No one Doesn’t Love You Like I Do

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Charlotte Simmonds

I don’t love you like I love
ten million dollars in my bank account,
peace on Earth, goodwill to all men
the corrective to global warming,
God,
me who is a normal person,
unconditional love love love, world without end, amen,
free, unfettered, blissful childhoods,
two good parents with two happy kids
and other things that don’t exist.

I love you like I love
sunshine,
the sun in winter,
the sun in summer,
black coffee & a cigarette,
a friend,
another friend,
one of my other friends,
tower cranes –
such things as exist.

I don’t love you like I love
the Frank Gehry submission for Te Papa
or Kengo Kuma’s, I’d heard, untrue, he entered too,
that it was more beautiful than a Danish museum of fairytales
like those books they wouldn’t publish and the plays I couldn’t write,
the kibbutzim I never lived on,
the travels I might have taken using sails instead of planes,
the trips throughout New Zealand I would have had by train…
Like an absence of trauma setting me sound asleep at night,
and all the things that should have been but never were.

But I love you like I love
the 800-year-old leaning mosque in Mosul,
destroyed like all crooked things must be,
destroyed before I had a chance to love it any stronger,
the way I love the things that were and are no longer,
disappearing Richmond Stoneware china,
Erskine College, Bill Toomath in Karori,
Taputeranga Marae, Futuna here and now but for how much longer,
the blipping time of homogeneous homogenous homo sapiens,
destroyed like you or I will be.

And I don’t love you like I love
contact with extraterrestrial sentient life,
or the colony on Mars that saves hugemankind,
parrots evolving to go to psittacine universities,
octopodes writing epic oceanic verse,
corvids discovering fire and bombing Dresden,
dolphins mastering the dative to outwit Leibniz,
the singularity, the cure for senescence,
and all my nonsense hopes that are beautiful but meaningless.
(They say that faith is for the future…

But I love you like I love
contact with extraterrestrial bacteria,
that there are robots on Mars at all and probes in deeper space,
and that some guy is trying to grow spider silk from yeast,
that those psilocybinetic fungally infected cicadas collectively live,
the way all life eventually falls to the ground
on this cooling dust ball heliocentring a hundred thousand kilometres an hour around,
purslane porcelane lithophane lithops and the desert blooms,
this present beauteous, slight and realistic hope.
…and that belief is for the present.)

I love you not tomorrow but today.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Tlatelolco

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Lucas Smith

Where
the market
met the church
and powdered stones
reminisce together,
the visible still
sits with time on its blood,
this hoary tropical day where
the sign proclaims Cuauhtemoc
fell to Jesus Christ on such and such a recent day.

Can all ruins look the same? Squint and the plaza
takes on a Celtic hue. The church grew like a lagoon from tidal stones
and the apartments grew from modern Aztecs. If God could wring the church
(of course he could) whose blood would soak the grass of distant modern ages? Idols have
a knack for coming back, coming back in time like an inescapable poetic rhyme
but proof of idol failure is pinned under lasered glass and man-made light
in the museum. There are three things here. I am imprisoned
by the new church with five minutes to close looking at imported nudes
and Canadian narcissisms when the spire, made of market stones, taps on
the plastic window. It’s closing time, the idols bearing stone fists, smash their prisons,
scamper to the windowsill and shimmy down the obliging cross to the bells, which
ring in soft haphazard tones as idol feet induce an ugly sway. And then to the
market and down the distant metro lines in all directions
to run forever and the glass bounces at my feet.

Security
stumbles in. Sir, what does this mean, what did you do?
The world has turned to glass again, and we are stuck
above the ground in shadow buildings, looking
down at Tlatelolco, spongy ground, and steely sky
for there is no land for us, or ancient times
of heroes, and we have no gods to fail us
only numbered notes and flawless cameras
and we can only marvel at those
autochthonous dreams of other idols
where the church and market meet

and idol drums beat idol feet.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

N.F.S. (No Further Stay)

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Reagan R Maiquez

It is enshrined

how many steps,

how many minutes,

seconds or days

you can stay

within this home / land

as borders have been protected

on air, water, and all this vastness

of a continent, is-

-land.

You are only allowed,

temporarily, and permitted to become

a resident, provided

you adhere to these conditions:

• you must be an able, no violation,

• you must be under the law, lawful and legal,

• you must provide an identity, a valid and verifiable

and biometrically you,

• you must undergo all necessary checks,

no third-world disease, no tuberculosis, no form

of burden to the state funds, not a terrorist,

not arriving on a vessel that illegally beached,

nor on a plane without an authority to travel

and pass through this port

/ sentry.

• you will genuinely

marry and be in an inclusive relationship,

• you must work within this load (no cash

on hand),

• you must not get sick, or get

an insurance,

• you must assure and abide

by the rules, all the time, despite the law

and employer failing you for the nth time,

or else a rubber stamp,

an electronic record

or an officer will say:

no further stay,

no further stay,

and go away.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

What I remember most of all

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Nick Visconti

Like a rolling siren, dead sounds
without a step doppler away. We flip
switches to tell each other how we hurt.
Yesterday, I flipped a live switch and heard
the indicator light pop—I didn’t have
the right bulbs—no one ever told me
there’s a right and wrong way to light bulbs
how a proper bulb can sing for months, a background
deluge. Halogen shatters within a surge.
The hurt flew out of me today
and broke the ceiling fan, hung off a blade
until it bowed to the hardwood ground.

My job is to feel something—sugared knife,
Dead Sea net ablaze with thread. Catch nothing.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Broken in Two

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Bronwyn Rennex

The entrance is lined, each time, with smokers
in absurd clusters, on beds in the sun.

The lift doors reveal, on each floor, huge orange numbers
and letters from 5A to 12C.

I think C is for Cancer.

My friend told me once that she heard a doctor tell a patient,
“You have cancer.”
Then he spelled it out.
“C.A.N.,
C.E.R.”

That’s how I think of it now,
broken in two.

She didn’t want to move rooms. She said,
“I don’t want to go up where everyone’s dying.”

In the lift to 12C, scrawled next to a message from a church it said,
“Jesus Wants Your $$”

Next time I found her, most alive in the Emergency room,
breath stunk of blood.

Her nose bled whenever she sat,
or thought
or ate.

Across from her a woman yelled,
“Oh shit! I want to go home to Israel.”

She’s right. Everyone on 12 C is dying.
Across the room, one says nothing.
One can’t stop.
They hobble downstairs together
I see them smoking when I pass.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

nerve damage

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Jonathan Dunk

being gets fragmentary
but obscurely significant

thought hollows
but there are more edges
to peer over

you’re becoming cautionary & allegorical
but love is after

all,
a word

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

A Study of Cowardice

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Alfonso Manalastas 
            I will tell you now what I didn’t have the courage
            to say then: I was awake
                                                the whole time
when you pressed my glassy palms against
the soil,

let loose                      a wild animal inside my mouth
I’ve always had the teeth to bite back
            but didn’t,
                        how it dug its nails, savored the sweet
                        nicotine infestation on my purpling gums
                        as it crawled down with the intent
of slitting my throat from inside. I know
to cough                    something                    out
            when it is unwelcome; fervent, aching—even
the newest of bodies learn this out of instinct:

                                    Bitter gourd.
                                    Asbestos.
                                    A lock of a lover’s hair.

            I take the shape of a hairless spider to ward off
anything that will devour me and call it mercy,
which is to say,

I have arrived—here, with a gratitude for all
things that have not succeeded in killing me
            long ago,

when I exiled my lungs to the depths of the ocean,
it found in the chasms and interstices the secret
to my survival. Somewhere,

a lost city plunged underwater throbs harder
                                    than it did alive

            which my father calls cowardice, even with
his body fit more for flutter than for flight, and so
                                                             I learned to surrender
                        with cupped hands, like feeding water
                        to a parched mouth,
my long-held secret; a kind of weaponized submission
(or omission?) that’s kept me alive.

                        In the factory of alleged virtues, I learned
to swim without my lungs. Surrender, it persuades.

Learned to fight not out of need but out of will.
This is the only way, I am told, where

            bent-backed roses bloom thorn-less
in a garden full of sin, I linger a coward still, forgoing
                        even things not mine to surrender.
Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Dirty Talk

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Alex Creece

I know I’m low in iron
when
I start craving the dirt.
I mix mineral supplements into my orange juice,
because you absorb iron more effectively with vitamin C,
did you know?
and then the cravings subside.
But the supplements are expensive
so sometimes
I just live in this state of side-eyeing the dirt,
like it’s a girl whose freckles I love too much
and whose boyfriend is inconvenient.
I’m happy for them, of course,
of course.
I flirt with the dirt,
I think.
I lather my face in a dead sea mud mask
and oops,
it’s on my lips.
I knead the earth to nurture my plants
and,
uh-oh,
I smear some across my face
or
scrape it under my fingernails,
a deep black midnight snack.
At the supermarket I always buy brushed potatoes,
because brushed means
still lush
with a cakey layer of soil.
They’re cheaper,
and usually
people buy them when they’re going
to peel the potatoes anyway,
or commit to a long, thorough scrub.
I give them a tepid wash, but leave them still freckled with flavour.
I paid for this dirt, after all.
It’s worse in winter,
when I’m bleeding constantly
and hungry for the warmth of gentle rain
on sleeping minerals.
Freckles sometimes makes me homemade play-dough
because it’s tastier to eat than store-bought,
basically organic free-range soy salt dough, y’know?
but it’s not dirty, not even a little.
She has bright, sober eyes and can eat soup
in a white blouse
without ever making a mess,
not even from the fickle splosh of a spoon chinking the bowl’s cusp.
Her dough is never dirty.
My dog snuffles around in the backyard,
a slobbery sealion
pretend-playing as a truffle pig.
Her mind is an underground blueprint
of latitude lines across every goat horn
and chew toy hidden.
She walks back through the dogdoor
with a telltale mudsnout,
sneezing on secrets.
I envy the trail of her whiskers
paving alleyways for ants
through a miniature wilderness.
I listen to Another One Bites the Dust,
and I wish I would,
but literally.
Just lemme fucking eat the dirt.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

colonial levity

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Jerzy Beaumont

Stumbling through Botswanan delta, the poet’s wife
lines up and frames
the Okavango natives as arsonists (maybe!), his
words tripping
down her tongue. Her rubies flash bright in the face
of all that applause.
In her wake, he satirized the King’s Dream with
colonial levity
(during When Is White History Month) to tittering
laughter.

He tells us of the collected skulls in St Nikolai
Church, severed and shelved
to deter robbers.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Sanctuary

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Ian C Smith

Grunting for breath between gulps, he tears at a half-eaten bun not caring about the pain in his gums, garbage overflow lapping spongy shoes. His bowel hasn’t worked for days. He sees a piece of hamburger missed, squats for it as a novelty car horn freezes his thin frame in an athlete’s stance, a tatterdemalion ready to run, his mind an economy of survival. Sidestepping pigeons question his thirst as he drains empty soft-drink cans. Then he uses a puddle for a wash, rubbing greasy fingers against his dark face. He shakes a discarded deodorant can for a few feeble squirts.

The city smells of vehicle exhausts, concrete, burnt sugar, scaffolding, cooking oil. Early morning workers avoid him, each in his own space, air tangy. He feels a throb of hope, can’t allow himself the cushion of memory, can’t think beyond his immediate dream to work as a restaurant dishwasher, swap sweat for freedom.

He cuts and tugs sleeping asbestos, wearing a wee white mask of course, face hidden under lowered lids, not that he wants to open his mouth. The big ex-gangster who employs him, perhaps recalling his own beginnings, grins, silently checking the work. He is refurbishing an old restaurant. His expensive teeth often sparkle from the society pages of newspapers – his life could fill an opportunistic book – but our guy of the slashing sharp knife, the tightly-knotted bags of swirling unseen fibres that get taken for a ride come nightfall, uses newspapers for extra warmth, has only survival English.

He arrives and leaves by the rear lane, enduring nights in a Salvos bin keeping still deep inside utter darkness imagining passing vehicles as tanks, sometimes wakened by his strangled nightmare cries. He lets rip for $12.50 an hour cash, minus the cost of masks, saving some, wasting nothing, is advised, understanding body language, to continue keeping his mouth shut, a workplace condition he noddingly accepts. Imagine him, dishwashing dream down the drain for now, high on hope, doing the maths, buoyant with every breath he takes, aiming to be prosperous one day, fleshy like his boss, that grinning profiteer.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

And This Too Shall Pass

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Sumudu Samarawickrama

After Hera Lindsay Bird

You make me want to lick all the stars for their strawberry centres

And then, sick from those candy hearts, I would clamber into our bed and
Hold your too long limbs in a
Sympathy with my
Too short patiences and
I would gently promise to plant the damned aquilegias, and

To paint the ceiling in the outdoor dunny
That shade of blue I hate
But that you love, and
I would promise to never again come at you
Cold and blinking like those hollowed out stars.

You make me want to dig into the winter soil and
Take out the earthworms, to give them a better
Life inside jars of compost, warmed by a
Double glazed sun.

You make me want to find the point of scintillation
On a Mediterranean wave and
Dance up from the surface,
Into the blue depths while,
From a blue yarn of the pale light
I knit a hauberk to keep you immortal.

You make me want to lie under the shade of the linden tree
On a spring’s mild day
With my face in a sunspot
Burning
Knowing that the lines of damage
I am creating
Are MEMENTOS
Of this day
Of this you and this me.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

South

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Ben Walter

yet with cameras and caps, how
diluted this tanker’s oil streaming
through wharves, cashed
town searching for extremities,
habitat of buses; here we are,
we are on time. i too have followed
the landed coast, prodigal breath
thrusting salt over headlands,
worrying wings of hair;
i threw the beach
in your face and brightened
birds you flew.
latitudes, can
we align? Good Hope, del
Fuego, clasp hands: pole-
stretched arrows, meeting
the reclusive ice half way.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Antonio Gramsci

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Rebecca Ruth Gould

You posed the Southern Question
while waging war in the trenches
of bourgeoisie fantasy.
You drank languages & histories.

Mussolini drank your blood.
Unswayed by victory,
you refused to genuflect before teleology.
Breaking with Hegel–surpassing Croce–

you made prose into poetry.
Fragile wrists pouring over notebooks
in a staccato more rigid
than the bars of your cell.

You are the particles of shivering light,
on the crossbars of your smoky windowpanes.
Recipient of deposits made by history
without the benefit of an inventory.

The task, you said, is to make that inventory.
You are the politics your body rejected.
Optimism of the will,
pessimism of the intellect.

You are eyes-wide-open despair,
hope plus seeing, will plus being.
Vico’s son, made by history
the “we” born into poetry.

You are the name on the lips
of every freedom hungry soul.
Agitator of peasant visionaries,
mobilizer of dreams forged in factories,

democratizer of beauty, leading
the Communist Party
to question reality.
For the US Senator testifying

to the House Ways & Means Committee,
you are an agitator
for the destruction
of Western democracy.

The jottings your sister-in-law
removed from your prison cell quietly,
the unpublished masterpiece
that will merge with eternity.

Family torn from your arms,
your wife removed in Russia,
your son seen once in the airport
before he vanished from your horizon.

You directed his education
from your prison cell,
Gramsci, whose mother
considered her son

the state’s enemy number one
Anti-utopian of universal equality,
theorizer of the new society,
you are no martyr, Gramsci,

just an organizer
accelerating
the revolution
rooted in reality.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

One Last Gin And Tonic At La Hacienda

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Alessio Zanelli

Another G&T please,
with some orange peel.
You try to drown
your ailing thoughts,
they seem to sink at first,
but in the end resurface,
can stay afloat on any booze.
You stay sick in turn.
Luckily for me,
there are cool bartenders,
quick and gentle youths.
They are smart,
besides professional,
can read both your face and mind,
have good words and smiles for you,
with discretion,
but know when to become serious,
wearing a mildly reproving look
over their indulgent grin,
and definitely convince you
that the time has come,
however bad it all still feels,
to put down the Copa de Balon
and walk back home.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Don’t look too closely

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Ellen Shelley

The cold of winter haemorrhages
as raised circles of flesh
bump down to skin on knees
the texture of underripe peaches,
teeth hurt from bighting down
the chatter of days
bows low.

The second cup of coffee
turns into a third
days are full of lay ins and layered clothes,
my conscience, like tangled hair,
is not worthy of reflection
I choose my wardrobe to hide the comfort
then balance it up with more.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Wattlebird

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Allan Lake

Wattlebird as poet,
declaims from leafy balcony,
to perceived audience,
which is just me,
far as I can see but
bard has my attention.
Wattlebird has conviction,
says what only it can say
to a dozy world in need
of an unwelcome alarm.
Wattlebird keeps lookout,
may look nervous but won’t
be eaten by murderous cat.
No garish parrot, wattlebird
wants to be heard not seen,
blends with bark and branch.
Wattlebird has a map leading
to sweet honey but its song
is acid to the ear,
so jarring to hear.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Ö

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Peter O'Mara 
343. revelation: one beautiful loss I hold into
               like small prayer, my recent fall
                               the distance
                                   I see

       	       1 0 2 a
       	       the sixth of August, invoice

7011
the picture inside my head is the picture inside
my head is the box in which you speak is the
symptom behind the door is the short glimpse
next to the word next to itself: pre-occupied

       	       1 0 2 b
       	       (my emphasis)
       	       a cubic metre of God

       	       16. I lay these hours, as you might said
       	       overlooked

       	       1 0 2 c
       	       1 0 2 d
       	       one thousand


in himself     I am not
Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Clinton Rec Centre

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Christina Donoghue

All dem kids sittin’ round laughin and talkin’ shit—
boys with corn rows and lined up fros wearin baggies
playin ball on the indoor courts at the Clinton Rec.
Healthy activities for young black/hyspanic/po-white bodies
was typed on the funding application.
The Youth Worker has a 270 degree view from his peeling laminate desk
hidden behind striped two-way shatter-proof glass,
the office door stays open, he likes to be accessible.
Bleary eyes zero in on the clock on the far wall of the court,
its hand points out the last seconds of his twelve hour shift.
All dem girls sitting round on plastic chairs and uneven tables
belting out the lyrics to En’Vogue and Blackstreet
TLC and Brownstone
they own doze lyrics—harmonies are on point
bell rings
5pm
lights off; tha singin don’t stop
it jus flows down the cement steps and out into S Hicks street.

STOP COPS

Weedy lil copper man
powerless but for beige and brown cotton
black and silver steel.
This is routine.
Standing at the bottom of steps. He speaks through his nose,
“Y’all think y’all so good don’t ya?”

The crowd of youths that may have been happy stop
posed on each step lower their masks of no expression,
well educated in being Black/Hispanic/po-white by elders who are still alive
conditioned responses to the taunts of the Tennessee constabulary.
“THESE KIDS HAVE NO RESPECT!”
murmurs.

The temptation to give these Mutha Fuckas what they expect
attempts to incite in head voices and murmurs, speaking to indignation and a young man’s ego
Only its disembodied voice rises above the baseline hum of the crowd, “Pig!”
Non-violence
meets
non-violence
Not seeking a cause for the effect of fists, rebel words rise out of the pavement
no stepping off to let them pass
TARGET ACQUIRED
“Cop killas, all up in they chest, and I know what to do with that vest, man.
Twenty-two shots. I killa.
You don’t want to fuck with Bone, nigga. And it really ain’t shit to pu1l a trigger
on a copper, ’cause if I go down, some of y’all goin’ down, ’cause I’m goin’
down poppin’.
So muthafuck all coppers. Let me catch you slippin’, nigga, bet I pop ya.
the children’s chorus
POP POP,
POP POP,
POP POP
POP POP,
POP POP,
POP POP
POP POP
to tha sky three fingers tucked, thumb
and pointer cocked
POP POP,
POP POP,
POP POP
POP POP,
POP POP,
POP POP
POP POP
DIRECT HIT

Weedy cop and his light-skin offsider sink back into the sidewalk
beige shirts morphing with the twilight and smog from the nearby powerstation.

The wounded limp home to nurse their injuries with Koolaid and Super Mario
Triumphant in victory only until the chorus of Bone Thugs dies inside their ears.


This poem includes an extract from ‘No Surrender’ by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony © RUTHLESS RECORDS 1994.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

City of Bones

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Ajibola Tolase

For Barkin Ladi

In war, people leave their burdens behind
and I too have tried to leave my language

but it wouldn’t wash off my tongue.
All my life I’ve been running.

My body knows violence and its provenance:
Barkin Ladi, a city buried in its ruins.

Here, I lost an arm. Some nights it tugs at me
in a dream. Other nights, I’m in a pool of sweat,

afraid that the burning city may find me.
In this dream, I hear the small voice of my father

talking in his language of loss. He says
“boy, your body is a city of bones

and though it’s not set to run
you will never own it.”

My father is a mound of ash.
I see the fire in his eyes

and I begin to run
I’m running from my father

who is running from the city
that owns him.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

resistance in 10 parts

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Victoria Brookman 
             1.
compulsion of meaning
             a diversion towards logic
             within impossible silence

             2.
sick collectivity, correct line 
individualist-pack-mentality-jumble-of-vomit
chasin’ the double taps
^ THIS.

             3.
expectation: 1, 2, 3.
reality: 3 souls – 1 forlorn baby
                               2 clueless adults 
                               1 silent child
4 novels 2 cars 1 mortgage
replicated, rinsed, repeated
resisted lol

you-wouldn’t-know-alienation-cos-it-stares-you-in-the-face

             4.
i-don’t-wanna-make-it-look-like-anything
that ok with youse?

             5.
compulsion of attention
ooh here it comes,
grab-it-grab-it-nab-it-get-it

like kids watching bubbles
rise, sink, pop on the grass.

such magic, such wonder, bright eyes
insights and metrics and algorithms

coming to bankable voice
threats implicit

capitalise on it before silence falls.

             6.
guilty pleasures while the planet burns
go out in style eh yeew

             7.
ooh,
it’s a bit like hurling 
non-stop for seven years,
i guess,
endless crampy labour
while a man yells helpless nearby,
             haemorrhaging from his eyeballs
and a homunculus sits in your lap
tearing shit up

             8.
what is coming to voice
when he ain’t got one??

             9.
you wanna know resistance?
watch it falter at school pick-up.
ten weeks at a time
mind the 40 zone

tall-fences-bright-green-shirts
tight-lipped-smiles

             10. 
betchathinkyaknowdon’tcha
Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Pulled Into the Future

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Tina Huang

u walk down the hallway & into the bedroom
u wake ur mum up & ask her to sign ur permission slip
she screams at u, 冷心的孩子 (u cold hearted child)

u try to force urself back into ur body
but u can only watch urself
walk down the hallway & into the bedroom
& rouse ur mum & get screamed at again

u want to be back in ur body now
but u r pulled back; all the way back this time
past the living room, and the other bedrooms, and the kitchen
and the window. the window in the kitchen
thru which u notice the sun
and wot u think u are morning sounds
and there is sth there; with the sun and the sound
and the melting of ur cold <3

But before u can judge urself for seeing this
or doubt whether it’s real
Adult T appears
and she steps in front of tiny T
who is still just standing there in her school uniform, holding the permission slip
in her tiny lil hands

And after this blip everything goes quiet
Ur adult body is absorbing all of the screaming
Ur not facing toward ur mum; but urself
U have ur arms around small T
Ur hunched over her so no part of her body is exposed
And she just stands there in her school uniform, holding the permission slip
On which words have now appeared

But before u can read them
Or doubt whether they’re real
You start to cry
because u cannot believe that after all this time
You get to save urself

The title of this poem is from 10:04 by Ben Lerner.

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged

Nature’s Terror

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Leroy Wilson

old spirit woman interoperates the breeze
for the seeds; it only blows from there in

times of distress – let this be a warning.
anxious fauna have commenced migration

to peaks of fortune; oblivious while resting on
heaven’s pillow – light headed, the air is thin.

acute senses provide warning of the turbulent
hysteria approaching; old woman apprehends

the message stick – their skates pierce the ice.
time is a prison, the breeze a catapult but

the walls hold strong; there is no escaping
the invading army – no prisoners, no spoils.

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Waiting for the Militants

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih

‘And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution’. — Cavafy

Why have we stopped?
Have we arrived at the village?
Is this the border?

There is a large assembly of people on the road…
I do not know what place this is,
but if it is not the border, it certainly is the fringe.

Why are the people, men, women and children,
gathered in a circle? What are they looking at?

They are looking at fishermen
sitting around a large pool
that has formed on the road.

But why has the entire population turned out?

They are waiting for us to write
about a fish pond that has formed
on a road that is no road;
to write about the villagers
fishing for fishes that do not exist.

What do they hope to achieve?

They have been waiting for the politicians
who never come; they hope the information
will at least bring others from across the border;
but most of all, they are waiting for the militants.

The militants?

They are, these people, a kind of hope.

Shall we return home, then?

We have come here to write about our border villages;
their livelihood and the amenities provided to them…

If we have seen a fish pond that has formed
on a road that is no road
and villagers fishing for fishes that do not exist,
what else do we need to write about?

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Seeing Eyes

Posted on November 1, 2019 by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Pretending I can’t find my bi yoo bibioo
simply because she has covered her eyes
gives her as much joy as the silly faces
I sometimes pull. Out of the 43 facial muscles
I should have, I stretch, contract, contort,

conjure shapes that get the desired reaction.

But when she hides she is in control – even
ridicules me for not seeing her: I’m right
here, Daddy, she screams, then runs to hug me.
Already the time is coming when the trick will be

too old. I know so well how soon our pleasures go.

I recall hiding from my grandma. Her dark eyes
imprisoned behind cataracts, I was always stunned
how easily she found me. She didn’t even move;
she just pointed, and my reaction was always – How?

Some quality of those hours with her is how I see God:

something of her certainty that I had my late father’s
physiognomy just from the sound of my voice; how
she hugged this inherited body, this borrowed
shape and hue, close to her, cradled its shifting
face, seeing and loving a grandchild with no eyes.

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