Category: Fall 2021 Edition

streetlight warmed steps
over the cracks in the road
crooked and constant
to be filled in, someday

stresses of wear can
be paved
wiped smooth
and easier to drive

but i feel the stresses and
the dips flex sneaker sole,
sensation struck physically into
the moon, the pave, the runny-nose cold

a page in the sensual scrapbook
for me to look back on,
hey
I felt that

I still remember the night
we said this may be the last
cold-hand huddled-shoulder cold-
walk and it was

it’s different, alone
and my legs are new and the road;
music to replace the voices
but they can’t take the stars from my eyes

I can still watch the fog roll in and shiver

-Colette Stergios

I don’t want you to be special to me.
i don’t want to cling to you and hold your hand
and give you everything i have to give,
or frolick in grass plains, nondescript,
where no one knows your name
i don’t want my heart to yearn for something it cannot have,
nor do i want to want to want

to want is to give up hope in uncertainty
to believe is to forget about intricacy
i want to be as delicate
as the withered stalks of forgotten lilies
left on graves of lives long past
and fall to dust as ashes we came from, the
history of stars so far away
i must be crazy to think that this should make any sense at all
and i don’t want to want to want you
not now, not ever, no dice, thank you, good bye

-Shane Keiser

-Alejandro Barton-Negreiros

Why can’t I feel little anymore?
And look up at a larger person pensive, plotting question,
Something strange,
I’ll ask as stagnant air and stick skin of childhood pins me down to dirty, soil earth.

Why can’t I sleep soundly anymore? No marimba, piano, no chirp (from a frog)?
Young and ready for a nap mid day, some blanket, small and colorful,
Fluffy,
Fuzzy,
Something made to be held (as I was).

I forget that booster seats exist,
Taking me to tall white trees, passing streams, and high up orange canopies glowing saffron,
And I also forget that I can swear now,
But sometimes I remember play,
Imagination still here (if much different),
And the gentle thoughts of yesterday all blended.

Of staining mud, coarse but tricky, and morning dew on some sweet (ankle length) grass.
Of chasing something (or being chased), every time I stepped outside, game, curiosity,
Loud winds on tiny ears, buzzes, swishes, and bees,
All pushes to the harder ground the same.

Maybe I still Child, when I think of things that frighten me,
The empty night,
The crawling of bug prick on sensing skin,
Or something poisonous (like cough medicine, water, or nosebleeds).
Maybe I got older when I realized what I feared was being tired,
Since I now cry when I think of lullabies, I think, though I’m not sure what makes me miss them.

Since little I didn’t really care for sleep, for tranquil weight on a cushioned crib, boredom living,
Simply rocked me,
Sway by sway,
Into tomorrow.

-Jorge Biaggi

and on the days i don’t exist
where bedroom a lock-box shuts its door and the
knob falls off
where lunch i scavenge from nook and cranny
Sméagol in lightless lake

on the days where i am a moon-gem charged
by waning new, but the phase is full
or a sun-stone wishing warmth, would the clouds clear
or a mineral mystery, not knowing what power
comes by some charge of nature

the days that always feel behind but
carry eternity
where hours drip like a leaky faucet and
dusk comes early;

though true they come less often, and
true the grip is weaker but the arms come reaching,
reaching and wrangling what weakness i show
when will is spent
thrusting me from the water, a fish from my life
my lake and
tearing raw to tender flesh, the
wretch stuck itself
in blind cave

but lo, the wise have said the journey looks
 hopeless to heroes held,
and I may have a part to play
come the end

-Colette Stergios

-Alejandro Barton-Negreiros

As We are
just as the mushroom is only the fruiting body of more
mycelium underneath, we are
the fruits of a great web-mind that is the breath
-ing rock we sit on 

my Body; a living planet filled
with biomes 
of bacteria, fungi, protists;
single-celled or many parts organisms
individual, but one colony-self.

to the germ: do you know i am Living?
do you see my sentience in electric-impulsed
nerves, or the weather;
your environment is musculature, pu ls in g and 
flowingthe rivers and floods –
take my nutrients, till my land and deposit new
you procreate, live lives inside me and i am unaware

they see this world as home
i see this colony We as 
Me 
the greeks called me Gaia

-Colette Stergios

daily darkness 
brightened by a dreary voice-

“The day is done, and the darkness 
Falls from the wings of the night-”

A mother’s whisper 
Silenced by superstition. 

A mother’s whisper 
Enraged by opposition. 

memories of martyrdom
The Calypso carrying you home-

“The day is done,”

You told me how much you liked that poem. 
How it couldn’t get out of your head. 

You told me how much you hated them 
I recall on my bed.  

“and the darkness”

The weight on your back-
Burdens you confided in me- 

words stuck in my throat 
We are anything but free.

to proclaim a life for you-
I must lick the white man

“from the wings”

Paper.
Pen. 

The world awaits praise-
 As I begin to write 

I can only see your gaze. 

Burn 
Burn 
Burn 

Your curiosity killed you.
It lit a fire in me. 

of the night.”

-Shobhadevi Singh

It’s the docile waking-hours.

Today, I offer up my arid exhalation.

My hair, it is grasping for re-paralysis
My curtain is a sheet of metal hanging over a sheet of metal.
But in the corner? There is my sun:
My last, red apple
I peel it plainly. I examine it. (I take nothing into account.)
That is the big reckoning.
This place and I try to compromise every morning,
Today, I guess my skills with a paring knife will go unnoticed. That’s alright.
I’ll give the room some more time.
And as I devour, slice, devour like an intelligent little beast, I can only think of us.
There is not one ounce of supplication between the two of us—

Oh, yes. Yes. The two of us. I remember what we knew about each other from yesterday’s paper. Our silence wedged between the editorials and the business section. No text was considered. For all I can tell, the stock market is a waste of ink. The satire fell short of our imagination.
To quote myself verbatim:
“You want a good translation!? I’ll show YOU a good translation!” 
And then I washed my hands with fervor and never walked away at all…

—I look back to my apple-stained hands.
The walls now fragrant with the declarative steam of winter’s machine,
The core is buried in the trash now. I shake away my undoing.
Upon my desk, delighted, I realize
A cup of tea is brewing.

Suddenly, a ghoulish giggle flutters from my girlish heart.
If I could only tell you how much I dream to scrub away the New York Times.
The way that I can scrub my girlish hands, my lady’s paring knife. 
But we’re all new to this type of failure. This type of falling.
So I clap my hands to my neck, dearly. I press down, hard.

No, my dear, that’s not how it ought to be, not how it ought to be at all.

-Kelly McMahan

Twenty people gather in a room that is not a room,
Twenty faces in twenty rooms in twenty different places.
Twenty individuals creating different worlds of wonder,
A world filled with questions that do not need answering,
A world where words have meaning in a sea of nonsensical.
There is so much to unpack in the words of wise people.

Love, laughter, life
Sad, somber 
Cynical
Deep, depressed, depravity
Value, virtue
Purity

Contributing to the endless conversation of being a writer,
Pictures upon pictures, stories upon stories,
Words lead to stories that lead to images.
Images of monkeys having fun and doing what monkeys do,
Images of penguins looking happy and waddling in snow,
Images of penguins looking happy and waddling in snow,

Even when no words are said, there is still a sound,
The sound of laughter, light conversation and connection.
The sound of drums, pianos, and guitars,
Creating an orchestra of epic proportions.
All packed in this room, that is not a room,
With twenty people.

-Alejandro Barton-Negreiros