Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 24, May 2019

COME THE COMET

by Jeremy Gadd

COME THE COMET

Ten millennia ago, before philosophies like ‘existen alism’
and defini ons, such as ‘prehistoric’ and ‘neolithic’,

people built Gobekli Tepe’s temple and, on its so-called ‘vulture’ column,
symbolically predicted the return of a cosmic storm.

Come the comet, will Earth’s axis lt?
the minu ae of modern Will the magne c poles reverse,
life will be meaningless. triggering tectonic shi or, worse,
Come the comet, allow in harmful solar radia on?
who will care what label they wear; Come the comet,
about the demise of the polar bear. incinerated forests and
Come the comet, other ubiquitous natural
as we wait for the world to sha er, mass destruc on will render
iden ty will cease to ma er; nuclear weapons superfluous.
di o whether life is tough or
presented on a silver pla er. Come the comet,
Come the comet, those concerned with climate
interna onal disputes and change and environmental
being of high repute will preserva on will seem deranged.
become inconsequen al. Come the comet,
Come the comet will anyone care about religion?
and its accompanying Will Allah save the world from oblivion?
global cataclysm, Will Paradise have enough virgins
race-rela ons will take for the millions of Moslem martyrs?
back-seat as home and Come the comet,
high-rise melt in the heat. Will the Chris an dead arise and
Come the comet, ghoulishly queue for judgement

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where St. Michael waits? Adelaide Literary Magazine
And, a er the comet,
if the calamity abates The Boy Who Killed An Owl
and some survive and,
as at Gobekli Tepe, As if dealt dark cards or the Joker
seek to build a new society, when playing Old Maid, what began
to reinvent their world and as a game got out of hand and
a empt to give sense brought shame that scarred
to a violent and mostly him for life. It began a er-school
incomprehensible universe, when, looking for fun, some bare
pray they ameliorate the kneed, primary aged boys, threaded,
human propensity to divide single file, through the trees,
and differen ate ... pretending to be mighty hunters.
They carried s cks for spears and,
being young, few fears and even less
respect for the fauna around them.

They came across a big bird,
mo onless, hunched on a low bough
but the boys did not know they’d met
an owl. The bird sensed the boys and

lted its large head towards them.
Blinking slowly, it watched their
approach with saucer-like eyes
before hoo ng to warn of its presence.

But li le boys can be wicked and,
thinking to scare and goad it to fly,
they egged each other on un l,
the boy bringing up the rear, hurled
his s ck - the first stone - and
by mischance, misfortune or des ny,
it forcefully struck and disembowelled
the unfortunate, inoffensive owl!
The bird fell, flu ering, to the ground.

Comprehending he had killed;
that he had taken life, the boy
could barely breath beneath
the weight of his responsibility.
The shock chilled him and, horrified
by the dead bird before him, he
wished the deed undone – too late.

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The boys buried the bird and, uneasy, might have become a career,
swore to tell no-one before, fur vely, the owl loomed in his memory
creeping from the tainted place ... and he lost confidence in his
At home, the now troubled boy capabili es and withdrew his applica on.
looked up the bird’s characteris c He fell in love and was on the
features in his parents’ book of birds verge of asking to marry but,
and learned it was an owl and, at the moment he was about to
from further reading, that owls propose, the owl materialized –
- like all wild-life - are special. a grisly appari on - over her shoulder
and feelings of unworthiness
He learnt the owl is a symbol of wisdom; became overwhelming and he
that the ancient Athenians chose walked away from the rela onship.
the image of an owl to adorn their The older he got, the more he saw
currency and represent their god, himself as the boy who killed the owl,
Athena, guardian of the Acropolis: un l, eventually, he was unemployable.
that, as owls are nocturnal, they Des tute, he became a recluse,
are o en associated with mys cism, begging money for beer and sleeping
the dark and the dead; the in fear on the street and in public parks.
supernatural spirits of the night;
that some believe a hoo ng owl Vagabonds become used to abuse,
means someone is going to die. being treated disdainfully, picked on
And the boy who killed the owl for fights and, in his psychologically
began to die of shame. There cowed plight, his hair turned white.
was no excuse for a deed so foul. He was ready to throw in the towel
From that me, he changed when, one day, he found a lame lark,
from being gregarious and wild singing joyfully despite its injury.
to a more introspec ve child. He tried to ignore it but it insistently
The boy remained in his room, sang un l he was cap vated by
avoiding the friends who had the life-force it emanated.
been with him and, to his parents’ He gently made a splint for the
consterna on, became withdrawn. bird’s broken bone and fed it
At senior school, his interest un l well enough to fly home and
in studying markedly waned. something s rred in his empty heart.
Somehow he scraped a pass.
He looked for work and found it
The years passed too, and the boy as a part- me repairman and,
who killed an owl became a man with his hard-earned wages,
but, no use, the remorse remained re-built a caravan to live in – and,
and the dead bird’s demise con nued for the remainder of his allo ed span,
to haunt him. He le home and cared for hurt and hungry birds.
held several unsa sfactory jobs. People brought him sick pets
Once, on the threshold of what and, even vets, le recupera ng birds

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

in his healing care un l, although A State Funeral Remembered
threadbare, he became a valued
contributor to his community. But, A recent spate of biographical
best of all, he found the boy inside movies reminded me of a state funeral
him, the boy who killed the owl watched, in flickering black and white,
had gone and, despite con nuing, and relayed by, then, technologically
though subdued, residual guilt – innova ve satellite, from frozen London,
s ll present like a fading stain – beset with wintery gales,
he felt he had atoned and could to hot and dusty rural New South Wales
finally live with himself again. and, although young, I was well aware -
as when seeing Turner’s depic on
of ‘The Figh ng Temeraire’ - that
I was viewing the end of an era:
Britain was burying Winston Churchill.

But it isn’t the pageantry I recall:
the ar llery salute reverbera ng
in the s ll, frigid air or the slow,
measured tread of the sailors,
leaning and swaying on the ropes
in unison as they hauled the gun-carriage
up Ludgate Hill’s slope to St Pauls,
packed with sombre dignitaries;
or Queen Elizabeth breaking conven on
to receive the commoner’s flag draped coffin;
or Menzies’ eulogy from the crypt,
lauding how Churchill lit ‘lamps of hope’;
or Handel’s Death March;
the bugler’s call to reveille;
the RAF flying-past in his honour or
the cranes lowered along the Thames.

I remember most the coffin’s journey,
by train, to Bladon’s country cemetery,
and the ordinary ci zens who lined the route,
wai ng to pay homage: the be-meddled men
who stood at a en on in ill-fi ng uniforms;
the man wearing a dented metal helmet
salu ng from a roof; passers-by
who simply stopped and removed
hats or bowed their heads in respect;

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About the Author:

the dignified elderly woman, wrapped
in coat and scarf against the cold,
holding alo a sign which read:
‘Thank you and goodbye’.

Jeremy Gadd: Periodicals that have recently ac-
cepted his work include Months To Years (USA)
2018, FreeXpresSion (Australia) 2018, Pendle
War Poetry Compe on Anthology (UK) 2018,
The Beau ful Space – A Journal of Mind, Art and
Poetry (UK) 2018, The Curlew (UK) 2019.

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ASK A CHILD, ASK A BUTTERFLY

by Megha Sood

Like an open scarred river A thieving soul

This cys c undula ng pain speaks for itself I sit and gaze at the empty sky
born out of the muted death, the ephemeral truth
it has its own seman cs glistening into those starts
a lexicon of angst and fear, dying for the million years
it molds and morphs their lights traveling for eons
like the languid arms of the twisted oak to die at the back of
carrying the writhing pain of of the eyelids
the merciless autumn holding the deep solemn promise
for forever and eternal
That presence of wrinkles on my skin I’m in deep soliloquy
breaks the con nuity of pain with this solitude
the sobs and wails of thousand widows the moment of oneness worth it
is tucked on the p of my fingers the vast and the endless sky
and I can’t manage to shake this off an ardent giver
unable to find the thief in my souls
this unrest never passes the gullet of me which quietly sits
this devouring monsters in legs crossed like a monk
never seems to take rest with the peace kno ed
these pair of breath and the serenity on his face
never breaks the succession keeping s ll the throbbing heart
from heaving so heavily
And I rest s ll to keep the truth neatly tucked
naked, in the middle of my palms
exposed and unprotected when I take a fis ul of Universal silence
under the sheets of the skies and smear it all over my soul.
capitula ng to its presence
like an open scarred river
a s ll pond,
losing the last ripple to the merciless me.

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Ask a child, ask a bu erfly Revista Literária Adelaide
About the Author:

Every small step counts. Megha Sood lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Every small gesture ma ers. She is a contribu ng author/editor at GoDog-
Kindness comes in all forms. GO Cafe, Candles Online, Free Verse Revolu on,
Accept and embrace it when you see. Whisper and the Roar, Poets Corner and contrib-
Pass it forward. u ng editor at Ariel Chart. Her works have been
It is like the flowing river, shaping and changing featured in 521 Magazine #Sideshow, Oddball,
the lives of those who come along its way. Pangolin review, Fourth and Sycamore,KOAN (
Keep flowing and Keep growing. Paragon press),Modern Literature, Visual Verse,
Life never stops from growing Vita Brevis, Modern poetry, Spill words Press, In-
nor from making mistakes. dian periodicals, Literary heist, Li le Rose Maga-
You stop and stagnate like the zine, The Quiet Corner, Writer’s Cafe Magazine,
ditch of s nking water. and coming up in Dime Show review,Piker Press,
Flow like a waterfall. A beau ful The Stray branch and many more. Her poetry
sight in its glory. has recently been published in the anthology
Life is movement. “We will not be silenced” by Indie Blu(e) Pub-
Change is a necessary transforma on. lishing, “All the Lonely People” by Blank Paper
Ask a child, ask a bu erfly. Press and upcoming in three other anthologies
by the US, Australian and Canadian Press. She
recently won the 1st prize in NAMI NJ Dara Axel-
rod Mental Health Poetry contest. She blogs at
h ps://meghasworldsite.wordpress.com/.

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WHITE CAKE

by Annie Schumacher

White Cake Altars

I don’t remember the taste fallen moon-tears
of my wedding cake. turned and churned by the surf
A erwards, we froze the top take mineral form and
whirl on to the shore
er in mom’s garage
to eat in one year, our stale sugary keepsake. we lay on our bellies
It was white, of course, with like elephant seals
roses to match my corsage. wrapped in beach blankets
Atop a silver pla er, it wilted in the sun, in between dri wood and seaweed
indifferent to the vows we
made. The cake was there waves roll behind us
to make merry, despite what we had just done. sand shi s underneath us
I danced with my new husband, rocks peppered with barnacles
smiling mild as a pear. and urchins enclose us
Thank you for coming, thank you
for coming, we chimed – we comb
my dress drug through the mud through a thousand pebbles
and grass. Oh Annie. white bone shells
sea glass, nicked sand dollars

we stow away milky moonstones
to cork in bo les with ocean air
fated to adorn
our bathroom sinks

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The Cherry Trees Revista Literária Adelaide
A Walk Through La Almudena Cemetery

One April my brother and I bought a pair of A name dissolved some years ago.
cherry trees in plas c containers. A gi for Does she watch as I speculate,
Mom and Dad, a gi for the ranch. Happy a wind-nymph whose breath
Birthday, Happy Anniversary, here’re two more through elm trees blows?
things to grow. A single cherry tree is self-
unfrui ul; most cherries must be pollinated Ghost-breeze gusts by as though she’s late
with compa ble cherry trees in order to before I know it I’m swept through the gate.
bear their stoney fruit. Two more trees to A weathered man holds daisies,
drop amongst the gopher holes, ant piles, pulls up his hood –
dead dogs. Dad planted the two cherry trees petals bounce, petals sway, petals
between the rose garden and the strip of pines, white, featherweight
in front of the fence Portuguese men built,
over Bu ercup’s worn footpath. He docked together with the nymph, they
them side by side, with a wide view of Lincoln dance all through the elmwood.
Avenue. My brother and I bought the cherry Feather-wind takes their scent
trees a er hasty marriage vows, when the as far as she could
almond orchard was young. My brother and no te olvidamos the flowers sigh.
I bought the cherry trees before the drought,
when the valley’s lakes and ponds and dams
were s ll stocked with Sierra snow melt. My
brother and I bought the cherry trees while
we were lying through our teeth, driving big
American cars, not looking ourselves in the eye.
Some mes we sped up to San Francisco, finding
temporal comfort in changing our names and
hiding our wedding rings. One of the cherry
trees died in the drought. Roots weren’t deep
enough. Dad bought another seedling last
April. I don’t live around there anymore.

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Driving with Tessa Adelaide Literary Magazine
About the Author:

I reconnect with you twice a year. Annie Schumacher is a poet based in Madrid.
On the west road from Kerman to Fresno, She is the Director of Public Rela ons at The Un-
all squared off by almond groves amuno Author Series, where she is helping ex-
your li le secrets fill my ear. ecute Madrid’s first anglophone poetry fes val
in 2019. She is originally from Fresno, California.
In your lap rests another Spanish souvenir:
a box of chocolates bedecked
with something flamenco.
I reconnect with you twice a year.

You sip iced coffee, I shi into fourth, fi h gear.
And while the valley’s sun burns low
your tender secrets fill my ear.

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PABLO PICASSO

by Richard Weaver

Walker Percy Pablo Picasso

She was always fun. No one knew her “Drink to me. Drink to my health.
otherwise. At least those of us You know I can’t drink anyone.”
introduced by Walker. Real estate agent Some would say any less. But you know
and mother to a deaf daughter,
what I know, and we both want
she was a force to be reckoned with, what we have. So, good night to all.
as we say in the south. Dying Even without, this evening has been
you knew her faith in you was firm,
undeterred. Your faith shook you free an addic on. I count you all as friends
and some as family. I raise an invisible
from this earth, freed you at long last glass in salute. Full of absinthe memories
from the words you cajoled to paper,
and later passed before priests for and ginned occasions. Overfull at mes,
approval. The nurse wanted to call Bunt, perhaps, but when the ice in the stalls
melted, who could not admire the body’s
but you were firm. You knew contac ng
her would be a waste of me. Hers power and mystery! So “drink to me. Drink
especially. “No. She understands,” to my health. You know I can’t drink anymore.”
you said in final prayer.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller Henry David Thoreau (aka Hank the Crank)

“She is squeezing my hand!” My wife. So strange this thought. So
All these months. Living here. In a coma. odd to find these words
Her cancer oddly keeping her alive. And now wedged in my mind, considering
Her hand has taken mine and squeezed it. the possibili es.
Do you hear me? Her hand is alive
and speaking to me. A er all these months Especially if I engage them in
today I feel her touching me, her flesh ba le when that ba le
pulsing towards mine. There Is life there. has been lost and I must remain
Someone home. A person I once knew. here to see the great moose
A woman I love beyond life itself. And now
her hand in mine, alive. Can it be lumber through the woods,
that only her hand lives, and the rest is dead? unmindful of my presence,
Oh God. Say no. My mind refuses the ques on. and ignorant of arcing arrows.
She knows it is me. She has always known me. “Moose . . . Indian.“
The fuller me that she alone knows. Our li le
Joke. But her fingers entwined with mine;
this is not reflex. It has purpose. Memory
and meaning beyond. Oh God I am happy.
Not alone with tubes and monitors beeping
and blea ng. Her heart beat a graph.
Her breath a redundancy. There
is a message here.
Something I alone am meant to understand.
Her life and mine are one.
We should die as one.
Together. Let it be. “She is
squeezing my hand.” I follow.

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Voltaire Revista Literária Adelaide
About the Author:

He calls himself a physician,
and yet he preaches
now sugges ng, no, demanding that I renounce
the Dark One, Satan as he calls him, familiar.

It would be amusing were I not dying and he
was ng his breath and what
li le me I have le
on this spinning earth. I will not
be baited by the likes

of him. Not by him, or others Richard Weaver resides in Bal more City where
who have nb the past he volunteers with the Maryland Book Bank,
challenged me in such ways. and acts as Archivist-at-large for a Jesuit College.
Up to a point it amuses. He is the author of The Stars Undone (Duende
But a er a long, richly led life Press).
it provides only tedium.

I do wish he would make his
own exit, and soon,
so that I might do likewise. I need
not his staged direc ons
to find my way to the light, as
it were. Civil to the end,

they will say of me. Always able
to act the gentleman.
To be the wit. I will suffer this
single last fool and be done
with them. All of them. Now
I am sa sfied. My life

complete. Let the true farce begin!
“Now, now my good man.
This is no me to be making new enemies.”

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NOT A PRAYER

by Diana Anhalt

For Ethel Figueroa, the Librarian, My Heroine, Not a Prayer

who lets me hide in the library— —To Mauricio 1936-2016
closed for recess—
when girls in patent leather, red I miss our talks, the sound of my name
ribbons ed to braids, on your Spanish speaking tongue, our rou ne
scoff at my orthopedic shoes, good nights—a kiss followed by a kick
my limping Spanish. in the shins sending me back to the cold side

Behind the fic on shelves, of our bed. I need to tell you how Greta,
wedged into a corner, who spurned our friendship for thirty years,
I inhale the isola on, smell of ink on paper. sent me a three page le er mourning your loss.
My hands caress the spines, riffle through A er you died your daughter spied your pants

the pages. I read. Gorge myself hung from a chair, seized the belt, wrapped
on English. Beneath it twice around her waist and your son said:
the thrumming of a ceiling fan dust quivers Thank God she didn’t find his boxer shorts.
in spaces between books, and from the yard You’ll never learn that once you’d died

a gaggle of voices ¡Tira la pelota, I recited the one Hebrew prayer I know.
idiota! A mi me toca— Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech
A so ball thuds against a haolam, Hamotzi lechem min haaretz,
window and the sound only to be told it’s the blessing over bread.
of a lawn mower enters through
an open door. I li my eyes, On Sunday I take our usual stroll, discover
they’ve emp ed the duck pond, watch mallards
then return to that place where, paddle listlessly in the few remaining puddles,
safe with Mary Lennox, any urge to fly drained out of them.
our hands s ll caked in soil, we

ll her Secret Garden,
fragrance of freshly cut grass
lodged in our lungs.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

Party Line 1947 sunbathed topless
and when no one went braless,
I listened in behind the grownups backs. she did. Saves me.
Rented a room in strangers’ lives,
stashed their words away— Drove a sky blue Cadillac. Dyed
her hair to match.
So what did he expect when Was divorced two mes by ’59
he married a shiksa? though no one else was.

Their voices kept me company: Soon you’ll be on your own.
Now that he’s no longer with me, You know about sex, dear?
his bathrobe means a lot …. Of course you do. And protec on?
Protec on from what?
Filled countless hours spent alone.
I nodded. Good, no reason to discuss it then.
I swear I arrived by the nick of Just remember, a s ff prick knows no conscience
my teeth….as easy as pie.
You sneak round the back. A pause.
Hold on. There’s someone there.
I slam down the phone, count
to five hundred. Try again.

Did you remember to rotate the res?
Nothing’s fa ening ll you eat it.
Back then, they never caught me snooping.

Such words were weightless. And
who else cared to listen?

Wish you could smell my perfume…
Promise you’ll never forget me?
Words coursed through the lines.
I repeated them like prayers.

You’ll keep it secret? Cross your
heart and hope to die?

Of course I would. And did.

When Natalie Rose, Who
My Mother Chose
to Instruct Me on Sex,
Took Me to Lunch

I ate up her words. She

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

and seduc on’s spiked Spain Formally Buries Cervantes
with sham, riddled (Associated Press)
with land mines. Bet you
know about that. —Atlanta Journal Cons tu on, June 12, 2015

I do? And remember, bed sheet A er 400 years they bury him—again—
promises disappear in the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians.
down the drain along with the laundry. Always They place a shiver of cloth, fis uls of bone,
believed to be his, beneath a stone memorial
be sure to insist on a room.
No back seat for you. grander by far than the hovels and cells
If you cheat now and then, where he went by many names—soldier,
choose a married man. slave, playwright, poet—un hijo de puta
to his foes. Amid military hoopla the mayor
They’ve been around, are less
likely to gab. Got that? of Madrid trumpets the dead man’s fame.
Okay. I’ll tell your mom you She places laurels on the tomb, then reads
know exactly what to do. the inscrip on: Time is brief, anguish grows,
hope declines. I carry life in spite of this beyond
Wait, before I forget, avoid
the guys who ques on the wish I have to live. At her side the Minister
your past, hog the mirror, carry a gun. of Public Works, horse shit on his shoes, grits
his teeth and mu ers: Jodér! A er 400 years—
(With thanks to Alexis Rhone Fancher) he refuses to stay put. I told the planners—

no one listened...they should
have dug a deeper hole.
This grave will never hold Miguel Cervantes.

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About the Author:

Diana Anhalt lived most of her life in Mexico and
is the author of A Gathering of Fugi ves... (Ar-
cher Books) in addi on to essays, short stories
and book reviews in both English and Spanish,
two chapbooks and a short poetry collec on,
“Because There Is No Return.” Her work has ap-
peared previously in “The Atlanta Review,” “The
Connec cut River Review,” and “Concho River

Review.”

215

DIVINE

by John Raffe o

A Late Fate Strangers Again

Seas fossilize into parched bu es Incredible lovers suddenly depart
trapped shellfish to become strangers again
anthropoids in dark ma er. highway of the future becomes
the wind chimes of nostalgia
Time did not freeze a terror of silent rain is deafening
as massive ice ball over a quiet breath.
and volcanoes
merge into passive resistance An overhead fan rotates in the moonscape sky,
push and pull lucid dreams float above and
on earth axis. beyond a ra led night.
I favor the allure of night in pure silence
The bacteria count is one. with an eye cocked toward night pleasures
in early morning haze.
A joke of cosmic propor ons,
life is a stunning pool of There are no nightmares
bombarded asteroid when you keep your eyes open
ice no dreams either,
mel ng eons to become strangers again.
upon eons
un l the surf is up
the sun is down
and sulfur de pools
froze hominoids in their tracks.

Enough is enough
when will the party begin?

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Climate Change Revista Literária Adelaide
Collage Of Uncertain Poets

The perch in Lake Michigan You lay in your last sleep
are using an -depressants. death is a memory of rivers with no names
Don’t forget the lonely Spo ed Owl a system of ghosts
addicted to xanex open the curtains of your being
as they find shelter death passes us
in Pacific Coast pulpwood. the voice of the last cricket
Then there is the howler monkey last fingers of a leaf
who prefers natural St. John’s Wort a street whose name and
to soothe jangled nerves. number has been erased
before you became a cloud.
Yes the list is long.
It’s the metallic hour
The only way out is night feels ght as a jar
out, watery night creatures
pushed from fragmented habitats, criss-cross
an exodus erra c complicated shape
to a zoo diamond spheres
as human botany fury of your memory
observes from loneliness I sleep when will the night end.
iphone in hand
a selfie Float above envelope full of organ’s rosy music
deleted ear tuned in early to hear beneath call to end
of natural history the brain’s shoo ng gallery
a cry a er punishment is done with me
in a mounted museum. teeth slam against each other
excellence in a knife throw
the murkiness of
tomorrow watches us all day.

I sat at the cold
applauding wind
I am on a parapet looking down
what are the habits of paradise
crime of nostalgia
passion is molten
just wait a while the water will run dear.

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DIVINE Adelaide Literary Magazine
About the Author:

A comedy? John Raffe o is a lifelong resident of Chicago.
Inferno Some of his poetry has been published in print
and various online magazine such as Gloom
Dark fraudulent night Cupboard, Wilderness House, BlazeVox, Liter-
sleepless shadows ary Orphans, Olentangy Review & Exact Change.
resonate gray masks Nominated for Pushcart Prize 2017. Holds de-
colorless voyage into circles of fury grees from the University of Illinois and North-
no sunrise nor treacherous sunset eastern Illinois University. Worked as a hor cul-
alone by the toxic river turalist and landscape designer for many years
only to return the next day. at the Chicago Park District which was a rich
environment for drawing inspira on for poems
Purgatorio concerning nature, people and the city. Current-
ly a adjunct professor at Triton College.
Bland hungry terrace
splashed face of proudly departed
a wrathful detour from humble madness
invisible to impassive crowds
a short breath
climbing
beleaguered from flight
only to return the next day.

Paradiso

Vacant stars in night sky
a full moon
winds of hope
contemplate
the mystery
where knowledge wisely departs
planets evolve and expand
into the sweet abyss of days
only to return
to mystery the next day.

218

CALM

by Elana Wolff

Calm, Alone, almost, in Cairo

not so long ago / the river ambling Youths appeared before me by
through the valley / the Nile, Gezira Island.
easy in the ap tude of being in Feral faces, naked legs—
the blue beside the fireweed
and pocket gophers stomping on the fast forward moving feet.
vandal grass / the white-tailed I felt the wheezing heat.
deer cavor ng through the forest
by the Bow / You know them I was by myself but for the ny child inside—
by their upheld tails / the hump on girl I knew then only as the s rring in my womb.
the back of the bear that makes I ran for the stairs,
him grizzly / He hangs his head like
a mendicant in a hood pulled the refuge of the bridgehead.
close as a cowl / Close / to thwart
intrusive thoughts and all Light was faint
the cosmic causes / Smack of bi er below the bridge: a force for
wind and rage / and water neither them nor us.
like barrage / Sky is so suffused I reached the stairs and took them two-by-two
and low now / ink but wasn’t fleet enough.
could sink from it any second //
One of the youths latched on to my heel
& I flew ~

The pack
fell
back

and I was by the shield of evening traffic,
kneeling on the footpath of the
mammoth October 6th Bridge.

I walked with one shoe gone to Tahrir Square.

219

Adelaide Literary Magazine
May I Call You Friend

We haven’t met, you’ve never seen me,
you couldn’t say,

There were the days on Petřín—the grassy slope,
we sat discussing Fear and Trembling, Michael Kohlhaas,

Sturm und Drang
as naturally as Mann.

I’ve come too late to hear you speak, to hear you read,
to see your teeth,
to walk behind you, stealthy, on an ordinary street,
but not to stalk your sentences,

obsessive and possessive.
Full of want, impalpable,

and tongue- ed.

220

Revista Literária Adelaide
221

Moly Adelaide Literary Magazine
What More Is There to Say of Hearts

It pleasured us to bend, I saw the man in the dream—that Franz—
slip moveless on a bench in the park
consuming fruit: ‘Fletcherizing’ it—
into mauve repose, mas ca ng it
slowly—for his health.
the respiratory He rose from the bench;
fall this act in the past
converted the dream-scene
of water to red—probably through the
throbbing homophone ‘rose’,
beyond the wall. Rain, though maybe through the fruit
he liked to eat.
the wet That colour
refrain. in Chotkovny Park, in
a garden of sculpted hearts—
Mad What more is there to say of hearts
we must have been that hasn’t been said already
to hold the torch of affec on forward— by the Roman cs
and more baroquely…
Light bent back Maybe that these hearts in the park
to pluck us were captured in paint by an ar st I like,
with its beam. that she and Franz and I have strolled
that park in Prague, though he the most,
We’d drunk the moly and none of us together.
steeped in tea Of dreams: that they conflate and animate.
and woke as weak as leaves. Of red: that it’s the colour across from green.

Be er to say naïve—not mad.
Just charmed,
or simply artless.

222

About the Author:

Elana Wolff is a Toronto-based writer, editor,
translator, photographer, designer, and
facilitator of social art courses. Her poetry
and prose have appeared in Canadian and
interna onal publica ons and have garnered
several awards.

Her fi h solo collec on of poetry, Everything
Reminds You of Something Else, was released in
2017 with Guernica Edi ons. Her essay, Paging
Ka a’s Elegist, won The New Quarterly 2015
Edna Staebler Personal Essay Contest and is
included in Tightrope Books Best Canadian
Essays 2016. Ka a at the Cemetery was short
listed for The Malahat Review 2016 Constance
Rooke Prize for Crea ve Non-fic on. Elana’s
newest Ka a-quest essays are in current
issues of New Madrid, journal of contemporary
literary, Humber Literary Review, and
Wanderlust Journal.

By Elana Wolff: Everything Reminds You of
Something Else (Guernica Edi ons, 2017), You
Will S ll Have Birds: a conversa on in poems
with Susie Berg (Lyricalmyrical, 2015), Poems
and Songs of Love by Georg Mordechai Langer,
translated from the Hebrew with Menachem
Wolff (Guernica Edi ons, 2014), Helleborus &
Alchémille — a bilingual collec on of poems
selected from Birdheart, Mask, You Speak to
Me in Trees, and Startled Night; transla on
by Stéphanie Roesler (Édi ons du Noroît,
2013), Startled Night (Guernica Edi ons,
2011), Implicate Me: Short Essays on Reading
Contemporary Poems (Guernica Edi ons, 2010),
Slow Dancing: Crea vity and Illness, with
Malca Litovitz (Guernica Edi ons, 2008), You
Speak to Me in Trees (Guernica Edi ons, 2006),
Mask (Guernica Edi ons, 2003), and Birdheart
(Guernica Edi ons, 2001).

223

WORK OF ART

by Valerie Patrick

Work of Art But the heart lives on

Hold my face like the Portland Vase Goodbye to my small-town dream
Trace the pictures on my cheekbones Goodbye to the anniversaries
Gaze into my eyes like the Mona Lisa Goodbye to the inside jokes
Appreciate every stroke of color Goodbye to the hopes we would hold
Caress my body like the statue of Venus Goodbye to the notes
Admire the flaws molded in marble Goodbye to kisses on the nose
Explore my mind like the Louvre Goodbye to the memories we’ll never live
But, please, be careful Goodbye to all of our future kids
Don’t mind the cracks or the dust Goodbye to the road trips
The smudges or the rust Goodbye to the gi s
And I’ll send my love in a Shakespearean le er Goodbye to your blue eyes
Each kiss, a comma, each period, a breath. Goodbye to the star-watching nights
Goodbye to “never le ng go”
Goodbye to “never growing old”
Goodbye to our collec ve laughter
Goodbye to our happily ever a er
Goodbye to kitchen dancing
Goodbye to understanding
Goodbye to “I love you most”
Goodbye to walking the coast
Goodbye to the stories we could tell
Goodbye to knowing each other well
Goodbye to the secrets we knew
Goodbye to me and you.

224

My Veins Are Gasoline Lines Revista Literária Adelaide
November 26, 2018 at 10:35pm

My veins are gasoline lines I feel hollowed out
Your lips like matches against my skin Can you see right through me?
One brush was more than enough I want to stare at eggshell walls
To set fire to what once had been Love isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be
To be is to exist
And to exist is exhaus ng
I li the weights at the corners of my mouth
If I’m cold to the touch, that’s
just my heart fros ng
Let me float down this river
That’s heading for the ocean
I’ll ride out these waves
That some call emo ons
The balloons of my laughter are defla ng
The party is over
It’s me for everyone to go home
My mind’s a restless rover
My eyes have turned to glass
The month’s just pass by
My body’s turning to marble
At least statues can’t cry
There’s fight, there’s flight, there’s freeze
I don’t want the responsibility
I’ll cower in my corner and just wait it out
Don’t put the a en on on me
My heart’s full of hospital beds
But by now they’re all empty
So, I’ll wander these halls alone
And wonder who’s going to fix me

225

Adelaide Literary Magazine

Recovery About the Author:

The day I realized I was out of my depression Valerie Patrick is a student and aspiring author
Was the day I wanted to wear dresses again from Ohio. She is currently studying English and
And dance in a field of sunflowers Marke ng at Kent State University in hopes of
With puppies working at publishing house in New York.
I wanted to learn gymnas cs
And knit a blanket for my friends
My days seemed clearer
My memory got be er
Even the sun seemed brighter
My favorite color turned into yellow
I wanted to get bangs
And do something I’ve never done
I kept my bedroom door open
My curtains pulled back
And added more lights to the wall
I wanted a fuller journal
And a thicker scrapbook
My skin felt cleaner
And my smile wider
My laugh became louder
And my hair lighter
I wanted to organize
And clean my bedside table
I wanted to read my whole stack
And write the stories I filed away
I wanted spring
But was content with winter
And most importantly
I didn’t want you anymore.

226

COME TO ME AND

LET ME HOLD YOU

by Olivia Du Pont

Come to me and let me hold you

In the dead of night where voices are hushed
Breathe life into the night,
For you are alive, you are physical,
you are emo onal,
You are alive.
Let me rock you and carry you to another place
Come with me, let us take a walk
Far, far away.
And while we venture off into
this unknown place
A place commonly referred to as “elsewhere”
You will start to no ce your feet
slowly li off the ground
But don’t forget to listen
Listen while I whisper hope into your ear
Listen to the birds who bring you light
Feel safe here my dear, feel safe here

But if you find that this world
is too much to bear,
If you begin dri ing off into sleep
If you start to lose yourself,
Wait for me at the edge
Let me change my clothes
So that I may be able to lie next to you.
And together—
We will go

227

OUR OWN

by George Payne

Our Own

The status quo is killing our soul. You know that you are in a fascist
Life is not about paying the mortgage. state when the “leaders” tell
you who can be loved and under
It is not okay that your cousin works at what circumstances.
the bomb factory. It doesn’t ma er that they
call it an integrated manufacturing center. Let me be clear: I do not love ISIS or
Hitler. I choose to hate them.
We are slowly being cooked by the schemes
of normal. Normal is not elec ng a president
who became rich for building failed casinos and
a celebrity for firing people
on a “reality” tv show.

The status quo is killing our soul.
It is not all about re ring.
What in life re res? If an elephant seal
re res it will be eaten by an orca.

Nothing about the status quo is
working. You know we do not
need to have enemies. If we choose,
we can love everyone.
That’s not insane. That’s just an op on.

You know, I can even love ISIS if I
want to. Or even Hitler. I can love
anything and anyone, at any me, I can
love. Fascism is the denial of love.

228

Revista Literária Adelaide

But no one can tell me that I About the Author:
cannot love them if I want to.
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester,
The status quo is suffoca ng us. There is New York (U.S.). His work has been included in
nothing okay with the way we shop. such publica ons as the Hazmat Review, Allegro
Plas c inside of the plas c. Consuming as Poetry Journal, MORIA Poetry Journal, Chro-
much plas c as possible just because nogram Magazine, Bohemian Renaissance, Tea
it is on sale. That’s insane. Cyclones taking House, the Mindful Word, Ampersand Literary
down en re countries. Floods drowning Review, Amethyst Review,The Echo World, Talker
Nebraska. Weather out of control. The future of the Town, Pulsar, The Angle at St. John Fisher
made irrelevant by a pack of pundits. College and several others. George’s blogs, es-
says and le ers have appeared in Rolling Stone,
Just a bunch of people cas ng votes that The Atlan c, USA Today. the Toronto Star, The
ensure we will fuck the place up a li le sooner Havana Times, Nonviolence Magazine, The Wall
than expected. Is that normal? Is that what Street Journal, the South China Morning Post,
we were born to inherit? Is that worth it? The Buffalo News, Rochester City Newspaper
and more.
If we are alive, someone else
isn’t. Do we have a duty
to tell them that we care about having
a life we know is our own?

229

TODAY I TRAVELED

TO THE PAST

by Jose Manuel SÁNCHEZ

GÜEI VIAXÉ AL PASÁU TODAY I TRAVELED TO THE PAST

Nel vieyu mundiu In the ancient world
güei entamaba l’inviernu, the winter started today,
güei ye’l Samaín, today was the Samhain feast.
“l’acabu del verañu”. +++++
+++++ Today, I bring flowers
Güei lleve-yos flores to my ancestors,
a los mios ancestros to Sobrefoz,
a Sobrefoz, to their mountains
a les sos montañes where the dei es
au entá les divinidaes Beleño (Belenus)
Beleño (Belenus) and Tarañes (Taranis)
y Tarañes (Taranis) give their name to some places,
nomen dellos llugares, reminding me that legends
remembrándome are not a lie.
que nun son men ra +++++
les lleendes. Today I traveled to the past,
+++++ that place where all poems
Güei viaxé al pasáu, were sowed.
a esi llugar au tan semaos
tolos poemes.

230

MANTEGA ESCALECÍU Revista Literária Adelaide

Merqué un reló. HOT BUTTER
Ye un reló d’esos
que paecen mantega I have bought a watch.
escalecíu pol fuéu, It is one of those watches
diliéndose which seem hot bu er
con cada vuelta’l segunderu. warmed by the fire,
Ye un reló which are mel ng away
inventáu por Dalí in each turn
pa remembranos of the second hand.
lo que ye la nuesa memoria It is a watch
(una pantasma tarrecible invented by Dalí
que xinta a taragañazos to remember us
el nuesu pasáu what is our memory
pa facemos dubiar (a terrible ghost
si tuviemos vivos who eat in big mouthfuls
o si tou foi un suañu). our past to make us doubt
if we have been alive
or if all has been a dream).

YE ABONDU MÁS CENCIELLU IT IS MUCH MORE EASY

Siento l’arrecendor I feel the smell
de les flores mecániques. of the mechanic flowers.
Diz una vieya lleenda An ancient legend says
que son plantes carnívores that they are carnivorous plants
que xintaren abenayá which had eaten
al caberu colibrí del mundiu, a long me ago
y al caberu poeta. the last hummingbird
El futuru (los nuesos díes) of the world
ye abondu más cenciellu. and the last poet.
Namái falta amburar Future (our days)
los llibros nuna foguera is much more easy.
pa ser al fin, un home nuevu, We only need to burn
un home ensin memoria, the books in a bonfire
el perfeutu siervu. to become, finally,
a new man,
a man without memory,
the perfect servant.

231

BRÉTIGOS CASTIELLOS Adelaide Literary Magazine

Préstenme les ruines PROUD CASTLES
de los qu’abenayá fonon
bré gos cas ellos. I like the ruins
Son l’amuesa de que’l poder of those who have been
tamién en, proud castles.
comu los yogures, They are the evidence
una data de caducidá. that power have also,
+++++ like yogurts,
Tou en un entamu, a date of expira on.
tou en un acabu. +++++
Poro los homes, All has a beginning,
les muyeres, all has an end.
o los dioses, That is why men,
inventaren la poesía. women,
or the gods
have invented poetry.

About the Author:

Xe M. Sánchez was born in 1970 in Grau (Astu-
ries, Spain). He received his Ph.D degree in His-
tory from the University of Oviedo in 2016, he
is anthropologist, and he also studied Tourism
and three masters (History / Protocol / Philately
and Numisma c). He has published in Asturian
language Escorzobeyos (2002), Les fueyes tres-
manaes d’Enol Xivares (2003), Toponimia de la
parroquia de Sobrefoz. Ponga (2006), Llue, esi
mundu paralelu (2007), Les Erbíes del Diañu
(E-book: 2013, Paperback: 2015), Cróniques de
la Gandaya (E-book, 2013), El Cuadernu Prietu
(2015), and several publica ons in journals and
reviews in Asturies, USA, Portugal, France, Swe-
den, Scotland, Australia, South Africa, India, Ita-
ly, England, Canada, Reunion Island, China and
Belgium.

232

LEAVING BUCHAREST

by Jules Elleo

Leaving Bucharest SMS (Save My Soul)

In the courtyard You are the one who started it
of my apartment block, with your tablet
there is an elm tree. & your phone
Its foliage reaches up when in bed.
to the 5th floor.
Its roots There is always one more Facebook
run deep post to update,
beneath our sleep. one more tweet
Twice to re-tweet,
I will see one more friend
that tree to entertain
retrace the path back save the one
to life. lying here
- right here -
The Birth of Day next to you
in your Wi-Fi-powered bedroom.
dreams bathe in morning’s light
past the unremembered shoreline I told you how much I hated it.
where quiet minds take flight I told you
& grieving hearts decline how much
I hated it.

About the Author:

Jules Elleo is working on his first full-length
manuscript of poems in Brussels, Belgium.

233

PICTURE NEGATIVE

by Gabrielle Amarosa

Stars’ Crossed Love I no ce
When one of my kin winks
I see her across an inky sky, And then disappears.
Pure light, My grief is long delayed,
Brighter than any other. But I only just found out.

She is part of the great bear— My greatest fear
Like a bear herself, Is that I will someday see my love
The strongest and most fiercely beau ful. Wink and fade out.
An even greater fear:
We all orient ourselves by her— What if she is already gone,
There are more of us And I am only now seeing her memory?
Than pieces of sand on a beach.
Each doing our best I hope I fade first—
To light up a piece of the blackness I will not be missed, not by her.
But none do so well as her. But my world, s ll bright,
Would be unbearably dark
Is my love superficial? Without her.
For being so numerous, we are so lonely.
The distance makes me ache.
Closeness is a rela ve concept for us.
But s ll, I am envious of the
Proximity of the bear.

Memorizing millions upon millions of my kind
Is no small feat—
But then again, I spend all of my me looking.

234

Picture Nega ve Revista Literária Adelaide
She

A sister never met— She lives where I live,
If I never knew, can I s ll forget? Inside me,
So many things I’ll never know: Behind me,
How we’d love, fight, and in tandem grow. Occasionally through me.

I think of her s ll when I walk to that grave She pounds a drum
On silent January days. Incessantly,
How there are mes I crave her advice, Like another heartbeat.
But regret and “what ifs” are slippery as ice. The doctors think it is another heartbeat.
But it’s not.
There are many days I can’t feel the hole— It’s her, and her
How can I miss what I’ll never know? Thrumming, toneless, never-ending drum.
But s ll there are moments I A call to ac on
can’t help but wonder… Or a call to insanity.
Would she have protected me, Either way, I rarely pick up.
because I am younger?
Some mes, briefly, she takes over.
Would we have similar talents, loves, and hates, I wish she would do it more o en;
Would she fix my hair for dances I’m red, and she’s reless.
and help me balance on skates? I try to imitate her but I’m
Would we have the same dark Too close to her to do it jus ce.
complexion and hair, The space between us is like
Or would she be my nega ve, Between a finger pressed on a mirror
tall, graceful, and fair? And its reflec on.

Would we live in a house of I snatch glimpses of her some mes
three women, then? In my own reflec on or mind.
And harbor an even stronger distrust of men? I beg her to stay, but she goes.
I think we would laugh, loud, Back to her drums.
carefree, and strong,
But most of all I would understand The thumping in my soul
a sisterly bond. Unfurls into a thumping in my head.
I wish I could turn myself
Inside out
So that she was facing the world
And I was facing her drums.
I would not touch them.
I would only sleep.
She does not need the drums to call her

235

Adelaide Literary Magazine

To ac on or to insanity— I will not be awake for it either way.
She answered both long ago My call was not strong enough;
And they live inside of her Is hers?
The way she lives inside of me.
I feel heavier and heavier,
I don’t have the stamina Un l even my ears are too heavy
To drum the way she drums, To hear her drums.
Ceaseless and eternal I slip into the so est black
But somehow always fresh and new. And the sweetest silence.
My last conscious thought
But maybe Is to wonder whether the drums stopped
My final waking act Or whether I am just too far away
Can be to drum her out To hear them or feel her.
So that I can sleep.
I take my hands off the drums,
Come out, come out, Open my eyes,
Come out. And see the sharpest white.
Her drums are louder.
COME OUT, COME OUT, My turn.
COME OUT.
Her drums are faster. About the Author:
COMEOUT, COMEOUT, COMEOUT, COMEOUT, Gabrielle Amarosa is a high school math teach-
COMEOUT, COMEOUT. er living and working in Lawrence, MA. A recent
graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Ins tute, she
I am no match for her has a major in Actuarial Mathema cs and a mi-
And we both know it. nor in Wri ng and Rhetoric. Her poetry has been
The hands of my soul are already raw. featured in an Arts in Reach poetry collec on.
The vibra ons have already
Shuddered up through my jaw
And se led into my temples.

I catch her a en on
The same way a child catches a bubble,
Where the very act of doing it undoes it.

I slap the drums once more,
Loudly,
Frustrated down to the hard pit of my being.

I am going to sleep.
Either she will come out,
Or she won’t.

236

PROPERTY

by Monty Jones

Property the hero draws back from the edge
or falls, flailing, headlong over it.
How hard it is Once I was asked for a length of rope
when you start to think about it although it wasn’t in the script.
to get everything together. I didn’t ask any ques ons,
just rummaged in the back
Even a “bare” stage and found a coil of twisted manila
will have its slant, and about four feet of double-braided nylon.
its curtain, a shadow on the wall. They said the nylon would do nicely thank you.
Someone will come on with a pipe
or a well-thumbed book, 237
someone will look at his watch,
someone will light a cigare e.

You have to think of everything.
It can keep you up at night
as much as those dreams
of not knowing your lines.

S ll, it can be surprising
that so much of what you’ll need
can be found in the basement
or in that odd space
behind the dressing rooms.
The ordinary stuff of any world
that has been used again and again,
while the characters come and go,
the plot twists or wanders,
emo on soars or slumps,
illusion is perfected or sha ered,

Adelaide Literary Magazine

Direc ons

Enter, it said, But you learned to do it.
through the French windows, You got through it.
and go to the small table And hardly anyone no ced
and look through the mail. the strips of paper that had begun
Take a le er from the stack to peel loose when you moved your hands,
and cross to the window, even when you li ed, s ffly, one of Jane’s
tearing the envelope open as you go chipped teacups to your lips.
and taking out a le er.
The paper makes a rustling sound. No One
Read the le er,
turning to the second page eagerly, No one who remembers is le
and then stare in distrac on out the window. except me. I alone can say
The telephone rings. what was said and what was done,
The noise causes you to drop the le er.
Jane enters, stage le , and says, and when I am gone
“Aren’t you going to get that?” those parts of the past will be gone too,
the last ripples widened, the last snows melted.
The first me, the French doors stuck.
The second me, you hit your knee The birds are flying over the hill calling,
on the table and knocked the mail to the floor. the wind is shaking the trees.
The third me, you tripped on the rug,
which no one said would be there. Who will walk among the broken stones
The fourth me, the paper wouldn’t rustle. trying to read the names,
The fi h me, the telephone didn’t ring. who will see his long shadow
The sixth me, Jane forgot her line. flailed by the shadows of the bare branches,

You walked back again to your place who will turn and latch the gate
behind the French doors, and drive away, failing again
the thought coming to you to find what he was looking for?
that none of this was worth doing anyway.
It was dumb and slow and you went through it
with less naturalness than a huge puppet.
You walked as if your joints
were screwed together.
Your hands felt like they were made
out of flour and water and torn-up newspapers.
And Jane was an idiot.

238

Revista Literária Adelaide

History Teaching

For R. L. L.

The morning a er one of the assassina ons Mostly I fell in with the Mob, when I wasn’t
he dropped his file folder on the desk admiring the Bureaucrats, who
without a word and went to the window, went to their offices
where he stood and looked out at the world, through it all, and it was
the wind shaking one of the blossoming trees, impossible not to wonder
long enough for us to begin to worry for him. which of us might be the next Marat or Corday,
At last he faced us and said he had no words the next Robespierre or Talleyrand, or the next
of explana on except for the presence of evil, li le Napoleon, turning the page
and no advice except that we must go on. on the Rights of Man.
So with some sense of duty we turned again He o en sided with the
to the unimaginable French philosophes, clearly longing,
Revolu on, thinking despite everything, for an
what part we might have played outbreak of public reason,
and might play s ll and could consider the 18th Century, or certain
in a burning world and a world upended. of its houses on certain streets,
where certain music
At some point in every course he taught, measured out the evenings, the
he liked to recall the student – Sister Mar n, last good me and place
he may have called her, making his fond joke to live, before history rose
about that protestant world of piety and spires, up, a fire in the night,
rubbing daily against “the rich, sha ering the world with slogans
the wise, and the good” – and blood and broken glass.
a girl who always sat on the
back row and kni ed
as he talked from Nivôse through Floréal.
She would look carefully at him
and the blackboard,
when his eyes began to glisten as he laughed
or when he men oned a book
we ought to read,
but never took any notes – her needles clicking
faintly through each hour –
yet she remembered
everything, she and history
seeming to make a perfect fit.

239

Adelaide Literary Magazine

Landing

He never forgot ge ng off the boat, People talked to him about jaguars and gold.
never, through all his lives, could forget The food was cheap, the water made him sick.
trooping down the steps, everything he owned He always remembered it as
over his shoulder like a big bag of toys. a version of paradise.
Gangs of lime-green parrots ski ered overhead
and disappeared beyond the swaying trees.
Trumpets rang like bells beside the fountain
in the square, a boy and two
men straight-backed
as they played, the bright notes
arching over the town
and coming to earth again against the red hills.
In the church the saints were
carved from sabino wood,
their robes had been painted
once in green and white.

About the Author:
Monty Jones is a writer in Aus n, Texas. His
book of poems Cracks in the Earth was pub-
lished in 2018 by Cat Shadow Press of Aus n.

240

POSITIVE

by Emily Brumme

Posi ve + is Pregnant, - is Not Pregnant.
I read it over and over again.
A heavy wa of Sunday breakfast Two minutes later,
awakens me Couched on the cold, led floor,
earlier than a rou ne Sunday hangover I reach to grab my future from the counter-top
Each smell circles my stomach as date par es and tailgates
and lumps slide up and down my throat, crumble through my fingers
and a headache forms. like baby powder.
Medical School.
My reputa on. About the Author:
Everything-
Gone. Emily Brumme is a young and aspiring inter-
A er one drunken night. na onal business entrepreneur who enjoys
I shuffle through the puddled parking lot traveling and wri ng in her free me. She was
into the local CVS published in the Adelaide Literary Magazine No.
and dart to the bathroom, 14., No. 20, and was featured in the Adelaide
throwing my body over the toilet bowl, Anthology 2018. She is greatly obliged to her
to confirm another Google search result. friends and family for their endless support.
At the counter I fran cally
rummage my pockets-
Pulling loose change and dollar bills.
Face hidden under my hood,
I grab the bag and shove in my jacket
walking swi ly to my stretch-marked Civic
The cul de sac is full of life-
more than last me I was home.
And I walk in the house
past my parents’ laughter in the kitchen
squeaking up the wooden stairs,
and barricading myself in the bathroom.
Shaking, fumbling the box and direc ons:

241

DRIP

by Roger Singer

DRIP ASHES AND AIR

A passive silver moon An oar digs into
dripped its light s ll waters
through lace curtains
into my room every place has a name
a making to be found
the faucet
in the bathroom water circles the ankles
dripped a bap smal washing
with precise into beauty
regularity the opening of the eyes

both dripping worlds we eventually discover
invoking their the end of the road
presence on me back where we started

there is no wisdom the first breath relived
gained the last one a story
being in the middle inscribed on the
listening and watching heart of stone
to the drip, drip
from my shelter
of awake
between a poisonous
injus ce
preven ng sleep

242

REGAL MOMENT Revista Literária Adelaide

The hawk About the Author:
fearless aerial
troubadour Dr. Roger Singer has been in private prac ce for
a solitary soldier 38 years in upstate New York. He has four chil-
overseeing dren, Abigail, Caleb, Andrew and Philip and sev-
conquering the air en grandchildren. Dr. Singer has served on mul-
circling silently
feathers against the sky ple commi ees for the American Chiroprac c
bending into Associa on, lecturing at colleges in the United
the curves States, Canada and Australia, and has authored
observing the ground over fi y ar cles for his profession and served as
one within the a medical technician during the Vietnam era. Dr.
currents Singer has over 1,000 poems published on the
pa ence unequaled internet, magazines and in books and is a Push-
du ful to cart Award Nominee. Some of the magazines
hereditary and family that have accepted his poems for publica on
owning the are: Westward Quarterly, Jerry Jazz, SP Quill, Av-
right moment ocet, Underground Voices, Outlaw Poetry, Liter-
descending with ary Fever, Dance of my Hands, Language & Cul-
accurate speed ture, The Stray Branch, Toasted Cheese, Tipton
securing the Poetry Journal and Indigo Rising, Down in the
Dirt, Fullosia Press, Orbis, Penwood Review, Sub-
ability to succeed tle Tea, Ambassador Poetry Award Massachu-
se s State Poetry Society, Louisiana State Poetry
Society Award, Mad Swirl Anthology 2018.

243

THE DOORS

by Kevin Cahill

The Doors

Amid a bust-up of bell-bo oms and police-dogs wa ed with winds, a transpierced bedsheet
and a flashing skink undoing himself in view, decorated with the Kabbalah.
the song starts. Keeps in the hand for a minute,
composing itself, wiggling, disbanding into beer. Fi een minutes before the end,
the end grasps at its chest,
This is a bunch of banned guys a chunk of blood
in a beat-up jalopy chucked up on a cop-car, and takes one,
pulling into the back yards and back gardens maybe two turns at saving itself –
of Tallahassee, Tuscaloosa, Yeehaw Junc on, Waxahachie, Bagdad, Berkeley,
earning fiddy dollars a show, Natchez: divots of tumbleweed, and DTs,
and crates of hoochy – a standing legless and reci ng of Eliot
the daughter in every house bloody- facing the music
minded with scruples, with music,
slamming a mid-Six es’ s ffish door now touching the event
into their open jamb. each calamitous song foretold.

It is the arriving into town of a public pan Mythically, trillingly,
of crawfish, and soul food, skinfuls unthinkably,
of sni ers, Freudian slips these chiselled minstrels
and skinflicks, escor ng a countrywide tantrum step uncertainly from the jaguars
into the capsized croon. and wildfowl, the trees
thronging in a endance,
LeRoy, birds of paradise paying in (or more likely
Boy, I mean Jim, jazz underneath him, blagging in through the bathroom window)
kept steady, kept steady, the lions with the teeth of women
then turned way up…helping everyone tearing them up hit by hit –
in the revolu on to the slap-and- ckle these maggots in the bo le of mezcal
rippling from his tuning-fork…
passing through the clack of grasshoppers lted over into the matchs cked mouth
and hula-skirts, gathering in at the other end, gorged and chewed –
every school – maidenhairs their heads spat out into the river
plunging downstream – afloat –

s ll singing.

244

Hush Money Revista Literária Adelaide

When I went to the circus Exposure
the girl there
dressed like a clown ‘To turn every It was
into an I wanted it thus,
smiled that alone would I call redemp on’
and I went white in my seat.
For no one smiles – Friedrich Nietzsche

where you live – The summer penthouse, the gazebo,
no one smiles the speck of feast-days
if you look, revel on the lens, and relax themselves at last
into briers. But the rained-out August –
they turn like theatre its perpetual cloud – turns tails
into their houses in the Nikon
and only a handkerchief and becomes a sunbather. Our
cameras market us as yachts.
of fuchsia
someone put on a door Ro weilers patrol the gulag
beams from this place of our memories – walk
with rococo writers
like a bride. spinning the memoirs,
Something so stupid the recoun ng of everything
that means so much: like nothing we remember:
the phoney, self-deceiving snaps
like God said developing in the one-hour,
Let there be birds, fiddled like history.
and every single person
No, we’re not sugges ng we’re accountants,
bolloxed and botched, but we’re accountants,
Let there be soap suds cooking the books: though
He said the tripod holds, the mirror is true,
and the photograph freezes when at last
on the cheap car in the sun, we collect ourselves si ng
like Christmas, on the shu er – like a flu –
like All Hallows Day, the disinclina on we felt,
the not wan ng to be there at all,
like the Resurrec on. whoever we are – wet blankets who
wanted all this – deep down,
a er the gnashing,
all the love we wasted, the joy we felt,
only in ourselves, and to stand here now
in our inconsolable losses –
stubborn, aloof, hard,
unhappy, selfish, completely redeemed.

245

FINGER BY FINGER

by Ashley Green

Phantom I Phantom II

She knew something I didn’t, We sat in church and s fled laughs
pale with untold prophecy while his mother watched through pin-
and horror. hole eyes. I could feel her praying
me away.
You’ll stop loving me, she said
and her dilated gaze I took his hand within my own,
swam in grief. afraid God would be on her side.
I squeezed un l his heart beat filled
I laughed and touched her thigh, warm my palm.
and bare, familiar and new
all at once. His mother turned, shaking her head,
hissed into his father’s ear, while
Come back to me, come back to the boy untangled our fingers
me, I whispered, it’s only to slip
the drugs, love.
His hand between my thighs and up
Laugh again, she spoke through tears my dress, a communion scented
and touched my lips, eyes fixed on whisper dri ing along my neck,
the sound there. “Let’s sin.”

I did, uninten onal, About the Author:
and she smiled, closed her eyes,
and kissed me. Kevin Cahill was born in Cork City, Ireland. He has
been publishing poems for over ten years, and has
Another cursed daughter of been published in Berkeley Poetry Review, The Lon-
Priam, with truth to tell yet don Magazine, The S nging Fly, The Lonely Crowd,
disbelieved. and Oxford Poetry, among other magazines. He is
seeking a publisher for his debut collec on.

246

mother/monster Revista Literária Adelaide

mother as monster, finger by finger
a breach of contract
that shook Creator It’s underneath the nails.
and fissured the soul. Scrape the tender space beneath the edge,
where the kera n meets skin,
peculiar in growth, where he mul plies like a virus.
the ones that survive,
are her stained children. It’s not enough.
a marred and bent people.
Use your teeth to tear through the layers,
She, Unholy Vessel, like an animal caught in a trap.
bore us of her rot,
but we, circumstance, Destruc on and survival are
can be born again. too o en the same.

I have cleansed my wounds Let the blood pool.
with both hands trembling.
I’ve broken my back
to stand here upright.

Sowing About the Author:

My blood is plain. One would expect this Ashley Green is a poet living in Southern Califor-
pain would produce something of art. nia. Her work has been featured in Poets Read-
Instead, an ordinary spa er of claret staining ing the News and Ink & Voices.
co on and being. I am stuck between two
worlds; a purgatory of present & possibility.
I will bury the future in cold water set on
delicate and mourn its absence in silence.
I will place a flower at the base of my belly
and say your name out loud to the moon.

247

ANNIVERSARY

by Cathryn Essinger

Anniversary

The Harvest Moon rising from There is a tenderness about her that makes
behind the strip mall appears tethered him want to pull her close, feel the cold lump
to the horizon, but soon it will clear of her hand inside his own, but he just whistles
the radio tower on the far side of town under his breath, Shine on, shine on....

and li effortlessly past Walmart, Sunoco She holds the grocery cket in one hand,
and Payless Shoes. Pennants flapping meat and milk, and wonders how they came
in the used car lot applaud the effort, to this moment, a middle aged couple,
while tail lights flicker red in the exhaust. children grown and on their own,

He taps his wife on the shoulder and says, only the dog wai ng for them in the house
Look at the moon, and she stands there that is almost paid for, and a er all these years,
in the parking lot, hands pushed into this moon s ll adver sing, s ll out shining
her coat pockets, shoulders hunkered anything that the world has to offer.

against the evening chill, while he loads
groceries and two-by-fours from Home Depot.
She is wearing her old coat with the frayed
collar over summer shorts and sandals.

248