Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 45, February 2021

Revista Literária Adelaide

chair; her expression is simultaneously se- past: they are telling me something about
rious and serene. But the protective figure my own impermanence. I feel this temporal
hovering over her – his expression is quite dislocation between us – between myself
different. He too looks at the camera with and the yellowed photograph I’m looking
a wide-eyed, somewhat startled look, as if at – and I feel the need to bridge it in some
caught by surprise. In this way, and in this way. I feel that if we break our gaze, I will
way only, he resembles the young man in lose my safe footing in the present. These
the first photograph. expressive faces of long ago, whose eyes
have met mine by the merest of chance,
I have to admit that I am drawn to old are looking at their future, which unfolds
photographs – not of landscapes, not of as a bright endless expanse ahead of them.
monuments, not of cities, but of people. What is our connection? I am a trespasser,
Nowadays I mostly come across them in uninvited, encroaching onto this singular
dusty cardboard boxes at Lisbon’s biggest moment of their lives. What exactly is my
flea market – the feira da ladra. I cannot role here? To recognize this moment and
decipher just what it is that I’m drawn to. thereby perpetuate its memory? Or to re-
Interest in the past? Perhaps. But there is nounce it, to deny its durability in time? As
more to it than just historical curiosity. an interloper who has entered their present,
I know their faces will linger in the minds of
I am a bit puzzled as to why they per- those closest to them ever more tenuously
turb me so. It is understandable that I until the memories themselves vanish with
find the poses assumed by the subjects or time and they are forgotten. And this faded
their clothing antiquated. A fleeting mo- image in the corner of a forgotten dusty
ment in their lives has been captured by shop in Portugal will be all that is left of the
a person unknown to me, at a place and fixed, intent gazes into the camera and be-
time unknown to me, and it lives on on a yond, into the future, an image destined to
thin sheet of fragile plastic. These solemn fade into oblivion and nothingness.
faces staring unblinkingly at me from the

About the Author

Anita Lekic has a B.A. and M.A. in English and Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures. She
taught at the State University of New York at Stony Brook as an adjunct professor and later

moved to The Hague, Netherlands to work as a translator
for the UN War Crimes Tribunal. Now living in Portugal.
Publications: three essays in Counterpunch: Letters from
Lesbos, Revisiting the United States after Twenty Years,
and Notes on Depression, three feature articles in The
Local Germany: How I Found Yugoslavia in a Small German
Town, A Night in the Hotel that Used to House Some of
Germany’s Most Wanted Outlaws, and How Kaiserslautern
Continues to Integrate Refugees, and short stories in The
RavensPerch, Streetlight Magazine, The Dark Ink Press,
Typishly, Cagibi, The Bangalore Review and Wanderlust.

149

WEST

by Pete Warzel

West is the dream where the light ends. It called. I did, unwittingly. The sorrow called,
is the place of redemption, an earth tor- the driftlessness.
sioned and twisted in sworls and declines
that dead end or lead infinitely to the last Her hair is blonde now, colored, full. She
light. It is the destination for little boys and is trim but fleshed out, yet steady on her
those who never matured, the place to es- heals. She is middle aged as she should be.
cape and pretend someone else. Red and And me? I have no idea of what she thinks
yellow rock balance on the horizon in diz- I look like but she did recognize me from
zying heaps and the common lack of water across the room. Perhaps the other dream
shimmers in the air. The air is soundless folks here forewarned her of my presence
during the day and alive with life at night. and she is too gracious to signify anything
other than instant recognition. She does not
West is the American dream, a longing. scold me like she once did. She is worn a
You can come close to that dream looking bit, maybe tired, but upbeat about a trip to
at Manhattan from Brooklyn beneath the Moab, to Arches. Can you go?
bridge, looking west, but the glitter of elec-
tric light cannot replace the density of stars I hesitate.
in a true western sky.
Not again Peter. Christ.
In the dream she now is her true age and
apparently fit. She has come again during Good to go I say, and mean it.
my angst, my struggle with life in late years
and with sons who will always be my chil- There are four others, all familiar to me
dren, they too unsure about where this from other lives. My wife is standing not far
all taking them. The unsteady ground of a away and heard the exchange and does not
country in turmoil and sickness as if there pull the plug on it, while an old Land Rover,
is an earth tremor that is incessant, shaking an ancient Defender-like thing but with a
sand to the quick, boiling water that was a second story deck, pulls up, and we get on
moment ago a placid pond. board the magic bus to Moab.

She appears across a room, for the Why Arches, the red rock desert of my
second night, and waves at me apprehen- dreams? Why these six? But why did she
sively. Then she walks over and takes my show up now?
hands and says hello, I am here again, you
She only appears in my dreams when
necessary, when the world is overwhelming
me, or when perhaps, it overwhelms her. So,

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now? Two of my sons are finding life diffi- and then I feel the washboard road through
cult, one with a partner, one with himself. Cisco and hear the river through the sliding
Boulder looks like an inferno in the pho- Rover windows and we come to Woody’s.
tographs one sends me. Everyone is nuts
from the health crisis, secluded, bored, I hear conversations in Woody’s from
dreaming bad dreams incessantly. The so- the old days when Doug and Lu Chow and
cial conscience of our country has become I roared in thirsty and dirty and sat facing
a cesspool of right and wrong and guns are the door. But I hear, cannot construct or in-
being drawn, governors’ offices surrounded vent, any talk from this trip. Again simply
by masked men. eyes and smiles and she reaches across the
table and takes my hands. I once wrote in
The Rover sputters up and we are off, “South” that “I realize I am the caretaker this
west. Due west from Denver on I-70 to time.” No, not this time. I am being cared for
the Utah border and over and then south in an unknowable way and she strokes my
at Cisco, a mess of a town on the flat red fingers with hers, freeing them, they jerk
dirt, coming in the back way through Castle with electricity or perhaps ALS.
Valley, along the Colorado River. But at Cisco,
I wake up, and west is east and she is gone, The six of us go to the River Canyon
unexplained, silent. Lodge on West 200 North Street and sleep
in three rooms. She is already in bed when
The rest I make up as if to make truth I am ready and I get beneath the covers and
of it all. I continue on to Moab and stop for she holds me, whispering words I cannot
a drink at Woody’s, but the old Woody’s create here. At 2:00 AM I am awake and
without windows, a miners and river rat reading under a dim light in a corner chair
bar. Drug deals optional in the parking lot. and she wakes and says let’s go for a ride.
Tough women not optional. She has the keys to the Rover and we go
west out of town past Arches and turn on
Years ago when I would angst-out the re- the road into Canyonlands National Park,
demption was an annual trip with two friends but she turns into Dead Horse Point State
to Moab and ten days into the canyons or Park and we wind our way to the end of
the Henry Mountains, phoneless, invisible, the world overlooking the crick in the neck
and the scum of everyday life blown clean of the Colorado River two thousand feet
by wind and sand and the ground would below and beneath a carpet of light that
straighten out my back to where I could not has come from the distant past to get here.
sleep in a bed for five days upon the return.
Is this that? A double cleanse with her and It is summer and warm but a breeze
the desert, a peace-offering from above, a chills me so she holds me and I hear in my
message through the airwaves. ear the words I will only come when you
need, but you will not need me any longer.
West, the desert, for this little boy. She pushes me off the ledge of rock and I
fall, floating, then flying, soaring on an up-
I cannot construct our dialogue in the draft, and never hit the ground.
truck and cannot hear the others speak. It
is a silent journey of eyes and smiles, hand It is not an act of revenge or spite but
holding as if mother and son, sister and an urge to make me fly. My spine is alive
brother. She strokes my hair for a time and I with voltage as I write this, make it up, and
sleep, soundless, dreamless within the dream, it is so.

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That was the dream part I missed when I
awoke so I created it, and it is so.
The dream of west is a child’s dream, a
boy’s hope for a future not like the reality
that drowns him at rest. West is the dream
where the light ends, but once there it is the
place where the sun rises and begins the
day, to set further west and further west
again.

About the Author
Pete Warzel has published poetry, fiction, essays, and
nonfiction articles in literary journals and national magazines,
including Adelaide. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, mostly.

152

SPEED

by Elizabeth Mayorka

The Turtle Vs. the Hare or Who Have I Favored Violin and the metronome
in this Life?
That numbing pendulum hypnotic ma-
Swimming chine. Or the one with the flashing lights.
To increase the tempo of a piece of music
They watch the clock on the pool deck. marked Allegro or God forbid Presto, I used
They must time the intervals exactly. Double to ask my students to gradually increase the
zero, 15, 30, 45. Leave every 15 seconds for numbers on the metronome from 60 beats
the warmup. Later, start on the 35 and calcu- per minute one day, to 62 the next day, to 64
late how many seconds have passed when the next day and so on. 120 is the number
you return. Leave on the 5, leave on the 40, designated as the slowest Allegro, so it
leave on the 15, the 50. My daughters have would take 30 days or roughly a month of
lived by that clock for years now. They are daily practice to increase the speed to the
nine and twelve and have been swimming desired tempo. Students don’t usually have
for five years, six days a week, two hours a a month-because of a school competition or
day. This amount of exertion is concerning chair test. They must move faster. So, they
to me. I once worried it would keep them practiced 60, then 64, then 68. They could
from listening to their own bodies, from get to 120 beats per minute in 15 days at that
knowing when it was time to slow down. I rate. This is the slowest way to play faster.
feared this exertion would keep them from
getting their menstruation cycles when they Sometimes, they need to get to 120 or
were older. I have never asked their swim- more in one practice session. They set the
ming times or urged them to go faster. I do metronome at 120 and play four notes in
not yell at the swim meets; I do not scream a row, pause, play four more notes, pause,
maniacally at the splashing water where four more notes through an excerpt of the
the swimmers cannot even hear as they piece of music. Once they have achieved
race, “Go, Go, Go! You’ve got it! Ugghhhh! that, they play eight notes, pause, the next
Oh yes, Oh my God! Ayyyyyyeeeee!” I just eight notes, pause…Then they try to play the
want them to relax in a bath when they ar- passage without pause. This is the fastest
rive home, to clear their bodies of the chlo- way to play fast. Most of my students start
rine, to unwind their muscles. Have a snack. out hating the metronome. The click click
clicking, or beep beep beeping without end.
Antonyms for hurry up: They feel like they are being interrupted,
their flow is hindered; there is no room for
dull. inessential. optional. trivial. uncritical.
unimportant. insignificant.

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variation, or breath, no ritardando or ral- last movement, whose theme is known as
lentando-an extreme slowing down-, or acce- Ode to Joy. There are musicians today who
lerando-speeding up the tempo-, or fermata believe that Beethoven’s metronome was
where the note is held beyond its designated broken, because many of his tempo mark-
number of beats, indefinitely suspended in ings seem too fast for performance. Even
time. No. The metronome demands robotic though the tempo helps to hold the music
precision. The German inventor Dietrich Ni- together, I tell my students there are more
kolaus Winkel developed a “musical chro- important things than speed: phrasing, mu-
nometer” in 1814, inspired by the pendulum sicality, tone, intonation, and most impor-
and the pendulum clock in the 16th and 17th tantly, what they feel as they are playing the
centuries. What did musicians do before the music.
metronome? Orchestral conductors once
held a large staff which they pounded into Antonyms for speed:
the floor, vibrating the room with the boom
of the beat. This kept the musicians together, check. clog. delay. drag. hinder. impede.
until the French composer Jean-Baptiste obstruct. retard.
Lully stabbed himself in the foot.
Marrying at age 17
Most of my students use the metronome
to get faster, not just consistent. Following My mother married my father fresh out
their own heartbeat or breath or sense of of high school. She was pregnant with my
the tempo ends up being faulty in the be- sister. Both of my parents were Catholic,
ginning. Their hearts beat faster when ner- and they loved each other, but this was not
vous, slower when tired. The metronome is planned. My father wanted to go to college
meant to give them a sense of control, but to become an engineer. My mother wanted
they feel controlled by it. They play faster to get her degree in piano performance.
when the passage is easy and slower when They would try to attend college, but both
it is more difficult. They do not notice that had to drop out within a year or two. My
this is happening until they use the metro- dad worked at Jack in the Box and got a
nome. It compounds their mistakes. It forces certificate in welding at age 18. To prove to
them to face what they wish to ignore. Their herself and the world that she knew what it
faces get tight and serious. The muscles in took to be a mother, my mother started the
their hands constrict, making it harder to long business of denying herself- clothes,
stretch their fingers across the violin. The food, etc., but not sex; however brief the
metronome, once a harmless rectangular ecstasy, she longed for that feeling as proof
device or tiny pyramid coach, looms larger: of love. She once told me that sex helped
a sergeant barking orders, pushing them make sense of their marriage when things
into an army-like march, leading them faster got difficult. My mother became pregnant
and faster into the war of performance. with me just a few months after she gave
Beethoven was one of the first composers birth to my sister. The doctor took me out
to use the metronome. So instead of just early, so he could go on Christmas vacation
writing the vague Allegro, ma non troppo- (I was due in January). I didn’t cry when
fast but not too much so- Beethoven also the doctor lifted me from my mother’s
wrote 88 as the beats per minute to follow abdomen; I was still sleeping. My parents
for his last Symphony No. 9, famous for the didn’t have any money; my mother was

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overwhelmed with two babies, so the ob- Antonyms for skip:
stetrician, a male doctor, “made” my father
get a vasectomy at age 19. Where is the attend to. stay in place.
wisdom in waiting when they insisted that
was the life they wanted? Being patient was Going to School
not in their vocabulary. They had to have
each other. Planning seemed beside the When she was not yet two years of age, my
point. My mother said, “I saw your father oldest daughter saw children entering a class-
and I knew he was the one.” When she has room at a church. “Where are those children
talked about this over the years, it sounds going?” she asked. “To school,” I answered.
as if she was afraid to lose him. It is possible
to feel like you are in a race against time, “What do they do there?”
even when you are a teenager.
“They learn how to read and write and
Antonyms for hasty: count numbers.”

slow. considered. “I want to go to school!”

Skipping a grade “Mommy’s not ready for that yet.”

I do not remember skipping a grade. On the first day of preschool, my daughter
My mother tells me when I was in kinder- walked past me into her classroom without
garten, I sat in front of the class and read to hugging me. She raised her toddler hand
them. She said I “wasn’t being stimulated and said, “Bye Mommy.” I sat in my car in
enough,” that I was “teaching the class.” Did the parking lot, crying.
she ask me if I wanted to skip a grade? She
may have said, you will be with your sister, Antonyms for ready:
won’t that be nice? I remember being the
youngest and sometimes smallest person unwilling. incapable. disinclined.
in my grade. I felt left out, underdeveloped, unprepared.
not emotionally ready, all the way through
high school. But I quickly realized that Sleep
doing things ahead of time was admired
by others, and I aimed to please. There When my daughters were in kinder-
was the life plan I illustrated with colorful garten, I thought the proper amount of
pictures of me publishing a book before I sleep was more important than school. If
was 20, playing violin in a professional or- they kept sleeping, even after I had opened
chestra, having children and various other the doors to their bedrooms in the morning,
milestones before I was in my late twenties. I let them sleep. We were late so many
What a rush. What a burden. So much ex- times to school, I received a note saying that
pectation I had of myself. I was sure to fail. I could be contacted by the police depart-
I shrunk in the face of my own shortened ment for failing to comply with the school
timeline. Graduating early did not ensure schedule. Most mornings, we ran out of the
my success. It just made me feel that I was house in a rush, with me yelling, “Hurry!”
running out of time. How ironic. My daughters brushed their hair
in the car, crying, hearts racing. “Why didn’t
you wake us up earlier?” This is not what I
wanted.

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It was a torture for me to wake my apartment buildings and dilapidated hotels
sleeping beauties from their dreams. I asked I lived in, where I also ran my fingers up and
them when they were waking, “Do you re- down my violin playing endless scales, 17
member your dreams?” I still ask them this floors up, where people used the elevators
to this day and they are nine and twelve. and I could be sure to be alone.
They do not remember. I do not remember
my dreams. This is sad to me. How I wish to Twenty years later, I am no longer in col-
know what my subconscious is trying to tell lege, but I still feel this need to learn and
me. What am I hiding from myself in trying to to run. As I write, our beautiful part Rus-
fit into the schedule of the work-a-day world? sian blue cat runs across the living room
How I wish to be a dreamer who honors her and back again, chasing nothing, but she is
dreams. There are scientific charts that say urgent in her pursuit. She looks like a mini,
that a kindergarten age child should get grey panther. There is no predator for her to
10-12 hours of sleep. When I let them sleep, run from and no prey to capture. She does
my daughters sleep twelve hours or more; not have to save her life, nor take the life
their rosy cheeks and smiles are beautiful to of another. But something deep inside her,
behold. When they wake up early for school, a memory from her ancestors says, “Some-
there are days when they have dark circles thing is chasing you. You must run to save
under their eyes. I feel like a horrible mother your life. You must chase something in order
for this. Those twelve hours matter more to to live. Keep running.”
me than a single A on any test.
I have sprained both my ankles in the last
Antonyms for sleep: year, being distracted- when I was walking
across a parking lot I tripped over an un-
consciousness. action. energy. awakening. seen curb; on a trail, I fell where there was
a hole in the ground. I cannot run anymore.
Running I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner. My
own body has forced me to stop for a time.
When I was in college, I started run- My mind races even as I sleep, but I don’t
ning. Running increased my oxygen intake, know where it’s running.
released a surge of energy throughout my
body, flooded me with temporary peace. Antonyms for running:
After studying for hours, cramming more
and more information into my mind, writing apathetic. inactive. broken. unexciting.
so much my hands cramped, I longed
to physically exhaust myself, so I could Starting an instrument early
truly relax. I ran miles and miles without
counting, without caring in which direction When I was 15, I auditioned for a per-
I was going or what time of day or night forming arts high school for my junior and
it was. My mind seemed to grow still and senior years. I started playing the violin
calm within my constantly moving body. I when I was 11 years old in my public junior
ran on New York City Streets at three in the high school orchestra program. The stu-
morning. I ran alongside country roads and dents in the performing arts high school, I
in the ditches of small towns where my par- soon found out, started when they were
ents moved to be closer to my sister and four years of age. Their parents and teachers
me. I ran up and down the stairwells of the taught them through the Suzuki method, a

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method I now teach, whose philosophy is it easier learning steps so his level of frustra-
is never too early or too late to play an instru- tion would not overwhelm him. I am not
ment. I soon realized I was behind. I would certain if it is correct to start so young or
not catch up. That is what I told myself. I was not. He is now seven years old and my goal
placed in the back of the second violin sec- for him is not to fly through the repertoire,
tion, which seemed like I was sitting in the but to make sure he is enjoying the process
nosebleed seats at every orchestra concert. and continuing to love music.
I watched the first violinists, with their flaw-
less technique, fingers soaring, bows rico- I’ll never forget one Suzuki training where
cheting consistently, while my fingers and a world-renowned violin teacher exclaimed,
bow floundered on the strings. Even though “Our students are not getting any younger!
I practiced hours every day, and thought that They must practice now, or they won’t make
I was giving my all, in my heart I already be- it in the professional world of music.” This
lieved that a life as a professional musician returns me to my former frame of mind as
was out of my reach. I secretly lamented all a high school student, I will never make it.
those years of climbing trees and watching How can I inspire my students to reach their
television in elementary school. potential, if I am still haunted by what I per-
ceive as my own failure to not learn faster?
Fifteen years later, in a Suzuki teacher Do I still have time to catch up, even now?
training course, I met a young woman who
started playing the viola when she was 16 A few years ago, I read about a revered
years old. She had wanted to play for years, surgeon, who upon retirement, decided to
but as her family moved often for the military, take up the violin. In his seventies at the
she never got the chance. She bought her time, he said he didn’t know how fast his
own viola and started teaching herself. Then, progress would be. It didn’t matter. He had
she applied to study music at a university always wanted to learn and would do it for
and practiced diligently. She is now a profes- his own enjoyment.
sional musician for an orchestra in Germany.
She has made a life out of music because that Antonyms for early:
was the life she wanted and worked for. She
knew everyone at the university had started late. worn. old. overdue.
a decade before her, but what she lacked in
experience, she made up for with passion. Bicycling

A few years later, I received a call from a After we married, my husband and I
mother whose son had just turned three. No joined a cycling club. At first, we stayed
violin teacher in her neighborhood would with the slowest group, watching the cows
take her son as a student. They said she had grazing in the pastures as we pedaled by,
to wait until he was four or five years old. I looking at wildflowers, talking as we rode.
said I would try. I used a carrot and a stalk We all met in a large parking lot three hours
of celery to teach him how to hold a bow. later, where people passed out protein bars
Every skill took weeks and months longer and bananas, fixed their bicycles, and talked
for his muscles to get used to. So that he about the glories and pitfalls of cycling. It
would not lose interest, I made everything was fun for a short time, but I soon found
into a game. I broke lessons into smaller, myself thinking more about preparing my
body to have children than about cycling.

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Even though we rode with the slower group, Antonyms for fast:
we were still cycling for hours; I often felt ex-
hausted afterwards. My husband and I had clumsy. sluggish. insecure.
been trying to conceive for months without
results. My kindergarten through 8th grade Instant Pot
music teaching position left me without
breaks during the week and without energy Since I teach violin from late afternoon
on the weekends. Saturdays, I decided to until it is time to go to bed, I am looking
stay at home, while my husband went cy- for a quick solution to making meals for
cling. After a few weeks, my husband hus- my family. While grocery shopping, I see
tled into the fastest group, riding 50 miles a mountain of Instant Pots, one on top of
in just a few hours, going 14-16 miles per the other, all with coupons that say, “$50
hour. The men and women he rode with, off!” I take one home. Inside the box, there
also rode during the week, maintaining a is a color laminated sheet that tells me how
regular schedule which their bodies were few minutes it takes to cook all manner of
used to. With my husband’s work schedule, food items- when using the pressure cooker
he couldn’t exercise during the week. He function: Ground meat, 5 minutes. Carrots,
was a weekend warrior. 2 to 3 minutes. Rice, 4 minutes. Potatoes,
3 to 4 minutes. Boneless porkchops, 4 to
I noticed my husband looked thinner 5 minutes. Whole chicken, 8 minutes per
than usual; I wondered if he was eating pound. Asparagus, 1 to 2 minutes. Lentils, 1
enough for the number of calories he was to 2 minutes. This makes me believe that
burning. Perhaps he wasn’t getting the right dinner will take me 15 minutes tops to pre-
amount of sleep. One day he came home pare, including preparation time. Wow. In
from work looking like a skeleton; he hadn’t my mind, I begin preparing elaborate meals
just lost most of his normal body fat, but with the touch of an electronic button. Pres-
muscle mass as well. It happened all at once. sure cooker, where have you been all my
As I read about the details of his sudden life? Today, I will make a pot roast.
change on the internet, I realized that he
had all the symptoms of hyperthyroidism As I read the safety manual, I prepare
or Graves’ Disease: bulging eyes, irritability, myself to lock the lid in place, make sure
tiredness, muscle weakness, heat sensitivity, the steam valve is open, not clogged, to not
shaky hands, rapid and irregular heartbeat, put my face or hands over escaping steam,
weight loss without dieting. A visit to an en- to not put too much water, to not put too
docrinologist confirmed this fear. The doctor little water, to not fill the inner cooker past
said it was hard to say what had caused this 2/3 full, to not put too little in it, to wait
to happen. Graves’ Disease is an autoim- 25 minutes to make sure all the steam has
mune disorder in which the immune system escaped before trying to open the lid. The
overworks and attacks the thyroid. The en- directions say to wait 5 to 25 minutes, but I
docrinologist hesitated to guess what had read reviews that say to wait longer or the
triggered this. My husband spoke proudly of pressure that is contained within the cooker
his immune system. It is strong, he insisted, could explode in your face. I find a photo of
it is working overtime. As a precaution, my a nine-year old girl in Colorado whose face
husband stopped cycling for several years. and body are covered in third degree burns.
The bicycles collected dust in the garage. My youngest daughter is nine years old. I

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see a woman whose entire chest and arms think more clearly, how time passes without
are candle apple red after making beef stew my realizing it, how I stop to catch my breath
(which she had already made several times when I am not even running. My husband
before, all in the same way with the same says, “There is a cost for everything.”
machine). Another woman reports that
there is soup on the ceiling, cabinets and What is the cost of the pressure cooker?
floor of her kitchen after the liquid erupted How will I pay for this in ways that are not
like a volcano when she took the lid off. monetary? I will worry that if my children,
On these websites, people recount stories who love the kitchen, who bake and open
of how they or their mothers have been cabinets and make slime and art at the
burned from using pressure cookers. The kitchen table will be near to this pressure
most common complaint is the lid comes cooker every day. A faster dinner is not
off when it isn’t supposed to. worth more than my peace of mind.

One woman writes how she let the I pull out my slow cooker. I tell my family
steam escape for 25 minutes, unplugged dinner will be ready in several hours.
the machine from the outlet, and took the
lid off the pressure cooker. Everything was Antonyms for instant:
fine. As she was removing the roast from
the cooker, she heard a pop! and the meat delayed. old fashioned. eventual.
exploded in her face. There was pressure
built up in the meat and it released when Swimming again
she stuck the fork in it.
We are at my daughters’ swim meet. My
There were defenders of the instant pot youngest daughter, eight years old at the
calling these people idiots. They obviously time, is swimming breaststroke. Around me,
used the machine incorrectly. I love my in- I hear people screaming, but I feel like I am
stant pot, they said. The pressure retains in a bubble watching my daughter stream-
more nutrients, it saves time, they can have line across the water. It is the opposite of
dinner on the table in a fraction of the time. racing; her strokes are so smooth and se-
rene. This is her favorite stroke. No water is
I hang my head, placing all the recipes, splashed. She seems at peace. The tips of
user manual, safety precautions, back into her toes are ahead of all the other swim-
the box. I spent two days reading over all mers. I feel my heart flutter. Something in-
the pros and cons of this machine. I imagine side me is reaching out with her, wanting
putting myself under the same amount of to call out her name, but I do not, because
pressure that this pot takes to cook some- I know she will not hear me. I am no dif-
thing faster. I think about how slow I read, ferent from the other parents in my delight
sometimes reading the same sentence two in seeing my daughter swim so well. Even
or three times. How I listen to the same sec- though I am not the one swimming, I feel as
tion of a music recording multiple times to if I am in the pool, head ducked just under
hear how the musician created a particular the surface of the water, exhaling deeply,
sound which caused me to feel the music my hands reaching to touch the wall at the
more deeply. How I stare into space so I can same time, hoping to not get disqualified.

159



POETRY



CONTRAST

by Brittany Male

Interstellar Contrast

Head shaved when you press
and rounded like a rectangle of photo paper
its own planet. into developer—
Colors swirling in bruises fingertips just dipping in,
like the storm-pocks a smell that makes you believe
of Jupiter’s atmosphere. it’s going to sting
Safety tethers but it never does—
nestled under it is a slow fade
the skin, for the image to appear.
keeping life Outlines of light and dark
within reaching distance. like Rorshach blots
A space suit gather details form nowhere
slowly leaking air, until you can see a strand of hair
the sound becoming out of place,
familiar until a dimple in her cheek.
it is no longer heard. The past is slowly gathered
The impending release from the place between
of all energy light and shadow.
of a body, you wouldn’t know that.
into all corners of the room, you’ve never been in a darkroom.
leaving what
was once something how much slower is the fade
nothing, as the image reverts back
and making what to nonexistence;
was once nothing many years, most while
something. you still don’t know it’s happening.
oh, it starts in the details.
the baseboards become

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as pale as the walls. The child
the creases beneath
her eyes smooth, I don’t know the way
time-worn reverse aging. she treats her daughter.
The pattern of her plaid shoes I don’t know if she’s teaching her
becomes solid. the same lessons that her mother
you don’t know taught her.
you’re losing a memory I do not know
until the edges become soft if the little girl
and a film glazes over her face shies away from the touch
like she’s looking at you of her father.
through frosted glass. I do not know
if her mother’s hands
Slow fade. bring her any more comfort.
moments of time lost. I have never met the girl.
but you wouldn’t I was simply told
know that either. by someone else
You never kept a photo long enough. who was told
by someone else
that she had been born.
I do not even know
if she was wanted.
I imagine her face,
the slight curve of her nose,
the long baby lashes,
the bulging cheeks.
I hope she is getting enough food.
I do not know
what her mother tells her about life—
about what she is here for,
who she is here for.
I am afraid
she is growing up thinking
that her purpose here
is to serve a man
she does not know yet.
I am afraid
that there is no one to stop

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the lies. Revista Literária Adelaide
I am afraid
that she, too, A Lesson in Ethics
will one day
frantically scour dishes I am wearing
in the kitchen sink, the bloodstains
looking over her shoulder of worn fingertips.
at the door, I am wearing
wondering smog, gnashing teeth,
when it will open dripping sweat,
and he comes home. building collapse.
When I wake
in the morning,
I thank God
for giving me so much,
and then don
someone else’s poverty.

I am walking
in my shoes,
but they aren’t
really mine;
they were given to me
by an 8-year-old boy
hoping to eat tonight.
I did not thank him.
I step on his bones
every time I walk.

I flaunt
another country’s
desperation like pride;
I dress in devastation
as a statement
of my rank.
I have not paused
to feel the itching
of the fabric.
Not from the texture,
but the pain,
the exploitation,
the things
my jeans have seen
and I have not.

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As She Forgets Everything

I.
I carry her memory, even though she doesn’t.
I was a bushel in her arms and a peck on her cheek. She was a

gardener who reaped less than she sowed.
Sometimes I wonder if the house holds more words than she does. If the

walls are the only things that could tell me how she felt today.
I don’t want her to die without the memory of me, but I don’t know why that matters.
She matters.
She does not know why.

II.
When I was young, I thought life meant everything stayed the same while you grew and changed.
I would not have changed if everything had stayed the same.
It doesn’t look like it used to.
Not for me, and not for her.
She wanted to end her life before she even knew how bad it would

get. Neither of us knows what’s keeping her here.
I don’t know much of anything anymore.
She knew, once.

III.
She told me the first thing she’d do if she ever got money was change herself.
I didn’t realize how slowly she’d change around me.
It did not stay slow.
She taught me lessons that she herself still needs to learn.
She does not have time to learn.

166

IT WILL BE OK, I
LIED

by Jessica Lorraine

He walks in here with a blank look on his face, stops in front of me and asks, ‘what’s
wrong with you?” “Nothing.” I lie. He nods and walks away. Of course he buys it, I have
been lying all these years that I’ve gotten good at it. Perfected it. Sometimes I say nothing
is wrong and he knows that I’m lying but he still walks away. Doesn’t bother nor insists
for me to tell him what’s wrong. I know he knows what is wrong. Yet he’s in denial.
He walks out of the room and I remain on my bed. Wine in my hand, listening to
oldies singing my life away. Getting lost in the lyrics and in the high notes.
That is all I really ever do nowadays. Lie. drink. Sing. Let me tell
you, I am not a very good singer, but I do so anyways.
I had these moments even before covid 19. Where I would sit on my bed sad, thinking
about all the times he hurt me. However, now I think about it more than ever. What
else is there to do? Yes some homework, educate my children and maybe clean. All
of that and I still find myself sitting on my bed, singing, drinking..lying.
We were happy at one point. Yes we had little arguments here and there but who doesn’t?
Now that I think of it we had a lot of arguments. We were arguing before I even agreed
to hang out with him. That should have been my red flag. Yet I didn’t see it that way. We
laughed. We smiled. I felt safe when he held me. What more could a girl ask for?
I wanted him so much that I started to skip classes. I would text him all the time. Wanted
him with me everyday. It’s as if he was my drug and I was addicted to him. Just like
all addicts, I was in denial. Didn’t want to believe he was bad for me. Everyone said
he was, but I ignored what everyone said. It felt nice to be called pretty. Be told I
mattered. For someone to take care of me. Talk about a girl with daddy issues.
I didn’t love him when I lost my virginity to him. So I knew it wouldn’t hurt if I
left him. So why didn’t I leave him? Why did I lose my virginity to him?
He had a way with words. A way with his hands. Knew how to make
me want him more. Knew how to make me want ‘more’.

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Everything with him happened so fast. Becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. Being
inmtimate, becoming pregnant, the miscarriage, the enagagement, the wedding, moving
in together and then becoming parents. All of that within 2 years of being together.
Maybe that’s why he started to talk to other women? Why he would
seek attention elsewhere. Why he would he lie about me?
Maybe because all of this happened while he was young? Then again, I married him
when I was 20 and he was 24. I cheated on him first, when we were simply boyfriend
and girlfriend. Lost my best friend in the process. He was the first to deceive while
being married. “It’s harmless flirting. It means nothing”, that was his go to line. It’s
not like he slept with someone else, like I did. So I would let it slide. Stupid girl.
The ‘harmless flirting’ became worse. Different girls. Though “it doesn’t matter
because they’re in a different state”, is what he would argue. That is true, it’s not
like he slept with them, unlike me. It’s nothing right? Oh, my stupid girl.
I was aware of all of the girls he would flirt with. The ones who would send him ‘sexy’ photos. I
would just cry myself to sleep and hope it would pass. I cried in the bed, laying right beside
him. Not once did he hold me, ask me if something was wrong. He simply ignored me. I’d tell
myself we will get better, he will learn to love me and respect me. Of course, that was a lie.

168

TRUTH

by David Romanda

Look Equality Equals Freedom

You don’t want your desperation to show. The Slaughterbot needs love too.
Neither do I. We already share Don’t laugh.
something that runs deep. Don’t you dare.
We have a foundation Love is love—and your need
on which to build our Palace of Joy. is no greater than the Slaughterbot’s.

Saying Sorry Truth

Under the right circumstances It won’t ever come to it.
I could, in theory, be sorry. But if it does, you’d sell me out.
And from that unlikely state of being sorry And I’d sell you out.
I might possibly, but probably not, That’s just how it is. No question.
issue, through my press
agent, a sincere apology.

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I Was in a Funny Mood

If it’s all the same to you,
I’d rather not talk about it.
Just forget it.
Yes, of course, I still love you.
Don’t you believe me?

About the Author

David Romanda lives in Kawasaki City, Japan. His work has appeared in Ambit Magazine,
Magma, The Moth, Poetry Ireland Review, and Popshot Quarterly.

170

VOICELESS

by Anna Kapungu

Letters From Home Politics

In the deserted days We are making history
Where the sun is my champion Politics on social media
And the blood thirsts for water Reality of the mirrors of colour
I tell the rays what I miss the most Colour blind to the human in us
Hear my breathing Our future inheritance lies in the vote
Sweat drip down my back In chromosomes,DNA and future citizens
My hands cracked from the labour Transplants,mutations into the superhumans
Labour without gains Terrorism the war within us
Split the grounds to pass the hours Abandon the heroes of the nation
Read the roads of my palms Who left their ego at the gate of sacrifice
Roads that lead me back home A lateral view of the voice of the people
Then I receive your letters Where politicians serve political interests
Your words are like rain in the summer In the corridors of power
Comfort my blackened heart Fight the spotlight,the savage torrents
Feel the elevation of my spirit Of becoming the political superstars
My people,the force of humanity Let Mother Earth die the slow burn
I cannot pray to surrender my heaviness Slow burn of
I cannot cry to release my sentence pollution,progression,advancement
And we are killing us softly
Focused on the exchange of currency
The Euro ,the Pound and how
the Dow Jones fell

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Voiceless Adelaide Literary Magazine
She Was Earning a Living

I heard the piercing sounds of screams Times were hard
Those were the strings of my heart She was earning a living
The slow drip of blood Three jobs a day
Run within my skin Paid the rent,school fees and food on the table
Close my eyes No Easter,summer vacations
I still feel your presence or Christmas parties
Spine tingling touch Meals were breakfast in the morning
My love was yours Porridge ,homemade bread,water for tea
It was not endless skies Bought charity clothes from the dollar stores
Free fall my world was cold Lived on friends generosity
Hear every splash as the snow hits the ground and borrowed monies
No distance cries of seagulls Bankrupt ,the banks refused to give us credit
All was silent Milk tokens from the government
Silence to hear myself Water was rationed
Breathe breathe without gratitude Bathed once every two days
Hurt hurt without words We hardly had any visitors
Hear the phone ringing Played indoors the streets
Whisper I am voiceless were not for children
High density,high strung and
bullets through the windows
Times were hard
She was earning a living

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The Lotus

Left my beloved at Necroplis
Challenging my spirit
That the ground would breathe
Bring you back
Embrace me one more time
Must have been a dream
The black glass coffin
Scones with tears
Goodbyes with no ends
Catholic carol songs
Destined solemnities
Silences in uncertainties
Reality of my days
Dejection in my affections
My citadel had fallen
Territory exposed
Bare barren deserted grounds
No rains to soften the earth
Licence the lotus to bloom
Unfulfilled void
And still the river flows

About the Author

Anna Kapungu has a BA in Hotel Management has been
published in several print and online publications, including
Jonah, The Opiate, Aaduna, Mystic Blue Review ,Halcyone,
Adelaide, and Blazevox.

173

SAUDADES

by Daniela Vecchia

Samba Saudades

From top of floats I feel your lips so fresh and fake
I throw you flowers It is false memory
Sway my hip in the air I fear your beard scratching my back
Turn my back Playing with me
Turn my head Long for your arms,
And send you a kiss: sweet and bad
a hurtful kiss.
Mad harmony.
Those were the last nightsin November
Iicks on my breasts How could I not?
Dribbles in bed I loved you, idiot.
Mayhem in tender.
My heart’s in shock.
Goal, pretender. My heart is stunned.

And when you feel I was left with a bloat stuck in my throat.
The blues in Brazil (It was my heart).
Don’ fetch your guitar “fender” I regret our love.
Do not make a jam
Turn straight to samba I liked your body
Jazzman. I despise your soul

But should I miss your hug?

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CACHAÇA Revista Literária Adelaide

CACHAÇA YOU São Paulo
WICKED DRINK: CACHAÇA
VIRUS, PC VIRUS I heard you are leaving.
ADDICTION I can’t sleep, São Paulo neither.
CONTRADICTION The door won’t open
LOVE lights come in through the window.
MUCH LOVE Millions and millions of hearts
DEAD outside are living too.
OR ALMOST THAT
FALL They say you’re wasted.
FAULT AND BLISS I’m just in the living room
CURSED MISHAP being part of the city
PICTURES I MISS Huge and rich and poor and ugly and pretty.
DANCE STEP It’s so pretty that when you are gone
STEP BACK you close your eyes
FAKE SHINE you’ll think it’s a lie.
BUT SHINE
TIMES WHEN WE KISSED I am devastated
STILL PERVADE Glued to the site where life has just placed me.
THE LOVE WE MADE I’m an empty chipped statue in
REFLECTS the human community.
THE DAY WE MET It’s my apartment, it was our home.
BY CHANCE But living in São Paulo, I won’t be alone.
AND CHANGED OURFATE, Millions and millions of hearts
MEANwhile. and desires come along.

I am all messed up.
I look at the gray sky where the
airplanes are moving
Then there will be you hovering
upon our building.
The moon is full behind clouds
I just am stuck,
but I guess saying goodbye to São Paulo:
that will hurt.

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Jabuticabas

Internal like the intimacy
between Earth and moon
The way the moon is part of the sky
As if it were only sky
its kernel
Its origin and end
and itself
Though the moon lies while lies above
We all depend on truth to exist

As restless as things being born:
Your eyes
Condensed night
Against the spread of your white skin
The opposite, likewise
By contrast, fierce combat
I fight
In your jabuticaba eyes.

About the Author
Daniela Vecchia lives in Sao Paulo. She teaches English
though she majored in Philosophy.

176

ERASE THE
BROKEN THINGS

by Sarah Stephens

Lie with me in this moment

sink into the book of me
where all my stories wait to be told. Take out the pages
and read–

It’s not quite Spring here, where Winter lags in the heat
and humidity of our bodies in this haven,
the open waiting universe where I want you to escape

with me, defeat darkness and demons, they will penetrate
our humanness. I tell you–

All my demons are on the inside.

You know I believe in heaven and hell–this hell, time spent
fighting the current toward the winter solstice, where I mark the light
with fingers in the air, ticking the time– tilting to the highest

point of daylight– That’s no way to live you say, when burying
your fingers into my sense of time and space. Waiting
is death– drowning in the time between revelries and wrangling

spirits, in the chasm of skin and sinew and organ and cell. I want
to plunge into these stories, learn secrets, translate the meaning–

in a way you can understand.

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I ask you again, to lie with me– I’ve opened
the book to the page I hope you will peruse with delicate
fingers, fathom this craving to be felt outside a passionate

embrace. I hunger for the taste of being known, intimately
not chastely, not romantically, not by the flush of skin we’ve
already tasted. In this space I lift the impregnable veil between

who I am and who I appear to be, who you want me
to be and who I fear I am. All this to say–

I need to be seen.

Erase the Broken Things a love song. The tingling of sleep in my limbs
a deadening, anesthesia to my pain,
The troubadour of broken things numbing memories of my lover, they choke
plays havoc with the veins that line my skull
beats the drum to deafen pretty dreams. life from all I’ve planted, he
is the overgrown and neglected plot.
I too take my waking slow. Like embers I swell with need to be stroked
graying beneath the morning dew.
When I blow, the song bursts and plucked and loved well,
left to dry in the sun
lighting the morning, igniting the chords streaming through the blinds.
that needle low in my spine. It bathes me alone
A woeful beating, to sow what’s left in bed, with need to erase broken things.

of sleep deep into my body, where
I carry it with me. The pills I swallow are
an ode to the aching I bellow, as I would

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Dandelions Revista Literária Adelaide
Quicksand

The front porch of my Mother’s home faces I open the door to my house and fall slowly,
a small lake, where I sit on a wicker chair slowly, I am pulled under into
watching the birds mate, their songs social media quicksand
become a muse to the maple tree budding red where the free exchange of ideas
sprouting in time to the call of geese nesting should flourish. I find
in secret, where men can’t disrupt a wasteland swallows me, swallows
the life they are called to create. me whole with words
It’s Easter and I feel the call of God that find and feed suppressed
as the wind moves the branches hate and judgements
and the sun brings green I wish were no longer part of
to the surface of the red on the maple. our make-up. We create
I am reborn in the light of the sun as it moves fictionalized personas who forget–
from behind the house to cover me Anger feels good but cultivates little else.
in grace, in quiet contemplation of the clouds
clearing after mid-day, I am stirred from rest In this glass house with the broken windows
beckoned, like the geese to birth from broken, scattered on the floor, we forget the most basic
a peace that feels like the divine principles of peace–
making me anew, growing inside the temper Darkness cannot drive out darkness.
of my body is the seed He spread
like dandelions. We want only We have the dignity to detonate deeper love,
the colors we cultivate, but the wind to clear shadows of politics
blows, and the yard flowers yellow opinion and race, instead
every spring in our landscape. we are pulled under, we
suffocate in apathy, turn
black and blue in the belly of the beast where
peaceful protests become riots
and friends become
enemies, where the darkness covers our eyes
and we miss– Unique and beautiful differences
that make us whole.

We need only turn on the light,
open the window, throw
a rope into the quicksand, pull
free basic humanity and see–
Black and white are not the grains
of sand pulling us under.
God, religion, sexual orientation,
gender, do not generate hate,

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these labels do not divide us, we Seven Bends the Road to Seven on My Way Home
are divided by judgement
by stereotypes, by words and To those who live on the streets of Wilmington
actions that don’t follow
the basic tenets of humanity– After Galway Kinnell’s “Under the Maud Moon”
Love thy neighbor… do unto
others… speak from love. 1.

The way home
is this slick path
of dry tinder–
solemn faces, sullied clothes,
in rain and sunshine, where homeless
men and women
take over corners
Squatted icons like fiberglass slivers
under skin, itch
the space filled by Hunger

Rich beads fog my sight,
my window rises
and I fail
the good Samaritan

Stop me
marshal these dripping tongues,
wagging sharpy signs, and waging
signs for me,
a monumental war
in minutes drug for hours
and days
only to keep holding space
occupied by my reflections

Small fires
rain illumination in

the dark
drops that mirror down to force inside
the sun, blinding through windshield
wiper’s, a steady confrontation between
seeing signs of homelessness or greed

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in the glint peeking past clouds romanticize the park
dilating my pupil, dilation bench, a love note
reshaping constriction howling toward me as I pass
H u n g r y.
of my sight, I squint
make sense of a word, Hungry, just Hungry 3.
Final drops of rain, break stoicism
to put out a few dollars, more, I round
more dollars, at every corner, corners cheeked by morning
Oleander and College, more dew to find my lady missing
at Dawson and 17th, more dollars, more words from the bench
Hungry Please Help marked by time
torn brown shrouds
2. of cloth

I pause at streetlights I look for new beginnings
fire reflected as the morning dove
to me from wet eyes of men, broods, sings
a single man, Help. Family, Hungry and cries settle over
The distance breaks on green wheels slapping wet
streets– Unwrapped, matted
I begin to sing hair, perched, my lady
If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning hovers outside omphalos
a song my father sang sitting waiting, the bus arrives
around campfires with my brothers and sisters she smiles
strumming his coveted Sigma, memory
still brings me ease 4.

I’m hungry for Next stoplight
moving on from houses another sign, Hungry
itch, yet somewhere a woman sits again, time slows
alone on a wooden bench, rain covered waits for me
Hefty bags borrowed from to meet eyes of a heroine thin
the heat of nearby homes man in fatigues, feeds borrowed
She sighs heavily, taking scraps to a dog
in the damp indifference no sign this time, just
of all who pass by, passersby hunger
take a second look and
she lies on her side and 5.
she’s covered in brown
sleeping bag covered by plastic My destination
glistening in the moonlit rain is a distant home,
streetlamp rays sparkle beyond my threshold

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is a cutter, I cut my own 7.
skin to stop the pain
of another It turns cold
bend, another bowed head later in the south
another Hungry this year, sprouts more
grim in grimy hands Hungry
and God faces on the corner
Bless begging with their cardboard Hunger
bending to Hungry
6. mouths open, panhandle
God,
In the eye Bless You
of hunger, the world voiced in my own hunger
is hungry. In homeless Hungry, Please
eyes, the world Hungry
home, in celestial eyes, Hungry
Like good intentions in the eyes of God, Hell-
paved Samaritans
forgot lessons,
how to love, to feed
the Hungry

About the Author

Sarah J. Stephens lives and writes in the coastal town of
Wilmington, North Carolina. She is a MFA candidate in
poetry at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
In addition to publishing in a variety of journals, her first
chapbook, Where All the Birds Are Dancing, was released
in October 2020 by Finishing Line Press.

182

MOON GIRL

by Lora Robinson

bitters and rye moon girl

I was the sandcastle dream you built by the bay high arched
brackish little Betty, jetty mouth shameless
spewing toward the only cloud in August shave off your eyebrows
Savannah sazerac, lemon rinds
your slant rhymes and go home-
your question-marked pain: there is no shield that can save you from
it’s just a stinging in your neck. yourself.
by morning,
they’ll be scraping you off the streets. you are silver tongued
bearer of your own blade,
impaled on every glowing halo
circling back through you-

do not hide your dark, your scales
do not chimney sweep your soot
spread it over, until everything is grey-

you will always be a storm
no matter where you touch down.

a thousand thousand bonfires
and wax-dripping naked rituals
are but lighthouses,

your brown bay windows
calling to the sea once more-
it has always claimed what it is owed.

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[redacted]

indigo child, son of the morning
Apollonian smile with a fear of mortal friction, reel me in before I splinter off this dock-

(pull me close, kiss me hard)
heureux, heureux à en mourir
golden archerfish, shoot me down from this Dionysian
dangle before my lips lift-off,
I’m looking for water on Mars-
walk me home
your wings, favrile, ingrained iridescence
hum with mine, Tiffany-stained,
blueing all your ambient light.

alouette, gentille alouette, I will pluck you,
little opalescent time traveler,

turn you to cicada songs wrapped
around a Southern Victorian, slide

fingers across wallpaper palms, read
your eternal vines
(you are everything, everything)
la lumière de toutes les lumières

glide mercurial across
hardwood, and tile

I, the revenant shade in your euphoric art,
double irises judge me the continuum-

(I think) I love you,

tu me manques

you, the place I was meant to find again-

sunken, bone deep

marrow and oxygen-

you pattern me no paper doll, just suited to my skin

bellflowered and swaybacked-

flow immensely cheek to cheek,

sapphire surround

tailored tongue favorite couturier

you.

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About the Author

Lora Robinson is a poet and technical writer based in Baltimore, MD. Her poetry has been
previously published in Scarab and DREICH Magazine, and her first poetry collection will be
released in spring/summer 2021 with akinoga press.

185

SMILE THROUGH IT

by Michael Duke

Untitled

Down under the house, I am not a person, but a temporary ghost.
I’m smoking my useless time. This space feels like a bunker’s tomb.
Thoughts blurry in my mind’s eye, I wrestle with my own mind.
I’m a little high, I say to no one, and daydream of an earlier timeline.
She locked the door and then she smiled. My feelings were wild.
A heightened shirt, fallen pants, we rolled around in the naked dance.
They banged against the door because we’re fucking on the bathroom floor.
“It’s my party, I’ll do what I want” she said right before she yelled, “OH FUCK!”
There was no kiss as we depart and a guy shoves past me with a loud fart.
She vanished into the drunken crowd. Everyone was talking a little too loud.
And as I fixed the belt around my thin waist, my thoughts return me to my empty place.

Consider Him a Soiled Item

Rats in the trees, birds on the ground
Smoke in the air, silence abounds
I open my lungs on a gray clouded, sunny day
Thinking about drugs & money
In affectionate ways
Fucking-A
More Garbage today
I find a staple with my foot
Don’t have it, but could use some ecstasy
I understood finiteness of youth
Specifically mine

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Mostly I sit around my place
With the Grim Reaper and the grind
Outside gazing upon the blurry tree
Is it it or is it me
Dry leaves blowing upwards on this autumn day
Turns the sky all sorts of colors beside gray
I use to be impatient for my turn
Perhaps I’ll be more eloquent stuffed in an urn

Smile Through It
Skull tap
Lovely hammer
Blood on the handle
Staring straight
Into the camera

About the Author
Michael Duke is a writer living in greater Los Angeles.

187

CHOIR OF ONE

by Pavel Sfera

Lighthouses for driftwood

what if night was a curtain hardly a casualty
you should have pulled it aside just an earful for the fish
a way long time ago to hear a soloist adagio heart stop
perhaps, you can see out without your glasses
a universe of a world untouchable but it’s in dreams
even the moon needs to sleep you look for answers
maybe that’s why there’s a dark side you’re awake somewhere there
we never get to see somewhere you are awake
so much of uncertain slumber awake you are somewhere
stories are you somewhere awake
imaginations or are you just somewhere
endless as any telescope reaching beyond
10 million times the eyes can see everything is a garden
nightmares are for awoken ones it seems everything is a relationship
footsteps sliding everything is a poem
roots of your language everything says something
bile est sonum custodiunt everything brings you to silence
reverberations in speculo everything has light
et somnia pro vobis even when you can’t see

what if you swam across the oceans you look to make sense
any of them of what
passing all ships of it all
who can’t see you what is it
other than a storiless driftwood what is all
plastic ready to choke you it is what
the artificial intelligence of the seas is it
you becoming a modern statistic what

188

Revista Literária Adelaide

even in the darkness there is light Choir of one
there is no darkness in light
Some days you can’t people
there windows need washing so you rediscover music
clearly to hear your own heart beat
the world looks different mostly thumping
mostly

romance flows
eyes closed on the pillow
volumes slightly higher
you tune out
to tune in
invisible
singing in the back row
the choir
nobody knows you’re there
that’s the point

some days you don’t people
breathing
for yourself
a blossom erupts
your body the garden
the reconciliation
all is your brother
waiting for the campfire songs
layering the waves of sound

till then
people don’t people

About the Author
Pavel Sfera is a refugee from the former Yugoslavia.

189

CHURCH BRICK

by Terry Brinkman

Death by Arsenic Fallen Socks

You heard them say death by Arsenic Tripping over her fallen socks
Dreaming of Candy Corn lanky simpleton Old customer burning with fever of pox
One Two Three sillies Arithmetic Hearse road clad in mourning letch
Her never things list high Bride’s noble to noble wrinkle
Irishman’s new bed his Coffin Palace Left field waiting for a ball to catch
Invented a lovely briber horrify Palmed painted was a charming twinkle
She died Must be dammed unpleasant pie Climbing Lych-gate her ball fetch
Ardent black opal Chalice Stopping at Tram Tracks to tinkle

Church Brick After the Decay

Eulogy behind a stack of Church Brick Dumpster for Wreaths after the decay
Overhead a double shears clipping sun Why am sitting on some hard sided box?
An open Coffin to lay that’s Poet’s skeleton In the distance horse’s hoofs skipping on rocks
A Beaver chewing on a green stick She watched me through the window bay
She dreamt of death by Arsenic Too sad for yesterday’s Bouquet
Dreaming of March not July lanky simpleton Wise child who hides her own Fox
Firth things don’t add-up sillies Arithmetic Her ankles covered with fallen socks
Her last thing always came first Sneezing with fever of hay

190

THAT DAY

by Girard Tournesol

Standing Dead Reaching

I stand reckoning There is a big place above the sky Gods
the struggle of distance between we made romp there with the moon who
me and standing calls down to us I’m right here on thehill
dead timbers Tall slender mo’ai with the trees where the wind whispers
gray and silent I listen Remember when you flew with me
The field to the wetlands hums Starbursts stretching between falls of life and remember
of stingers flit between wild when you played jacks laughing like lunatics
flowers I hear voices never keeping score red orb motionless
from the hill beyond mingled with wood thrush in the air at a trillion-trillion calculations
Locks of curly shade hint of her hair I hear what per second hand hot with lightning striking
cannot be known Wonder will there be food a jack only to look up and remember reaching
How are youth and wisdom
reconciled What will be
my relationship with fire I see
the sunset like a blind
date where she’ll stand me up
straight and stiff and I
will show her the blankness between stars

191

That Day Adelaide Literary Magazine
Balaclava Bray

There were Canada geese Red- First snowfall of the year
necked Grebe and Wood Duck I grab my balaclava and head to the barn
as I flew into the river pretending I’m a whale breaching
I met my wife and children the waves Forceful
We swam in water filled with spout a geyser of salty breath I wonder
diamonds and fast fish if I were in town
At sunset we huddled together in whether the mask is worn over
our nest under the moving lights or under the balaclava
In my dreams I was a man who didn’t The horses nicker
catch any fast fish that day I nicker back in whale song
Last summer’s Timothy and Alfalfa keep
them alive “They” have not proven horses
can get sick and die from “it”
I begin to fantasize, daydreaming I’m riding
the mare bareback full gallop across
a stretch
of hedonistic beach in Jamaica I’ve been late
for this orgy my whole life Her hooves thrum
the surf until she stops
at the body of a beached whale At first
I want to ride around
The mare insists I dismount
Go to the whale It is
choking on discarded masks
I pull one after another from its blowhole

About the Author

Girard Tournesol has had a largely private poetry practice
for 45 years. He’s self-published two books of poetry
and appears as a regular contributor in several regional
literary magazines, The Watershed Journal, Tobeco, and
Bridges Literary Journal. As a member of The Pennsylvania
Poet’s Society, his work is regularly featured in
PENNESSENCE magazine. Additionally, his poetry has been
published online at Dark Horse Appalachia, The Indiana
Gazette and North/South Appalachia. Girard occasionally
appears as a street poet busking for local charities.

192

WANTING

by Lynette Thorstensen

Mythic Proportions

my mother wanted a life writ large
a life of shattering revelations
a long way from where she was born
and although she found all too briefly her fifteen minutes of fame
she never recovered from this dubious notoriety

how strange then, that she paid so little attention to her love affairs
notably one, Gallic and grand
of mythic proportions

my mother was not thanked for this provocation
uncomfortable reckonings of too many mediocre marriages
muddling along, at best

messages of searing cruelty were directed her way,
and although my mother was loved
with more perseverance and pain than most could stand

she failed to see how aghast we all were
she thought nothing of spiders or red-bellied black snakes
she admired their beauty and allowed them on their way
frustrated suitors

somehow my mother smelt the hail
saw the ravine’s edge before any of us

the beetroot soup she served us in perfect white porcelain
derided her grimy surroundings,
the mildewed walls of many an endless day

193

Adelaide Literary Magazine
now, I, my mother’s child
condemned, reach for her prophesies of grandeur,
her gigantic, impossible love.

Gamma Ray Globular Cluster

an enviable existence as a golden child
broken some years later by feeling a little wobbly today

her father dies and twenty million stars flicker out
her mother marries a French astronomer

her brother rebels and is sent to boarding school
only to be wildly happy in Singapore

she no longer sleeps but wonders a great deal about the world
euphoric slivers of mania enter the story about here

and it’s glorious
she is in fusion burn-out

she is scheduled
she doesn’t care because only she
understands the deafening, effervescent purpose of the universe

gently, stupidly, she is propelled back into the tedium of an ordinary old life

nothing will ever be as fine again

194

Revista Literária Adelaide
On leaving the sunburnt country

In a silver bird with a red kangaroo tail, seated, belted and numb, no,
more cauterised really,

far below I see broken ochre trails, spindly, sparse,
nameless

I see a vast, burnt land and
too many souls thrown away, instead of gathered up and held to the breast.

Lemon myrtle, mulga, sunny wattle, hop bush and she-oak,
old women’s healing, I could have used more of that.

Down there are my children, a son and a daughter, born in this harsh place.
They are in a bus, in their grubby yellow and brown uniforms

rumbling
and soon, when their father dies,

I will unroot them like tumble weed, bring them to mountains
and though this country made me a citizen, one of ‘ours’, one of ‘yours’,

I chose old stones and new love, walking away from bedrock,
this was unpardonable,

at first, Australia, you were good to me, boundless even
how quickly you turned.

195

Adelaide Literary Magazine
On the ending of a thirty-nine year friendship

I thought our friendship the hearth of the farmhouse, but you were the red coal that burnt the rug,
you should have been a hearty soup, but you were as bitter as unpeeled carrot.

I thought of you as an efficient hospital, you were the bug resisting penicillin,
you were meant to be the lighthouse, but instead chose the wrecked herring boat down below.

I dreamed of skipping with you through the Milky Way, but you were the hurtling asteroid,
you could have been the apple tree, but you summoned the hissing serpent.

I thought our friendship the full taxi rank, you were the passenger with the knife,
I saw you as the opening night of a bold new play, you were the damning critic.

We could have sparkled on a rooftop, you drugged me with the cocktail,
I thought you my ocean beach, but you were the devious rip tide,
I worshipped you as the Titanic, it turns out you were the iceberg.

Then the lifeboats came, a wonder drug became affordable,
the lighthouse keeper retired, bought a property and grew camelias,
the universe expanded, the garden of paradise took on a different hue,
the armchairs beckoned, more wood was cut,
a neighbour unexpectedly gave me a lift, we a found a pretty little cottage,
swam in the waters of Mystery Bay,
you were forgiven if not forgotten and sweet carrot cake was eaten.

196

Revista Literária Adelaide

Wanting

There are those grey tinge mornings, hiding a salmon pink or even violet dawn, the
bruised skies under which we find ourselves not knowing what to do next.

There are those walks in the forest, where the sun licks the damp moss and we
catch our breath and we remember how that feels, the catch of your breath, your
mouth dropping open in an ‘o’, even if it is only a meagre ‘o’, it is still an ‘o’.

There are the mornings when you decide what to wear, and it all works, a shimmering
fabric, shoes that are not scuffed and just might be up to the job of striding out.

There are other mornings, where the swallows you painted, instead
of soaring, are botched, anchored on a page.

Do you not feel better when you’re tied down? Bound to your love, to their smell captured
in a shirt, to the arch of an eyebrow, to the lines caught in the creases of their eyes?

Is it for this we are found wanting?

About the Author

Lynette Thorstensen is a New Zealander, poet and visual
artist living the Auvergne, France. Her poems have been
published in the United Kingdom, Australia and New
Zealand notably in PN Review, Southerly magazine, Landfall
and Takahe journals. She is working on a first collection to
be published in French and English by Editions Terre & Ciel
in early 2021.

197

ORBIT

by Aracelly Campo

Child

by Aracelly P. Campo (a.k.a. Bones)
Legends of the heavens

Teach me the witchcraft of understanding
The Universe with a poetic verse
In the mystic arms of nature

I shall journey to an Eden of harmony and magical beginnings
My birth will evolve in swirls of anticipation and taste the power of the Titans

Fairy tales and unicorns will bring me back to the child I once was
Allow my essence to roam among the beasts of the earth
Do not let evil swallow me whole
Ideals I seek to keep on the surface of my skin
Spin me around in a sphere of magical spells
With the roots of my feet penetrating the ground
Linked to all beings yet separate by my particular form
Ecstasy and pain are opposites but the same

The range which I taste the cruelty and kindness of life’s game
Fearing not their contrasting elements

For they interpret but they do not define what lies behind

198