 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 ArLiJo has reverted to a publication by invitation only. 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. |
Stanley Niamatali Featured on ArLiJo Engagement I bring you a papaya; you call me your sailor. The knife lays bare symmetry of halves, once one. Succulent sienna flesh, germinated from a hard seed of this earth, melts with a delicacy unlike this earth. Pulpy seeds release savory fire. The sky is full of birds. You put your hands over your eyes. Jude, your hound, howls at a spiraling leaf. The blue shell in the fallen nest oozes liquid time. I reach for your hand. Copyright © 2011 by Stanley Niamatali. Sixteen When peaches, heavy with juice, break from their stems, she leaves the hollow in the blue Camaro. Beside the tilting trailer, her mother stands under the green hickory with the rotty-mix growing smaller in the side-view mirror. Refugee in a strange land, her tomato plant, arrested in its pot, spreads branches for sunlight that does not shine its way. On a morning beset with thunder, she kneels on the linoleum and goes into labor for the man biting into another peach. Sixteen was previously published in Anthology of Appalachian Writers, 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Stanley Niamatali. The Cursed Tree From the germ and wet blackness of this dirt, you sprout, golden. Frail, you uncoil with the day. Feel the weight of atoms multiply. Burrow. Rise. Flower. Stylish crepe petticoat, stigma to bees dusting and brushing receptacle. Petals fold. Dry. Fall. Seed fleshed. Tree, tell me the sin of my branch. The Cursed Tree was previously published in Full Circle Nineteen by Guild Press in 1998. Copyright © by Stanley Niamatali. Biography: Stanley Niamatali, a Guyanan poet, is a professor of English at Montgomery College, in Rockville, Maryland. His poetry has been published by Oberon, Full Circle and Anthology of Appalachian Writers and The Caribbean Writer. He lives with his wife and son in Martinsburg, WV. |
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