Visual art from Mark Young
Poetry from Stephen Williams
Overtaking
You’ve led a life of doing many things
but now shadows overtaking
slowing of your stride
slit of eyes and cold hands
sudden and surprising
longing for when you’re ultimately free
humming your story
only part of your remembering
tightness in the throat
hero and fool
balanced in-between by circumstance
love hopefully
a someday soon apex
as the world chaos
judges you
not caring of the evidence
jail or to the barren desert
perhaps a guillotine
but a pardon from an unknown source
yet knowing in your spirit the truth
a release at midnight through a squeaking gate
the long walk
searching for the lost family
where are they
how to find them
building endurance
time of little time
striving on for contentment
the hope
in the breath of a new believing
of the old belief
racing over earthquakes
shaking streets and rattling windows
people watching you but most in the quick
stir of their own silliness
their own fear turned backward
and you realizing
you were and are one of them
an endless family
so you pray
oh how you pray
cup of hands filling with salt and tears
some of the who and what of God
praying and praying
until the climax finally overtaking.
Short prose from I RΛM 0
DIGITOPIΛ
Technology conglomerates will access transcendental languages, localities, and emotions. Digitization shall enable nations to eliminate tactile human engagement to speed up global development – scaling and management…sans human capital. User culture will become multi-sensory, as digital technology transcends behavior responsiveness.
Shapeshifters teleport deep into the human psyche as post-mortem cyborgs intuitively track user migration toward unnavigated web sectors (ergo eternity). Virtual designers post-construct our digital experience and, in the process, self-/co-create and viralize the omniverse. Human thought is rendered obsolete as augmented data decimates theoretical relativity.
As post-apocalyptic users, how will we feel and process the inevitable – an existential shift from organicity to digitopia? How shall we determine and our browsing instincts sans emotionality in the midst of the digital monetization of conglomeration? Extending beyond collectivism – this Internet (War) of Things (IWOT)..or is it the Internet War ON Things (i.e., the digital piratization of tactile spaces mutating into an emotionless omnipresence)?
Poetry from Jake Cosmos Aller
Christmas Bombing in Nashville
There was a Christmas bomber
In Nashville one day
While watching the news
About the Christmas bombing
I am filled with curiosity
Who was this monstrous man?
Who was he?
What did he want to do?
Why did he do it?
What is the deep meaning behind it all?
The suspect said
To a neighbor
The day before Christmas
I have good news
I will become so famous
Nashville will Never forget me
Then this 63-year-old –white man
A reclusive strange man drove his RV
A believer in the shapeshifting lizard conspiracy
Perhaps a Q cult member as well
Drove his RV
filled with home-made explosive devices
To an ATT office building
Blew himself up inside the RV
Damaging 43 buildings
Knocking out power
The internet and cell service
The silence from the political leaderships
Speaks volumes
If he were a Muslim, an immigrant
A foreigner, a black or brown man
Authorities would be denouncing it
As an act of terrorism
And everyone will anxiously be wondering
When the next bomb will go off
And authorities will be hunting
The land for his associates
Fanning the fear
Driving the news cycle
Instead, we find out
he is just a pathetic old man
Who was sad,
which make us all mad
That he could do such a thing
And soon this will fade
Into our collective memory
There was a Christmas bomber
In Nashville one day
And we all forget it
Soon enough
It was just another day
In our crazy whacked outland
In these sad days of the pandemic
We see the homeless people
Men, woman, and children
The strangers sleeping on the streets
In the richest country
In the planet
Millions were driven homeless
The strangers Sleeping on the streets
As rents go up and up
Jobs disappearing
Coronavirus spreading
The strangers sleeping in the streets
Social safety nets unraveling
Forcing more people
Into dire poverty
There but for the grace of God
We do not say to the Strangers
sleeping in the streets
As we walk by
The nameless men, woman, children
The strangers Sleeping in the streets
We seldom wonder
How they got there
And whether we can help them
The strangers sleeping on the streets
All too often
We walk on by
Consumed by own problems
Having little empathy
For the strangers sleeping on the street
Just enough for coffee
A homeless man
Stood on the street
Counting his change
From panhandling all morning
Just had enough for a cup of coffee
All in all
A good start
He ambled off to his favorite coffee shop
Where the owner
Was kind to the homeless
Sometimes
Treating them to a meal
On the house
The man said
I was in your shoes
Once years ago
And you never forget
When you are down
And out
Everyone forgets your face
No one knows your name
For you are now
Invisible
Almost a ghost
The old man tried to pay
The owner said
Keep your change
You need it more than me
Have a meal with me
My friend
On the house
He ordered up
The homeless man’s favorite
Lumberjack special
Eggs, pancakes, sausage, bacon
Cornbread
Lots of hot black coffee
To wash it down
The old man
Often had just one meal a day
Usually, a late breakfast
Sometimes if he were lucky
He would have dinner
And on a red-letter day
He would have three meals
The homeless man
Had been on the streets
For too long
Barely remembered his life
Before early-onset Alzheimer’s
Robbed him of his job
His dignity
His wife
His life
His money
Now he drifted
Waiting for the grim reaper
To call him home
Any day now
He prayed nightly
To a god
That he no longer believed in
Eve in the Garden Eats the Apple
Eve was in the garden
Talking with Mr. Snake
Her new best friend
She was complaining about Adam
And about the management
Of the garden
The snake suggested she eat
The forbidden fruit
She said but the man
Said that I can not eat
That fruit
It is forbidden
Yeah that is what the man said
That is what he does not want you
To experience
The man and Adam
Are in on it together
I heard that Adam
I Will eat the apple tonight
But you need to get there first
Do you trust me, Eve
Of course, Mr. Snake
So you know what to do
Eve ate the apple
Called Adam over
Told him to eat the apple
While the Snake chanted
Eat it eat it
Set yourself free
And so Adam ate the apple
And joined Eve
In knowing everything
God came down
Banished them from the garden
Telling them
Well you made the bed
You will have to sleep in it
Go away
You disgust me
Humans…..
And Satan
You won your bet
You damn Snake
Essay from Lorena Caputo
REVISITING A MEMORY
15 January 1994 / Estelí, Nicaragua
We gather in front of a blue bullet-pocked building near the central park. Women of the Madres de los Héroes y Mártires sell home-made plastic flowers. A late-afternoon summer wind blows.
Soon we are a procession, honoring the memory of Leonel Rugama. That seminarian, teacher, poet. The guerrillero who helped finance the Revolution by robbing banks. He and two compañeros were trapped in a safehouse. Surrounded by tanks, by hundreds of troops. For three hours the shooting went on. The planes bombed. That was 15 January 1970.
His petite and spry mother leads us to the cemetery. In song and conversation we go.
After a simple commemoration at his grave, we wander around the yard alone, in groups. The Mothers visit their heroes’, their martyrs’ tombs.
A professor from the States says to me, “Stop and listen. It is time to listen.”
His students find a series of turquoise crosses. The people all died about the same date. We are told they were victims of a Contra attack.
I feel chilled, hollow.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Almost four and a half years later, I return to face those graves that have haunted me.
Do they really exist? Was it a dream? No. I have the journal entry. What were the dates? Fourth to sixth of June 1987? Or ’86? I don’t remember.
It is a scorching late-dry-season day. For several hours I wander, trying to find those sea-blue markers.
I encounter Combatiente Juana Elena Mendoza’s site. She fell on the day of Liberation, 19 July 1979.
You walked without resting
the long road of liberation
with the recompense
of seeing your people
In Freedom
And I come across that simple white marbeline cross surrounded by a white wrought iron gate: Leonel Rugama R.
My memory remembers that sea to be to the right. But it is now crowded with newer tombs. I cannot find what I’m looking for.
I ask a grave digger, standing chest-deep in a fresh hole. He shrugs, “Go ask the pantonero.”
“Ah, yes. It is over there, to the right.”
Again, I do not find those 30, 40 turquoise crosses. I give up. For today.
“No, he’ll show you there,” the caretaker says, nodding to an assistant.
I am lead to a section of simple concrete crosses, and of tiled ones. Of blues, yellows, greens. Of combatientes, subtenientes, tenientes, sargentes.
I spend several hours more, copying the names and dates of these 57 heroes. They fell in battle against the US-Contras between 16 October 1983 and 8 January 1985. The majority in those two Octobers, Novembers, Decembers. Four in July 1984—the time of Congressional budget hearings, no?
First Sergeant Sixto A. Moreno did not see 1984 arrive. Subteniente José Angel Calderón Ordónez fell on Nochebuena—the Good Night—Christmas Eve. Ramón Arier Rizo Castillo died a week after his 19th birthday.
But I know this isn’t what I witnessed four years earlier.
The doubts, the uncertainty gnaw at my mind. After several weeks, I go back to Estelí and ask several Mothers.
I went to look for it, but I can’t find it. The workers showed me to the Armed Forces section. But it isn’t what I remember.
“Do you know of such a place?”
“It must be that common grave,” one says leaning in her chair.
“Yes. They were all victims of a Contra attack,” the other says, running her hand over the counter.
“There’s a common grave?”
“Yes.”
“There’s another one, too, in Cemeterio El Carmen. A mass burial of combatants of the April Uprising,” the second informs me.
“During the Insurrection,” the first clarifies.
I ask myself out loud, “Could that common grave have been disappeared by those newer ones?”
The Mothers look at one another and shrug.
But still, my memory remembers not one marker. It still sees so freshly a wash of 30 or 40 turquoise crosses.
I return to that part of the cemetery and widen the circle. More groupings of dates I’d missed before, among the newer sites of this decade.
There’s a tall, blue-brick pedestal with a black iron cross:
MARIO RANDEZ CASTILLO
4 February 1988
The bullets of the Contra assassins
may have killed you
But they did not kill your faith
The rain drizzles. The dripping weeds are slick. The earth is soft.
Still I cannot find them.
I ask Rugama’s cousin, who works here. “Ask the pantonero.”
The caretaker does not know. He swears there is no common grave. He asks the Rugama.
“Look, we’ve both been here only a few years,” the cousin apologizes.
The pantonero points to the western part of the yard, the opposite direction from the others. “Over there are burials from the same era. Perhaps it’s there.”
In the petering rain I enter the sea of crosses. Into 1985. Soon their dates group. Scattered here and there are combatientes, first lieutenants.
There are so many dozens from May 1985. How many just between 17th and 19th? One, two, three, six.
I weave back and forth through.
Another group: 2 to 7 August. One, two, four—again, six.
I climb between the closely packed graves.
Silvio A. Chavarría Méndez—fell in defense of the fatherland in Miraflores, Estelí, 20 May 1986. And entombed next to him are more people killed on that same day. Three from the Talavera family.
Oh, god.
I continue wading through these mostly blue crosses, scanning them for dates.
28 July 1985—so many, it seems. One, three, six, eight—nine.
I begin to swoon, ready to vomit. My solar plexus is hollow. I almost sink to my knees.
This is it. I remember this feeling. The same I had four years ago.
I want to stop. But I continue strolling through this jumble of graves.
How many died 7 September 1985? In May ’86?
I want to scream, “How could you do this?”
How many hundreds of graves are there? I dare not count.
How could we do this?
And those velvet storm clouds rumble overhead. A chill wind blows. The sprinkled rain has stopped—for a while.
Lorraine Caputo is a wandering troubadour whose poetry appear in over 200 journals on six continents, and 14 chapbooks – including Caribbean Nights (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), Notes from the Patagonia (dancing girl press, 2017) and On Galápagos Shores (dancing girl press, 2019). She also authors travel narratives, with works in the anthologies Drive: Women’s True Stories from the Open Road (Seal Press, 2002) and V!VA List Latin America (Viva Travel Guides, 2007), articles and guidebooks. In 2011, the Parliamentary Poet Laureate of Canada honored her verse. Caputo has done literary readings from Alaska to the Patagonia. She journeys through Latin America with her faithful knapsack Rocinante, listening to the voices of the pueblos and Earth. Follow her adventures at facebook.com/lorrainecaputo.wanderer or latinamericawanderer.wordpress.com.
Poetry from John Culp
Let Principle cohere focus As unconditional Love Entirely allowing Focus appreciation Through all perspective's Intervibral coincidence, Enjoying Allow I self the hand of preference. Born Free Sense Know Less resistance Allowing, You're Worth it. Get caught, Satisfied with your own natural grace. Turn time on a dime. Freshen your focus, NOW.
Poetry from Hongri Yuan, translated by Manu Mangattu
Gold Heaven
Written by Chinese Poet Hongri Yuan
Translated by Yuanbing zhang
Ⅰ
The golden sidestep of the days,ah!
arranged golden ladders years.
A mirror
let me saw
countless smiles of time.
The long corridors of gold
leading to countless crystal space-times.
On golden gates
carved with the rounds of
golden sun.
I walked into the rounds of
the mirror of the sun
and saw the palaces of gold.
The big birds of gold feathers,ah!
singing the prehistoric stories to me.
I’m the giant in the sun,ah！
I am the golden sun.
Countless centuries ago
I flew in the crystal universe.
To date the magnificent gold palaces
still waiting for me in the sun
To date the golden sun
Singing in the universe.
I am the king of the sun,ah!
The dragon and phoenix are my mounts.
The wheel of the golden sun
It’s all my hometown.
The countless golden suns
Laughing at me in the universe.
The huge dragons and phoenixes
Flying in the crystal space.
The golden rivers,ah!
Flying down from the sky
and turned into
the new golden seas of time.
I saw the huge castles,ah!
Standing above the ocean.
In the sky with red clouds wafting
sparkled the colourful lights.
The cities of crystal,ah!
like the lofty mountains in the sky.
The aerial gardens,ah!
like the colorful clouds floating in the sky.
I was riding on a golden dragon,ah!
flew to the golden space,
turned into the golden lights,ah!
and flew into the wheels of the sun.
The golden flames of the sun
like a huge and beautiful wreath.
The sacred temples
Smiling and opening to me.
I saw the giants,ah!
Lived happily in the sun.
Their sweet smiles,ah!
like a beautiful garden.
Their great art,ah!
sparkled the divine joy.
The magnificent palaces of gold,ah!
Were exactly their masterpiece.
The flowers of the jewels and gold,ah!
Were in full bloom in the gardens of the sun.
The pavilions and towers of crystal,ah!
Sparkled the strange light.
The lines of words of jewels
enchased in the walls of gold.
The huge statues
smilling to you gladly.
The massive painting that engraved by gold
hung in the center of the main hall.
Inlaided with gems
like the cities of gold.
The huge dragon and phoenix
singing joyfully in the sky,
like the pieces of mysterious movement
made me to forget the time suddenly.
Every giant sun
was the kingdoms of gold.
The countless holy giants
lived their miraculous lives.
They had neither night
nor years of the world.
Ten million years of mankind
seemed to be their one day.
They had no worry
sparklling the light all over their bodies,
like the rounds of sun
smiled gladly all the time.
Their divine wisdom
could change the universe,
Let every star in the sky
to turn into the beautiful home.
Countless hundreds of millions of years ago
they created humans.
Even the little earth
was also their works.
With their own spirits
they created the universes.
The countless shining stars
like their words.
In that distant space
they were engaged in creation.
The whole change of minkind
has already existed in their eyes.
They were the ancestors of mankind
And were filled with affections to mankind,
and all the wisdom of mankind
had come from their transmission.
Many centuries ago
they have come to the world,
created the sacred civilizations
and the cities of gold.
Their offspring from generation to generation
lived and reproduced on the earth,
experienced numerous changes
To have humans today.
Those ancient civilizations
are still shining in space.
All the past time
are all in another space.
The prehistoric civilization of mankind
will come fortunately again to the world,
As if the underground seeds
sprout and bloom on the ground.
The countless great arts
will be brilliant youth!
That miraculous science and civilizations
will illuminate the new history.
The old earth,ah!
And will be young again.
The flames of his heart,ah!
Will make himself transparent.
The countless sleeping time,ah!
Will wake up from the stone.
The bright and holy lights
will turn into the springs.
Those holy giants,ah!
Will go out of the sun,
with the wisdom of those lights
Illuminating the time-space of mankind.
The golden halls will appear
in the transparent oceans,
like the giant ships
towards the coast of mankind.
In the silent mountains
will ring out the joyful songs,
the fragrant rivers
will flow into the paradises of mankind.
I opened the doors,ah!
And saw the space-times,
the great civilizations,ah!
laughing before my eyes.
The countless eras of light
are coming up to us.
The cities of crystal
blooming in the new time-spaces.
The great flowers of civilization
blossoming in the seas of time-space.
The rounds of the golden sun
are also laughing and singing in space.
The countless cities of gold
blinking towards me in the sun,
spilt the gay singings
like the colorful flowers.
I saw that heaven and earth
filled with laughters everywhere,
that giant planets
also turned into human homes.
Ⅱ
I opened one door after another
And flew into a sun after another.
The sacred golden civilization,ah!
like an endless long corridor of time.
Those giants of the sun,ah!
working on the sacred creation.
Let the gold of time
To turn into the countless paradises
Their holy spirits, ah!
Illuminated the space-times,
and created the magic sciences
and that holy arts.
I heard the rounds of the sun,ah!
Singing to me in space,
as if there were countless suns
sending out the golden lights.
I entered the universes
and opened the time-spaces
Every crystal space,ah!
There were also the rounds of the sun.
The stars of time,ah!
Shining in the space of crystal
turned into the bright lights
and agglomerated into the sea of the universe.
All the wisdom of the world
came from the deep space.
The seas of time,ah!
were pregnant with the countless suns.
All the futures of mankind
were enshrined in the sun.
The future pictures of the mankind
Will shine the joyful lights.
Every wanderer of the world
are all the descendants of the sun,
The countless centuries ago,ah!
were all the golden giants.
Opening the picture books of the time,ah!
The mankind had been incomparable tall.
The Himalayas,ah!
Was just a little giant.
Before the birth of the earth
mankind have already existed.
The countless stars of the universe
had all been the human homes.
The changes of mankind,ah!
Created the different civilizations.
The another great space,ah!
determined the course of the world.
The future of mankind has been arranged
in the golden palace of the sun,
as if the huge pictures
were enshrined in the rolls of golden book.
The golden books of the sun
shone the words of gold,
the lines of mysterious words, ah!
Gestated the future civilization.
All kinds of issues of human creation，ah！
Came from the revelation of the sun
Only the holy spirit
could understand the words of the sun.
The giants of the sun,ah!
Were the master of the sun.
The rounds of the great suns
were the lights of their hearts.
They were the ancestors of mankind,ah!
They were the earliest human.
In the sun,ah!
Watching their descendants.
