Poetry issues #23, 1/5: When This is Over – Take it Slow
"When This is Over" is the first piece of poetry issues #23. Needless to say, it's a take on the corona experience. Its accompanying artwork is called "Take it Slow". Next Friday, the second piece of the issue will be published. Enjoy!
You can find out more about the poetry issues project here.
Poetry Issues #22 was published and distributed in January and February 2020 in five volumes, online and in postcard format. Below you can read the pieces, view the accompanying visual artwork and get a glimpse at the postcards. The next issue will follow in spring.
You can read more about the poetry issues project here.
Poetry issues #22, 5/5: The Cat – Journey
This week poetry issues #22 is completed with Part 5, containing the poem "The Cat" and the visual piece "Journey". Together with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 they comprise the winter issue. Poetry issues #23 will follow in spring.
You can find out more about the poetry issues project here.
Poetry issues #22, 4/5: The Ship – Affair
The past three weeks, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of poetry issues #22 were published. This week, Part 4, containing the poem "The Ship" and the visual piece "Affair," appears here. The following Friday the last part of the issue will be published.
You can find out more about the poetry issues project here.
Poetry issues #22, 3/5: Erupting – Home
The past two weeks, Part 1 and Part 2 of poetry issues #22 were published. This week, Part 3, containing the poem "Erupting" and the visual piece "Family," appears here. The following two Fridays the last two parts of the issue will be published.
You can find out more about the poetry issues project here.
Poetry issues #22, 2/5: Hibernation Advice – Family
Last week Part 1 of poetry issues #22, containing "A Balcony" and "The View" was published. This week's poem is "Hibernation Advice," and "Family" is its accompanying visual piece. Every Friday for the next three weeks, a new poem will be published along with its unique artwork. Together, they will comprise poetry issues #22.
You can find out more about the poetry issues project here.
Poetry issues #22, 1/5: A Balcony – The View
Every Friday for the next four weeks, a new poem will be published, along with its unique artwork. Together, they will comprise poetry issues #22.
You can find out more about the poetry issues project here.
A very special labor, the January-February issue. I hope you enjoy stories of identity and struggle:
Scales
Better watch people
from afar, like big cities.
Admire their beauty
from a distance and avoid
touching their fences.
On Saturn I'd be
five kilos less and that's what
matters more in this
floating universe where not
a thing weighs more than I.
Family Gatherings
All children wanted to be men
and no one cared to pick
homegrown rosemary and dill
for the women in the kitchen.
The boys came in pairs to steal
little cheese pies, then went on
with their precious outdoor life
of playing football and riding bikes.
The girls feared nothing more
than becoming their mothers
with lives spent over lemons
and eggs in hot fish soups.
We didn’t know then that kitchens
held so many secrets, far more
steaming than backyard politics.
Women have been always winning.
Breathe
The crashing density the stuffy thoughts
Of asthmatic lungs gulping
The fake air with greed
Everyone is trying
To grasp what they can
An old woman's out of luck
Girlish games
Tired pigtails unwashed
Nicotine and coffee but
Without infatuation
The earth is flat just
Give me oxygen
I'll Play it Cool
Every time
you want to hurt me
you twist your tongue
to warm it up
before it hits me
with whip-like speed.
I was never fast
with words and now
your gun of a finger
is pointing at me.
I will remain silent.
You cannot win.
The Duck Painting
It’s hard to tell if it is monochrome
or just faded into a pale delft blue
and why it's hanging in the living room
in this furnished simulation of some
home. I’ll change it – a lasting addition
in the long list of intentions. I start
counting the ducks but get distracted
by the frame. Gold and metallic and
more eighties than my mother. She
had one that looked the same. So,
there’s a faint reminder of who I am.
You find strange ways to connect
when life is condensed to a trolley bag.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]
Enjoy the November-December issue!
Some days felt like prose
in a sloppy, ambitious mind,
striving to be written but
unable to attain
comprehensive form.
Trudging through the quagmire
of censorship the days dreamt
of the day they’d flow like verse
unconcerned with technique,
never intended to be performed.
But language and reason stood
as one immovable rock, blocking
intuition and broader definitions.
Those days became ink dissolved
in stale waters drunk by mosquitos.
The Feather
Not from a chaste, white dove
but factory born, with no potential
to reach the sky. Promiscuous and orange
descended from a flamboyant boa, full
of silky plastic charm. Forever reeking
of cigarillos and patchouli, imperfect
and only fit for falling, first right
then left and back in a slow diagonal
dance of false aerodynamics rectified
by gravity’s unfaltering axis.
Coming Home
Everything has to end
where it started from.
That’s why I always return
to the scene of our calm crimes
tracing back long lines of sin
filling out logs with updates
on the metastases and spread
of guilt. Everything has to end
where it started from and I’d sworn
there wouldn’t be a doorstep
I would stand on twice
when knocking would be dropping
my arms in unwise surrender.
But how tempting it feels to unburden!
Fake Fighters
We thought it would be the last fine day.
We stayed outside and took it all in.
The sun, the breeze, the smell of green.
When more gleaming mornings came
we stayed in, restricted by circumstance
or obligation. We let out sighs of relief
when the land finally gave in to the cold.
Even happiness had gotten tiring.
*for Ger Lataster
The reverent viewers debated in whispers
whether light could be mastered
in dark times, obscenely reflected as it were
on a pearl earring, forcing them to admit
the relevance of beauty in the ugly,
cranky world. They went on from wall to wall
undeterred by the overload of masters
of the Golden Age, all of them demanding
a bow. A boy of five, with no taste for detail
and no appreciation at all for human effort
pointed at the ceiling and chose
the abstraction of the working man
and the strawberry jam before he ran
straight to the windows past the Rembrandts
and their servants, unabashedly showing
preference for the frames of moving life.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]
The September-October issue should be enough to keep you busy for a while. Enjoy.
Cooking
Over a boiling pot
we wait for small epiphanies
bemused by the stillness
of the branches outside.
Do our black cats make us
witches? Shall we burn?
The Inquisition says we shall.
The Weather
Sure, let’s talk about the weather
like our lives depend upon it
like our crops will fail
and famine will hit
our fatty brains.
Relieved that it won’t rain
we’ll go for a walk
step on our horseshit
and still come home miserable.
Better stay inside, watch a movie.
110/116
Between birthday parties
and treasure hunts
I have to explain
why I made him and
affirm I’ll still love him
after I die.
I’d never thought
I'd give myself up
but here we are
swearing by Jedi honor,
shovelling sand in ecstasy.
Nothing much in it
but abundant poetry.
Seaside Resort
Don’t scorn the floral patterns
and the doughnut-shaped waists
nor the high-pitched laughter
and the fuzzy stares.
Footsteps echo louder
at the end of August
and pining mixes with the smell
of fresher fish and ice-cream cones.
Grandpa
Old bones assembled by magic.
Nothing else seems to hold.
We all scolded him for lying
but he was the conqueror
of the seven seas
in my five-year-old mind.
He instilled in me two shipwrecks
an abstract love for Argentina
and going rogue under fake names
in the US in the 50’s.
The giant is folding in his seat:
An overripe camellia flower
that forgot to fall apart.
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]