Guest Writer

Two Poems by Eric Huff: It’s not bullshit to feel sad; Recognition

(Note: For those of you who have enjoyed the past two days, we suggest you return for another by the same writer on Monday–The Eds.)

and when you pulled that guitar off the wall, what did you know of callousness or of evening hillsides soaked in shadows with silence buried beneath? we saw each other one time on honey earth, in neon buzz with September stars just hanging over our heads. I knew all the words just about and you did, too. blue light mornings and coffee. fractal breath. what will take root here in the body of your work? and I’m left just bluestem and duckweed, game trail and stillness. what is your name, gray sky? who is this in me again? this present moment is a cold stream poured over stone and mud. my reflection is all distorted and for a second, I am you and you are standing under the elm tree saying something I can’t hear. just take this time and space for yourself. it’s not bullshit to feel sad.

Eric Huff

Recognition

by the time it was over the rain had started in earnest. from the window I watched as the sky broke into pieces like a shattered mirror. the violence sudden and then just a moment where we recognize these empty spaces. you saw this in me, too, I think. we both were standing in the river again, just about up to our bare knees. I told you this is the only way I know how to heal myself because I didn’t want to admit to each time I’ve leaned over the guardrails just hoping to catch myself in the movement of that breath, one and then another. you were a shade tree, the name of which you didn’t know, didn’t need to know. you called spirit into that room. you held my breath as your dog pulled against its leash. with wide eyes you saw me. you saw me standing there waiting for the torrents of rain to stop, for it to ease up some.

Eric Huff

(image is of the poet)

Two Poems by Eric Huff: The western motel on the river road; Rivulets

(Nore–Today is the first day of three featuring the poetry of Eric Huff. He will appear today, tomorrow and Monday. We feel the readers will like his stuff as much as we do–The Eds.)

I want you to call me by whatever name you want. call me the river road. call me the western motel on the river road. listen to me tell you about my scrap metal dreams, about my literal scrap metal dreams and berry bramble night terrors. you have a sleeper in your eye again. start unfolding each of these paper cranes so I can get a better look at the printed patterns. more than half of these are just black and white photocopies of my face but with one or two subtle differences. look at this one, my eyes are closed. and here, the part in my hair is mirrored. the record of this day is being played back in reverse and it’s only now that I can hear your voice – like a cactus bloom at 1am this is something I have waited for. please say something lovely. say something right. breathe in all this moonshine.

Eric Huff

Rivulets

my dream? bluestem moves in rivulets.

winter cress, wild ginger, the cattail –

when I die, I want you to open all the

windows and drink cold water right from the sink.

Eric Huff

(Image is of the poet)

Hair like David Sylvian by Paul Kimm

A jumbled mosaic of magazine cuttings, pull-out posters, sliced up singles covers, newspaper spreads, stretched across Paul’s wall. All the bands were there: The Human League, Flock of Seagulls, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, and, of course, Japan. Taking pride of place in the approximate centre of the sprawl was David Sylvian, Japan’s lead singer. David Sylvian holding a guitar, lent back, with swirls of street smoke swirling behind him. Wearing a double-breasted suit, with silver buttons, lipstick, eye shadow, foundation, and looking into the distance on his right. His hair, a huge wave of side-parted, blonde, combed floss, molded into a mass that lifts from all sides, covering his ears, cascading in a thick, purposeful fringe down to his eyebrows, slightly covering his right eye. David Sylvian was the best-looking man in the world and Paul wanted hair just like his.

Paul peeled a smaller photo clipping of Japan’s lead singer, a headshot with the same abundance of hair, from the wall. He rubbed the tiny blobs of BluTack off the back, rolled them into a single piece, pressed it on the wall in the small, empty square where the picture had been. He then slid the precious photo into his pocket and went downstairs.

‘Mum, can I have that four quid?’

‘I’ll have to give you a fiver, so bring me the change. What time is your appointment?’

‘It’s now, in ten minutes.’

‘Well, you’ll have to go in your uniform then. You’ve no time to change.’

At the moment Paul reached to take the five-pound note from his mother, his father walked into the kitchen.

‘What’s he got a fiver for?’

‘He’s off for a haircut. Round at Sandra’s.’

‘Ooh, off for a haircut, eh? Do you want to take a bowl with you for her to cut round?’

‘No. I’m getting it cut like David Sylvian.’

‘Who the bloody hell is David Sylvian?’

Paul retrieved the fragile picture from his pocket and held it out.

‘He’s the lead singer of Japan. He was voted the best-looking man in the world.’

His dad rested his left palm on the countertop, his right hand on his hip, and bent over double, almost touching the floor with his forehead, letting out a room rumbling laugh.

‘Man alive! He was what? Voted best-looking man on Earth? Oh my days! That’s bloody brilliant that is!’

‘Give me the photo back, dad. I have to go.’

‘Voted best-looking man in the world, was he? Bloody hell! If you held a competition for best-looking man in your bedroom, and you were the only voter, you still wouldn’t flaming win it! Classic. Absolutely bloody classic.’

His dad straightened up again and returned the magazine cutting. Paul took it and bolted out of the back door and all the way to Sandra’s Salon.

The door jangled when he entered the hairdressers. Only Sandra was there. She turned to look at him.

‘Come in, pet. You’re Paul, are you? Your mum booked you in I think.’

As Paul walked to the chair Sandra indicated he regained his breath and got the David Sylvian photo ready to show her.

‘How do you want it then, pet?’

‘Can you do it like this please?’

‘Aw, sweetheart, I’m not sure you’ve the volume for that style. Shall I just give you a trim?’

‘Can you try and make it look like the photo please?’

‘The thing is that you don’t have that type of hair. Yours is much thinner, pet.’

Paul didn’t respond. Sandra eyes met his, but neither of them spoke for a moment.

‘Alright, look, I’ll give you a trim and then see what we can do with a bit of gel and a hair dryer. Is that ok, sweetheart?’

‘Yes please.’

For the next thirty minutes Sandra worked at Paul’s hair, lifting up strands, snipping millimetres off the ends which then sprinkled on to Paul’s face, holding up his fringe and sighing, ruffling his scalp, flicking the hair dryer on and off to disperse the fallen hairs from his shoulders, standing back and viewing his head from different angles, and finally placing the scissors and comb on shelf in front of the mirror.

‘I’ll try some gel then. It might lift it a bit, but it’s not going to look like this fella in the photo. It’s just not, pet. Sorry.’

Sandra massaged the blue gunk into his hair, took a round brush, twisted Paul’s hair, and blow-dried sections, lifting, pulling, let out long breaths, moving the strands forward, backwards, side to side, sighed again, and stopped.

‘I’m sorry. That’s the best I can do for you. You just don’t have the same type of hair. Everyone has different hair. That’s just how it is sweetheart.’

Paul managed to mumble thanks Sandra, give the five-pound note, wait for the one-pound change, and wander home.

The next morning Steady and Pete were waiting for him at their usual meeting point to walk the remaining ten minutes to school.

‘Did you get your hair done then?’

‘Yes, at Sandra’s Salon.’

‘Like David Sylvian?’

‘Yes, I took a photo and she did it. It’s fallen out a bit now though. It’s flatter than when she did it.’

‘I’ll say it is! Sorry, Paul, but it looks absolutely nothing like him.’

They didn’t speak again until they entered class for register. When the teacher got to Paul’s name, both Pete and Steady interrupted.

‘Mr. Walson. Sorry, Mr. Walson. Can you move Paul down to ‘S’? His name is David Sylvian now.’

‘What are you pair on about? Stop being daft.’

‘But, sir, he had his hair done like David Sylvian yesterday. We need to change his name.’

‘That’s enough from you two. Shut up now.’

Going from register on the ground floor to Computer Studies on the third, Paul already started getting Japan lyrics sung to him in the corridors. When he walked in the whole room erupted into a clamour of tuneless Japan’s lyrics, cries of ‘here’s the best-looking man in the world,’ and peals of laughter. Paul sloped to the usual computer he shared with Pete and switched it on.

‘Quiet down! Quiet down!’

‘Miss! Miss! We’ve got a famous person in class today. David Sylvian is here!’

Most of the class pointed to Paul as they chorused the first line of Ghosts, their hit song. The commotion bellowed from the room, down the corridors, and into other classrooms.

After dinner break it was time for double Art. On the board was a large poster of Japan, slanted to the right, it’s four corners stuck with sellotape, David Sylvian’s face speckled with blue biro zits, his eyeballs shaded to make him cross-eyed, and finished off with a dribble coming from the side of his mouth. On the blackboard an arrow pointed to him with Paul’s full name in capital letters and the words ‘Japan’s new lead singer. Voted ugliest man in the world.’

Paul went to a seat at the back, using his sweaty palm to press down his hair all around his head, pushing firmer to iron his fringe to his forehead, forcing it toward his eyes as much as he could. During the two hours of double Art he didn’t look up once.

After the four o’clock bell Steady and Pete weren’t at the meeting point. A crowd of about thirty kids from different school years began following Paul home singing, laughing, poking, back-pushing, hair-tousling, and chanting ‘David Sylvian, David Sylvian’. The nearer to home he got the smaller the bunch of followers became, the last one crossing the road in silence as Paul reached his front gate. He went round the back of the house, stepped into the kitchen, dropped his school bag to the floor, and slumped against the closed door behind him. His mum was peeling potatoes at the sink.

‘You alright, love?’

‘Does my hair look okay, mum? Can you see anything different?’

‘Your hair looks fine. It is a little bit different I suppose’

‘Do I look anything like David Sylvian, mum?’

‘Aw, come here, love.’

Paul’s mum put her arms around him, her right palm on the back of his new haircut, his new fringe resting on her left shoulder.

‘Do I mum? Does my hair look like David Sylvian’s?’

‘No, love, I have to be honest, it doesn’t look anything like him. But listen to me, why would you want to look like the second best-looking man in the world anyway?’

Paul went upstairs, chose a cassette to listen to, put it in the slot, closed it, and pressed play. He got his stack of magazines from the top of the chest of drawers next to his stereo, opened the top draw, and took out a pair of scissors.

Paul Kimm

(image is of the esteemed author)

Originally published by Mono in October 2022

One Poem by Robert Beveridge

(Today we conclude what we hope is our first run of work by Robert Beveridge–The Eds.)

“A Woman Weeping in a Torn Chemise…”

(–Pierre Reverdy, “Heartbreak”)

The shadow lurks

in the corner

as I raise my head

to drain another drink

I try to avoid looking

it prowls, waits

for me to rise

only its feet are visible

in this forest of emotions

there is something rather charming

about its blackness

I wouldn’t see it

but a few shards of peach silk

are stuck to its claws

and the woman

sitting at the other end of the bar

tears spilling into her whiskey

there are needle-marks on her arms

it’s too bad

she could have been attractive

if she weren’t so pale

so thin

her ripped garment

exposes nothing really

the shadow shifts

in its corner again

in my examination of the girl I’ve forgotten it

it seems to have gotten a bit colder in here

I shiver

as peach shards come closer

Robert Beveridge

Poems by Robert Beveridge (Day Two)

Eulogy

She ate chicken hearts

still beating, lambs’ brains.

Said it made her healthy.

She got

what she came for,

her brother said

before the trial.

Robert Beveridge

I Have an Embarrassing Story

You’ve beamed over to the wreck

and you scope out

anything that looks

like it might get you a few bucks

for it if you haul it back.

We may not have found much

but we lit a fire in the remnants

of a greenhouse, swapped stories

of more lucrative runs. One of the new

guys talked about hunting cats

in the ruins of a religious apocalypse.

A second talked about the gleam

of firelight off the armor

of a machine pistol in the hands

of an android, the words

that let him live while we traded

thermoses of liquor from worlds

none of the others had ever seen.

Robert Beveridge

Poems by Robert Beveridge (Day One)

(Today we begin three days of poetry by Robert Beveridge, with two fine efforts. We hope the readers enjoy them as much as we do–The Eds.)

Client

He considered somnambulance

as a way to attract attention

but his priest counselled

against its dangers

in a mountainous region.

Instead, he projects himself,

possesses the bodies

of orange marmosets.

Robert Beveridge

Dow Saah (“Sweet Bean Paste”)

Steam rises as the buns

firm up. Lamplight

flickers over the pages

of the old cookbook,

the next page perhaps

a recipe for fish, tofu,

breast of longpig.

The scratches at the door

intensify. The buns

are almost ready. Blow

out the lamp.

Robert Beveridge

(header provided by DWB)

Nardo by Geraint Jonathan

Nardo

I got the flasks of trebbiano

followed by the 8 shirts

thank you

Nardo

since receipt of the trebbiano

& the shirts

I have nothing else to tell you

Nardo

I have received the trebbiano

44 flasks in all

6 of which I gave to the Pope

I thank you

Nardo

I got the cheeses & the crate of pears

& the trebbiano

I thank you

Nardo

but since receipt of the cheeses

& the crate of pears

as well as the trebbiano

I’ve little else to tell you

but I thank you

& please no more

Nardo

I received the silks the wax cloth

& the trebbiano also

& the pears & cheeses

& I thank you

but Nardo

if I am alive next year

no more I beg you

yours

Michelangelo

Geraint Jonathan

(After Michelangelo’s many letters to his nephew Lionardo Buonarroti)

My Aunt Wears Holiness like a Second Skin by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Note–Today we conclude our five day look at Jonathan Chibuike Ukah. He is nothing short of brilliant, and we hope to see more. And even though our readership is small, it grows, and in it we are sure that God, or whatever such high person, must know of this fine poet, for deities remember whom they gift–LA)

Do not remind her that Heaven and Hell are real;

she will scream that she knows, she knows,

her face will become light; her eyes will twinkle;

She will raise a cry like a strangled cat, a caged bird.

How dare you tell her about salvation and redemption

when her yellow dress proclaims that Jesus is Lord,

and her handbag has a black and white poster,

shouting, Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come?

In the evening, she goes to the morning mass,

and in the morning she attends the evening service,

while her unrepentant husband and five children,

awaited her five loaves of bread and two fish,

which she promised that Jesus would bring to them

as part of the miracle He did to feed the five thousand.

Her husband rebuked her for starving her children;

but she snapped that man shall not live by bread alone,

though she stopped by Mama Ngozi’s Akara stall,

and chucked three balls of bean cakes into her rainy mouth.

The day her husband flipped out to lash out at her,

she remembered the silver rosary around her neck,

which she dangled at him, like a small golden gun,

screaming, touch me, and I will turn you into a stone.

Her daughter told her that Christ turned water to wine,

not the stone she threatened to turn their father into,

my aunt rocked like an empty drum, rolling to the floor,

My father handled you with gloved fists and smiles,

but I will give you ten thousand scorpions and vipers.

Each time, her face glowed like milk against the sky,

or an ancient wall whose brown coating peeled off,

The unmasking of a god’s charred face by a child’s hands.

At night, when she carried her husband in her holy hands,

her children ran out to the sitting room, unable to sleep,

and the only noise plundering the neighbourhood,

was their mother’s Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Image by Christopher J Ananias)

Man with an Umbrella by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

The man held an umbrella over his head,

like he held darkness from crashing into light.

A sartorial suit sold in Soho,

an Obama shirt, a Trump rain jacket,

Che Guevara’s moustache,

Fidel Castro’s pipe, Abacha’s sunglasses,

Kim Jong-un’s shoes and Clinton’s smile.

The man walked like Armstrong on Mars,

as though all of the ground was wool.

How the clouds had descended on earth,

made the floor of every garden fluffy,

chastened the rough places,

patched up the crooked landscape,

that he who was the next thing to an angel,

would go with no broken bones,

or blistered toes, or bloody eyes.

His blessed hands had pulled down the lift;

his tender, socked feet matched on a white terrace,

smeared it with the blood of the nine-year-old.

He married her with full rites and rights.

But it was his hands that touched off this inferno,

by which he fondled two breasts in passing,

though his innocence glowed from his collar,

shouting, it’s better to die of passion than of boredom.

He was a devout believer;

prayed seven times a day,

even as he walked on the tapestry of the sky,

the red carpet which Heaven laid out,

for those who would ascend at the rapture.

Watch the umbrella! Watch the umbrella!

with a nipple like a virgin’s.

Who would blame him for touching it?

It’s like caressing the pages of his holy book.

And as he went home that rainy day,

the night was too virile a consolation,

from a day woven with the linen of fear,

when he would tear off these garments,

lay beside the limp body of his wife,

and closed his blessed eyes and mouth.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Image is of a statue near Ivy Green Cemetery, Charleston, WA)

My Father’s Voice by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

As I voice out these words,

I remember that my father had three voices,

the voice he used for my mother,

the voice he used in speaking to us,

and the voice he used for his kinsmen.

He had no voice for himself and his god,

though he said that he would have time,

to speak to himself and to his god when he died.

I can imagine my father mumbling to his god,

when he’s on his way to his ancestors,

blaming him for the way he was cast upon the sand.

What else would he be doing with his fellow dead,

if not, making them get used to his new voice?

The grave would echo his loud, lone voice,

when he blasted his dreams and tantrums

through the waves and storms of the grave.

He said that he would return once or twice,

but there would be no thrice.

I wondered if he dismissed his full resurrection

that deals with three comings to bear fruit,

or whether he would start creating sequences

which no one had ever seen or heard before.

The voice my mother heard from my father,

was the cradling of a flower during a flame,

something that began with tongues of yellow fire,

and it was the hammer, death nails on wood,

or the voice that fell the oak that dried in summer;

the same voice commanded wealth with a guitar,

singing to his ancestors the pain of his lingering,

when, with one deadly blow, time lashes out at him.

How often I tried to speak to my mother like my father,

with the voice of a man tormenting spirits asleep,

but she stirred as a queen roused to fury,

and ordered me to await my time to grow,

when time itself runs out of things to say

to a man whose moment of victory has come.

Sometimes, my mother forgets that we were there,

while she waited to hear my father’s voice,

calling her from behind the bedroom curtain,

to hurry up, as the night is far and deeply spent.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

(Image is of an allegedly genuine totem pole found in front of a great bakery in Manette, WA)