Tightening in / Losing out
Honeysuckles beam in a tantrum / we share mortality / calculate the distance // the restrictions of the virus allow no nostalgia/emissions thicken / coughing // the sun blinding / incongruous spring hibernation / shift to pretended colder weather // long for a haircut, a hug / the spell of loss / the peacefulness of surrendering to unchangeable rules / fragments of freedom // occasional gusts of wind whisper secrets / wild beauty of magnolia petals rot on the pavement // kiss me and promise to come back when peonies bloom
Built to match existing, architectural plans
After ‘Diary,’ Rosa Lyster, LRB 7 October 2021
Built to match what remains of the house after hurricane Laura, lifting the roof like a lid and driving a tree through the kitchen wall. October is hurricane season, bodies of water through the window: the Mississippi. Water reflects the rain clouds above, people stand around in chest-high floods trying to return everything to its former state. But they say it is best to stay away, there are too many things in the water that will kill you. Your belongings destroyed; they will never go back.
I don’t mind failing in this world
I don’t mind failing in this world, there is so much to do like boiling an egg or rediscovering a favourite scarf that went missing. I don’t mind failing in this world, the days wake around me the rain arrives soft and the wind is gentle. I don’t mind failing in this world, I watch the clouds creating figures, the grammar of imagination catches the winter sun. Coffee is warm in the morning, my hands brimful of gleaming stones.
You are not supposed to be rude
sensations of spectacular germination a sincere glow of oxygen tie your hair up wear the apron and the cap respiration in the monsoon scenario sensitivity of nutrition and excretion gnarled lock at the back gate the depth of the quarry explode in the tasteless whale
at the margin of the swamp the growth and move of living things tuck your shirt in hand gel ventilation infinite reproduction of simple stem cells the music of the cymbals how many woodpeckers would make spring? let the office know abysmal trophies the homeless athlete
On giving up
On giving up
‘the idea of giving up figures in our lives, as a perpetual lure and an insistent fear.’
Adam Phillips, ‘On Giving Up,’ LRB 06/01/2022
The option of giving up thoughts progress to final decision indecision Giving up up up up leaving ourselves out sense of impossibility lack of orientation Giving up makes us fearful aware of limitations proud of the abandonment ascetic Giving up sabotage capacities resist fulfilment and ideals deny survival Giving up desires and pleasures withdraw from sufferings reconsideration sacrifice up up up a jerky path of terminal disillusionment
The delay of summer
New things to die of were being added each day…
Sheila Heti, Pure Colour
Winter comes and goes the wind is still fierce snow piles in the streets on corpses with hands tied up behind. I can see faces freckled with green scars dotted in scarlet looking like action painting. At the back of my shoulders the sun spreads its warmth. My bones feel the desperate calls. Can you hear them? Can you hear them? They scrape luminosity in underground shelters. The first draft of the conflict is not progressing into a final draft. The enumeration of atrocities I can see. I can see the dandelion upright in the cold then closing in a withered bud. The yellowness of the summer yet to come will ever disclose its brilliancy this year? The grey heron lingers near the lake like a sacrilege, wildflowers resist the delay of summer, water reflects fractured walls.
©2022 Carla Scarano D’Antonio
All rights reserved
Carla Scarano D’Antonio…
…lives in Surrey with her family. She obtained her Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Lancaster University and has published her creative work in various magazines and reviews. Her short collection Negotiating Caponata was published in July 2020 by Dempsey & Windle. She completed her PhD degree on Margaret Atwood’s work at the University of Reading and graduated in April 2021.
The BeZine 