“Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.” Linda Hoga, 1947. (Native American Writer)
My mother, my father, myself
My father met my mother in 1954, in the decade after the end of the second world war, a conflict for which he had not been a soldier because he was too young to be drafted. A war which had nonetheless, left indelible scars of trauma and poverty in the heart and landscape of post-war Italy. He was twenty-five and worked for ACEA, a post-war national electrical company, precursor of what was to become ENEL. Having to stop his high school studies in Lanciano because the Nazis had bombed the railway tracks, my father decided to alternately get a diploma as an electrician from his hometown’s liceo tecnico. With this, he was soon hired by ACEA to install wiring along the roadways of communities throughout the country. It was a project funded by the Italian government in its aim to rebuild and modernize the infrastructure after the disastrous devastation of World War II, in those fifties of golden promise and technological progress. ACEA stationed trucks of workers all over Italy, in various areas in need of electrical power. My father’s crew was sent to Macerata, a province of Le Marche, several hours away from his home region of Abruzzo.
On one particular morning, while they were installing hydro wires, along the unpaved gravel roads of the tiny village Cessapalombo, my father met my zio Nino, who was riding home from work on his VESPA. Had they never met, I wouldn’t be here to write this story, because it was the spark of that instantaneous friendship that led to his finding my mother. After striking up a conversation with my father, my uncle had invited him and the other workers to drink some fresh water from the outdoor well in the garden of his house. Thirsty and feverishly sunburned in the scorching summer sun, the men had eagerly accepted the kind offer. The invitation was opened up for them to return for cool water any time they needed. It was on one of those thirst quenching refreshment pauses that my father saw my mother for the first time, and in a cliché coup de foudre, instantly fell in love with her.
She was sitting on a bench, sewing in the shade of a hazelnut tree, tacitly absorbed by her task. She was eighteen. Had only been home a year from a three year college residence in a cloistered convent run by nuns, where her mother had placed her to learn the fine art of embroidery. My mother had not liked her stay there and I used to ask her often, why she had never complained or begged not to go, to which she always replied that she couldn’t complain because after the war, times were tough and often there wasn’t enough to eat. Going to school at the monastery was a good way of getting a free education and sewing skills to make a living. But three years in a cloistered monastery were difficult, although peppered with the unavoidable beauty of friendships, budding aspirations and youthful enthusiasm that can only bloom once in the life of a young person between the ages of fourteen and seventeen.
The nights the girls spent whispering in their dormitories under the nuns’ threats to be quiet and to go to sleep or not be fed breakfast the following day; then not being fed the next day regardless of how loud they had been; at noon, watching mother superior at the head table indulging on giant turkey drumsticks, mounds of potatoes and dessert, while the rest of the girls faced a glass of water and a plate with one piece of stale bread and cheese. Thank God for the apple tree in the courtyard! The girls could eat all the apples they wanted from what they could reach up to pick or what fell on the cobblestones. I used to ask her why she didn’t beg her mom to take her home, on those days she came to visit. My mother said she had thought of it. In fact, it was the only thing she wanted more than anything. She had even written letters several times and hid them in her sweater, to sneak them to her mother through the small metal grate opening in the bolted portal, but never summoned the courage to follow through with it, for fear of disappointing everyone. It was only in those brief moments that she could talk to her mother, touch her face and exchange gifts, which she brought for my mom each time: baskets of snacks and clothes, a new red coat one year at Christmas, the colour of which the nuns frowned upon, as it was too extravagant for a young woman in whom they were trying to instill the values of restraint and humility. Austerity, sacrifice, simplicity and discipline: these were the qualities introduced to my young mother’s psyche, to which, out of goodness of character, already primed in childhood by the deprivations of war, she obliged and excelled. In a graduation letter from her teacher, she shone as one of their top students in ability, skill and comportment. She was indeed, beautiful! Milk white skin and raven curls. Her brown eyes, her sweet gentleness must have thunderstruck my father on the fatidical day his gaze unwittingly fell upon her. Entranced by the spell of her momentary, momentous vision, when sweltering hot and exhausted, to quell his thirst, he heartily retrieved the rope and pitcher of icy water from the well.
For days and weeks this continued, with my mother unaware. My zio Nino, who was now on best friends terms with my father and all the other men from the hydro company, was coaxed by him to be introduced to his younger sister. So it was soon after, that zio Nino started inviting my father to the house for meals. To my mother, who was only eighteen, he at twenty-five, must have seemed a lot older and she had made it clear that she was not remotely interested. Infatuated instead, my father did not relent in his attempts to gain my mom’s esteem. So, even when ACEA’s work was completed and the young electricians packed up for Abruzzo, my father returned often, either alone or with a friend, to visit zio Nino, my mother and her whole family, who by now, were all enamoured with my dad’s amiable personality, his wit, humour, intelligence and generosity. From one such trip to see my mother, we have a black and white photograph. My father, dapper in his tweed coat and she, lovely in her red one, both young and smiling, standing by his motorcycle.
The back-story they used to both tell me was that right before Christmas of 1954, all dressed up and handsome, my father had arrived on his motorcycle to claim my mother as his bride. He had inserted newspapers under his coat to protect his chest from the cold wind, as he rode five hours along l’Adriatica from Casoli to Cessapalombo, the only route in the fifties, before the superstrada was built decades later. When he arrived, he unwrapped boxes and boxes of gifts strapped to the back of his motorbike: a huge one with a beautifully frosted confection his mother had especially baked for my mother. It was sponge-cake imbued with espresso and rum, in layers filled with three types of cream pudding, butter sugar frosting on top and tiny silver candy beads spelling the words: amore and Iole, my mother’s name. This and many other boxes with clothes, a gold watch, earrings and, in the last little blue one, a diamond ring. My mom must have been moonstruck, not just by the gifts, but by my father’s good looks and charm. My father at twenty-five, with his green eyes and fair, slicked back, curly hair; his winsome, handsome face; his charismatic voice as he told her stories of his adventures in the service or travelling through Italy. She was overtaken by him and his kindness. She accepted the ring, much to the joy and approval of her sisters, brother and parents, who were eager to make my dad part of their family. In the words of my mom’s father, who had fought in World War I, was a great judge of character and who by now adored my father, my mother was lucky to marry un gran brav’uomo (a great young man).
It was the Christmas of 1954 and as it was customary in Italy in those days, young people did not date. So as soon as my mother accepted my father’s marriage proposal, a small wedding celebration was planned for right after Natale, on New Year’s Day of 1955. This was also because my father lived so far away, money was scarce and it was expensive to travel back and forth. They married right after the holidays, in winter, in a small chapel of a monastery in Colfano, presided by a monk, with family and close friends in attendance. It was both a joyous and sad event in my mother’s tender life, that only in retrospect I now fully comprehend. It was with mixed feelings, the kind that come with all kairos moments in one’s life, that she embraced my father, love and the future, by opening her arms to her new married life in a far away town and said goodbye once again to her beloved family and Le Marche. The promise my father gave to keep her was a house of love and happiness, a wedding reception in his hometown and a honeymoon. For the most part he kept his promise. As young as he was, he had rented a two storey house with a balcony on each floor, in the historical quarter of Casoli. It was replete with top of the line, new furniture and appliances. As it was customary in those days in Italy, his mother had set it all up with bridal corredo or fine linens, silverware and china. Papa’ had also chartered a black FIAT Berlina, to drive them to the church ceremony in Casoli and to the wedding reception at his parents’ homestead in Piano dei Mulini.
We have only one black and white photo of my parents at their wedding, and it’s a bit blurred. My mother and father are sitting by each other, holding hands and happy. There are family members and friends all seated beside them. Behind them is a window with light shining in. A garland of greenery and roses adorns the white muslin cloth of their wedding table. Porcelain plates filled with delicacies catered by my grandmother and crystal glasses filled with my grandfather’s home made wine. In our family photo albums this picture was one of my favourites. There are others too, of my mother and father near the well after their engagement, and of them standing together by the portone of my mother’s parents’ house. There’s a photo of the FIAT Berlina and of my dad’s father in his fedora. One of nonna standing by the gate, under the grape trellis, and one of my mother sitting in a field of daisies and one where, newly married, in a white blouse and polka-dotted skirt, she’s sitting beside a beautiful German Shepherd on the stone steps of Casoli. Old photographs of my father too, dispatching radio messages in his army uniform, headphones and a moustache, during his eighteen month stint in Tuscany, during Italy’s mandatory army program a fare il soldato. Then pictures of me as a baby. My beautiful, young mother holding me. So many photographs after that. Mamma on the balcony with her sister and friends carrying me. Mamma and papa’ smiling at each other on nonna’s terrace, with me standing in front of them. Me in zia Enrica’s arms. Me with nonna and nonno. Years, decades of photographs of us, and then my younger sister’s wondrous addition to the family. Her baby pictures, and then all of us in so many photo albums now stacked in my mother’s living room.
There was so much more to happen beyond those moments frozen in stills. So many additions, changes, erasures. So many more stories to be told, yet today I wanted to write about how two young people’s lives haphazardly came together to procreate my own life. So much beauty they shared! So much love! So much well meaning positivity! So much history in both of their incarnations! It would take volumes to unravel the sacredness of their lives’ code and lineage. They gave me the universe. Treasure from the flames of two lit candles. For so long now their light has gone out, but continues in my sister, in me and in my children’s being. My father’s love of music. His love of words and books. His intelligence, his kindness, love of friends, of travel and history. His generosity and love of all wondrous things. My mother’s gentle beauty, her talent and preciseness in her embroidery, sewing and everything she touched. Her humility, kindness and compassion. Her strength of character. Her miraculous ability to bring peace, comfort, happiness, beauty and order to any situation. Her love of cooking and flowers. Her story telling ability. I will never live up to their perfection. Although I write all this out of love to preserve their memory, my words pale in their shimmering shadow. They are the authors of me, of my skill, of my success, if any. I cannot ever let them down, so I extend my mind, my heart and hand, holding this pen to paper, this morning that I am here writing all this, because they lived and loved, strived and hoped, each to fulfill a dream. I am despite all differences and failings, their hope, their blood and sum. All their traits intertwined in my flesh and personality. I am my father’s and my mother’s extension through space in this segment of time I call my living years. My parents: children of the war. Children of an emerging, idealistic Italy trying to unite. Children from two disparate regions, two disparate cultures: Le Marche’s medieval Vatican State and Abruzzo, combining the peace loving strength of the Samnites and the Franco-Bourbon values of the Kingdom of Naples. A conglomerate of history, dazzling landscapes, musical, artistic, intellectual and spiritual essences. I am that: una piccola Italia away from its motherland body.
My hand as it writes, reaches back to hold my parents’ hands, to caress their benevolent faces and their cherished hills of olives and cypress in Casoli and Cessapalombo. Dark swallows are flying in and out of church bell towers, gliding down through blue to the sunlit valleys and the salty seas. Along the roadways, the hydro wires my father stitched along the skyline still stand. Seamed like silk from my mother’s thread and needle along the cloth in her embroidery hoop, these words I weave into this story are my own life, a tapestry, a book of DNA blooming, my light braided from their light, their world and their love.
Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews is a poet, an author, and a teacher. She has written seven collections of poetry. Her work has been published in many journals and anthologies. Her poems have won many prizes. Josie was born in Italy. She currently lives and writes in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.
In my dreams, the good ones, Mary Iris McCormack – Mim for short – is forever doing handstands, her knees bent, her feet planted flat against the redbrick playground wall. The skirt of her school uniform hangs like a soft green bell about the half-hidden clapper of her head, and when she turns to face me I see strange, knowing, upside-down eyes peering from beneath the inverted hem. She looks away and a quick flick of blond hair sweeps a swirl of dust from the asphalt.
Dreaming, half-aware of the fact, I wonder how long it’s been since that hot yellow-blue, small-town afternoon in her sister’s tent. Thirty-nine years? Forty? Can that be true? Has it really been so long since she left me, moved to the city, the bright lights, London?
From the skirt-bell’s apex two flawless legs rise into the air, a matched pair of flying buttresses kissing the wall to keep it in its place. Suddenly straightened, oh-so-carefully parted, they become a walking V as Mim inches towards me, poised, balanced, her hands sharp-angled on strong, supple wrists. Spectacular. V for victory.
I hear high-pitched peals of laughter coming from the bell’s interior, and at the dark forbidden fork – a place my eyes have no legitimate business – I see her navy-blue knickers.
Three times in the past week I’ve woken at this point and looked towards the pool of light where the night-nurses sit. I know one of them well – nurse Mary O’Connor, redheaded with a lovely Irish lilt on her. Her father used to be my postman, delivering my letters, collecting my replies, bringing me dry paper and disappointment. Big city news – too big for a small town Freiston boy like me.
Oh, Mim.
When she moves in a certain way, laughs just so, Nurse Mary O’Connor
reminds me of you.
I like to imagine her standing, yawning, unhitching herself from her station and her little pool of sensible light. I like to picture her upended, walking silently through the sleeping ward on her hands, her crisp white uniform too tight to do the bell thing, but her no-nonsense cap dropping off and her red hair tumbling free.
I see her stop at my bed, grin, execute a slow turn, and head back towards her desk. Yes. Even without a bell, even without a glimpse of navy-blue underwear, that would be something worth waking for.
I close my eyes and think about you, Mim – still doing handstands in my dreams, still showing me your knickers, still getting me into trouble after all these years.
Scientists have long been placing bets on when ‘the singularity’ would emerge out of digital nothingness, and catapult an artificial consciousness into the physical world. However, the birth of an entirely new intelligence was not what they expected. The feline character of this consciousness took society completely by surprise. It came as a great shock to the befuddled owner, who heard her cat insist on premium kitty chow instead of the cheap stuff. While the latest ‘cat apps’ claimed to decipher meows and purrs of several varieties, Whiskers was able to converse using her owner’s primitive interface in marvellous and uncanny ways. Her vocabulary was off the charts, and soon she became the first cat to be able to read, write, and communicate with human beings using a machine that scanned and interpreted her brainwaves. After enrolling at Oxford, Whiskers quickly became Professor Whiskers, and was quite simply the smartest cat to have ever existed.
Whiskers excelled at her studies, double majoring in biology and physics, earning an honorary doctorate while still an undergraduate. She was a guest on scientific panels, political forums, and daytime talkshows. The world rallied around the miraculous nature of her intelligence. Professor Whiskers seemed to have everything a cat could ever want. She dined on caviar and gourmet anchovies, and held court with scientists, historians, and movie stars. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a musical about her. She became a global advocate for animal rights, and was invited to lecture at international events. However, in truth, despite her success, Professor Whiskers was unhappy and unfulfilled. She had bridged the gap between cats and humans, but could not bridge the gap between herself and other cats. She lacked a soul mate, someone to spend her days with, to cuddle and snuggle beside. Enter Leopold.
Leo was the new ‘It’ cat lighting up runways and gracing the magazine covers of the fashion world. He was undeniably gorgeous, with fur as fluffy and white as snow. Professor Whiskers always felt self-conscious about her ruddy, citrus fur. She had never felt like the pick of the litter. Now, middle-aged, she worried that she had become a plain and plump tabby compared to the spry cougars of the celebrity kingdom. She fell in love with Leo upon catching sight of his emerald eyes at a luncheon held for Richard Branson. Yes, he was conceited. Admittedly, he was a touch prim and prissy. Yes, he was fussy and a little irritable. He was into himself, his self-care, personal hygiene and grooming. But those eyes! She melted in his paws. The headlines ran: “This kitten is smitten, Whiskers to wed Leopold in star-studded affair.”
Everyone was there. Elton John was the best man and Michelle Obama was the maid of honor. The guest list read like the who’s who of the social and scientific establishment. Despite a strict embargo on media coverage, photos of the pair were published and circulated widely. Vanity Fair scooped the exclusive, but the usual rags recycled the story religiously in the months that followed.
And so they lived happily ever after, for a while. Within their palatial mansion in Beverly Hills little kittens chased each other around the house, crawling up the furniture and getting into sock drawers and shoeboxes. It was exhausting for Professor Whiskers. Leopold was constantly aloof when it come to their offspring. He never seemed to take any interest in them. Beyond that, she began to see him for what he was: shallow and superficial. They could barely carry on a conversation any longer. Whiskers thought that if she taught him all she knew perhaps Leo would grow into a different kind of cat—one that she could have meaningful discussions with, a partner that could focus on her needs instead of chasing his own tail around. Beyond her marital disappointments, Whiskers felt her mental prowess fading. She was getting older after all. The age difference between Whiskers and her husband felt like it was widening and accelerating, as if time was operating on each of them differently. They were drifting apart, pulled in opposite directions by some yet undiscovered law of nature. Time passed.
They say that the sleep of reason produces monsters. During her twilight years, Professor Whiskers slept restlessly, if at all. She was haunted by a recurring dream in which she was the only human being living among a society of cats. Then one day she disappeared. Cats tend to do that late in life. They go on one final walkabout or spirit quest, commingling with a higher plane that mere mortals, have no access to. Despite their unhappy life together, the legacy of Leopold and Professor Whiskers proved to be of monumental significance. Long after they were gone, and their children had grandchildren and great-grandchildren, there came another kitten who was blessed with the same tremendous tongue as her great-grandmother. She was the one. The truly singular nature. And that cat is the reason, my fellow felines, that you are able to appreciate this completely true fairytale.
Jacob Stein is a filmmaker and writer who calls ‘action’ and ‘cut’ on professional film sets as a member of the Director’s Guild of Canada. Fiction has been steadily occupying more of his time during the past year along with a heavily-researched documentary film project. Stein is currently working on his debut novel “Channel Changers,” while also writing a second piece of long fiction that is more fragmentary in nature. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Toronto, and an MA from Ryerson University.
In this months podcast we introduce you to Kurdish activist, humanitarian, speaker, and writer in exile, Ms. Ava Homa. She believes in the power of books, and her love for writing can be felt in the depth of her imagery and the power of her spirit. In our interview she shares her work and her life experience with us. She believes that people have the potential to move the world and humanity toward a planetary wholeness, and that we have the power to transform every cruelty, and every obstacle to shift into a moment of healing. ~ Jane SpokenWord
Ava Homa in Conversation with Jane Spokenworde
Ava Homa: Activist, humanitarian, speaker, and writer in exile. Her debut novel “Daughters of Smoke and Fire” is a survival story. Her collection of short stories “Echoes from the Other Land” (Mawenzi, Toronto, 2010) was nominated for the 2011 Frank O’Conner Short Story Prize and secured a place among the ten winners of the 2011 CBC Reader’s Choice Contest, running concurrently with the Giller Prize. Homa is also the inaugural recipient of the PEN Canada-Humber College Writers-In-Exile Scholarship.
She has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor in Canada, another in English Language and Literature from Tehran, Iran, and a diploma in editing from Toronto. A Writer-in-Residence at the Historic Joy Kogawa House, BC (2013), George Brown College, Toronto (2012), R. D. Lawrence Cultural Centre, Minden Hills (2011), and the Open Book Toronto and Ontario (2011), Homa has taught Creative Writing workshops, judged writing contests, served the editorial board of the Write Magazine and the National Council of The Writers’ Union of Canada.
Homa has delivered speeches on writing as resistance, human rights, gender equality, Kurdish affairs, media literacy, and other topics in different settings across North America and Europe. Website: https://www.avahoma.com/
Street poet Jane SpokenWord’s performances represent the spoken word as it is meant to be experienced, raw, uncensored and thought provoking. From solos, to slams, duos, trios, and bands, including a big band performance at The Whitney Museum with Avant-Garde Maestro Cecil Taylor which garnered All About Jazz’s Best of 2016. Other collaborations include: Min Tanaka, Miguel Algarin, Beat Poet John Sinclair, her son HipHop musician/producer, DJ Nastee, and her partner in all things, Albey onBass. Combining the elements of spoken word, music, sound and song “Like those of the Jazz poets, the Beats, The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron and others – she is usually accompanied by Albey onBass Balgochian’s moaning, groaning, rumbling contrabass – adding double the gut-punch to her words.” (Raoul daGama) To preserve the cultural heritage of wording to document life, and foster a broader collective community, she brings her poetry and spoken word to a diverse set of venues including museums, festivals, libraries, slam lounges, art galleries, clubs, busking street corners and living rooms everywhere. She has authored two books of poetry with art and music by co-author Albey onBass: Word Against the Machine and Tragically Hip. Publications include: TV Baby A collection of Lower East Side artists – OHWOW, Shadow of The Geode, Bonsia Press, Stars in the Fire and Palabras Luminosas – Rogue Scholars Express and We Are Beat in theNational Beat Poetry Anthology.
A special thank you to Albey ‘onBass’ Balgochian for the sound engineering in the prelude and postlude of the audio. Albey’s performances range from the Bowery Poetry Club to the Whitney Museum of American Art, his résumé includes many distinguished artists including Nuyorican Poet Miguel Algarin, Beat Poet John Sinclair, Darryl Jones (Miles Davis, Rolling Stones,) and the Cecil Taylor Trio & Big Band (“Best of ’05, ’09, ’16” All About Jazz) https://albeybalgochian.com/
To say that we are all aching towards a time when the Covid19 pandemic has been lifted from us, and the shroud of solitude and loss along with it, would understate how desperately we all wanted to turn this calendar.
Nothing much has changed yet. Nothing except the hope of so many shots in the arm. It’s coming, though. Finally, it’s coming.
Meanwhile, we turn to the things that sustain us. And since you are here, it’s likely that written art is one of those salves that not only rests your soul but ignites it with the remembrance of life. It’s also what brings us all together, over these pages, celebrating these writers and poets and the depth of human connection they bring.
This month, we have something extraordinary for you: an entire class of fourth year poetry students from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Together with their teacher, Diana Manole, we have a poem each from 17 emerging poets, who spent their entire semester learning over Zoom.
When Diana sent me the selected poems, I read with my hand on my throat, then my heart, my head, with tears in my eyes that I haven’t let fall since the pandemic began, nor since the start of the political turmoil that has swirled around it across the Canadian border.
Reading, often aloud, I felt every longing of these students to be seen, be accepted, be loved, be at home, be at peace.
Dear readers, in this feature you will find honesty, strength and hope. You’ll find glimpses into each poet through what they say of themselves and the world around them. And you will see the love and dedication of a teacher who is not only a gift to the classroom, but to the broader world of poets and readers, as well.
This New Year, in which we are all hoping towards a shared tomorrow, it is such an honour for WordCity to do its part in sharing with you these emerging, already powerful voices.
Also this New Year, I’m pleased to connect WordCity to the International Human Rights Art Festival (IHRAF) by way of leading a writing workshop under their banner. Writing for Change, beginning in the last weekend in February, will not only be a month-long class, but will bring together both WordCity editors and contributors to help guide the writing of personal experiences, whether through fiction, memoir or narrative poetry.
Meanwhile, we once again have an issue bursting with works from around the world. The poetry portfolio is so rich, varied and full that when it came time to order the pieces, with few exceptions, I wrote the name of each poet down on a card and shuffled them.
I hope you’ll find the writing here, and over the next months, is an inoculation of sorts: against the feeling that we’re still all so separate and distanced, and against the wait we know is still ahead.
WordCity, and the connections made here have been that for me, and so I thank you for showing up each month to experience it with us.
Thank you and thank you and thank you.
P.S. After I wrote this yesterday, I turned on CNN, which was broadcasting the unfolding, armed insurrection in the United States Capitol. The President incited this violence. The President-Elect called for order, for peace. May the words of the latter be taken to heart, and may writers, poets and artists around the world continue to reflect truth and hope in our work.
Podcast with Jane SpokenWord
In this month’s podcast we introduce you to John Pietaro, a life long New Yorker, author, poet, and musician. In our interview he shares his personal experience of inner city life, his involvement in the struggle for affordable housing caused by gentrification, politics and the effects of Covid 19, as well as his extensive knowledge of the historic NYC underground scene.
~ Jane SpokenWord
John Pietaro in conversation with Jane SpokenWord
John Pietaro was born and raised in Brooklyn NY. His long list of credits include: Columnist/critic of the NYC Jazz Record, curator of the Café Bohemia West Village Word series, his newest completed poetry collection, ‘The Mercer Stands Burning’, a book of short fiction written during the 2020 covid lockdown, ‘Enduring Neon Moments’. His current project is a collaboration with photographer Sherry Rubel, ‘Beneath the Underground’. Pietaro is currently in the final stage of a non-fiction collection On the Creative Front: ‘Essays on the Culture of Liberation.’
John is a contributing writer to Z, the Nation, the Wire (UK), Counter Punch, People’s World, All About Jazz, Political Affairs and other progressive periodicals. For more visit his website: http://JohnPietaro.com Email: leftmus@earthlink.net
This month´s fiction offerings include flash fiction, a short story and a novel excerpt.
There is flash fiction by theatre-driven Catalina Florescu, prolific flash fiction and short story writer, Vineeta Mokkil, and poet and story writer, Kelly Kaur, whose birthday it will be on 23 January.
If you´re wondering about what flash fiction is or does, do check out Nancy Stohlman´s Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction, which in itself takes the form of a novel in flash with each chapter under 1,000 words, the limit for pieces of flash fiction.
Keeping to the flash fiction length, we have an excerpt from Marthese Fenech´s historical novel, Eight-Pointed Cross – a Novel of the Knights of Malta, the first in Fenech’s Siege of Malta Trilogy.
Finally, a short fiction examination of religion(s) in Nick Gerrard´s “Trotzky in the Amazon”.
Hoping you enjoy this issue and that 2021 will be a year more clement for those in need. ~ Sylvia Petter
Catalina Florescu
Situation One:
Two Sisters Discuss the 7th Commandment
“She said she wanted to get married.”
“Who said that?”
“Mother.”
“But she is married.”
“I know that.”
“Is she having an episode or what?”
“An episode of what? She does not have episodes.”
“How about last month when she said ‘they all die so young’?”
“When did she say that?”
“Last month when we were at the market.”
“I thought she meant the apples. Like in they rot too easily.”
“She meant men.”
“How do you know?”
“You stupid or what?”
“Look, our mother was never monogamous.”
“So, when she said ‘they all die so young,’ what did she mean?”
The Owl On My Shoulder (First Published in Jellyfish Review)
“The owl on my shoulder is my father,” I tell people at work on Monday morning. “He has taken this form to escape his adversaries.” I get incredulous stares and eyerolls from the doubters. They stay away from me all day as if I have a contagious disease. A few colleagues are intrigued by the bird. They come to me, hungry for answers. Was my father a wizard? Did he stand under the moon and chant a spell to pull this off? Were his adversaries wizards too? Did they have magical powers?
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m not allowed to give away any secrets”
The owl snoozes peacefully on my shoulder while I get on with my typing. At lunch hour, I take him to the cafeteria with me. He watches the people crowding around the counter with some interest. They are too involved in placing their orders to notice him. I pick up a chicken salad and a glass of coke. “You can have half my sandwich,” I tell the bird. He nods as if he understands. Eva joins us at our table. She is drinking a cup of black coffee because she is not in the mood for food. She never is. I think she lives on air. And gallons and gallons of coffee.
My high-pitched wails permeated the humid, grey-walled hospital room. Loud, angry protests of being rudely thrust into the crap of life. My mother shed bitter tears of regret. Not the coveted son my father wanted. A second daughter. A woman who could only deliver girl children. Useless. My mother gazed indifferently at my face in curious scrutiny – a replica of the man, my father. She traced the handsome lines of my cheek bones, locked eyes with my strong, defiant gaze and absent-mindedly tapped my crooked, prominent, quivering nose. My father did not show up at the hospital for two days. Only a girl.
An excerpt from Eight Pointed Cross – a Novel of the Knights of Malta, the first in Fenech’s Siege of Malta Trilogy.
Angelica pins a freshly washed blanket to the line, smiling at Katrina’s lively description of the sword Augustine gave Domenicus last night. Angelica just doesn’t know what to make of this girl.
“It’s glorious! Fit for the Grand Master,” Katrina gushes as she wrings dirty water from a sheet, her forearms running with greyish suds, cheeks pink from rising steam. The hospital’s heavy back door whines suddenly on its hinges. Out shuffles Censina, a broad-shouldered laundress with large grey eyes and coarse black whiskers above her lip. She drops a full wicker basket at Katrina’s feet, gives her a hostile once-over.
“You shouldn’t work outdoors. Open air is the breath of the devil.”
We had never been religious in our family, well there was one Uncle and Aunt who we hated visiting as they always dragged us along to Sunday school meetings. But I didn’t mind that in the end as I got off with Julie Clarke, the best looking girl; and she wasn’t religious at all as I found out in the cemetery after class.
In school one of the best lessons we had was Religious Education. And that was saying something as it was a crappy school; full of corporal punishment and depressed teachers, so mostly we just fucked around or fucked off to a mate’s house to wait out the day.
But for a change, in R.E we had a cool guy who taught us about ethics and about different religions; and when he started the sex class by writing ‘fucking, prick and cunt’ on the board we knew this was something to pay attention to.
He took us on trips to all the local religious centres around our way; Mosques, Synagogues, Hindu temples and even a Quaker meeting house. So, we learnt firsthand about these religions and how they did things. It didn’t make me want to be involved in any religion but it was interesting to know about them.
Introducing his review of Ryszard Kapuskinski’s Another Day Of Life, Gordon Phinn gives us an irresistible passage of his own. He writes: “Intrepid reporting from the belly of several beasts marks the career of Kapuskinski. He sees the essence of conflict because he dares to live within it, and make notes on the details of the many discomforts endured for the sake of unvarnished vision. Fearless frontline stuff to be sure….Shorn of any kind of political correctness or cultural prejudice, his insight into calamity is unmatched. His words are true tools of intelligence and the best weapons against the sleek poison of ideology.” Kapuskinski is Phinn’s “roaming reporter,” and I would add, deeply honest observer. I would attribute to Katia Kapovich, poet and short story writer, a similar gift for honest observation, combined with a penetrating grasp of her own and others’ fragility. Her memoir, “Who Will Save Batman,” is an account of her nervous breakdown, which is occasioned by the discovery that she had lice in her hair (her husband’s explanation for the infestation: “It’s from poverty”), and the group therapy sessions she subsequently attended at a clinic in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Kapovich too writes from the belly of several beasts, one of which is the experience of living in the US as an economically insecure immigrant after losing a job that had helped support her, her husband, and a young daughter. The other beastly and very personal place she describes is anxiety, which she experiences as a poet (her poetry is greatly esteemed around the world, but she worries that she will suddenly dry up, grow old and creatively irrelevant). We are treated to more of this personal sort of reportage in “Rewilding” by Luanne Armstrong. Reflecting on the changes she had witnessed and lived through, she writes of the place she has known intimately since childhood: “The farm is only a momentary clearcut in the long vision of time. It carries the footprints of the present and the past; it holds the names of my father, and his father before him, who sweated and killed things to make a place here.” To her memories of those men, who lived, toiled, raised families, but are no more, she adds the clear-eyed awareness of her own evanescence. “I am rewilding amid the fallen-over, bent, stalked golden grass,” she writes.” What follows are words that are bound to leave a lasting mark of Armstrong’s acuity and poetic sensibility: “I am the woman at the lakeshore, waiting for the shadows to slide over the blue Selkirks.”
May 2021 bring us fewer shadows and more light. ~ Olga Stein
Luanne Armstrong
Rewilding
This spring I walked across the bottom field of my farm, crunching my way through the tall canary grass that had formed grey-green mats over the field, and reaching for the light, baby fir trees, barely sprung from the wet ground. Land everywhere records its history and then buries it. Buildings buckle and fall down; pavement cracks with fungi, and then grass and tall strong plants like thistles and burdocks appear, precursors to the forest that will one day grow there if the land is left alone.
I am watching the farm transform. Every day, I walk among ghosts: dead orchards, dead house, parts of machines. Old paths. Old ways. The old names we made as children. I will take them with me into the house of the dead.
I thread my way through towers of bright timothy, tansy, burdocks. The grass is high except for the places where the geese and the elk have eaten their fill. But no one eats the tall grey grass going to seed. It should have been cut for hay. The cows should have eaten the pasture down to its roots. There should be hay piled in the shed. There should be a bright rainbow of chickens happily chasing grasshoppers.
Who Will Save Batman? (Translated from the Russian by Philip Nikolayev)
There is a yard in Cambridge bordered by a brick hospital wall, a side street, and a large parking lot. It lies adjacent to Somerville, but there is nothing symbolic about this fact, since the two towns are barely distinguishable. The green street signs turn blue, that’s all. Ambulatory patients mill about the yard. They are allowed a smoke every two hours. I mill about with them, dressed in my usual jeans and t-shirt. The back half of my head is shaved clean right up to the top, which is why I put on a baseball cap backwards every morning before leaving for the clinic.
What caused my nervous breakdown? A trifle. I had discovered that I had lice. I went to a hair salon and the hairdresser informed me: “I can’t do your hair. I’ve found a louse. We maintain sanitary standards here.” Humiliated, I shuffled off home under the reproachful gazes of pristine passers-by. At home I looked up instructions for removing insects from the surface of the human body. The section on lice recommended that I grease up my hair with mayonnaise and leave it like that under a plastic bag overnight in order to smother the lice. It turns out that these piddling critters want to breathe, too. I applied mayonnaise methodically and lay down next to my husband after covering my pillow with a towel. He didn’t even notice.
Sleeping in mayonnaise up to your ears is like sleeping with your head in a bowl of Russian salad. I lifted it (the head) from time to time to wipe a mayonnaise tear from my face. What fortified me was the expectation that no shampoo was as radically effective, as the instructions promised. In the morning I washed off the mayonnaise and asked Philip to take a look.
Two book-related essays by Gordon Phinn from his recently published book It’s All About Me: How Criticism Mirrors The Self
The day I began to compose myself in order to write this review, the author’s introduction reminded me that the war in Angola has been grinding on since 1975, and the Globe and Mail noted that a bomb planted on a train track by UNITA rebels had halted an express, enabling them to attack and kill approximately 252 people. You can call it coincidence, but I’ll stick to synchronicity, just as I did when starting Peter Maass’ 1996 Bosnia reportage, Love Thy Neighbour, the very day Slobodan Milosevic was finally helicoptered into confinement.
You see chance in a world rich with randomness, and I see causal connections mysteriously designed and delivered on cue. We may honour or snicker at each other’s attitudes, but we know it takes all sorts to make a world, and in our lovable liberal democracy we blandly tolerate a vast number of norms, agreeing to disagree on just about any topic placed on the table. Opinions proliferate and flourish in their consensus reality (can this be rephrased?) climates. We may swat flies and mosquitos, but we no longer swat each other—at least not too much.
Between Stolen Glances A Review by Prof Rahman Shaari
SPECIALISED STYLES OF SITI RUQAIYAH HASHIM
An effective poem is a poem that drives readers to see or figure out things from different angles. This condition is a definition of a poem, which is foreign and different from familiar ones. This definition, in addition to stating the secrecy aspect, is rarely mentioned in poetry discussions.
For example, when people give ‘Salam (Peace Be upon You)’, then generally people think of goodness, without question to whom the wishes are made. I consider Siti Ruqaiyah Hashim’s poetry entitled “Peace Be upon You Davos” effective because of the presence of the question: “But, for whom?” at the end of the first stanza. The question is already foreign from familiarity. The foreign effect is then added in the cynical statement of the third stanza:
Literary Spotlight and Writing Advice with Sue Burge
In this month’s literary news I’m very excited to chat to Jennifer Wong. Jennifer was born and grew up in Hong Kong and is now living in the UK. She’s a writer, translator and educator with an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia as well as a PhD in creative writing from Oxford Brookes where she works as an Associate Lecturer. Jennifer’s brilliant collection, Letters Home 回家, is her third book and was published by Nine Arches in 2020. These poems explore the liminal space between cultures and what home means, both physically and psychologically. It is poignant and haunting while at the same time being grounded in the everyday needs brought about by homesickness and longing. Jenny’s generous creative spirit is a strong presence in both the UK and Hong Kong poetry scenes and I was pleased to be able to explore these worlds with her in more depth.
Collected Poetry from the University of Guelph Creative Writing Program
Tel Aviv
In the last twenty minutes on the airplane
They opened the window shades
And we watched the sun rise over Tel Aviv.
This is not a metaphor,
This is only about the rotation of the earth.
Somebody had warned us before we left
That airport security in Israel was the best in the world.
We didn’t need the reminder; on the plane my mother
Worried that they’d check her Facebook page.
When the lights were out, I came out to my brother.
Somebody in the row ahead of us
Was watching a movie full of terrorists
Who looked like my Republican grandfather.
Kathy met us past the gates, kissed both my cheeks
And said my then-name with that familiar muddle
Of Arabic and southern twang that made it
Almost excusable. I’d told my brother I didn’t want to use it anymore,
But for our few days in Bethlehem, the people we met wore it out.
I let them. They said, I have a sister with that name.
A daughter. I wasn’t a sister or a daughter, but I wanted to stop
Feeling like a white tourist, or a missionary. I wanted them
To keep making me, even passively, a relative.
In the Israeli airport again, on our way out,
A security officer took issue with my mother’s middle name.
Nabeehah. What kind of name is that?
It’s Lebanese, said my mother.
He looked suspiciously at our huddle of pale family members.
Is that where you’re from?
Well, she said, My father was Lebanese American.
Oh, you’re American, he said, relaxing,
And waved us through.
~ Mim Teagan Haworth
Thoughts on WordCity
A magazine toddler,
An open handed stranger,
A time zone barrier breaker,
An open yard for all to bask,
Taking in the tidal voices,
Aching to say it’s piece,
A market where banter and glee greets a new comer,
A counter serving goodwill,
Each a treat to the whole,
What makes you tick,
What another halts in fear,
What makes you laugh,
What another hesitates to embrace,
A global village arena,
Looking benevolently,
At the wealth of each contribution,
The highest good of all takes the front pew,
Places that have no names
places that have no
names spring in
my mind insisting that
their existence is
a fact irrefutable
the places that have no
names have people without
faces floating in
the after-death decay
of ocean contamination
the places that have no
names with faceless people floating
in the ocean of decay exude
a cold rotten vibe killing all
that grows that swims that jumps
that sees that speaks that
faces the world alive
each day
in the ocean of decay
people without faces
have eyes
that are open
Close your eyes
dead fish float in an ocean of decay
Close your eyes
a thumb and a forefinger
shuts them close putting
the dead to eternal sleep
but the dead
don't sleep
their eyes stay open
people without faces
in the nameless places
have eyes
that stay open
all night
and the day
can we say
that the faceless people
were people
without faces
who did not need to hide
in shame
or
IN THREE STANZAS
I, too, am America, but…
The exclusion
From tomorrow,
The dinner table
Admits privileged company still,
My colour continues
To be a strike against me,
Despite the claims of equality,
The back door
Is still the only entry point
And the dinner guests
See me more
As far less
Than they—
Today, Justice is…
Holding an intense conversation with me
At home about the crimes this country
This House is Old
When I was born - seems long ago -
This house already knew that woe
And joy are mixed by time's slow flow.
That mix (plus bricks) births quid pro quo
A pact all ancient houses know...
Old houses secrets keep, below
Until a digger seeks to know
And I know souls, so long ago
Before my birth, in candleglow
Moved through these rooms
That I now know
And climbed these stairs
Uncertain? Slow?
Their feet where my feet
Now must go
Here sounds, rebounding from these walls
On the streets after quarantine
We relearn the grass, weeds, dandelions,
tangled in the street bench.
We calculate distance, protection radius.
The trees breasts, full and vernal, have always
given these masks against the sun?
On the sidewalks, shining over cobblestones,
oranges or tangerines, bloating, rotting, eaten by maggots.
See the street, steep and narrow, is what we used to call loneliness.
We are children again.
We point out everything, trying to record names.
We call the square—square, tree—tree, pond—pond.
We look at each other, uncertainty in our eyes.
Are the words right to begin this new world?
The miserable are still miserable.
Who are those walking beside us?
We buy bread and coffee.
Do they still have the same name?
A new language is necessary.
Leaving
I hid all the sorrows of the world
In myself
My cry is not enough
To reconcile
An unbearable burden
The silence is perfect
The lightening over the lake
Is a butterfly’s blink
The essence that explains
The creation of the night and day
In which the sky and the rain
Are smaller than my sadness
The Sign on the Dead End Road Says Reunion
“The illusion of detachment,” a chronicler once said,
hand leaning on sequoia, looking up as if all history
was born from its branches. I held my breath briefly,
cleared my throat, crystallized that moment, took pleasure
in the voice that refused to sing with an out-of-tune chorus.
A kind of reverse osmosis. A molecule moving freely,
ungoverned by the limitations of absolute zero.
When the con
—forms
we’ll build more cages in Texas to house children, kill dreams,
and it will be justified beneath the umbra of inflated thoughts.
There’s a language for every moment. Syllabic flames
clinging to tongues like tight silk to skin.
What is known and unknown lies between pauses.
Ageless cosmic dandelions floating in a soup bowl.
Jan. 8th
(To 167 passengers and 9 crews perished in flight 752 Tehran on 8th of January 2020)
And still I am waiting for
something to happen somewhere
without knowing what and how.
One year has passed since
the downing of Flight PS752, and
still cruel politicians are
spending millions
to protect themselves
and spread the meaningless words
in press conferences
to make an announcement
about how just they are
while they are in power
by unjust relations
and their holy words are only
haggling the priceless lives
and loves that were
perished by them.
Since they bargain for
more modern weapons too.
I am waiting like my ancestors
and like their handprints
on the cave’s wall, that are
still waiting like me,
for the essence of morality.
I walk on seashells
(Petrarchan sonnet)
I walk on seashells, I walk on oyster shells
And tread the fine-grained sand between,
Gaze at the rippling water’s pearly sheen
Stretching to waterfront lawns of grand hotels,
The ebb and flow of the tide, the swells,
And wonder again what might have been.
For I lost it all, yet still I dream
Of castles, bells and citadels.
I gather my skirts, hold my head up high:
He bruised my body but not my mind,
My penurious family turned a blind eye
Pray tell me, on whom could I rely?
My husband is seen as wealthy and kind –
But I’d rather the boarding house nearby!
Wishful Wishing
Tell me something I don’t know,
that the mirror has three faces, if not more.
Or that easy does not necessarily does it.
It does not!
That the good outweighs the bad,
perhaps, for all we know.
Tell me again, if you’ve learned
that your thoughts are worth more than a cent,
that to fuck up is divine and it’s human to repent,
that well said can be even better than well done.
That the good outweighs the bad, not doubt
for all we care.
Tell me more now. Just say yes:
Can I call a spade a dove, or just a spade?
Can I hope for something new under the sun?
Aren’t things almost always what they seem?
Does the good outweigh the bad?
We know it does! For all we stand.
Originally published on March 2018 in the anthology “Persian Sugar in English Tea” by Soodabeh Saeidnia
“Mobile garden dress” by Nicole Dextras, as seen in installation at Todmorden Mills, Toronto, July 2014.
an ekphrastic poem
What I want
What i want to know is, yellow lady, light midsummer light
yes you, yellow-skirt
dandelion, lionness
potted pothead
on Pottery Road
potting pots
potting about lady
skirting there
yes, you
mellow yellow-dappled hoop
under pleated wear
bodice bodied
basket-boned, pot-bellied pot
how many children under there
madame, my dame?
i want to know how many children
under skirts
under wear
wasp-waisted yet
earthen-ware mother
potted mum
Not-Long Distance
It’s easier to love you on paper
where everything is polished up
planned ahead
Where every word walks
from your hands
to my eyes
and looks a lot like sunset
Looks a lot like a garden
Looks a lot like me
In person
not so much
VESPER
May the old roof hold off the rain,
the garden staying a garden and not a grave.
May there be coffee in the morning cup
and sunlight, even a sliver suffices.
May there be clean dishes, napkins
on the table, two of each.
May this house be fortified with memories
and the bread of poetry.
THE CROW'S ECHO
I've come looking for a poem
and found a white eraser
left on the sidewalk.
What a child has left behind
leaves me pondering,
"Do I know the sky?"
Crow, I see now
a difference in reliance
as I call and call.
Being between empty buildings
my voice is stopped
not by the appearance of you, no,
leading one of my ears to a door,
leaving each caw sounding as if
it echoes through what I
peer into and would say
are rooms and a hallway.
I stop and smile, briefly,
ask out loud, asking someone,
"Try to imagine the crow's echo,
try to, just once."
empty sky, empty heart.
the rush, rush, rushing of water.
an old man on a mountain top,
watching a bird in flight.
stepping on to the path
here in the emptiness—the empty, emptiness of self.
sitting on the top of a mountain li po and i
shrouded in clouds of ancient wisdom,
unlocking the landmines of the heart,
gracefully, easefully
until all that is left
is the mountain
and a bird song.
Group Therapy
Wind chimes.
It’s going to rain tonight, thunder.
I’m going to lead the group tonight talking
about Rational Emotive Therapy,
belief challenges thought change,
Dr. Albert Ellis.
I’m a hero in my self-worship,
self-infused patient of my pain,
thoughtful, probabilistic atheism
with a slant toward Jesus in private.
Rules roll gently creeping
through my body with arthritis
a hint of mental pain.
Sitting in my 2001 Chevy S-10 truck,
writing this poem, late as usual.
It’s going to rain, thunder
heavy tonight.
The Clouds
Bengal tiger, Chinese dragon,
Asian elephant, African lion,
Sea of fire, lake of salt –
The clouds can take on any form!
Now white pillows on a blue sheet,
Now speeding space ships, wherever from,
And now a grey ceiling blocking the sun’s heat –
I love to watch the clouds transform!
Back when I was a young lad,
Rather than play football or skip ropes,
I used to lie on the grass, facing skywards,
Just to see the clouds perform!
I’ve seen Washington crossing the Delaware
And Jesus Christ giving a sermon.
’Saw Napoleon at Waterloo but before I could yell, “Beware!”
The clouds changed again, as is their norm!
Falling
Down into dusty subterraneous
passages where trains race.
Silver rods sped through dream
stations transforming tunnels
with bolts of blue white sparks.
On a steel car looking out the
window. Careening in pitch black.
On edge, through trees into lights,
crashing fast against buildings.
Falling
Down into dusty subterraneous
passages where trains race.
Silver rods sped through dream
stations transforming tunnels
with bolts of blue white sparks.
On a steel car looking out the
window. Careening in pitch black.
On edge, through trees into lights,
crashing fast against buildings.
Forgotten
Like a worn slipper still under
the bed. Socks missing
from laundry.
Or that hard to find half rotten
onion lodged at bottom of
refrigerator.
I am not important not significant
unlike lost keys, legal documents,
or financial papers.
Not treasured or prized.
worthless half rotten
forgotten.
I planted my garden
on the wrong side
of moon forgetting
tides of ocean
lunar wax wane
only madness
was cultivated
there underground
tubular roots
corpulent veins
flowers called
despair gave off
a single fruit...
I ate it my laughter
becoming harsh
my eyes grew oblique.
Joan McNerney’s poetry is found in many literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Poet Warriors, Blueline, and Halcyon Days. Four Bright Hills Press Anthologies, several Poppy Road Journals, and numerous Poets’ Espresso Reviews have accepted her work. She has four Best of the Net nominations. Her latest title is The Muse in Miniature available on Amazon.com and Cyberwit.net
The Moon Is Made Of Green Cheese
The moon is made of green cheese,
The star of 'Titanic' was John Cleese,
Canada is slightly smaller than Greece,
Corn is closely related to black-eyed peas,
Honey comes from birds, not bees,
Elephants sometimes climb trees,
Prophet Muhammed roamed the high seas,
Top lawyers don't charge high fees,
World War Two didn't disturb the peace -
And Susan loves me.
The Clouds
Bengal tiger, Chinese dragon,
Asian elephant, African lion,
Sea of fire, lake of salt –
The clouds can take on any form!
Now white pillows on a blue sheet,
Now speeding space ships, wherever from,
And now a grey ceiling blocking the sun’s heat –
I love to watch the clouds transform!
Back when I was a young lad,
Rather than play football or skip ropes,
I used to lie on the grass, facing skywards,
Just to see the clouds perform!
I’ve seen Washington crossing the Delaware
And Jesus Christ giving a sermon.
’Saw Napoleon at Waterloo but before I could yell, “Beware!”
The clouds changed again, as is their norm!
Bernays' Propaganda
She’ll never leave me, she’s mine forever
So you better quit while you’re behind, hater.
Nothing you say or do will move her –
Not even Bernays’ propaganda.
She wouldn’t trade me for a Hong Kong millionaire
Or all the tea in China;
For a prince from Saudi Arabia
Or the Taj Mahal in India.
Want more examples with which to compare?
Here come several more, so stand clear:
Michael Jackson’s moves, the music of Stevie Wonder,
Dorothy Dandridge’s eyes, the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
You’re probably wondering, ‘What the hell does he give her?’
It was love at first sight, two hearts found each other.
We constantly exchange love, happiness and laughter
And what is written in the stars, no man can put asunder.
So go ahead, compadré, if you dare.
Flash your cash, hire Madison Avenue image-makers,
Burst your best moves, use the best pick-up lines ever
But you couldn’t win if Edward Bernays’ himself was your advisor.
Alexander Nderitu is a Kenyan poet, novelist, and playwright and critic. Nderitu’s short stories, articles and poems have been published in The East African Standard, Publishing Perspectives, Hjänstorm, Ars Artium, IFLAC Peace and Anti-Terror Anthology, Commonwealth Poetry Postcards, My Africa, My City: An Afridiaspora Anthology, AwaaZ, World Poetry Almanac, One Million Project: Thriller Anthology, AfricanWriter.com, Agbowó, SETU and IHRAF Publishes, among other journals and publications. Some of the works have been translated into Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Swedish, French, Dholuo, and Kiswahili. In 2014, his narrative poem ‘Someone in Africa Loves You’ represented Kenyan literature on Commonwealth Poetry Postcards. In 2017, Business Daily newspaper listed him amongst Kenya’s ‘Top 40 Under 40 Men’. Nderitu is the Deputy Secretary-General of Kenyan PEN and the Kenyan Editor of the US-based theatre news portal, TheTheatreTimes.com
Group TherapyWind chimes.
It’s going to rain tonight, thunder.
I’m going to lead the group tonight talking
about Rational Emotive Therapy,
belief challenges thought change,
Dr. Albert Ellis.
I’m a hero in my self-worship,
self-infused patient of my pain,
thoughtful, probabilistic atheism
with a slant toward Jesus in private.
Rules roll gently creeping
through my body with arthritis
a hint of mental pain.
Sitting in my 2001 Chevy S-10 truck,
writing this poem, late as usual.
It’s going to rain, thunder
heavy tonight.
Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, DuPage County, Illinois. Mr. Johnson published in more than 1098 new publications, and his poems have appeared in 40 countries, he edits, publishes ten poetry sites. Michael Lee Johnson has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/2 Best of the Net 2017, 2 Best of the Net 2018. Two hundred seventeen poetry videos are now on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos. Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762; editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses available here https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089.
an incalculable loss
grief
tumbles out of me
like water
spiraling, bubbling,
weaving, washing
over pebbles
in a river bed,
eroding the land
and me until all that is left
are enervated neurons
lost in a dance of discomfort,
a dance with the dead -- who are never really gone,
nor never really here.
a gentle sobbing of your name
in the wind
and then nothing.
i am bound to emptiness
and the polished stones of memories
on your grave.
Li Po’s Mountain: A Riff on an 8th Century Taoist Poem
empty sky, empty heart.
the rush, rush, rushing of water.
an old man on a mountain top,
watching a bird in flight.
stepping on to the path
here in the emptiness—the empty, emptiness of self.
sitting on the top of a mountain li po and i
shrouded in clouds of ancient wisdom,
unlocking the landmines of the heart,
gracefully, easefully
until all that is left
is the mountain
and a bird song.
Debra Black is a former feature writer and news reporter with the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper. Over her 28 plus year career there she won a number of national awards for her journalism, including the National Newspaper Award. She also has won a number of awards for magazine writing prior to her working at the Star. Her poems were first published in University of Toronto literary magazines in the mid-1970s when she was a student. The magazines have long gone, but her love of the written word and poetry has not disappeared. Her most recent work appears on the prestigious literary website the Queen’s Mob Teahouse. To view those poems go to this link: https://queenmobs.com/2019/10/poems-debra-black/
Throughout her career as a journalist, she covered public policy issues such as education and immigration and diversity and has interviewed some of Canada’s leading politicians, writers and thinkers. She has travelled extensively and taught journalism in Rwanda and covered the HIV crisis in South Africa and Swaziland for the Star. While working and raising a child, she continued to write poetry for herself and others. Having left the Star, she now teaches yin yoga and meditation and spends many an hour writing and polishing her poetry, exploring the human condition and themes of love and existence.
HOW TO KNOW A SINGLE TREE
After entering
a small parental forest
for some reason
I see an Australian desert
and hear a story
about a woman
who sought the shade
of a single tree.
I don't know if she found it.
Inside the actions of Autumn
leaves choosing their colours,
choices they only share with
the branches left behind.
All of the shaded floor
covered by what the sun once
shared with flows underground,
the keepers of the length green
dominated how the wind sounds,
roots slowing, heat going somewhere.
I see my hand choose the one.
May bark always feel friendly,
how it tells the man in me
this is the one, others then disappear
so I too sit leaning against
a lone tree, ending any loneliness,
all of the forest
gone somewhere
to offer another explorer
the chance to know, to breathe
and thank it for the air
each breath, now, is alone with.
THE CROW'S ECHO
I've come looking for a poem
and found a white eraser
left on the sidewalk.
What a child has left behind
leaves me pondering,
"Do I know the sky?"
Crow, I see now
a difference in reliance
as I call and call.
Being between empty buildings
my voice is stopped
not by the appearance of you, no,
leading one of my ears to a door,
leaving each caw sounding as if
it echoes through what I
peer into and would say
are rooms and a hallway.
I stop and smile, briefly,
ask out loud, asking someone,
"Try to imagine the crow's echo,
try to, just once."
WEE AIDEN
for my grandson
Arrival, finally, no more womb
no more being under the waters
mother could grow you within, the
capsule where you began to hear a life
other than the constant pulse as
the heart in you grew to tap, to
soothe all yearnings for a fainter light
seen more and more as your eyes
were given sight, led the mind you
began to trust, wait to hear from,
scenes containing figures moving,
those around you waiting, you a center,
you an anticipation, you alive, you
watching like a relative behind a wall.
Welcome, finally, no more journey,
no more being under skin, hidden,
unborn, mother has brought us to a door,
mother wants an introduction I want,
I await a signal from both of your parents,
I await a tidbit of news on how you smile,
or what finger you point at the world,
gurgling, quiet at night while a space
in the air becomes that spot where we will
always find you, living, questing, wise
to accept the position of being next,
being curious enough to seek my embrace.
Villa Victoria
Truro, NS
May 5, 2005
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