The May - June issue is out! Here you go:
American Football
Back and forth.
Circles disguised
in straight go routes.
Until you get things
right
things get you.
Until routes go straight
in disguised circles,
forth and back.
In Red
Those toes in the shower
I’m looking down to
belong to a Lynchian heroine.
They say depersonalization
results from violence
and I ponder over the form.
Do not knock, just enter.
Privacy is a luxury
only spoiling a good plot.
Alekaki
My friend likes the number eight.
It completes her broken parts
and promises the unity of one.
You will find her crouching
among quitting and lighting it up
on a white pile of unironed roles.
She’s the colour blue, as found
in nature: A wondrous reflection
of elusive light. A life of words.
Ode to Nothing
As a child I thought
I controlled the wind. Perhaps
the wind controls me.
Before great sorrow
the air stands still. I know then
something is coming.
Dry petals falling
like snow. Who’d have thought death would
be so beautiful.
Unhealthy are
Your stress relief habits
and the junk you eat.
How the world treats you
and what you think of it.
The screens you watch
and the dust you breathe.
But tomatoes won’t
save you from cancer.
Treating the symptom is
not the answer.
Wars will not be prevented
by treaties. And nobody likes kiwis.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]
Since the previous issue was all free verse, there's a fair share of formality in this one: "Retribution" is a pantoum (which happens to be one of my favorite forms), "Northern Beach in Bref Double" a bref double of course, and "Coming at the Florist" a golden shovel. Poetry Issues #15, out today:
Retribution
Memory should not be exercised.
Like a packet of quit smokes
it better remain undisturbed
in a locked box in the closet.
Like a packet of quit smokes
I hide your grayscale picture
in a locked box in the closet
in all-encompassing silence.
I hide your grayscale picture
mummified and fossilised
in all-encompassing silence
like an angry ancient god.
Mummified and fossilised
you better remain undisturbed
like an angry ancient god.
Memory should not be exercised.
Northern Beach in Bref Double
They arrived at the haven of bronze sun gods
and said: “We want five ships of fine sand.”
The pale seafarers got nasty sunburns but
were back home in time for the Indian summer.
They strewed it wavy, golden and silvery and
the children combed it by hand for better shells.
Even the fish came out of the sea to check it
when the workers headed home for hot supper.
Once, a lion’s mane jellyfish fell for a seagull
who was cruising the shore for leftovers at
a crowded spot. Before she died dehydrated
they both agreed the sea was their mother.
The children relished at the beast’s bad end
but a sudden limp burdened the seagull’s strut.
B Sides
Inside red apples fat worms inside the letterbox
a rageful cat inside dreams spiraling labyrinths
inside a struggling dignity marginalization inside
a deep-chest scream confinement inside unvarnished
sentences run-down desires inside the doll another
doll inside delusion the need to escape inside.
Sociology or That’s How You Rule the World
Your affordances will be reduced to one
as ecology will variate between
plastic A and concrete B.
As long as you let them engage with
stable fables peasants will trust
that one day they’ll be kings.
Turn sacred symbols into commodities
rob the fruits of their juicy essence
but give the natives beads.
Coming at the Florist
The iron door was left open by nobody
and the black cat assured me it had not
been her. Had I sniffed in the shop even
the slightest trace of evening rose, the
doubts would’ve dispersed. With such rain
it was hard to tell. But only my woman has
this sweet marmite blood that shoots such
piercing scents of love through the small
pores of her sweaty, rosy, cosy hands.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]
This twelfth issue, whose distribution started today, completes the first cycle of Poetry Issues. It has been a full year of poetic expression and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I did. From now on the publication will become bimonthly, in order to dedicate some time to other works.
You can read this issue below:
April’s Fool
It’s a joke, all this rain,
and I’m reminded
only by date that this
is the advent of spring.
And I envy the trees.
They seem to possess
the right time for everything:
Like clockwork they go
through winters and springs
accepting, always in majesty,
each turn of season that I
try, strong-headed and vain,
to manipulate and command.
You refused to hold my hand.
Life Without Temptation
I didn’t die nor resurrect
at the age of thirty three.
I’ve lost my chance.
And now I watch myself
mature to death –
an unappealing apple
without an Eve’s hand
to save me from counting
how many meters
before I hit the ground.
Afterwards
Pestered as they were by what happens next
they left their sentences undone, hanging
annoying as fruit flies, unsure of their direction
overwhelmed by the vast possibilities ahead.
But once, fueled by a whole night’s drinks
they raced into the pink-gold dawn that painted
all their hopes anew. That’s when they learned
that language is redundant when your soul
is smooth and it’s not only youth that burns with instinct.
Letter
I don’t have to tell you
that we are not what we seem.
You know it better than I do.
Your chatoyant eyes reflect some
passion you dismiss. I have proof
in the shivers I get when you come
to have a coffee under my roof
and rehearse your staged words.
Still, I hear nothing but the truth.
It must be an augmented chord,
what tunes us in each other.
Life before you was a chore.
I’m a moth heading to the lantern
for what is love but death, dear lover?
In Therapy
Most days I don’t remember my dreams.
It’s just that I often wake up with a sigh.
I’m quite hard and detest looking back.
Cicadas and lilac skies don’t amuse me.
In my youth I grieved imaginary deaths
far as I was from the need of an afterlife.
I found purpose in the half-time. I was
meant to be the eye of the universe.
[If you would like to learn more about the Poetry Issues project, read this.]
The distribution of the 11th issue began today. Read the contents here:
You, Yes, You
I’m scared of your dark potential.
It unwinds serpentine
as you avoid collision and
– god forbid! – correlation
with other bodies on the street
all too efficient from having had
brushes with perceived fiends
but mostly eager to possess
a shallow pride you defend
by throwing tantrums of
unchecked greed and insecurity.
The Wanderer
Longing
often comes
in strange shapes.
Californian vineyards
and Australian seas
I haven’t seen you.
I don’t know if
I’ll get a visa for my dreams.
Of all the things
I left back home
I miss the hills.
The Drama-King
“I’m alone,” he cried
and pulled his hair
in desperation
from the small seat
on his high throne
but never looked beyond
his own reflection.
Victim
On the up side,
I’m not afraid of darkness
anymore. Horror
found me in broad daylight
and the hand was known.
In the Inside Pocket
An item or two of no importance.
An acorn or a corner of a leaf.
A marble and a hair clip.
Found poems meant to guide
and keep us grounded
respecting that we once
were children too.
By Your Sickbed
To attest the fact that
“our life is not our own”
I invent bunches of meaning
and lay them clustered
in the functions I perform.
I can be described at best
as mediocre or even arrested
in a wild adolescence of feeling.
But being given
one
more
chance
at efficient action, I twist
with abandon the wet towel
that will cool your forehead.
[If you would like to learn more about the Poetry Issues project, read this.]
Poetry Issues has just reached double digits! Enjoy this tenth issue right here:
February
The breeze stirs and then it moves us forward
with tangled hair and whirling splintered thoughts
and locks us in the chase of portentous
shapes in the low clouds. The soft grass writhes to
break free and its crystal prison of frost
stays relentless in its albinity.
But there is something in the lengthening
of light and the sonnets of the swallows
that travel from the lands of velvet warmth
that begs me to endure and join the strife.
It’s in the slight murmur of the willows
when the grey skies push upon their backs and
instead of lamenting they sing: “Perhaps
this isn’t such a bad month to be born in.”
Bus Commuters
Not the servants of a dark empire
of fast-drying concrete and steel
with hands and faces worn
by the tiredness
of a joyless looping life
but princes and queens
of flourishing kingdoms of the sand
with peach orchards where horses run free.
Distance
There is a longer
space between your words and mine.
We are diverging.
Just Watch
The history of
mankind is nothing but a
plucky fist raised high.
But now the fight is over
the color of our new couch.
Rectitude
Trying to rectify the wreckage
caused by the rectangularity
of the wretched electorate
the pious asked the rector
who exclaimed that there
was nothing to correct.
Anatomy
She ordered the surgeon
to remove her organs
and take pictures of her innards.
He was then asked to put them back,
and the money was good and the life
was tough. “I don’t understand,”
she said later, ignoring the sore
while her eyes still searched
on the photographic paper.
“My liver looks perfectly fine
but, where is my soul?”
Student with Purple Glasses
“And where do you dispose
the oil from the frying pan?”
She asked the landlady,
sincerely worried about the lack
of environmental planning.
There was a halo of smoke
rushing around her platinum hair:
“Just pour it on your trash.
It’s excellent sauce
for the lunch of the seagulls.”
[If you would like to learn more about the project, read this.]
Poetry Issues #9 is out today. You can also read it here:
January
Shambling in his old-man slippers
out to the humble unkempt garden
he checked closely with the first dew
in the hanging cheap-blue plastic net
for puny craters on the smooth lard
planets of seeds and dried mealworms
to see if any sparrows had come
or if he would spend the winter alone.
His Greatest Act
He had the mane, alright.
But with the untowardly stretched
pink satin shirt and strassy pants
none of the kids could really tell
that there was an old defeated lion
and not a great illusionist trying
to escape the burning iron cage.
New Paganism
We are so eager to become
nothing but bodies
freed from the hold of endless excuses.
Carnal pleasures aren’t for the fainthearted.
We are so eager to find peace
in the white noise
of a hangover brain. We aren’t ashamed.
This is only a primordial ritualistic instinct.
Quiet people are afraid of Chaos
but they seem to forget
that he gave birth to their cherished Day,
that wry officeholder with the glowing teeth.
The Gigolo Triptych
Courting
She dismissed it as
disruption. A waterfall
in a dried up land.
Kiss
He lowered his head
as his hands smoothed along in
search of her wallet.
End
She invested in
a more trustworthy asset:
Church-cut dignity.
A Love Story
In the heart of the city
that doesn’t have a heart
I followed the lamplights
for one last time.
The oracle had told me
that a black river ran
through you
and hope had to cross it.
I paddled up the mucous dream-stuff
up to the city’s poisoned hills.
You were nowhere to be found.
[You can read about the project and find other issues here.]
Something appropriate for the festive season ahead: Poetry Issues #8:
A Viewing
That house was shivery –
a perfect scenery for Ibsen’s ghosts
yet unfit for a life denying symbolism.
I opened the closet and feared
that the walls would fold upon me.
The knobs yielded shaken by their own
drive to be taken away by a stranger.
Even the light that washed the living room
felt artificial – planted on a painted sky.
Across the street the century-old red bricks
reflected like props fixed on rough beams
resisting being blown off by some eastern
wind accelerating from the northern sea.
The Reindeer Season
Wrap your gifts with caution and don’t forget
the love. Contrary to what’s expected
after a certain age, you may indulge
for once in the high art of not giving
a damn about all that time has taught you.
Try to embrace the world’s firm delusions
as in insistence it keeps on turning,
hoping and buying, elaborately
hiding how all that keeps us human dies.
Let’s cannibalize on that. For here comes
the deluge of the new, and you have to
contain and fabricate the birth and light
– warm and wistful interruptions to the
circle of the coldest, darkest season.
Crisis
Thus we name the end
when it’s as slow as tango.
The deep snake pit when
we are halfway down the slide.
The fast, shallow breath
of our shredded, fatigued lungs.
The long agony
setting on unsettled sleep.
Demented
“It deteriorated rapidly.”
“What did?” She asked and
suspended her pointer mid-air
as if checking the wind.
In this awkward drawing room
that orange vase felt familiar
as a tip-of-the-tongue word.
“His health of course,” said
the visiting niece, sensing that
something was off. “Oh, that,” she
smiled and her gaze followed
the curved loops of the passing birds.
The Victory of Existentialism
The sly ancient mind
first in linguistic novelty
ripped essence out of
the hull of existence
frantic at the knowledge
of its own impending death.
But even millennia after
the invention of religion
and its comforting visions
a dying man still holds onto
an increasingly difficult life
like a toddler that despairs
over giving up its diapers.
[Find other issues and read more about the project here.]
The seventh issue is out. If you can't get the printed version, you can still read it here:
Inside
It’s a beautiful day, outside
One of the last, if not the last
Before a heavy winter sets in
I like to think of windless autumn
Days as rare, and endangered
They make the wait more puzzling
What am I waiting for – perhaps a force
To make me – step outside
Family Values
Happiness was a bottle
of iridescent soap water
meant to burst in bubbles
on my mother’s marble floor.
She was annoyed and banished
from our common home
what she saw as stains.
She, who mercilessly counted
good times in fridge magnets.
In Flight
I looked suspicious.
My heart was in the hidden
pocket of my bag.
my breathing mask on before
I turned to help you.
Falling, the dancing
lights on a welcoming sea
told me I belonged.
Pain was the red paint
on Claude Monet’s poppy field
in Musée d’Orsay.
Momentum
Our joys were made of plastic and fluorescent lights.
Raised by chip factories, we’d grown virtual feet.
Our time was running out like early morning coffee
and patience was the throbber on our loading screens.
Raised by chip factories, we'd grown virtual feet
and the first impact with sun-smelling turf felt strange.
Patience was the throbber on our loading screens
until we paced for hours in bleak waiting rooms.
The first impact with sun-smelling turf felt strange
but it shook off our belief in confined square spaces.
Until we paced for hours in bleak waiting rooms
our experiences had the depth of all-inclusive tourism.
What shook off our belief in confined square spaces
was the flawless animation of detaching yellow leaves.
Our experiences had the depth of all-inclusive tourism
and we just couldn’t get higher on computational speed.
The flawless animation of detaching yellow leaves
while time was running out like early morning coffee.
We just couldn’t get higher on computational speed.
Our joys were made of plastic and fluorescent lights.
Dinner for the Wolves
If I were a daube de boeuf
at an intellectual dinner table
would I find purpose and pride in
being eaten and praised and escorted
with pinot noir straight out of Burgundy
or would I try to crawl off the silver plate
daring to blotch the too white linen
and then straight off into some
drain leading to the gutter
where I would call out
my revolution?
[Read more about the project.]
Ladies and gentlemen, Poetry Issues #6 is out:
The Screw
It was waiting for me, on the kitchen table
full of suggestion and gleam. It wanted
to be pressed hard on the wooden floor.
Its whole body begged to be twisted.
My moves were decisive. My expression
said it all, in a low grunt of womanly power.
Dominant in nature, I didn’t mind the sweat:
It validated my consistent, punctual effort.
I thought we were aligned – reciprocally
understood. But in a moment’s glimpse
it snapped, and rolled under the low couch.
Now, I have to find myself another screw.
The World Scaled Down
When I was fifteen, we lived on a lane
of big fir trees and low, curtained windows.
The lonely man on the corner once bought
a little cactus he placed on the mantel.
Passing by for school I waived at it, as
some children will befriend anything.
Within a few weeks I saw it wrinkle
and shrink in monumental misery.
I felt the impulse to knock on his door
but still feared the myths plaguing people.
“What kind of person let’s a cactus die
of drought?” I asked my mom distressed one day.
“The kind of person that also kicks his blind dog”
she said and turned to bake food casually.
Bread
In a way, it was a rite of passage
to qualified motherhood:
The fantasy of the steaming
fresh-baked bread and
the lemony glove next
to a matching apron.
And before that, the satisfaction
of the kneading hand
in slow motion, suspending
particles of flour pushed away
by the fluffy dough explosion.
Terza Rima for the Unhappily Married
You think that war is the ultimate carnage
that wakes in a man the blood-thirsty beast.
Wait ‘til you’ve seen the perfect marriage.
Wearing white in their coming-of-age feast
lies choose almond cake and harpsichord tunes
that you dance to, when your better half insists.
Cagey comfort turns you numb and immune
to the slow death of your once-flaming lust.
Soon you learn to mask silent rage with croons.
Absurdities bullet out of your mouth just as
last-minute, habitual lovers appear alluring
under the flattering light of a compulsive past.
To the downward spiral there is no ending
until you cry “revenge” and make for the landing.
The Hysteria of Fräulein von R.
He would press my head’s cross with his thumb
and instruct me to remember. He put on
such a show
with the pretext of conjuring up
forgotten memories. Once,
he turned me into a puppet
with his induced somnambulism
just to prove an argument.
He was so full of himself.
To get rid of him, I pretended
the paresthesia in my legs had left me.
He was contented, proclaimed me cured
and freed me of his presence.
But on some quiet nights the pain returns
out of the blue, as strong as ever.
[If you want to learn more about Poetry Issues, check the press release.]
The September issue is out now. Read it here:
Democracy
In sarcastic punishment
the word hangs from its hinges
like a rusty sign turned upside down
flapping due to unstoppable winds
in the flat desert sands of civilization
losing its meaning like it never had
personal history. Its essence hovering
projecting wraithlike visions
of what might have been.
Evenings with Grandma
Among the reassuring roundness of buttons
in the churchly silence of the haberdashery
I examined with the stern brow of the assessor
treasures in mother of pearl and carved ivory.
Along the hollow spools of silken thread
that tied me to nothing but minuter tints
of damask red and cobalt blue, I contemplated
on their amaranthine possibilities for coalescing.
At home, I danced away to the airy scissors snips
and the fast, unsteady beat of the sewing machine.
On the pincushion I did my little voodoo thing
wore a thimble and pronounced my pointer queen.
Migrating
An acute change of
wardrobe. Never seen flowers
thirsting for the sun.
Guilt
From all the ghosts that
haunt me, the ones I fear the
most are still alive.
A Break-Up in Late Thirties
She tried to gather her thoughts
in a single confrontational sentence
while the children slept in their cots.
She dressed the table in blue polka dots
brewing on her need for acceptance
as she tried to gather her thoughts.
She cleaned the fridge and paired the socks
but her eyes never strayed from the entrance,
while the children slept in their cots.
She decided, dusting her chipped teapots,
that the cheap ones have greater endurance,
and then tried to gather her thoughts.
Under the louder than life kitchen clock
she thought she heard a car in the distance.
Meanwhile, the children slept in their cots.
Petting the faithful, warm-breathed dog,
the only male who was still of assistance,
she tried to gather her thoughts.
Her husband came at midnight and brought
a loaf of cold bread and a bag of repentance.
She was waiting with gathered thoughts
and the children still slept in their cots.
The Monks
For forty years, in utter silence and candlelight
the three of them worked copiously in their cells
with the tomes of hellenistic philosophy.
Their indoctrinated quills were ablaze
while copying Aristotle’s unmoved mover
and Plato’s conforming form of the good.
But on Epicurus there were long pauses
for there was a worm in the heretic’s words
eating out the apple of unquestioned devotion.
The hegumen kept his raven eye on them
sensing how they shook their fatigued heads
in dread and understanding. The rest went about
their common business of trade, intrigue, and prayer.
Longing for the Garden of their secret faith,
in their deathbed they didn’t call for priests
but for one of the agriculturists, and asked
for gardenias and lemon trees to be planted
above their unsung, shameful graves.