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a shanghai poetry zine

edited & produced by giuseppe daddeo,

damon l. hansen, benjamin l. pearce, patrick schiefen, & stan vullings

cover art by aidan bra

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A Shanghai Poetry Zine

MEMORIES

Spring 2018

Michael DeMaranville What Would It Have Been Like to 4

Have Known You

Alina Levytska Path Ahead 5

Matt Bogorad Father Reads the News Alone 6

Clock Li 雨忆 (Memory of Rain) 7

Marina WitteMann An office worker trying to understand 9

the universe and be happy

C. Duhnne Cigarette Burns 10

Ina Isnaedi Beyond Karma 12

Patrick Schiefen Letting Go 13

Stephanie Hernandez Reflections of Regret 14

Heidi Berg Memories 15

Damon L. Hansen Nuanced Nostalgia 16

Jeremy Greene Interracial 18

Yoky Yu My Open Heart 20

Aleksandra Jovicic Сећање (Memory) 21

(translated by Gaga Rudic)

Fan Zhong Most Happy, Most Alone 23

Melissa Thuy Lin Mom and Leroy in NYC, 2018 24

Dion Thompson Adopted Father 25

Giuseppe Daddeo Memories 26

Da Han Effervescence 29

Robert Cooke Salty Wooden Air 30

Brady Riddle Some Place, Once Called “Home” 31

Myra Yuan Midnight Whisper - III 32

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What Would It Have Been Like to Have Known You

Michael DeMaranville

What would it have been like to have known you

When you were younger, whole? Before your mind

Pillaged and burned, worm eaten from within

Stories bubbled out, things no one had heard

Military pranks back in forty-four

What would it have been like to have known you

On the edge of insubordination?

Finding humor in the rules, while the world

Waged war and burned, worm eaten from within.

Aged memory of you, picking apples

Sharing a story I cannot recall

What would it have been like to have known you

Before faces and names grayed? The black walnut

Planted with the birth of your first, cut down

Chopped and burned, worm eaten from within

Everything that marked your presence, gone

Except family lore and faint photos

What would it have been like to have known you

Before you burned, worm eaten from within.

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Path Ahead

Alina Levytska

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Father Reads the News Alone

Matt Bogorad

It might have been spring, and I was

swinging, as children will do

from the set behind our first home.

My small chest was proudly swollen, full

of foreign concepts-

autonomy, independence.

As I flirted with loneliness for the first time,

you approached with shy feet and

the sun kissed your shoulders shamelessly.

What you wore on your tired body is

lost on me but

I recall the injured sound of your face when

I bellowed mid swing to

be left alone.

You had come out with that day’s paper, but really, I’d thought

to monitor my play.

In my dreams I hear the embarrassed frown of the lips

that kissed me onto earth and

I am sorry.

It is wrong, but I sometimes wish for one of the

links supporting the swing that held my body

to have snapped,

causing injury

against which you’d vow never to leave me alone again.

Then at twenty, the world went hospital white as

I watched the strong hands

of a faceless doctor fail

to pump your own swollen chest back to life.

And I would trade my teeth

to ask what the New York Times led with

those years ago.

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雨忆

Clock Li

若有人兮山之阿，被薜荔兮带女萝。——山鬼•九歌•楚辞*

巫山有雨落，

此语千年弱。

山水今如旧，

应是与君诺。

骨化山河间，

不敢忘君颜。

*：若有人兮山之阿，被薜荔兮带女萝。选自屈原（BC340-BC278）的《九歌》中的第九首《山

鬼》。

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Memory of Rain

Clock Li

If there's someone at the corner of a mountain, she should be beautiful with a

glorious dress.----《Mountain Ghost》*

The rain in the mountain comes,

with words of a thousand years.

The words go fading after years and years.

If you were the one who told me to stay,

the river of the mountain will stay,

like when I met you a thousand years ago.

Even if my bones become true mountains;

even if my blood become true rivers,

I will still remember you.

*: From “Mountain Ghost,” the 9th poem in Nine Odes by Qu Yuan (340 BC – 278 BC)

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An office worker trying to understand the universe and be happy

Marina WitteMann

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Cigarette Burns

C. Duhnne

I lit my first cigarette at 17

Back lit by a Swiss playground

Inhaled to quell the boredom.

The lighter flickered in the damp air,

Unsure fingers experimenting with

Vague impressions, channeling

James Dean, Norma Jean, Bukowski,

Nicotine tendrils that curled around

Caressing my faded grey hoodie

I tried my first drag, burning

Couldn’t inhale.

We traded stories and gossip,

Cherry blossoms falling around us,

Back lit by the Vancouver Mountains.

She blew out smoke rings while I

Pushed out puffs through my nose,

Like a dragon. At 19, nobody tells you

Philosophy and art and pain are intertwined.

We drank iced coffees and coveted

Those stolen moments, I inhaled

With faux grace and went home

Dizzy with heartache, head spinning.

I puked.

I tried to tamper the excitement,

Alcohol swirling through my veins,

Heady lights and too many bottles:

That Dom P, Grey Goose, Gentleman Jack.

Rush of crushed pills and

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His warm lips against my burning neck.

I sucked on the white stick in hand,

Consumed by the ashes that fell,

Pulled back into reality when they screamed,

“Happy 21st!” The Shanghai skyline

Glittering as they cheered.

I exhaled.

Sadness is like an addiction,

The numb comfort

The sadistic waves of longing,

I lit my morning cigarette at 24,

Cup of Joe in hand, watching

The clouds blowing past from my rooftop

And remembered being

17 and unsure, lighting

that first cigarette:

wave of nostalgia that burned

The boredom that never ceased.

Smiled. Inhaled.

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Beyond Karma

Ina Isnaedi

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Letting Go

Patrick Schiefen

Finger by finger

I'll wrap my two hands

around the thought of

Sunday morning white lily bed sheet forts

and faded old fashioned lips lingering below the navel,

and

your stained Old Spice scented t-shirt

pulled over my bed-head, worn on the train home,

crowded hungover loud mumbling delirium.

I will squeeze

the breath out of

late night underground pulsating lights,

secret salty sweat spiked head rushes

and your tongue dancing around mine.

I’ll douse in gasoline

beneath a lit Marlboro

Tex-Mex Netflix cheap wine binges,

laughing with food in our mouths,

talking and rewinding and talking again.

If the memory of you

was a photograph, a movie reel,

I’d direct the sunshine with a magnifying glass

and watch the glowing ashes float out of sight,

out of mind, out of reach.

I’d wipe the last tears from my eyes

and open my fists to

let go.

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Reflections of Regret

Stephanie Hernandez

I watched an old Chinese man stare at his reflection in the metro’s glass window.

Such a simple thing, I know, but for me it was powerful.

He combed his hair with four fingers.

Squinted his eyes every few seconds as he touched his face.

Softly pressed his hands against 100 wrinkles.

Deep streams of a life lived.

A tired face.

He stood in a puddle of memories.

I could hear his thoughts.

He yearned for better and younger years.

I could hear his questions.

“Where did the time go? Why am I still here?”

I heard him make a wish.

To “go back in time” and “truly live”.

I heard him count them: three.

The few memories that were treasured gifts.

The memories that bridged dreams and reality.

I turned and faced my own reflection.

I saw two or three wrinkles. I'm only 26...

One day I’ll dip my feet in my skin’s deep streams of life.

But I’ll smile. I love the ticking of time.

The only thing others will hear is my graceful gratitude to a Good God.

For the memory of this man on the metro that reminded me to live.

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Memories

Heidi Berg

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Nuanced Nostalgia

Damon L. Hansen

Recollection – is like a thousand-headed hydra with technicolor eyeballs alternatively

thrusting its obstructing heads into your unwelcoming psyche.

Recollection – is the continuous compounding of fragmentary segments of film reel

housed in a cavernous mind.

Recollection --- is an internal thrust of the soul --- wayward in serpentine movements

of agony and regret – backward in counteracting movement of rosy nostalgia.

One iridescent bulb in brain of psychosexual torment.

A second iridescent bulb of a glorious happenstance and hugs round the hearth.

Infinite moments appear and disappear in the depths of the psyche ---- invasive

inculcation of moment to moment flippancy ---- love thyself, hate thyself – be

present with thy internal self.

Press play on that moment of loss love a million bloody times until the flesh of the

dreadful deceased stallion has melted from the bones and the corpse has risen from

unconscious recesses to pre-frontal dominance.

Flash and in your face a soothing waterfall reminiscence and joy.

Flash and in your face the grotesque hydra of remorse and repentance for the

brilliant glowing spark of an amorous union --- urinated upon and extinguished.

Flash and in your face the glorious hydra of endeavors envisioned and accomplished

--- the steep mountain of socioeconomic circumstance scaled with ease.

Flash and in your face the deformed and debilitating hydra of persuasive and

plentiful popping of pills --- an abundance of Ambien and Percocet --- pills of

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horrific hues imbibed to deaden consciousness; blissful benzodiazepines and

awesome Adderall.

Flash and in your face the chiseled facial beauty of the hydra of moments of

insurmountable perfection and success.

In just three decades heretofore the hydra has hath sprouted a thousand heads of

vicious vacillation --- longing to be tamed but most oft thrusting into the psyche

eyeball to eyeball.

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Interracial

Jeremy Greene

When I was bout 16

outside the Palladio Theater

in the state of pelicans,

gumbo,

and sudden storms,

I heard a voice

of southern distinction

that made me turn back

I saw a girl my age (or maybe slightly older)

who looked as if she smelt of

vanilla and cinnamon

I gazed at her

heart a flutter

only to be shocked back

into existence.

A voice rang out-

“Don't look at her...you'll get yourself in trouble for that.”

said my cousin's cousin

who came along for the movie

“Don't you be lookin' at them White girls.”

she said with a hint of bitterness

and unripe blackberry jam

While practicing my California Blues

during my childhood

my pops tried to convince me

not to view love as black and white.

For a California kid,

who’s skin could match the image

of Louisiana soil

after August tropical storms,

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I always saw love

as a sort of pink cashmere.

Though sometimes blue

love was never black and white.

I remember a crush I once had

who was mixed

much like Creoles tend to be

telling me how her White daddy

would never accept me.

Funny enough,

here I stand,

16 years later,

a Black man

with the White man's “education”

becoming far more recognizable

than her White daddy ever was.

“YOUR DADDY IS BLACK WITH ENVY.”

I wish I said back then…

“I am black.”

“I am worldly.”

“I will paint this world in pink cashmere and blackberry jam.”

Those were the words I said

16 years ago today

to my cousin’s cousin.

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My Open Heart

Yoky Yu

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Сећање

Aleksandra Jovicic

заискри понекад стидљиво

у треперењима

у магновењима

дубоко из понора прошлог

између чокота похрањен

са мојим жилама испреплетан

твој осмех

одјекује непрегледним виноградима

расцепљујући земљу на пола

одбија се о сандук од тополиног дрвета

да те прогони

у вечности

у паралелним световима

мој врисак

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Memory

Aleksandra Jovicic

translated by Gaga Rudic

A shy sparkle flickers

In quivers

In twinkling

Deep from abyss of former

Buried between vines

Entwined with my tendons

Your smile.

Resonates through endless vineyards

Grounds splitting in half

Breaks on your chest

To shake you

In eternity

In another reality

My scream

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Most Happy, Most Alone

Fan Zhong

I'm dying in soil,

wrapped in dirt, breeze and a slice of sun

my family away

a dog barked in the far distance

I'm in the middle of a concrete jungle

I worried,

I imagined,

I pursued,

somewhere there is an old lady tidying up the broken pieces

a girl turns into flashes

a memory burned into flames

and I sit on the ground

trying to get up

I remember a time when I kissed a woman in the third grade

then I sat in the classroom

embarrassed

bashful

hiding from nothing

then I grew up

and I held a girl's hand

standing in the middle of a square

in front of a shopping mall

full of strange creatures

I looked at them and the one beside me

the sun splashes

there was singing and ringing

I felt most happy and most alone

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Mom and Leroy in NYC, 2018

Melissa Thuy Lin

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Adopted Father

Dion Thompson

Beyond a mortal man, you were ever so tall

Envious even to Sampson, how you could hug us all

A kiss of yours, anchored our young innocent souls

With a voice of lion, kept us in control

Idol to all, who looked and were amazed

So much love to give, and spread in those days

Youth and vigor, with rich black full hair

Muscled, molded arms, protected us from fear

Time now seems unkind to you

Kids mock, and threw rocks, who haven’t a clue

Oh, what a pity, if they could not see

What a statue you were, and still are to me

A story you told, when I once was a child

Crosses memory now, gives hope as I smile

Son not of mine, be the all man you can be

Strong, proud, and of all, be free

Reaching over now, back with a grateful hug below

A returned devoted kiss, only a father should know

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Memories

Giuseppe Daddeo

Memories

are made of

sweet gin tonic

sour as lapses

roller-coasting on

those alleys of mercy

which turned us down

the mysterious tears of life

They never surrender

just about always

wishing

for that next sip

that will throw this chorus right

rhyming on the words

you expect me to whistle

out of my fingertips

Have I ever been so subtle

to understand

what a movement of my hands

would have produced

Have I ever been so wrong

to withstand

what the collapse

of the universe

would have wished for us

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and when will I be so present

to be

even without talking

what I was supposed to

Up there

in the starry night

do you see the signs

where you hold your preconceptions

lost on the path

that moves us along

The secret of time is kept

in the riddle of my fingers

swiped

with the tricks of my mind

I handle consciousness

by the sound of its mistakes

I turn it into truth

for you to understand it

and when you’ll wonder

what you’ve missed

I will ask you

was it the answer

or was that unspoken question

Don’t be afraid to look

as when you’ll really do

a shower of drops

will distract your senses

and what we will feel

is the blast of all the nothing

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as liquid

as love

coming out of these eyes

Somewhere along the road

spinning like candle-lights

blown by paradigms of air

the secret of perception

is hid by some genius

having fun

in throwing

our lives against each others

like dices of salt upon snow

what will we remember

when life will all be summer

and days will come to end

Then

I will be

as it is already

before and after …

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Floundering hapless discontent.

Fervent aptitude, nor eloquent zeal.

Affable candor and simmering scent elude.

Tis blackened argent, forsaken lore…

Hence a thought filled beacon yearns.

Scattering reverent flotsam upon latent shore

… evermore

Effervescence

Da Han

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Salty Wooden Air

Robert Cooke

That ‘World Famous’ Brighton Pier

where we would eat toffee apples

atop salty dampened planks of wood

and hunt for geocache clues

that I had already found

with others

seemed an attractive place

to spend hungover dates

due to the cheap thrills

of Victorian slot machines

which let out heinous shrill beeps

that would thwart my head

and increase my pulse

(though never as much as you).

Weather was never great

but could be discussed

to fill time and silences (long or short)

should we fancy a gander

at the clouds and create

poodle shaped visions

of nonsense, and awkwardness.

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Some Place, Once Called “Home”

Brady Riddle

A distant train wails its weight into tear-heavy air

as I arrive at this set of tracks I did not want to cross

ties splintering slow as stones

I sharply draw in plowed earth, infrequently

cracked closets, the dying fireplace, the cooling stove

There are no unknowns in this house.

Not a creak reclaimed roller rink planks alerted

to midnight prowls to the kitchen, not quiet conversations

held in hushes by the ten o’clock news.

Heritage filled veins and fed dreams

not even the thunder across the road could shudder.

But somewhere between the first and final

glances in rearview mirrors and echoes of mother’s threats

we began to respond to freight trains’ rumblings, slowly

carrying pieces of our presence like vagabonds into the night

not toward tomorrows on down pillows

but to the cold sieve of departure

that terminates. Here.

Truth distills from pursed lips, turning small town rumors into adults

we disgrace in mirrors.

And these tracks lie as rusted whispers I strain to decipher.

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Midnight Whisper - III

Myra Yuan

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special thanks to: 李政燊, jocelyn ang, aidan bra,

milica igrutinovic, ina isnaedi, lina l’man, ivana maric, milena stamenkovic,

& marius ziubrys for their support and collaboration

passionate thanks to Ying Yang bar

for hosting the 5th edition launch event

for contacts and info through WeChat:

giuseppedaddeo

or follow A Shanghai Poetry Zine’s official WeChat account:

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