Crossing the Bridge

Here 

BY NICHOLAS GOODLY

There is a moment

on the bridge,

piles of clothes

along the margin.

The pile

is behind you,

the moment is

you looking

in the rearview.

Somewhere,

a clean white

minivan,

a family

gathering

fallen luggage.

You are

the margins.

The moment

is looking

back at you.

The bridge

is between

you and

the moment

you look in

the rearview.

It is only

the bridge,

it is in the shape

of you, the bridge.

The bridge is you,

you a part of it,

somewhere.

The bridge

is nothing,

only

the shape

of

it

now.

It is behind you.

I Love You, But

 BY RICARDO RUIZ

Mi Jefita looks distraught,

oscillating between

her own history and my soul.

Hours, days, months with her knees

bent pidiéndole a la virgin

Que me cuidara as I fought in

Afghanistan.

Now she’s staring into hell's image,

Bouguereau's Dante and Virgil

groping with each spin of the

wooden spoon

as the red paste rises to a boil,

splattering her apron

with my childhood favorite meal.

I love him, he’s my best friend, the

one who slept on my couch

when I wanted to put my AR to

my mouth and be another dead vet.

I would have died for this country

because I believe it’s for me and

him.

I may have to marry him,

I tell the most important women in

my life.

                                 My Fiance

                                 My Mother

I will marry him,

cause we ain’t goin’ nowhere.

2,572 miles separate Moses Lake,

Washington,

my place of birth

and Colima, Mexico, his.

Neither of us had a role in how we

got here.

Here

Crows in a Strong Wind

Here 

Crows in a Strong Wind

BY CORNELIUS EADY

Off go the crows from the roof.

The crows can’t hold on.

They might as well

Be perched on an oil slick.

Such an awkward dance,

These gentlemen

In their spottled-black coats.

Such a tipsy dance,

As if they didn’t know where they were.

Such a humorous dance,

As they try to set things right,

As the wind reduces them.

Such a sorrowful dance.

How embarrassing is love

When it goes wrong

In front of everyone.

The Moon and the Yew Tree

by Sylvia Plath

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs at my feet as if I were God,
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.
Fumy spiritous mists inhabit this place
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up. It has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness —
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars.
Inside the church, the saints will be all blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness — blackness and silence.

Hunger

 

That sense of spinning, shredding doom you feel when you are hungry and sleepy?

That’s a survival mechanism.

You are in danger.

Take it seriously.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is the danger.

It’s social control.

Don’t accept oppression.

Your anger is yours.

Don’t let anyone take it from you.

 

If you are hungry, only eat if you want to.

(If you can.)

If you are sleepy, only sleep if you want to.

Make your own damn decisions.

---

Did you see that shitty neighborhood under the bridge back there?

The judgement just rolls off you as you speed by.

How do you think it got that way? Bad people live there, right?

Bad people

Who have no money

No grocery store

No car to get to the nice, tree-lined avenue, in the pale, new addition where the store is.

No grocery store, because there is no money, no money, because there are no businesses. No businesses because there is no money. No money, no groceries.

And it spins and it spins.

And they are hungry and sleepy and doomed.

And you want to take away their anger with your condescending bullshit.

You want to talk at them with your deep and beloved ignorance.

Drive on, and fuck you.

The Place of the Living, Part 1

 He drifted for a long time. Days, perhaps, though consciousness was only an occasional companion. He knew the sun, relentless and oppressive, and sometimes the stars. He once heard the stirrings of some great beast beneath his little raft of debris, but hadn't the energy to react. 

Consciousness surfaced once more in the night. The now-familiar swaying of the sea was gone, leaving a heaving in his belly, unaccustomed to stillness. He could feel the cool of the night, though his eyes were crusted shut. Sand at his back, in his clothes, seemingly in his mouth.

He opened his eyes, and the stars above spun wildly. He shut them again, rolled over and heaved the nothing from his guts.

"You'll need more water," came a voice, male-seeming and quivering with age. "And food when you can."

He panted through the end of his spasm, fell back on his shoulders. He wanted to move his mouth, ask questions, but instead he drifted away again.

Quil warmed his hands at the fire, glancing over at the sleeping man. Not a young man, by any means, more of middling years. His face was lightly pocked, likely from a bout of spots in his youth. The nose was heavy, arching low over a thin mouth hidden by the scraggle of beard. Quil could tell the man was used to shaving both face and head, but stubble stood heavy upon his pate.

The paleness of the man's complexion told Quil he likely came from across the water. Not a common thing, but sometimes ships will wreck too far out, and drift will wash upon the beach. 

It's not often that drift breathes, though, Quil chuckled quietly into the salty breeze.

The man woke again, and this time was able to sit up. He extricated himself from beneath a makeshift shelter, made of a ratty cloak and some sticks. Nearby, a driftwood campfire smoked its last, and before him, beach and sea. The sun was high in the sky, but seemed dimmed by a haze. 

He looked behind him. Whoever dragged him here had set up camp near the edge of the beach. Just a few steps away loomed tall brown grass, obscuring whatever land lay beyond. From the position of the sun, he knew that land would not be his home. The sea on the north of him told him that, right enough.

Just as he was turning away from the grass, an old man's face emerged from above it. Gray, bearded and dark of skin, the man was thin and a little stooped. He stopped when he saw that his charge was awake.

"Welcome back to the place of the living," he said.

The Prince and the Goldfish

 Once upon a time, there lived a handsome prince. He was surrounded by all things beautiful and wonderful, and never wanted for anything. His every need was attended, his every whim granted. He was an exceedingly spoiled prince.

                He was prone to tantrums, and would blame his own short-comings on the people around him. If he missed a target in archery practice, he blamed the god of the winds. If he read a word of which he didn’t know the meaning, he had his tutor flogged.

                Once, he had his rooms redecorated, and before the work was done, he lost interest in the scheme. To compensate for this, he had the decorator and all of his assistants put to death. He started redecorating as the executions were taking place, having no stomach for such spectacles.

                The only creature he had any warm feelings for was his pet goldfish. He admonished the slaves taking care of his precious fish that if anything happened to it, something bad would happen to all of them.

                The prince’s little pet eventually died, goldfish not being especially long-lived creatures. The young man threw a royal tantrum and, of course, made good on his promise. Not only did he have the caretakers of his little fish put to death, he also had their families punished.

                That night, still distraught over the death of his pet, the prince went to bed. He lay awake for what seemed a very long time, mourning his dead and only friend.

                Finally, he drifted off to sleep. A few minutes later he began to hear a voice calling his name. It was a voice he didn’t recognize, but it was familiar all the same.

“Prince,” the voice called from the splendid room in which he’d kept his precious goldfish. “Prince, what have you done to my friends?”

                The prince awoke in a sweat. He called a slave to him, and told her to go to the room from which the voice had emanated. He told her to tell him everything she saw there, or else.

                The little slave did what she was told. She searched the room, and found nothing amiss, save for a large puddle of water for which she could find no reasonable explanation. She returned to the prince.

                “Well?” demanded the Prince. “What did you see?”

                The little slave, whose name was Mara, could see the prince was very upset. She didn’t want to see him throw a fit like he had the day before, so she told him that all was well, and made no mention of the puddle of water.

                In a few moments, the prince calmed down. He went about his day just as he always had. His mood was even more foul than usual, but there were no executions that day.

                Night came, and the prince settled down into his bed. This time he slept almost immediately, worn out from the day’s bad temper.

                Again, he heard the voice from the goldfish’s room: “Prince, what have you done to my friends?” The prince covered his head with his blanket, but still the voice came. Over and over it said those same words: “What have you done to my friends?”

                Finally, with a great cry, the prince woke. He again called Mara to check the goldfish’s room. Though the puddle of water was now much larger, she returned to the prince with the same story: all was well.

                This day, the prince’s mood was even worse than the previous day. He had a slave flogged for not rinsing his sponge properly after washing a pot. Another slave was beaten for making the prince’s bed with the wrong color sheets.

                Again, night fell. As the prince was preparing for bed, he called Mara to him. He told her to stay in the goldfish’s room and to report to him what she saw there. He admonished her not to sleep, or the consequences would be dire.

                The prince went to sleep. Again, he heard the voice: “What have you done to my friends?” He called to Mara, but the girl didn’t come. He called again, but still she didn’t show.

                Anger at the slave’s disobedience drove all fear of the voice from his head, and he rose from his bed, and strode into the hallway between the rooms. When he arrived at the room, however, fear once again overtook him.

                Again, the voice came, more loudly than ever: Prince, what have you done to my friends?”

                Mustering all of his meager courage, the prince pushed open the door and stepped in. Mara was nowhere to be seen, but in the middle of the room, as if it were full of water, floated a giant goldfish. It took up almost the entire room, and it was looking right at the prince.

                Exceedingly frightened, the prince turned to flee, only to be met by a locked door. He pounded on the door, crying for someone to let him out, but no one came. Finally, he turned back to the fish.

                “Prince,” boomed the massive voice of the giant, “what have you done to my friends? Did you kill my friends, prince?”

                “Th- they let you die,” the prince stammered.

                “I was old,” the fish replied. “It was my time.”

                “But, you were my fish,” the prince squeaked.

                “One creature does not own another,” the fish replied, and swam closer to the prince.

                Panicked, the prince tried the door again, and this time it gave way.

                He woke up screaming. He called all of his slaves and attendants together, and told them they were all free. Then, as the newly freed people stood there stunned, he turned away from them and fled his palace, through the town outside, and into the forest.

                Once he was gone, Mara emerged from her hiding place behind the prince’s bed, and said the words once more to herself: “Prince, what have you done to my friends?” and laughed.

                For many years after, people would tell the story of the Old Man of the Forest, who lived in a cave in a remote place, and cared for and communed with the animals.