Sean Kenealy

Voyeurism

I saw a woman breastfeeding on the subway this morning.  She had a baby girl on her lap, I would say two months old, and she was crying louder than I ever imagined a baby could cry.  The mother was red and sweating, exhausted.  She looked so overwhelmed I imagined she was going to cry herself.  She rocked the baby, sang to her, rattled toys in front of her cute, little face.  But nothing would work.  Then, finally, when it seemed the crying would never end, the mother turned to me and the other passengers.  She smiled, she sighed, and she quickly lifted her shirt, exposing her two swollen breasts.  I turned away, a moment too late, I'm embarrassed to say, and the baby finally stopped crying.  There was silence.  Pure, beautiful, silence.

And that's when I noticed the other passengers.  They were staring at the woman, disgusted.  They stared at her breasts, making faces like they couldn't believe what she was doing.  They rolled their eyes; shook their heads, laughed, and I wanted to say, "What?!  The baby needed some food!  Who gives a fuck!"  But of course I didn't.  I just sat there, feeling the stares get stronger and stronger until I couldn't take it anymore.  So I stood.  I moved in front of the woman, my back facing her, and I foolishly attempted to block all of the stares.  It was silly, very unneeded, but I felt I had to.  And it was then that two other men stood, both much larger than me.  They came to my sides, our bodies touched, and we formed a wall, protecting the baby and mother, making sure no one would harm them. 

And although it sounds ridiculous, as I stood there I felt like one of the Three Wise Men, using my body to shelter and give warmth to a baby Jesus on the A train of New York City.






Rose for a Gangster

I'm on the subway holding a bouquet of flowers.  I'm going uptown, way uptown, to a cute town in the Bronx called Pelham, when all of a sudden six guys enter.  They’re wearing wife-beaters, gold chains, and are covered in tattoos.  
"Nice flowers," a voice says.   
I look up. Real up, and I see a man of about 6'7'' and 300 pounds.  He's got tattoos on his face, of spider webs growing out of his sideburns.  His voice is low, so low I'm not sure if it's the subway or him vibrating my feet, and I can tell he's the one in charge.
"Thanks," I say, and the other guys laugh, like they all know a joke I can't seem to get. 
"Where you taking those pretty, pretty flowers?" the big man says, and I start to sweat. 
By now the other passengers are on the far end of the subway.  I'm alone, just standing there, watching the big man raise his arm and expose a thin, pink scar covering his ribcage. 
"I wish I had some pretty, pretty flowers," the big man says.  And the guys snicker.  They clap their hands, they stomp; they’re all having a grand old time while I stay huddled and grip my bouquet.
"These flowers are for my lady," I say.  And everyone gets quiet.  A bead of sweat drips from my cheek and lands on my hand.  The big man sighs.  He leans in close, sniffing me. 
"You want one?" I say.      
The guys, the passengers, and even the big man is now looking from side to side, like I'm telling a joke no one can seem to get but me.
"You trying to give me a flower?" the big man says.
"Just one," I say.  I swallow and look down at my bouquet.  I designed it myself, picking random flowers and putting them in a particular order.  It was perfect, and I slowly slide one out from the center: a thin, pink rose.
"Here," I say.  And I hold the rose out. 
The big man is silent, like he's only seen roses in the movies, but never actually held one in real life.  Then he opens his mouth.  He gasps.  A little, tiny, cute gasp, and he reaches for the rose with his callused palms.  He sniffs it, and the other guys laugh, until he shoots them a look.
"Enjoy the pretty, pretty rose," I say.  Then the subway stops.  The doors open and the guys file out, silent, looking down at their feet.  The big man is the last to leave.  He doesn't speak; he just holds the rose close to his wide chest, protecting it, right below his thick, gold chain.  For a second I think he might smile, but there's nothing; just a gangster holding a rose
Then the subway takes off to a cute town called Pelham in the Bronx, and my perfect bouquet feels a little lighter.





Sean Kenealy is a playwright and fiction writer currently pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at The City College of New York.  His plays have been staged in New York and Chicago at 13th Street Repertory Theater, Gorilla Tango Theater, Brooklyn's Impact Festival, Frigid Festival, and with The International BTC.


Shitsugane Olembo

We played on into the night

I wish we had played on into the night,

African cowboys with not much,
Else to do,

I wish we had challenged the fish in the sea and,
Called out to the Bison,

My father and his band,
And his

-strike while the iron is hot-

Jive,

Johnstone, his brother,
On the drums,
Kicking up a riot,

Sarah the lead,
Crooning about her rescue from a,
Very bad man,

Lydia,
Lead back-up,

Flinging in the,
'Alleluiahs', and
'Godda-let-it-be's!

Samuel,
A doctor dying of AIDS,
Breathing life into a tin-metal harmonica,

'Alleluhia,'

Rocking the old man at the end of the bar,
And the couple at the table, fighting with their lips,

I think heard it coming when he fumbled the line,
And I wish we had played on all night.

 

 

Sunday

They say that Africans,

Will have to fight for a place on the bus,

So I am pulling out all the stops.

I am burning incense and,
Turning out closets,
-exorcising demons-

I am fumigating my life,
Throwing out old clothes and,
Trying to gain favour,

-surely children were not meant for the streets,
Nor nations meant for war-

I have found sack cloth and ash and,
I intend to,

Gouge flesh with home-made irons
Flagellate until I bleed sin,
All over the carpet.

There will be gnashing of teeth,
And great wailing,
-effort must be made-

I shall identify,
Church pews with nails and,
Kneel!

But the spotlight keeps missing me,
And I manage only to elicit,

Splendid chuckles from my nephew.

 

 

Three trees

A brook runs through my Grandmas farm,

That used to carry gold.

My Grandpa
-Benjamin-

Did not yield the land,
To the British, who wanted it dammed.

In 1968, they took him in,
To have his appendix removed,
And Grandma never remarried.

My Aunt Alice,
Was a witch.

She flew in on broomsticks
We never saw,

But heard in the barn,
Where she parked.

She brought foreign sweets that didn't
Crack our lips,
And told us naughty jokes.

-Oh Pope the Bastard,
Please pass the Custard!-
We'd squeal and never tell,

And feel all grown up and,
Conspiratorial.

Grandma says she died running with
The wrong pack,

That she was knocked from the sky,
By a cross.

Later we learned,
It was a broken heart that did it,

That Grandma wouldn't accept a,
Jewish man in the house,

So she killed herself.

Mary was dead when we got here,
Her tree is the prettiest.

It's a large yellow poplar that,
Trembles in the slightest breeze,

She was a violinist,
A frail, little thing, who

Is fading away,
In family photographs.

Iridescent sparrows trill,
Beautiful harmonies,
From skinny branches,

Shielded by the most delicate,
Drooping fronds.

You see, my Grandmother has three beautiful trees,
Growing in her garden,

One for Benjamin, one for Alice, one for Mary.

My grandmother used to sit under these trees.
They're feeding off the bones she says.

 


 
 

We are leaving them behind

Never mind steel,

We are creating new materials,
Carbon nano-tubes, poly-ceramics,

Twirl a ball above your head, we are
Building elevators into space,
Stringing massage parlours around the earth,

We are engineering ourselves,
Computer worlds and,
Selling real estate, we

Are leaving the old people,
Behind,
Stained curtains and they are,

Walking into forests,
In Japan.




Shitsugane Olembo is a 42 year old Gay Kenyan Film Director who has been writing poetry for ten years. He is part of the New Poetry coming from the Literary Collective, Kwani (http://kwani.org) in Kenya. For Shitsugane, the personal is political, and personal stories matter.

 

Laurel Kallen

No More Snoring

to sleep in this night of three months
of no sounds but the humidifier breathing moist
air and Pixie scratching at the door to be let into the

room where I dream now having rented out
the one we used to share having given you the bed
we used to share so much we used and were used by

abandonments – your mother’s confidences
and hugs withheld when she’d grown ashamed
– intrusions – your father’s theft of money you’d

earned stocking groceries after school – he took it to
gamble but never said so promised to pay you back but
you knew he never could or would and yet you were a kid so
 
what could you do? intrusions – my father-psychiatrist
striding into my room as I changed at the age of thirteen
brand-new breasts still shocking my body and – abandonments –
 
when tears  came he said don’t be a baby  – now, in this bunk bed I pleasure
myself – if you can call it that – with you not here curled behind my curled body
or curled in front of my curling I cannot cannot whisper to you cannot call you you
 
have said it harms you to speak to me said I am poison and
you stayed for too long and there is nothing left to understand
except what you have finally understood about my harmfulness and
 
in your new role as commander of us you order me not to phone not to
speak as though everything I’d ever said were false the universe of my love a
fiction and only you owned the God-awful truth of us – this is why I rock back and
 
forth like an insane yet savant person in an asylum while you – omniscient doctor –
write your diagnoses of my condition our condition our marriage and your training has
made you wise yes truly wise but even the truly wise fail to see what they cannot – as do all
 
doctors – I know – I am the daughter of one – and you the saint of the two of
us – and I the sinner of the two of us all that time could not see ahead could glimpse
perhaps an instant no more though you’ve managed to compress our years together into
 
an opaque bundle – solid and unbearable – a
package that can never be hoisted up or opened – wrapped in
brown paper tied tight with twine and labeled with impenetrable
 
neatness.
 
 
 

 
My Name

It is a fact that day is done
dishes
when its usefulness
when the sun
when the one
I never know
shirtsleeves
comes back at
dusk to
listen it’s a fact failing
railing, bridge
leaning over
ranting moreover
you never let me be
burgundy
be finished with
you you return asking
alms, explaining
I want that condition
where you forget your
identity wander
barefoot
in the city
from gym to
internet café till
they find
you bobbing in
the water of
New York
Harbor
breathing and they
tell you to
remember who you
are like
coming back from
the dead,
anesthesia and you
don’t want at that
moment can’t see the
point for what you
need is
 
sleep.
 




BLACK LACE

What wisdom?
I am in a new
valley.  I no longer
weep.  It was silly to do so.  We lived together eighteen
years – eighteen equals
life according to the Kabbalah.  And in as many days,  I am for-
getting.  It
 
was silly of me to cry – and besides you used it to
get back at me.  Why think of that photo you transported to your
new place – the three of us when our daughter was one
day old and my hair was
short – in the exact same pixie
cut she now wears?  She was too young to
smile, but we weren’t – and we
did.  Our daughter was
born.  She was meant to
be, but that has little to do with
us.  Your
 
traces: a telephone
message from a doctor’s office unaware
of your new phone
number. A piece of
mail the post office has missed
relabeling.  A few
items of laundry – T-shirts stained
with perspiration, striped boxers with
stretched-out 
waistbands – mixed
in with my clothes before you
moved
out.  I
 
have no
desire to hear your
voice – that silk lining the
burlap, your anger not to be
trusted – nor do I ask to be
touched by you.  That last time, I would now call
rape.  Go on, cringe, but I know what
happened.  You’d requested black
lace and red
nail polish. I went shopping for
you. I just didn’t
realize. Afterwards, in the
shower, I under-
stood how
far away you’d
traveled.  It was
worse than being touched by a
stranger – it was
stranger.

Laurel Kallen is a poet and fiction writer who holds an MFA in creative writing from The City College of New York.  She teaches writing at the City University of New York.   Laurel received the 2009 Stark Short Fiction Award and the Teacher/Writer Award.  Her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Global City Review, Legal Studies Forum, La Petite Zine and Atlanta Review. Her poetry collection, The Forms of Discomfort, will be published by Finishing Line Press in Summer 2012. She has been a featured reader at Perch Café, Cakeshop, Cornelia Street Cafe and The CUNY Graduate Center. Laurel was a speech writer for former New York City Mayor David Dinkins.  She also holds an MA in French and is an attorney admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey.  Her daughters, Maia and Chloe, are strongly opposed to their mother’s presence on Facebook.  

 

Shayne Benz

The House Without the Ivy

Seashells and mutiny
this house is still all
windows and sliding doors.
Pockmarked clapboard,
the widowers reminder.

It echoes of secret children,
olive skin wives.
Illumination
and guilt.

The ammunition of virgins
preyed upon and prayed for,
beauty on the rim of a wine glass
concave and reluctant.

Greedy hands tug at the strings
of a viola, which
sat quiet for so long
it forgot the
sound of its
own song.





8 Point Buck

It’s been a warm
autumn
so shed your
summer coat and be
naked in your velvets.

Feverish stag idolatry
it’s season here in pale yellows
and blue bells
your rack is worse than
your bite, baby.

You make monsters
out of women.





We

parted lips
parted legs
parted ways.
 
Slap in the face from God,
the rain my only witness.
 
You float between dreams and here,
noon in Brooklyn Heights
every one’s day has started
but your own.
 
I prayed the entire bus ride home.
 
I prayed for our forgiveness.

My piety is purged
through conformity.

Today is the flagellation of the boy king. 

Holy parables cannot hold
but a flicker to you. 





Coming of Christ

Look at my hands,

stretched on a dirty floor
knuckles white
elbows at right angles.

Lean forward,
mouth open
my hair bathes your feet in
forgiveness.

You like me because
we fuck without promise.
 
Mouthful of warm risk
it rests upon my lip
a decade of reasons
to never leave. 

You were once a child
etched from sun bleached stone,
vision of the past.

Funny how everything
changes.

This is my second redemption.

Penance on face and chest
it sears flesh,
no one notices.

Welcome to the lie. 






Things I miss most

The honestly of concrete, 
courageous leaps of letting go,
our lady of the cuckoo
clock.
 
A kiss nineteen years
in the making, unspoiled snow, the
chalkiness of musk scented skin,
a hallway bereft.
Overt silence,
pail as crib and coffin, 

the downy of your thighs
nestled between
each of my particles.



Shayne Benz is a New York native currently getting my MFA in poetry at City College, She lives in Manhattan with her two cats.

 

 

Introduction

It’s April and what better month to showcase new work than during National Poetry Month!  We hope that you will enjoy the pieces selected as much as we’ve enjoyed reading them. 

Today, from a sad corner of my heart, it is both my pleasure and my honor to bring you one of the great poems of Adrienne Rich.  “No other living poet, has made such a profound impression on American intellectual life,” Dana Gioia, a poet and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts, wrote in 1999.  I heard Adrienne Rich speak twice and recently found the following anonymous quote that reminds me of how I feel, and speaks to all poets worldwide: 

“The death of a prophet does not leave a void in the air: it leaves a huge presence, undiminished and forever part of history.”

   Best, June


DIVING INTO THE WRECK

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
 
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.
 
I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.
 
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.
 
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.
 
I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
 
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
 
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
 
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass
 
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.
 
---Adrienne Rich