In Which We Grace The Night With Dead Men's SongsBy Joseph Vendetti a saxophone wails somewhere under
a stiff black sky still healing from the day’s wounds. there are no streetlights to poison the darkness or cloak the stars. it’s been three generations since charlie parker was famous, but that solo from perhaps is still a strong beast with a young heart. in 1955 those notes watched as their maker was lowered into the ground. they squared their inky jaws and refused to disappear. now they are mending the tears that the sun has left in the sky’s flesh. the darkness echoes with their voice. it tastes like the bitterness of a new reed. but imagine: the hushed auditorium as i sat, sick with nerves, before we played the first note. which song was it, then- my one and only love? a night in tunisia? they all blend together. in the end, i only remember the breathlessness & the ghosts of the notes on my lips. a swelling crescendo living in my ribcage. the sensation of knowing that this is the most alive i will ever be. i would call it immortal, but i don’t know half the jazz artists my grandfather talks about. i would call it immortal, but chuck klosterman says that practically everything except the beatles and bob dylan will be forgotten. every day since 2000 struck the drum machines have gotten louder & louder & all these rappers & the alt rock & jazz has already lost a fight to metal decades ago. it turned out that count basie with a love song was no match for 80s thrash or 70s punk or 60s rock n roll. mingus and monk changed everything but not forever. how many times have we been held by chet baker’s voice, when the moon lodged itself in our throats & we were swollen with unshed tears? how many moments of our lives have played out with artie shaw in the background? not enough. the last painting miles davis ever did was full of ghosts. he must’ve known his time was up. maybe he was glad he didn’t live to see his era casketed, his life’s blood draped in a burial shroud. my grandfather met woody herman in a bar on hertel avenue. poured him a martini & sat back with elbows on the counter, eyes grasping for something to hold onto, something to tell his children when they asked him what woody herman was like in real life. he didn’t end up with much. just: he was a quiet guy. a description treated like gold & passed down like an heirloom. all our generation has of the jazz age are the stories of the legends we never got to meet. maybe that’s why we are so eager to give them up- because we will never really know this music the way our grandparents did. never saw them live and never will. genres rise & explode & endure & inspire & inspire & inspire & inspire & inspire & fall. tonight we are necromancers & this is our resurrection. funny how you can take an era so far gone & hold it in your palm for a few minutes. young. breathing. as alive as it will ever be. |
Triplet
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Settlement
for Nanjing By Sophie Zhu Dither, spilt as offering. The tarry of winter like a heed, only bleached. Moving unmoving. The knees forged the disorder of jaws. Humbled, the tasseled hands were worn, and worn lightly: bashful ornament. The scene: poached and crooning. Small women doused infants in pink. The scene: hung she. Hummed he. Finished with the body, I don another touch: a tongue the size of field-red. Fistfuls of rain lingering above us, like disease. Another cadet thumbs a womb, already lightly hewn, to fitful sleep. The scene: illiterate of some things. Literal. I am to know this form of sorrow well, as any daughter felt into a mother would. Bellies corded in the goodness of chords. Men sung of wraith with wrath. I put an ear to the eye of another-- much a faint gossip: It was the thought that counting lasts days that killed us. The scene: lovely. Losing its white surrender. With what I have left I lend as question mark. Crude children toss their mothers’ hips out into another pile. And another. Say: it was full of ruth. Say: it was less heavenly spirit when it was split, like attention. Say: stipend me desire. Let the gorge carve me instead. At times I was adamant about the wrong things. Fields and their answers to drought, a loud black. Where have you settled? What have you settled for? NOTE: The Nanjing Massacre was a six-weeklong massacre conducted by Japanese soldiers in the Chinese town of Nanjing. From 200,000 to 300,000 residents were murdered, and of those, nearly all women and children were brutally raped. |
Drowning
By Reyhan Tutumlu I’m drowning. Suffocating from my misery Stuck in the mire of this cruel, cruel world. I am Atlas, being crushed by the weight of my sorrow. Forced to carry this heinous world, although I have no regard for it. I’m drowning. I haven’t been myself in a millennia, Though, does anyone know oneself? Joy It is not real anymore No Only reluctant acceptance. I’m drowning. afraid, for I cannot see the light sinking, pressure, darkness, Death. The Four after the Cultural Revolution in China By Sophie Zhu In what sense was my body right of yours, right in being rightful. I began, yet was in need of relativity—my palms now a small way from me, my front’s back end: bleached gust. Tenth day after mass, Mao refused a peasant’s belly for supper. It was oddly worn, took the shape of an even zero. His limbs dwindled from four to two, a child draught by certainty. The hollow of them: mere scarcity. On his temples I argued to be needed. To be without past or to be the past, I was to be compliant. Change is wonderful outside the red and red heat of August. Lord, let me take on the size of my mother’s last mango. The only revolutionary willing to hide its black of my hair. A handful of space like fervor when spilled. Vesicated. Bliss, he told, was pink like a blister. Severance is all the same: father & son, even & odd, what was left & to the left of you. NOTE: During the Cultural Revolution in China, Mao Zedong uprooted society by impending severe punishment for not adhering to the slogan of removing the “Four Olds”: culture, tradition, habit, idea. The punishments often led to massacres, including that of Beijing (called “red August”), in which residents were mutilated in two. The number 4 also refers to the Gang of Four, a political faction of the Communist Party that led the Cultural Revolution. During this time, mangoes also became a divine symbol linked to Mao.
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Human Nature
By Reyhan Tutumlu Human Nature. It's cruel, barbaric, ruthless. It's merciful, caring, gentle. Only the most brutal, are allowed to flourish. Only the most powerful, are allowed to lead. It is curious, and clever. It is amusing, and intimate. Even at the hardest times, it is luxurious Even at the most critical times, it is trivial Human Nature. It causes the creation of life, and life's taking Lackluster By Sophie Zhu My lore, wounded. On his back: my littlest of throats. In his arms I was wanted. It was Sunday when I was needed, a poem’s margins padding my knees, and his being bristled, upset my same hands were choking it. After all had been done, he offered roses, beetles, and rosé-- a sieved skin, darned. I am meek, am here, perching. Nightly, I maul prayers from his lord-mouth to feel, to prey. On the flat guttural of his ankle I request for a hand versatile as water. Then boat, then blur. Body in patches. The round of his ankle: butchered. Mine, crippled. Let the hawk know if its landscape, the vulture of what organs it must prepare. He gave suffering, yet I'd made each. |
On Sacrifice
after the Great Leap Forward By Sophie Zhu Hunger’s little regard, draped on the knees like bandages. The father who buried mine in his livid field weary. His father, a supple spade. Ultimately, I learn this again. Women swelling water in valises until it stains warm yarn gray-- the hassle of offhand barters. The West is worried. Monthly, mothers would gather at the moon for its slivers: silver as commodity, as steel. And now, they covet its passing. Temper yourself. I don’t witness the same; bodies, condensed like sweet milk, left to quiver as if laughing. Father, lend me sickle. Onist. Honest. Lithed am I, lean into me a scythe. I understand sacrifice as it is, and what it betrays. I understand your mother. Spate, spite. I understand her blood land has yet I lack. The body has the tendency to when it is poor of things: your hands a tragedy and inside them, another. When the moon stopped waning, I learned to wail, as if a child. I held a body, then yours; I’d revel in the giving of give or take, only my bones you leave safe. Temper yourself. It is most comforting to be saved—not sacrifice, besides to hold the silence one uses to hide it. NOTE: The Great Leap Forward was an economic and social campaign led by Mao Zedong. He aspired for China to be economically successful and believed high steel production was necessary to do so. His plan included forcing peasants to daily quotas of “homemade” steel and stripping them of private property. However, the Great Leap Forward was ultimately a failure and highly detrimental to China: the steel was of low quality and was useless, and peasants without private property were unable to afford themselves necessities, leading to a famine in which at least 30 million people died. In fact, a father was arrested for killing and eating his own son during this time. Temper yourself and The West is worried are two propaganda quotes used in posters to promote the Great Leap Forward. |