Tag: music

The World was moving and she was right there with it and she was— by Victoria Nordlund

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The World was moving and she was right there with it and she was—

here in Bridgeport at the Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater
right behind the 7 ft man at the David Byrne concert
& he was the only one standing in Section 202
& he was raising his hands high in the air,
Drifting this way and that & he reminded her
of that waving inflatable tube creature in front of
used car dealerships & his shirt had ill-drawn clouds with an orange sky
& she was starting to rise but didn’t want to disrupt
the rows behind her & she was wanting to say her piece,
but he had all the rights,
& he was part of every one of her videos
so she stopped recording, wished she had a pleasant elevation
& she was outside & she couldn’t believe it was already May
& she could only see his sunset
& she could almost hear the highway breathing
beyond the Metro North train that she was
watching go by & she almost talked herself into giving up
her tickets for tonight because she heard
it was going to rain & it was a long drive up I95 & the Hantavirus had become a thing
& she was comfortable making excuses & letting her days go by
& she was trying to float now above the anger she felt for this fool
because she heard David Byrne say love & kindness
are the most profoundly punk things we can do
& she was like damn the world sucks so bad right now
& he was turning around & around & shouting the wrong lyrics
& when he sat down between song 11 and 12
& everyone beside her & behind her cheered,
& she realized she hadn’t laughed like this in a long time
& she began moving into the universe of the stage that she could finally see,
started to forget his head was ever in the way,
& when he bolted back up a few songs later,
the same as it ever was,
she knew he heard Section 202’s collective groan
& she was confident he didn’t care.
She decided this was Life During Wartime,
& she was singing along to every verse,
Hey Hey Hey— & she was
recognizing this was once in a lifetime, & she was
missing enough to feel alright—

*

Victoria Nordlund’s poetry collections Wine-Dark Sea and Binge Watching Winter on Mute are published by Main Street Rag. She is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize Nominee, whose work has appeared in Rust+Moth, Chestnut Review, trampset, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. Visit her at VictoriaNordlund.com

Driving at Night by Ally Baig

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Driving at Night

Two vanilla cones from McDonald’s and a rap song
on the stereo. Tonight, I am skeptical of those mysterious
towering numbered buildings standing between plazas,
whose purpose no one will admit to knowing. Tonight,
I am sympathetic to the animals that stumble around
in the dark of the unlit American night, searching
for food for their children. Friend who wants to drive
faster but doesn’t—who is stopping you? I will turn
the music up. Those blinking green lights on the stop sign
are cheering for us. The speed limit is just a suggestion.

*

Ally Baig is pursuing a BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing, and his poetry has been previously published, and forthcoming, in Eunoia Review.

Wedding Music by Lynn Glicklich Cohen

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Wedding Music

How utterly ridiculous that she survived
specifically to see her youngest granddaughter
get married after ten agonizing months
post-brain surgery and several rounds
of chemo for a tumor that was
the kind that grows back to finally kill you
only to be prevented from leaving
the care facility that’s become home—
having given up her condo when
she could not remember “apple penny umbrella”
or where she’d left the car—held hostage
by a broken elevator for god’s sake, and since
everyone here has known forever
about the importance of this wedding
because that’s the kind of place it is,
sharing grandchildren’s nachas and mitzvahs—
between staff’s urgent calls to Mitsubishi for
service and caregiver texts back and forth
to alert the bride, everyone wants
to kill someone, even the violinist, who has
another gig and whose fingers are getting stiff
in the giant ballroom kept cold until the mob
of attendees are seated for dinner
and dancing at which point it gets hot,
not advisable in combination with the open bar
and slinky cocktail garb, but even blowing
on them isn’t helping until the cellist
offers his pack of Little Hotties hand warmers,
which she takes gratefully, and just in time,
as the grandmother, looking abashed, dazed,
and yet still somehow regal in a blue dress,
is escorted adorably by two tuxedoed little boys,
and the violinist has the sudden urge to stand,
salute the grandmother, who barely made it
and her standing prompts an ovation, clapping
and mazel tovs! and only after everyone has sat
back down does it occur to the violinist
that she’s taken something
away from the bride, but honestly,
she doesn’t care—she has her whole life
ahead of her—and she raises her bow, cues
the others and they begin to play.

*

Lynn Glicklich Cohen lives in Milwaukee, WI, walking distance to a Great Lake and an aspiring river. She spends at least some of every day reading and/or writing poetry. She is profoundly grateful to ONE ART and the numerous other literary journals that have published her work.

Two Poems by Seth Jani

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Dance

Like everyone,
haunted by the past,
I hear the slipshod music
of a distant summer
loosening its bloodred grip,
easing-up, not on the heart,
but on the memory of itself,
until I’m left with the blur
of vanished faces
and the glittering, indistinct desires
prowling the fabled hall.

*

Hunger

Even with time passing through
the jeweled carcass of summer
I still find myself
climbing the dim hillside
to take the moon into my hands,
that dark bread, which all my life,
has fed my longing,
has made my hunger shine.

*

Seth Jani lives in Seattle, WA and is the founder of Seven CirclePress (www.sevencirclepress.com). Their work has appeared in The American Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ghost City Review, Rust+Moth and Pretty Owl Poetry, among others. Their full-length collection, Night Fable, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2018. Visit them at http://www.sethjani.com.