MAYDAY

Nightbird
by Sergio Ortiz

Contributed By:

I ask for nothing
of this land
that has given me everything

 

I loved and hated its men
found my Adam          he fled with a bodybuilder
as soon as I gained weight

 

I sought God
and in his place found knowledge
I discovered a home in my body

 

and since then
moved from place to place
without desires

 

this is my way
my destiny does not depend on luck
I am the night bird
foretelling death in its song

 

 

Return to table of contents for Issue 13 Summer 2018.

You May Also Enjoy Reading...

  • Shortcut
    by Sergio Ortiz

    There is a pain - so utter - It swallows substance up - Emily Dickinson, poem 599   The windows open to the guardianship of the sun.   But there is distant smoke in its…

  • Statues by Sergio Ballouk
    (Translated from Portuguese by Julian Cola)

    how many statues of bandits extermination commanders forest caps? how many? how many street names of wealth mongers squares and viaducts of those who despised the people? how many? how many rotten within, bearing an…

  • Landfill by Sergio Ballouk
    (Translated from Portuguese by Julian Cola)

    Behold, everybody focus your attention from the truck's shadow hauling pallets behold the old landfill (extinct for so many years) resurges so does the ravine it resurges lake tin reed an old sieve hawk... people…

  • Contributor Bios for Issue 13 Summer 2018

    Issue 13 Summer 2018 HANIF ABDURRAQIB is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published…

Filed Under: Poetry

Further Reading

Nichts passiert in München (Nothing Happens in Munich)
by Alicia Anderson

I tug my collar higher to shield my cheeks from the wind. Winter days bleed together, muddling over the edges of one to the next. There are flickers of joy, embers banked beyond commute and cubicle. There are days tinged by sorrow. We’re not meant to live in emotional extremes all of the time. Over […]

Zombie
by Korbin Jones

They say it’s a matter of attrition. Cut to / a caravan of sand carried by vehicles, couples racing toward the sun. They’ve driven for so long that the horizon is now their god, heterosexual the altar piece. Chemistry / their borrowed electrons, from and by, in the process of synthesis—children, compulsory futures, drugs to […]

Offerings to the Altar of St. Joseph
by J.E. Garrard

After the storm returned: We sat barefoot on the back porch, The water whipping itself into a frenzy, Us in our plastic red chairs. The oak tree leaned down to us, like God observing ants in a flood, Its shadow falling over your face, Making roots of your feet and branches of your hands. And […]