April Authors

We have five beautiful April Full Moon selections: Paseo Impromptu from Amos Clifford; an untitled piece from Michelle Brandt; from Patrick Mizelle The Immigrants and a second, untitled work; and Insomnio Lunar from Lilyan de la Vega.

April Selection #1

Young, nose in a book,
I tuned out the raucous cicadas,
Turned my back on the moon
And the fragrant, night-blossoming jasmine.

Old, eyes and ears failing,
I discover, surprised,
Regret stands in for memory,
While memory long looks in vain
For a warm peach, picked ripe from the tree.

--Patrick Mizelle

April Selection #2

The Immigrants

The pines try looking noble
Marooned on a median.
Bamboo languishes
In a mall food court planter.
Plum blooms in the vacant lot
Soon to be condos.

Long is the distance
From Chang-An
To Gold Mountain;
Clouds block the view
Of Mount Tai.

--Patrick Mizelle

April Selection #3

Paseo Impromptu

On the first revolution
you caught my eye.
On the third revolution
I caught yours.
And in the long walk
around the square,
men clockwise, women
counter, I married you,
passionately penetrated your body,
had children with you,
and grew old, sweetly,
sweetly. On the
fifth and final revolution
I'd had enough.
And I wondered if--
no, I was certain--
that you too
had noticed how
your sister's beauty
sears the night.

--Amos Clifford

April Selection #4

Insomnio Lunar

Qué resonancias provocas
con esa belleza tan inalcanzable.
Qué sintonía de diosas
emerge en silencio de tu omnipresencia.
Qué suena hueco en mi pecho
cuando en todo el firmameno no te encuentro,
cuando sé que estás pero no puedo mirarte,
cuando el sol que te ilumina
no llega hasta mis ojos,
cuando tu luz no me toca la piel
cuando tu color de estepa se me escapa
cuando tu guiño no existe
cuando tu sonrisa evade
cuando te vas, como siempre,
para volver más tarde
y sonreirme.

--Lilyan de la Vega


Lunar Insomnia

What resonances you provoke
with this so unreachable beauty.
What a harmony of goddesses
emerges from your omnipresent silence.
What vain dreams in my breast
when in all the firmament I cannot find you,
when I know you are, but I can't see you,
when the sun that illumines you
does not reach to my eyes,
when your light does not touch my skin,
when your vast and treeless color escapes me
when your wink doesn't exist
when your smile evades
when you go, like always,
to return later,
smiling as you go.

- - Lilyan de la Vega, translated by Deanna Hopper

April Selection #5

We heard your breast on the glass
The smallest light down
circling
where you’d been in rust
and cream
We looked for you
in the grass, hoping
you’d be dead
but we found you
with that inexpressible
liquid, the mouth moving
rapidly
as a truck rolled by.
I waited, watching
a bird land on
the same lawn and not
notice
how painful it is.
Huddled and breathing low
to the ground
your eyes deform before me.
There are sirens sounding in flight
but I cannot bury you yet,
there are too many birds
drinking that blue juice
in the trees.
Singing
like you must have been
the day the privet
ripened.

--Michelle Brandt