When I heard that sound that can only be interpreted one way, we shot up off the couch, arranged our clothes, and answered the door. There, just as expected, the platoon of black cherry gallons headed up by Harold the Conqueror, Lord of the Realm of Berea, West Virginia. We did know we had to plan for the Battle of Otterslide Creek, but we also knew we had at least nine more days before the sloth army arrived. Harold pressed the issue; he was concerned his troops would melt. We bivouacked them in the chest freezer, fed Harold frozen enchiladas, and got back down to business.
* the title of this poem is a line from the trailer of the movie Church Money.
Outbound
They burst in and say this is a stickup but they’re all holding turkey sausage. You turn back to the teller, continue your deposit of half a sheep and a peck of bananas.
Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry in Akron, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Stickman Review, Nebo, and Redheaded Stepchild, among others.
She stands there, clearly, near me A girl, not so small Ten years or more I think Also blonde With brown eyes Same as me And she speaks to me in German No English? I say No. Why young lady We are not in Germany Nobody here knows German I have to know German She tells me I have to write in German What did you write then? My dreams And nobody can see Just me And now you I am just a foreigner in your life No. You are my dream In the United States, I dreamed of you in German And I wrote everything down At that moment, I realized That girl and me – we Are the same woman And I remember very well why I couldn’t write in English In my American West My American mother would read everything And my Romanian father was telling me Green horses on the walls And suddenly I see clearly That the dreams I wrote down at age 10 Have all come true I cannot believe that But am I simply happy And also a little alone with myself And together with this world
Mein Traum Original German
Sie steht da, klar, in meiner Nähe Ein Mädchen, nicht so klein Seit zehn Jahre oder so Ich glaube Auch blond Mit braunen Augen Das gleich wie ich Und sie spreche zu mir auf Deutsch Kein English? Sag ich Nein. Wie so Liebling? Wir sind nicht in Deutschland Niemand hier kennt Deutsch Ich muss Deutsch kennen Sie mir sagt Ich muss auf Deutsch schreiben Was hast du dann geschrieben? Meine Träume Und niemand kann sehen Nur ich Und jetzt du Was ist dann passiert? Ich bin nur Ausländer in dein Leben Nein. Du bist mein Traum In der Vereinigte Staaten hab ich an dich auf Deutsch getraumt Und ich hab alles geschrieben In diesen Moment, mir war klar Das dieses Mädchen und ich Sind die gleiche Frau Und ich erinnere mich sehr warum ich konnte auf English nicht schreiben In meinem Amerikanische West Meine Amerikanische Mutter wurde alles lesen Und meine Rumänisch Vater wurde mir sagen Grüne Pferde an den Wänden Und plötzlich sehe ich klar Das meine Träume geschriebt auf nur zehn Jahren Sind ganz passiert Ich kann das nicht glauben Aber bin ich einfach glücklich Und auch ein bisschen allein mit meinen Selbst Und zusammen mit dieser Welt
Cristina A. Bejan is an award-winning Romanian-American historian, theatre artist, and poet. A Rhodes and Fulbright scholar, she is a professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Bejan received her DPhil (PhD) in Modern History from the University of Oxford. A playwright and spoken word poet (her stage name is Lady Godiva), her creative work has appeared in the US, UK, Romania, and Vanuatu. In addition to many scholarly articles, she has published a poetry book (Green Horses on the Walls), history book (Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania), and a play in Voices on the Move (eds. Radulescu and Cazan).
Leor Feldman (they/them/she/her) is a writer based in Denver, Colorado. They often write of their body as a roadmap to illustrate how they’ve grown through chronic illness, while also exploring their relationship with their Jewish culture and queer identity. With a BA in Writing & Literature from California College of the Arts, Leor is currently working towards a Masters in International & Intercultural Communication at the University of Denver. They have poetry published in Humble Pie Literary Journal, as well as articles in Hey Alma and The Colorado Sun. Find them on Instagram.
saw a girl. she looked like you with someone who looked like me, but taller with more weight. there were moments in the chais, rather than this alarmed street with gum under my shoe and a ringing ear and folks who don’t want me. the pubs with warm beer, I miss bars. you’re a mother now. and the younger we age, two years equity and sixty thousand exchanges they still looked like us. her less beautiful.
in the revolving barber’s chair i’m asked about my hair, but I can’t see in the passing mirrors of the market where the drawn doors and portraits of those who’ve never been here sleep behind the streetlamps. back to the cheap tabs and bad company where i can’t tell love from brixton’s best. i thank god i’m not wet ‘cause i’ve floated that lido and i’m sick of english words. i miss temperament, but can’t return to buoy in grandlake and not course downstream. which i guess wouldn’t be so bad, not if I could stay on my back.
Originally from the front range, Devin Welch currently lives and works in London, UK where he recently finished his MFA at the University of London, Birkbeck. His prose, reviews, poetry, and films have been featured in publications across North America and Europe.
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.
The cold stars clicking their claws together like crabs in a tank. History changes and runs off the page like butter. The world has been dragged through me, and I’ve been dragged through the world. We’re even. Stars twirl over stinking trenches, beginning a subtle magnetic resurrection that will take all time and never end. The mind is a machine to move matter. The scenes are super modern. The earth has us, and we multiply. Founded in an impulse of wild lonely need, not serious planning. The stars dissolve in my mouth not my hand. Let this life not be a torment. Let the stars stop shaking. Please, God. I will turn my greatest tricks for you.
Zack Kopp is a freelance writer, editor, photographer, graphic artist, and literary agent currently living in Denver, Colorado. His informal history of the Beat Generation’s connections with Denver was published by The History Press in 2015. Kopp’s books are available at Amazon, and you can find his blog at the website for his indie hybrid press at www.campelasticity.com featuring interviews and articles and links to other websites. His improvised novel, Public Hair, was described by one critic as “simultaneously the best and worst book ever.” The latest chapter of Kopp’s “fantastic biography” (Cf. Billy Childish), Henry Crank’s History of Wonders is expected in 2022.
And if the branches touch the window And the poplar trees quake That is how you are on my mind And I slowly get closer to you
And if the stars touch the lake Lighting it up, deeply That is how I make peace with my pain Illuminating the thought
And if the clouds though leave They exit towards the glistening moon That is how my memories return to me Of you forever
Şi dacă
Şi dacă ramuri bat în geam Şi se cutremur plopii, E ca în minte să te am Şi-ncet să te apropii.
Şi dacă stele bat în lac Adâncu-i luminându-l, E ca durerea mea s-o-mpac Înseninându-mi gândul.
Şi dacă norii deşi se duc De iese-n luciu luna, E ca aminte să-mi aduc De tine-ntotdeauna.
About the Poet
Mihai Eminescu (born Mihail Eminovici; 15 January 1850 – 15 June 1889) was a Romanian Romantic poet from Moldavia, novelist, and journalist, generally regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet.
About the Translator
Cristina A. Bejan is an award-winning Romanian-American historian, theatre artist, and poet. A Rhodes and Fulbright scholar, she is a professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Bejan received her DPhil (PhD) in Modern History from the University of Oxford. A playwright and spoken word poet (her stage name is Lady Godiva), her creative work has appeared in the US, UK, Romania, and Vanuatu. In addition to many scholarly articles, she has published a poetry book (Green Horses on the Walls), history book (Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania), and a play in Voices on the Move (eds. Radulescu and Cazan).
Come, again, and walk beside me down the verdant path, ‘cross this deathly sprawl, reading poetry from tombstones and the yellowed pages of your tattered Lorca. How sweet the ballads and laments on the breeze that sift through soft yews— just yonder— that shake like fists at wrought-iron gates— at Heaven— clutching their red burdens (in clusters) like beating hearts to breasts of evergreen. Dance with me to the whispers of cypress trees— so tall they cut the sky, bloodying what God painted blue, and the laughter of boys and girls, as they duck and dart from behind the pale bounty of this garden of stone, reveling in perpetual games of tag and Hide & Seek. Will you find me at dewy dawn amongst sprays of grocery store bouquets in cellophane wrappings that cry silent tears? Or in the cold of a moonrise, contemplating our stars and the gossip of earthworms? When…o when, will I see you, again? Will memory outlast the letters of my name? Loneliness the promise? There is no end (so it seems) to this longing, our endless game (Who hides? Who seeks?), just a stone on my pillow and the endless promise of evergreen.
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.
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.
South Broadway Ghost Society 