L’Autre Zone

Blue and green and beautiful

in the cracks, the crevices

that hold the quiet light.  Spill

the cup of skin up, out of your hands,

bathe it in the soft sheen of what

we do not know.

If you can pool into my eyes,

do it, come now, pull out from

the pages.  Curl into the heat

and lean into the offering

of flesh, beads of clay

fashioned from the stem

of language.  Inside the veins

of what we will become, we find

a window, the morning sun dripping

into the eclipse, last tendrils of moon

woven from our fiber.  Secrets that beat,

beat, beat, until flesh is gone.

            In the cracks of the imagination, the physical is only real in so far as

             the imagination is physical.

                       Lauren Dixon

Beans from Apple Butter

 

              for great-grandfather Tomaso

 

The boss gives me job to carry the hod.

Me! Un maestro! I lay finest stone in Napoli.

When I come from boat with Giuseppe, they say,   

cement mortar, always keep coming. 

 

Then one day I eat lunch, always same

the sardines the bread the black olives,

and I see bosses in circle, brick men

pointing, shaking fingers, pointing more.

 

I put sardine down on newspaper, and go

to shouting, and I know, problem like snap.

Laying brick in curve, big trouble. Boss ask,

Who knows beans from apple butter?

 

This is bean. I look him in eye. Now,

I make apple butter, so smooth the cement,

gaps in brick growing, how you say, personality

like teeth in smile, and I point to mouth

no string no level.

 

The boss puts hands in pockets. He watches,

chewing the cigar, always chewing.

Brick curve like something beautiful

like woman, you see. I step back. How

these apples I ask? Boss smile a little bit.

 

Hire the butter man.  He tap

my brick with clipboard.

After this, I always bring the salami the prosciutto.

No more sardines,

not even today, one hundred years later.

                            Al Ortolani

A Downward Pressing Force

We made wine the old way,

my brother and I, pressing

the grapes by turning the capstan,

he on one side, I the other,

round and round we walked, the turning

turning harder with each rotation,

the grapes crushed beneath the wheel,

their red juice flowing out.

It is easier for vintners when the grapes

believe they were born for this glory.

My brother, when the call came

from the wine masters, accepted

that patriotism was his duty and glory.

I said to him that patriotism is a wine

press and we the grapes, the capstan

turned by those in charge, our blood

flowing to procure for them their desires:

foreign vineyards, precious bottles.

My brother did not listen. My brother

is no more, his crushed body shipped

back from across the ocean. There was no glory

in his death. I buried him here in the vineyard,

in an oaken casket I made from the best barrels.

I grow grapes still, but do not press them.

There is nothing left to press them with:

the old capstan, screw, wheel, and barrel 

lie asunder from when in grief and rage 

I smashed them, as I burn, I rage,

I thirst to smash all wine presses.

                           Barbara Gregorich

Adventure 

This, too, is adventurous —

Not scaling Kanchenjunga

Or Mount Everest,

Not crossing the Atlantic

Solo in a boat,

Not country-hopping

In a gas balloon,

Not exploring

The jungles of Africa,

Not trekking across the sandy Sahara;

But brushing my teeth,

Yes brushing my teeth

As if it were,

When it’s time to brush my teeth,

The most important task

In the whole wide world,

Brushing them alertly,

With full attention,

Applying myself to the strokes of the brush

In front of my mouth

And behind,

A its hidden corners

And up and down,

Not missing out on the circular motions

That dentists recommend,

And scrupulously keeping at bay

The sad or happy thoughts,

The obsessions,

The ecstasies,

The awesome worries and perplexities,

That threaten to wildly rush in

And take possession —

 

This giving the so-called minor acts their due,

This true democracy of the spirit,

This pushing out the intruder

Seeking mental entry,

Grappling with it,

Absorbing its blows,

This struggle no one notices

Or appreciates,

This quiet overcoming,

This victory of order over chaos

That nowhere makes headlines,

That you cannot talk about with x or y or z

And get yourself understood —

 

 

This, too, is heroism of a kind,

Heroism of a different brand;

This is everyday romance,

No less adventurous,

No less glorious

Than, more sensationally,

Fighting bulls in Spain

Or floating, televised,

In outer space.

 

                 Gautam Sen

 

 

Trauma

 

 

How is it, but how is it

That though the words are much the same

In the Book of Life,

Some meanings suddenly

Have changed?

All tears were water

Till the other day.

And ran in rivulets;

Today my own are dry —

They do not run,

They splinter

into broken sighs!

And rocks …

Yes rocks were solid

Dependable things

That wouldn’t budge an inch

When it came to the crunch …

I’ve seen them crumble into dust

At the first touch

Of an avalanche,

And like a flock of perching birds

Upset by gunshot,

Disperse like panic

In the wind.

 

 

Though the words are much the same

In the Book of Life,

There are those

That are differently disposed

From how they were

Before:

Supposedly quiet words explode

And others, considered loud,

Retire into corners

And absently doze.

            Gautam Sen

An Ode to My Child

Your dandles and dolls

give the carnations their canary

and the roses their rust.

The lullabies I sing to you

levitate in light

to incarnate as the

beat in my bones.

The confection that closes

into your craving hands

aches as the ambrosia

in the asters

and heirs to a harvest.

When I kiss your face

to make you sway

on slumber's sling

I realize why you are

the similitude of my soul

carved in my cells

my montage of motherhood.

                           Rinzu Rajan

Another Parallel Poem:  Poppies

Each pair of round lips

Cut right in the middle

Bleeding so boldly

In a foggy fields

Nobody to kiss

Nobody to talk with

All like blood-skirted pasts

Painted thickly close to the heart

                            Changming Yuan

Wind

Like pain it came and left by halves

and now mostly it stays on,

a boarder too poor to leave.  

 

Like cottonwood it coated scenes

of past lives, and now it breathes in

heady gusts of her, as chunks calve

 

from her ego the way a glacier loosens

its sides to water.  Wind, like air,

is not like anything, she thinks.  

 

Ivory sheers hang to blot

the sun’s bright face close to solstice.

She didn’t think she’d end up like this,

 

one of Macbeth’s three witches

stirring words together, whispering

curses under her breath

 

like her father. All tenses conspire.

Sun lights hearts of ivy, the yard

overgrown, as when desire

 

first departed on its thin-ribbed horse

for another land, and the door

slammed shut of its own accord.

                              Judith Skillman

Insistence

A mother laments for the end

that attacks impetuously

and you write your little poems

about the little trees and the chickadees

even if no one ever reads them

unless the wind stops blowing

and curiously comes near them 

to take them to the opposite side

where even the dead orate poems

and you said—

again I shall try to transform

the cricket’s song into a shiver

                      Manolis

Translations from Ukrainian, by Steve Komarnyskij

I stand

I stand by the river,

Its sound shapes to a bell

Calling, where is your sail?

Only shadows on the water

And edges of cloud creep closer.

Sadness grows in the grain,

The sky a swarming ocean

Alone in my dream…

The river sings its bell

Of sound, each star

Of the Pleiades on the water,

Where shadows jostle…

Your sail steers so close,

Sadness breathes in the corn

Yearning for the sun

And loss forgotten.

                                    Pavlo Tychyna

Spring

        After Baratynckyj

It is spring, the air

Around us has such transparency,

The orchard ripples with flowers,

And an ochre clarity.

Spring, what is that whisper

On the feathers of the wind?

Cherry blossom, a stream of cloud.

Petals stampede

Into a murmur of foam.

The river seems to grieve

As it bears fragments of ice.

The forest is not yet in leaf

But the first

Buds pale and silken show

Over the mulch and shadow.

Above us in the pearl

Coloured light a lark sings,

The cloudy tune

Of spring

Happens.

                                 Pavlo Tychyna

Solar Clarinets

Clarinet, your nakedness

Resonates around the centre of things,

Black wood, where notes are planets,

Trembles and sings

Until I am only

An echoing bell of sounds,

The blind place where we play

With angelic hands.

Song levitates.

Buoyant in spring grass,

Remade with earth always.

The water’s suppleness.

                                 Pavlo Tychyna

The Indian Sky

Is cradled in your eyes

Your child’s face, your body a priestess. . . .

I turn from the steppe to the snow,

And listen to its drowsy whispers with you,

Soft stars falling on your face

A ticklish kiss. . .the murk will engender

A blankness bitter as absinthe,

The symbol of gods unreconciled.

You will forgive the tornado of poetry,

As the train hurtles through the steppe

And we become as one, rich, wise and pure. . . .

The fragrance of crushed mint at dusk,

The leaves yearning to fall

Before the snow comes.

                                 Ihor Pavlyuk

Istanbul

A quiet morning,

A pale orchard over the sea

Water, transparent as none existence,

The sky

Honey dusted with salt.

The sun plagues us,

And, in the distance, a shape that might be

A mermaid, solitary

I hold my breath

Among depths

Of coral

Cathedrals

We see demons laugh noiselessly

And how angels from among the filaments of sea grass

weep. Soundless

Their wings, raised towards the sun

Glittering plough shares.

A sense of loss....

The impulse to be silent

Ambushes me...

I gulp

The air again, stand on soil

Moist as if with blood and catch,

What I think is the muezzin's call

But realize

Is a Cockerel

It's twilight

Bugle.

                Ihor Pavlyuk

Eight Phases of the Moon

 

(Darkness)

The sun learnt thrift

In its light.  The invisible moon

Like a dinosaur of memory.

 

(Crescent Strength)

Stronger than the sun

Waxed aside the stars

The footsteps outside my door

Shape-shifting into ghosts of nostalgia.

 

(Shining Silver )

I sat alone atop

The sentiment of the hearth

Gone cold; a mouth of mute ash.

Across the hedge

Land and sheep died.

 

(Bloom)

A bigger moon exploded

My heart with gentle light

In the spire-filled jungle

Skyscrapers extinguished the healing light.

 

(Bold Energy)

Lost in drinking dens farmers

Drifted smoke; lush parlours

Cows mewed in moon memory

Past life now distant.

 

(Dying )

The high silver orb

Lost a notch and so

My breath of innocence.

 

(Hopeless)

Zephyr's pull over the sea waned

Hankering dogs no longer gazed

Down the road sniffing

Their master's footprints.

 

(Epilogue)

We hid behind misty pillars.

The ghost of loneliness

Mingled with the dying sheep.

Homestead echoed endlessly.

                         Agholor Leonard Obiaderi

Black Gold

 

The oil-slick curled

Black fingers across the stream

Into the spine-core of lives

Fish and crab stifled air

Felt the flash, the pain.

 

The huge drilling rigs

Poured their excrement

Into the guts of the sick-poor.

Thick black poisons danced on the surface

The water they drank.

 

The fishermen returned home

Empty baskets of famine.

They failed to catch

The catch of  tomorrow's hope.

 

This manner of death

More cruel than stilettos

Laid ribs bare.

 

In the creeks

Of the Niger Delta

Profits overpowered the gods.

                  Agholor Leonard Obiaderi

Breakfast

 

A thick butter cube,  

tamed, without sharp angles, rests

on the egg-skinned French toast. Honey

is braided to be honed. He mixes

different yellows with a knife, that chafes

with an empty rasp. I overturn

the pepper castor to decorate

the golden block until

it’s proportionally blackened.

Pepper? He asks, with an impatient

stare. I like sweet plus salty, I say. He

arches his eyebrows, like arrows

twisted to test their breakpoints. His fingers

strum my fringes, with the dexterity

of slipping through the harp,

as if sprinkling my dandruff

over the toast to replace

the pepper. You’re impenetrable,

he utters with the most

unutterable certainty. I am not,

I reply. I wish I had a fluid

egg yolk and thrust it

to let the non-washable yellow

take over his fingers’ grease

on my fringe. His deft

slide of fork bunches

the toast’s skin, its prongs glint

in the yellow wrap. Or, I’m too

incomprehensible to you, he adds. The peanut

mid-layer in the toast remains

arid. My knife flutters

along the cluttered egg’s tassels,

that mark the irregularity, a toast’s

topography, fragmented, sanded

with bread crumb. I’m not so perfect, I

say. The toast hardens, cold, still

unbitten. He munches the slab,

a squishy bite sousing the flour’s

fiber. The crescent nip, clear

with his teeth’s impress, reminds

me of a scythe that thrashes

through sunburnt wheat, grim rip

from his brass-coated lips.  

                 Belle Ling

The Hunger for Shape

 

           (Geraldine O’Connor’s last interview)

 

1

 

Oranges make me Cezanne, potatoes

Van Gogh. Everything thrives,

even the dead. The sky floats higher

than O’Keeffe’s white skulls.

 

A child, I consumed books on the plague.

The carts stacked with corpses, rattling through streets

where black rats roamed, filled me with the dread

that’s the essence of mysticism.

 

I carry my husband inside me, I think.

Each morning I wake

to the memory of his face:

bones, shadows, eyes.

 

Alive, he craved warm,

pale shapes: my vulva

and breasts, the sun

through a scrim.

 

Such beauty in stillness.

Black moons float on my refrigerator rack.

On withering oranges, skin puckers so quietly

a fetus might be dying.

 

 

2

When we buried our baby,

her forehead wasn’t collapsed

but elegantly sensual,

round as a saint’s.

 

At the moment of demise,

oranges sag

from the outside in,

a splendor in decay

 

everything, I swear, revels in: look

at the refrigerator’s second shelf,

at the bread

with its beard of mold.

 

It’s autumn in this refrigerator, a toxic season, true,

but I never keep anything long past its prime—

simply witness stages that fill me with joy:

the taut, firm fruit

 

evolves into shapes lifespan and gravity stamp.

At night, in bed, blue-lit embryos grow in my brain

to darker maturity. Then I remember:

I hated that home.

 

During visiting hours, I’d show him my sculptures.

He’d stroke the white fetus’s fingers,

whispering.

So gentle, loving—

 

 

3

 

I’d hold his hands for hours,

cradle his head in my lap.  Each day

of his dying we’d celebrate

how he evolved.

               Terri Brown-Davidson

If I forget…

 

1. Bet Govrin

 

I learned the weight of babies, weaponry

and saw the sun rise like a stranger.

I heard my name and did not recognize it.

The cave of bats that shrieked at nightfall,

the bodies spilling out always flew left.

I stumbled down a mountain – blue and purple

and beautiful as a bruise.

The desert emptied people’s hearts:

there was no more space for heroes.

The air hummed with the coming Storm.

I reminded him of his potency. We sealed

the doors and windows with masking tape.

Sirens shook my senses, I can still hear them.

I left a piece of myself in a particular place

I cannot quite remember.

 

2. Alonim

 

I waited at first for a sign, a calling, wanting

to be taken. We ate avocados - green-black

as butter-filled grenades,

and citrus fruit big as your head –

each segment broken into, an act of violence.

I was reeling from flowers, the scent

of different dusts. In a babel of languages

we managed without words –

sweating on airless nights to a chorus of insects

rubbing legs together for conversation.

I forgot rain, carpet, details, I danced

around the silo with a tractor for a skirt

and learnt the art of cutting perfectly.

My body stuck to his fake leather settee;

it sounded as though it was ripping me

when I tore myself away.

                                  Clare Kirwan