Adelaide Literary Magazine No. 42, November 2020

THE HARDEST PART

by I.G.

The Hardest Part

This song teleports me back to another time.
The sun was high in the sky, and so was I.
The music drives with its lyricism.
And the days now are driven by algorithms.
I think about the things I’ll never get back.
The things I lost in the fire of black.
The zipping car on the unzippered highway—
We were unafraid. We were heartbreak.
The rolling laughs in the backseat—
How we spoke about our river of dreams
Everyone I knew was alive then.
It’s a surprise when the world stops,
Only to begin differently again.
And you weren’t gone, far from me.
And now the dreams are empty seas.
Such memories stretch for miles.
I compartmentalized thoughts and files.
I remember when we were close.
But it goes, we’re only ghosts.
Our blood stood every test of time.
Until blood bore no ties or chime—

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Recording the Morning

A saturated morning. The raindrops create ripples in the simplest of things – waves in sequence,
riddled with life. I love how the drops have a way of wrinkling reflections in the water, generating
subtle disturbances like how wet clothes become musty, but never smell the same as when they’re
dry. I wonder, at this instance, what’s the aroma of the sky like? Is it like soggy clothes, cotton candy,
or jet fuel?

I watch the cardboard in front of the bodega swell and deteriorate under the rain while people
scatter like wet cats with plastic bags wrapped around their heads, and I watch my steps, so I
don’t crush a worm on the pavement. Everywhere I walk, tin can sounds flood my ears as the wet
pellets ping on everything out in the street like a pinball in a machine. The tree barks darken with
every wet sliver, and the rain makes love to the soil until it turns to mud: every hour changes and
debates. Ah, the rain slows down the day like a hangover, yet the wind carries the earth’s weight.

Evolvement

1.
I’m not interested in teaching ways to love or even how to think it up.
2.
I can’t teach you about sacrifice or about how many times we die in
this life while we’re alive raging in this deteriorating flesh.
3.
I want the unreasonable and innovative aspects of existence to clinch among the goodness
and omitted parts of one another. I wish for them to discover the undiscovered.
I want to be taught and be on the receiving end of the million and one things I don’t know like why
roses guard themselves by using thorns or why immortality comes on slow but heavy with disdain.

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4.
I won’t allow others to share my prayer rug with me if I love in more significant ways
than them, for I would be unfulfilled at an uneven heel feeling the disgust of unjust.
5.
I don’t want to feel less is more when I can’t give in smaller amounts as I evolve.

About the Author

I.G. is a freelance writer living in The Big Apple. When she’s not trying to teach her cat to
fetch, she milks her therapy sessions for poetry inspiration. Currently, her favorite poets are
Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath, and Yrsa Daley-Ward.

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ENCOUNTER
WITH EINSTEIN

by Ken Schweda

Nixon Resigns Encounter With Einstein (circa 1950)

At the skating rink I clutch my equations
teachers on patrol, my monopoles
the rumble, the smell my anti-dice
of floor wax, popcorn.
She rolls next to me as I approach the river
and winks I think. his retreat
We bump into each his gendanken Platz.
other and fall
in my mind love I will regale him with my wares
in hers over that stupid boy. and earn my just rewards.
And the thump of disco They’ll refer to me as Albert junior.
plays on.
I arrive just as he reaches
the river’s edge
to make my best and last stand.

‘Fish’ he says, pointing,
‘Such beauty, no?’
and moves on.

And so do I,
back to the drawing board,
of my ego.

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Higher Power

You lie and cheat
and build clinics to scare
young women into rubbing you/r beads
and praying to you/r higher power.
You justify and testify
and feel closer to thee
and feel powerful.
You want to see power?
Make a satellite go to Pluto.
Fail and fail and don’t give up
and add precision out to four then five digits
and calculate orbits and energies.
That’s power and is and in all ways
will be higher than you/r beads
and old books.
Jesuschrist why do you think
I gave you a goddamn brain.

203

TWO WINDOWS

by Rikki Santer

Creekside

Why can’t every day be pancake morning? Last night
Mom made treaty with the monster under my bed.

Front yard pine needles nest in my hair because I won’t
give up on keeping tally of fireflies. Mouse pops out of
the toaster, magic streaks across the counter as I grab two
squares of butter cake and stuff them into my backpack.

Pink Schwinn, my mustang that I like to ride at odd angles
through the neighborhood or park at the mouth of a path
to hike down to harvest echoes at the toes of waterfall.

Today brims with girl knowledge—my pocket knife,
willow whistle, a tattered library book about Annie Oakley
who seems to be west of everything except this creekside.
Her episodes spider down. She’s that handprint in the bark,
a birthday action figure with a string that pulls on legacy.

I want to braid her an ivy crown, aim her .22 caliber to the sky,
sip from her loving cups. Through breeze, Sitting Bull whispers
his Lakota name for her, Little Sure Shot with both eyes open.

Some day I’m going to get me a fancy pair of cowboy boots
but in the meantime I’ve got to get home. Late for casserole,
pine needles still jagging my hair, and something else I won’t
give up on, the palindrome of my mother’s chest scars,
targets where her breasts used to be.

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Two Windows

after Heat Wave by Nadir Nelson
and Young Woman At a Window by Salvador Dali

Forearms of these two young women anchor
each onto their window sills of launchpad.

Rainbow cool of what can be licked from a stick.
Chaste harmony in drapery folding with a back’s melody.

Cheekbones and cleavage glisten in the heat,
goddess chin erect in the sidewise glory of heiroglyph.

Relaxed shoulders, tilting hip, ankle coyly pressed
against its other, a face the ocean’s possession.

These daughters own their gazes, challenge yours,
their futures there for their taking.

Lineage

This first story, this chin of fire, Sun and its daughters, primordial mirror.
The aproned goddess returns, fondles the crosspoints where warp and weft conjoin,
reclaims shards of ocean turquoise, phoenix flames.
Ocher medallion looms large, epitaph for each master who crushed then transformed
mineral, insect, shellfish.
These threads bear the needle’s prayer fired through the eyes of every woman’s weaving.

Quilt, poised and illuminated,
another resurrection

in the politics of textile.

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Mermaid Envy Adelaide Literary Magazine
Miss McGlaughlin and the Road to Marvel

Especially when I go like this The octopus houses three hearts as we
with my tail, and weave placed our fifth grade palms over ours.
through chilled murmurs
of deep to call you, you After I pledge allegiance to the flag:
marvel at my kind. Travelers, how will we seize today?
My tongue, primordial red,
my long long rainbow hair, Order in the cloak room, our cubbies
all invisible in inky darkness obedient altars to rain boots, parkas,
where color and imagination abides.
I don’t think about mittens with clips—manifold of parental
being charming even with coddling, but Miss McGlaughlin pointed
what you call my marble eyes,
translucent refugees from our way to trumpeting joy of elephants
ancient calculating machines & pomegranate hearts full of jewels.
wedged into underwater caverns
of my shipwreck bounty. The desk globe, her orb of dazzle, &
Islands are the middles of my stories. a punch bowl brimming with postcards
Sun squints.
Moon opens its mouth. each carrying a story from three decades
Ocean is sound. of adventure. Cardinal—her winter courier
All necessary things.
at the raised window, & on the turtle’s back
secret messages if we squinted long

enough. Our months studying art &
mythology but really how to be a deep

sea diver—what do Van Gogh’s brushstrokes
whisper, what does the invention of muses

show us about the Ancients? Class trips
to her farm of peacocks, llamas & renegade

sunflower fields, tails of back road dust
dancing behind our marigold bus.

Ida McGlauglin, know your frog eyes,
bobblehead, & cartoon dresses still

belong to a gangly girl you taught
to freight with windows wide open.

206

THE CITY

by Lorraine Caputo

THE CITY III.
(Caracas) Morning rush-hour
through the transfer
I. Line 2 to Line 1
This other overcast morning People orderly walking quickly
I hear two snaps echo under TVs showing ads
up the narrow streets & the week’s horoscopes
It is time to greet Down stairs, up escalators orderly
the day await the next metro train
to arrive, open its doors
II. Orderly off, a bit of a shove on
Children in school uniforms Within silence devoid of
adults in work clothes vendors or musicians
hurry down these narrow streets men offer seats to women
Zooming to a next station
On a patch of grass orderly off, a bit of a shove on
near worn buildings a warning beep, doors slide shut
A man awakens
stretching thin limbs IV.
upon his mattress of bare foam Through the crowded market streets
of Barrio El Cementerio
A young girl, child in arms People walking in the road
looks back at a late-30s man taxi horns blowing
zipping his pants barely scraping past
He yells after her Stalls of clothes, of fruit
Don’t come looking for me & more clothes & yet more

Two grimed men examine V.
the contents of a dumpster The afternoon rain
trash heaped at their feet falls like every
afternoon

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Business-clothed people Pacific Eventide
under gleaming black
umbrellas bustle Rose-pearl sea gleams
Business-clothed people in this cloud-
stand under awnings of fractured sunset
gleaming glass skyscrapers
SUV & BMW tires I await the
sizzle on full moon to rise
wet pavement & beam upon
that tranquilly
VI. rippling surface
Dusk falls
with sirens to coolly burn
throughout the city through the thick
quick-shifting sky
This evening the boys
abandon the basketball hoop That Flower’s Perfume
set in a 55-gallon oil drum
in an alley of this barrio popular A starless sky
clouds this night
Laughter, talking, music from homes scented by golden trumpet
two teenage girls calling
to a friend below The music of a fountain
echo down these narrow streets spilling its waters
channeled to a pond below
Until the night & the rushing river
forces doors below
to shut A click of a gecko
or perhaps some night bird

*

With a starry dawn
a crescent moon
hangs over the narrow
valley’s wall

& that flower’s perfume
yet lingers in the air

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Beach Meditations finches pecking amongst the leaves & twigs

I. before joining across the Spirit miles
At this hour of lowest tide Friends settled into Meditation
the fine white sand gleams like a desert
V.
the deep aqua sea like a desert Chilled by the breeze of a clouding day
I lose myself in another World
duning then blowing proffered by a book
soft upon the shore
Suddenly I notice the silence left
II. behind by departed souls
I think of a friend’s message
I read swiftly this morn I am alone upon this deserted stretch
of sand upon this desert isle
Even we who go against the tide
of war, of politicians foaming with greed VI.
& corruption … even now we Only the constant roar of waves fierce
are pulled into silence are pulled along …. against the far shore of the point

Like this brown sand ripped from some depths of waves fierce against boulders
flowing swiftly to some depths at the mouth of this cove
far asea foaming
& the measured wash of water upon
I walk across you to avoid your pull the fine sand of this shore

III. VII.
In a tidal pool now surrounded I fall asleep wrapped in my shawl
by black basalt boulders listening to the lullaby
gobies & blennies swim in schools
of green turtles rippling the in-coming tide
(such is the survival of the fittest) listening to that measured wash

A miniature glass lobster a phantom against the breeze chill, the sun clouded
this white sand seeks my warmth
VIII.
even after I depart its waters & am awakened by loud voices
settling in the sand a mere meter
IV.
Beneath a mangrove tree I spread my sarong from my mind
pausing to write these words

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Thinning

This earth is flat & drying the bleached sky
vegetation sparse, brittle-boughed trees
the sandy soil sterile Thinning … thinning

Thinning … thinning & now-dried streambeds
pools of deep-green waters
Schoolchildren walk to their left behind by man-caused rains
homes, small settlements strung lime & raku beneath
along the road
the unrelenting sun
Thinning … thinning
Thinning … thinning
Along the banks of a ribbon river
are crazy-quilt plots, corn On these winds of change
now tassling, newly dunes form crescents
flooded paddies mirroring across the desert plain

About the Author

Lorraine Caputo is a documentary poet, translator and travel writer. Her works appear in
over 180 journals in Canada, the US, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa; 12
chapbooks of poetry – including Caribbean Nights (Red
Bird Chapbooks, 2014), Notes from the Patagonia (dancing
girl press, 2017) and On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl
press, 2019); and 18 anthologies. She also authors travel
narratives, articles and guidebooks. In March 2011, the
Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honored her verse.
Caputo has done over 200 literary readings, from Alaska to
the Patagonia. She travels through Latin America, listening
to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her travels
at: www.facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer.

210

RACING THE
SUPERNOVA

by Daniel King

M Charactered Now periastron grants the recoil
The slingshot path we need, so we veer
And in the glare Mu Cephei roils Each fierce arch of garnet and rose
As if to dare armed craft to draw near Bestowing heat as dharma and kiss
Or to deter steel souls from rare risk And our return to team base is brisk
Which is the high dream I Kalki chose While the photonic current still blows
So now I boost thrust hard and arc close And to all men my name is revered
And soon the Class M stellar red disk The Delta K exalted and royal.
Becomes a vast fire pearl with no peer
Reward and long sought prize for the loyal.

And I reflect on seeing those flares
That though my sign is always the K
The star has caught my character’s fire
In its regalia blazing a chart
From spiral arm to galaxy heart
A racemate’s flame that burns ever higher
Throughout all space, the infinite way
Throughout all time, an infinite prayer.

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The Red Sky Crystal Adelaide Literary Magazine
Racing the Supernova

Yesterday’s menace awaits fate Engines idling, I check the crew
Waits for the crystal’s approach Neutrino flux and the port view
Scarlet as garnet and old scars And then with a wild joy I start our glide
Tasked to bring freedom at last And all my craft’s dials exalt the tide
Facetted high in the night sky The light a gilt blade, the sword’s hilt
Facetted far above clefts Which at my command cleaves space in two.
Summoning horrors to hard death
Death for that threat from the stars. Thrust increases to seven g’s
I think of metals, the gold sea
Thousands of years have elapsed now That is the obscure supernova core
Now I return as Kalki Beyond the rays’ edge, the Kalide door
Sixteen and wild as a quasar Serenely tossed, surging heat lost
Crested with Delta and K As within it sets hot neutrons free.
Galaxies flare at my first glance
Galaxies shatter and fade Beams like kyanite crystals blaze
Fade to a chaos of lost thought The sky an aquamarine haze
Thought that explodes from afar. And it is the blueshift which fires our will
Away from star blasts, the ion spill
Roseate prism of hot wrath Accrued by fierce suns of Type II
Wrathful oracle of awe And so we proceed on, spirits raised.
Red as a laser to burn foes
Claret its searing display Danger passing I check the gauge
Gaze with acclaim from the shadows That warns of plasma, the star’s rage
Gaze with increasing assent Which isn’t a threat now that I Kalki
Know that all pleas are a faint cry Have as a grand plan to roam carefree
Know that that quartz is no rose. To heed the storm’s course with each deed
Within my elite fleet, every stage.

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Selves’ Azon

Argon lasers primed, I relax and feel that thrill
Soon my beams will guide azon might to all those rocks
Agon tiffs between asteroids and regal will:
Stellar lanes will flare, gifting distant worlds the shock!

Orange starshells blaze, sensors show the zone I’ve earned
Passage smashed through dust, farness’ glass reveals the way
Distant suns and men beckon now, and they have learned
Praise is due to those blessed to raise the sign of K.

Solar System snarls angle wide compared to these
Frozen goals were far fragments dashed on rifts so wide
Months would pass, or more, gashing gulfs in wildness’ seas
Triumph surged as I angered fate and rode the tide.

May my other selves, Tower-far, be just as proud!
I am Prime in space, One in time, but they are kin
Sons who strode from bright Sagittarius, unbowed
Sometimes great we fuse, then we split; always I win.

Vishnu’s son I wait patiently for space to clear.
Every blast a flag, topaz-hot, proclaims my gain.
Recollections pause far from me at thoughts of pain:
Shiva’s son, I sear; soon I’ll soar. I feel no fear.

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Tower Driverzone

Our craft heeds the Tower, prime node rising central
White finned before the Door, hero’s Tor
Vast cold cloud pleroma, moonstone-blue environ
Pale wisps hail the perished; frozen lives propel us
Cast down souls’ bestowal, each name now forgotten.

Praise the river’s dark-veined plumes, our cadence!
Praise the desire driving us to seek!
Praise the ruling diagonal sequence!

Gatemen of the great K our ships soar on the teal sea
Tau warriors owed phlogiston, being’s azure roof
Zone won on the tide, ferried ranks vizored from bad signs
As now and through all time we chant mantras of wild youth
Firethorns of the last age and God, infinite Kalki.

About the Author

Daniel King: I am an Australian same-sex oriented writer,
with a strong interest in Hinduism (particularly pertaining
to Kalki, the 10th and final avatar of Vishnu, the Preserver,
incarnating now and forever together with Shiva, the
Destroyer), mysticism in general, and astronomy. As a
surfer, I am also strongly influenced by marine imagery.

214

VICTORIA PARK
LAKE

by Nathanael OReilly

Goulburn Doolin

A muddy river Atlantic wind chills
flanked by gums wanders through town seek shelter beside stone wall
past rope swings hanging sit on grassy bank
from high branches, rippling around sun obscured by clouds, grey skies
snags and sandbanks, flowing home distant waves crash against cliffs

Tingalpa Victoria Park Lake

The bush spread to the reservoir’s magpies and galahs
edge. Water stretched out of sight swoop and screech, the bush buzzes
round the peninsula. Wind-blown and ticks, families
waves chopped across to the distant picnic beside the lake, speed-
shore. Kids searched the waterline boats tow skiers, engines whine
for skimming stones, sent them skipping
into the distance as galahs Meditation
squawked in the gums, shat from on high.
Snakes bellied through the undergrowth, The stressed, grumpy old
redbacks wove webs between branches, man mixing paint in the Ace
magpies swooped boys on passing bikes. hardware store makes me
Flies settled in colonies, crawled look like the Dalai Lama,
inside nostrils on sweltering like Sting, like Leonard Cohen
afternoons after long school days.

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About the Author

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian residing in Texas. His books include (Un)belonging
(Recent Work Press, 2020); Preparations for Departure (UWAP, 2017), named one of the Books
of the Year in Australian Book Review; Cult (Ginninderra Press, 2016); Distance (Ginninderra
Press, 2015); Suburban Exile (Picaro Press, 2011); and Symptoms of Homesickness (Picaro
Press, 2010). More than 200 of his poems have appeared in journals and anthologies
published in twelve countries, including Antipodes, Anthropocene, Australian Love Poems,
Cordite, fourW, FourXFour, Headstuff, Marathon, Mascara, Postcolonial Text, Skylight 47,
Snorkel, Transnational Literature, Westerly and The Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2017.

216

EVENING NEWS

by Alan Britt

Remember When The Crusades Were Speaking of fairytales,
The Good Old Days? how about that last election?

[Or if guided warheads explode in Kinda makes you wonder
a country that we cannot see, who’s marching in goosestep
do they really explode?] with the Holy Bible?

Was there lots of raping and Makes you wonder about a lot of things
pillaging during the Crusades? like what’s happening to our time
on this precious planet?
Or just the right amount?
Although I don’t actually see them, I swear
Was there too much, dare I say, I can hear several large tulip poplars
greed involved falling in a nearby New Jersey forest.
like some aberrant cult addicted
to Manifest Destiny?

Have we really come to terms
with this raping and mutilation thing?

I mean, how many hundreds of thousands
of fellow humans must we destroy
to achieve the paradise promised
by our fairytales at mass
or the Disney Channel?

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New Orleans Adelaide Literary Magazine
Cadillacs And Suicides

I was on a hunt for the truth, one day, The moment suicide becomes a delicacy
well, an Easter egg hunt, more precisely, lying on a gravel of shaved ice with lettuce
but a hunt for flimsy mortality, nonetheless. and smoked almonds shuffled
into a stainless-steel tray by chipped ruby
A hunt for a brightly decorated truth, fingernails resembling vermilion lambs
you might say, with its broad green herded by two swastika guitars.
and blue stripes and doily lemon borders
with lilac highlights just enough The moment suicide tramples
to deceive a callow youth into believing mosquito nets fashioned
that he, too, could become President for the Amazon expedition,
and control global commodities served the moment
poached for the next Republican the unexpected moment
president lounging in bed, his thighs tickled when a stranger says he expected laughter
by corporations capable of manipulating in place of his all-too-familiar grief.
elusive truth.
Remember, I told you I could read
Well, there it is, then, the truth mangled your palm, but otherwise,
once again by humans on their way to or butterwise,
worship sentimental family values aligned when you shift with palmetto fronds
with one elusive god or another. that sway on any given July
Lake Worth moonlit night
So, what is truth? with your one strapless sandal
or someone else’s abandoned sandal
What is this mystery that compels some weighing as much as the Atlantic’s
to devote their entire lives to the impossible foaming incisors scarring my adolescent
in spite of so many hardships that offer waist hopelessly in love
luxurious solutions, warm and cuddly, with your chameleon eyebrows
like lounging seminude before crumbling between my lips.
a roaring fireplace
with elbows and nipples half-asleep Your hair upon the pillow
before attempting to exit Plato’s cave? like a sleepy golden storm.

But truth never belonged to Plato Cadillacs and suicides, once again—
any more than it belonged to metaphysical why do fascist leaders mean more
mathematicians exercising their freedom to us than intelligent highways
to become insane. navigating Pinocchio’s nose
growing through the slaughterhouse
Welcome to the Bayou. of every sensible idea by men
belonging to the stars

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or stars belonging to men? Evening News

Please teach me. Ionize ravens and you get pepper
falling through the branches of oak,
For I am a teacher. maple, black walnut, plus, a plethora
of magnolia’s horn-billed flamingo
But mistake me not for a wild scalpel blossoms of regret.
fluttering beneath a fluorescent tube
hanging from an aluminum hood Ionize your faith and watch what
flared like a cobra hissing happens to its sticky molecules
from our innocuous clinging to the walls of memory
happenstance of surnames. disguised as your holy DNA.

Tonight, I balance every single suicide It so happens there’s depth
on my eyelids in the rain. beneath the halo of that iconic
peasant and his disparate followers
[Italics by Leonard Cohen] donning grease stains from axle
bearings that few of us even
knew existed.

Remember, this guy already
recognized that certain things were
simply not tolerated by the status
quid pro quo universe.

This guy worshipped flesh as
a quasi-gnostic glory; so why not worship
his body like a proper epiphany
or at least a bare-shouldered shiraz.

But this guy’s suggestions weren’t tolerated
by the Emperor of Fascism or
Henry Ford hell-bent on swallowing
Carnegie Steel at a clip that would
make nail heads spin in a carpenter’s
suffering palms.

So, that’s how we advanced
to this modern age of ionizing
tower fans spraying the walls
of our DNA with graffiti called
the Evening News.

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with its shortwave radio crystals began and baritone discontent, Bela Bartok,
to rummage its chapped lips that twilit moth of exquisite melancholy.
against the moonlit naked hips
of our adolescence. So, Bela, remind me of everything I need
reminding of, or else shoulder me to the river.
And just when an industrial flashlight
Bela, there must be some mistake.
Ah, imagine how fortunate to kiss love’s
lips quivering beneath the full moon’s Bela, and I mean this as sincerely as I breathe,
quicksilver breath nuzzling our lover’s hair! the 5th violin in your Miraculous Mandarin
must’ve been aged in vodka and cultivated
Memory is so desecrated by the living dead by a red-knuckled Siberian hanging
that I no longer cherish memory; therefore, from a trapeze found only in dreams
I no longer see the sense of falling in love. of distant asteroids with their ten trillion
lanterns burning like hell inside the lost
Still, ocean waves uncurl like fossil incisors cave of my hungry throat.
across my bedroom ceiling like a Japanese
watercolor or Debussy’s La Mer shadows Bela, I beseech you!
mixing with the master of 20th century violins

Bourbon Street

(God is a concept by which we measure our pain.)
–John Lennon

So, there was this bell, well, not a Methodist bell, exactly, but a serious lookalike, strolling beneath
a scrub oak morning with Spanish moss trailing its shoulder blades.

Spanish moss as you’ve never known her, clicking her heels, her skirt of democracy shagged
just above her left knee.

This moss flourishes where you’d least expect her to, digesting exotic stars and un-
suspecting third world governments.

This moss I’m not so keen to ignore. This moss like neurotic teachers or nutri-
tionists fumbling for the lost lavender.

You know what happens when hollow points penetrate, don’t you?
They gouge holes the size of tennis balls. Ground chuck for lungs and upper intestines or a heart shrink-
wrapped into a Styrofoam schooner named Ariel sinking below a good old-fashioned London broil.

The room was located on some neglected game reserve. The
room was oblong and paranoid. The room consisted of cheap boredom marketed by cheap cologne

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spread from handshake to handshake at the annual insurance adjusters’ golf tournament during
godawful thunder with rain and lightning bolts like shards of cynicism denouncing the certainty of our
monotheistic flag. I saw the colors, red, white and Atlantic crab claw blue behind the swinging saloon
doors in a Yancy Derringer episode with Jay X. Brands, the bronze Pawnee, flashing his elk bone knife
inside a bristling tavern of early Bourbon Street.

Early Bourbon Street. Who erected the first cathouse
on Bourbon Street, thus, molting it into the mecca it is today? Who subsidized the first jazz note to
explode from a tarnished trumpet that left its mark in an oversized saffron mirror behind the bar? The
dream is over now. The Saints won’t come marching in any moment now. But give ‘em a whiff of the
good stuff and you’ll never get ‘em off your back no matter how hard you try. Give ‘em a whiff of your
mind-controlling mythical heaven and you’ll rule the galaxy. That’s reality?
Huh, give ‘em an inch and they’ll take your godforsaken soul.

About the Author

Alan Britt has been nominated for the 2021 International Janus Pannonius Prize awarded by
the Hungarian Centre of PEN International for excellence in poetry from any part of the world.
Previous nominated recipients include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bernstein and Yves
Bonnefoy. Alan was interviewed at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem. He
has published 18 books of poetry and served as Art Agent for the late great Ultra Violet while
often reading poetry at her Chelsea, New York studio. A graduate of the Writing Seminars at
Johns Hopkins University he currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.

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THE FIRST
LOCKDOWN

by Shera Hill

The First Lockdown Covid Icu

birdsong splashed mornings To die without a loved one’s touch
grass-shadowed fawns Permission to leave
quail, rabbits and Never asked
coyotes Never granted
abound
But to rest within a stranger’s eyes
a brief reprieve, Their touch warm too
Brothers and Sisters God, the nearest thou at hand
Fool’s Gold

how lonely we’ll be when you’re gone

I read once that nothing is ever lost.

Does Gaia hold you always in her heart—
your spirit, your blueprint, your DNA?
Or perhaps you hide your scattered few
ready to emerge and thrive again
once we’ve destroyed ourselves
or returned to sanity.

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The Crow

Black against the burnt orange clouds Taut threads fray
A crow swoops across my windshield world agreements fall apart
I brake and swerve
the bay at my shoulder A byzantine novel
the road’s thin white line 
warning against the slide into dark water  titillating to read
gut-hollowing to live
cars behind me, hungry wolves as California’s
snap at my tail lights scrubby chaparral, towering pines 
and starving for their former lives subdivisions and mountain cabins
race to familiar places turn to smoke 
where the old normal
might hide accelerator sinks under my shoe

Masks, washed hands, distance The midnight crow
from touch and breath lightning without rain
politics descends to chaos the fire comes

About the Author

Shera Hill grew up in California and has written short stories,
poetry, and novels, since she was a child. She recently
retired as a library branch manager and has published
short fiction and poetry in such journals as the First Literary
Review – East, Everyday Fiction, and Ancient Paths Online.

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THE CORK OAK
OF PORTUGAL

by Reed Venrick

The Cork Oak of Portugal befriends the wine lovers of the world.
Harvested every ten years, even harvested
Riding the bus down and along— 20 times, since planted in 1783.
Lisbon to Faro on the Algarve coast,
passing through dry, hilly forests— one harvest year produced 2600 pounds,
proving that just one tree can cork a million
from the distance of your seat, they bottles of wine; yet birdwatchers say,
seem to be the same burly oaks
of California—many with canopies this tree is even a greater friend to the
hundreds of songbirds that rest and nest
wider than they are tall—called inside its’ branches—singing out
the “queros suber” cork oaks of Iberia—
thick cushions growing flush around the morning’s glory of Iberian days, for
as said in the linguistic sounds of this land,
the trunks—this fine cork trucked on in what the Portuguese call the Whistler Tree—
to Oporto, where reds, whites and rose’ O grande arvore do assobiador.
are bottled and sent to a thousand ports.

But one famous tree cannot be missed, as
your bus rumbles along, not far from the E1
Highway, bigger than the rest—oldest

and largest cork tree in the world with
a diameter of 14 feet and a height growing
over 60—see here how just one tree

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About the Author

Reed Venrick lives in Florida; has visited Portugal several times; usually writes poems with
nature themes.

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VISITOR FOR THE DAY

by Duane Anderson

Know-It-All Omen

She seemed to consider herself an expert After years of always holding the blood drive
after only donating one time prior, on a Friday, the day of the week was changed
and from the look that she gave me, to a Thursday hoping to get a few additional
I definitely got the warning signal that it was employees to volunteer in
donating since many of
beneath her needing to review the advance them were now allowed to work
reading material on this visit to determine from home on Fridays.
if any important updates had been added. Yes, in theory, the change
Maybe it wasn’t like the weather changing made sense, but it must
have also jinx the blood drive
hour by hour, or even day to day, for a winter blizzard
but some people have learned to occur on the very first day of the change,
that not all things with a large percentage of
in the world remained constant and liked to the scheduled donors
keep informed, but unfortunately, not all were failing to show up for their appointment.
I was use to observing them
as lucky as her, the expert Ms. Know-It-All as they came through
bursting with all of this superior the doors from outside from
intelligence and working on past drives
keeping it all to herself, and at this location, but few walked
even if she did want to into the building today.
share a little bit of this knowledge, Blame it on the change of the day,
I knew I wouldn’t blame it on the weather,
an omen, maybe telling them that
have enough time in the day some changes just weren’t meant to be.
to listen to all of this
great wisdom, though maybe I should have
been honored just to be in her presence, or at
least that is what I sensed from
our brief encounter.

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Bloody Mary Revista Literária Adelaide
Visitor for the Day

As I laid on one of the beds in the I signed in at the front desk,
process of donating a pint of blood, first typing in my name into the computer,
with a needle stuck in one arm, then took two steps back
she asked me if I wanted a juice or a cocktail
instead of asking if I wanted as it snapped a picture of my face that
some juice or a bottle of water. would be printed on the visitor badge I
I said yes, I would take a Bloody Mary, was advised I was required to wear at

but she rescinded her offer on the cocktail all times while I was in the building.
after realizing her mistake, and I ended Besides asking my name,
taking her up on a can of cranberry juice, the computer only asked who I was seeing,
the closest thing resembling the color of the
Bloody Mary that I had earlier requested, but it did not ask the reason for my visit,
trying to make the best of the situation and I guess I should have felt fortunate
from my latest disappointment in life. a brain scan wasn’t required to siphon any

remaining memories that were
stored in my head,
or swabbing my cheek to obtain my DNA,
or taking my fingerprints for
further verification.

I was just visiting there for the
day, but felt my presence
was made more important than
it should have been
by requiring my name and taking my picture.

I would have been happy just to have
remained as being someone unknown,
a status that would return as I left for the day.

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About the Author

Duane Anderson currently lives in La Vista, NE, and volunteers with a non-profit organization
as a Donor Ambassador on their blood drives. He has had poems published in The Pangolin
Review, Fine Lines, Adelaide, Cholla Needles, Tipton Poetry Journal, Poesis Literary Journal
and several other publications.

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YELLOW

by Byron Beynon

Beethoven Sea Music

A memory within music, A neolithic land
a ripening drowned by the early
with vineyards overgrown, rising sea.
and your mind’s ear in tune; The legend of church
alert with days bells that ring
you look through a small window on calm evenings
at strangers, beneath the waves of Cardigan Bay.
the relentless wave-pulse, The fertile cousins
uncorked knowledge in Europe,
on a journey a genealogy of tales,
through a territory Holland’s dyke and the submerged
where time gathers cathedral off the Breton coast,
shards of meaning. with Debussy’s thoughts
A frustration of the heart’s listening for the music
burning sound, to his piano prelude.
your quiet breath of power
blurring with the grey rain.

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Yellow Adelaide Literary Magazine
Bonnard’s Window

A change in the weather An enduring landscape
like salt on ice. outside a Mediterranean house
Eyes close and the day
ticks away like sleep entered with sunshine and shade,
and half-remembered dreams. arranged the furniture of the mind
Threatening rattles,
voices beneath lids, by waking the morning’s mirror
the wind is heavy in the early calm of day.
against the walking figure.
The girl in the yellow dress Yellow mimosa, maroon-
toes the water, pink, apple-green, those blossoming
her face is new
and free of windows. jewels stroked from nature
She takes her age seriously inside the hush of interiors,
but the silence is frightening
like a lost rainbow. a sensual medley of brush work
for the key of iridescent light.

About the Author

Byron Beynon lives in Wales. His work has appeared in several publications including
The Adelaide Literary Magazine, The London Magazine, North of Oxford, Poetry Ireland
Review, Poetry Wales, Grey Sparrow and the human rights anthology In Protest (University
of London and Keats House Poets). Collections include Cuffs (Rack Press) and The Echoing
Coastline (Agenda Editions). A selection of his work is forthcoming from Moonstone Press
(Philadelphia), entitled A View from the Other Side.

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INTERVIEWS



DAVID DEPHY

A GEORGIAN / AMERICAN POET,
NOVELIST, MULTIMEDIA ARTIST

1. T ell us a bit about yourself – something
that we will not find in the official author’s bio?

I left Georgia for a political reason in 2017 and immigrated in USA. I started writing in English,
after 8 months of my arriving. Thanks to AFI (Artistic Freedom Initiative in New York City)
they helped me with my documents and with my case a lot. I am a poet, man of word and I
feel that poetry is such a sacrifice, it is real, true, and tangible. It is such enormous concept,
that it cannot be only my personal matter. As a writer I realize that much is demanded from
me, but not much is forgiven to me... That if I figure it out by what means I want to be special,
then I will understand who and what I am in reality... And, that if in our inner world and in
this multi-language dictionary of the mankind survive the following words such as Freedom,
Responsibility, Comfort, then the world will also survive. For me this is the mission of liter-
ature and of mine as a poet’s and novelist’s justification for existence. I am a husband and
father of three children. I believe in family; family is the Divine breath and precious gift from
the future.

2. D o you remember what was your first story
(article, essay, or poem) about and when did you write it?

Yes, I do. I wrote three texts at the same time. One is called The Chair, a truly short story, one
page, not even, another one is called The Lilac Puppy on the White Canvas and the poem
under the title I Stood on the Water… I was teaching a video art at the Academy of Contem-
porary Arts in Georgia, that period. I was a huge fan of Peter Greenaway, Frank Lloyd Wright
and when I wrote my first works, I realized that some doors opened before me. I felt some
joy. I received some invitation from the other side of myself, beyond of everything. I have
heard a call.

3. What is the title of your latest book and what inspired it?

In Georgian language it is called Gvirgvinosany, it means Crowned in English. This is a his-
torical and detective novel about the greatest secret of 12 century’s world and of Georgia
of course – Who was poet Rustveli? In the book I am developing idea that he was the king

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Demetre - Demna, who was killed officially. But I found some gaps, some chasms into the
darkness of history and I said to myself – what if he escaped? And he was alive? He was
in Jerusalem? The main character of the novel is Demna Batonishvili – royal prince and
the legal pretender to the throne. The book wholly depicts life of Demna Batonishvili. The
narration is of spellbinding appeal, Georgia and not only Georgia but the whole world of
that period is ideally depicted and fairly presented by the characters of novel – Jerusalem
and Shirvan, Persia and Ani city and Bagdad, heroes and anti-heroes, sultans and kings,
caravans and knights, Assassins dynasty brotherhood, appearance of the three magi kings
who became the friends of the main hero Demetre - Demna Batonishvili and investigate
the murder case of Demna’s father, King David. This is my 8th novel, written in Georgian
language.

Also, I published two books of poetry before my immigration in the US. One is the long
poem – a story about understanding, belief and choice. It is called Poet King and another
one the collection of poems, called The Same Fable. This is the story about freedom. That is
my 14th book of poetry in Georgian language.

In English language, my poetry full book-length Eastern Star has been released by Ade-
laide Books on October 28, 2020 and are forthcoming A Mystiere, a novel by Mad Hat Press
in 2021 and poetry Lilac Shadow of a Tree by Mad Hat Press as well. The story of A Mystiere
leads us out of ourselves. This is a detective and mystical story about two poets and one
novelist, and the idea is that one of them is the insane man, but we don’t know exactly who…
It is up to reader.

4.  How long did it take you to write your latest work and
how fast do you write (how many words daily)?

A hundred of words daily. It was summer, when I started my 8th novel Crowned. I was waking
up at 5 am every day. I was working as a crazy. I finished my work in six months. Unexpect-
edness is the way. Moving forward and trusting the flow, that is the main thing. Poem or
story or even novel knows what to do with you, you must trust your own heartbeat. All the
mysteries of the world are dwelling beyond fear to continue the path. Breath after breath,
word after word, line after line, trusting the flow you navigate your precious ship of narrative
across your own self.

5. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

I think yes, I have one, and I call it silence. I feel silence in me and when I feel it, I know in
that very second, that time is near, something is going on. I called this process Architecture
of Sounds and Breathe.

6.  Is writing the only form of artistic expression that you utilize, or
is there more to your creativity than just writing?

Mainly only poetry and prose, yes, but there are many forms. Video art for example, paint-
ing, sound art as well… I recorded three audio albums of my poetry with orchestra and elec-

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tronic bands. I build a text by breath and heartbeat. The architecture of feelings, sounds and
visions is my poetry and prose and by the way I earned my undergraduate degree MFA from
the Faculty of Architecture at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Georgia.

In all honesty I can feel the words and I can see the words as a breath and heartbeat of
language – of Georgian language, and of English language. I am a Georgian/American poet
and yes, spirit of us is poetry.

7. Authors and books that have influenced your writings?

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe, Leaves of Grass by
Walt Whitman, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner and of course Rustvely with his master-
piece The Knight in the Panther’s Skin and music, Beethoven and Georgian polyphonic songs,
the album The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and poetry of Rumi, Omar Khayyam and
William Blake, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and the Prophet by Gibran Kahlil
Gibran.

8.  What are you working on right now?
Anything new cooking in the wordsmith’s kitchen?

Oh yes, I am working on poetry right now. In English language. I understand, it may sound
strange, when your native and foreign language meet each other in your consciousness and
find a forever home there. But this is love. Yes, love, and expressing it, especially in the lan-
guage which lives inside your heart, is a supreme achievement of poetry to me, because for
me poetry itself is a native language of humanity.

9. D id you ever think about the profile of your readers?
What do you think – who reads and who should read your books?

For me there is only one real world in the industry of literature and especially in poetry, this
is the triangle of the author, text, and reader. We are one. Readership is the church for me.
This is the temple. Holy of holies. Heaven. Readers heart is heaven for poets. Living forever
right in your readers’ hearts – this is a real success and a real immortality. Every word is alive,
and we are alive too as long as we understand one another, as long as we believe in one
another. Poet. Word. Reader. That is all.

10. Do you have any advice for new writers/authors?

Feel the joy of yourself. Feel it and share it. I know that something great, kind, powerful and
beautiful is coming in the world and do not give in. Poetry is the answer to all the mysteries
of our world. Poetry, a reason for the existence of language, is a breath which brings out
every genuine word in that very moment when you are standing across from yourself, lan-
guage, and poetry itself and have no fear, because you are free. I think that a human being
gets strength from the truth and transfers that strength to others and fills them with comfort
and allows them to carry on and hold on during everyday struggles. This truth for me is po-
etry and it has no boundaries.

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11. What is the best advice (about writing) you have ever heard?

Read a lot.

Write a lot.

Cut a lot.

Said my father to me.

12. H ow many books you read annually and what are you reading now?
What is your favorite literary genre?

I have no idea about books, how many I read and remember or just forgot. I love Moby Dick
and The Prophet, I feel some mystery is dwelling beyond every great work, far away of the
limits of genre. Someday it is a detective story, someday it is a drama. In all honesty I think
that despite language, literature actually has no borders and the most important thing in our
relationship is our wish to make the world a better place. And we must achieve it by better
means. I mean poetry itself. I think this is the question of quality, first.

13.  What do you deem the most relevant about your writing?
What is the most important to be remembered by readers?

Love, Freedom, Responsibility and expressing them, is a crown achievement of poetry to
me, because for me poetry itself is a spiritual constitution of all mankind. Forever. “How
do I know when to end a poem?” I asked myself, once and realized that you do not know,
no one knows. You can only feel a very precious pause and then continue breathe with an-
other poem. This pause is magical and not always logical point of view or mind’s condition
or even mind’s game. There is no end and no beginning, but memory only. Our spiritual
right memory of hope and comfort. Poetry is beyond of classical understanding of time
and space.

14.  What is your opinion about the publishing industry today and
about the ways authors can best fit into the new trends?

Sometimes it seems crazy, but sometimes crazy is the best way to go, sometimes it is OK,
sometimes it is simply great. No one knows exactly what means the literary success today,
just because of internet and social media. But I believe in readers of 21st century, they still
can feel by heart. They still can feel a poetry. This is a big deal… and I feel I am lucky man
too, I am developing my readership all around the world, I am happy that I can share my
thoughts and emotions with the other people via poetry and prose and despite everyday
struggle for my existence as a writer, I am not going to give in, not yet. It is so important to
be readable in our noisy world. Every day I thank God for my idealistic endurance, as I am
equally inspired by a good and bad event. I perceive the meaning of things only if I thor-
oughly study them and this research inspires me. Publisher, writer, and work… it is pretty
risky but absolutely spectacular journey at the same time, when love always wins, if not, it
won’t be love.

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238

GARY PEDLER

AUTHOR OF GAYDONIA

1. T ell us a bit about yourself – something that
we will not find in the official author’s bio?

Most of my life story isn’t very remarkable in outline. But I will mention one thing that I did
that was a little unusual. After retiring from my money-making job at fifty, I spent three years
out of the country. Mainly, I moved in and out of the Schengen Zone in Europe. The rule of
the Zone for me as an American was that I could be inside it for 90 days, then needed to be
out of it for another 90 before I could enter again. So I would flip back and forth: 90 days in,
90 days out, and so on. I wasn’t on the move the whole time. Instead I would decide, say, to
spend the summer in Edinburgh. I would find a cheap place to live there, usually renting a
room in a shared apartment. When I wasn’t in the Zone, I would often slip over to the UK. I
also made trips to Israel and India.

Looking back, that was probably the most interesting period of my life. I had time to soak
up each place where I lived. When I spent a winter in Rome, I would see one tourist site a day,
one museum or church, instead of having to cram a bunch of them into a short visit. I was
lucky in that, in each place I lived, I made at least one friend, so I wasn’t completely alone.
Usually I would meet some other gay man through a local gay group, like the gay country
dance group in Edinburgh. When I spent a winter in Rome, the one friend was my landlord
Silvio, an elderly gentleman who would take me to parties and family events.

Eventually, I decided it was time to end this way of life. Still, by then I’d learned some
useful things. Including that I could live out of one suitcase for three years, and it wasn’t
a big deal. I could only wear one pair of pants at a time, after all, so how many did I really
need?

2.  Do you remember what was your first piece of writing
was about, and when did you write it?

At seven, I started to write what I thought of as a novel. Nothing so paltry as a short story for
me! This “novel” was a mishmash of a number of movies and books. It involved an erupting
volcano, a lost world containing lots of dinosaurs, and a handful of survivors, including, of
course, one beautiful woman. My dad typed up what I’d written. In its typed form, my “nov-
el” was only a few pages long, which was discouraging.

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3. What is the title of your latest book and what inspired it?

My latest book is Gaydonia. One day while I was working out at the gym, the idea came to
me for a fantasy story about a small, poor country that turned itself into a gay tourist mecca
in order to make money. When I got home, I told my housemate the idea. I ended with, “But
of course I wouldn’t actually write this story.” I thought of myself as only writing realist fic-
tion. She said, “I think you should write it. It’s a good idea.” Her saying this made me change
my mind, and I started work on what became Gaydonia.

I wrote it first as a screenplay. This seems like a thing most writers feel compelled to do
at some point, write a screenplay. Once I’d finished it, I sent it off to every agency I could
find that handled screenplays. I didn’t get a single response, not even a “No, I hated it.” Just
nothing.

I wasn’t completely naive and impractical, though. Parallel to the screenplay, I wrote
a stage play version, assuming this would be easier to get produced. It did get produced,
though in rather odd circumstances. While I was spending the summer in Edinburgh, I heard
about a play contest run by a local gay amateur theater company. I entered Gaydonia in the
contest. I found out there were only three entries. Surely my play was good enough to beat
out two others. But no, it didn’t! The company chose one of the other plays. But then it had
some sort of trouble with the playwright, so the company asked me if they could put on mine.
The play was given three performances in a large space with a small audience. I tried to use
this production as a launchpad for others, without success.

Finally, I wrote a third version of the story as a novella, and Adelaide published it. Maybe
some film producer will read the novella and say, “This would make a great movie.” Then I
can say, “Fantastic, I already have a screenplay ready!”

4. How long did it take you to write your latest work?

My work on Gaydonia was spread out over something like twelve years. This for a story that
only has around 22,000 words! But I think I got everything about it right in the end. My fear
once a book is published is that I’ll open it up and read it and think, “Oh no, I need to change
this.” Except by then it’s too late. Thank goodness, when I pick up Gaydonia and read some
of it, I think it’s fine, and I still chuckle at a lot of it.

5. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

Other than often taking a very long time to get a piece of writing in final shape – no, I don’t
think I have any unusual habits.

6.  Is writing your only form of artistic expression,
or do you have others?

Writing is the only creative thing I do. Though I’m actually more interested in music. I spend
more time listening to music, reading about it, analyzing it, than I do reading novels and
thinking about them and analyzing them.

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7. What are some authors and books that have influenced your writing?
I love British mysteries and thrillers, mainly from the first half of the twentieth century.
Though I’ve never written in these genres myself, I’ve learned a lot from these books about
dialogue, characterization, pacing.

8. W hat are you working on now? Anything new cooking in the wordsmith’s kitchen?
At present, I’m writing a YA novel about three young people who make a trip around Canada
and the U.S. filming a documentary. The documentary deals with protests against the more
destructive forms of fossil fuel extraction, like fracking and mountaintop removal. I’m learn-
ing a lot about these matters, which is both interesting and distressing.

9.  Did you ever think about the profile of your readers?
Who reads and who should read your books?

That depends on the book. The main character of the YA novel I’m writing now is a bisexual
seventeen-year-old girl, and my fantasy is to have a lesbian or bisexual woman of more or
less that age read the book and tell me that I captured her feelings exactly and she couldn’t
believe the book was written by a man (gay, though neither bisexual nor lesbian).

10. Do you have any advice for writers just getting started?
My advice would be the same that any sensible fellow writer would give: keep your day job!
This is only a full-time career for a tiny number of authors.

11. What is the best advice about writing you have ever heard?
A pretty good one is Paul Valéry’s, “A work of art is never finished, only abandoned.” In other
words, don’t imagine you’ll ever get the work of art to the point where you say, “It’s abso-
lutely perfect in every respect.” Eventually, you just have to say, “It’s not perfect, but I can’t
improve it anymore, so I’m going to consider it done and move on.”

12. Do you have any personal advice to add?
My advice, at least for fiction writers, is to keep a journal. Especially when we’re young,
the present seems very familiar. It’s hard for us to grasp that it will change much. In fact,
someday it will become a mostly lost world. We won’t be the same person, with the same
thoughts and feelings, and the world around us will alter in ways we can’t imagine. So we
should make as complete and detailed a record of the present as possible.

I’ve read a lot of published journals, and for me, the main mistake of most journal writers
is that they go into detail about their thoughts and feelings and skimp on concrete elements,
like what they saw and exactly what they and other people said. I recommend writing a
journal in the style of a story or a novel, with a lot of scene setting, physical detail, written
out dialogue. A good detailed journal can be a mine we create for ourself as a writer and that
we can dig into later for material.

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12. W hat do you do when you’re having trouble with a piece

you’re working on and feel discouraged?
I remind myself that the periods when I find my writing unsatisfactory are very important.
That’s when I’ll do all the cutting and changing that I need to do, when I’m out of love with
a piece. A writer needs to be fickle, and fall in and out of love with his work, because both
states serve a purpose.
13. How many books do you read annually and what are you reading now?
I don’t read nearly as much now as I did when I was a young bookworm. At present I’m read-
ing Eric Ambler’s The Schirmer Inheritance – another mystery! I read it in English years ago,
and now I’m reading it in a French translation. This is my odd way of getting myself to read
in another language, to read something I read in English and liked, and where I already know
the story.
14. What is your opinion about the publishing industry today?
Please don’t encourage me to rant and rave!

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A CHAT WITH

MARK SABA

1. T ell us a bit about yourself – something that we will
not find in the official author’s bio?

I never thought I’d become a writer, though I did have a habit of writing long, dramatic
letters to people when I was an adolescent. I just thought it the best way to communicate.
My academic interests have always been far-reaching. I was particularly fond of science
and art. My high school English teachers were uninspiring. Following high school I entered
pharmacy school at the University of Pittsburgh, but only stayed there a couple of years. I
transferred to Wesleyan University, where I took a fiction writing class with Annie Dillard.
She is the person who encouraged me to become a writer. Her class changed me forever.
I found avenues of expression in my writing, under her mentorship, that allowed me to
flourish.

2. D o you remember what your first story
(article, essay, or poem) was about and when you wrote it?

I wrote a couple of haiku poems in junior high, not thinking much about them. My teacher
hung them on the corkboard. I had been thinking about music a lot since I played the clarinet
(quite well) and was being exposed to the great composers in concert band. I still remember
one of the poems: Musicians/creative thinkers/sharing their knowledge/in wide open spac-
es/artists. That was the last haiku I ever wrote.

3. What is the title of your latest book and what inspired it?

My latest book contains two novellas: A Luke of All Ages / Fire and Ice. I got a phone call
at work one day from my sister, who told me my aunt had died. It was a shock to me, one
of those times when you feel you’ve been out of touch and don’t realize that everything
is moving toward completion, whether you recognize it or not. I began thinking about my
extended family, where I grew up, and who I’d become. I also wondered how I’d end up. I
felt compelled to record scenes from my childhood, and arrange them next to scenes from
my middle-aged life, as well as those from old age as I imagined it to be. I felt I had changed
a lot since childhood, yet I also knew I hadn’t changed at all. That was the thesis of A Luke
of All Ages. In Fire and Ice I created two characters who have very different views of reli-

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gion (or lack of it) and how those views shaped their world. When they become intimate
those world views are upset, and they become drawn to each other’s way of perceiving the
world and their connection to it. I grew up in a very Catholic household but have always
been interested in pantheism and religions that center more on nature, such as Japanese
Shinto. I wanted to write a story that defended both of these religious inclinations, and also
challenge them.

4.  How long did it take you to write your latest work and
how fast do you write (how many words daily)?

Each of the novellas mentioned above took roughly a year to write. I try to write every
day, but it doesn’t always happen. I write very slowly, maybe 250 words at most in a sitting,
sometimes much less. I constantly review sentences, and the ones that come immediately
previously, as I write. I’m a trickler, not a gusher. When I rewrite, I do more adding than
subtracting.

5. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

I doodle everywhere, all over the page. Most of the doodling occurs before I begin to write,
as I’m emptying out my brain of all the garbage that occupies it during the day. Most of my
doodles are abstractions, but I’m also fond of writing words in other languages, because I
love languages. If I’m feeling stuck I get up and walk around the room, or go to another room.
Almost immediately a thought will come to me and I go back to my desk to write it down.
Also, I write with pen and paper, shutting off all electronic devices. I don’t want to hear any-
thing buzzing in the background. When I begin a new page of my tablet, I stop for a second
and write the page number on the following page before continuing. That way I’m always
telling myself that there will be another page to write.

6. I s writing the only form of artistic expression that you utilize,
or is there more to your creativity than just writing?

I studied art every Saturday morning when growing up in Pittsburgh. The classes were free at
the Carnegie Museum, but you had to be chosen (two kids from 4th grade from each school
in the city) and very well behaved. It was a classical art education that went clear up to 12th
grade, though you had to be invited back every year. Everyone thought I’d pursue art, but
there was just too much out there that interested me, so I continued drawing and painting,
but never majored in it in college. These days I paint in oils. I like the richness of their colors,
and also the way they smell. I consider my paintings poems; my artwork and writing tend to
influence each other.

7. Authors and books that have influenced your writings?

The first book that hit me like a brick was Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Not only was
it beautifully written, but the story was so human and felt very real to me. I’m drawn to
stories about regular people, not the rich and famous. As I got older I found the Russians

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fascinating, especially Dostoyevsky, as well as Hemingway and a few poets such as G. M.
Hopkins, Whitman, Dickinson, and Yeats. Annie Dillard taught me that fiction writing
can also be poetry. I found that authors who had the most music in their words drew
me most deeply. I also found an affinity with Gertrude Stein. Her integrity and clarity of
thought floored me. As a graduate student at Hollins College I discovered the mind-bend-
ing works of writers like Calvino and Marquez and began to experiment more with my
own writing.

8. W hat are you working on right now?
Anything new cooking in the wordsmith’s kitchen?

I recently finished writing a short novel that is probably the weirdest thing I’ve written, a
sort of fabulist journey. I’m going to let that one cool off before I go back to revise it. Cur-
rently I’m writing a memoir, something I never thought I’d do. A lot of what I’m writing I’ve
presented before in fiction and essays, but it comes out a little differently when you take
responsibility for your life. I’m learning a lot about my development as a person and writer
in this memoir.

9. D id you ever think about the profile of your readers?
What do you think – who reads and who should read your books?

It’s a mystery to me who might like my work. Hopefully a wide range of people, because I
never wanted to write only for other writers, or only for ivy league graduates. I would say
that I tend to write stories that awaken the big questions, but as presented by normal folk.
That said, I often hear from other writers that they admire my work. But I’ve also gotten
little notes from my mother’s friends, none of whom were college educated. I used to
think, when I first started writing seriously, would my great Aunt Florence like this? I don’t
know why she was my barometer. She was a fun-loving, cheerful person, but she’d had a
hard life.

10. Do you have any advice for new writers/authors?

My advice is probably what you’d hear from other writers: keep writing. When you’ve fin-
ished a project, move on to the next one. Challenge yourself; try something new. Dig way
down inside of you and find what’s there. What have you been mulling over in your head
your whole life, what questions, what events? If they meant something to you, they will
mean something to others. The universal lies in the particular. You are the particular, just like
everyone else out there. But when you write your particular point of view down, you share
it with others. And they will find comfort in it, because they will relate to it.

11. What is the best advice (about writing) you have ever heard?

Whatever you can get away with (Annie Dillard). In a similar vein, Gertrude Stein remarked
that it doesn’t matter what you write about, it matters how strong your voice is. You need to
keep writing to develop your voice. Those 10,000 hours.

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12. H ow many books do you read annually and what are you reading now?
What is your favorite literary genre?

It varies, but I probably read about 20–30 books a year of various lengths. I like to read
several books at once. I pick them up according to my mood. Currently I’m reading Caste by
Isabel Wilkerson and Black Nature (an anthology of African American nature poetry, edited
by Camille T. Dungy). I just finished Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in Search of America,
which I found surprisingly relevant to our times. I’ll read anything that interests me, from
history to anthropology to religious studies, and of course poetry. My favorite would be a
story that is so well written and beautiful that I reread almost every sentence as I go along. I
found Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki to be like that.

13.  What do you deem the most relevant about your writing?
What is most important to be remembered by readers?

What I strive for in my writing is honesty, and also eloquence. I try to wring out any unnec-
essary word or passage. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time by writing what is obvious or
understood as a subtext. I write a lot of poetry, and that has influenced my fiction in both
its lyricism and concision. These days we writers are vying for readers’ attention because of
electronic devices that spurt mundane phrases at us all day. I’d rather write passages that
are memorable because they are meaningful and beautiful.

14.  What is your opinion about the publishing industry today and
about the ways authors can best fit into the new trends?

There are so many avenues available to writers these days, and there are more writers
than ever before. The hard part is connecting to your readers. You need to find them and
they need to find you, wading through a jungle of written material in all its varieties. The
best way is still word of mouth. Writers can approach publishing in different ways (small
presses, agents, ebooks, self-publishing) and keep trying new ways until they can make
that connection. It requires a lot of patience. We’re all making it up as we go along. Just
like fiction.

15. Have you been able to support yourself as a writer?

I’m lucky in that I have other skills, namely, art. I’ve been working as a medical illustrator and
graphic designer at Yale University for the past 32 years (this year being my last). It’s not al-
ways been easy making time to write in the evenings, but at least I knew my day job was over
once I left the office. I am also a parent, and was basically the primary caregiver to our two
kids because my wife had to commute long hours and do quite a bit of traveling. But after
dinner, soccer practice, and putting my kids to bed, I’d go up to my man-cave in the attic and
churn out fiction and poems. I’ve made a little money from it here and there, but I wouldn’t
have lasted this long as a writer if that had been my only goal.

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247

WAYNE F. BURKE

AUTHOR OF TURMOIL
& OTHER STORIES

1.  Tell us a bit about yourself – something that we will
not find in the official author’s bio?
I like much coffee in the morning.
I was born the same month and year Hurricane Edna hit New England.
I have never been married, or divorced.
I do not own a cell phone; do not have a tattoo; have not received an MFA.
I have driven a ten-wheeler (truck).
I have lived in Dublin, Ireland, as well as the USA.
I have not seen a UFO, but I have seen a moose.

2.  Do you remember what your first story
(article, essay, or poem) was about and when you wrote it?

The first writing I did for publication were the jokes I wrote and submitted to READER’S DIGEST.
I was in Junior High School at the time. In High School I wrote my first short story. Wrote it for
my brother to pass in to his English teacher so he could pass freshman English. I do not recall
the details of the story. I continued writing, stories and essays, when a college freshman, and
submitted some to popular magazines of the day, but without acceptance. By senior year of
college my writing interest had shifted to poetry, and my first poetry publication was in a stu-
dent-run literary magazine. My first story published happened while I was in my 40’s.

3. What is the title of your latest book and what inspired it?
At the time of selecting a title for my story collection, I viewed my tale, ‘Turmoil’ as the
strongest of the bunch. (I have since changed my view. ‘Buddies’ the strongest.) ‘Turmoil’
not only the strongest story, as I thought, at the time of selection, but the title itself, the
word, applicable, I believed, and still believe, to the emotional states found in many of the
other stories. Not the adolescent angst of ‘Turmoil,’ the story, but each story with its own
sort of TURMOIL, and thus, the word itself, I thought, and think, an apt general description of
the overall tenor of the collection. Also, the story ‘Turmoil’—a tale of adolescence, as I have

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