Homecoming By Daisy Solace

Homecoming

He climbs off of the plane
and feels the cold air
he hasn’t felt in twelve years.

It’s always cold here.
It’s never cold in Eleria.

It’s a bit of a surprise
to see a sign holding up his name
outside at the gate.

He had forgotten he was traveling to somewhere.
He was far too used to traveling away from somewhere.

The car is smaller than he’s used to,
the music is too slow, too quiet, too calm,
leaving too much space for conversation.

He’s forgotten what conversation is like.
It’s obvious that they’ve noticed.

It seems almost backwards that twelve years have passed,
and yet the conversations have remained the same.
He is reminded all too well about why he left in the first place.

They try to engage him in their conversation,
try to ask him questions, but he remains silent.

They don’t want his answers.
Not his honest ones, at least.
Not the ones that don’t match theirs.

He is here for one purpose.
One purpose, and then he’s gone.

The sight of the house makes him want to reel and run,
it’s exactly the same as he remembers it,
except perhaps aged, and with less occupants.

The night will pass quickly.
One night, and that’s all.

The night passes quickly,
as does the morning,
as does the afternoon procession.

He doesn’t cry, and he almost feels guilty for it.
But he does not owe his tears to anyone.

He doesn’t stay afterwards.
They try to convince him to, he doesn’t.
He doesn’t have a purpose to anymore.

Not that it would have been enough.
Not that it had ever been enough.

As he departs, he leaves his coat,
his winter coat, which he’s had for thirteen years.
He doesn’t need it anymore.

It’s never cold in Eleria.

By Daisy Solace

Biography:

Daisy is a queer woman of color. She is 20 years old and recently graduated from a robotics program. She has been writing poetry for years but never submitted poetry to literary magazines until rather recently. She loves the sun, cats, and all things bright and beautiful.

Ghazal: Moonless, We Strut By Katie Kemple

Ghazal: Moonless, We Strut

A flock of teens above us on the school roof tonight—
we glance quickly, walk faster in the moonless night.

Our school mascot’s legs are too short to walk right,
he’s a predator that hunts moths, a hawk of night.

Do you wonder why a woman walks her girls without
a man, without a moon, in the ink of a ruthless night?

My daughters aren’t afraid of the barn owl’s cry,
the coyote’s howl, or teen boys on a roofless night.

We replenish the calcium of our skeletons, hips tilt
a tick-tock walk down the planet’s boneless night.

A girl with long hair, shifts her legs, her weight,
and skates down the center of our street tonight.

Wheels that steal across the landscape of dark:
you can’t catch what’s quick in the fearless night.

I used to walk zombie-style, my arms out straight,
to stop webs from threading my face in fright.

A spider’s too clever to cast a net of my height,
she graphs moths into mummies. Oh, starry night!

The crackers of concrete have yet to be bitten
by the roots of young oaks, in the hungry night.

Our shoes smack pavement, we laugh hard, out right—
our voices burst sparklers into “Ah!” tonight.

By Katie Kemple

Biography:

Katie Kemple is a mostly vegan person raising two kids, an elder pug, and a carnival goldfish in San Diego. She’s married to the love of her life. Her poems can be found in The Elevation Review, The Collidescope, The Racket, and Right Hand Pointing, among others.

Lilith By Marilyn Melissa Salguero

Lilith

We believe ourselves infinite by what the first lovers tore from the earth
& bless this bedroom the same way they did
By tearing away at the parts of us God doesn’t want to see

And I know I will be your undoing.
Love always is.

I take his communion on my knees,
carve angels wings into his back
Raise my voice with the choir and cry out for salvation,
hands clasped around another
begging for the sweet ecstasy of release
Until we both drown in sweat

There is something so holy in the way that I gave myself over to him
In blind faith
Open palmed and bowed head
Eager to serve
To sacrifice
Because everything sacred is born from blood,
And is that not what love was conceived from too?

A desire so powerful it made a man doubt his devotion,
Isn’t the only difference between a prayer and a secret who hears it?

What a testament it is,
That you can’t speak of the thing that scares you
Unless you call it by something other than it’s name

So I do not call it love even after I refuse to lie
Beneath,

Oh
Adam,

Does the taste of me still linger in your mouth when you kiss Eve?

Can she taste temptation?
Does the sweet nectar leave her mouth dry,
And with sharp teeth
sensitive and begging for holy waters to flood and
quench a greedy and growing thirst

Staining his fingers sinful from tearing at the flesh of a forbidden fruit,
beckoning it
to blossom for him
To Come
Open
Again
And again
And again

Exalting in
Devouring in
And then mourning.

Until his hands are too empty.

And wet.

And I wonder

Does she knows my name?

 By Lilith By Marilyn Melissa Salguero

Biography:

Marilyn Melissa Salguero (she/her/hers) is a Guatemalan poet who puts the SALT in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is the human equivalent of red wine, crushed velvet and using humor as a poor coping mechanism. Melissa her work centers on her life, relationships, and identity. She has been featured on Write About Now Poetry and Ink & Nebula. She was a member of the Westminster 2018 & 2019 CUPSI team and was a finalist at the 2018 Utah Arts Festival Indie Slam. When not yelling about white boys or making God metaphors, Melissa can be found feeding her online shopping addiction, blasting Gloria Trevi, or living up to her title as the quintessential “bitter ex girlfriend poet”. Her work (along with her emotional overflow) can be found on twitter @_Miss_Marilyn.

Jerusalem By John Stupp

Jerusalem

Hot metal
poured from the sky
and the casting molds cried out
in 1968 this was a dangerous part of the plant
I rode by in a forklift
with a skinny Jehovah’s Witness
he looked like William Blake
in the dirty fog
he said
Henry Ford was the devil
and this was hell
this industrial revolution
that’s all he talked about
he wanted to die
because he was already saved
and in Jerusalem
don’t waste your prayers on me
he said—
the next morning
some guys saw him before he punched out
handling knives and forks in the cafeteria
like a conjurer
and calling everything by another name

By John Stupp

Biography:

John Stupp is the author of the 2007 chapbook The Blue Pacific and the 2015 full-length collection Advice from the Bed of a Friend both by Main Street Rag. His new book How Tuesday Began will be published by Finishing Line Press. Recent poetry has appeared or will be appearing in The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, By&By Poetry, LitMag and Off The Coast. He lives near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 

chiaroscuro By Nooshin Ghanbari

chiaroscuro

Dark and light, bad and good, are not different but one and the same. —Heraclitus

he says I’m going to burn
(but I’m the only one capable of
keeping up / matching wits
his words have begun to eat
me alive but I still want
so many things that are him
and not him / his sweet voice
crooked smile
(I shake at remembering the little pink
crescents carved into my palms where
my nails dug early graves
that spell out his name / icy fingers at
my back playing me like a broken violin)
I want him
to stop / to yield / he never does

on other days he says I’m his hero
(that makes everything worth it / right?)
eyes hazy from admiration or drink
number three / love is just as blurry
he tastes like home and bright bright light
(“god, your voice is beautiful” he says
and that is as much of a temptation as
fingers crocheted together / hand in hand
hand on shoulder / hand on back)

the two-step turns to five and I’m tripping
lips touching my neck and whispering
“you’re a really fast learner, babe”

he swears that every chorus is my name and
silly me / I believe him.

By Nooshin Ghanbari

Biography:

Nooshin Ghanbari is a third-year English major at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was recently awarded the 2016 Ellen Engler Burks Memorial Scholarship for Creative Writing. She currently serves as the assistant poetry editor of The Nocturnal Literary Review, the official journal of the university’s Plan II Honors program. Her poetry has previously appeared in Skylark Review.

Giving Yourself to Him By Rivka Yeker

Giving Yourself to Him

Your power line
is limp. It is bent over
a flock of birds as they
jump over its dead
electricity. There is leftover
energy on the other side of town
but no one cares enough to
bring you a spare charger.
He stands in the corner
and watches your eyes roll back.
He says he won’t leave,
he’ll just watch.

By Rivka Yeker

Biography:

Rivka Yeker lives in Chicago and is a student at DePaul University studying Media & Cinema Studies, Public Relations/Advertising, and Creative Writing and is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of Hooligan Mag. While she’s not running Hooligan, slinging coffee and books, and going to school, she’s forming new theories on human connection, absorbing and critically assessing media, reading comics, and yelling poetry in front of strangers.

Blistered Tongue By Caseyrenée Lopez

Blistered Tongue

i burnt my tongue
with melted sugar

today. the flinching
pain reminded me

of the way you taste
when you’re fresh

from a hot shower
or my favorite,

covered in salty sweat.
i felt the scorched taste

buds rise, agitated,
almost numb, but i

can’t stop running
the burn over the roof

of my mouth, pouring
salt over the sugary

wound, adding to the sharp
pain of glass in my mouth.

By Caseyrenée Lopez

Caseyrenée Lopez is a non-binary queerfemme atheist. They edit Crab Fat Magazine, TQ Review & Damaged Goods Press in an effort to platform marginalized writers/artists, particularly queer and trans folks. Their debut full-length collection, i was born dead, is forthcoming from ELJ publications in 2018. Follow them on Twitter @caseyreneelopez.

Sellers in El Parque de las Palomas (The Pigeon’s Park) in Puerto Rico By Talia Flores

Sellers in El Parque de las Palomas (The Pigeon’s Park) in Puerto Rico

They sit in concrete nests,
hands open in prayer or pleading.

They look for the dolares in pockets and wallets
and at the ends of outstretched arms,

but they do not steal. They earn each scrap and coin
like they’ve earned scars.

Skin like plátanos peels,
wrinkled. Heavy with tears of their people.

Eyes granite gray,
sun hot like death or passion.

Eyes galaxies of their own-
what cuentas they could tell.

Their tongues stick to the roofs
of their mouths like sunrises

sweat warm color.
Perspiration and perseverance-

one day they’ll roar with the pigeon wings-
but for now they are stone lions

waiting

By Talia Flores

Biography:

Talia Flores is the recipient of the 2015 Texas Book Festival Fiction Prize and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Her work appears or is forthcoming in National Poetry Quarterly, Words Dance, Souvenir Lit Journal, Gigantic Sequins, and more. She was a mentee in The Adroit Journal’s Mentorship Program, and she works as a reader for Polyphony H.S. and as an editorial intern for The Blueshift Journal. She will be attending Stanford University in the fall.

The July War, 2006 By Majda Gama

The July War, 2006   

The blistering air in this season of drought
should fetter me to the cool metal
of my student bed, the concrete
embrace of a shady ground floor room
won’t do this afternoon. This afternoon
I am not a daughter of Abraham
whose life can be rendered into black & white
headlines or Biblical parables. I can escape
past Parliament square, where protestors surge
and words like “Save Beirut” are written on placards
that cannot yet emerge from my throat. The rote
words of condolence won’t do:
in the rubble of Saida there is a body in a white shroud;
the wife of a ’48 refugee. Her grandchildren
flee Israeli fighter planes on the road to Damascus
the path behind them erased.

It won’t do to go to Edgeware Road;
smoke nargila, let the Arabic pop music in the cafe
ease the ache of displacement. I wore the Shia sword
there, didn’t ponder Ali’s martyrdom (peace be upon him)
know that a charm worn over my heart
would stop a man in his tracks to ask
if I was Shia, nor know how to answer
as I fumbled at my throat to flip away the sword
that concealed ayat al-kursi, the verse of the chair
that I wear for protection. I swore to him
on my heart
(crossed it, hoped to die) that I am Sunni.

By Majda Gama

Biography:

Majda Gama is Saudi-American poet based in the Washington, DC area where she has roots as a punk, DJ and activist. Two of her poems were picked by Ilya Kaminsky as honorable mentions in The Fairy Tale Review’s inaugural contest, other poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, Hunger Mountain, Mizna, War, Literature & the Arts and are forthcoming in Duende and the Hysteria anthology. As a transnational nomad living between East and West, Majda has permanent culture shock.