California State University (CSU): Open Journal Systems

Deng, Alex

66
Poem for Su Shi
Alex Deng
I see him in front of the red pagoda, skinny and 
pale,
Like one of the stars pressed against the night sky.
Drunk, he laughs and runs among the peonies.
Rosy faced and cut with sweat,
He sings an out of tune song.
So out of tune I cannot even tell what it is!
I see him fall into the field, as I approach him
I step into a
puddle
I am in Toronto
I see
towering
glass giants
grass growing
out a crack
in concrete
Su Shi, I just saw you, where did you go?
car horns pass me
billboards blind me
Su Shi, did you make it safely down the Yangtze?


English

Poem for Su Shi

Shelafoe, Zoe

67
Circa 2000-2020
Z. Shelafoe
Anger is scary.
It’s loud and mean. It’s the slamming of cupboards 
and the squealing of car tires. 
Anger is feeling spit on your face and the sting on 
your skin.
Anger is fear.
The crushing weight and lack of space. It’s bite 
marks in the fight to get free. It’s the shortness of 
breath and wide eyes. Standing toe to toe, nose 
touching nose, creating a blockade. It’s the warmth 
that spreads from chest to fingertips. Hours later it’s 
numb static flowing through your veins.
Anger is wet.
It’s the tears streaming down the face of someone 
who finally gets to speak. The salty taste on your 
tongue. It’s the rough, scratchy throat of silent 
screams. Puffy eyes and stuffy nose. 
Anger is appalling, horrifying, alarming.
The blinding rage, the vibration of every cell. 
Smothering it till your head hurts. Dousing the fire, 
too scared to let it catch. What if the all consuming 
wild-fire can’t be tamed?


Circa 2000-2020

Fairchild, Amber

68
Wasted
Amber Fairchild
If I could take one thing back. Undo anything. 
Reverse time. 
I would give anything, anything at all, to have never 
wasted a single moment.
A single breath. A single heartache. On you. It was 
wasted. 
Every try. Every word. Every laugh. Every song. 
Every letter. Every text. Every phone call.
Every photograph. Every place. Every first time. 
Every sleepless night. Every tear. Every memory. All 
was wasted.
Now. I’m sorry. It was me. I did not try. I did not 
agree. I did not talk. I did not laugh.
I did not sing. I did not write. I did not text. I did 
not call. I did not take photos. I did not go.
I did not do. I did not sleep. I did not cry. I do not 
remember. I am wasted.


Wasted

Love Morris, Cambri

94
Lemonade
Cambri Love Morris
I never 
       understood
how a life 
       full of lemons
could ever
       be something
that was bad—
feasts full of 
       fresh lemon
in ripeness
       of age—
scorning
       the savor
of sweet
finding even 
       the toughest 
enamel
       wears thin
no matter 
       how much sugar 
you add.


Lemonade

Mead, Stephen

110
Lonely, Lonely
Stephen Mead
Maybe angels know of the soul,
that frozen throat-cry & how wide it cracks in eyes,
in lines for the bus, at the store, their timeless geography
pushing history through to the most biographical detail
alive in any no one.
Was that your story, the stain amid the faith?
The rocks of these travails for each Sisyphus in every 
quarry
may eventually provide flight into new flesh, lands, 
oceans,
& then we’ll be at it again: dice flung from rattling cups
that keep us tied in the delight & the agony.


Lonely, Lonely

Khan, Zoha

114
To Do
Zoha Khan
My to do lists are etched on the carcasses of old 
notebooks
Always in the neatest script, pretentious swirls and 
half formed cursive
Even the dead must be well dressed
For the birth of expression is where convention 
meets its end
So these to do lists crawl onto the page and all the 
while I am filled with envy
Envy for the birds who make playgrounds of the 
skies
While I stay like a stubborn shrub rooted to my 
checklist 
Anarchy is rotten fruit, its inveterate punge pales 
everything a sordid green
We must rid ourselves of this derision, so we thirst 
after paper to hide the ruins
Rip trees from their roots like plucking eyes from 
their sockets 
That poets may vandalise with sweet nothings and 
insomniac lullabies 
It could be insanity if it weren’t the truth, but are 
you ready to accept it?
That you are a mannequin draped in corporate 
labels, waiting for the highest bidder
115
I wonder if the throbbing behind your temples quells 
the throbbing of your soul
Drown your yearning in Monday morning coffee, 
served hot and drank lukewarm
Our lives don’t start on Friday evening, or on those 
cherished two weeks off
Life was then as it is now, a dazzling caprice of 
wicked speed and burning sloth
For fifty years to come or until next week, 2:32 PM, 
cause unknown
So pencil in an evening of defiance after the daily 
inbox sweep
Let’s give them something worth writing on a 
tombstone


To Do

Laughlin, Dom

123
Knock On Wood
Dom Laughlin
Knock on wood,
Because the trees can see you.
They have eyes where their heads should be,
And everyone knows one should never cross a tree. 
Uprooted and barren in Mother’s hopes and dreams 
Of an eternal sunshine caught in her
Daughter’s cloying breeze.
She waters the seeds given to her by Father.
She waits. She sees.
And so they, too,
Water. They wait. And they see. The trees. They 
will see.
Knock on wood,
Because you have forgotten. 
Forgotten how to ask, how to receive.
You’ve forgotten how to forgive. How to believe. 
Just like your Father.
You pass by the trees. They have forgotten. 
And so you have forgotten.
And the path grows farther and farther.
And the journey, unending. That you have forgotten 
the point of it all.
You have forgotten your purpose. And so
You repeat yourself. Your repetitive curse written in 
strange, but familiar musings. 
124
You play games in the fields, and trap yourself in 
fantasies.
You block roads and burn bridges, float down 
roaring rapids, and swim in the puddles you’ve 
made. You gather the mud and sticks and make 
them into bricks and call it
Home.
Knock on wood,
Because children will listen.
You tell them stories, and sing them to sleep. 
so that they may dream and have
hope.
We were all born from the Garden.
We haven’t returned ever since Father closed the 
gates. 
Mother sneaks in some seeds and fruits.
And the children see her. 
Then you.
They see you scribble sounds on paper.
You play the ivory keys with gentle precision. 
They see you. And they listen.
They listen to you sing songs that were once stories, 
stories that were once memories.
Memories from the Garden.
From way long ago.
You breathe life into their lungs with your songs.
You hope they can hear
The wooden piano Father gave you. He chopped 
them for you.
125
You knock on the sides for good luck after each 
song.
The children, they will listen. 
They will see.
Knock on wood,
Because Chances are the adversary.
Because every moment is important.
And every chance you get is an opportunity for the 
better, 
And for worse.
You are a magnet for consequence.
You are ruled by Saturn, and he sees you. Listens. 
And he makes your glass half empty. He sees you 
smile unhappy, lines creasing your face as though 
you’re containing something bigger within.
You follow the rules of the games you never wanted 
to play.
And accept whatever prizes he brings 
with a smile.
The smile he knows.
He listens to you sing. And you crack and twist your 
voice.
Like cracks on the ground, you tiptoe across the city. 
Unsure of where to go. But, 
You know what to do. But,
Only if he permits it.
So you sightsee. You listen to the birds in the trees. 
Does a bird crack their voice? You wonder.
You see them knock their beaks on the wood.
126
Knock on wood,
Because it’ll sound good on paper. 
You rhyme, but not all at once.
.selur eht kaerb uoY
But not all at once.
(You invoke a magic beyond.)
You tell stories with your eyes closed, fingers 
crossed,
And recite poetry out of the inking pool you’ve 
drooled out within the caverns.
You’ve learned how deadly a pen can be on the day 
you’ve stood at the wooden podium. 
Fist tight. Knuckles white. Knocking on the wood 
as you summon the monster you knew once before, 
before you’ve forgotten. The monster that you once 
could see. And you wrote about her. And now 
you’re knocking on the wood, because you don’t 
want to take the chance. Of her listening in.
So you clutch onto your paper and pen and read.
But you’ve forgotten that your paper was once 
watching you.
Knock on wood,
Because your mother can hear you.
She hears your cursings, and redirects the river’s 
path back to you.
You wish you were better at giving blessings.
Better at seeing.
Better at listening.
Better at rhyming.
But she reads your stories anyways.
127
She listens, and so you listen.
And as you watch her watering the plants in your 
small balcony under California sunshine,
You watch with such intensity as though there’s 
nothing else to see.
Rooted in this Home you’ve both made, out of 
sticks and mud, she redirects the river from the sky 
and through the metal railing, a waterfall cascading 
onto the unknown.
You remember that it’s painful to remember. But to 
forget is to forget to live. And to
forget is to die.
And so you write. Fitting everything you see into a 
story.
And she reads it to her seedlings.
So that they may not forget. And she hopes they 
listen. And she hopes they see her.
She hopes.
So she knocks on wood.


Knock On Wood

Meyer, Robert

140 
Picasso stares from the wall 
he looks ai our bodies 
rearrangedandeniangled 
on the bed. 
He is laking my eyes 
and stretching them 
around the sides of my head. 
'You now have 3 breasts, 
2 noses and 
only l eye thai 1 can see. 
IDelayentangled 
ina heap 
breaihingiogetherrhythmically 
we touch in many places 
some places we can't 
get to at all. 
Picasso rums his gaze away 
and smiles. 
Picasso 
Robert Meyer 


Picasso

Krusoe, Nancy

Family Construction 
Nancy Krusoe 
A knowledgeable 
woman can read her 
future in a simple 
gesture .... 
'Balzac 
163 
1 have found mg brother's sister who is not the road to happiness which we are not to 
give up on, he sags. lJou are mg sister, he sags. 1 am his sister. Hansel and qreiel had no other 
sister and aren't we enough? As if like them he imagines we had dropped and kepi dropping 
signs along the road to happiness so that we could return and repeat the journeg in and back 
out of the forest, ever happier, luckier children. Jeremg believes in pure happiness and pro b .. 
ablg truth as well as all the things 1 cannot believe get 1 have found gou, Elizabeth, our sister 
who he does not believe is real. 
More and more familg signs point to more like us on a page in a book. 1 stop and 
speculate. IDhich book? IDhat name to begin with? 
Elizabeth has been searching for the one and onlg man who can sag: This daughter is 
mg daughter and 1 am back. 'Back from the forest? 'Back from the dead? Someone in the 'Bible 
is alwags saging: 'Be not afraid, it is l. 
Also in the 'Bible someone sags: 1 can do no evil neither also is it in me to do good. 
That is the wag 1 am Ocarina ("liHle goose"). 1 am not evil neither am 1 good; goodwill is not 
enough. Is it enough for conversation with the dead? 1 converse with all the names of the dead 
that have not been deleted from The 'Book of Names: John and Jeremiah. There is no Judith 
left in the book. 1f there were a Judith, she would be a knowledgeable woman and could read 
the missing names. 'But she herself is missing from The 'Book. 
A knowledgeable woman can read her future (sometimes her bodg) in a simple ges" 
lure of a certain kind. This gesture is what 1 am looking for. The gesture of a name that is miss" 
ing and that names a thing that until then will be unknown. 
During mg first aHempt to find a name named over other names, to find The 'Book that 
names it, a knowing woman said, "1 believe few women have ang idea toward what end theg 
are striving.'' 
Is this a knowledgeable woman 1 was talking to? 
Mg palms lag flat, mg bodg alongside lag invisiblg covered in the ritual almond oil 
IVhich 1 had purchased for this visionarg occasion with her as 1 thought: There is more than 
one knowledgeable woman in the world. 
Elizabeth sags, "The last shall be the first.lJou are mg sister, the first but not the last of 
sisters to come." 
Tbe Northridge Review 
164 Nanc;y Krusoe 
Seeking farther into Elizabeth's past, I find this warning posted: 
Her gates are hidden in the ground; 
I have destrotjed and broken her bars. 
Succulents flourish where once there was the law. 
Elizabeth salJS these lines were in a letler she received from her husband. She does 
not know what he meant. 
JeremlJ doubts the advisabilittj of anlJ more famillJ faces in his life now that he has 
more than enough. And the dead ones can stalj dead. 'You can print that, he saljs. 
DiarlJ entrlj # l: 
Never enough clean linen ...... need more whites all the time. Accumulating famillJ like geese. 
Jeremlj is sick of companlJ. Asks me to keep them quiet when he is working.I am stiffhearted 
about it. Evertjwhere I go Elizabeth is following me. She stares at me as if she's lrljing to figure 
something out. Her husband arrives tomorrow. Almond butler and pecan pies are readlj. I am 
anxious to see what the man who has destroljed and broken her bars looks like. Jeremlj thinks 
this is a joke. Is this man a preacher, I mean is he some kind of evangelist? he asked Elizabeth 
todalJ and she just sipped her iced tea and smiled. UnseHling. IDhat's anlj one of us looking 
for? 
Evefljone likes the partlj. Elizabeth's husband John has come from Egtjpt where he 
saljs thelJ were eating fish freellJ on the streets. Free fish? Elizabeth is confused and I wonder 
whlJ her husband has been in Egtjpt without her. 
"'You'd love the cucumbers there," he salJS because I've served mlJ delicious cucumber 
salad. "The leeks and onions are heavenllJ, too." 
I think we are walking on our faces in the floor. 
"And thelJ have wonderful almonds there. Thetj're ground into paste in a vessel while 
lJOU wait. Imagine the dessertsl" 
Elizabeth stares at me. Something is breaking, and we're walking on it like we know 
these people we are talking to like people who have known each other. 
IDho is he? JeremlJ asks. I am reaching out to Elizabeth, but she is inches beljond mlj 
touch out the window through an opening too small for mlJ hand; she is out of reach. There is 
no road to happiness, and maljbe the gates are hidden in the ground forever. Don't vanish, 
Elizabeth. 
Just when I'm least expecting the world at mlJ feet, there appears a knowledgeable 
woman at mlJ partlj calling me over, picking me out of the crowd to tell me a secret. She salJS, 
"For some tjears I had known there was a deep flaw inside me growing stronger everlJ dalJ 
because I did nothing to stop it. The discoveflj came upon me like a speaking revelation it 
said: lJOU ARE A MAN TRAPPED IN A IDOMAN'S 'BODij:' 
I tell her she is like a 'Bible stoflj that's been writlen to keep all of us forever in line 
over other lines like mlj name is under and covered blJ all the other names. 
"IDho are lJOU speaking to?'' she asks. 
The Northridae Re7Jiew 
Krusoe 165 
IDho are gou I am speaking to? 
The knowledgeable woman with her Bible stories is facing me. I am facing the floor. 
perg much without a familg storg I am lging on the floor. I am searching. I have alwags 
: searched. 
The wall was warm on her face. Gretel pressed against 
the windowpane and liked the taste so she tore out a big 
chunk. 
Elizabeth sags what we are looking for mag not be here. This is not the first time. It is 
not the last time. If the law is no more, whg are we looking for the Book of Names ...... one thing 
exchanged for another? Plainlg a simple gesture isn't enough for all the knowledge sealed in 
the pages of a book. 
IDhile lging on the floor, I realize that I have alwags confused those names in the 
beginning of the Bible with what was not like that. It sags: These daughters are mg daughters, 
and these children are mg children, and these caHle are mg caHle and everything gou see is 
mine. IDhose father is speaking and whg is he saging these things? 
John is saging how delicate shell fish are caught and cooked on the Nile or in the 
Dead Sea. 
I am not part of the Dead Red Sea.I move out of the wag of the movement of large 
bodies of water. Lging on the floor, I am not a statue that stands bg the sea. Is the law that is no 
more the one that is no more than the one Elizabeth is looking about for the father who is no 
more than a name 7 
Some people in the room are folding a stack of leaflets piled high against a wall. 
IDhat' s printed on them is: "The goung and the old lie alike on the ground in the streets." 
There's more in the leaflet, but I stop reading it because there are too mang wags to 
read it at once. 
This is a simple thing I am seeking: a name named over other names. A gesture of 
naming and of taking awag a name. 
John slips out of the kitchen and I follow him leaving Elizabeth and Jeremg alone. 
"ijou are an international male;· I sag. "Tell me how to find The Book of Names." 
"lJou know what gou want and gou know where to find it," he sags and I receive his 
UJords like a misdirected kiss. "The law is no more and what is no more will do gou no harm:· 
These caHle are mg caHle. Evergthing gou see is mine. 
biarg entrg #2 
Mussels are verg familiar animals, along with starfish. A plain casting rod is insufficient 
for catching large fish. For that gou need know .. how; gou need to know how things are done. 
Tbe Nortbridge Review 
166 Krusoe 
In a dream I am surrounded btJ mussels and babtJ starfish and thetJ are all crl]ing at once. UJhat 
can I do? OPEN THE GATE, thetJ are screaming and I begin to scream. There is no gate 
but there is surplus color euertjwhere, and I am running like a green and red machine, so 
bright lJOU can see no other colors beneath m1J running colors. 
All things are relative to the knowledgeable woman. Even the edge is a relative phe .. 
nomenon once lJOU have fallen.lJou can get awalJ from thinking like this but not for long. 
lJou know what lJOU know from the woman who knows what she wants manlJ times over 
and over like a machine ..... think of her now. There is no harm in knowing the machine. 
Elizabeth sees a man in the street. It is not JeremlJ she sees. It is not John she sees. It is 
a man but not anlJ man she knows. 
In the arrnl] and naulJ surplus store Elizabeth butJS a Swiss army knife for her protec .. 
tion against people who ask her to vote for them ..... alwalJS a danger sign. 
John has left her a note in place of himself. 
It saljs: For some 1Jears I have known there was another man inside me and he just 
couldn't statJ quiet anlJ longer. Euertjwhere I look he is looking back at me and giving me 
visions like lJOU have but never in mlJ line of vision. It isn't against the law to have visions or to 
break the gate that's hidden in the ground.". 
I hold Elizabeth like a child in mlJ arms as she looks at me trying to figure something 
out. A man will sometimes be gone, Elizabeth. IDe will search for lJOur father somewhere in 
this citlj where liHle good is done but no harm comes from looking. Somewhere in this citlj 
there are men who are fathers and thetJ are fathers whether or not we have found them like us 
in a page of a book, registered in The Book of Names in The Book of the Citlj in The Book 
of the UJorld. 
UJhen Jerem1J writes to tell me he has arrived in EgtJpt, he has no need to sal] how it is 
in EgtJpt. His lament is mlJ lament. His past is mlJ past as Elizabeth is the present. I will see him 
again. He writes that almond paste is good for the skin, but it will not keep lJOU from aging 
each and euerlJ moment. 
The snorting of strong horses means Dan has come to the citlj. The whole land trem .. 
bles at the sound of the neighing of his horses overhead as thetJ drop from the sktJ to our 
streets. ThetJ might devour the citlj before the children find their fathers and who will ever 
know who belongs to whom? 
I rush, I am searching, running on green and red tracks where leaflets announce help 
for the poor, no names needed. I am not evil nor am I good. This daughter is mlJ daughter. 
IDho is speaking these words? Almond paste is good for the skin. Nothing can stop the moue .. 
ThP. Nnrthrirf11P. 'RPniPw 
Nanc'tJ Krusoe 167 
rnent of large bodies of water through the land. Hurrg, Dan, I need you. 
In an effort to accumulate data I copg the entire history of births and deaths in the citg. 
All the wag back. I am sure I will die if the heat watJe doesn't abate. Dahlias droop and die 
within seconds seething in their pots. In fact, none of the names I find in The Book of Names 
seem right but what would a right name sound like? 
Elizabeth's father was an international male known to many women but that makes him 
no easier to find in the historg books. It's true he spoke to crowds, but who could be bothered 
writing it down? 
I see a horse landing in the street. 
lJou know what gou know ....... gou know what you want to know.lJou know 
what they want you to know. 
(UJhat will become of the known tJirallife forms which plague mankind 
already which, not litJing and yet not nonlitJing, are ambiguously alitJe?) 
I come across one name that sounds right. UJhg this name? I am afraid to 
sag its sound, and is it the sound of the pleasure of my finger leading me in the right, the direc .. 
tion to the center of truth? My name, my one and only true name? 
The horse's eyes are letJel with her eyes out the window.lJou could be 
anybody's horse, she sags, any any any body's horse. 
Broken bars and closed bars, locked and destroged. UJhere are all the 
bars in this citg of countless bars? 
Sealed books ....... not a person but a book followed by a person. 
There is a moment when Elizabeth is sure she has found her father sitting in a dark 
corner of our own neighborhood bar. Outside horses are neighing loudly and she asks Dan to 
shut them up so as not to arouse his suspicion. 
Elizabeth speculates on what kind of man he is. She is fatigued from delitJering surplus 
leaflets to etJery part of the citg, lost most of the time. UJords, leaflets, announcements ....... gou 
could die lost in this citg. 
In Egypt Jeremy has fallen in lotJe.It is no accident there is dark hair in abundance 
etJerywhere. 
Elizabeth is around me, she holds on and floats as if I am her bodg of water, the one 
\]}ho stays afloat and sails away with both of us. 
To the man sitting in the corner of the bar Elizabeth says, "I am looking for mg father. 
'Your face might be recognizably his face:· 
Tbe Nortbrid{Je Review 
168 Krusoe 
Gretel ran straight to Hansel and opened the door of the shed. 
Elizabeth's Swiss armlJ knife is safellJ in her pocket unopened. "Can lJOU tell me where 
1Jou'\Je been?" she asks the man sitting in the corner. "This could be the gesture of mlJ life." 
Dan's horses surround the building. The1J delJour whole cities like 'Biblical punishment 
stories where no one is left alilJe behind the walls. 
These are stories of famillJ life like m1J bodlJ engulfed in stories of God's relJenge, 
whose stories are not mlJ stories. 
Tbe Nortbridne Review 


Not a member yet

Poem for Su Shi

Circa 2000-2020

Wasted

Lemonade

Lonely, Lonely

To Do

Knock On Wood

Picasso

Family Construction

Something Ugly

2,246

2,976