Adelaide Literary Magazine No.7 Volume One_Summer2017

RISEN Revista Adelaide

By John L. Stanizzi

Be on such simple, cordial terms with those under Terrible things happened at night
you that when you are all together, it would be in alleys where I used to live,
impossible to say which is the superior. alleys that during the day
were corridors of light
-St. Vincent de Paul between gray wooden buildings
where whiskey boƩles gleamed,
Each log is consumes itself, outlandish booty with which,
reminds me of my own boundaries, if you didn't know beƩer,
the anƟcipaƟon with which you’d stuff into your pockets.
I recognize and deflect such thoughts.
Blackness pricked by light I could believe
The logs crackle was caused by the ascending embers
their own disƟnct staccato rhythm, of the small fire,
and the firmament quietly releases sƟcking themselves to the sky
evening’s snow along the horizon, reminding me to take it slow.
idiosyncraƟc flakes,
hieroglyphs amid hieroglyphs. Fire’s fallen coals crackle a message,
a hot code that says
Each fleck singular, falling, absorbed, the flames are dying,
sighing into itself, the night is cold,
inspiraƟon enough it’s Ɵme to head in,
to take another log, to sleep and maybe even
knock off the day’s snow and ice, dream of flying.
place it onto the austere embers.
And when I land
WaiƟng with hope perhaps it will be
and just enough anxiety in a peaceful place
to moƟvate me to move closer to the with people strolling along hillsides covered
anƟcipated flames with biƩersweet and sunflowers
and the next and fog,
slow blue build of warmth. a thick mist that
conjures a dreamy silence,
Solace that might engender the old dream the kind that hangs in the air
of liŌing myself into the night sky when the gunfire stops.
by simply leaning
in the direcƟon I want to soar,
the liƩle fire way down there,
embers collapsing.

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Adelaide Magazine

Winter Birds in SilhoueƩe

Winter rain cold enough, short walk through the mud
but not enough to freeze over patches of clouded ice

gray enough to render birds and before you arrive
on branches buds they’ve flown

fat and blossoming and their flight
the same gray as this January ash tree their vanishing

feeding on the cold the empty space on the branch
the melƟng snow from which they bloomed --

the easy rain that drops that is the where the love is
through stripped branches in that here one second

each click of chickadee gone the next reminder
and rain against steely limbs that all you need to do

a tale of hunger paƟence is breathe in the absences
and a kind of love fill your lungs with them

that truly does and your heart
surpass understanding let them guide you to the silence

so pure a love of the empty branch
the blossoms have ripened and as you watch

with feathers on spindles of limbs fill you with what is there
these lungs what was there

that breathe paƟence what will be there again
behind the dripping rain -- in winter rain

the chips and two-notes songs cold enough
say love but not cold enough to freeze

love you can harvest
from the branch --

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Fire Flies Revista Adelaide

This is not a camp fire I will never see why you can’t understand
it’s a beacon this is nothing
compared to other things

Not a warning and I have someone “…I will hatch. I am
but a signal -- to touch my eyes not yet fully formed
trace my lips and ready, but these
I live here too so I’ll live cracks no longer scare
me “
=== for a while
from Development
Sparks from the fire fly which reminds me Laura M. Kaminski
into blackness
ascend We’re only here DANCE HERE
toward the moon a few seconds

That’s not going to happen Why eat each other?

Lots of things aren’t How quick—
the fire flies
===

It was our peculiar light
that drew us together

cold light About the Author:

but so what John L. Stanizzi’s full-length collecƟons are Ecsta-
sy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against
We even glowed when we were young the Wall, AŌer the Bell, Hallalujah Time!, and High
Tide-Ebb Tide. He’s had poems in Prairie Schoon-
=== er, American Life in Poetry, The Cortland Review,
New York Quarterly, Tar River, RaƩle, Poet Lore,
The kindling crackles Hand & Handsaw, Passages North, and many oth-
briefly ers. John’s work has also been translated into
Italian and appeared in Italy’s El Ghibli, and The
The fire blazes a momentary warmth Journal of Italian TranslaƟons. His translator is
which I welcome the poet, Angela D’Ambra. John has read at ven-
ues throughout the northeast, and he teaches
It’s so earnest literature at Manchester Community College in
compared to nothing ConnecƟcut. His newest book, Sundowning, will
be out later this year with Finishing Line Press.
He lives in Coventry with his wife, Carol.

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Adelaide Magazine

MEMORIAL By Geoffrey A. Rubin

The Zzzzz Train Memorial

How can it be Weeping willows talk
That the subway And haunt a temple of solace.
Runs.
In a soothing slow voice
So. Whispers down from heaven.
Slowly?
The power of those not present
From west-four to one-six-eight Inspires witnessed remembrance of
Only to make me late!
Sighs of frustraƟon at five-nine The silence of the sacrificed
Stragglers tumble at one-two-five And our own calling on earth.
Into silently sleeping souls
But why don’t the doors close!? Every green leaf will fall
The metal beast crawls on course, yet For the ripeness is all.

Seems. About the Author:
In.
Reverse.
Wheels, rails and electricity compose
Cacophonous underground music
Which eerily pacifies Ɵme
And creates a soothing rhyme.

Geoffrey Rubin is a cardiology fellow and physi-
cian writer at Columbia University Medical Center
in New York City. His medical narraƟves, opinion
pieces, poems and leƩers have been published in
the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA Car-
diology, Pulse, The Health Care Blog and the New
York Times. He completed all medical training at
Columbia and lives in ManhaƩan.

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Revista Adelaide

KAME WARURU / JAR BREAKING

TranslaƟon by William Waters

A Song for Ahn, Myong Hwa Kame Waruru …but when
Jar Breaking I heard
Original Korean: CRA-A-CK!—
안개가 걷히고 For Basho without blinking—
명성이 사라지자 I knew
화랴 함이 다시살아난다. I had the shadows
forgoƩen were just
PhoneƟc Korean: the jar shadows.
Ahn-gay-ga god-hee-go in the
Myong-song-ee sa-ra-chee-cha kitchen, The next
Hwa-rha Harm-ee Da-shee sal-lan-nan-da. --had forgoƩen morning,
the open stumbling
windows, in the
and the cold kitchen,
outside. I saw
ice
English: It had been
As the mist rises so long had split
Venus disappears; since the jar
Even the dust sparkles. I had
heard open.
voices—
even my own— ____________________
I didn’t As was typical for the
noƟce Ɵme, Matsuo Basho kept
the room a clay jar for drinking
grow dark. water in his cabin; one
winter night, it split
About the Translator: I don’t open, waking him from
know his sleep. About that
William Waters is an associate professor, in how long experience, he wrote:
the Department of English at the University I had Kame waruru / yoru no
of Houston Downtown. Along with Sonja been curled kori no / nezame kana
Foss, he is coauthor of DesƟnaƟon Disserta- on my side, (jar breaking / night ’s
Ɵon: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Disserta- staring ice ’s / waking !)
Ɵon. His research and teaching interests are at shadows…
in wriƟng theory and modern grammar.

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Adelaide Magazine

THE HOUSE, AFTER SANDY

By Samantha Zimbler

1. The Girl

No airplanes flew by. 2. The Father
Outside the window, I saw small dogs shivering
helplessly as they floated down a river "My whole body is a wasteland now,"
of boats and houses. she whispers to me in the chaoƟc dark,

I spent the dark days culƟvaƟng mindfulness and I can hear her cosmic selflove
in a half-lotus posiƟon, drawing cats erupt into stars--
with lopsided faces and throwing them into the fire. she begs to be nakedly taken,
to be thrust into the wrinkles of the
And in the night there was green lightning bedsheets,
that flashed for just a moment too long. to mulƟply, to prove her bodily worth.
Morning found small birds playing
dead on suburban lawns. She runs a soŌsocked foot against my
freshly-pressed trouser leg;
The people around me were doing the strangest I feel the sudden urge to check on the broken generator.
things in the dark.
There would be a new baby boom, I am afraid of a new aƩack,
since people no longer knew what to do while her body is pumping with
with their bare hands, their aching bodies. blood and want.
"Accept the chaos," they must have whispered I am afraid that this shelter, this
to one another in their unmade beds, life I have built,
beside the faint glow of old candles, will come crumbling before I do.
baƩery-powered lamps.
And in the newfound silence of these dark days
My parents' room smelled of holly, of meat roƫng in the freezer while
of gingerbread-scented oil burning, society is suspended in its own sudden humanness,
before the damage, I can hear the blood rush into my ears,
but of oak, of wet bark, microscopic cells bounding to the cardinal organs.

when the ancient tree, Do I sink with her? Submit to the apocalypƟc present,
its body now spent, the downwardmoving spiral of our history,
slept peacefully, its spine our story? Do I long to please the neighbors,
warped into an impossible angle the children?
with their unmoving bodies.

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Or do I admit to myself that it is Revista Adelaide
the woman's own vanishing selĬood
that she loves, 3. The Mother
seeing who she is fall away in wisps
around her, I want him to feel the wildness in me,
landing at her kicking its way around,
pointed heels? searching for the secret
sacred exit.

And, in this way,
I am less alone than he.

The lightning strikes I light the candles, thumb my prayer beads,
and green leaves burst through the ceiling. and place a small white pill
deciding my fate for me. on my swollen tongue.

I force it down, the badness,
force it inside me
with the last of my saliva.
I feel my throat begin to close
in on us both,
the terror begin to subside.

There is a heat that will not come.

It is alive in the shadows;
the fat water plunging from the black sky
sends traces of it--
wet, ominous.

I watch on in solidarity
as mother nature cries cold tears
on the windows, which glow with
the dizzy electric chaos outside.

The vast wetness is inescapable.
I feel the enƟre axis coming unhinged
beneath us;
the enƟre room is falling vicƟm
to this savage and inescapable night.

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4. The Tree Adelaide Magazine
About the Author:
There is no home for the ancient.
We have no graves, no palace doors.

Our mothers live in the dust of other lands.
It is possible that our souls have already expired,
fled to seek the warm newness
of refuge, salvaƟon.

We are the product of the earth now, Samantha Zimbler is a poet and acƟvist who
in the gray night. works in digital publishing. She has taught mem-
oir-wriƟng in a maximum-security prison, is the
There is nothing leŌ to see from above. founder of the Brooklyn zine Damsel Rouge, and
My once unyielding spine of oak is cracking has given numerous academic and creaƟve
with the effort of each falling leaf. presentaƟons, such as at MLA conferences and
These wooden limbs will soon give way. The New Jim Crow read-out. Zimbler has had po-
etry published in the Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle
I am dizzy, growing weary from the staƟc, as well as the Rutgers journal Rejoinder.
the electric clouds above a rushing land.
The ground is not at peace tonight;
It wraps around my roots
and pulls me down.

Nothing is uncaused. The currents in the air
have spoken.
What is leŌ of me bows down
to kiss the trembling earth.

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Revista Adelaide

WRITING FOR STRANGERS

By Olaf Dammann

1 2 3

where do storks come strangers, ideal superb concentraƟon of souls
from? if nothing else, companions on dublin roƩen
trips to the uncertain magnificent rainbows
tender enchantrix, where flight aƩendants
is your self, your if the goal is prepare for landing
unknown, the road
bones are wrapped in unclear, the phil collins
silver linings, that philanthropy
medium and speed philibuster
every cloud must of travel elusive, philantelisƟc
have, like ends of wherever we go and philander

tunnels must whenever we get there, city lights
have light we will remain strangers. dreams hidden
whatever might away

happen, it will be the in centuries will
only connecƟon ripen the fruits
between us. The of starvaƟon
and cold
single remarkable
spot on the map of
the Ɵme that we

share. your skin is so
soŌ, no, much soŌer,
so warm and

its taste will
remind me of
spring

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Adelaide Magazine
About the Author:

4 Olaf Dammann was born in Germany in 1961. He
has published his work ever since he was a teen-
maple leaves ager, unƟl recently mainly in German poetry jour-
tall white lies nals and anthologies. His collecƟon „Flüster-
mond“, with illustraƟons by ChrisƟan Hinrich, was
brief encounters published by Husum in 2007. A self published
grief unfolding collecƟon „Small Worlds“ was a finalist for the
2013 Four Way Books Levis Prize in Poetry. Olaf
life in the shadows lives in Newton, MassachuseƩs.
damage done

5

as every flower wilts and
every youth makes room

for new departures,

so will our love remain
in flux in silence in itself

storks will never
sing the song the

lonely loon sang
all along

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Revista Adelaide

FINGERNAIL CLIP #2

By Kevin Rabas

Fingernail Clip #2 Snare Drum (SƟck) Solo

Running late, Juries, and my snare drum sƟck slips and rolls the
playing brushes tonight, length of the black music stand and upends and
and loading big metal spins, end over end, and claƩers to the chamber
cymbal and snare stands in, orchestra floor, and I know I’ll be docked points
tricky on the fingers, for that, however well I play.
so I’m in the parking lot
standing, quickly clipping my nails, Glasses Found, Mailed
so the finger clippings don’t sƟck
to my black slacks; Package
break a nail, and with every brush circle comes. You have found
you could catch or snag, my glasses in your couch.
so like the killer in Fargo, I remember the long blur drive—
you stop everything lights, lines.
and clip, mid-kidnapping.

[The cat does not wait for me to write] About the Author:

The cat Kevin Rabas teaches at Emporia State University,
does not wait where he leads the poetry and playwriƟng tracks.
He has seven books, including Lisa’s Flying Electric
for me to write, Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry
but pushes her snout Book Award winner.
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against my hand, pen.
What she wants is love,
not words, leƩers pressed

to paper.

Adelaide Magazine

CAPRICCIO By Maureen Eppstein

Capriccio The Message Comes

for no reason A thread
Il capro, the goat on the hill the color of violets
almost forgoƩen
sudden, unpredictable change, as of one's mind in my hand
hip-hobble, hip-hobble
somersaults yesterday
cartwheels footprints
along the beach
sunlight on white daisies falling Ɵde
on the verge of a city street, a dusty sunflower
a garden planted with whirligigs water
amethyst glass doorknob on a chalky white wall purple surface

a light and fanciful work of art a few more days
inch-worms dangling on invisible threads from all the oaks rain
winter dark
prank, capricious acƟon, harebrained escapade
the fountain that children run through my hands empty
my silence
the cobbled paving on Ramona Street a language without words
Mexican Ɵles on the risers of the stairs
piled peppers at the Farmers' Market
folk tune players

the valley oak next door
the alley behind the house
the cops on bicycles
the owl and the pussycat

the smile of the old man I pass on the wooden bench
every morning on my way to work
and every evening when I come home

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Revista Adelaide

The Keeper Of Fingernails

I am a sƟck falling from the moon.
Over the purple forest the gargoyle snatches me in his teeth
and I shaƩer into twenty pieces.
Each piece gliƩers with shards of mirror
from the bathrooms in all the row houses of London
where the grimy bricks hide the hippopotamuses
of anger and slime that grovel under the back steps
and growl when the feather duster flicks her skirts
and flaunts the scarlet of her plumes that fly up
and wallop the ponderous bank building on the corner
of the hypotenuse which is not square
but a shape dimly perceived, like the shape-shiŌers of ancient tales,
who come now as crabs marching in columns
to the beat of a tom-tom that plays itself
with its claw sculpted out of dung
tapping nails into potato heads who smile
with the knowledge that no nourishment worth having derives
from the mountaintop where the rock sends smoke signals
to the keeper of fingernails saying now is the Ɵme to act,
before the splinters of the smashed self have Ɵme to regroup
and grow larger and more yellow
and bury the soul in a cairn of polite conversaƟon,
while dogs of forgeƫng sniff out the putrid intesƟnes
of the correct police and scaƩer them
across the polished floor of the bank building
where a man with Ɵght mouth and trim suit stands
fingering his mustache, not seeing
his garments melƟng into chocolate
which the hippopotamuses lick and slurp
unƟl the liƩle man is naked and behind him
I can see the plywood and wires that prop him up.

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Adelaide Magazine

Gray Stones About the Author:

Gray stones roll in slow procession
down a gray street, empty
except for a gray cat
that rubs its back against a post.
Tethered to the stones and shading them
are rigid canopies in soŌ-bright colors.

Cat sits, head to one side, watching.
A steady rumble the only sound unƟl

cat bats at a stone
which clonks against the stone in front
a ricochet
a piling up
a grinding to a halt.

Released, the pastel banners twirl
about each other, blue with buƩer yellow,
lavender around mint green,
a silky paƩern dancing in the sky.

Beside the silent stones
cat bends to lick a paw.

Maureen Eppstein has three poetry collec-
Ɵons: Earthward (Finishing Line Press), Rogue
Wave at Glass Beach (March Street Press)
and Quickening (March Street Press). Her poetry
has appeared in numerous journals and antholo-
gies, including AestheƟca, Basalt, Calyx, Ginosko,
Poecology, Sand Hill Review, and WriƩen River,
and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Originally from Aotearoa/New Zealand, she now
lives on the Mendocino Coast of California. Her
website is hƩp://www.maureen-eppstein.com

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Revista Adelaide

FORBIDDEN LOVE

By Ray Fenech

When they made love the first Ɵme
He never thought she’d walk away;
In his mind it was: unƟl death do us apart.
When she wiped his sperm from her hand
It was the most inƟmate thing;
And when he helped her undress
All her secrets were laid bare:
Her smooth white skin,
The smell of Anais Anais.
Her caress was a heart stopper
Their sighs, they could never sƟfle,
No wall was thick enough to smother.
That summer he lived through a dream,
Her light brown hair flowing over naked shoulders
Partly shading her perfect round breasts:
Her passionate kisses, soŌ, endlessly long
Sucked his heart his very soul;
Never again has he made love like that.
Each Ɵme it was like a first Ɵme
The experience was divine.
They were both young, thought they’d never part
There was like a certainty in their hearts;
Their love had come like in a fairy tale
During the college literary evening;
At the recepƟon when their eyes met,
It was like they were the only two remaining
Amid a chaoƟc world.
Nothing could go wrong, their love was sealed.
As the years passed, they fell apart,
She leŌ him to find another;
So did he move on from days of innocence.
Perhaps what they had was too close to a dream
Immature, afraid, they ran from each other.

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Adelaide Magazine

To Sadness

Sadness what are you? The WaiƟng Room
Where do you come from?
How do you dominate my heart? In the waiƟng room made of lime stone
Your breath I feel cold and gelid the lawyers are blank faces.
As you caress my forehead. Unmoved in their black suits, white Ɵes
Indifferent to all seasons, pale like the ghosts haunƟng this house.
You steal soŌly, silently
Through sunset breezes. Time screeches away the centuries;
You seem to know when to slither the wind calls through fissured walls.
In between dark shadows Time drags the clock’s pendulum into a Ɵck tock;
Like a spectre invisible, and draughts seep through rock hard chairs.
To ambush and wreak havoc
In the gentlest way, ooze past The cold in the jusƟce meted out
Any barrier, any fortress; snaps from a photocopier,
So when your elixir I breathe in leƩer aŌer leƩer, days on end
I hardly ever noƟce you are within: to match boring skies polluted with rain.
UnƟl wisƞulness moves in
To rekindle my memories: The secretary’s pink Ɵght blouse
Mostly happy ones of childhood, youth, matches Ɵght slacks hugging her curves,
Love and people who are no longer here. as she moves to a Brazilian rhythm,
When you sadness ambush my mind, glancing to see if she is being admired;
Your biƩer sweetness always lasts a while
Before I know you have taken over my soul; then sits crossing her legs, her ample flanks
My mind you leave in disarray, fill the chair, her jellified assets
I know not what you are to this day, spill over her computer, knowledge undisputed,
Where you come from whilst conducƟng her boss’s warfare.
And how you dominate my heart.

Silence is only broken by the occasional
electric doors swishing open or shut,
like the curtains on a stage
of so many incredible life sagas.

People sleep nodding in the long wait,
their chins slammed into their chests;
endless files stand like tomb stones:
when will all this come to an end?

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Revista Adelaide

The Vegetable and Fruit Vendour

It was summer when Zaren*, the vegetable fruit vendor, hollered
At the top of his strident voice and the sunbathing lizards
Within the sun-scorched rocky vale ran into their obscure homes.
The women from the colourful houses thronged onto the street,
Queuing near his green horse driven cart, the large wheels
Rumbling on the pebbled slabs of the quiet fishing village.
I oŌen accompanied my mother and for the white stallion, Polly
Bought a single red apple I would offer to her dripping mouth;
Each Ɵme when she recognized me, she gently nudged my hand.
The vegetable and fruit vendour was an old man in a white torn shirt,
He wore a straw hat and a piece of rope for a belt; his son had died
On his sleeves he always wore a black band as a sign of mourning.
The choice of vegetables and fruit were few but always fresh
Every morning the cart wheels could be heard grinding painfully
Up the hill, Polly pulled the cart right up the street then stopped:
Zaren’s voice shrieked out the names of the vegetables most fresh,
Then the fruits, then told the same story about his long lost son
Who departed this earth aŌer baƩling two years with Cancer.
It was always the same, unƟl one day Zaren did not turn up,
The village waited in vain for his early shrieking wake-up call.
It was said he had passed away while dozing under a carob tree;
Polly was found standing ready with harness and a full loaded cart
Bending over the vegetable fruit vendor who slept for the last Ɵme.

*Zaren is a shortened Maltese name derived from Nazzareno, meaning Naza-
rene

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Adelaide Magazine

The Dream and the Glory

The ground upon which I walk About the Author:
Is alien to me and the century I lived in
Too young with a different mentality.
I’ve paced this ground as if there was a mist
From my waist down and I couldn’t see my feet,
Nor where each step fell and what lied beneath.
I’ve conƟnuously thought I was in a nightmare,
That eventually it would all come to an end
With a sudden waking to a fanfare of reality;
My eyes would behold verity as I imagined it to be.
Only half of my spirit and body are here
The rest of my being is beyond, aloof and alert,
In another Ɵme warp where innocence was bliss
And children sƟll believed in fairy tales.

I’ve walked this earth thinking I could make a change Raymond Fenech embarked on his wriƟng
But I tripped over one delusion aŌer another; career as a freelance journalist at 18 and
Human values and kindness wiped clear, worked for the leading newspapers, The
Love was all make belief, castles in the air; Times and Sunday Times of Malta. He edited
Lovers came and went without any remorse two naƟon-wide distributed magazines and
And I was leŌ grieving out in the cold, his poems, arƟcles, essays and short stories
To contemplate where I had gone wrong; have featured in several publicaƟons in 12
UnƟl I believed there was no heaven nor a God. countries. His research on ghosts has ap-
It was a Ɵme I realized ‘the end’ came all too oŌen peared in The InternaƟonal Directory of the
And in real life no one lives happily ever aŌer. Most Haunted Places, published by Penguin
All I see reminds me of something that is gone Books, USA. In 2009, Ray graduated with BA
Into an abyss we try not to speak about: first class honours in creaƟve wriƟng and lat-
Humans design their own dreams and glory er obtained his PHD. In the same year, he was
But when they succumb to the angel of death, awarded a scholarship in wriƟng therapy by
Where are their dreams, where is the glory? the CreaƟve “RighƟng” Center, Hofstra Uni-
versity of New York. He is a visiƟng professor
(creaƟve wriƟng and parapsychology) for an
online university and conducts creaƟve
wriƟng classes for both adults and children.

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