Two Poems for John Grochalski

at the vatican

they come in hordes

sweat soaked and stupid

to stare at the blood-soaked opulence

of the vatican

the mammoth dome of st. peter’s

some genuflect

cross themselves in spiritual wonder

stand stupefied

by the audacious

unapologetic grandiosity of the place

while others buy trinkets

of the dead popes

rosary beads and postcards

or angle for a better place

in the long line of the curious

and ignorantly devoted

you can almost smell the death here

the thousands years of oppression and deceit

the millions and millions of people

who traded away the only life that they had

for the anemic promise

of the next one to come

standing in the grand piazza of the vatican

and looking at a stolen obelisk

left over from roman times

i am hit with a wave of nausea

so hard it feels like a religious conversion

i feel i might get sick

right there on the cobblestones

so i hold on to the only solace that i can find

the page in my travel book

that tells me that at one time

this land used to belong to nero

and when he was bored

his minions would murder catholics

to entertain him

and suddenly i feel a whole lot better

standing in this gilded

useless

place.

 

 

 

 

chinese women on the train to rome

 

they are the new wealth

and people seem to begrudge them that fact

 

i guess letting go of an imperial legacy is hard

 

we should have a sit down

with france and england

 

ask them how they learned to cope

having to nickel and dime their way

across the twentieth century landscape

 

i don’t begrudge these women anything

i was born broke and i’ll probably die the same way

 

a pitiable circumstance fits me like a pair of comfy shoes

 

i just wish that this pack of banshees

would shut the hell up

 

just a little bit

 

stop the chatter and screaming at the landscape

the infantile giggling and barking over the shoes

that they bought in florence

 

there’s no need for such noise

on a hellishly warm day like this one

 

talk about han-shan or something else of value

 

i mean, shit, if you’re going to be the new kings of the world

don’t you think it’s time to start spreading around the cultural clout

instead of dolling out punishments

and making trinkets laced in lead?

 

ah, but who am i to criticize?

america has been abusing people for hundreds of years now

 

plus i have a bag full of shit made in china

resting right above me

and sometimes even i’m a slave for a good deal at wal-mart

 

i’m just angry because my cat is dead

and there are too many americans in italy

carelessly spending the remnants of their legacies

 

angry because i squandered this trip

hiding in irish bars and hot hotels

 

i don’t really care if these ladies laugh or chatter

squeal at the tuscan landscape as it pours on by

 

someone should be happy on this train

it might as well be them

 

besides i have my ipod with me

a big made in china sticker still stamped on its ass

 

full of enough music to block out their voices

 

a shenzhen suicide factory

 

or anything else as we all ride our way

toward the blazing roman sun.

 

 

 

 

John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), and the forthcoming The Sun Causes Cancer. Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he constantly worries about the high cost of everything.

A Poem by Travis Laurence Naught

Personification

Seeing others happy is a terrible booby prize
To the much more desirable making people happy
Which will brighten any do-gooders' day
From the simple recognition
That they have introduced a little positivity into the world.

It is often said that misery loves company,
But selfish purposes are often to blame for misery
So grouchy people have difficulty connecting
Due to simple head butting nature
Like bighorn rams on a cliff side battling.

Truth and parallels in nature are easy to find
Documentaries about the human race
Played out on screen and in books
As long as the individual receiving this information
Dives below the surface, reads between the lines.

Hyenas and vipers carry tattooed grins on their faces
In hopes of fooling careless prey
Using a predatory cover
With a false " how do you do "
Before destroying a life for their own gain.

Herbivores all look depressed though;
Food and abundant herd status come too easily
Leaving them less than content with life
In an endless repeating cycle
Where a fear of death is the only excitement.

Primates search out adventure and experience
Through camaradic outings aimed at fun
Understanding that boredom can be conquered
Given the right set of social circumstance
And a willing leadership.

Each person falls into one of these categories
Provided by evolution,
Not present day Darwinism,
But a cultural shifting of mindset
Focused on goal oriented outcomes.



Travis Laurence Naught is a poet who happens to be a quadriplegic wheelchair user. He earned a bachelor's in psychology from Eastern Washington University in 2005. His first book collection, The Virgin Journals, was released by ASD Publishing in March of the 2012. It received an honorable mention in the biography/autobiography category at the 2012 San Francisco Book Festival and was used as curriculum in a disability studies course at EWUniversity. Other poems by him have been published online at http://www.deadmansreach.com, http://49writers.blogspot.com, http://www.pyrokinection.com/ and http://www.ravensbrew.com as well as in print in the 2012 Northwest Boulevard and The Easterner, both released by EWU. You can follow his daily update page online at www.facebook.com/TravisLaurenceNaught

A Poem by Jeffrey Park

SPANISH FLY

 

From his place on the kitchen wall

he told me stories through the long

evenings, tales of his adventurous

youth in a faraway land.

 

Sometimes they made both of us laugh,

but occasionally they brought

a little hitch to his voice and then he

sounded old and tired.

 

Sitting there in the kitchen last night

I thought of my old friend, but his place

by the cupboard is bare now

even when the mosquitoes are there.

 

Still, if I close my eyes, sit very quiet

I can almost feel a breeze on my cheek,

can almost hear a soft buzzing

from the far-off kitchens

and garbage cans of Madrid.

 

 

 

 

Baltimore native Jeffrey Park currently lives in Munich, Germany, where he works at a private secondary school. His latest poems have appeared in Requiem, Deep Tissue, Danse Macabre, Crack the Spine, Right Hand Pointing and elsewhere. More information about the poet and links to all of his published work can be found at www.scribbles-and-dribbles.com.

A Poem by Denny E. Marshall

When Pigs Fly

She said she would go
Out with me
When pigs fly
I smiled at the reply
My slight fortune
I live on top
Of "Tornado Alley"
I dream of Kansas
Her and I
On the yellow brick road
On the grass
On the farmyard



Denny E. Marshall lives in the Midwest and has had poetry recently published and rejected.

Two Poems by Christopher Kenneth Hanson

Drank Of Stark Sap

Drink wisp in, gentle ear

And now, drink this 'gain.

Because for your worth, I would struggle

Or for your youth-

In so much as whichever: least valued by thee-

Currently, presumed-

took: a sip, lapping all-

{as cool disfunction}

ergo defeatist mentality-

willow train of time,

And now, you- dear one

Shall bow,

And bow through thy limb of concrete farce

thereof, we shall, only in times of slumber-

fall to whims of stark folly.

In Stuttered Line

Or in belief

as empty a shadow:

through thought-

Liquid livid as cleared

the dead panning laughter in

heaves mentality, of course

that-that-

what which

buried of course-

that which may have kept Madam

cawing mellifluous tones;

She, whom now claims poetic justice

Above all other sociologists whom fawn over

pre-social network theory,

I left out here,

Such that, there was nothing left sacred to blame.

A Poem by Susan Dale

Heartbeat of the World

 

Within a sleep

of the universal dream

dreaming me

I lean out in the darkness

to hear a heartbeat of the world

Listening wide

straining with sinew and soul

I hear flapping wings

Ah, it is the bird of scripture

The Vikings buried him

Remember, with your being,

he under layers of Arctic ice

　

Prophesy decreed

that a shrill brass sun

melt and free his wings

to thrash the skies to raw skin winds

Winds to push across

skies, deeply moving

Winds to push clouds

to gallop through the heavens

Wings talk around winds

But what words tell of winds

gasping with the sounds of dead things washing on shore

Ashes - bones

arteries clogged with oil

Oil - the black blood of our destruction

And in the air, a heavy scent of gone

West winds blow vapors cold on leaves, quivering

on trees with thin chests

and branches reach out in search of embrace

Oh, tired earth of heavy-lidded eyes

dusty clouds - weeping waters

of voices deafened by silence

Our words spoken with fingers

forming the telling

of living to die

existing to endure

We have filled

to fall out of ourselves

and so must we swim to the moon

But what will light our way?

Our shadows lengthening and widening

darken the moon

Souls of stars lie bare

The black V of wings beat the sun to shreds

Winds dip and roar

Yet stir up only pale raindrops

In this hollow rain

stands a girl with broken umbrella

She’s trading her memories

for a withered apple in a faded pocket

Her brother sells his poems

a penny apiece

All begin with the line …

life yearns to live

And end …

life is longing for itself

 

 

 

Susan’s poems and fiction are on Eastown Fiction, Tryst 3, Word Salad, Pens On Fire, Ken *Again, Hackwriters, and Penwood Review. In 2007, she won the grand prize for poetry from Oneswan. 

A Poem by Tiani Kennedy

The Kiss

 

Wrapped in his butterfly wings, she kneels on the edge of Eden. His voice, gardenias rustling. Tu es la plus belle fille du monde. Her eyes are drunk with Communion. The veins on his wings taste her silken skin as his hands drop anchors at her hips. She begs to be devoured, to whisper to him wishes made on wells. Don’t forget me. He catches her in his lips of Venus traps and they descend onto lilies floating in the valley below. Clawing through clouds, his metamorphosis comes undone. They are spun into a cocoon. Into a lily bulb they burst forth as they dip delicately into the stream amidst walls of teepee mountains. Their petals of yellow and blue bleed into green.


Though born in Jamaica, West Indies, Tiani Kennedy grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Long Island University’s Brooklyn campus. There, she works as a tutor in the Writing Center and will teach a freshman composition course this coming fall. In addition to writing both fiction and poetry, she is also a studio artist who paints and draws mostly surreal images.

Two Poems by William Wright Harris

dali nude

 

in contemplation

before the five

regular bodies

metamorphosized

into corpuscles

in which suddenly

appears the

leda of leonardo

chromosomatized

by the visage of gala

 

 

the mood of now

 

eplodes in instants

 

birthing

dying

in the span of a sneeze or

in the tender vacuum of an orgasm

 

stains of

blood

semen

tears

resting on sheets

 

seconds breathing in loud silence

 

1928 oil on canvas

 

 

William Wright Harris wakes up for poetry. His poetry has appeared in twelve countries in such publications as The Cannon’s Mouth, Ascent Aspirations, generations and Write On!!! A student at the University of Tennessee- Knoxville, he has studied poetry in workshop settings. As a hobby, he collects places he has already been published.

A Poem by Zach Fechter

Damaged Souls

It is me,
And it traveled hundreds of
Miles to get here,
And here I stand,
Alone on an endless parking lot,
Vast and flat and hot,
Piles of mortar and trash,
The dust flat upon the harsh blackened crust,
Laid dead by the rolling heat.

There are shimmering dancers in the distance
And beads forming on my brow,
Cement trees rising up,
A concrete parting of the Red Sea,
A distant horizon,
A wasteland of brick and stone and glass,
A hot city;
There is no heart here,
There is no love song here.

A radio lies broken
Next to a pile of stone,
Like the kind from modern Athens,
And I hear it
Coughing up the last words of man:
“Oh sweet damaged souls,
Sweet damaged souls,
Hold hands and cry tonight,
So that we may finally have some rain.”



Zach Fechter lives in Southern California and has been published in multiple editions of Poetry Quarterly. He studied accounting at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. He is 24 years old.

A Poem by Sarah Edwards

Boxed Alive in Trash
I hear vacant tears
not
the
wind

small talks
of small things
are not
always forgotten

I do not fly
I do
not hear
the
name.



Sarah Edwards currently lives in Montreal, Canada. She has poetry/visual poetry published in various online and print journals. She has had 12 books/chapbooks of work published. Her visual poetry can also be found in the Avant Writing Collection at the Ohio State University Rare Books & MSS Library.

A Poem by Joe Massingham

The Great Wall of Silence

 

The first wall kept out invaders

seeking spice, silk and porcelain.

This second wall’s a ring that

keeps people ignorant, compliant,

the old wall’s fortresses replaced

by watchtowers in cyberspace.

 

 

 

 

Joe Massingham was born in the UK but has lived the second half of his life in Australia.  Major employment has been as a Navy officer, university student from first degree to PhD, tutor, lecturer and Master of Wright College, University of New England, NSW, Australia.  He has run his own writing and editing business but retired early because of cancer and heart problems and now spends time waiting to see medical practitioners, writing poetry and prose and smelling the roses.  He has had work published in Australia, Eire, India, NZ, UK and USA.

 

 

 

A Poem by Nina Adel

Reading Brainard 

                                                                                                        

He jumped up onto

the linoleum surface of

the kitchen counter

which had held, the night before

a knife

meat,

chopped things like onions,

the plastic bag

for overnight absorption of

the marinade

and he smoked

a cigarette from a white box

as we talked and drank a

coffee as light

as the strange milkiness I’d seen below

my car as I crossed the Ohio last

time at the border bridge,

the Ohio, habitually blue-green

Ohio

 

I told him I’d read

Joe Brainard and now must undertake

to write rememberings

like“I remember being allowed

only sparklers (and I remember only wantingsparklers)” (Brainard 71)

and suddenly the work felt unapproachable and silly – he is

shadowed and loping and beautifully wolf-like,

claims he

doesn’t do things silly - but he said

instead

in that voice called ‘dripping

with sarcasm’

 

“like this, you mean?

I remember

The warm, hot apple pie my grandmother made…”

And I added,

“every Sunday afternoon.” And he said,

“I remember the

warm hug she gave me as she

patted her apron”

and I added,” just before she

handed me the plate of pie topped with vanilla

ice cream from the local

dairy and told me

she loved me, “

so I contributed,

“Dear, sweet Grandma!”

 

And he said,

“I remember the first time I

smoked

a joint,

my very first cheap, sneaky whiskey,

that first bolt of

heroin

that snaked its way so deeply

through my teenage body”

 

and I said, “I

remember the very, very first time I

got the crap beat out of me behind the

nice, big, red-brick school building

where I learned to read those Spot stories”

 

and he said,

“I remember passing out in an

alley behind

a northside bar with a copy of

Hamlet in my

pocket, and the policeman who

found me and gave me a ride home to

that Apple-Pie Grandma on his

brand spankin’ new official

police department motorcycle”

and I said,

“I remember the clever little stinging poem of

humiliation that all my classmates chanted for me

as I stood up

to wipe away the gravel that

had been ground into my face on the playground

after school when

no adult was around to

appreciate the sonorous and melodic

phrasing”

 

and he offered,

“I remember the burning scent of the bleach

they used to clean the vomit off

the floor in the public rehab which

I came to know so intimately and familiarly

after six or seven relapses”

 

And I, needing to offer something now, added,

“I remember being trapped between

the bribing of a snarling dog at a warehouse at the end of a block and

the destructive embarrassment of being found on the doorstep of

a man, young then, like me, who I’d gone to visit and

who drove up in

the van of another woman and was making out

with her like

those were the only two tongues left on the whole goddamned planet

and all I could do was

attempt to crawl out

of the yard before I was discovered,

maybe head down the street to face that

dog till I could hitch a ride

back

to the relative safety of my college dorm

on the other side of a

town in

New Mexico.“

 

And he said, “I remember

waking up chafing and sober and aware

that I could never go

back to live with the wife and children

I loved and

had no choice but to accept the life I’d led

which was the only one I had,

which would never be the same,

which I would have to orient somehow

toward some other

distant

beckoning nova”

 

and I tried to offer something else, but

all I remembered was that

I was never one

to top someone else’s

pain

 

and later that night,

I remember

 

something

 

in the light of a

candle we’d named Lupe for the Virgin whose picture

had been glued to the side with

some cheap kind of sparkle paint,

a candle

bought between laughter

at the dollar store because

it was better than the alternative

blackberry pie-scented option.

 

I remember the silent moment after,

the taste of the marinated chicken

eaten quietly together

during the careful

night

of forgetting.

 

 

 

 

Nina Adel –writer, singer-songwriter, educator and teaching artist - .was educated at the Berklee College of Music (vocal performance, composition), University of New Mexico (Spanish, English, TESOL) and Belmont University (MA in English/Creative Writing). She received training in aesthetic education from the Leonard Bernstein Center and The Wolf Trap Foundation She has worked as a Spanish-English-Portuguese translator, released three studio-length recordings of original music and founded and directed an arts-based nonprofit community organization. Amongst her recent published works are fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, music, translations and academic articles in the Louisiana Folklife Journal, New Sun Rising, 100 Stories For Haiti, the Tennessean, Belmont Literary Journal, Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies and Poets for Living Water. She lives, teaches and writes in Nashville, Tennessee., where she resides with her two children.

A Poem by Adukuri Jagganath Rao

Poetry of the broad daylight

The night we had hung our boots

And wanted to be asked to explain

Nobody asked poetry with mind.

Now is poetry less mind, a mind

Of mere bird calls, a lonely cuckoo

Calling to rain from a leafless twig

Unusually enlarged to our vision

Consequently dissipated in a sky.

Cuckoo went hoarse with no rain .

Freshly wet with poetry less mind,

We went hoarse with construction.

Our poems will go down their throats.

 

 

 

 

Adukuri Jagannath Rao is a retired banker who lives in Hyderabad,India. His poetry can be found at http://adukurispoetry.blogdrive.com

A Poem by Joseph DeMarco

Secrets of the Subconscious

Secrets of the Soma

We don't wear our mind on our sleeve
We wear our mind.
Our body is an extension
Of mental characteristics and environmental dynamics,
Like a suit custom-made from our past,
Each scar a sovereign of pain and knowledge,
Each flaw a feeling not forgotten.
"Fat thighs packed with childhood anger,
Baldness from trying to control everything,
Breast problems from refusing to nourish yourself,
Indigestion from gut-level fear, dread, and anxiety,
Halitosis from a rotten attitude."
As we speak, our cells are regenerating,
We are rewiring ourselves
According to what we THINK
The replicated cells are all confused;
They think MONEY is the same thing as WORRY;
The circuits have been crossed;
They think TIME is the same thing as FEAR.
You must synergize your synapses;
They have reconnected all crippled.
They think LOVE is the same thing as DISAPPOINTMENT.
They got all these ideas from patterns in your behavior,
And now like a run away disc drive, these patterns can't be stopped
OR
Rather they are difficult to stop,
Because you can't just change what you do,
You have to change the way you think,
You have to change the way you live
Or suffer your untimely demise.

Secrets of a Small Synapse

It starts when you're young:
The bountiful brainwash,
Careful coloring books,
Rules, regulations, rituals, routines,
"STAY BETWEEN THE LINES,"
Wristwatches and Bedtimes,
Watching time.
"At 6:30 AM We wake up,"
"At 9:00 PM We go to bed."
It doesn't matter if you're tired,
Just Follow,
Don't question
Why?
"At 8:00 AM We go to school,"
"At 12:00 PM We eat lunch."
I don't need a clock to tell me
I'm hungry or tired;
I don't need the television
To tell me
What time it is.
The writing seems pretty clear,
The possessive propaganda,
Eat three meals a day,
Five food groups,
Fully functioning Fear
Develops.
Those that operate outside the box
Are shunned and sequestered,
Denigrated and denied
Nourishment
Gifts suffer and
Dreams deflate,
Dying in the stomach,
Where they grow into something Else.

Secrets of the Psyche

"All learning is remembering
What we have forgotten."
At the blessed birth,
At the dharmatic death,
The elusive Ego,
Not dipping deeply enough
To uncover ultimate understanding.
The original origins,
The destiny of the final destination
Is blocked by biological needs,
The message muted
Sounding like stale static
As harmony brushes by beneath us.
We vaguely feel the familiarity
Like a long lost home
We never knew we had.
Truth teases time,
Testing us,
Knowing the soul is forever,
Telling us
The body will soon expire.
Subliminally
We know ALL
Yet we
Only believe what we want to believe
And our frail bodies will die
Because of the fear that it is an inevitability.


Joseph DeMarco was born in New York City; he grew up in Buffalo, NY. He has taught seventh grade on the island of Oahu, Hawaii for the last ten years. He is the author of the novels Plague of the Invigilare, The 4 Hundred and 20 Assassins of Emir Abdullah-Harazins, At Play in the Killing Fields, Blind Savior, False Prophet, and Vegans Are Tastier. He worked on the restoration of Pu'u Kohola Heiau

Two Poems by Michael H. Brownstein

TAR PAPER
 

the puncture wound in the ceiling

a rupture in the plaster

and the limbs of the house

settles to its bones
 

every house has tendons,

an outline of flesh,

a foundation rooted to earth.
 

So it came as a surprise

when the chimney began leaning

and the mortar between bricks

eased away from itself.

Weather beaten, the joints let go,

wood warped into driftwood

stone began its journey into sand

and we watched everything

not comprehending why now,

why this summer, so hot,

the sun unforgiving, never

a breeze, even the well drying up.
 

It was not a surprise at all.

A spur entered the foundation concrete

and a burr angled itself to a copper pipe.
 

The door swelled with the heat,

paint chipped in daylight,

and we went to the roof

to begin the healing.


ON LEARNING

I decided to follow your advice
and chase my missing soul down the track.
Outside the temperature not water into ice cold yet,
but cold enough for a heavy coat, long scarf,
and Scooby Doo gloves you gave me ten Christmas's ago.
You told me stay awake for five nights so I could die
as if an almost week's lack of sleep could kill.
I didn't know your sadness (anger?) took up that much of the mesa.
Already the concrete path echoes through my shoes
and I feel lopsided as if I have suffered a stroke,
but everyone knows stroke victims do not know their disfigurement
until someone points it out to them.
Sadly, I have a lot more to say, a lot more to do,
but not now -- now I walk -- the wind dandruff and stain --
my soul already five nights ahead of me.

Michael H. Brownstein has been widely published throughout the small and literary presses. His work has appeared in The Café Review, American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Xavier Review, Hotel Amerika, Free Lunch, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, Poetrysuperhighway.com and others. In addition, he has nine poetry chapbooks includingThe Shooting Gallery (Samidat Press, 1987), Poems from the Body Bag (Ommation Press, 1988), A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), What Stone Is (Fractal Edge Press, 2005), and I Was a Teacher Once (Ten Page Press, 2011). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).

Brownstein taught elementary school in Chicago’s inner city (he is now retired), but he continues to study authentic African instruments, conducts grant-writing workshops for educators, designs websites and records performance and music pieces with grants from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the Oppenheimer Foundation, BP Leadership Grants, and others.

 

 

 

 

Two Poems by John Grey

LAND SAKES

 

To present,

to smile.

to the country church,

its stem spire

to the light

to the shapely shape,

to wear our blood,

tonight's totally naked.

Today I sport a smile.

Today it's too far over the top...

tree hole trucks start up

with truest respect

Trust you

try some of

turns on the

two buildings up

under the bridge,

undoing, just so,

Union

vin rose.

Vive les grues—

Voicelessly

vole...

wanted to die.

Was an object of

was trees

washed through me

waves goodbye

waves of nausea

we look stupid as a half-door half-open

Where I found

where my father thought he'd take up preaching

while the other hand whispers to me,

white dove appears,

white trash wins another prize.

with its sun across

with my indignity rising

with the germs

within his

womb as I am,

You should come over

You want to

 

 

 

THE PEOPLE

 

One said the oath,

or just windows,

or martial music melodies

Other said

out of thin air,

out the half-door,

page humbly

pay it anyhow;

predictable habits,

ridicule the price,

Screams the light:

sex,

she can find the...

She gave me,

She kneels softly

she sweats,

shining, shot,

silver waters

simultaneously dreamt

SNAP!

stand out in a crowd.

stillness in the last red

stood my fingers

straight-ahead walk,

strapped to street

stuck under my own subconscious...

Such does its

such lessons

Swallow me

take drugs,

the garden of first sips, second chances.

the limit of the dream.

the sum of people

their hooves

this bloom,

this missing

this one tastes

this too shall pass,

Through the angle

Thumping the window pane

to dry -

to lift into the clouds,

to meet here Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

John Grey has been published recently in the Echolocation, Bryant Literary Review and Caveat Lector with work upcoming in Clark Street Review, GW Review and the Potomac Review

A Poem by Bryan Murphy

Bar Londra

 

Carlo

 

Mine.

I’ve done it. I’ve made it.

Look at it. This café is all mine!

 

Tough being an immigrant in London, it was. I can tell you.

Don’t often get a chance.

Margery already knows the details.

MyMargery. Best babe in Brixton,

she truly was.

Saved me from a gang of skinheads. How we met.

 

Course here it’s different. We don’t really need all these people, got nothing to envy them for, not like Londoners envy us.

Italians do it better!

 

That lot

have learned: we’re all Europeans now, even them.

This lot,

well, they work bloody hard, when they get a job. If. Like I did over there.

 

It’s not easy for them either, but there are limits:

our women, our jobs.

This guy,

banging at my door,

I’ve already locked up. Screamin’ blue murder.

 

Could be San Mercurio,

gotta let him in,

show some Christian compassion.

But

 

if our people are after him, he must have done something.

What am I supposed to do, have them

smash my door and windows?

Could be customers among them.

 

Bloody hell, let Margery decide.

Otherwise

I’ll never hear the last of it.

 

Ali

 

This land is my place now. “Home”

is somewhere else; far away.

I took that boat, survived, got jobs, a contract, a stay permit.

I’m legal.

 

I send money back there to my wives and children.

When I’ve learned the language, become a citizen, I hope I can bring them over here.

 

If they want,

if they’re still alive,

if they remember who I am.

 

It is all too easy to run foul of drunken louts

ready to attribute the misery of their own lives to someone else’s skin,

to shed your blood to assuage

their own impotence.

 

Who is this man

who opens his café’s locked door,

offers me tea and safety,

brags about a life in London,

toys with me and rituals of drinking,

is ready to let the louts in on me,

as long as his wife will let him?

 

Margery

 

He’s a good man, really, my Carlo.

Just forgets himself sometimes.

Always asking for things,

but ready to give as well.

 

It’s true he had a hard time in London, but not that hard. There was prejudice against Italians, but try being black!

 

Does like to talk. On and on, if you let him. What an opportunity when that poor man came shouting for shelter. Let him in, sat him down, droned away, drowned him in tea, then threatened to let the mob in to do him.

 

Asked me to open the door.

Knew I’d never.

They’ve invented phones. I know the police’s number.

He’s a good man, really.

 

Bryan Murphy is a man of Kent, though he comes from a long line of Irish peasants. He has worked as a fruit-picker, kitchen hand, road-sweeper, bar-tender, wages clerk, teacher of English as a foreign language, translator and copy-editor. He recently retired from a job within the United Nations system, and now concentrates on his own words, as a writer and an actor. He divides his time between, England, Italy and the wider world. A sample of his novella of ideas, Goodbye, Padania, is available here: www.bryanmurphy.eu