 Arlington Literary Journal an ejournal also known as ArLiJo, is located in Arlington, Virginia and is sponsored by Gival Press. The intent of ArLiJo is to feature a variety of authors/poets/artists from around the globe whose work provokes readers to contemplate issues, etc. The work chosen promotes understanding and sensitivity across borders, even if initially the work may cause one to take a double-take. Staff: Editor-in-Chief, Robert L. Giron Associate Editor, Sarah Fannon The Reading Period for ArLiJo will open from January 15 to March 15, 2018. Any work published shall remain the property of the author/poet/artist and for any previously published work to appear the author/poet/artist must still retain the copyright of the work. Please note that ArLiJo is an ejournal. Payment for publication is a book from a selection of books published by Gival Press. Books Available to ArLiJo Contributors NONFICTION: Sexy Liberal! Of Me I Sing by Stephanie Miller FICTION: Dream of Another America by Tyler McMahon Ghost Horse by Thomas H. McNeely Mayhem: Three Lives of a Woman by Elizabeth Harris Show Up, Look Good by Mark Wisniewski That Demon Life by Lowell Mick White Twelve Rivers of the Body by Elizabeth Oness The Spanish Teacher by Barbara de la Cuesta The Cannibal of Guadalajara by David Winner The Best of Gival Press Short Stories ed. by Robert L. Giron The Second Act by Tim Brown Barrow’s Point by Robert Schirmer POETRY: Poetic Voices Without Borders ed by Robert L. Giron On the Altar of Greece by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee Poetic Voices Without Borders 2 ed by Robert L. Giron Songs for the Spirit by Robert L. Giron On the Tongue by Jeff Mann Bones Washed With Wine by Jeff Mann The Great Canopy by Paula Goldman Sweet to Burn by Beverly Burch Protection by Gregg Shapiro Honey by Richard Carr 12 Sonnets for the Zodiac by John Gosslee Adamah: Poème by Celine Zins |
Emilio Iasiello Featured in ArLiJo Issue No. 108. Kissing the Blind In the park, next to the monuments whose stark glory diminishes in the sun, an old woman sits alone on a bench. Her hands hold a sign — help me, I’m blind — its letters twisted in uneven shapes, smudged like squashed insects. Beneath her naked feet rests a dented metal cup, silver and copper loose in its belly. I approach her as I had approached a sedated lion when I was six, biting my lip, inching forward slightly, afraid. I looked through the dark bars where the lion sat sprawled out his face expressionless, vacant. I remember the depths of his eyes as he watched everything without blinking, as if his head was stuck to a plaque on a wall. And yet there was never a question of strength, the powerful jaws that hung so slack, the vicious paws, the mane that caught the wind with its terrible authority. I ran away crying. And yet because what I now know I learned then, I must go and give her a kiss the way my brother made me eventually pet the lion, my young fingers stretched out, trembling, touching the thick mustard fur, tickling behind the ears. And so I lean over the woman’s frail frame and plant my lips over the lid of each empty eye, looking deeply into this face I fear crying the hysterical shrieks a child cries when he knows he’s been bad; giving up his tears until all if forgiven. Copyright © 2018 by Emilio Iasiello. The Homeless Eats The food isn’t there. The fingernails clotted with grease and dirt burrow beneath the trash folds like maggots through a decayed body. First some orange rinds, some newspaper, the acrid stench of catfish; then some scraps from last night’s dinner — fat, grizzle, maybe an empty tuna can. The backwash in a bottle if he’s lucky a mouth-full of eighty proof anything to hide the taste; maybe something sweet, something strong. Something worth swallowing that won’t be thrown up in an hour. And you have seen this man, stormed past his bags in the street, kicked his teeth in. You have slapped away his cup with your eyes, pushed him to the back of your mind, a vague memory; laughed at his filth, cringed under the stench of his urine, turned your ears from his ragged voice. Murderous son of Adam, you rise against your kin with indifference; you murder your brother every day. Copyright © 2018 by Emilio Iasiello. About the Author Emilio Iasiello is the author of the 2018 poetry chapbook Postcards from L.A. He has published poetry in several university and literary journals and written the screenplays for several independent feature films and short films. An avid playwright, his stage plays have been produced in the United States and United Kingdom. He has published a short story collection entitled Why People Do What They Do and a nonfiction book, Chasing the Green. Domenic Scopa Featured in ArLiJo Issue No. 108. Found Two snowflakes can be the same, my student argued in her English Composition essay. It snows so much where I am from I had to stop searching. As when a father, after decades, gives up on a kidnapped daughter, because suddenly he understands—He needs her to be dead. There’s always something lost in the laugher of a single blackbird, its talons tight around a branch. Everything is missing. House keys, money, smiles, minutes, patience. I remember how my shrink would shake his head, stare straight at me, and sigh. Copyright © 2018 by Donemic Scopa. Elegy at the Nursing Home for the Demented —for my grandmother Let the condensation blind the window. Let the bulb burn out. Let the darkness believe whatever it wants. There is nothing, says the darkness, I can do about it: Where we go is where we came from. So let me spoon you, please. Kiss the back of your shoulder. Let come together our brief shadows. Let the starlings sing, like life, until they tire. Let me lie beside you— holding—forever. Copyright © 2018 by Donemic Scopa. Buenos Dias Snowflakes punctuate the darkness, punctuate the run-on sentence of an early morning, when sunrise insinuates itself on the horizon like a Polaroid developing. On Main Street, a driver slams the brakes, skidding, tattooing treads in snow, and workers, one with salt and sand, the wind discovering their upturned faces, continue shoveling the storefronts, the moment snuffed like a match. There’s so much noise—The neighbor’s beagle has already started barking. And we still wake up to each other, sleepy, thankful, perhaps a little button-pushy, because with age, we get more playful. Roll over, queen, and tell me if you think this is a heart murmur. Copyright © 2018 by Donemic Scopa. Salutation Snowflakes punctuate the darkness, punctuate the run-on sentence of an early morning, when sunrise insinuates itself on the horizon like a Polaroid developing. On Main Street, a driver slams the brakes, skidding, tattooing treads in snow, and workers, one with salt and sand, the wind discovering their upturned faces, continue shoveling the storefronts, the moment snuffed like a match. There’s so much noise—The neighbor’s beagle has already started barking. And we still wake up to each other, sleepy, thankful, perhaps a little button-pushy, because with age, we get more playful. Roll over, queen, and tell me if you think this is a heart murmur. Copyright © 2018 by Donemic Scopa. Campfire “Fire is the thunderbolt that stirs all things”—Heraclitus Out of habit you begin to sense the whisper of fall leaves scraping streets: Burn the past, and mysteries of loneliness will not concern you, even as the family congregates for warmth, and you might dream about the dryness of the daughter’s down coat and wool socks. Weigh the worth of bloody deeds impressed on newsprint resurrecting into ash, their taste and smell, the lives of lives you wipe out through the night. I can’t count all the universes that disintegrate when you lick the air—tongue-strikes quick as lightning— but eventually your perseverance will be tested by the wind, the wind that knows sometime you’ll come undone. Copyright © 2018 by Donemic Scopa. About the Author Domenic Scopa is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the 2014 recipient of the Robert K. Johnson Poetry Prize and Garvin Tate Merit Scholarship. He holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His poetry and translations have been featured in The Adirondack Review, Reed Magazine, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Reunion: The Dallas Review, Belleville Park Pages, and many others. He is currently a Lecturer at Plymouth State University and a Writing Center Specialist at New Hampshire Technical Institute. His first book, The Apathy of Clouds (FutureCycle Press), is forthcoming in 2018. He currently reads manuscripts for Hunger Mountain and is an Associate Editor at Ink Brush Publications. William Swarts Featured in ArLiJo Issue No. 108. Oh, When The Saint Comes . . . —Festa de San Giorgio, Ragusa, Sicily— Oh, blessed day. Oh, holiest day when we are freed of sin, shielded from dragons. We celebrate this day with confetti and fireworks and brass bands and neon rainbows arced over cobbled streets. And San Giorgio, our belovèd, patron saint, gold armored, wielding a silver sword, rides a prancing snow-white charger, patrols the cobbled highways and by-ways of high-town and low-town, protects high-born and low-born, guards homes and hearths, slays the scaly dragon, and sanctifies our city. This we believe. No, it is what we want to believe: that evil is banished. So today we feast, go to confession, pray— or rather, pretend to pray because we know, if truth be told, our greater than life-size saint is a painted statue carved from wood astride a wooden steed that cannot trot or gallop unless it rides on shoulders of humble men. We know tomorrow, when confetti is swept up, the band silent, neon rainbows dark, and Giorgio is at home in his cathedral chapel, evil will stir again, man will sin, and the forked- tongued dragon lurks just around the corner. Copyright © 2018 by William Swarts. Jongleur de Dieu —St. Francis’ nickname Johnny Juggler fingetips eggs in air: 1, 2, 3, 4 as fast as comets in his palm. He orbits lemons, oranges, grapefruits and globes, the son, moon and stars. Grease-painted and pied in a tiger-striped coat of many spangled colors and leopard-spotted leggings, he choirmasters children whose unison peep drowns out the congregational rumble of a comfortable Lord’s Prayer. Copyright © 2018 by William Swarts. About the Author William Swarts is the author of Harmonies Unheard, Strickland Plains and Other Poems and Treehouse of the Mind. He won First Prize in the Litchfield Review’s annual Poetry Contest. His poetry has been published in many recognized literary reviews and journals. He received his B.A. in English Literature from Brown University, his J.D. from University of Pennsylvania and practiced law in New York City and Paris, France. He studied with Bolligen Prize-winner David Ignatow at the 92nd Street YM-YWHA Poetry Center in New York City. He lives in western North Carolina. |
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