Posts Tagged: Lost or Found

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IR Online Poetry: “Wuthering” by Indigo Baloch

     I will haunt this home until it collapses upon me. I will stain the walls with mold and black water; make her uninhabitable for new use.

     She is mine. Her yellow frame, and white trim are all the good I can remember of my painted youth—each window a portal to my glittering realm.

     The mirrored panels of the basement were my studio; echoing white houses and tiptoed, bumblebee ballets. I drew from my reflection and got my own mouth wrong.

But give me time to amend. Do not rush me.

     The catacombs were perfumed with sweet dry clay, a phantom of bitter acrylics permeating each sunroom. This was my laboratory—my invention: hope.
     The unruly garden and its empty fountain was an Eden of lavender and crab apples, hidden caves and stone lions. I explored these lands ‘til the moors grew grey, but will not lend you the maps. You must find your own.

     I will keep her disarrayed and enchanting.
     I will be so profound in my rage that it will force you to silence.
     I will shudder and hiss:

This is my house. This is my house.

     until you find yourself trembling in your bones.

You have borne a whispering poltergeist, and I hope my restless aching brings you an

unknown sorrow.

     But only leave her a specter—a wound that repeats itself—a skeleton overgrown with wisteria and ivy—only let her be to rot. Let her ruins sink into the earth like her ancestors, her creators, mothers and churches, orchestras and summers, beetles and marshes.

     This temple of my childhood, this tower of my innocence must deteriorate with my time.  So do not groom her. Do not tame her. Leave her foolhardy and wild.

Love,

The Heath.

*

Indigo Baloch is a senior at Chatham University earning her Bachelors Degree in Creative Writing and Journalism with minors in Graphic Design, Woindigo-balochmen’s Leadership, and Asian Studies. She is the Editorial Assistant of Maniac Magazine, the Campus Correspondent for Chatham’s chapter of Her Campus, the Editor in Chief of The Minor Bird Literary Magazine, and a Poetry Booking Agent for FoundSound Music. Her poetry has been featured in multiple issues of The Minor Bird, and she has performed at the International Sigma Tau Delta Convention in 2016; she has also participated in many readings around the Pittsburg, PA area. 

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IR Online Poetry: “Hay Fire” and “Public Gardens” by Nora Sullivan

Hay Fire 

It was like watching the moon wane,
her child crawling toward me,
like watching a field go up at night
in hay fire, small tufts
embering and fast-moving
toward the forest, humid smoke
dimming the clogged sky.
This lack of oxygen, a gasp, unbreathing.
If the child had stopped, I would not have leaned
down and picked her body up. If the girl’s small frame
was less red, less milk fed, less whole
I would not have rested her against
my shoulder, curved against my breast
in an imitation of nourishment.
My task was to hold her head, to support
the neck, to not upset—the instinct
was to coo. I know nothing of how
to pacify fearsome creatures. One hand out,
one at the base of her gossamer spine. Cobwebs,
paddocks, bales. The tongue peeked out
from the mouth. Smoke, pointed warmth,
the body’s heat matched mine even in its smallness.
Holding another woman’s child was like spanning an underworld,
a foreign atmosphere, no breath, yet some sweet
moment of discovery, and vapor, and heat,
and a suffocating end like water.

Read more…

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IR Online Fiction: “A Hundred Magnificent Shades of Red” by Navid Saedi

Why would he sit there?

Look at him, sitting on a rock.

Sitting on a rock beside the lake, he stares into the center of the lake where the moon is a perfect sphere glowing like a dentist’s lamp.

It glows for his eyes.

He is alone.

The others are sleeping.

Most of them are sleeping, one of them is crying.

The crying man deprives his friend of sleep, as his friend listens from a neighboring tent to sounds that he first mistakes for a rodent in distress.

But please don’t pay attention to the crying man.

He is unimportant, for now.

Instead, look at the man sitting on a rock by the lake.

Read more…

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IR Online Poetry: “stain” by Bria Goeller

an apology, black
rips through napkins
messily
like footsteps of a serrated knife

small bones scramble
on shaking hands and knees
slipping on panic
climbing under sheets strung from the horns of chairs
pinched between the door and the wall
squeezed until they bled down, dribbling darkness
into
the last
remaining
haven
the light, white
screeching its stiletto surrender
crying out a terrifying release
grabbed by the void of screaming sludge
compressed
and squeezed
like orange juice

somewhere far away
milk is poured into a beer glass
without
an apology

*

Bria is just a dedicated student of life attempting to understand this profound experiment that is being human – whether through paper, a shiny black lens, the strings of an instrument, or the tiny blinking cursor on a computer screen. Her hope is that her art (in whatever form it chooses to manifest itself) inventively and somewhat adequately expresses the intensity of this world. She is inspired by the beauty of everyday life and strives to contribute a new perspective to the immense and timeless exploration of life. She is currently pursuing an English/Creative Writing and Interdisciplinary Studies double major at Emory University in Atlanta.

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IR Online Poetry: “Magnitude 7.1” by Brian Czyzyk

The fissures that web the forest
wrinkle the land, age it like time ages us. We try

to find the path to the clearing, to spot
the gum-covered oak or dollops of phlox.

We search for our old treehouse, for smashed
beer cans. Search for arrows sunk in fallen trees.

We want something we recognize, want the land
we tried to map, that we tripped over,

that we sang to. We know
our wants are stupid.

The earth won’t let us own it.
We never own anything, really.

*

Brian Czyzyk is a senior English Writing major at Northern screen-shot-2016-12-05-at-10-33-11-pmMichigan University, originally from Northern Lower Michigan. He serves as an editor for NMU’s undergraduate literary journal Ore Ink Review, and is a tutor at NMU’s Writing Center. His work has appeared in Portage Magazine, Dunes Review, Sink Hollow, and The Sandy River Review. He wishes you the best.