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Lightning
#Unreal #Poetry #Audio #Micropoem #Lightning #Imagery
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Chicken Au Gratin
By Archita Mittra
Image by Rachel Gierlach QuailBellMagazine.com Editor's Note: This poem was formerly published in the anthology, Who Shall I Make My Wife? As part of the Eriata Oribhabor Annual Food Poetry Contest 2014) When you dream of home, what do you smell? Your mother’s cooking stirs your memory. Too soon, you’re on a silver boat laden with treasure, wading through a terrain of mayonnaise and sun-burnt cheese, uncovering gold nuggets of chicken and emeralds of peas, from a milky swamp that smells of your mother’s secret spice-box. When you remember home, can you picture the walls? A fading white. Creamy, like your favourite dish. With trembling fingers, you’d peeled the plaster, once and discovered a painting of somewhere else. A hidden world, like the one you found on sunlit afternoons, a bowl in your hands, staring into the golden-orange crust, a map of sorts with ridges and valleys and doorways opening into an ambrosial delight. When you long for home, what do you taste? The flavour of exotic words-mozzarella, oregano, basil-melts on your tongue. A woman in a soot-stained apron nods sadly at you, from another world. You are there, and not there, staring till you see yourself in the emptiness, at the bottom of a bowl. Your cloven heart, baked and skewered as it is still misses the countryside and the succulent thrill of a world within a world. #Unreal #Poetry #Photography #Home #Memory #Childhood #Food #Senses #Taste Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Forest of Bells
One chill dusk, Rowan curled up beside her parents and hushed as they whispered that she would soon be a sister. Twilight warmed their murmurs. Firelight and cloth cramped the room. Rowan gazed at her mother’s shape until night wrapped their home. Then she crept upstairs as the ringing of bells drifted from far away.
Beyond the village, a forest cloaked the edge of a valley. There, bells glinted on the trees in place of leaves. Light, silver and gold, fogged the skies over the woods while the sound of ringing rippled across the land. The villagers looked from afar and whispered tales of folk lost in the gleaming deeps. Thieves who wished to rob the bells had disappeared between the trees. Lovers who fled to the forest never stepped from its reach. No paths led to the woods and no travelers journeyed near. While Rowan waited and watched her parents, days seeped through the woods. The bells hung heavy with snow as winter muffled their music. Frost softened the forest’s glimmer. The sky froze above as ice patterned silver and gold. Soon, spring winds and showers thawed the bells and the sound of ringing spilled over the villages and plains. Rowan gazed at her mother cradling the new baby under the sunlight. She shuffled close, touched her sister’s face, and murmured ‘Orla’. The days and nights slowed as Orla stayed hushed while her family cooed. No cries or babblings filled the rooms. Rowan sat by Orla’s cradle and rocked it gently to the distant bells. Her parents muttered their worries in corners and behind closed doors. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Happy Birthday
#Unreal #Poetry #Micropoem #HappyBirthday #Imagery #Solitude #Birth
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Portrait of a Girl
By Adreyo Sen
QuailBellMagazine.com
Lily, currently employed with an advertising agency in Manchester, England, was a student at Columbia between 1973 and 1977.
Lily was the first person to attempt college from a family late to the ranks of the Indian lower middle class. Her father was a library clerk and her mother a sanitation worker, roles leading them to value education. Both sets of grandparents were embedded in the agrarian economy. The youngest of five children, Lily came to New York on a full scholarship, the result of a stellar performance throughout her school career and the intervention of teachers who discovered her talent. Lily ascribes her educational success to the “sacrifices her parents made.” Understandably, Lily came to New York under immense pressure to succeed, her anxiety complicated by her ambivalence towards her family and her guilt over her increasing fascination with a career not typically recognized in India as guaranteeing financial success and, more importantly, “prestige.” Lily’s zero hour is her attempt at suicide while a student at Columbia, which serves as an entry-point into her story. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Edward Scissor Hand
By Jessika Malo
QuailBellMagazine.com
I’ll have to knead from my chronic sadness
a new set of hands soft and delicate, to match yours in sensitivity. My scissors graze through your lumpy curls Hungry devouring skeletons of nostalgia Every time I simply want to stroke your hair. My wish is to sift out the scribbles of colored markers off your hands. Save them for the days of your drought to remind you of who you are. To hand-pick the moles on your skin and glue them on my barren skies, A directory to where the sun once was. To clutch on to the few syllables of mercy your voice mistakenly allows and tie my whole weight to them swinging back and forth, to the end of hope.
#Unreal #Poetry #Imagery #Unrequited #Love #Memory
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Skater's Waltz
By Janet Shell Anderson
QuailBellMagazine.com I dreamed last night I was skating with Ethan again, just like we did when we won the gold medal in Japan. Those medals are huge, heavy. I dreamed I was pressed tight against him, and we turned perfectly, close, close, and so fast, then spun separately in the long spin ice dancers call a twizzle. He’s dead. He’s been dead two months. I’m practicing my long program. My new coach, over there on the sidelines, a big Russian bear, a monster, screams in French, Russian. God knows. I go to the middle of the rink, pick up speed, skating singles now, alone. Backwards, on the inner edge, fast, I focus, turn, go forward, go into the air, chin up, shoulders squared, rotate. The world’s a blur. Skaters are blind in the rotation, in the spins, see a rainbow streak of light. I land. Ok. The coach bleats in Russian. Damn. Damn. I cheated the jump. A triple Axel. I could do one since I was twelve. Didn’t quite make the full rotation. I should never have skated with Ethan. We were both singles skaters when we were little. But he was no good with half the jumps, didn’t have the nerve. He had good technique but always fell out. Our Moms were best friends, rink rats from way back. They made us dance skaters. Ethan hated it. The coach says do it again. I know that much Russian. It’s cold in the rink, but I sweat to the roots of my hair. I pick up speed, edge skate on the left outer blade, put myself into it, focus. Up. Down. Cheated it again. She screams. I look at my black workout sleeves. I wear nothing but black. “Bella,” Ethan would say. “Come on, Bellamina. Don’t be afraid.” And he would lift me shoulder high, fly down the ice. When he screwed up, I nearly broke my neck, skidded fifty feet. He had no business being a dance skater and hated it, but after a while he was good at it. That wasn’t the only thing he was good at. “Bella,” the coach screams, then a string of French. “Merde” is the least of it. Give me a break. I’m a widow and skate better than any woman in the world right now. I have a secret. Faster. I deepen my knee, push the jump harder, rotate three and a half times, check it out, land backwards, perfect. She snorts over there like a draft horse. What is that fur coat she wears? Floor length weasel? She looks like Putin in a wig. I can’t have children. Ever. My Mom was afraid I’d get pregnant, couldn’t skate, so she had that taken care of, then married me to Ethan when I was seventeen. The Moms ran our lives. It was great when we won, when we were famous. It was great at first. Ethan’s beautiful, like a god. I look like--not so much. We are athletic skaters, both of us. I’m dark, strong, have that short skater’s back. Muscle. He’s more elegant. The coach is still bitching in some language. I pick up speed backwards in the reverse direction, flying. Out of the corner of my eye I see Ethan, just like always. Backwards, doing crosspulls, both of us exactly the same. Faster, faster, I turn to him. “Bella,” the coach screams, and I would be afraid if I were alone. I pick hard with the point on the figure skate, the toepick, left foot back, then high into the jump they call the toe loop, the one I do all the time beside Ethan because he’s best at it, triple rotation, easy, and check it out, stop the rotation, and down. He’s right there; I can hear him breathe. I can hear his blades cutting the ice. “Got the bitch,” he whispers. Four months ago Ethan found someone else, an ice dancer, a golden girl, Janey Furniss. Not as good as me, but what does it matter? He’s a gold medal dancer. I sat in the empty kiss and cry area where skaters go to see their scores. Ethan was practicing with her, had her up in that famous lift we always used to end our long program. Spinning. I saw it go wrong, even though they were still ok. I saw it go wrong. I screamed. Maybe I startled him. I’ve fallen a hundred times. A thousand. It’s not hard. Roll up, hit with a shoulder, hit with your butt, never throw hands out, never let your head hit. Curl up. I’ve fallen since I was five. He’s so golden, so strong. Our Moms love us being together. “Bella,” he says. “Stop being scared. You know what I want.” He flung her halfway across the ice, Janey Furniss. She slammed down, too hurt to scream. Ethan went down backwards, cracked his head, lay on his back. Didn’t move. My coach is filming me. A monster. I’m doing the final part of my long program. Ethan’s so close. “Time it,” he says. “Keep the count.” And I spin so fast I see a streak of light, a world at odds with every sense, too fast to hear, to truly see. And he’s there. He’s there. He’s there inside the rainbow spin. #Unreal #Fiction #Memory #Love #IceSkate #Fear #Skating #Dancing #Relationships Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
My Father's Old Coin
It’s just a little something really. An old coin my father left me when he passed just a few years ago. It rests up in the mantle of my living room beside some old books and a decorative lamp. I keep telling myself I should clean it, but something keeps stopping me. “Same old Benjamin Martin.” I think to myself.
The clock ticks just like it always has, but for some reason it just keeps bothering me. I can compare it to the feel of a rock in the bottom of your shoe. Seems like everything bothers me these days, don’t know why, just seems to be that way. I walk into the kitchen to fix myself some lunch. Chip chop ham and mustard is my delicacy of choice. The ham smells incredible; it seems to float through the house. As I delve into the first bite of my sandwich, I can’t help but think of that old coin. I walk into the living room and stare at it, like a mosquito to a light it draws me in. There it is, taunting me as I just stand but a few feet away. I can't help but think of the old times. He rubbed the silver stubble that adorned his face so perfectly. I was used to this, as he always rubbed his stubble when he was angry. And he was angry a lot. He sits stone-like in his chair as I waited for him to scold me. I could see it now, his slamming of the old oak table my grandfather built, and the breaking of my mother’s dishes was inevitable. He tinkered with his $3 glasses as he tried to make out the sloppy handwriting of my principal. I could see his face start to flush with redness as his eyes crept toward the bottom of the page. I could feel my body begin to overheat as sweat trickled down my back and underarms. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Fiddling
#Unreal #Poetry #Audio #Growth #Life #Nature
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Jane Doe
Editor's Note: This poem was originally published in The Horror Zine and reprinted with permission.
Then there it was—your silhouette, Reaping bruised orchids, feeding crows-- Have they unearthed the bodies yet? I thought I’d known before we met, Where the deadliest nightshade grows, Then there it was—your silhouette. |