Adelaide Literary Award Anthology 2019 - POETRY

Marty’S 81

by Mike Jurkovic

Marty’s 81, has a parched, post-pneumonia cough
and the shits from diverticulitis. A blood clot in his leg
he can’t afford the apixaban for
cos you can’t survive on a pension and social security.
Lives w/his daughter in a shit-lorn
town in the Hudson Valley
that everyone struggles to avoid lest you’re
driving through in a funeral procession
because his third wife Peg, a beautiful girl, a very smart girl,
took to the booze n the old farm house they’d rehabbed
somewhere in shit-lorn, Pennsylvania.
28 years. He counts. 28 years.
Played Carnegie Hall as a child
and sang doo-wop w/the mafia boys
back in Bensonhurst. Bought his first Vette in ’59.
A turquoise baby that stole your breath
while Sal The Snake stole your wallet.
Shows me pictures on his cell phone.
His whole life in his hands. In the hands of strangers.

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The old stone house he restored w/Joan, his second wife
who had five kids and took on my three.
Plays piano for Saint Margaret’s
down the road in shit-lorn at the intersection where
the light don’t work. The ’62 Corvette. The ’65.
People were worth something then he rasps,
cold phlegm seizing his pipes.
Shows me his cousin Maury’s place up in Saratoga.
Raises horses and runs a marina on Manhasset Bay.
Maury’s the smart one he swears scraping his lungs.
More pictures of grandkids and horses, cars and pianos.
His fix-it shop in shit-lorn where
he still fixes vintage stereo equipment.
I take in a piece here a piece there he says for pocket money.
I tell him about my McIntosh w/the fried left channel.
Here’s my email, send me some pictures maybe I can help ya
he says. Served in the service but that don’t mean shit.
His son’s got his hunter green ’74 Vette until he can get
a place of his own. Pictures of his daughter’s daughter
who just turned four. Gonna start her on scales
when the cough’s all gone. Any day now, he says.

A 2016 Pushcart nominee, poetry and musical criticism have
appeared in over 500 magazines and periodicals. Full length
collections, Blue Fan Whirring, (Nirala Press, 2018); smitten
by harpies & shiny banjo catfish (Lion Autumn Press, 2016)
Chapbooks, Eve’s Venom (Post Traumatic Press, 2014) Pur-
gatory Road (Pudding House, 2010) Anthologies: 11/9 Fall

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of American Democracy Anthology, 2017 (Independent) Re-
flecting Pool: Poets & the Creative Process, WaterWrites: A
Hudson River Anthology, and Riverine: Anthology of Hudson
Valley Writers (Codhill Press, 2018, 2009, 2007) Will Work For
Peace (Zeropanik, 1999). President, Calling All Poets, New Paltz,
Beacon, and Ellenville, NY. Music features, interviews, and CD
reviews appear in All About Jazz, Van Wyck Gazette, and Mav-
erick Chronicles 2018. He has featured in London, San Fran-
cisco, NYC, Albany, Baltimore, and throughout the tri-state area.
He is the Tuesday night host of Jazz Sanctuary, WOOC 105.3
FM, Troy, NY. His column, The Rock n Roll Curmudgeon, ap-
peared in Rhythm and News Magazine, 1996 - 2003.
He loves Emily most of all.
www.mikejurkovic.com
www.callingallpoets.net

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Arriving To Your Poem

by E. P. Tuazon

When you first arrive,
you already want to leave.

Perhaps it was a teacher,
another poem or handsome epiphany
that coerced you to venture
to this foreign country.
“I will see you arrive safely,”
they reassured, “I will get you there.”

You breakfasted under their altar,
pulled the wool over your eyes
so that it exposed your feet,
made you vulnerable,
then you awakened to
their missive sham.

you were alone all along;
All you reign, all clod and new again.
As if the world you knew was

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stolen before you
carved a single letter to it.

You wonder, frustrated, afraid,
how you can communicate

where you want to go.

But, with only a glimpse of return,
you don’t think twice about carving
an elongating speech from hordes
of your cornered and abandoned kin.

You learn to discard language,
shroud the last word
to make us understand
what smoke signals look like
as opposed to a warning.

It is an invitation, you say.

Your words smolder in the sky
like migrating birds

converging
to tell us about a place
we never once heard of,

on a feast.

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A Wonder Woman

by Nate Tulay

It feels like yesterday,
you bathing me outside
in the backyard, on top
of the giant rock.

And within my mind
it is still yesterday
and you haven’t had
the second stroke
or gone completely
paralyzed on your left side
and can still cook me
a well-seasoned Jollof rice
or trick me to come to your
room for a good spanking
instead of snacks.

It is still yesterday Grandma,
and you are once again

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in great health and have
a healthy mind and sound memory.

But in a few more seconds,
when this high wears off,
you would have already wrestled
with death for the fifth time,
and I would have already received
the call informing me that you
fought well, very well, but lost
the battle this time around.

A wise man once said,
“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

– Nietzsche

My name is Nate Tulay and I am an aspiring Liberian-Amer-
ican poet. I was born in Liberia during a civil war with a tied
tongue and some deafness in my right ear and also experienced
another Civil War when I was four and lost my childhood in-
nocence to it. Furthermore, I also did some things in life when
I was 12 and 13 that I too am not proud of and cannot truly
forgive myself for which along with my other experiences and
struggles made me a philosopher sooner rather than later in
life and are still my motivations to strive for greatness and be a
fair and kind and friendly and loving and understanding and
compassionate and honest person one day at a time.

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From Reubens To Rembrandt

by Tony Tracy

With the faintest musing I look upon
The morning hour suffuse with color;
From the burgeoning of lavender and cream
(Softball-sized hydrangea), to slender
Necks of zinnia which wave and flutter
In the marine breeze (their brilliant pawn
Of carmine, sapphire and hue of butter-
Cup seduce the eye in their vibrant splendor).
And before I know it, I’ve lapsed into daydream
Where I imagine myself the executor
Of some Flemish estate that attracts the wonder
Of its beauty for modest fees— a tender
Paid for the masters of oil in the Halcyon
Days when art mirrored life. Everything in between.

Tony Tracy is the author of two collections of poetry, The
Christening and Without Notice. His work is forthcoming or
has recently appeared in Flint Hills Review, North American
Review, Poetry East, Hotel Amerika, Potomac Review and var-
ious other magazines and journals.

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A Morning in December

by Chic Scaparo

I woke from a dream
her face, ethereal
the expression, serious, yet peaceful
not the face of a stranger
but of one I’d known once before
her name whispered in my mind
like a spring song
in the cold of winter
telling me to wait for the sun
it will shine once more and its light
will cut wide the cloth of a darkened sky
showing me myself again
the calm in her eyes intrigued and confused me
the confusion seemed to excite rather than bewilder
it was a welcome feeling and I longed to meet her
Why did this beautiful woman come to me?
Why was it her face that brightened
the shadows of my thoughts?

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Maybe to show me a new peace?
Or maybe just to find
Us

Chic Scaparo is a filmmaker/writer living in Central New York.
He works as a video producer for a small ad agency in Clinton,
NY and likes to write whenever he has the time to do so.

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The Truth

by Kelsey Berry

I’m a worrier. I worry about the truth.
What if you knew the deep down hard to admit
out loud, the guts that come before the glory?
Would you still ask me to tell my story?
If you took one minute to listen to a little bit about me, you
might begin to believe in miracles. Survivors tend to speak
quietly; would you believe that the greatest most profound
lessons, you have ever heard spoken come from the broken?
The forgotten, the too much way too fast, the
misunderstood, the cant learn from the past, take it back;
too many monsters in the closet and under the bed. The
paramount fragments of life are too often left unsaid.
Hold on, you’re about to miss the message. Take
your skewed perception and turn it on its head.
Let me tell you about the monsters running, roaming freely
inside my brain; within the confinements of circumstance.
Sometimes people like me, we romance the idea
of slowly dying and feeling so alive at the same
time. Counteract the conditioning of my mind.

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I know some dark parts, the darkness, a slightly cynical
heart, will always be with me. Small marks, I tell you the
inconvenient truth in telling scars. I’ve come so far. I wonder
why are you offended by proof that pain can be mended. I
will not say sorry! I was pretending when I said I was alright.
I made it despite the night that took hold of my
soul, I sold myself, my dreams and my potential.
She asked the world, “When will I feel full?”
So badly I wished I would drown in the sea, in the ocean…
But I was already drowning in preconceived notions of
what pretty girls are supposed to be. Swallowed whole by
societies conformities; it isn’t normal for a nation to have
suicidal tendencies. I was only 23 and you ruined me.
A version, a vision of perfect I couldn’t quite attain.
I have found feeling invincible feels
an awful like feeling invisible.
Invisible people with invisible stories, invisible and
hopeless. The loveless the loved less, the unrequited.
Perhaps no one knows exactly how we got here,
have you thought to ask? Today I fight back.
Presumed another misfit; anticipated to disappear without
a trace. I will slowly erase the person I became. Will
you remember my face, even after I have changed?
I don’t want to be just another briefly missed statistic,
“damn she barely missed it.”, a memory with a quote
and my best picture on a prayer card at a wake. My
family, my father, my sister reminisce the better days.
I want to remind you, that it’s never too late to save
yourself, become something so boundless, and as I put
pen to paper, I write truthfully to save someone else.

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I cannot be bothered when the world tells me
that sharing my testimony is a mistake.
What will everyone think when they read my truth?
To be continued…tomorrow awaits.

Kelsey Berry is a young poet who resides on Cape Cod, in
Massachusetts. She has been pursuing recovery and experi-
encing the joy of sobriety. Through her own real life experi-
ence she has taken painful stories and often hard to talk about
trauma and transformed it into something tangible through
her writing. Berry is active part of her community and loves
to help other women. During the day She is a cook, but hopes
to one day pursue writing as a career. Above all Berry hopes
to encourage her readers to share their very own truth; have a
voice, recover, survive and have a beautiful life.

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Fear of Rejection

by Tina Weikert

This katydid could have had
a buoyant story with someone else.
One to tell of her corn cob
thorax and broad eyes. Refer to her
inexperienced gauze wings-
how unexpectedly they flung her
to the pool’s shallow end.

And if that narrator had
talent- I suppose most these days do-
they’d notice, describe even,
the desperate ant climb aboard
willing to sacrifice one life for
another. Willing to turn tables
on victim and survivor
with no further though beside breath. breath.

Poolside I sigh, net in hand
skim bloated bug from shallow water,

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set free the waterlogged ant.
Clutching my words, nervous to lose them
out there as damp wish-wash where
though quite determined, they could just as
easily sink as float.

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Pacific Division

by Tom Laichas

Pacific Division is a West Bureau Division, a
box on an LAPD organizational chart. Pacific
Division patrols Venice, California.

I was not born here.

I was born in Rampart Division.

Forty years ago around 10 p.m. at Sunset and
Benton Way, I stepped off RTD Bus number
93. I crossed Sunset against the light.

Rampart saw me, a silhouette against a streetlight.

Rampart switched on its siren and lights. Rampart
turned into an alley, cutting me off. Rampart hit the
brakes and drew its guns, safeties off. Rampart held
me facedown on the hood and Rampart called it in.

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Rampart took its time. Then the word came back: he’s nobody.

Then Rampart slid guns back into holsters.
Then Rampart returned my wallet.

Then Rampart said: Don’t cross against a light.

Then Rampart left the scene.

These days, Pacific Division is polite. Sometimes Pacific
Division patrols my street. Pacific Division sees me through
its driver’s side window. I am Mr. Home-Owner, Mr. White
Male, Mr. Sixty Years Old, Mr. Five-Ten and a Half, Mr.
Twenty Pounds Overweight, Mr. Clipped Gray Beard.

Pacific Division sees right through me. I am
Pacific Division’s Mr. Transparent.

I sit out on the front porch reading. A helicopter
cuts circles into the blue sky. Two blocks
away, someone’s in custody. It’s not me.

Tom Laichas lives in Venice, California. His recent work has
appeared or is forthcoming in High Window, Lummox, Un-
derfoot, Panoply, Eclectica and elsewhere. Follow him at Left,
Write and Centaur (https://leftwritecentaur.com).

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Queen

by Miller Lawrence-Fitzpatrick

She’s my heart’s disposition beating fast;
My hands helplessly close for one last grip
As I can’t hold her for the time has passed,
Recall memories of her lovely lips.

She’s beauty I wonder unknowingly,
Each time is sweeter than the following.
My cracked view creates catatonically
Of my sanity sailing and going.

The family we could’ve had, the future,
Something I can’t control; it’s the weather!
Image of her with her perfect suitor,
Not me—Guarantee of someone better.

Only me in my way on a journey,
There’s something in me to keep the yearning.

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Miller Lawrence-Fitzpatrick is a Carlow University MFA Cre-
ative Writing Fiction dropout. He has had several short stories
published: “Boys” in Adelaide Magazine’s Spring 2017 Edition,
“In My Head” in Subtle Fiction’s July 2017 Edition, “Home
Alone” in aois21 annual 2017, “In My Shoes” in LEVITATE
Literary Magazine, and “Men” in Adelaide Literary Award Mag-
azine 2018. He has also had a few poems( “Heroine”, “Config-
uration”, “Day-Mare”, and “Afraid”) published in Scarlet Leaf
Publishing House’s August 2017 Edition. His first novel under
the working title “Drunk and Stuck in Shadyside” will be out
later in 2020.

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Sip

by Ryan Kovacs

5 a.m. alarm\5:04 pee\5:06 coffee.
Keurig on\water in\K-cup inserted.
Coffee/caffeine/happiness.

First sip\second sip\third sip interrupted.
Mug down\coffee forgotten\baby crying.
Rush to aid\nothing urgent\baby asleep.
Hair up\leggings on\run in place.
Warm and sweaty\need a shower\workout done.
Coffee cold/put in microwave/reheat.

Forget coffee\take a shower\baby cries.
Soap in hair\half dried off\fully clothed.
Baby smiles/mommy smiles/happiness.

First breakfast\banana\half a yogurt.
First snack\waffle\two eggs with cheese.
Second breakfast\four Cheerios\toast with no crust.

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Second snack\cup of milk\sip of water.
Haven’t eaten\baby full\nuke oatmeal.
Open microwave/coffee on saucer/reheat.

Make oatmeal\baby eats half\still hungry.
Time to play\baby energy\mommy tired.
9 a.m.\check phone\baby misbehaving.
Time out/two minute break/sip warm coffee.

Energized\lazy\still have things to do.
People to see\places to go\no help at all.
Make a list\go shopping\forget list.
Find shopping cart\grab essentials\store busy.
Free cookies/baby wants/happiness.

Don’t forget milk\forget milk\notice once home.
Can’t go back\annoyed\will get tomorrow.
Coffee on table/fly on mug/dump down sink.

Nap time for baby\time to relax\fresh coffee.
Sit on couch\deep breath\sigh.
Drink coffee/hot/burn tongue.

1 p.m. lunch\baby won’t eat\frustrated.
Afternoon tantrum\followed by afternoon tears\car ride.
Visit family\offered coffee\yes, please.
First sip/second sip/coffee spills.

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Adelaide Literary Award 2019

Ryan Kovacs is a Rochester, New York native who started
out writing poetry when he was 15 years old. Growing up, he
used his writing as a form of expression to help him overcome
challenging obstacles in life. Ultimately, as he grew and trans-
formed his ability to convey feelings and portrayal, he started
his journey in storytelling. While he understands that poetry
isn’t the most traditional way to narrate, he believes it to be
the simplest way to reveal the raw storytelling that readers
sometimes seek. Through the years, Ryan has served his com-
munity and country as a veteran and wholeheartedly believes
in inspiring others. He is often inspired through music and
literature, always striving to make his passion for writing an
influence of change. He resides in his hometown with his wife
and daughter and surrounds himself with likeminded creative
artists, family and friends.

Drive home\baby asleep\quick stop.
Drive through\large coffee\tripple tripple.
Get home\bring baby inside\forget coffee in cup holder.
Baby wide awake\fights getting undressed\bath time.
Soapy water/rubber ducky/happiness.

Bedtime story\kisses goodnight\light off.
Baby in bed\remember coffee in car\open door.
Socks on\bra off\raining.
Fuck it\get some wine\pour a glass.
First sip/second sip/pass out.

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Beneath the Cantutas

by Jeremy Ford

I

Yes, I do want to visit you in Peru,
but without the guilt.
How shall I put it?
A refusal to fade with your years.
Whether your eyes yellowed out their
green or palmfuls of sap dried them closed, your years
are apart from mine.

II

You showed me the proverb,
“If your death determines my life,
my life dies with you.”

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I was okay with that
until the shared cartilage snapped like a blade of grass
and red uprooted our tree.

III

Yes, I do want to find your grave
buried beneath the Cantutas—
I know it’s there
even if no stone marks its plot.

IV

I have not come for fear of seeing you, of
leaves and trumpets that trap me in a wind whose climate
my steel boots cannot withstand.

Jeremy S. Ford’s work has appeared in Adelaide Literary Maga-
zine, Duck Lake Journal, Cosumnes River Journal, and the River
River Journal, among other places. He lives in New Orleans.

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Waves of Life

by Elena Petrovska

I could pretend
I’m in love with the calm waters of a pool
But really,
I like the intensity of the waves on a beach.
Crashing and colliding,
The inconsistency feels like home to me.

I am the waves,
I never stay within my boundaries.
Sometimes I shy away from the sand,
While sometimes I reach the sandcastles on the land.
I like the fear my intensity brings,
I like the running of legs and the falling of knees.
I want to carry people to shore
To remind them
That the depth is something not easy
To strive for.
I like my saltiness;

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Adelaide Literary Award 2019

It makes me fine.
Like the bits of sand that I hold back behind.

I like the connection between myself and the moon.
So far away, but I’ll see him again soon.
I like the people I attract to see me.
I like all the people trying to swim in my sea.
I like how they try to figure me out,
Predict all my patterns
Based on the moon’s route.

I’m not something to figure out- I’m an enigma.
I flow how I want,
I’m neither here nor there.
Some people will never get to see my depth
Because of their anxiety and fear;
They’ll also feel despair.

But it feels lonely,
Lonely out here.
My uncharted waters are starting to grow colder,
The moon and I start to get older.
Too far away, but always so connected;
I want him to reach me,
But I keep myself protected;
I’m not something that can bear to feel neglected.

I like challenging people,
Helping them grow.
I like when they learn to swim in my flow.

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POETRY ANTHOLOGY

I’m full of things that scare people from me
But they’re really beautiful creatures to see.
In the sea.

The moon shines his glow
Upon my terrain.
He makes me glitter,
Makes me scream out his name.
The man in the moon,
He knows me well.
Glows me, knows me,
Gets to know me
Over again.

Perhaps he’s so calm,
So predictable,
So clear
Because he knows it’s what I need
And what I need is for him to be near.
I’m so impulsive,
He’s so consistent.
I go where I want,
He’s so distant.
I’m unpredictable,
He’s so persistent.
People love to figure him out,
They know his cycles and his route.
They can’t seem to know me as well,
So they base my identity on my man.

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Adelaide Literary Award 2019

Mr. Moon,
You shine so bright,
Kiss me goodbye every morning
And hello every night.
You know my inconsistencies,
You know it’s not something to understand.
You know me so well,
So I reach out my hand.

Being a beach,
Or a bitch-
It’s a wave of life,
A way of life.
I may be confusing,
But so is being alive.

Elena Petrovska was born in Macedonia and raised in New
York. She is currently attending The New School for Social
Research’s Psychology graduate program in New York City.
Apart from reading and writing, Elena enjoys spending time
in nature, especially with her loved ones.

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Homeless

by Peter Freeman

I need warmth,
so cold. Must have.
Where…I know…I go.
Please don’t bite my flesh so bare.

That wind…I don’t want it,
too cold, it sneaks in,
steal my heat, so little I have.
Must go, have to go.

Take care, rough ground here,
broken glass, broken brick,
broken life, mine and yours.
Towards light…and heat, maybe.

Movement…up ahead.
Am I safe? Man?…or woman?
Watch now, watch with care…wait!
A uniform? Maybe…no…good.

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Adelaide Literary Award 2019

Another blast, clutch and hunch,
cloth fluttering against my legs thin.
Music, I hear. I stop. Sweet.
I hear my song, rough, throat raw.

Eyes. I look…they turn.
I feel my shame…their shame.
Unclean, I don’t exist.
Peek-a-boo into my leper’s life.

This is the place, too soon.
Doors closed, corners taken.
Wind…damn wind…no shelter.
Time…so much…too much.

Press against brick, cold…hard.
Shrink into wall…blend…disappear.
Only kin here. I see them,
they see me. I exist.

Time creeps cold among my ribs
and empty belly, weak and soft.
When did I fill you…last?
Will you help me…last?

Doors swung wide, metal screech.
Nonchalance…no eagerness shown.
Pride…a little left, stops my rush
to feel the warmth…the heat…at last.

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POETRY ANTHOLOGY

The smell…oh, sweet scent of life given.
To want so much to feel the warmth flow
into my belly, my bowels, my being.
But I must wait…too soon…others first.

A bench to sit, a bowl to hold…tight,
Let no heat escape,
except into withered hands
Scratched by wounds of world.

Now I can think, muse…to feel.
Pain? No…anger that I keep,
must keep…a force that will keep
my soul from flight.

But these thoughts…round and round,
never leave, never change.
Give me pain…and shame
from those that help.

I know the look…the tightened smile.
Doing good, you take from us
our spirit, our being, to line
your clothes so pure.

Leave me be, I want to rest.
I need to rest, to leave myself,
behind on this simple pallet,
to gather strength…and purpose gone?

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Adelaide Literary Award 2019

My daughter…where is she now?
Somewhere…away.
Her face…will it return in life?
As in my mind…now crumbling

as paint upon discarded planks,
amid the bottles and paper,
and broken rocks under the bridge,
where my life exists.

What did she call me?
So long ago now…grandpa?
Because I am old? Was there a child
of my blood? Too long ago…

No sleep, oblivion dished out
in pieces between the coughed lungs
and rasped air, forced between cracked lips,
dried from liquid abuse.

I’ll make my plans for a sunlit day,
with air so warm, caressing my insides
with every intake of life,
to see the boats upon twinkled water.

I’ll sit on grass, green and soft,
and watch the play of young,
with laughs of joy…of life to come.
Like mine…yes it was…and I sleep.

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POETRY ANTHOLOGY

Black skin of ancient land
tested from waves of woe
shone bright in hope of goal
to kiss the soil of salvation.

Peter Freeman lives on Salt Spring Island on the west coast of
Canada. He writes non-fiction and fictional novels, children’s
books, screen and stage plays, short stories, magazine articles,
and poetry.

He grew up in what was once the sleepy, fishing village of
Noosa Heads on the Sunshine Coast, just south of the Great
Barrier Reef, Australia. He started his working career first as a
cadet surveyor, then a journeyman fitter and turner, and finally
focused on computer science at the University of Tasmania.

While in Hobart, Peter joined the local rock-climbing club
where he later met Max Dorfligger, a carpenter, shipwright and
famous Swiss mountaineer. Peter sailed across the Tasman Sea
to New Zealand with Max in the thirty-two foot sloop, Sun-
shine, that Max had built. Peter then spent the next few years in
Dunedin as a train driver and building his own sailboat, Laiviņa.

Peter sailed from New Zealand to Australia and then
onto Canada where he incorporated an Information Tech-
nology company (Southern Cross Systems Ltd.), producing
and selling scientific and business software to universities, gov-
ernment and the private sector.

In 1984, Peter departed Victoria, British Columbia, to
sail his thirty-two foot sloop, Laiviņa, on a solo non-stop cir-
cumnavigation of the globe, breaking the existing world record
in a time of 236 days. His book, Cape Horn Birthday, is an
account of this journey.

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Adelaide Literary Award 2019

Representing Canada in world championships, Peter
competed as a masters athlete in Italy, South Africa, Australia,
the USA, and Canada, and has won gold, silver and bronze
medals from these competitions in the 100, 200, 400, and
800 metre events. In 2003, Peter was ranked 11th in the world
and 1st in Canada for his 55.10 second time in the 400 metres.

As a keen cyclist, Peter has twice ridden his bicycle across
Canada. Without any support, he took 79 bicycling days to
cover the 15,400 kilometre perimeter of Australia, averaging
200 kilometres a day.

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