ECHOLOCATION: AERIAL SCRIPT by Helwig Brunner, translated by Monika Zobel
Echolot. Luftlinienschrift
Die Fledermäuse, an ihre Laute gedacht,
unhörbar, das Horchen also hinein in eine
Stille, die keine ist; sie ziehn den Blick
in den Dämmerhimmel, das Zickzack ihres
Flatterfluges, samtpelzige Beinahvögel,
die mit den Ohren schaun: Bilder hören.
Wenig später sind sie entzogen, entflogen
hinter die schwarze Jalousie der Nacht,
gesättigt an den Blindstellen des Echos
und ich denke sehr banal, wie wenig ich
auslote mit Worten.
Helwig Brunner‘s work has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies in Europe and elsewhere, including New European Poets (Graywolf Press, 2008). Brunner has published eight books of poetry, most recently Vorläufige Tage (Leykam Verlag, 2011) and Die Sicht der Dinge: Rätselgedichte (edition keiper, 2012), as well as some novels, short stories, and essays. He has been the recipient of several literary prizes in Austria and Germany.
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Echolocation: Aerial Script
The bats, reflecting on their sounds,
inaudible, thus eavesdropping on a
silence, which is none; they drag the gaze
through the twilight sky, the zigzag of their
flutter flight, satin-fur nearly birds
that see with their ears: listen to images.
A little later they diminish, vanish
behind the black blinds of night,
satiated by the blind spots of the echo
and I think how little I sound out
with trite words.
Monika Zobel‘s poems and translations have been published in Redivider, The Cincinnati Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cream City Review, Mid-American Review, The Adirondack Review, Guernica Magazine, West Branch, Best New Poets 2010, and elsewhere. A senior editor at The California Journal of Poetics and recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, she currently lives in Vienna, Austria.
- Published in Issue 3, Poetry, Translation
THE SUPERINTENDENT by Justin Bigos
The air as still as bathwater, no breeze
from Sheepshead, we carry clear plastic bags
of empty bottles and cans, blue plastic bags
of plastic bottles and milk jugs, we squeeze
flattened boxes into open boxes, then tie
it all in twine – but do we cover it
in tarp in case it rains? He says, Forget-
about-it, just like on TV. (I’d died
a little when he asked me for my help
after mumbling something about the blacks
and Jews, this man who once refused to attack
his neighbors in Croatia, then fled that hell
– I’ve heard it said – with three-thousand cash
inside his socks.) And next we do the trash.
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DEVIL DANCER’S DAUGHTER by Laura Sheahen
What does your father do
Dance
Where in the jungle
The jungle
When
In the night
With feathers sharp feathers
To what sound
The beat from the heart of my mother
extracted
Where are the flames from
The devil
Where is the dance from
The devil
And the red mask from
The devil I hate the devil
And the knife moon from
The devil
Why is he dancing
To cure me
Listen to Laura Sheahen’s reading of “Devil Dancer’s Daughter” below…
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Gate Mudaliyar A.C.G.S. Amarasekara, The Devil Dancer’s Daughter. (Oil on canvas)
Laura Sheahen composed this poem in response to The Devil Dancer’s Daughter, a painting by the Sri Lankan artist Gate Mudaliyar A.C.G.S. Amarasekara (b. 1883 – d. 1983). The painting is housed in the National Art Gallery of Sri Lanka and is reproduced here with permission.
AFTER SAMSON BURNS HER FAMILY’S HOUSE AND GRAIN-FIELDS by William Kelley Woolfitt
Two ruined bodies, galena-black, tar-black,
charred flakes of cloth, countenances gone.
No ears, or eyes, or lips. Father, sister, offered
to a god, fat and gorged, that I deplore;
hands folded at the breastbone, as if fire
was a balm that soothed, gave them repose;
no hair to dress, no skin to wash and stroke.
Old moon when I sleep, when I rise, no cave
where it can roost, vacant haze, thread of shine,
me in the starless night,
interlunar, the night through all my joints
and bones diffused, the scorched kernels I gnaw
from the stalk, burrows where I hide, water
seeping from stone, the fox that licks my hand.
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Susan Worsham, “Drowned Persimmons.” (Photograph)
William Kelley Woolfitt chose Susan Worsham’s original photograph to accompany his poem. The poet explains: “‘After Samson Burns…’ reflects my interest in the stories of unnamed figures in historical and sacred texts, such as the sister of Samson’s wife who was offered to him as a consolation prize in the Book of Judges. I see in Worsham’s photograph several echoes of elements in my poem, including fruit(fulness) spoiled, the color black, and water seeping from stone.”
ANTIPHON FOR THE OFFICE OF THE DEAD by William Kelley Woolfitt
a powder box and swans-down puff
her limp stocking, a green satin fan
spangled with dragonflies, curling-tongs
small muslin bags, a pumice stone
bits of skin, cut-glass bottles, cuticle
knife, a darner, nail powder, sealing wax
spirals of her hair, glove buttoner
orangewood stick, gauze balls, shoe lift
velvet brush, rabbit’s foot, pots of rouge
lip salve, cold cream plumbed by her
tired fingers, silver trays of hatpins
hairpins, safety pins, to hold, to prick
foxtail scarf with chain, scrimshaw
manicure box with sweet pea vines
carved in the whale-bone lid, hand-mirror
holding her breath, a smudged cloud
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Aaron Blum, “Bittersweet.” (Photograph)
William Kelley Woolfitt chose this original photograph by Aaron Blum to accompany his poem. The poet explains: “I gave this poem its current title after reading Traci Brimhall’s wonderful ‘Dirge for the Idol.’ I had imagined an altar-like dressing-table laden with the dead parts of humans and other animals; naming the poem ‘Antiphon for the Office of the Dead’ was my way of naming that table a place of commemoration and lament. I see another kind of altar in Aaron Blum’s photograph ‘Bittersweet,’ a suggestion of mourning and mending, with a lamp that may burn for the lost and the quilt-like table runner that may gather pieces of the old and put them together again.”
LOOKING THROUGH A TELESCOPE AT THE MOON ON THE DAY NEIL ARMSTRONG DIED
by Raena Shirali
we locate apollo’s landing site on a map that shows
there are two sides to everything
& one is always dark, maria,
unfathomable ocean. the dome above is cracked
& only a sliver of seven-o-clock sky peeks
down. how dizzying: these fickle attempts
to track my lover’s swells, swift black shifts
like a night sky peeling. we are determined
to find armstrong’s footing—
all expectation & no satisfaction; all wax,
no wane. & yes, we drift in cycles
i don’t keep track of anymore.
on the wooden viewing platform,
the cincinnati observatory employee tells me
the moon in this lens is reversed,
so i see east where i should see waning curve.
even if things were right-side-up,
our wrongs don’t follow laws,
or adhere to astronomy. in the end,
nothing negates, & what is bright is too much here.
i cannot find the grounding crater.
the selenic overwhelms
& i clutch the eyepiece, a teetering drunk
unsteady even with my heels off, my lover
smiling up at me from the ground.
did you find apollo? he asks
& i think, o, what a tease you are,
moon: a contradiction, a lie of light
& dark. your surface reeking of gunpowder,
your tendency to decompose liquid.
Listen to Raena Shirali’s reading of “looking through a telescope…” below…
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DOLOROSA by Molly Rose Quinn
(The Chapel at St. Mary’s School for Girls)
where the pillar falls at the edge of morning the teachers
beg us to tug down our skirts they offer their palms
for our gumballs and your god is here to say that beauty
is easy like cutting teeth and your legs and your legs
and yours and I in the pew wish to scrape down
to nothing cuff myself kneel better and what could be
worthier hair voice and loudly I beg for ascendancy
dear classmates your legs in neat rows pray as you do
with fists up and the sun in here bare pray for safety
the teen saint she is the girl to win it all for I beg my
mariology as she sets the way that girl she never once
begged for sparing she begged for death like wine
she begged the best she supplicated she died this dying
begs for me I give it such pleasure and legs and the pew
and the alb and the bread and all other objects beg to be
candles when you are a candle you can beg to be lit
each of you in the pew you beg to be lit I’ll never shine
bigger as we know teenagers beg to be begged and we do
you girls you begged me to hold you begged me to take
what I took you beg bigger and better and for that
you’ll be queens the chimes chime and bells bell
and dear god I know I can be the greatest girl ever
by anointing all alone and being loved the very best
and she says what is so good about anger god killed
my son for himself I suppose and this halo it’s nothing
I asked for and of course she’ll be lying and your legs
and your legs and yours tanned and the best thing all year.
Listen to Molly Rose Quinn’s reading of “Dolorosa” below…
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Henry Darger, Sacred Heart. ©Kiyoko Lerner 2013 / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York. (Click to enlarge.)
Molly Rose Quinn selected Henry Darger’s work to accompany her poem and explains: “The girls of Henry Darger’s epic novel, illustrated here in Sacred Heart and elsewhere, were closely derived from popular media (recall the ‘Coppertone baby’ or ‘Morton Salt girl’). The novel itself, undiscovered until Darger’s death, details the girls’ war against child slavery, neglect, and abuse. They are cartoonishly feminine in appearance, divine in their acts, and pure of moral being. The narrative weaves darkly into Christian mythology and Darger’s childhood experiences. My poem, using Mary as its vessel, hopes to crash together female adolescence and religious fundamentalism, therein the inherent mythologizing, fetishism, zeal, envy, lust. I am drawn to these images for their moralizing, their uncertain deviance, their mystic pity, and the great heart’s wink at the literal.”
Please note: Reproduction, including downloading of Henry Darger’s work, is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
THE SAW by James Allen Hall
Galeria Hermandad, Toledo
A hand made this, hammered flat a hot length of iron,
cut one side jagged, a row of teeth. The criminal
would be hoisted up, tied inverted, the saw
at his scrotum. The act required two men
before and aft, their breath ragged, flesh straining
through flesh, a saw coming for his eyes. Once
he followed a plainclothes soldier home. Kissed him
open-eyed. Saw the night shredded down to morning.
Saw what was approaching, was breaking in the door
even now: in the closet, a row of uniforms,
legs halved by hanging. The wrack the maiden
the noose the saw. Sierra. I’ll never say it right.
We are standing in Toledo, in dry museum light.
I’m pressing my hands against the stained glass
of the wrong century. In a cathedral down the street,
a row of white pointed pontiff hats, preserved
behind glass, eyeing my wrists. Last night I was suspect,
legs spread. And you, soldier, tied them wide.
I leave my hand in yours and follow you home,
the way I’ve always done, wanting to be wrong
about why you won’t touch the rest of me,
why there’s something that loves me cut apart.
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THE KING OF LOWMANSVILLE by Christopher Prewitt
Peasant stars hanged from wires
above their king, my brother,
sleeping in his crib.
Out of silver trim
and a nail gun,
the church made for him
a crown of thorns
for the Easter pageant.
We liked to play dress up.
He would play a cow
and I, a butcher.
At Easter I was the cross.
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Cecily Brooke, “The King of Lowmansville.” (Original Drawing)
Christopher Prewitt solicited this original drawing by Cecily Brooke to accompany his poem. The poet explains: “I like that Brooke has attempted to capture every moment in the poem in this illustration, and I selected this illustration because it evokes the sadness and the strangeness of the world of the poems in the Lowmansville collection. There is something to the fact that the King is examining his pageant crown of thorns, and I am especially fond of the features of the cow costume, particularly the eyes.”
SOMETHING HE DID by Jennifer Whitaker
On a day cold enough to remind him of home,
my father, whisky-warm, dragged from the shed
the kerosene heater, sending the mangy dogs
to the fence line. The overfilled tank, the choke
of kerosene soaking ragged into the wood floor,
he coaxed the heater to hot blush
with a single match and finally slumped to sleep
next to the trailing hair of its heat, its burning chest,
its hot mouth gagged with rags.
Listen to Jennifer Whitaker’s reading of “Something He Did” below…
Now, listen to Jennifer Whitaker’s discussion of “Something He Did”…
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IN THE CAPITAL by Michael Bazzett
It is a hillside town: houses stacked
like pottery on shelves. From the window
you see two schoolgirls walking uphill
holding books to their chests, white socks
drooping in the heat. The man painting
the water tank of a building across the valley
has descended to the shade to eat his lunch.
The tank waits impassive as a farm animal,
contemplating the buttery hue of its belly.
Wash is strung on lines like pinioned wings.
The old man on the balcony across from us
is twisting his shirt in heavy ropes to wring
the sunlight from its folds. A small basin has
been positioned below to catch the stream.
What trickles out is cloudier than expected,
a pale yellow liquid the color of young corn,
but it is also faintly luminous and it is this
mundane detail that you will later remember.
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RADIO TRANSMISSIONS IN MORSE CODE by P.J. Williams
m+3
…– —-. / ..— ….. / .—- .-.-.- —-. —-. ..— /
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[end]
Origin: 39° 25′ 1.992” N, 84° 55′ 40.0074” W
Have found shelter in
questions / at the cross of tongues /
prophets hissing out
another shallow
monster / My own flattened mouth /
my hours of silent
speechless / If it should
thunder / If I was the man
in the waning moon /
m+11
…– ….- / …– —– / …– ….- .-.-.- ….. ….. ..— ..— /
-. –..– / —.. —.. / ….- ….. /
..— —– .-.-.- ..— .—- ….- / .–
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… — — -. / .- … .-.. . . .–. / …. — .– /
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…. . .—-. … / –. — -. . / .– . .- -.- -. . … … /
] noise [
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— …- . .-. / .- -. / . -.– . .-.. .. -..
] noise [
[end]
Origin: 34° 30′ 34.5522” N, 88° 45′ 20.214” W
How many millions
headswollen / sinking / so soon
asleep / How loss is
tongued / no / no / he’s gone /
Weakness in mountain winds / Waist
/ deep in mountain winds /
Harp wrenched silent / Moon
torqued down tight & full / plaster
over an eyelid /
m+39
] noise [
…– —– / ….. ….. / ..— —.. .-.-.- .—- -…. …– ….- /
-. –..– / —.. ….. / ….- ….- /
.—- —-. .-.-.- —-. —.. .—- —.. / .–
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] noise [
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] noise [
[end]
Origin: 30° 55′ 28.1634” N, 85° 44′ 19.9818” W
I’m trying to say
Hell is untied & empty /
My stomach again
a carcass in place
of prayer / Each new fire is salt /
each raised palm a sun
dial / But still these words
an attempt to speak softly /
the tilting zenith /
m+46
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.—- .-.-.- ….. –… ….- ….- / .–
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. .- -.-. …. / -… — -.. -.– / .- /
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-… — -. . … / -.. .- .– -. /
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. .- -.-. …. / … . .- / .. – … /
. .-. — -.. . -.. / … …. — .-. . /
] noise [
.–. .- – .. . -. -.-. . / .- .-.. .-.. /
] noise [
— -.– – …. … / …. .- …- . /
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] noise [
[end]
Origin: 37° 50′ 53.3436” N, 85° 28′ 1.5744” W
What harmony / each
body a score of bones / Dawn
music solemn / shapes
re-form / Each sea &
its eroded shore / Patience /
all myths have mothers /
Once / a phoenix clapped
its wings out of the loud winds
& lowered the world /
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