August 16, 2023 - Ellen Zhang’s “Let the Moment Go”
You will recognize me first. Crossing
your mind, the first thought: postcards
unanswered. You don’t know this,
but the gas station closed, parks revamped
against leaky sunsets, theater demolished with slick
scent of popcorn lingering. There we will be.
You told me there was certainty in the way
October unfurls from roots of maples,
bright red, thick as swollen raspberries.
We traced & traded childhoods
just because we could, tasted budding like
the way memories can bloom to swell into
seasons if you allow them. Then, I began
questioning not just promises, but prayers.
Not always jam evenly layered upon toast,
but crumbling, festering as sure as raisins.
When my eyes meet yours, you look mid-step,
blink. Go.
___________________________________________________________
Ellen Zhang is a student at Harvard Medical School who has studied under Pulitzer Prize winner Jorie Graham and poet Rosebud Ben-Oni. She has been recognized by the DeBakey Poetry Prize, Dibase Poetry Contest, and as a National Student Poet Semifinalist. Her works appear or are forthcoming in The Shore Poetry, Southward Literary Journal, Hekton International, and elsewhere.
August 15, 2023 - Rahil Najafabadi’s “The Poser”
The Poser, Watercolor on paper, 5.5 x 8.5”, 2021.
August 13, 2023 - Rahil Najafabadi’s “Plain Things”
PLAIN THINGS
Let me sing with the movement of dance––
Even if I don’t speak, If I stand still,
you can see the words tied in my arms.
Like a kiss.
I imagine the same lover in different eyes,
the colors don’t matter as much as the gaze.
Can you see me as the same woman, even if
you change?
The Earth that birthed me and placed me beside you.
Maybe reborn into a girl again. Or a girl reborn into my
pain and my pain reloaded into her. Where does pain live,
when I am gone?
Will I carry it with me,
to the next life,
to the ground for a weak tree,
or just embedded in my last rest as I close my eyes?
August 12, 2023 — Ashley Falla’s “A Letter To My Father”
In fact, nature is normally silent, except for storms, hurricanes, avalanches, cascades and some exceptional telluric movements.
dead silence has always made me feel uneasy; the absence of sound or noise, no breeze swaying through leaves, no crickets chirping, no people talking, or fighting, no dogs barking, no children screaming or drunk people laughing; life has a hum to it, it’s a low vibrational buzz; the absence of sound or noise, hence, the absence of life itself, is an eerie feeling; silence does not exist in nature, something is always humming with life;
it made sense when it came to us, we were silent, we were eerie with the absence of sound or noise, it was unnatural; we needed a storm, i asked for a drizzle, just to hear the light pitter patter against my window, but instead i was confronted with a hurricane, we didn’t board up our doors, we were not prepared, the sound rushed in and flooded us
The ear of an eighteenth century man never could have withstood the discordant intensity of some of the chords produced by our orchestras //Nothing is lost in translation. Everything was always already lost, long before we arrived.
my main thing was wanting to be understood, i thought that, since you created me, you were supposed to know me better than i know myself; i was wrong; i also wanted to understand you, i wanted to know why you collected those samurai swords when you didn’t watch samurai movies, or partake in anything else having to do with samurais, it was strange and out of place, i wanted to understand why you only ever listened to old school reggae and dancehall music but had a million recordings of you doing (spot on) elvis presley impersonations; it seemed like we could have had so much in common if we ever had the chance to open up to each other
Some will object that noise is necessarily unpleasant to the ear.
i wonder what you would classify as noise, and what you would classify as unpleasant; i always assumed you thought i was unpleasant and that’s why you were distant, my cries were noise my complaints were noise and my existence was noise, and was it necessary for you, did it help you differentiate between my noise and their music
Translation is an asymptote: no matter how close we try to get, there’s always a space between the two bodies and that is the space where we live. The space where we transpose, or are transposed.
asymptote: a line that continually approaches a given curve but does not meet it at any finite distance; an us; we moved in the same direction, towards the same curve, twice in life; we moved toward the same destiny once, the same life outcome but when the fork in the road came, you went right and i went left; and again we launched for that curve but we just kept missing it
i’ve heard the story of the delivery, how you left her depleted and eviscerated, half in this world and having a hard time coming up with reasons not to go to the next one, how you followed me out of the room and would not leave my side; i’ve heard of how you bought your own stethoscope to hear my newly formed heart whenever you wanted throughout the day and how you got a stopwatch and timed the car rides from the house to the hospital to find the fastest route; you were committed and excited; what happened
Ultra: spatially beyond, on the other side, indicating elsewhere. Ultra: going beyond, surpassing, transcending the limits. Ultra: an excessive or extreme degree.
my whole life had been set up for me to surpass you; to break the generational wheel and transcend from one reality to the next; and it was accomplished; one day i snuck into your room and into the back of the closet and i went through your stuff that you keep hidden away because you don’t like to look at it anymore, i found your poems, they were beautiful; this was after everyone found my composition notebook full of poems about how much i hated my life, and it was after the poems i was proud of and hung on my bedroom wall were ripped down and into pieces where she scattered them on my bedroom floor for me to find when i came home from school; i found your poems, and they were beautiful, and you didn’t do anything with them, you hid them away and became a security guard because you dropped out of middle school and not to brag but i am getting my post graduate degree in poetry; ultratranscend
Ultratranslation leads us to inevitable failure.
we were never going to win; somehow someway we were set up for failure; it never mattered how many stethoscopes you bought or how many poems i wrote; it was never going to matter that since i was eight years old i knew that can’t help falling in love by elvis presley was going to be the song i played as my first dance at my wedding because you sang that song to me all the time, it didn’t matter that you tucked me into bed at night with the i love you more no i love you times ten no i love you times 20 no i love you times infinity, none of it mattered and none of it counted because we were never going to win; it mattered to me
August 11, 2023 — Elizabeth Lerman’s “Outside sits still”
There is no air to be held by tonight – nothing to push you away, either. Outside sits still, stuck somewhere between seasons, and it’s not hot enough to have an opinion and not cold enough to crave anything else, so it is easier to just exist, to say nothing and sit still beside it. After so many seconds that seem to shake you and say, feel this and don’t forget it, there is a mundane mercy in moments not meant to be remembered.
August 10, 2023 - Aditi Bhattacharjee’s “See you on the other side”
Aditi Bhattacharjee is an Indian writer, currently pursuing an MFA in Writing from The New School. Her work has appeared in Lunch Ticket, Evocations Review, Vagabond City Lit, The Remnant Archive and elsewhere. In her spare time she likes people-watching and city-chronicling.
August 9, 2023 - “Upon the Street Below”
I was walking across 47th Street on a Saturday in July, wearing chinos with a button-up shirt. I was picking up coffee for Elise and myself. I had spent the morning before on the phone with Andrea’s friend, Monica. Monica knew Andrea from college. I knew Monica from work and Andrea through Monica. I had met Andrea three weeks before on a Saturday. That was the end of June. We were on a rooftop in Queens at night.
I had been at the party on the rooftop in Queens at night for an hour, and was on my way out when Monica stopped me. She introduced me to Andrea. We shook hands. I was going home that was all. Andrea asked me about my job, about how long Monica and I had been working together. I said about a year. I said we both worked in financial advising. We were both helping people spend money wisely. Andrea asked me where I stayed in the city. I was living in Brooklyn, she was living in Queens. She stepped away to grab a beer and I thought of walking out the door without saying goodbye. I stayed. She returned.
She said Monica had thought we should meet. I was glad we did. She seemed glad as well. I can’t remember what kept me up on Monica’s roof through the June night so long besides Andrea’s smile. Then it was three, and we were still standing beside each other, and I said I needed to go. She asked that I call. I said that I would.
I woke up the next day to a rainy Sunday, showered, and went out for a sandwich and coffee. The sky was dark. I felt light. I dropped into a small place a few blocks away from my apartment, Michello’s. I stayed for a while. Hector stopped in an hour later. By the time he got there I had already reviewed a few spreadsheets for work with Andrea on my mind. I had ordered another coffee with Andrea on my mind. I had looked out the window at the stormy late June sky with Andrea on my mind.
Hector was meeting me before he went to see Carolyn. I told him about the night before, about the woman I had met. He smiled. He asked when I would see her again. I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know. Two weeks passed.
I worked and went home. I worked and went home again and again. Once on the subway in the evening I sat across from a woman who looked like Andrea. Had I known what to say I would have spoken to her. She stood up and walked out at Canal Street. I moved my briefcase from my lap to the open seat to my left and thought again of Andrea.
The Wednesday after I met Andrea I sat around a chess table in a Hell’s Kitchen park. For an hour I sketched out as best as I could the shape of her face, the nape of her neck, and what I could remember of her smile. Two Saturdays after the night on Monica’s roof I picked up the phone in the den of my apartment and called Andrea. She answered. We both laughed. I asked whether she’d want to meet the next day, Sunday afternoon. She couldn’t. I asked whether she’d like to meet for dinner Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or any evening. She couldn’t.
I went out that night. Hector and Carolyn and Elise and I took the train over into the city and went drinking through the evening. Elise and I had broken up in January. We found a bar with a roof-deck a few blocks south of Washington Square. I sat beside Elise. She had long brown hair and eyes that were a light green. She wore a dress that ended at the top of her knees, a navy blue print with white stripes going diagonal from her left shoulder toward her right knee.
I kissed her. Carolyn and Hector left. Elise came back to Brooklyn with me. We made love. She left in the morning. I heard from her Tuesday and she wanted to get back together. I told her we should meet to talk about it and we did. We got back together.
Elise and I were having fun again. Once we met in Central Park and shared a pitcher of iced tea with a bit of whiskey. We stayed out all afternoon beneath the early July sun. We didn’t leave until the park closed at night. On our way out we stopped for a while beside and beneath a yellow lamppost. We kissed. I had missed her.
One Friday in July I was walking along 47th street and spotted Andrea again. I had spent the night before at Elise’s. I felt fear when I saw Andrea again. I saw her first and she didn’t see me. I kept walking but she looked up then saw me. She called out to me. I stopped and turned around. It was the hottest day of the year. Her hair was in a bun.
I walked over to her and we embraced. I hadn’t seen her since we were on the roof that June night. She asked where I was headed. Two men in big boots, white socks, and jean shorts walked out of a doorway to my right, carrying a large white sofa wrapped in plastic. They walked between us. As they passed I held my words. I said I was headed to grab a coffee. It was ten in the morning. I went west. She headed east and asked that I call sometime.
Two weeks passed. Elise and I went to the Bronx Zoo on a Saturday. She was wearing the same navy summer dress. She laughed at the flamingos and reached for my hand. I asked about her brother. She said he had decided which schools he would apply to, that he might move out east. We took the train back into Midtown. She fell asleep on my shoulder. It was late August.
Hector and I went running on a Thursday after work along the Hudson. He was faster, though I kept up as best as I could. I thought I’d call Monica that weekend. Elise and I stayed in Friday night and didn’t leave her place until Sunday morning. We went to the movies. A woman was having a mental breakdown and looked to her husband for support that he couldn’t give because he was having a mental breakdown as well. They divorced. I drank a ginger ale and wrapped my arm around Elise’s shoulder. When we walked out of the theater it was night.
Elise was thinking of quitting her job. She told me over dinner on a Thursday night in mid-September. She let the glass of red wine hold still against her lips for a while as she paused between sentences, waiting for my words. I didn’t care what she did. For whatever reason I thought of why we broke up in January. She needed promises. Again she asked what I thought and I told her I didn’t know. If she wasn’t happy with her job, then she should look for something else. Two weeks passed.
On a Friday, Monica called me just after I walked out of the office. She was having people over that next night. I was invited. Elise for the weekend was out of town. I showed up around nine, hoping to see Andrea again. She wasn’t there. I spoke with Monica, thanking her for the invite and asking how she had been. Busy she said. We were all busy. We were all in New York in our twenties and thirties and busy.
Monica walked with me down the steps toward the living room, away from the roof. I sat there in the love seat across the coffee table from where she sat on the sofa. Elise was calling me. I didn’t pick up. When she’d return I decided, we’d break up again. Monica got up and poured herself a drink in the kitchen. I followed. Finally there she asked about Andrea. I said I hadn’t spoken with her. Monica was leaning against the refrigerator and looking out over the island that faced the living room. It was late. Most everyone had gone home. I told Monica I would like to see Andrea again sometime and she said she would set something up. I left and walked home toward the train through the night.
I only left one blazer and button-up shirt at Elise’s after I gathered my things from her place. We were through. I called Andrea again the moment I returned from Elise’s for the last time. It was the third week of September and I let the windows in my bedroom wide open. The late summer wind blew in. She answered. She’d love to meet sometime. We set a date for the next Friday. The week went fast.
At 8:00pm on the 28th day of September I was waiting outside La Primavera Cafe on Elizabeth Street wearing navy chinos with a light grey blazer over a white button-up shirt. Andrea arrived at five after. We went inside. We sat near the window. We talked and talked and talked: about the first night we met, about her and Monica in college, about what would happen if the world ran out of green apples. I didn’t know whether I was falling in love with her. After dinner we walked north along Broadway for a while. The taxis’ headlights moved toward us then away from us. I held her hand. We found a quiet place for coffee not far from Cooper Union. We sat inside listening to the conversations around us. It was nice just being near her without speaking. Elise called me the next day, and the Sunday following, and the Monday and Tuesday afterwards as well. I called back and she didn’t answer.
Monica and Andrea and I had dinner at Monica’s place in Queens, the three of us and Monica’s brother, Stanley. Stanley was in from Cleveland. He worked in accounting and was in the city on business. He and I were washing dishes a long while after Monica and Andrea had finished cooking and the four of us had eaten the steak frites and steamed vegetables. I was washing and rinsing and he was drying. He asked me about Andrea, whether we were an item and I said I didn’t know yet. He smiled. He said be careful with her.
Two nights later Andrea asked me over to her apartment to have dinner with her and her friend, Chloe. And Stanley would be there as well. I showed up around eight with a bottle of wine I had never heard of. Andrea buzzed me up and answered the door. We embraced. Stanley was strewn across her sofa, his pant legs rolled up, the buttons of his shirt undone, presenting his chest. It was mid-October. He stood up and shook my hand. His boss needed him to stay in New York for a while longer. He had been sleeping on Andrea’s couch. He got up, moved toward the stereo, asked whether I enjoyed classical, and played a bit of Verklarte Nacht on a compact disc.
Andrea’s friend Chloe arrived a few moments later. She sat beside me on the couch. Andrea and Stanley were in the kitchen. Chloe knew Andrea from work. Chloe had heard so much about me. Chloe had heard so many good things about me from Andrea. Chloe asked whether I smoked and if I did would I like to join her on the balcony. I didn’t but said I would join her. Chloe was tall. Five feet nine inches with black hair to the length of her shoulders. Though it was in the mid-forties that night, she was wearing a summer dress.
Chloe had a denim jacket around her shoulders when she walked in but left it on the table near the sofa. We looked out over the balcony. We couldn’t see much aside from the street directly below and the apartment building across the way. We looked into the neighbor’s window and she asked me how I met Andrea. On a rooftop in Queens in June I told her. She dropped and stomped out her cigarette then reached into her purse for another one. Stanley walked into the living room behind us and said that he needed help. I’ll let you smoke I said to Chloe, and went back inside.
Elise was calling me. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and picked it up then hung it up. She called again and I let it ring to voicemail. She left a message that I deleted without listening to. I pulled the vegetable lasagna from the oven and set it on the counter beside the bread maker. Stanley said he’d open the wine then moved to the living room with a corkscrew and did. Chloe stepped into the room again before drifting toward the kitchen. We all had wine and lasagna. Stanley asked whether any of us liked classical and moved toward the stereo. He pulled the Verklarte Nacht out and replaced it with a Wagner piece. He smiled and joined us again in the kitchen. After dinner we all went out to a bar that had just opened a few steps away from Andrea’s.
Through the night I walked alongside Chloe as Stanley and Andrea took steps beside one another. They were just ahead of us. Chloe said she designed clothes but couldn’t find enough clients to open her own store. I asked what type of clothes she made. Women’s clothing, all types. She said she made the dress she was wearing. It was a pale yellow and sleeveless, of a length that went just past her knees. I said I liked it because I did. Andrea said this is the place and looked back at me and Chloe. Stanley showed his ID and went in. We all did the same. It was loud.
We made our way to the bar. Chloe stood to my left, Stanley stood to my right, and Andrea stood to Stanley’s right. Stanley ordered drinks for the four of us. Everything was poured and handed out. He gave the bartender two twenty dollar bills. We said a cheers. Stanley dove in to asking me whether I preferred the Verklarte Nacht to the Wagner. I said I didn’t know and yelled that it was hard to decide beneath the music that was already playing at the bar. Chloe laughed. Stanley said that he used to prefer Wagner ––– above all other composers ––– but that over the last year he’s fallen out of favor with Wagner’s work. I didn’t care.
Andrea and Chloe excused themselves and headed toward the bathroom. Then there I was, with Stanley. He said not to worry about he and Andrea. That they had something years ago but it was cool now. We stayed for two more drinks. Along with the wine I felt drunk. We stepped out into the night around two in the morning. Andrea said Stanley was crashing at her place and that Chloe and I were welcome to join. Chloe said she’d take a taxi back to Brooklyn. She suggested we share a ride. Andrea said she’d call the next day.
Inside the cab Chloe leaned against my shoulder. I placed my arm around her. She said she’d like to see me again. Together over the Pulaski Bridge we watched Manhattan pass by across the East River, the Empire State Building lit in a deep orange, and the Queensboro Bridge with white lights, delicate and bright behind us.
I called Andrea three nights later. I heard Stanley in the background. I think I heard Brahms as well though it’s hard to be sure. She said I should call her again over the weekend, that the four of us should meet again soon.
I met Hector and Carolyn for dinner after work the Wednesday before Halloween. They asked whether I had plans for the weekend. I didn’t. I invited Andrea to Hector’s that Saturday night. She said she couldn’t make it. She said one of Stanley’s old friends was having a reunion, and that it would be okay if I joined.
I went to Hector’s and Carolyn’s party with Chloe. She was Albert Einstein. I was Albert Einstein’s research assistant. She ordered me around all evening. We laughed and went home together for the first time that night. In and around her apartment, Chloe and I spent the next afternoon talking, reading, drinking wine, and all the while waiting for the winter storm. The trains stopped running. Through the evening it snowed twelve inches in four hours. And for a while we sat out there on the fire escape, just beside her bed, watching the snowflakes. Quietly they landed and gently they collected upon the street below.
August 8, 2023 - “The Importance of Poetry Readings: Poetry Festival 2023” by Rahil Najafabadi
The Importance of Poetry Readings: Poetry Festival 2023
Poetry readings are fundamental to both readers and poets. The sounds and senses that arise from the persona mesh with the poet, there is so much to see and grasp. I find myself lost between the sound and the written word. I love looking at poetry and I crave readings because I know these are two very different things. A good reading is like a melody, just like the way good form and verse please the eye, and a poem just lives in the corner of my mind. I see it and say the words gently to myself, in my own head. But when a poem is read to me, something happens around me. Everything stops. If I hear the pauses the way I want to, the quiet air between the lines becomes so loud.
I was in awe of the poetry readings I recently attended. I have great interest in the Poetry Society of New York because of the diverse and in-depth poems that take me into each line with so much breadth. I want to know about the things that make poets write. I want to know why this poem was read and I happened to hear it. And as a poet, I always have a delight hearing poetry rather than reading my own. I was excited to attend the 2023 Poetry Festival that happens annually with Poetry Society of New York. Every year, poets, artists, and lovers of both gather at Governor’s Island for a two-day festival full of readings, performances, and exploration of local arts and literature. Although I read a poem there myself, I was mostly excited about hearing some of the most important poets read their work. I was especially moved by Danez Smith’s poem dear white america. This poem took me to another place of poetic verse, meaning, rage, and understanding. I wanted to hear it forever. There were also other amazing readers on various stages at the festival, including TALTUH.
The Poetry Society of New York has been holding readings every month with TALTUH (There’s a lot to unpack here) which is hosted and produced by Cierra Martin. As a regular attendee, I’ve discovered so many new favorite poets. Their work always transforms me and rearranges the way I process emotions and words when it comes to my own writing. It is as always exciting to know this is something I can always experience, a haven for the human condition to be felt and explored.
August 6, 2023 - “For Me” by Rahil Najafabadi
FOR ME
I wonder why the sharpest tooth pulls on the last kiss,
but it does, and it stings when my face has been bare.
Your eyes are like two pots of honey. A gaze that touches
me with a volcanic burn, only for it all to become dust?
I am watching myself as a memory from the future now,
I may feel stupid and proud. I may say it wasn’t true.
It wasn’t for me. I don’t see my smile, I see yours.
The song of my laugh is a sound lost in the distance,
I hardly hear it anymore. All I search for is the joy of others,
the meaning of myself in the world of another.
But why does your joy make me think I’m happy for me?
August 5, 2023 - “why is this a conversation babe” by Ashley Falla
oh everyone has childhood trauma! even me — of course not that one,
that one
the really really bad one,
the really bad one
i just have a little bit of the abandonment trauma and a sprinkle of the middle school bully trauma, what about you?
me
oh
oh
— that one — i’m sorry…you know you never could have guessed, you seem so — i don’t want to say well adjusted
so don’t
but, yeah, very well adjusted.
that’s cool
August 4, 2023 - “Soon, I won’t be able to see the sand” by Elizabeth Lerman
Here, he looks me in the eye and says something like, it’s not enough, and every person I’ve ever wanted comes and goes, walking through the whole house like it’s theirs, sleeping in whatever bed they want, and sometimes I hold onto them and sometimes I hide from them, but last night I remember wanting, so badly, for someone to come outside, to see me through the screen off the living room – see me sitting, then pacing, then pleading with the lake, and I stay there for too long, staring at the water until I am certain it is carrying something closer to me, because the shore at the edge of the lawn is shrinking now, and soon, I won’t be able to see the sand. I am still here, waiting for someone to realize I am waiting.
August 1, 2023 - “I Want to be Still” by Rahil Najafabadi
I WANT TO BE STILL
In this dance of recovery, the poison stays with me still.
I want to be a tree like the ones covering the still
sky of an unstirred goodbye, the touch of water still
before the raindrop reaches the river. I want to be still,
like the waves I watch from a distance on a plane. Still––
I am not moving. The night grows my fears to be still
about the shadow I can’t see without the light, yet still,
I know it’s meshing with my shadow whenever I’m still.
Will it ever be the moment mother nature breaks being still
and emerges to be a flower undeserving of the sun––still,
because it doesn’t want to bloom.
July 25, 2023 - An image from René Chandler’s “New Friend Love” series
An image from René Chandler’s “New Friend Love” series
