Poetry

El cuerpo avisa

By LUPE MENDEZ

Todo mi maíz se llevó, ni pa’comer me dejó
El Barzón.
—Luis Pérez Meza

Esas tierras del rincón,
I look at them como un buey pando,
feeling the dry earth, crunch under
my boots.                     Es Julio, y si sigue asi,
dirán que es sequía.     I pray it is not.

El cuerpo avisa
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The Gardener

Winner of the 2023 DISQUIET Prize for Poetry

By JOSHUA BURTON

I’ve been negotiating my fears with speaking.
After a life of being half-heard;
after half a life of being unheard, I now think of the chaos

I avoided in this abstinence. In some stories Jesus
is not the fool, keeping himself
to himself, knowing only God knows

The Gardener
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The Weeds

By JULIÁN DAVID BAÑUELOS

“By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
             Genesis 3:19

i.
In many ways we knew we had no choice.
We woke in time to tell the stars goodnight,
Returned to broken homes and heard the fights.

The Weeds
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In A Word

By MARC VINCENZ

For your ears, in your exile, in your comfort zone, in which you fly unscathed, unsheathed, into the scarlet reveries, in your scarf and hands where the hum of time seems like a downpour, or the dizzying heights of mountain crags, the sharp flashes of light that become visible in the no-longer-already night. Here in the deep darkening center, in the storm of spring or the silence and its willow tree, in the serenade on the veranda, or the poplar spires, in the furrows and the silt, do you believe the true believer may be risen from the dead? Hold the fire and the ever-transforming, the endless sky or the filthy sewage which spews out under the shadows, which they say settles the soul. You will emerge as you do, in all your manifolds, in the siege and in amongst the vagabonds and the wayfarers, the heavenly debate in the afterworld—all those among us searching for safety. Here we are heathens, the lamb and temples that rise over the hills. Yesterday had us back among you in the proud fight, where the stained glass was the mirror and shattered our pride. Earn your trust, they say. Weren’t we the ones who lifted the dead, who muttered their prayers accordingly, where every motion was a wavering—so estranged we were in the day’s end—the words, the word, the faces were etched in their smiles. Take the last sheaf of paper and hold it up to the window. Take the benevolence of any kindred spirit and let it arise. The book ends somewhere. 

In A Word
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Overture

By VIRGINIA KONCHAN

 

If the heart is a temple,
each statue will be broken.
But I have practiced idolatry:
loved the creature more than
the creator, whom I can’t see.
There’s a hole where the sun
should be. It has entered me,
along with the cloud and river.

Overture
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Bruh

By JONATHAN MOODY

after Jamaica Kincaid
 
be honest with your psychiatrist about how the meds have kept you from cumming: 
even while fantasizing about Priyanka Chopra—her cascading curls, 
tumbling down her shoulders; don’t feel ashamed after your lover has suggested 
other ways to be intimate: like learning how to speak Urdu so that on sleepless nights 
you can recite Ghalib’s ghazals to her while holding hands near the mango tree; 
on the rare chance you’re not awake, smash the snooze button; 
continue dreaming about a world where you don’t perceive that therapy 
is just for white folks; forget what your family says; you can’t shake off suicidal

Bruh
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