Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 8, July 2017

Again and again you begin each night Arm over arm you expect
as if this faucet climbs only in the dark the way a child plays with sand
will widen its slow turn though once inside this graveyard

to reach the sink with clouds then settle all that’s left from the ocean
as seawater, wait for rain to strike are the pilings holding on
shatter and along the same path leaning against that gate

return as lightning from a fever where death came into this world
that’s not a flower, still trembling as a wooden handle –you expect
the way her breasts curved to carry away the Earth it knows about.

are collecting dew –your hands Even without a caress its petals
are never wet enough wait, try more red than usual
and around your chest the scent then sweets, sent along with the scent

splashes over the great weight from the latest hillside till one grave
you’re breathing in blossoms before the others
–what keeps you in the air and you are at last alone

is the full light from stars beside a single afternoon, holding on
kept cold under running water though your shadow is already airborne
draining their smoke for the surface rising out the Earth as moonlight

stretching out, lifting the Earth still warm on your lips, impatient
closer and closer as if once the way a headstone is no longer carried
you had something in half to put back. once it turns full length to embrace

lift your arms around it, pressing them
against its breasts, its lifeless throat
for whispers, for kisses and bitter air.

249

TURN AWAY

Andy J. Hale

Tears of Stone Saga – A Rose Tattoo

Arrival in the valley of the sun The snow falls in Eden
A bowl of mountains burning As the waterfall sits by the stream
A drink of water filled with fire The waves dance in the water
For my flower of the prairie As I hand you a rose tattoo

If you want me to cry My blood is in the rose
Tell me to cry That lives by the stream
Don’t force me into tears Our time is held by a grain of sand
Tears of stone As I hand you a rose tattoo

The ocean waves to the children of summer It’s all about your story
Do you hear the silence of the moon? That hides behind the past
We’ll feast between the two horizons It’s all about what is said in the stars
When I speak to the sky for you As I hand you a rose tattoo

If you want me to cry Its midnight by the waterfall
Tell me to cry As I hand you a rose tattoo
Don’t force me into tears Its midnight by the waterfall
Tears of stone As I hand you a rose tattoo
Its midnight by the waterfall
“Tears of Stone” As I hand you a rose tattoo

250

Silhouette Echo Chamber

Three arrows fly in single file The light came on through his window
The wind blows in waves of abundance Anger!
A presence on the television
Here comes their silhouette! He stood on the corner of Appion Way

Revolution I don’t have the thirst for killing

The sun is setting in the West Echo Chamber
Is it voiding the East of light?
Does it equate to the night being evil? All beneath a burning heaven
Or only void of light? A marriage to bury this hell
7 billion men in my garden
…until the Earth has completed one revolution!
And on the cover a dandelion

Echo Chamber

Shut the door on the darkness
What the hell is happening here?
Destroy the enemy within yourself

And walk out the door alone

Echo Chamber

About the Author:

Andy J Hale is the author of the book Turn Away. He has his
degree in Electronic Engineering and is a novice Inventor. He
is an aspiring singer with a passion for music. Currently, he is
working on the sequel to Turn Away, while developing a
screenplay. In his free time, he enjoys the outdoors and
physical fitness.

251

THE WIDOW’S SON

Sandra Kolankiewicz

The Widow’s Son Aunt Ann

His mother is waiting in the doorway, Even nurses feared her swollen body.
an embarrassing silhouette, for all The neighbors brought balloons
but he repudiate their mother in and left quickly.
the attempt to turn themselves into men Each night her husband strolled through the
before their voices crack, looking for the automatic doors,
hair on the chest or at the pubis, this slapping a check book against his palm.
rejection of female comfort, for love She lost her hair and her breasts.
will do little for them in the world of Visits were limited, as if cancer were
money, even if they end up at a catching,
desk. Though they’ll tease him later, he answers droplets of a sneeze: careful,
her from the dark, dragging his sled behind, don’t drink from that cup.
content to do whatever she asks, for A phone call from Houston was all I gave
he considers the hats and mittens dried her.
on the heating vents overnight, the smell Stopped between planes, I had drinks and
of the bedroom in the morning with its some quarters, promised, but never wrote.
deep sighs, her going downstairs first, where the
light is, always doing, never sitting,
resting only between the short hours of
turning out the lamp and feeling for her
glasses on the bed stand in the dark.

252

Translocating at the Beach

It never would have happened if we weren't
at the beach. After several glasses

of wine adults lose track, then assure
themselves they did not recently blunder

a telling meeting or give view to fears.
The unwelcome shift in place continues

repeating itself, ignored like a fish
on the table when everyone’s sated,

or the blushed darkness of someone too young
stepping from the shower on a morning

you might be so hungry the food in the
dog bowl appeals. We jump in and out, all

periphery, recognizing even
the places to which we will never go.

About the Author:
Over 300 of Sandra Kolankiewicz’s poems and stories have ap-
peared in reviews and anthologies, most recently in New World
Writing, BlazeVox, Gargoyle, Prairie Schooner, Fifth Wednesday,
ArGiLo, Prick of the Spindle, Per Contra, and Pif. Turning Inside
Out won the 2008 fall Black River contest at Black Lawrence
Press. In 2014, Finishing Line Press published The Way You Will
Go and released Lost In Transition in March 2017. When I Fell, a
novel with 76 color illustrations by Kathy Skerritt, is available
from Web-e-Books.

253

VISITOR

Jessica Alverson

Half Truths

She told her parents
they were going to the movies.
He picked her up in his Dad’s Chevy,
honking twice from the driveway
she ran out to meet him.
He drove her to the parking lot

Where Lee and Stan
And all the other townies
Drank warm beer on tailgates
Taking bets
on who could chug the fastest
Taking bets
on who could throw the can the farthest
Taking bets
on who could get Terri Mason
In the backseat first.
He found a spot
and shifted the Chevy
into park
left the radio on

“Wait here,” he patted her leg. She smoothed her skirt.

Through the windshield
she stared at the endless pavement before her.
Counted security lights
like rosary beads.
Each breathe
a tiny prayer.

254

The moon is a shadow in the blue sky Visitor

Grey-white apparition looming Skin
In darkness as bumpy as an avocado
It will be light at the whim of winter
or the felt presence
Same neighborhood walk of a ghost.
Buildings
Streets A memory-
Sidewalk carrier of 1000 paths
that presses the nerves
The west coast music of 1990s like a doorbell
Tells my body to walk and enters
Tells my mind to write before you can answer
Tells the hand to tell the pen it stands there
with its luggage
“Write about the moon” returning from its holiday
from behind the ribcage
So I write-
“The moon is a shadow in the blue sky” or
in the hot sun of a patio
smelling of onions from behind the eyes
buzzing with flies longing for semblance
before it turns
and drifts away
into the dark
and you remember
all the other things
you have to do
like laundry
or shopping.

About the Author:

Jessica Alverson has been a poet and writer for most of her life and is currently working as a
behavior analyst helping individuals with challenging behavior and autism reach their maximum
potential. She has published poems in Damselfly Press and in the Nourishment for the Spirit: A
Collection of Poems and Short Reflections and Live Poets Society of NJ American: High School Poets
Regional Winners Winter 2000. She is grateful to have been an active member of a writing group
over the past 9 years that has provided continual support and encouragement. When she’s not
writing, Jessica enjoys birding, traveling to new places, hiking, disc golf, and strategic board games.

255

CHASM

Lisa Brognano

CHASM CROSS THE WOOD SO

He yells to her over Generous clear flow, wooden watering pail;
Big bank of hills and Deep purple flowers drink. Tweedle-twaddle,
Sees nothing but blunt Water drips across old Patty’s homemade lattice.
Brown banks and a snake
River below. Neighbors say it takes an authentic rustic trusting
Man to cross the skinny wood so—after all it is
She hears Tom and from Coon River Junction.
Her ledge moves a little,
Sees the river and some grass. Patty makes lattice because he’s so good at it and
He’s got nothing else to do but cross the wood so.
He strains and pivots, parting
The grass. She remains still A&B
And pale, swallows some air,
As she sees him climb over Sound comes from a button-like boom;
The flow of the river where Earth comes from a chamber-tucked lump;
The rocks lay. He won’t stay Sight comes from a quick circle whirling;
Long, he has to get back. Touch comes from fine flannel nooks;
Smell is neutral, coming from last year’s
Prize-winning rainwater.

256

THE PRIMORDIAL WATCH ODE TO DOWN BELOW

I inquired: “Cave man, what time is it?” Birds slap into the sky dense
He wound up his club . . . and struck my watch. Three Shrugged up into blue fade on blue
Stones from the cave’s ledge fell into a pit. They are watched and shot.

I told him not to worry his wit, Generally, songbirds moan.
But I must count the time passed under this tree. Big broad moans echo into
I inquired: “Cave man, what time is it?” Vast high hollow.

When he punches his time card to quit Brown birds borrow their sorrow
Work at the Bow and Arrow Shop, then he will see. While they bicker, soar and stagger.
Stones from the cave’s ledge fell into a pit,
Generally, a mountain crevasse is
Only two descended this time. Both split A blessing, a sweet sort of refuge
And shattered—like my watch, unnecessarily. A place to die, beauty burial, aerial
I inquired: “Cave man, what time is it?” View of multitude of treetops, oh
Soothing deathbed, oh high bench,
Perhaps midnight, as that counterfeit Oh shooter down below.
Clock, the moon, looms above so predictably.
Stones from the cave’s ledge fell into a pit,

Though solely one this time: no compatriots
To break the fall or end the monotony . . .
I inquired: “Cave man, what time is it?”
Stones from the cave’s ledge fell into a pit.

About the Author:
Lisa Brognano has two master’s degrees, one in English and
one in Art. She has taught high school English and Art. Fifteen
of her poems and seventeen of her articles on the arts have
been published. Currently, she lives with her husband in New
York.

257

WHO AM I

Emily Eigenheer

I Am My Own Army

My name is not singular,
It is not a single entity,
Rather a collection of names that have been acquired over time.
I come from two very different people,
The wolf and the lamb.
I am strong,
I am my own army.

I love the funky old rhythms of the 60’s,
And the feeling of animals’ fur as it brushes against my skin.
I used to think that conformity was the way to success,
And that unique wasn’t unique,
And being weird was undesirable.
Now I realize conformity breeds contempt,
Even more so than familiarity.
I know now that I am me,
And there will never be another me,
Because I am my own army.

I was told that being a nerd was not a bad thing,
And that my last name was more than an unpronounceable jumble of letters.
I discovered that Eigenheer actually means something,
I discovered that it meant ‘own army’.

258

( I Am My Own Army— cont.)

I am a scorpion,
But a lion lives inside me.
My sting can be deadly,
But it is always well-deserved.
I am strong both mentally and physically,
I am not afraid to speak my views nor to argue with the views of others.
I have deep brown eyes that hide a tornado of thoughts,
But I live in the eye of the storm.

If my hands could talk,
They would say feel everything.
Let it all in and hold nothing back.
Touch the plants and animals that surround you,
Run your fingers over the skin of the people you love,
And realize that your hands belong to you and no one else.

My forehead reads own army,
And my heart is fueled by a raging fire.
That fire fuels the war brewing inside of me,
Struggles versus remedies,
Society versus Individuality,
Me versus Them.

It doesn’t matter the battle,
Nor the two combatants,
All that matters is that one of them is me,
Fighting for myself and no one else,
Because I am my own army.

259

We Can Make A Difference

I can make a difference,
But so can you.
We can travel the world,
There’s so much to do.

World hunger and sickness,
Instead of love and picnics.
War and violence,
Why has peace been silenced?

I can make a difference,
One step at a time.
Start small and end large,
Maybe one day I’ll be in charge.

You can make a difference,
Just like me,
The world can make sense,
We can set it free.

If you’re ever feeling down,
And think the world is devoid of common sense,
Remember these words:
We can make difference.

But How?
I’ll start with random compliments,
Because positivity is so hard to come by.
A little kindness and confidence,
Just might keep our hopes alive.

Once I go to college,
And my adult life finally starts,
I’ll soak up all the knowledge,
And use it to cure broken hearts.

Nursing is my future,
Helping people will be my job.
Assisting in sewing sutures,
And holding the loved ones who sob.

I can and will make a difference,
I promise to continue to glow,
And to spread and cultivate benevolence,
Everywhere I go.

260

Who Am I?

I am the sexy one,
The mysterious anomaly.
People say that from my problems I run,
But I have by far the best apologies.

I was born stubborn,
And to this day won't budge,
It seems I've fallen into a pattern
Of never giving up a grudge.

Have you figured it out yet?
Which one I am,
Of the twelve signs we know of,
Am I the wolf or the lamb?

Maybe I'm Aries,
I'm certainly stubborn enough.
But what about Pisces?
My intense feelings aren't just a bluff.

Pluto rules me,
Alongside Mars.
And to a certain degree,
They're the reason I'm bizarre.

I carry a sting,
But don't be frightened,
None who are undeserving,
Receive my painful stipend.

I'll leave you now to figure it out,
But I think by now,
There is no doubt.
What am I?

About the Author:
Emily Eigenheer is a newly graduated high school senior who is
planning to attend American River College in the fall. After obtain-
ing an Associate's Degree in General Sciences, she plans to attend
nursing school in San Francisco to later become a pediatric nurse
practitioner. She presently writes poetry recreationally, but hopes
to eventually develop writing into a professional hobby.

261

SACRIFICE

Georgia Eugenides

at the base of the chair lift, you refused to ride,
(whispering, “i’m scared of heights,” into the folds of my ritzy sweater)
and when we were together,
we kept our feet firmly on the ground.

i wrote your name at the top of a ferris wheel in a
pink arrow heart
as you stood on the frozen grass,
and stared at your shoes like they were your favorite song.

on the sidewalks of foreign streets, i spied a fleeting smile
as you admitted that you didn’t want us to be temporary—
that you didn't want to us fizzle out
like summer turning into fall.

we couldn’t take the stairs and we couldn't doze on my brownstone roof;
i realized that sacrifice was necessary for perseverance and
when you thought you would fall,
i refrained from reaching for the sky.

you spoke to me less and less
for three whole years,
and i began to worry that i made you as queasy
as balconies did.

i wonder if you ever glimpse my ghost between
the coffee stained pages of our old letters,
but i beam as i sit on my fire escape
thirty-two stories up,
suddenly aware of just how much i’ve missed the heights.

262

THE SUMMER I NEVER HAD

in the morning
i search for myself everywhere,
under ivory sheets that smell of cinnamon, between porcelain jars
on the highest kitchen shelf and among blue, crossed out
poems in my notebook

i wonder if the things i said to you
on that lofty balcony last September
were more like my morning coffee or the atmosphere;
if they washed swiftly through your teeth
or if they seeped into your skin to be mused over for an eternity

when we speak,
i worry that my tongue
will become a cigarette—
my blasé words the evaporating smoke

in the afternoon,
you search for yourself everywhere,
under the leather seats on your daffodil-tinted school bus,
between your constellation freckles and
among the tangled wildflowers sprouting from your beating chest

you wonder if the things you said to me
on windswept city streets
were more like your orange blossom tea or the sidewalk in front of my house;
if they filled my veins with the tired silence
or if they felt the slap of my bare feet as i shot home before twelve

when we speak,
you worry that your words
will become the homesick tide—
pulled away from our lukewarm shore
existing,
and never existing

263

VICIOUS CYCLE CURRICULUM

i. you opened your mouth as if from the frigid winters in Chicago,
you were about to speak, as if you i discovered the ability to mask
were about to confess that i was the shoreline heartbreak with snow.
and you were the wavering current—
reaching for me and then running away, from the myriad people
but the syllables tangled; rushing across those cold concrete streets,
the words got caught in your throat like pills and i learned that if human beings were novels
you forced them down without water. i would never
have the privilege of being read.
ii. before the end i realized
it’s the temporary things and from the seasons that turned the city
that hurt the most. solid white, then dotted it with green,
(a tight hug about to unfold. i realized that those
a bouquet of flowers on the side delicate wildflowers in Lincoln Park
of the road.) would keep on growing
even if
iii. when it was over we existed you refused to.
in the pause following
uncontrollable laughter, About the Author:
in the momentary silence Georgia Eugenides is an eighteen-year-old poet
after deafening applause dies down, who grew up in Berlin, Germany; Chicago, IL and
and in the fogged up car windows Princeton, NJ. Her first poem was published when
left behind by thunderstorms. she was nine years old. After spending the previ-
ous summer interning at The Paris Review,
iv. the embrace concluded and the she decided to submit some of her own work to
roses shriveled up various publications.
as you sipped your morning coffee
alone in a quiet room. between
the stillness of dawn and the amber
glow from fading streetlights,
you realized that
i was the poem

you were always trying to write.

264

LIVE LIFE BECAUSE

Samantha Kriney

You Were the Start, the Peace, My First Years

--after Barry White

My feet loved the touch of my mother’s womb until the
first note you sung to teach me how to control
my need for constant contact. But that lesson ended the
last time I smelled oak and salt and wine while
my grandmother could still twirl me without
everything stabbing her like the needles
and metal and flowers screwed into her. Or like

the time my mother’s car drove itself and I never got an
answer to if my imagination took me away so I could find a map
to your lyrics or if I had to learn where I lived so
all I knew wouldn’t be lost, like the time
my brain became turned around in your bubble pit jail cell where
dreams come from Presley’s voice over a loudspeaker and
you’re rotating your world in your hands. Shaping it so
my feet, this time, won’t hit the lava made from our
sun that my brothers have placed so I can’t get to
my room. Because in reality, I jump from the drifting
moon to learn how to face my fears of the dark for
my own sanity that can only be found in the way my brothers are
guiding me safely toward a burning object that’s actually a
star. But then I open up my eyes and I find myself on our couch.

265

Never never gonna give the memories
of cooking in your kitchen up

--after Barry White

And the chocolate croissants from Goshen’s farmer’s market.
Oh, and don’t forget the pimento cheese that soaks
my newfound southern tongue that my grandmother always had.
Dear Mimi, why did you let coyotes into our garden?
I’ll stay by the parsley and strawberries you chew just to
be able to watch my dead dog continue to protect my
right wrist. What I mean is: you scrub yourself with lotion and
here are the empty bottles I’ve kept for safety only
until the day my skin transforms to yours while
my forehead absorbs your wrinkles to mark your
dying and I’ll pretend it doesn’t add up. It started with this: the
day you swung me to Barry White. The one I don’t remember.

Live Life Because About the Author:

--after Coldplay Samantha Kriney is from Hilton Head Island,
SC. She recently graduated from South
The first time I swam was after I Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and
learned how a dolphin once used Humanities where she was able to focus on
her tail to push her still-born calf to her creative writing studies. In the fall, she
the surface so it could rule will attend Clemson University Honors
something other than the College to begin her bachelor's degree in
balloons that rise into the world Language and International Trade. Her
only to one day pop and fall in the seas. poetry has previously appeared in Litmus
I always thought that I would and Pull of the Tide.
have the one that could rise
above everything. Even when 266
you packed for Nashville, I
believed the boys and dad still gave
you the fights, the screams, the
nights where we only needed one word.

BREATHING

Bryan McCormack

Holus Bolus The father’s breathing steadied
to a light,
Depth is only one surface sputtering hum.
Removed— Outside his door, the son
Wind modulates into the foyer’s listened carefully, ingesting the hum’s
Unbalanced foundation; vibrations, producing another sputter
Further still in his eardrums.
Into the fireplace’s
Alcove and out It was like this before, when the son was a boy,
The chimney in reverse, and it continues its elevated, indeterminate path.
Because it wants to do it again.
Every night, the vigil took
The dimensions don’t compute, place to ensure the father continued
Top or bottom, but the depth, breathing.
The depth removes surface Had the hum ceased, the son had
In undulations because no clear plan
It wants to do it again. only that he, in his own way, willed
the moment
The hand that wavers, through his mind’s power
The foot that stalls— to imagine,
They want to do it again. replicate,
and cease breathing.

267

The electrician Bronze Bells

The electrician is Tiered hilltops
supposed to come at Etch out the landscape waiting
11:00— for the bronze bell.
The toggles
A procession walks over green
don’t work. Grass towards a craftsman’s arch.

Powerplant Rolling hills spin
Transmission lines Towards the arc,
Transformer. An escalator’s motor
Keeping them moving.
The leg bone is connected to the
Knee bone. The more they strut up
The switch loop is connected to the The hills, the longer the procession’s
Fuse box. Tail weaves, side to side,
Like an excited and nervous dog.
The charge goes round
Go round The tail rattles and a white dress
Floats against the summer’s
The circuit breaker. Breeze. Gently, she hovers,
Waiting to enter the arc of
How much radiation, Splicing hemispheres.
Do you suppose,
Electricity gives off?

Put a tuning fork in it—

How many
Watts, voltage?
The gauge reads Hz.
Enough to make my bones
glow, incandescent marrow.

268

Aerosolroses bloom About the Author:
In middle American
Households A native of Tampa, Florida, Bryan McCormack is a
Clinically proven to graduate of Eckerd College and the University of
Stave off South Florida. He currently teaches English at
Randolph Community College in Asheboro, North
CO2, carbon emissions, Carolina.
greenhouse gases, and
the smell of antiperspirant deodorants.

Triple action sanitizer
kills most germs.
Bonus:
50% more—
for easy access, place your
hands around
my neck and pop the cap.

Promotional marketing solutions
to problems that haven’t even been created yet.

A slash-
proof
knapsack and
RFID blocking
sunglasses to protect
against pin unauthorization,
recommended for safe travel.

To prove that you aren’t a robot,
type the following:

Aerosolroses bloom
Across middle America

269

BLUE GRASS

Gabriella Garofalo

God, why have you got so many souls? “I face the wind” some cried havoc,
“I act blue” others snapped back –
In the deepest blue of your existence All nice and good,
No, you think and shout, no – But she’s after trees,
Even stones fear beasts and kids Your gaze, fields –
Trees stifle branches Got a spare mercy, water? –
A red lamp measures time – For summer you’ll atone,
Time, lamps, avenues or deforming mirrors, For summer and anger, October’s evil seed –
What for if life shrieks colours Meanwhile hands and seas wake up
And you mistake them for light – Close to your breath,
Words? Well, they try to help She lights up eyes with demise
Against the sky glancing askew, As ever so dense, light –
But bungle it as ever, set themselves on fire, No more delay, Begetter,
Why bother if souls tense: Choose a different mud:
No lavender in the desert Let’s see, fathers keep falling in shreds,
No fresh seeds in the soil Words keep saying you betrayed
Fleeting moons whenever you think Stalking clouds, windswept sheets –
Voices undying – Even the burning bush spurns you,
Definitely not – Of course, you betrayed your father
To the harsh taste of death blue set the tone, And light shows up only in small shreds –
Now it clashes with your eyes: “No” is your answer, no to that blue funk
Who chances on the thin side of the veil: Wondering why the sky looks so heavy,
The body or blue? Why the choicest fruits grow on that tree,
C’mon, give them those smiling dances, The last of the row, yes,
They’re young, in love, and you, November, The tree of disappearance –
Feel free to choose your monsters, Forget the frescoes for once, please,
Feel free to send them letters.

270

Even a white wall is worth a visit –
Too much light?
You mean in your dreams?
Oh, maybe it’s only too many years
And fires.

So don’t ask her to embrace a scream, About the Author:
She doesn’t forget –
Ever met her when prey to dearth of light? – Born in Italy some decades ago, Gabriella
The point is life and wind get into your house Garofalo fell in love with the English lan-
Even though you don’t ask them in, guage at six, started writing poems (in Ital-
Then there’s anger, who won’t even touch the grass ian) at six and is the author of “Lo sguardo di
When meadows look for you, when shadows Orfeo”; “L’inverno di vetro”; “Di altre stelle
Overflow on the outskirts of hunts and days: polari”; “Blue branches”.
Call her back –
If echoes scatter and flowers
Hammering branches with blue disperse,
Only then she gets a life, maybe it works,
Maybe mantises and dragonflies
Steal white sweeps of doubt, who knows,
They lit the air up when she gave
Birth to white abrupt hands –
Wasn’t your gaze so very green, your eyes –
By the way, who’ll teach you shadows
If light dwells elsewhere?
Of course, the missing in your eyes –
No need to fly, no need to dive,
Words dwell close to you,
Not sky nor waves hide them,
They simply can’t or so I'm told –

271

THE PROPAGATION

Mark Young

The Mackerel A line from Edgar Allan Poe

Fish school when The to-do list for anyone
the moon is out. Be- who takes the future
fore. Separate. At seriously includes buying
various levels with a graphics tablet that sup-
disparate meanings.
States of grace. Wait- ports heavy loads, moves
ing for the cast of light fluidly, & locks firmly into
across the surface of position. Also, a hi-tech
drone camera whose high
the water. On app-
earance drawn to it. gloss chrome is changed
Coalesce, luminescent. to a matt finish that often
In the fine mesh of the appears as a fish bearing a
right net they might brazier of fire. The time-
become a poem.
lapses are awesome, offer
testimony as an angel, span
history from Roman times
to a 21st century incarnation.

About the Author:

Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia,
& has been publishing poetry for almost sixty years. He is the author
of over forty books, primarily text poetry but also including
speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. His work has been widely
anthologized, & his essays & poetry translated into a number of
languages. His most recent books are Ley Lines & bricolage, both
from gradient books of Finland, The Chorus of the Sphinxes, from
Moria Books in Chicago, & some more strange meteorites, from
Meritage & i.e. Press, California / New York.

272

The propagation Sympathy for the Devil The Toledo ficcione

of the bird's- Not what I Willard J. Daniels re-
eye chillies is grew up on but putedly named
what I grew in-
continued to. The Stones Toledo after the
by a black- in Hyde Park, city in Spain

faced cuckoo London, 1969. famous for its steel
shrike as it Brian Jones al- because it "is easy to
ready two
pendulums days gone & pronounce, is
between two stayed that pleasant in sound,
& there is no other city
branches, way, but other-
snatching the wise Dorian of that name on the
Gray in re- American continent." The
small red fruit verse. Pouty
from alternate Mick & sweet reality is he was
a dreamer, foresaw
sides of the Keef—the kept the design of cities
bush in picture that in the future, blue-
does not printed a glass industry
each down- age. The for Ohio, assumed the
ward motion. signs are there. easy association be-
tween the common name
would conjoin their
outputs. Steel + glass
inevitably = skyscrapers.

273

INSTINCT

Chase Spruiell

instinct preacher

I look a dog dead in the eye. give yourself to god
He squeaks. the head of the auction block
He squirms. luck's puppeteer
But he stays where he is. the Black Death
Like the infantry. the sun and the moon at night
Like the front line. the cop, the thief & the victim
Stupid, a follower. the blood on your hands in a dream
Frozen, unable to think the universe
or move. give yourself to Him
Petrified. I've heard it all
Instinctually stuck. it crawls all over me
An empty sack of fur. but I give myself to other things:
He knows what I know. flesh, synapses, dead cells
This is no showdown. the function of god is the strongest myth
I walk away. I make God in a cup:
whiskey, ice, simple syrup, bitters, orange peel,
and the miracle maraschino cherry
I can taste the faith
my God tastes merciful
and sweet

274

what cleans vomit

time silhouetted by strangers.
bus drivers, college students, valet kids, dying musicians.
I don't know any of them.
clerks, postal workers, mothers, suicide failures.
the humidity rises past 75%.
a dog can't find his way home.
paleontologists, professors, rapists, homeowners.
a group of crusty buskers put a leash on a dog and walk it to New Orleans.
board game enthusiasts, simple prostitutes, dirty cops.
the street lights get dimmer or my eyesight worsens.
an unceasing pile of flesh flooding the avenues.
garbage men, florists, anemics, addicts, priests.
they're all so strange to me.
the tube attached to a gas pump nozzle becomes unhinged
it falls on me completely
gas rains down, into my hair and eyes.
the gas station clerk as baffled as I am.
bartenders, ugly men with handsome bank accounts, children grown cynical, hideous presidential
candidates.
clubs erupt with laughter and violence.
the cleaning crew comes to sweep away the vomit.
make way for the next one.
digits dump down from billboards.
a baby is born in an abandoned warehouse.
a woman smiles at me.
a beautiful woman.
she walks along.
I daydream of being inside her,
both my god and devil storming inside.
all of these strange faces.
multiplying into history.
a fly is pinned to a spiders web.
a homeless woman dies.
the sun comes up.

275

dead bunny rabbit that’s what my father used to say

drinking into the morning: the internet grips the soul
the ambulance will be moving traffic it churns out butter
someday for me for grubby hands
with infinite fictional wisdom
the air conditioner doesn’t cool the air
like it used to I have yet to confirm the ethical dilemma that
the internet presents:
this apartment is twice as old
as its dust though you and I never will

when the roaches come out to eat that’s okay
I don’t even flinch because tonight:
towards the roach spray or to anything: I outlived the rum and the pills.

I just gaze. the night is still and quiet like
a newly dead bunny rabbit.
there are a lot of people I would say most
who let the moon retrieve their dreams my father never said the bit about pauses
upon its arrival:
that was me:
I prefer the sun. I made it up.

the morning light comes in softer this way long live the existential crisis.
it puts me to sleep
ta-ta.
it predicts that I will waste the day:
that doesn’t hurt me
like it used to

the summer is hot but
I am a lucky man:

I own two fans that
work perfectly

well,
I’m renting the one on the ceiling…

there isn’t enough time for pauses
anymore:

276

headwound About the Author:

scared to death Chase Spruiell was born in Denton, Texas. He
scared to live spent the majority of the time in his life playing
remove the sheets basketball, earning a full athletic scholarship at St.
pour coffee Edward's University. He has a bachelor's degree in
headwound Mass Communications with a specialty in Digital
let it breathe Cinema and currently resides in Austin, Texas
tv turn it on where he writes music for various projects.
what is the heart
doing
be careful
breathe
sun scarred
one of the
Texas hunted
born to be one
sun take me down
fear not what
comes in the
night
fan turn it on
don’t forget
the lungs
slow
easy
hold tight
the moon
is coming

277

WITH HER

Judah Cricelli

With Her

Three is few,
One is two,
Her crease, and hue,
The halogen flickers when I am
With her.

Drips with dew,
Mud-freckled shoe,
Scuffed knees, hers too,
The playground goes silent when I am
With her.

Carpet is soft,
An ocean of polyester,
A pink pencil is splayed along its fabric tufts,
It rests there blunt, and worn along its edges when I am
With her.

The things left behind gather dust, some speckles of rust litter their dim, metallic husks,
And when I'm a few years older I will be
With her—
Even if that means digging her out of the ground—
And those terrible jokes that I wish I had told her will always remain, see, they're bruised
On my brain,
My marketable skills include a chronic sense of pain,
A general disdain for the sound of the drain,
About thirteen cents and some off-brand champagne
And an '04 sedan that leaks liquefied
Blackness as dark and abrasive as
My emptiness inside—
I hear it inspires remarkable synergy in the retail environment—
When
I am
Without her
Round-
-about her
Down and
Out her

278

(With Her—cont.)

Drown
And
Drought her
I am
Not
Who
I
Was
Before her,
Ignore her,
But gladder, someone far sadder,
Whose greatest failure was growing up and
Crowning achievement was discovering it's not all that wonderful anyway,
As if knowing my As and my Bs and my Cs wasn't hard enough,
Although now, that's not so true because
T comes before U,
And there are twenty-something letters in the alphabet and the blackboard can only fit half of it but
Three is few and
One is two,
But
When
I
Was
With
Her—
That was all different
When I was
With her.

About the Author:

Judah Eli Cricelli, is a student currently enrolled in the second year of study at the University of South
Australia. While psychology is his major field of study, he always finds himself coming back to poetry, a
medium which can convey more truth about the human condition than the scientific method.

279

GROUND LEVEL

Gabby Shaulis

Who saw the black of the night in which I sat?
Who felt the tears stain my cheeks?
Who felt my body seize as tried to find control?
No one.
I was the only one to hear my muffled screams.
Only I know what that mess of pills look like as I lined them up.
Blue, orange, white. Blue, orange, white.
It was just me talking out loud to a god that I wasn’t sure if I could believe in like that.
Too much, too raw.
Thoughts poured out of me and onto the floor.
I laid in the fetal position in a puddle of my self-hate.
You do not get to say that you are there for me.
You were not there; you did not see it.
You did not help when that great black cloak wrapped me up.
My victory in the battle of that dark night has nothing to do with you.
Get off your high horse and look at things from the ground.
Feel what it is like to put back all the pieces from the bottom up.

About the Author:
Gabby Shaulis is a sophomore biology major at the
University of Pittsburgh. She plays the clarinet and loves
music of any kind, as well as animals. She hopes to
someday be the proud mother of many dogs and cats.

280

Robbed

forget your words
forget your voice
forget everything you’ve made me feel
delete the pictures
burn the papers
wash my sheets
but I can’t erase the memory of your fingerprints on my skin
I see you in my dreams
I wish they were nightmares but instead
you tell me it was a mistake and that you’re sorry
I can’t will the dreams away
I can’t will you away
love is floating on a raft in a river of needles when you don’t know how to swim
love is skydiving with no parachute and hoping there’s a cushion at the bottom
my raft popped, the cushion disappeared
and now…emptiness

Blank Slate

Your heart feels a little heavier today
I say “Here you go, have some of mine to lighten up”
You don’t say thank you, you ask for more.
Your brain lost a piece of confidence today
I say “Here you go, have some of mine”
You don’t say thank you, you ask for more.
Your body didn’t have enough energy today
I say “Here you go, have some of mine”
You don’t say thank you, you ask for more.
I give until I have nothing left,
But then you say you can’t stay,
For you “can’t love a girl made of nothing”

281

OFF-BEAT

Julianna Bjorksten

AT SMALLS

On the night of starry time-bomb and twinkling blunder
Caught in the stagnant bulk of two page compositions and futile coffee treks
Shared sheets and tender television
Was a moonlit crater —a plunge
unexplored

I slipped inside with nimble eyes and flapping pride and all at once
My spine was swallowed
My backbone mashed and mollified
Melting into slow solemn serenation
Scorching soft–fleshed girls and hard–hearted husbands
This must be Jazz nation.

There– underground
Where trumpet-men improvise lightning sounds
I stuck out my tongue and tasted the floating notes
like firefly candy
I saw chalky droplets of hard-boiled ratatat
icy as a cool knife in the kidney
cling like sweat to the bare skin on my face
Doo be doo be doo
At Smalls Ella and Louis were funky felines
reborn with Nine lives

282

Chronic fright
All of jazz was housed in that brittle body
but outside Manhattan was strewn with steel
Shuffled into an underground attic
a bomb-shelter
Our synchronized solitude heaped in honeycomb voice
And on West 23rd a clamor was seen
In pieces

I was inside
Close by– listening

That song, like this city, was alive.
It grabbed me by the throat and shook
Writhing in and raping me
I grew pregnant with plump pitch
Sharp tenor blare and double time detonation

Saxophone sobs stung like salty ocean eyes
Wailing
A Sidney Bechet melody

And one unbuttoned blouse on a clementine- headed miss of perfect posture
who stuck out not like a sore thumb
but rather like a finger in the middle
Who undid it all with one cool look
Beady pearl eyes – dormant
That’s what it was
To be a New Yorker.

I had been in Manhattan for under three weeks
Coming from prairie skies to find
a dark underground club
Seeped in flair
And night life soaked in crime
“Si tu vois ma mere” tell her I don’t belong

283

In New York Jazz OFF-BEAT
God was a rhythm
Virtue lacked religion God was a rhythm.
And between 6th and 7th avenue He sang bleached diatonic harmonies
No one seemed to listen Bent through juvenile voices
like a dimpled bell
We only felt Struck in a overgrown hospice chapel
the acute sting of holy lungs Trite in unison
The hollow piety of a jive jazz vibe Blubbery tongues flailing at the prospect
Leathery tongues of that almighty salvation
Pipe Pipe Piping the tune An eyeless mouthpiece
Drowning the clatter Blindfolded declaration

And it was For lent she gave up prayer and punctuation
Dangerous to expose to a young person The Cartilage of god
like a loaded firearm Strict Catholic formation
Or a bomb at 8:31 p.m. Bones cannot feel
A gross juxtaposition They have no nerves
A jazz club and a dumpster bombing Unlike a skinned virgin knee
On the same night of a Wide eyed Cherub child
On the next block Gobbling stones to hold her down
in my city? Elementary sin
Obstructing her ascension

Hands folded
On suckling’s First Communion
The roof of my mouth was cold
Rotten
I tasted nectar’s formula
God’s poison
And I prefer my mother’s cooking

About the Author:
Hailing from the underpopulated and underrepresented state of Wyoming, Julianna Bjorksten recently
completed her freshman year at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized study, where
she thinks she is studying literature and creative writing. She has only recently delved into the practice
of writing poetry, as in the past she has primarily written fiction, and is very excited to be allowed this
opportunity to share her poems. This is her first published work.

284

A Chat with...

TIMOTHY ROBBINS

Shortlist Winner Nominee -2017 Adelaide Literary Award for Poetry

"...my work holds up a real life ex- writing on a more or less daily basis since then.
ample of how the world will look Also, I wouldn’t know exactly how to count. For
when being gay is seen as the inev- one thing, I’m a constant reviser and would be
itable variation of human person- inclined to count each version of a poem as a po-
ality that it is." em unto itself. Also, should I count the text that I
often use as an element in my drawings and
ALM: Tell us a bit about yourself, about Timothy paintings? How about the “liner notes” that, in
Robbins, a poet, and how many poems you have my teens, I scribbled on the inner sleeves of my
written. favorite LPs?

TR: About myself? Of all my qualities I’ll say the ALM: Do you remember what was your first ever
first that comes to mind and that I think is essen- poem about and when did you write it?
tial: Through some combination of nature and
nurture, I have never doubted my self worth. TR: Yes, I remember. In the fifth grade I wrote
That’s a gift I wish everyone had. How many po- what I thought was a satirical poem (I think it was
ems? I couldn’t even guess. I started writing in rhymed quatrains) about the presidential cam-
poems when I was about thirteen and have been paigns of 1976.

285

“Bright sleep” “Morality”

ALM: Why do you write poetry? Why is the poet- ALM: Do you have any unusual writing habits?
ry a literary form of your choice and have you
ever think of writing a prose? TR: I don’t think so. I need a really quiet place,
preferably with a window. I like to have certain
TR: Oh, it’s definitely not a choice. Poetry is what I familiar objects around me. News ideas usually
have to write and the only thing I can write — come in the morning (I get up around 4 a.m.) or in
much to the chagrin of my friend David (an Eng- the shower or when I’m out walking. I think that’s
lish professor) who thinks I have a novel in me all very typical. You know, I never thought about
(I’m sure he’s mistaken) and my parents who, as it before, but now that the question has been put
parents should, think about the greater commer- to me, I’m starting to feel the urge to acquire
cial potential of a novel. The best explanation I some odd rituals.
can give is that poetry is how my brain works.
ALM: Is it poetry or writing the only form of ar-
ALM: What is the title of your latest poem and tistic expression that you utilize, or there is more
what inspired it? to Tim Robbins than just poetry?

TR: I worked on several poems this morning. One TR: A round-about answer. My middle name is
(so far) is called “Namesake.” It was inspired by Allen, which means all the combinations of my
parallels between my life and the life of a friend initials are words — and I feel, words that apply
of mine whose name is also Timothy. to me. Tar, because I stick to things and people.
Rat, because I’m on the small side — but not real-
ALM: How long it took you to write your latest ly small, not a mouse. And also because I’m not
poem and how fast do you write? motivated by the kinds of ambitions that moti-
vate more presentable animals. Tra as in “Tra la,
TR: I write very fast and very slow. The first line it’s May, the lusty month of May!” because that’s
and the basic structure of a poem are usually in just how I am. And Art because that’s always
my head before I sit down at the computer. Then been at the center of my activities. Singing, Play-
the first draft of a piece that’s under one page ing guitar, piano, harmonica, Writing songs,
might take 30 minutes of less. The long part is Painting and drawing.
that it usually takes months or years before I’ve
done enough revisions to say, “That’s finished” — ALM: What authors or poets have influenced
or, In Valéry’s terms “Time to abandon that.” Of you?
course, it’s a thrill when, form time to time, the
first draft of a poem comes out just right, fully TR: Poe, Wordsworth, Keats, Dickinson, William
formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder,
James Schuyler, Blaise Cendrars, Bob Dylan.

286

“Noodles” “Untitled”

“What/who is your favorite ___ ?” is a question I be in the reader’s mind? And, am I underesti-
usually can’t answer, with one exception. Virginia mating the reader by explaining something that I
Woolf is absolutely my favorite novelist. should leave for readers to figure out on their
own? I assume my readers are people whose
ALM: As an author and poet what are you work- taste in poetry is similar to mine. I dislike obscu-
ing on now? rantism (you’ll notice that Pound and Joyce are
not in my list of influences — although maybe I
TR: Having found a sympathetic editorial board at should have listed them as negative influences.) I
ALM, I’m working on, if it works out, my first solo prefer the concrete to the abstract. The music of
book. the language is important to me and I use all the
traditional tools — but not in a regimented way
ALM: In your opinion, what is the best way when because it’s important to me that the music be
it comes to promoting poetry? Did you ever modern, which mostly means, not far from real
think about the profile of your readers? What do speech, and certainly not forced into unnatural
you think – who reads Tim Robbins? rhyme schemes and metrical straight jackets. Oh,
that sounds like I don’t like conventional verse,
TR: Promotion? The internet, I suppose. This which isn’t true. I do like it — to read.
doesn’t seem to be happening much. I know a lot
of the ads I see when I go online are aimed spe- ALM: Do you have any advice for new poets/
cifically at me and shaped by what I’ve bought authors?
and sites I’ve searched. Yet, although I’ve listened
to lots of youtube clips of people reading poetry, TR: I recently heard a radio interview with a mys-
I’ve never seen an online ad for poetry. How do I tery writer who said that every author needs a
consider the reader when I’m writing? I ask my- good sounding board. This must be someone
self two questions: Will this be clear to a reader whose literary judgment you respect, someone
or is it only clear to me because there’s back- who is willing to tell you honestly what they think
ground information in my mind that can’t possibly about your work, and someone who is 100% on

287

your side and eager to read everything you ask The Book, a poem by Timothy Robbins
them to read. (It occurs to me that this probably has been selected as one of six best po-
holds true for every profession, every important ems of the 2017 Adelaide Literary Award
human endeavor.) It may not always be possible Contest .
to find such a person, but I would advise any writ-
er to try really hard to do so. Also, be willing to The Book*
consider any suggestion that comes your way.
The poem is the important thing, not the poet. When I got this book from Ron in the mail
The poet is just the conduit. And if a poem needs I read it in one sitting. If you saw how
more than one conduit to reach its ultimate form, thin the book is you’d think that was easy.
that’s not something a writer should get bent out It wasn’t. I wanted to close it, put it aside,
of shape about. When an editor suggests a stop its end from coming.
change to me, I remind myself that “The Waste But that hadn’t been an option for Ron,
Land” was in a real sense the result of Eliot and who didn’t write but lived this book, or John,
Pound’s collaboration — and then I think long and who didn’t survive it. Not pressing on
hard and decide whether I agree with the editor’s would have been an insult.
idea. Now twenty-three years later Ron has been
gone for eight. I’ve never reread this book.
ALM: What is the best advice you have ever Sometimes I hold it, look at its covers
heard? as though they were graves I was afraid
to desecrate. No need to open it.
TR: It came from Henry James and from my I remember all I need to know — that they
grandmother and I believe it comes to the same were happy together for eight and a half years
thing. James said, “Try to be one of the people on (that “half” so like Ron, claiming his due
whom nothing is lost.” My grandmother told a but refusing to round up to nine).
friend of mine on the eve of his wedding, “Talk What ripped them apart: disease, hospital,
about everything. Nothing is too small. Everything bigotry of John’s family, blindness of the law.
is important, so talk about it.” Even this book, this tribute, parts them,
one on the front cover, the other on the back.
ALM: What are you reading now? John’s picture full of color — sky, ocean and
T shirt all blue. A black dog in his arms,
TR: The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing and La wind animating water and beach grass.
conquête de Plassans by Zola. I’m usually in the His and the dog’s mane: an image of life
middle of something in English and something in except for his closed eyes and seaward face.
French. Oh, and while I write only poetry, I prefer Ron looks straight at us with eyes that have
to read novels. stayed open too long. All is black and gray
but that white armband, mourning color of
ALM: Who are your favorite authors and poets, the East, hidden presence of all hues.
and what are your favorite books ever?
*Ron Schreiber, John (Brooklyn: Hanging Loose
TR: Tolkien and Dickens (thanks to my sixth grade Press, New York: Calamus, 1989)
teacher Stephen Mills) are important. They are
why I fell in love with reading and why I first felt
the urge to write. No writing gives me greater
pleasure than that of Shakespeare and Dickinson.
Ginsberg, is not a favorite, but I owe him a great
debt because his work, when I encountered it at
the tender age of 15, catapulted me from the era
of the Pre-raphaelites to the latter half of the
20th century. Anne Sexton appeals to me. And
Sharon Olds. Also modern translations (Kenneth
Rexroth’s for instance) of Chinese and Japanese
poetry. Kawabata Yasunari and Mishima Yukio.

288

My relationship with Dylan’s work is unique. He’s
the only artist whose work I can and do routinely
“recite” — which means sing, of course. I’m sure
I’ll wake up tomorrow and think of a book I really
love and should have mentioned.

ALM: What do you deem the most relevant
about your writing?

TR: I guess this means relevant to the society I live
in. I have always been surrounded by friends and
family whose acceptance of me as a gay man was
absolutely reliable. I do have poems that reflect
the lives (and deaths) of gay people who are not
so blessed. But on the whole my work holds up
a real life example of how the world will look
when being gay is seen as the inevitable variation
of human personality that it is.

ALM: W.C.Williams once remarked that he was
more proud of all the babies he’d delivered than
the poem he’d written. Is there something
you’re more proud of than your poems?

TR: Yes. My twenty years with my life partner and
the hundreds of students from all over the world
who have honored me with their presence in my
classroom.

ALM: Thank you Tim. Good luck with your
writing and your art.

Tim Robbins teaches ESL and does freelance
translation in Wisconsin. He has a BA in French
and an MA in Applied Linguistics from Indiana
University. He has been a regular contributor to
“Hanging Loose” since 1978. His poems have also
appeared in "Three New Poets," "The James
White Review," “Slant,” “Main Street Rag,” “Two
Thirds North,” “The Pinyon Review,” “Wisconsin
Review,” and others.

289

TOSCANINI: Harvey Sachs is the author or coauthor of ten
MUSICIAN OF books and has written for The New Yorker, the
CONSCIENCE New York Times, and the Times Literary Supple-
By Harvey Sachs ment, among others. He lives in New York, and is
on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in
Hardcover: 944 pages Philadelphia.
Publisher: Liveright; 1 edition (June 27, 2017)
Language: English Sachs vibrantly and vividly narrates the sprawling
ISBN-10: 1631492713 tales of Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini’s pas-
ISBN-13: 978-1631492716 sionate life, drawing on a treasure trove of newly
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.9 x 9.6 inches available material: almost 1,500 letters, more
than 100 tape recordings of Toscanini in conver-
sation with his family and friends during the last
years of his life, and archives of institutions with
which Toscanini was deeply involved, such as La
Scala and the Met. In exhaustive detail, Sachs
begins with Toscanini’s birth in Parma in 1867 and
energetically chronicles his student days; his mar-
riage; his remaking of La Scala; his tenure at New
York City’s Metropolitan Opera; his opposition to
Mussolini; his years at the New York Philharmon-
ic, Bayreuth, Paris, and Salzburg; and his death,
just a few months before his 90th birthday. Tos-
canini emerges as a creative genius possessing an
“extraordinary aural memory” that allowed him
to recall pieces of music that he had heard but
whose scores he had never seen. On tour with an
opera company to São Paulo as assistant chorus
master and principal cello when he was 19, Tosca-
nini was thrust onto the conductor’s podium one
evening when the crowd rejected the principal
conductor; it was Toscanini’s remarkable debut.
Sachs’s entertaining and definitive portrait of Tos-
canini reveals a passionate musician character-
ized by intense concentration, personal mag-
netism, generosity, and commitment to his coun-
try and his family.

(Source: publishersweekly.com)

290

THE My career has taken some surprising twists and
CHILD turns over the years. I have been a journalist -
senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the
By Fiona Barton Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at The Mail on
Sunday, where I won Reporter of the Year at the
Hardcover: 384 pages National Press Awards, gave up my job to volun-
Publisher: Berkley (June 27, 2017) teer in Sri Lanka and since 2008, have trained and
Language: English worked with exiled and threatened journalists all
ISBN-10: 1101990481 over the world. But through it all, a story was
ISBN-13: 978-1101990483 cooking in my head. The worm of this book infect-
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches ed me long ago when, as a national newspaper
journalist covering notorious crimes and trials, I
found myself wondering what the wives of those
accused really knew - or allowed themselves to
know. It took the liberation of my career change
to turn that fascination into a tale of a missing
child, narrated by the wife of the man suspected
of the crime, the detective leading the hunt, the
journalist covering the case and the mother of the
victim. Much to my astonishment and delight,
The Widow is a Sunday Times bestseller, has been
sold to 29 countries and is available now in the US
and will be published around the world in the
coming months. However, the sudden silence of
my characters feels like a reproach and I am cur-
rently working on a second book. My husband
and I are living the good life in south-west France,
where I am writing in bed, early in the morning
when the only distraction is our cockerel, Sparky,
crowing. Canny London tabloid reporter Kate Wa-
ters, the catalyst for Barton’s devastating debut
The Widow, returns in this strong if more sub-
dued psychological thriller centering on a trio of
women unknowingly linked by long-buried se-
crets about to be unearthed. Book editor Emma
Simmonds has been battling for decades with
depression, as has the single mother, Jude
Massingham, who threw her out of the house
when she was just 16. Former nurse Angela Irving
has never gotten over the kidnapping of her new-
born daughter from a maternity hospital 28 years
earlier, a heartbreak worsened by police suspi-
cion of her and her husband. Emma, Jude, and
Angela are each riveted, for reasons that will only
gradually emerge, by an item in a newspaper re-
porting the excavation of an infant’s skeleton at
an East London building site. Readers patient with
the relatively slow initial pace until the intertwin-
ing stories gain momentum will be rewarded with
startling twists—and a stunning, emotionally
satisfying conclusion. (Source: publishersweek-
ly.com)

291

TAKE OUT MARGARET MARON grew up in the country near
Raleigh, North Carolina, but for many years lived
By Margaret Maron in Brooklyn, New York. When she and her artist
husband returned to the farm that had been in
Hardcover: 320 pages her family for a hundred years, she began a series
based on her own background. The first book,
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition Bootlegger's Daughter, became a Washington
(June 27, 2017) Post bestseller that swept the major mystery
awards for its year-winning the Edgar, Agatha,
Language: English Anthony, and Macavity Awards for Best Novel-
and is among the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the
ISBN-10: 1455567353 Century as selected by the Independent Mystery
Booksellers Association. Later Deborah Knott nov-
ISBN-13: 978-1455567355 els Up Jumps the Devil, Storm Track, and Three-
Day Town each also won the Agatha Award for
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.2 inches Best Novel. Margaret is also the author of the
Sigrid Harald series of detective novels. In 2008,
Maron received the North Carolina Award for
Literature, the highest civilian honor the state
bestows on its authors. And in 2013, the Mystery
Writers of America celebrated Maron's contribu-
tions to the mystery genre by naming her a Grand
Master-an honor first bestowed on Agatha Chris-
tie. To find out more about her, you can visit Mar-
garetMaron.com.

In 2016, MWA Grand Master Maron ended her
popular Deborah Knott series with Long upon the
Land, which resolved several outstanding ques-
tions about the characters. She also settles some
unresolved issues in this, the excellent 10th and
final entry in her series featuring New York City
detective Sigrid Harald, which began in 1981 with
One Coffee With and seemed to end with 1995’s
Fugitive Colors. An unexpected personal problem
arises for Harald with the appearance of Vincent
Haas, who claims to be the son of her deceased
lover, Oscar Nauman. If Vincent is indeed Nau-
man’s son, he may have a claim on the fortune
that his late father left to Harald. Meanwhile, she
investigates the mysterious simultaneous poison-
ing deaths of two homeless people, Matty
Mutone and an unidentified older man. Mutone’s
sad story, as Harald pieces it together, connects
him with one of Harald’s neighbors, the widow of
mobster Benny DelVecchio. Another neighbor,
former opera star Charlotte Randolph, is able to
identify the second victim as Jack Bloss, a back-
stage worker. f this is indeed Maron’s final book,
as she has announced, she is quitting while still in
top form. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary.
(Source: publishersweekly.com)

292

Alentejo. 1975. A luta pela terra alimentava ódios
antigos, privilégios seculares, deixando um rasto
de conflitos e de feridas abertas.

Verónica é a filha de um latifundiário que se
apaixona por um desconhecido que conhece num
bar. Mantém uma relação secreta com ele até
que um flagrante do seu próprio pai os "obriga" a
casar. A partir daí, e através das vozes destes dois
protagonistas, vamos descobrindo que intentos
os movem, quais os seus verdadeiros objetivos e
qual o valor da verdadeira liberdade.

Passado no pós-25 de Abril, o romance dá-nos a
conhecer as dinâmicas de uma pequena vila no
Alentejo, os poderes perdidos, aqueles que
começam a ascender, assim como a luta perante
aquilo que surgia como o bem maior: a posse da
terra.

E FICOU A Carla Ramalho

TERRA Nasceu em Évora, em 1976. Acredita que foi por
ter nascido alentejana que lhe veio o gosto pela
de Carla Ramalho escrita – a prosa das gentes e a poesia da planície
tinham de extravasar. Licenciou-se em Sociologia
ISBN: 978-989-766-096-2 e trabalha há vários anos na área social. A
Edição ou reimpressão: 05-2017 investigação, a formação profissional e os pro-
Editor: Coolbooks jetos de desenvolvimento local já a fizeram viajar
Idioma: Português um pouco pelo país. Até pela Europa. Mas é
Dimensões: 128 x 198 x 9 mm sempre à escrita que regressa. Nunca deixou de
Encadernação: Capa mole escrever. Para si, acima de tudo. E para os mais
Páginas: 152 chegados que, simpaticamente e sem pensarem
muito nas consequências, lhe elogiaram
continuamente o jeito. Surge agora o seu
primeiro romance.

293

Esta é a história de um local que resistiu às eras
sendo Nada, uma quinta onde, na peculiaridade
do nome, sempre se negociou vida e
transcendência com a naturalidade do
dessassombro. É a história de Luísa, feita varão do
Nada, nascida Matilde em 1911. É a história de
um país interseccionando-se no quotidiano rural
de uma Casa grande de vinho e pão, sobreviven-
do às Invasões Francesas, a ciclones, ditaduras,
fantasmas e outros bichos, sobrevivendo à dor e à
perda da sucessão de tempo atrás de tempo. So-
breviverá o Nada a Luísa? Ou tornar-se-á Luísa
uma réplica de Máxima, a Senhora que vive na
distância altaneira do segundo andar da Casa do
Nada?

Baseado em factos reais.

Isabel Tallysha-Soares não nasceu nesta língua.
Aprendeu-a às pressas em velhos volumes da Nau
Catrineta tomados de tempo e guardados num
armário livreiro com vidraças forradas a
carmesim. Decorou Pessoa e leu Eça na obrigação
da aprendizagem de uma língua estranha e
circunvolutória. Fez-lhe as pazes no Ramalho de
John Bull percebendo, por fim, que esta é uma
língua de sol e Meridião, que tanto escreve o
tudo como o Nada.

Diários de Nada é o blogue da autora (http://
diariosdenada.blogspot.com)

EU, DO NADA

de Isabel Tallysha-Soares

ISBN: 978-989-766-019-1
Edição ou reimpressão: 10-2014
Editor: Coolbooks
Idioma: Português
Páginas da versão em papel deste livro: 162
Tipo de Produto: eBook

294

O mesmo mar, a mesma casa. Talvez a mesma
história e a mesma mulher que nela vive. Ou três
histórias diferentes de três mulheres diferentes
que viveram na mesma casa.

Sudoeste traz-nos três histórias distintas, como
que variações de um mesmo tema.

Em todas elas está presente o mesmo ambiente
marítimo, um envolvimento amoroso, uma
personagem com «o chamamento do mundo».
Todas as histórias se passam na mesma casa, na
mesma quinta, na mesma praia, na mesma
falésia. As próprias personagens vão tendo
pequenas variações. Contudo, os contos são
muito diferentes; cada um oferece-nos uma
perspetiva distinta de como se pode viver o amor
e o desejo de partir: do sentimento mais puro e
simples à capacidade de começar tudo de novo.

Olinda P. Gil começou pelas listas, a seguir
passou aos contos. Publicou num jornal nacional.
Pelo meio estudou Literatura, apaixonou-se pelos
antigos, por Lisboa e deixou sair textos em
publicações obscuras. Nem sabe como chegou a
adulta. Tem tido trabalhos muito díspares, coisa
própria da idade. Gosta de contos. Gosta de
Literatura Portuguesa. Gosta de autoras. Continua
a sonhar em ser escritora. É Alentejana.

SUDOESTE

de Olinda P. Gil

ISBN: 978-989-766-065-8
Edição ou reimpressão: 11-2016
Editor: Coolbooks
Idioma: Português
Dimensões: 128 x 198 x 5 mm
Encadernação: Capa mole
Páginas: 80

295

Um livro que não fala apenas sobre os típicos
vampiros e lobisomens que andam a circular na
fantasia urbana, mas que também deixa
transparecer uma mensagem sobre a dor e as
fases de luto que passamos até atingirmos aquela
que mais desejamos: aceitação. Se a mitologia e
as lendas fantásticas sempre foram algo que te
fascinaram, então este livro é para ti!

Patrícia Morais é uma estudante de tradução na
London Metropolitan University. Mesmo
enquanto mudava constantemente a sua mente
acerca do que seria a sua futura profissão –
alternando entre professora, nadadora salva-
vidas e até mesmo veterinária –, algo que sempre
teve a certeza foi que um dia viria a crescer para
ser escritora.
E porque acredita que ainda não passa demasiado
tempo à frente de um computador a escrever,
ainda regista no seu blog, trishmorais.blogspot.pt,
as suas experiências de escrita e traduz os con-
selhos de outros autores de língua inglesa.

SOMBRAS

de Patricia Morais

ISBN: 978-989-766-074-0
Editor: Coolbooks
Idioma: Português
Dimensões: 149 x 237 x 19 mm
Encadernação: Capa mole
Páginas: 376

296

Decidido a recomeçar a sua vida, Roberto muda-
se para a Zona Norte, o segredo obscuro de uma
grande cidade, lugar onde o crime impera, o sol
não brilha e os perigos se multiplicam a cada in-
stante. Mas o destino não lhe dá tréguas, e es-
colhe-o para ser a única testemunha de um
terrível crime que ele não consegue impedir. A
partir daí, Roberto é dilacerado pela dúvida, pelo
trauma e por uma poderosa culpa, enquanto
procura desesperado pelo homem que deixou
escapar.

«Quando ela seguiu, notei um comportamento
suspeito de um homem ao longe que me parecia
embriagado. E, ainda louco, segui-o como um
autêntico fantoche da cruel culpa, que me domi-
na, me come e me transforma a cada instante.»

Filipe Batista é natural de Vila Real de Santo
António, cidade raiana. Com 20 anos lançou a sua
obra de estreia, As Três Viagens, e em 2016 con-
quistou o Prémio Literário Maria Amália Vaz de
Carvalho com o seu segundo livro, O nó da culpa.
Atualmente está a concluir o argumento de uma
curta metragem e a desenvolver o seu próximo
original. Gosta de escrever histórias importantes
que explorem o pensamento humano.

O NÓ DA

CULPA

de Filipe Batista

ISBN: 978-989-766-090-0
Edição ou reimpressão: 03-2017
Editor: Coolbooks
Idioma: Português
Dimensões: 128 x 198 x 8 mm
Encadernação: Capa mole
Páginas: 122

297