In my last days as a student in Dublin Ireland, I took the early morning train to the city of Belfast. Though I was curious about the site of the tumultuous Troubles, and to see how a quarter of a country functions under a separate government, I will admit I made the trip because of … Continue reading H & W Yard Numbers 400 and 401
The ancient Soviet pipes in my friend’s apartment Left the water tasting Strongly of Iron Which came from the kitchen sink. Žižkov Television Tower stands Alien in the sky Over the Jewish quarter, And the medieval city. I peer through grates at the cluttered old cemetery. I got here on a night … Continue reading The Hunger Wall
Somewhere, you're playing board games on the coffee table with the dual innocence where we once were as children, but now we're soiled skin. There’s too much baggage in me and my brother's bedrooms. So you start anew at six and seven years old. These are the benefits of skipping the younger years. While you're at it, … Continue reading I Waterlogged the Electric Kettle
Though the the street sleeper isn't moving, his paperback lies beside him. I have a paperback on World War Two in my bag. It is always late in the German supermarket, always an hour before closing. Processed food can bring you home for a time. I read somewhere that GIs in the 40s would … Continue reading World War Two Word Association
The sewn field of France are a rumble out the window. Power lines and embankments. Churches bombed out during the Great War (now rebuilt). The Stalingrad metro station and the guitarist’s inhabiting therein. I ran out of money, and it caused me some distress. I had coffee this morning, and woke up with a sore … Continue reading Bombed-out Churches (now rebuilt)
Take to your holds, your windswept hovels and your ships quarters. Below deck, down the old oak folding ladder with speed, and nearly run right into the center table where we ate dinner, built by my grandfather, suspended on a clever balance, like the stove, and the lanterns dry of oil. Take to your headaches … Continue reading Arthur Kill Ship Graveyard
Stranger with a mullet and baggy cargo pants. Keep smiling because it's all that can't be taken from you. That's what he said in broken English with a French accent, begging for money. Parisian metro scalpers. Unfortunates. The note grows sharp and the train rattles forward. No, I have nothing to give you. Faint smile, till … Continue reading Beggar on the Metro
Without you, my output has been prolific, scribbling and scratching till ink blots cease making stanzas, but rather rise up mountains, winding away, lost in countless valleys. Mists of Gleann Dá Loch, I'm standing frigid in the water till the birds make nests of the curls of my hair. Meandering mystic, and speaker aloud on the … Continue reading Saints and Abandoned Chateaus
I can remember quite clearly, the way that you would wake up when I got into bed at 5 in the morning. Your hair was short then, and when I ran my fingers through I, I always felt the strands end too soon, and then they were on the back of your neck, and then … Continue reading Postmarks
I saw a photo of you in an ocean-going canoe. Not one designed for it, instead, it was the old beat up one that you and your sisters keep among the brush and the sand dunes. The one meant for a New Hampshire pond, made of cherished and dented aluminum. I saw you among the … Continue reading The Summer Triangle and a Land of Abandoned Lake Houses
Ryan Shockey Davis 