April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
And I managed to crack the skull in half
Well again
My friend has spent all day gluing it
She like that kind of stuff
Putting shit together
And she always did with such
Zest
Pace
Looks
I wonder if she knew I was looking at her the same way
After she’d manage to fix it for a third time
I looked through the eye socket holes
Down the jaw
Nothing really left
Just glue shit together
Life has a way of always
Reminding us
That death can
Even be broken in
Two
Like
Going after the girl
Cause what the hell
Somebody is probably going to break my
Skull into two
Too
by Giovanni Zuniga
Giovanni Zuniga was born in Los Angeles. Fearing that he would be consumed by vanity Giovanni set out on exchange to Sweden. After using Europe as an adult playground he will attempt to finish in high spirits at San Francisco State University in Cinema and afterward plans to move to Prague to continue writing.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Melancholia
I. Romance
When we began, we [you] were
Perfect.
We bonded like atoms in the axes of DNA,
united and complete after years of alienation,
months of rejection, and days
of secrecy.
We found ourselves within each other,
and the future was destiny.
But it was all just a fallacy, for your
dishonesty and charm masked an ugliness
I simply didn’t want to see—
at least, not
Initially.
II. Reflection
It seems I knew you best during the days
before we met, when shadows concealed
secrets and imagination held no memories
to deflect.
You fell so quickly and so far
from the pedestal you’d constructed,
casting deceit with false humility,
leaving the fools of familiarity
disgusted.
You failed me continuously and
continued on remorselessly,
sacrificing our sanctity for
shallow gestures entwined in
infidelity.
You were a black swan swimming in a sea of
dysmorphic dreams, and I watched the
skylines fracture as your insecurities enveloped
our schemes.
But it’s fine with me. Honestly.
Beautiful shells can’t disguise inner
vulgarity, and the dissociative mirrors
which so often gave you grace
would smash upon an instant
if they reflected your heart instead of
your face.
I look back with baited breath at a travesty
not worthy enough to settle, for you became
a forlorn parody.
I never meant to marry a bloated devil.
III. Resonance
I know now that nothing is guaranteed;
everything concrete can crumble by night,
resurfacing in the mourning to reveal fragments
of happiness within heartache by the light.
Every night it seems, as I drift within dreams,
I’ll suffer nostalgia and regret as our past passions
suggest possibilities that will never be met.
When we began, we were perfect. But
that was so long ago, and I’ve aged
decades within weeks just to rid myself
of your abhorrent afterglow.
And if we walk
along the same road again
our paths will cross with indifference,
feeling less than for strangers,
our heads bowed down,
our mouths silent,
hands in pockets,
warmth receding,
leaving nothing
between us
but
air.
Acrosticalyptic
Yesterday I met a man from Shelmire who wore pink trousers and ate
Exquisite bananas, brown and rotting, as if they were his last meal for
The night. He leaned into my ear and whispered the meaning of life:
At every stage of development there comes a time when we must
Notice the importance of our accomplishments, cherish our loved
Ones and regret our mistakes and insults. God wants us to believe
That we were put here for the purpose of disproving his twisted
Hypothesis that man is inherently evil. In fact, we are born with
Every innocence possessed by the dove, the dog, and the damned
Regression of our grandparents.
Meanwhile, as he’s saying this, I can’t help but notice the goatee
Eerily sprouting around his mouth. His teeth are as white as the
Angels that betrayed him, cast him aside and cursed him to below,
Never again feeling the Almighty love. I tell him I’ve never felt
It either, and for a moment he puts his hand on my shoulder, as hot
Now as it’s ever been, even though the blistering cold of Shelmire
Generally makes temperatures drop rapidly, as if by some need to
Lament the damage fire can do. By this point I’m very confused,
Eying the other passengers who boarded with me, whose faces now
Seem to all blend together as they pass by us, heads hung down and
Sobbing their late arrival to final judgment.
Previously I’d been a church going man, with a wife, and three
Insignificant runts running around the carpeted lower floor. And
Every Thursday night I’d tell them I was having a late beer with
Co-workers in an old fashioned pub off the corner of Deverouex St.
Everyone believed me, and I thought I got away with it. But, no.
Obviously, the man continues, no one really escapes the amazing,
Finely tuned insight of Him. And now He is punishing us all.
People line up behind the man as he throws the banana peel aside and
One slips, breaks his neck, and gets up again. We all laugh at the “fallen”
Eternity. Actually, the man was quite nice to stop and chat for at least
Ten minutes while everyone else arrived. He says just as many are going to
Royal white clouds and blue skies behind the golden gate of Heaven.
You could go with them if you choose, or come stay with us, and burn.
Skyline Fractured
The sky fell twice & twisted its limbs
on the mourning you were born.
It wept and bled and shook and raged
for the souls you’d come to scorn.
It carried its weight against the waves
and blinded its children in darkness.
Partially torn upon creation so light
could manifest in cracks and mock us.
And you looked so well in white, before
the devils possessed your cunning.
You rested upon the fields that burned
while I cowered and kept on running.
And every day I dare to dream that we’ll
find eternity within our embrace.
The sky rose violently in the aftermath,
Leaving the devastation of summer in its place.
by Jordan Blum
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
–after a line from Nabokov
Father, deep in workshop thoughts, heaves a neutral sigh
Daddy’s at the workbench. He sighs in resignation.
Pa’s bent over his tools biting his tongue.
Hey Dad, cat got your tongue? Talk to me. No.
Papa’s thinking. Let him work. He doesn’t hear.
Leave your dad alone, can’t you see he wants
to work? Don’t you hear the power
saw? A man’s work, power, keeps him
here, in now, no future, no past, here, now, present
in one-gone-home-bliss-now. If he lets me I’ll sit
sit on the stool and watch. I’ll bite my tongue and click
the wooden ruler-one two three four ‘til he stops
me, watch the bubble float on the level. I used
his best screwdrivers for test stakes damn he was
mad. He doesn’t like damn but at least its not talking
the Lord’s name
I like the way the board looks with the tools drawn
in black–the outline of the saw, hammer shape,
wrenches going downhill sizes around the little
hook holes rows. I’m gonna make one just like that
when I grow up. Make one in the kitchen, hang,
like my mother hangs her copper bottom pots
all shined every time she uses ‘em. It’s vain, you know,
showing how proud you are of a pot. Me, I don’t want
to ever be called Mother. They should say Ma.
Not MaMa, Mommy, maybe Mom OK but I’d like
Ma, if I have to be called anything but my name. I’m vain
about my name. It’s from Gramma, my mother’s
Gramma with the white white skin blue veined
hands. Oldest person in the world sitting in a dark
room and Uncle Otto some kind of son, son-
in-law–sits out in the garage door all day
by a work bench. Like my dad’s only he don’t put
his tools away so neat
by Kelley Jean White
Kelley’s writing has been widely published since 2000 in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Friends Journal, Nimrod, Poet Lore, Rattle, the Journal of the American Medical Association and in a number of chapbooks and full-length collections, most recently Toxic Environment from Boston Poet Press, Two Birds in Flame, poems related to the Shaker Community at Canterbury, NH, from Beech River Books, and “In Memory of the Body Donors,” Covert Press. She have received several honors, including a 2008 grant for poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
