All posts tagged: 2023

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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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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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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The Substitute

By AMAR MITRA
Translated by ANISH GUPTA

ONE

Ask Kartik. He will show you.

Ask Kartik how Hrithik Roshan, the film star, sings, how he walks, and Kartik, the neighbourhood tailor, will show you how he sings and how he walks.

Ask him to show you how superstar Shah Rukh Khan proposes to matinee queen Kajol, when and how he delivers those romantic dialogues, and Kartik’s imitation of Khan will make your jaw drop.

The Substitute
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La Corrida

By AIDEED MEDINA 

Es de madrugada.
 
It is dawn          always dawn
      the sun breaking through
             the breaking of the soil.
 
The faint smell of rain from irrigated dirt
crusts of mud from the crop rows
comes home with my father
on his pants and beneath his fingernails.

La Corrida
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