably
in front of me, its
bitter lips
puckering
and saying
‘i choose you, finally’,
i am sealed within a circle
of judgement, a ring of
secrets and
heart.
secretive hearts
are unwelcome
in the non-judging drinking circle,
while unrelenting eyes and coarse
whispers judge anyway, gasp
at the atrocity behind the absence
of a presence, the blowup of a
breakup, the dregs after the death of
kindness.
how is it terribly wrong
of me to cease
up, when i am at the crossroads
that separate the
bold
from the brave?
truth or dare
do you dare to tell
the truth, or
are you only brave
enough to burst into flagrant
flight, show some sudden strength
to leap off a ledge or
climb a cliff in the drunken drizzle
of harsh beer and champagne?
why i am forced
to take on that oath is
beyond me;
i either bow out or
bow down.
a coward for both deeds,
giving in or
giving up.
the circle applauds
with my vow
to say the truth
and the truth is
that i am far from
stupid.
i am not an open book,
as the judges sit
in unison
waiting
for a sliver
of untainted wisdom,
never before uttered detail
of what-happened-when or
remember-that-night-of.
i vow to say nothing but
the truth, and the truth is
that guilt doesn’t wash over me
when i spill scotch
over scars, champagne
over shambles and
shame.
when i say the truth,
i am saying what
i’m expected to say, what
they are waiting in haste
to learn, their worst fears and best
wonderings confirmed, anything beyond
that train of thought
earth shattering and
you only say
what they are waiting to hear.
your heart
is a closed one,
locked and
bound and its
see-through moments are best saved
for nights when you would fling
off its bandages and bare all
for the ones who were there for it all.
your face is a closed mask
but you aren’t transparent inside,
no light passes through
in the moment
when you utter words
that lace the hard sharded truth
with citrus curls, the sugar over
the astringent, the tangible over
the surreal. tonight you performed
a survival act,
and you are simply grateful
your heart is
intact
–April Chye
April Chye is an undergraduate student currently studying English Literature in Columbia University. Her collection of poems is an eclectic mix of Western and Eastern culture and experiences reflective of a student from Singapore who spent her teenage years in an English boarding school in the UK.
July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
These oppressively hot, humid nights,
alone
with my thoughts and the heat in this premature summer.
Thinking how friends continue to scatter,
progress, bloom
into adults.
And I’ve somehow failed to climb out
of the liminal tweens lifestyle,
eight years in the same city, vaguely grounded
yet stultified, underpaid, underwhelmed.
Balancing part-time work, half-heartedly
pursuing dreams, boyfriends,
life. Desperate for change
yet afraid to be hopeful. Treading water,
staying afloat but receding,
relinquishing days to inertia.
Wondering if I’m a traitor
to my sign. A Capricorn
is apparently industrious, ambitious, driven.
Yet we also do things on our own time.
Ah. I must be a late-bloomer, I am one of those
fragile, erratic breeds, prone to sickliness,
then unsuspecting growth spurts.
I’m subtly subverting tradition, waiting
to eclipse the heat, approach my own version of adulthood.
–Rachel Carbonell
Rachel Carbonell is a writer, artist and teacher living in Brooklyn, New York. She maintains a blog, and has been published in The Vagrant Literary Quarterly and accepted for publication to the shady side review and cliterature. When she is not writing or teaching, Rachel enjoys exploring NYC, biking, seeing live music and spending time with her friends and kitties.
July 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Falling
falling
from a
height
is a kind of
f
light
where
your
desti
nation
is
your
self.
In The Spaces
(Why)
You can only speak your words (to me)
only in the spaces between
your utterances,
and (Why)
I can only write my words (to you)
only in the spaces between
my texts:
Do you know that I measure time
not by minutes, not by hours,
not by days or nights, but by the
duration of your glance?
And yet here we are, feeling intimacy
only in the way our backs touch,
our faces turning strange
not knowing whether to age or to
remain the same,
for our faces have not faced
since (when?).
If I dared to call out your name,
will you turn to me? Will you let me
be again? Or will you not hear me
because you perceive speech
not by words, not by phrases
not by sound, but by the
movement of my lips?
And you cannot see them,
because we love the way our backs touch.
It ends for us
not knowing whether to turn or
to remain this way,
for our faces have not faced
since (too long ago).
The Youth
And it bothers us how
those heroes, whose names
we couldn’t care less about
died for their mother
land
as if she ever did them any good.
Yes, we are children
with no navels, no mothers
who graced us with her milk
because she was too dry;
too incapable of nurturing.
In ancient Sparta, they
used to send weak offspring
to meet the elements.
These days we do that to our mother.
Gentle Things
I used to keep roses in my garden.
They were most wonderful:
luscious red petals
silky smooth against my fingers…
I also used to keep rabbits.
They were most gentle:
immaculate white creatures,
hopping about the yard;
free to taste the grass,
to smell the leaves…
but they only had eyes
for roses.
Surprisingly, they didn’t mind the thorns,
the risk of getting pierced was worth taking
for a taste of the nectar dripping
from red veins.
Obviously, I tried to stop them:
I carried the rabbits by their
hungry bellies,
and lifted them
to someplace else,
but they always returned
to where they’ve been,
gnawing and eating,
until what remained were
scraps of what was once
the crowning glory
of my garden.
My roses, killed by mere
gentle things…
Bonsai
Sturdy branches, destined
to grow tall, to bear fruit, to live life.
But the hand that feeds it takes from it
its destiny.
Oh, impaired child, what will she say
When your mother finds you,
Tiny and battered?
Oh, impaired child, what will you tell her
When she weeps for the death that you live?
Will you smile? Will you say you’re fine?
It’s a shame, but I think you will,
After all, you take pride in your
Bro
ken
limbs,
the ones disciplined
yet broken.
–Rina Caparras
Rina Caparras writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She is a senior student at the Ateneo de Manila University taking up Creative Writing. She also writes reviews for a local magazine.
