THE STREET OF MAGICIANS
by Agnieszka Moroz
Translated from the original Polish by Sylwia Szulc
Artwork by Bartosz Mateńko

Magicians English

Listen to the original:

Magicians Polish

 

You like games

or playing the fool

I didn’t get that
lemons from the slots

a spell from a liquor store
(watch how the liquid disappears from the bottle)
a smile à la Caligari
from behind the window of a house
where women go missing

We are all magicians
on this street
things of all kinds teleport to our pockets
the conscience
flows away under the hat

 

 

 

Ulica magików

Ty lubisz gry
czy się zgrywać
nie zrozumiałam
cytrynki z maszynki
zaklęcie z monopolowego
(patrz jak z butelki znika płyn)
uśmiech à la Caligari
zza szyb domu
w którym kobiety przepadają

Wszyscy jesteśmy magikami
na tej ulicy
przedmioty teleportują się nam do kieszeni
sumienie
odpływa pod kapeluszem

 

 

 

 

 

 

TALK SHOW
by Matthew James Babcock

 Talk Show Babcock

You gotta show me you love me, uh uh,
she shouts.  Ain’t no good just to say it.  The
host sports a cheap Hawaiian blouse, agrees,
proffers roving mic to both families.
Everyone gestures.  Words are not enough.
From my barber’s chair perch, it’s a circus:
a T.V. screen of hands, grins, oohs and ohs
for a bulimic mom, son they called “goof.”
In this shop’s hall of mirrors, they become
fat lady, ringmaster, strongman, clown, bum.
The Nam vet giving me a trim looks bored.
He lowers his scissors, acts out his words:
“Them things’ll come back like a boomerang.”
(As if to demonstrate what he’s saying).

 

 

 

 

 

THE CLOWN AND HIS WIFE
by Ian Moore

Moments before it happened, before my wife was scattered like loose change
and her limbs became a trail of bread crumbs in the hallway, I tried to explain
that there are hard lessons to be learned in life. I told her that in the comedic
mission of being a Clown, you discover much of what is actually tragic in the world.

Shut up, she said. And take off that stupid wig.

 

 

 

 

THE NIGHT OF FORGETTING
by Ariana Nadia Nash
Artwork by Kunal Sen

The Night of Forgetting
The earth is a cut apple
opening
and the ground is tilting.
It takes my thoughts twenty leaps
to reach the downy moon,
but I call the fog in
because I can’t hold the moon in my arms.
In my arms, the moon squirms like a child.
The stars are tacks, jagging my skin.
The earth smells of ice.
I bury myself underground —
flesh to dirt, apple opening, memory tilting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

–

Agnieszka Moroz was born in 1987, and is a Polish poet, literary critic, and a regular contributor of theatre reviews to Dziennik Teatralny. She has published three volumes of poetry.

Bartosz Matenko specializes in documentary photography. He runs his own workshop on art therapy for children with Down syndrome, and his works have been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Portugal, Lithuania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Israel. www.bartoszmatenko.com

Matthew James Babcock: Teaches at BYU-Idaho in Rexburg. Published Private Fire, a book on neglected poet Robert Francis (University of Delaware Press). Pushcart prize nominee. Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Award recipient. Lurks in journals everywhere.

Ian Moore lives in Portland, Or. He has been published in Blue Moon, among other places online and in print.

Ariana Nadia Nash (ariananadianash.com) won the 2011 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry for her collection Instructions for Preparing Your Skin (Anhinga Press, 2012). She is also the author of the chapbook Our Blood Is Singing (Damask Press, 2011). Her poems appear in Poet Lore, Cimarron Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly, among other journals.

Kunal Sen (http://www.kunalsen.com/) was born in India and now resides in Chicago. He is simultaneously a computer scientist and an artist whose primary interest is in exploring the interaction between modern day technology and artistic expression.

 

 

 

 

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