*Featured Image courtesy of Eric Ward on Unsplash* This week, we have some lovely poems by Joe Bisicchia. They may be short, but they pack an emotional punch. Enjoy! Venus de Milo Hold me. Don’t be a stone heart. Be real. That simple. That plain. Hold me. Even if just with your eyes. Canvas My father’s hands were calloused from his plastering tool, his hold on his trowel, his carrying of mortar board before he would be lost in a cloud, lost in a Renoir brush, as weather patterns are wont to do. He always said see art in all the blank space. My father, an immigrant, had labored so many facades, long halls and tall vestibules with plaster of Paris, smoothing over surface of every wall to get me through school. Illiterate, yet, the…
6 Poems by Marissa LaPorte
*Featured image courtesy of Ian Deng on Unsplash* We have a nice collection of poems this week by Marissa LaPorte. Marissa evokes a lot of emotion in her writing, which we were immediately drawn to. Let’s give her a warm welcome to the community! Smoke and Nostalgia on the Underground City Train The city smog was suffocating Air purifiers blasting noise like static on the underground train Those purifiers didn’t have a chance against the thick city air It swarmed in like hordes of black flies every time the train stopped and dared to open its doors to the harsh conditions of outside Silly us for thinking we would be safe underground Sillier that people still believe it is a long-term fix I stifle the urge to laugh in the face of the absurdity Maybe…
Introducing PS Conway, Poetry Writer-in-Residence
We are excited to announce our third Poet-in-Residence, PS Conway! He is a prolific writer who posts his poems on his website, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter). Last year, we invited him to submit his poems to The Fictional Café. We enjoyed them so much; we nominated him for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry collection, Echoes Lost in Stars: Poems by PS Conway, was published in March. It is his first solo publication and hit Amazon No.1 Top New Release three times in its first three weeks of release. He was also kind enough to give us a few poems from his book, which you can read down below. Please join us in wishing PS a successful residency! A Note from PS: I am so humbled to become a member of the talented Fictional Café…
“Tiny Shredded Pieces,” A Story by Unimke Ushie
When my husband told me his mother was visiting London after our wedding in Nigeria when we last saw her, I remembered her not so soft hands tapping my buttocks, touching my breast and every crease around its plumpness, and saying –with a smile that did not wrinkle the skin around her eyes– “nwunye anyi, our wife, I’m just checking if your breasts have enough to support my unborn grandchildren.” I had a bland look on my face when she touched me, that is somehow the same now listening to my husband tell me of her coming to London. And soon I felt something I cannot see or name entering my body, and a damp wetness between my legs. “I’ll finally eat good food” he added. Avoiding my face. “Oh, Chikelu you know cooking is…
“The Trio” — A Short Story by Nick Sweeney
Of the men in the trio, one managed a hardware store, another was a supervisor in a factory producing plastic parts for light fittings, and the other a print shop proofer. Their white collars were discolored, verging on frayed, their shirt cuffs grubby, though they had to have a Sunday best at home. They were men out of old magazines and black-and-white movies, from a different time, I sometimes thought, yet there they came, swanning into mine. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, they converged on a corner on the edge of the industrial district, where three roads met, then, without pausing, marched into our little restaurant. “Never call it a diner,” Dad warned me, a long time before I set foot in there to work. “It’s a restaurant.” But with a cook, and not a chef, and no espresso machine, it can’t even be called a café; it’s a diner. There’s nothing wrong with that. In our ad in the local rag, it says we serve ‘good, honest, home-cooked food’. Those commas are the loudest items on the page. It’s not too off-the-mark to say I’m…
“Love on the Road” — The Poetry of Irving Glassman
Love On The Road We hug and kiss in the fast food parking area From their SUV my family waves farewell to me We are on the same road until they slow to approach their exit For an instant we are side by side Everyone turns in their seats and throws me an extra kiss They look like any other family Except they’re my family # # # Crossing Over My daughter runs, hops, and skips To the curb’s edge For her ritual rite of passage I assure her it’s safe to cross She runs, hops and skips To the opposite curb “I’m a grown up now,” she yells I yelled back, “Don’t grow up yet. You have time.” …
“The Man in the Iron Hat,” a Short Story by Audrey Kalman
The hat was a marvel, like a chastity belt or a grate over an abandoned and dangerous well. The wide curve of its bowl fit the man’s head perfectly. The thick brim jutted over his eyes, hiding everything above the horizontal plane of his vision and much to either side. It was astonishing that something intended to be worn could be fashioned of a material so ancient, so dense and pebbly and so, well, iron age. Yet the hat seemed to him the most natural thing in the world. He didn’t wear it with pride but he didn’t resent it either. It simply was. He put it on every morning. It sat on his head through breakfast with his wife and children, through the tedious search for his briefcase, the train ride to the city, the day in the office, the ride home, drinks, dinner, TV, lovemaking—three times a week—until, just before he laid his head on the pillow,…
The Heartfelt Poetry of Ana M. Fores Tamayo
Home, Through the Muted Screen Home? My black bear dog sleeping all day long Nestled in a corner of the kitchen, yellow Against the green leaves of potted plants, Overgrown as window shades To hide the heat of summer Or glare of winter’s day. Or is home a memory of days With siblings running on the beach of waterfronts, On boardwalks laughing, eating cotton candy, Talking of our daily conquests? Heat radiates through windows, Warmth fills the sun drained dusty day. The laughter of my daughter’s eyes glitters miles away through computer graphics. Glaring pictograms, even as warm and fuzzy rays Wrestle my despondent doldrums, tussling the muted screen that wrangles fuddled images. Yet suddenly, her singsong voice, her vale, Her voluptuous vapor bantering force me to forget my mundane life, and she comes alive, splendor in that little box, electronics transforming me into completion at the sound and chatter of her song. In answer to your Battle Lines As I read your battle lines, I am consumed by the…
“Evidence of V” a Novel by Sheila O’Connor
Reviewed by Honorah Creagh In her novel Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions, Sheila O’Connor pieces together the true story of her maternal grandmother, V, a woman whose existence was a family secret. O’Connor’s mother, June, was adopted by V’s sister, and O’Connor did not know about V until she was sixteen years old. Working from incomplete information, O’Connor colors in the spaces between the facts, transforming V from a name on court documents into an effervescent, audacious girl. In the process, O’Connor tells an affecting story not just about the injustices V and other young women like her suffered, but about what it means for someone to be family, and how a person’s influence reaches through generations. In 1935, fifteen-year-old V lives in Minneapolis and spends her nights singing at…
The Nostalgic Poetry of Delaney Daly
Tender Continuum This town is a perfect snow globe on a mantelpiece, an impenetrable dome. Waves of puddles on the stone sidewalk swallow us down & we become a part of the rotation, the silent timepiece, the busted backdrop. We will never escape it even when we box up our memories & drive to the shore & cradle our kin or watch them outrun our misfortunes. Still, this is just a thought against actions, just a minute against an hour. When the glass shatters & we inhale the valley fog for the last time, we will draw breath as the pale petal in the summer storm wind. Silent Orenda Today, there is an urgency not to move. To instead, bury the worn soles of my feet in this comfortable, breathable moment, one that I am certain will not try to control me – in the same way that the passing hours like to threaten me and hold me to the slow, choking wind, who, with the right motivation,…