I do not ask her if she believes that the fairies will really come, that they might be searching for a tiny backyard house in which to dwell. Even if they were, no magical creature would choose to live in this tangle of sticks over which we have fussed for far too long. It doesn’t matter that the bed of moss will go un-slept in. I will not worry myself with exactness or proportions of bark chair to mushroom table. The fairies will never complain about such things. We busy ourselves with flower petal carpets and arranging decorations of shiny quartz pebble just so. The final product is never quite what she envisioned. The furnishings are rustic and the roof keeps falling in each time it is adjusted by little fingers with the best of intentions. She will remember building everything herself. When it is gone, when the rain and breeze and rot have scattered the remnants she will remember it as a jeweled palace, a luxurious home. She will sleep comfortably in her own bed knowing the fairies are well cared for, imagining she had tucked them in herself, kissed them gently on the forehead the way Daddy does before he whispers good night.
Christopher Clauss (he/him) is an introvert, Ravenclaw, father, poet, photographer, and middle school science teacher in rural New Hampshire. His mother believes his poetry is “just wonderful.” Both of his daughters declare that he is the “best daddy they have,” and his pre-teen science students rave that he is “Fine, I guess. Whatever.”
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
There are quite a few miles that crevice you from home,
Like the zip of your suitcase that flies between hope and not-hope.
I can only imagine how the fridge door must be slamming, unlike the one back here—
Extended supplies shunting faster than Turner’s baby,
The one that cries but never comes.
Do you wake each day to a finite line
And trace back the rhino’s trail
You had smiled about the other day?
Does Bishop speak clearer now
And blur your vocabulary?
I am afraid I will forget your smiling hair
And the exact shade of your red lipstick
(The traces are already starting to drift).
Lie to me when I ask about happiness
Or perhaps halt the track of my question
(‘Are you home yet?’)
With a whistle or a red flag,
For then I can at least begin to unmemorise
Your face greeting me in some departure lounge.
Jayati Das is a research scholar from Tezpur University, India, and holds a Master’s degrees in English Literature frotm the University of Delhi. Her areas of research include representations of the Vietnam War, masculinity studies, and queer cinema. She has won over a dozen prizes in creative writing at the college and university levels. Several of her poems and stories have been published in The Assam Tribune, The Sentinel, and e-magazines like The Golden Line, including a story in an anthology titled DU Love. Her published research includes essays on the Mizo poet, Mona Zote, race in Othello, and on Pedro Almodóvar’s cinema.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
The British built it, upon our home, In Idukki, amidst the feral mountains Of Western Ghats*, This structure—a leviathan of construction, Which they said was The symbol of modernity, An accomplishment of human effort, This sterile, dark, tearing off the heart, Of the Western Ghats, The dam with which they also ruled, Nature with alacrity. For two hundred years, the empire governed Our desires and hopes, destinies and dreams. Our home enchained, Under the hoof of the emperor’s horse, Dying, rising, dying again, rising again, Like an old creature heaving for its last breath. But the old and spent Doesn’t impress the empire, And it left this land, its nature, And the people, with a tale Of condescending kindness, Letting the “young” nation self-govern, With warnings of possible schisms. But with general consolations At the possible victories gained: Like the railways, the dams, the roads, And the democratic spirit. The siren of the train is bearable, And so is the sluggishness Of the democratic system, And bureaucracy, but the dam— A silent monstrosity of Idukki, Governing the Ghats with its grey bosom, Serving mostly electric power-supplies. It’s old, with dark lines of age growing On the ramparts of the reservoirs, Mossy, slippery wall, waiting— For its final fall, every Monsoon, Drowning our dwelling places Underneath the dammed up spirit Of the wild and tortured river, Surpassing human alacrity. So when the rains ravage, We hear the echoes, of death— Riding the horse of the old emperor, Upon the ramparts of the old walls, With the fear of death, Still governing us.
[1] Idukki is one of the southern restrictions in Kerala state, India, which is situated in the Western Ghats.
[2] Western Ghats is a chain of mountains bordering Kerala’s western side, which is known as ecologically fragile.
Om of the lawnmower motor, the meditative motion begins, this tracing of the sacred square.
Castes least enlightened outsource, content to admire aesthetics from afar. The devout deny such urges, don robes of an ancestral order: button down western shirts, before mounting mini John Deeres, while those nearest nirvana self-propel, lean step by measured step into each swath as if laying down something native on a Kansas prairie.
Cut grass like incense awakens the senses.
Emptying themselves of the envy within the outward gaze across the fence, these Midwestern monks are quite conscious of their lot, rectangular orbits mere representations of the workings and wonder of the cosmos.
Prostration is sometimes required, negotiating with the earth over weeds noxious, obnoxious, other blessed imperfections.
A single blade clings to the sweat on an arm, the rest released to the currents of June rain or a.m. sprinklers, the mandala regenerating perpetually.
Each steward inhales, exhales, accepting this perfection ephemeral, embracing this transience and a want for nothing.
Boyd Bauman grew up on a small ranch south of Bern, Kansas. His dad was a storyteller and his mom the family scribe. He has published two books of poetry: Cleave and Scheherazade Plays the Chestnut Tree Café. After stints in New York, Colorado, Alaska, Japan, and Vietnam, Boyd now is a librarian and writer in Kansas City, inspired by his three lovely muses. Visit at boydbauman.weebly.com.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
Long beams are carried in on strong arms, belts fitted with tools and the Oklahoma sun warming the backs of the heads of workers remodeling the house across the street though it’s colder than usual for these parts in February—even a dusting of snow. The grass crunches beneath their boots, dry, and blonde like a young woman’s hair, as I watch them unload their truck, turning toward one another now and then to chat or chuckle or pat a back before lifting another board. The windows of this home must be original, the same panes of glass it was born with and I wonder if they will be replaced, if the paper that surely continues to adorn the walls, peeling, will be stripped, its bones re-fleshed in fresher hues, if the organs that pump life into toilets, showers, and sinks, into outlets, lights, hairdryers, and phones will undergo surgery. How long until the porch is secure and the roof healed of all its leaking? A few bi-fold doors lean against the home’s old siding— closets, it seems, have been opened and rendered doorless as heaps of a former life are gathered in piles of trash that exit the home in large bags. Down the street at the halfway house, men smoking cigarettes also observe this pageantry with me and I wonder if they are thinking what I am thinking—that someone bought that house with all its imperfections, after an assessment, not knowing exactly how the whole thing will turn out. The sky grows overcast and snow begins to fall again so the men at the halfway house drop embers unto the sidewalk to go indoors as the workers hood their heads and continue working. I pull my blanket tighter over my shoulders letting the cool flakes fall against my face and litter the doorstep around me. I can’t leave now no matter what happens— this is the part of the story I still like.
The stray dogs bite. There’s glass in the sand, too worn to cut a toe. A toddler giggles running from her family toward the waves. They urge her back. On the beach road, I can’t tell if the sound of a car approaching from behind is the surf until headlights flash. The gate of the abandoned school for “incapacitados” is chained shut, has been for months, sargassum and plastic washing under. Classroom walls of cracked concrete. Graffiti on graffiti. A phantom yell of gringo! Spitting rain. It will pour any minute. Then it doesn’t. The yacht club sells pizzas to expats but no one is hungry tonight. Wind scatters plastic chairs around tables as if customers were full and anxious to get home, then as if the patio were raided by stray dogs. Each palm tree has a personal hair dryer. The expats, like stray dogs, growl at newcomers, bark at each other into the night. The expats feed the stray dogs. Cheapest alarm system I ever had, says one to another. A pack gathers in front of his second home like hyenas, vicious, grinning. Testicles, teats, purpled, withered fruit clinging to the vine. They shit where they want. A passerby steps in it, curses. A passerby kicks out but we see who is really afraid. A passing car accelerates, achieves revenge. The corpse of a stray dog in a ditch stinking until it won’t anymore. Expats think the pandemic a hoax or conspiracy initiated by Jews. The expats are assholes, says an expat, but they are old. They die quick. One, on his moto, was run over by a microbus last week. He exploded like a McDonalds ketchup package.
2.
I speak to a loved one on the phone. She insists, there is something you’re not telling me. Twists and flecks of iridium, extraterrestrial metal, shocked quartz and glass beads discovered in the rock core. Water-winged children hurling themselves into cenotes, earth’s empty eye sockets, prehispanic graveyards, skeletons fished out from 100 meters deep, bats zig-zagging over water underground. I’m alone in the port city of Progreso. Chicxclub, site of climate disruption, mass extinction, ancient rerouting of life. A meteor with the power of 1,000 atomic bombs. We won’t give the universe time for another go. A seagull missing a foot lands near my dinner, gingerly using the stump for balance, swaying more than usual in the breeze. A flamingo limping across a salty lake. A stray dog hopping. An ex-pat in a wheelchair. Landmine in Afghanistan. Crowded hovels with no running water inland. Abandoned mansions on the coast. Mold, erosion, dilapidation. A hurricane isn’t at fault. The money ran out or virus. Crackling bass and reggaetón and shouts from inside one shell of a building that isn’t theirs, the windows boarded up and papered over. From the terrace three floors up a young Mexican points to the liter of beer in his hand and yells, ¡Súbate, Güero! I pass through a door with a busted lock.
3. A group of 20-somethings chugging beer around an empty pool. Racing to inebriation. Pulling ahead in the race to elude annihilation. Assembled from various regions of Mexico, here to construct a suburbia of sorts outside the port city, an international village. They pass me a joint, I bum them English cigarettes too expensive for Mexico. They push a phone with a PowerPoint presentation in front of me. Condos with rooftop gardens, windmills, and solar panels resembling Mayan pyramids constructed over the ruins of Mayan pyramids long ago chewed, swallowed, and still being digested by jungle. Graphene super metal and recycled plastics. Bubble tech and defoaming. Optimum insulation and acoustics, less CO2 release. Jargon, gospel, babble of sustainability. New lingo for the industry, the lexicon, the public imagination. Off the grid. Supposedly free from the control and corruption of government, of cartels. I say it sounds like a cult and an interior designer giggles wiggling her pointer finger up and down, says sí, sí, como Charley Manson. Voice automated everything—your entertainment, your coffee pot, your bidet. All-inclusive. More amenities promised than a liberal arts college. A Burger King. Probably a mini-Target. The promise of consumerism preserved amid the crash of exterior markets. Top priority: Security. AK-47s, M-16s, Uzis. Bulletproof vests and jackets that look like you’re going to church or brunch. Fences with barbed wire as tall as border walls. Here in the shell of an ex-expat’s vacation home the other American dream of the gated community lifted, romanticized, enhanced. Ultra-militarized. Elon Musk might support the project, claims an energy specialist. Living there will be like working for Google, boasts the jungle rave DJ. There is opportunity in crisis, they add. They have acquired the land. Started construction. Convinced expats to invest, possibly retire there. I jokingly ask the CEO, Who will be eaten first when the apocalypse comes? He nods toward a stray dog eying us from below and as serious as climate change says, could be any of us.
Dustin King teaches Spanish and runs a small organization that provides aide to undocumented community in Richmond, Va. His poems appear in Blood and Bourbon, Ligeia, Tilted House, Drunk Monkey and other magazines. He most recently made the longlist in the 2021 UK national poetry competition.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
Sittin’ at the kitchen table—cup of black coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other—I look past catches of blue paint and the remains of flies on screen door mesh, toward the sorghum field just beyond the ranch gate. Death’s stillness—a gravity all its own—has seeped into every corner, permeated the grout of tiled countertops and spaces in between fruit magnates on the old, white Frigidaire like the smell of rabbit in the oven or hints of storm riding out on the breeze. Life’s left the room—no pulse under these linoleum tiles—it seems, leaving it darker, a bit colder, despite morning’s come to call through the window above the sink. I take another sip—bitter on the tongue—then a drag (or two), finding myself—absent-minded–fingering the contents of a chipped, pink and white bowl of green stamp china (of which she was so proud). Four pennies, two dimes, and a nickel. Two rusty paper clips. A half-used packet of B&C headache powder. A dead fly. I remember eating from it—sweetened raspberries, red and golden, from bushes in the garden—when I was small. How I’d toss them back in grubby fistfuls, between chokes on the juice, as honied explosions—sour and sweet—took me to Heaven and back then ‘round, again, while she looked out the screen door, tossing hair from her eyes—cup of black coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other—staring at my father working in the field, beyond.
David Estringel is a Xicanx writer/poet with works published in literary publications, such as The Opiate, Azahares, Cephalorpress, Lahar, Poetry Ni, DREICH, Somos En Escrito, Ethel, The Milk House, Beir Bua Journal, and The Blue Nib. His first collection of poetry and short fiction Indelible Fingerprints was published April 2019, followed Blood Honey and Cold Comfort House in 2022. David has written five poetry chapbooks, Punctures, PeripherieS, Eating Pears on the Rooftop, as well as Golden Calves and Blue (coming 2023). His new book of micro poetry little punctures will be released in December 2022. Connect with David on Twitter @The_Booky_Man and his website www.davidaestringel.com.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
The front was sand and yellow wheat and brown horseflesh and night whistle of a train. The back was a gate unlatched onto summer – flower patches and sprinklers, blue television windows floating in the dark. Before builders poured foundations down the block, I ran there between rows of corn. Sunsets blazed or whispered and disappeared past railroad tracks at the horizon, the distance I could figure going under my own steam, the faraway I imagined growing up to find.
Lori Brack is the author of A Case for the Dead Letter Detective(Kelsay, 2021),Museum Made of Breath (Spartan Kansas City, 2018) and A Fine Place to See the Sky (The Field School, 2010). She lives on the prairie two blocks from the Garden of Eden and 14 miles from the geodetic center of North America.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
She eyes the tired roadhouse tucked between junk yards filled with car doors and still-good hubcaps,
hickory smoke heavy on night air, rubbing against her like a cat. Inside, past shadowy booths
grimy with time, guitars draw her in with a walkin’ blues line, shuffle through 12 bars like they mean it.
Ya feelin’ blue? the drummer growls, and the crowd spills onto the dance floor where she joins women with tight jeans
and tight smiles, moving alone, faces painted hopeful. When the tune slows, she takes the hand of a sad-eyed guy—
they slide and sway, his breath on her neck a sweet refrain in a song of love gone wrong.
Susan Carman is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and served as poetry editor for Kansas City Voices. Her poetry appeared most recently in I-70 Review, Heartland! Poetry of Love, Resistance & Solidarity, and the anthologies Curating Home and The Shining Years. Retired from non-profit management, she lives in Overland Park, Kansas, where she is an ESL volunteer.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
And here you are standing two feet bare on the floor of your kitchen turning back to the wall behind as though he were standing bare-footed there with you again as he did those years prior. Before the days dissolved into the rising of time immemorial and you who had just kept your head above water now live in the after so far below you have come to know the nocturnal creatures who in quiet habits roam from shore to shore only under all the weight of dark stars. What can you do but let flow through your fingers—the now and him too though he was yours for a time and gave you such happiness. The distances between keep widening and soon it will be that you cannot recall his eyes or the scent amongst his thick curls. Turns out you knew—had known all along this was coming. It was why you held him close for so long why you saved him in dreams so many times you lost count. It was the one sure thing you held in your heart and though you knew it to be true you gave him everything even so—even though you knew in the coming years he would be gone from you. And here you are standing two feet bare on the floor of your kitchen turning back to the wall behind you as though he were standing bare-footed there.
Jessica Rigney is a poet, artist, and filmmaker. She is the author of Follow a Field: a Photographic & Poetic Essay (2016), Entre Nous (2017), Careful Packages (2019), and Something Whole (2021). Her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022. She lives and wanders in Colorado and northern New Mexico, where she films and collects feathers and stones. www.jessicarigney.com
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
South Broadway Ghost Society 