Adelaide Literary Magazine No.28, September 2019

Revista Literária Adelaide

Translator’s Note Translator:

Vi oria Colonna (1490-1547) was an Italian Ted Witham is an Anglican Ter ary of St
noblewoman, the best-known female Francis. He writes poems and short stories
intellectual of her me. Her poems are and has published in the Eureka Street
stylis cally and linguis cally ambi ous; her Journal and Studio in Australia, and in
favourite form was the Petrarchan sonnet. Lacuna: Journal of Historical Fic on in the
The sensuous imagery of her early poems US. He lives in the beau ful south-west
carries over to her later ‘spiritual’ sonnets. corner of Australia with his wife Rae and
Her poems are in the public domain. Jack Russell terrier Lo e.

199

LAUDA XV

by Jacapone da Todi, translated
by Ted Witham

Jacapone da Todi Lauda XV Original:

Translated from the Umbrian by Ted Witham O amor de povertate,—regno de tranquillitate!
Povertate, via secura,—non ha lite né rancura,
Pursue poverty, and peace will reign over all: de latron non ha paura—né
with poverty life is secure, de nulla tempestate.
No fear from thieves or thunder squall.
Poverty dies in peace, makes no will, Povertate muore en pace,—nullo testamento
leaves the earth as clean as an arrow, face,
but leaves heirs behind in harmony s ll. lassa el mondo como iace—e
Poverty needs no judge or a orney, le gente concordate.
laughs at the greedy man
marred by anxiety on his journey. Non ha iudece né notaro,—a corte non porta
Poverty as the highest insight salaro,
despises the act of possessing, ridese de l’uomo avaro—che
yet possesses every created thing aright. sta en tanta ansietate.
Those who despise possession
own nothing to trap their feet, Povertá, alto sapere,—a nulla cosa soiacere,
their days pass in serene succession. en desprezo possedere—tu e le cose create.
In narrow hearts God does not dwell
the broader the heart, the greater Chi despreza sí possede,—possedendo non se
for God is its desire as well. lede,
nulla cosa i piglia ’l pede—che
non faccia sue giornate.

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Revista Literária Adelaide
Chi desía è posseduto,—a quel ch’ama s’è
venduto;
s’egli pensa que n’ha ’vuto,—
han’avute rei derrate.
Tropo so de vil coragio—ad entrar en
vasallagio,
simiglianza de Dio ch’agio—
deturparla en vanitate.
Dio non alberga en core stre o,—tant’è grande
quant’hai affe o,
povertate ha sí gran pe o,—
che ci alberga deitate.

Jacopone da Todi (1228-1306) was a Franciscan mys c from the Italian town of Todi. He
trained as a lawyer before becoming a Franciscan Ter ary, preaching from town to town in
his ta ered habit. He then joined the Franciscan Brothers at Todi. In his spiritual journey, he
experienced energy and passion a er his conversion and moved to peace and calm in his
years in the Todi convent. He wrote poetry from his youth. Groups of ter aries gathered to
sing Jacopone’s songs enthusias cally like rugby fans today bel ng out their club songs.

201

LIFE, INTERRUPTED

by Roseanne Morales

Life, Interrupted Back to the Drawing Board

A growing sensa on never there, Gullibility turned me to a Cynic,
a dream you woke up from, wondering belief made me a bad Cynic,
did it even happen, in another life, now I’m gullible about my Cynicism.
perhaps another death never recorded? Beware of isms,
This be is not to be, no ques on God is not an ism,
asked or answered, just a hard decision. religion is.
Truth was never in the bed, My Cynicism is a fallacy
re-made, you never slept just like religion,
but rolled away from wet spots. just like killing for religion.
Drops of bleach scour everything, God did not write
repair what’s broke but can’t a book on killing
replace what’s damaged. and cares li le for what we do.
S ll, on days your guard is dropped, We are here
do you remember as you lay and God is there,
there on your stainless bed, our maker, perhaps.
seeing something tabled, something set Perhaps God made us,
off to the side, saying “Please perhaps God made us
do come back later nothing like himself.
when you know you’ve made Of this I am not cynical,
the only right decision, if God made us, he made us far too ugly
when it all comes screaming, just the same and now he’s a wee bit verklempt
but never quite the selfsame life”? about rec fying His mistake.

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Revista Literária Adelaide

The Effects of Pressure

It seems to me
she said
that too much emphasis
is put upon a bauble
that is simply
the result of too much pressure
weighing down upon
a piece of coal
escaped from hellfire,
signifying nothing.
I had a diamond.
Tension’s headache
changed it over me,
exerted its revenge,
un l a drop of blood
became a ruby
cut so many mes
that in the facet of an argument
exploded into slivers.
Tissue lay
un l this day
like scars upon my heart.

About the Author:

Rose Aiello Morales is a poet living in Marie a, Ga.
Mad Swirl, Red Fez, Synaeresis, The Pangolin Review,
Blood, Ink, and Tears, and the Stray Branch Magazine
have recently included her poems in their recent
issues. She also has several books of short stories and
poetry available on Amazon.com.

203

WORD

by Patrick T. Reardon

Make The ripple on the face of the water,
song of songs.
In summer, the father grilled hot dogs
with his white t-shirt off, skin burning. The scratch, the itch,
amid the cyclone.
In fall, he tolled novenas.
The father moved through the children
A er snow melt, like a spacecra through the vacuum.
the whitened bones of a gnawed bird,
chaos of feathers. In the end, he wanted out.

Can you taste the beckoning?

In winter, the father did du es,
and in spring and year-round,
a man for every season
— for the moment in the door,
bending the mother back
for a movie kiss in a clinch
bending in on itself,
a branch twis ng into soil.

Make children.
Make space.
Make believe.

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Word Revista Literária Adelaide
The fate of Billy the Kid

Declaw the lion King Limerick sour hen, consort of
to a plaster saint. thick-palm, bellied Patrick, cock
Declaw Lincoln of blind alley, Catherine grudged
to a penny. open to twitch the moment in soiled
Declaw Francis New York night. In two hundred seventy
to a birdbath. five solars, her derogate body birthed
child of spleen from vipered womb,
Declaw the man verted goddess of machina ons,
with nails in his wrists. raw hollowness, treachery and
Pull claws from humbly proffered hands. all ruinous disorders.
Pull teeth.
Pull the skin away to fashion a lampshade. Side-stabbed,
serpent’s tooth,
Pull this arm out and hammer, and this arm. shade of hanging tree.
Pull the wood upright.
Blame the sun, the moon, and the stars.
Wear the wood
as a ny, silver, two-lined elegance The firmament twinkled and
on a thin, silver chain, Mickey-Moused the Kid’s slack face
suspended over on a thousand thousand t-shirts.
and poin ng to
the starlet bosom’s cle . NOTE: Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s
uncompleted Arcades Project, this
Unmake the flesh of the Word. poem quotes words and phrases from
Shakespeare’s King Lear, rearranged into
a new se ng and with new companion
words.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine

The lonesome death of Whiskey Daisy About the Author:

An hour before, Patrick T. Reardon is the author of eight
at the stone fence, on the glorious Fourth, books, including Requiem for David, a
an errant shot from the Golden Slipper, poetry collec on from Silver Birch Press,
struck Yellow Dog’s Jersey cow, and Faith Stripped to Its Essence, a literary-
named Whiskey Daisy, religious analysis of Shusaku Endo’s novel
right between the eyes, and Silence. Reardon, a former reporter with
no corpse-reviver could raise her, the Chicago Tribune, has had poetry
nor Old Chum’s reviver, published by Silver Birch Press, Cold Noon,
nor a maiden’s kiss, Eclec ca, Ground Fresh Thursday, Literary
nor a widow’s kiss. Orphans, Rhino, Spank the Carp, Time for
Forget Lone Tree’s life-prolonger. Singing, Tipton Poetry Journal, Under a
The sorrowed creature lay Warm Green Linden and The Write City.
lifeless as a yard of flannel.

Now,
as four Sioux at stone fence
wonder at the bovine remains,
here comes unsteady,
Johnny Manha an,
bell-ringer at the church
and part- me fast-gun,
with aw-shucks smile
and maiden’s blush,
saying, “Aw, Shucks.
I guess one of my shots
missed the Golden Fizz Bandit,
and I’m...,”
— but he never does finish
because Yellow Dog slams him
with a Rocky Mountain punch
to the solar plexus.

He vomits Balaklava Nectar.

206

DETACHED

by Laura Dunn

I. II.

Phase, just a phase. Not to worry, For what it’s worth, you were worth more.
You’re only insane. You bit into the wrong apple,
Dirty hippy, smoking herb, poisoned to the very core.
We don’t want to share your word. Your taste became corrupted,
Just too liberal, just too free, your appe te insa able.
Don’t you wish you were like --- My desperate grasps were lost in the dark.
Me me or me? They spit their slander from their tongues.
You you you, Sinners all the same, closer to your
You’ve got it wrong! fate than they could ever know.
Pray to Him not to Her. So souls break slowly, then all at once.
Now you’ve gone, Can I blame you for leaving this place?
Please come back! I want you to know you’ll never be replaced.
We will love you,
Just not behind your back.

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Adelaide Literary Magazine
III.
Words could never have broken me,
The way your silence did.
Held cap ve in my own thoughts,
A common prisoner to my short-comings.
So frigh ully alone.
Picking up the shards of myself,
Like the pieces of a broken mirror.
I used them to slice deep into my cheeks.
Then came the blood, but I used it as war paint.
The pain only liberated me, now I am free.
I stepped out from behind your shadow,
And I shall prevail.

About the Author:

Laura Dunn is a junior in college, majoring in crea ve-wri ng. She had two original poems
published in Inkling Magazine this year. She is a dog mom, bibliophile, and known to belt out
Miley Cyrus songs in the shower.

208

SURVIVAL BALLAD

by Michael Atkinson

Inves ga ons

“All detec ves are in love, and all detec ve just unleashed, ascend
stories have beds.” into oblivion, delighted to be free
of the smallest hand, and finally lost.
– Guillermo Calderon, All detec ves are flamingos, struggling
screenplay for Neruda to swoop out of the marsh when all they want
is to flu er, like the small birds trapped
All detec ve stories are clocks, swallowing in the chests of women a er they come
secrets and measuring the worries of sunrise by the tongues of their beloved.
down the alleys streaming east. Once resolved, the stories, they say, can
All detec ve stories lie, claiming cure lonesomeness, but not for long,
holis c loveliness as inocula ons s ck us with a bill
but faking it the way faked orgasms for salva on, and then complacence.
are said to some mes sustain a marriage.
Detec ves are bees, as likely
to be humping around
in one lily as another, li le men
lost in giant so vaginal folds,
detec ve stories have beds and also pillows
flecked with blood, and pocks in the plaster
where the frame hits it as we fuck, and
crumbs from sal nes you can never sweep out.
All detec ves were once children. All detec ves
lose themselves, like dogs
who strain their chains
and bark away from the house at exactly
the fact that they have nothing to bark at.
Detec ves are scien sts of the moon’s jungles,
of the bacterium that form anxiety,
of the laws of aggravated mo on
that prescribe how balloons,

209

Come Home Adelaide Literary Magazine
My Own Doomsday Website

a er Jack Gilbert The world’s back folds for good
when the scorpions surrender, their axes
Language isn’t, just as water isn’t in the air and their tails high like flags,
when we fail to cup it. when the children don’t squawl from smacks
There it goes, absorbed by everything. but only feel the heat in their cheeks,
Steam in the sky. Try it: say mercy, innocence, when the lakes grow s ll and the lily pads
demen a, Sudan, blood pudding, grow so large trees take root on them
and you’re no nearer. You say and we cannot find the lakes again,
listen and we both begin dreaming. when cement grows so from
I say noonlight is the boy in the the heat of anger,
sand with ny engine noises, when falling hickory leaves cut you
because boy and sand is the as you try to escape the autumn,
closest I can get to it. when we see how cuts “healing” are actually
The ancients had no rules, and only the wreckless growth of scars,
their words were words when no nurse will work except in maternity,
their neighbors knew, and that was it. when dogs dream so badly they chew
Cocodrille was cocodrille. off claw traps that aren’t there,
The ancients would say: Love is every word, when the children, s ll slapped,
but today it’s pistachio. forget their mothers and fathers,
Vaults of flax are the unmen onables when the Mexicans of Virginia begin
between your thighs. plan ng books in the beet fields in
Eucalyptus is this uncertainty, hopes of impressing the sky,
this wavering, were it so serene, between when the secret police decide to speak
then and whatever’s coming. only to each other and to their dogs,
I say these things and wish they were mine, when every egg holds two yolks,
just as I wish you were mine, to rename when meat, red in your teeth,
and reaffirm, but they’re really no one’s, begins to taste like anise,
just the sounds of ideograms when the doorknobs fear the keys,
dropped from a height, when we can no longer tell eclipse from
just pieces of whisperings dusk, can no longer count the minutes
overheard as the possibili es I nurse or wait to see if light returns,
in my wordless daydreams, of things when the bald men terrorize those with hair,
I’ve heard or might’ve heard, when we choke in duststorms
and saw or wished I’d seen, of peeled sunburnt skin,
before it was me to come home. when the blood oranges bleed
but bleed orange,
when the na on of the sky
votes a smokestack king.

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Survival Ballad Revista Literária Adelaide
About the Author:

The walking s ck is no one’s prey, Michael Atkinson’s first book of poems, One
The jellyfish garden to seed. Hundred Children Wai ng for a Train (Word
From mule meat comes the ba lefield’s mums, Works), came out in 2002. He’s the author
To the gravesite comes the weed. of six other books, including the novels
Hemingway Deadlights and Hemingway
A boa once ate a Labrador, Cu hroat (St. Mar n’s).
a pike once fouled the boat.
The geese are lost all winter long,
the wolves all love the throat.

A starling is your guilty ghost,
the grubs she eats your remorse.
A louse makes house in your sweaty folds,
and worms infiltrate the horse.

Panthers hunt the quiet lawns,
in the bat’s teeth lies the fly.
You eat your extra skin as it curls.
The man s cranes for sky.

Those who eat will grow beau ful,
and those who don’t shall yield.
Grackles bark at every dusk,
and darkness inks the field.

211

THE BRIDE

by Wally Swist

Saluta ons: a er Antonio Porchia 3.

for Richard Shaw Revel in the day. Each moment
offers up specific delight:
1. the thick sweet scent of muli lora
roses; an oriole’s bright call,
The fields are bu ercupped
and edged with ragged robin. repea ng itself; Dep ord-pink blooming
along the southern windbreak,
We’ve entered the realm among yellow tansy.
of the subtle variega ons of
the colors of summer. 4.

2. Ah, you have seen the first fireflies,
the fireflies blinking in the darkness,
Wishing you well on a mid-June evening,
one on which the fading light of dusk filling you with their otherwordly light,
marking their appearance, enrapt with wonder.
is struck with nothing less
than what I call an inner splendor
spreading outward.

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