New York, USA finite infinitude: time as it passes like the frequency of light-sound. how this too/ will pass-- and memory— how she will persist with this time too. for love— and this errorfold of tears. ♥ desire's edge like a razor cut above grass– a molten holiday excuses itself like time's earthly cousin. i do not name you after her but wander southward– in this terrestrial fold of nothingness' glance ___ etudes stretched thin summer melody distant rain ___ i find myself caught in the silver light of fire-tongues all rippling a different edge. the staircase does not hold— that is, i find my heart beating again and hear it in the thrumming echo of it raining egrets — desire, again. ___ a way of being seen/ of wanting to be seen that passes beyond me into the rain of something like a departed hand, a half-image– a yearning that deposits me on the sandy bank of having wanted you. its sad really how in my head i have to mark it like an "it's over." but its helpful for me in this way to reclaim what is my own agency– that you had helped me to open but that i am alone now somehow and that that is okay. ___ paul aster stone-tsao (he/they/we) is poet, dancer, and spaceracer. he is currently based in brooklyn and is a 2019 Kundiman Poetry Fellow. their work can be found in No, Dear Magazine, Sine Theta Magazine, among others.
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Sydney, Australia Tanya Pham is a Vietnamese-Australian student, writer, and skincare-enthusiast. She (currently) spends most of her days fishing... on Animal Crossing.
Sydney, Australia
After Catullus 5 Now I guess I know what Catullus was on about when my one brain cell keeps kneading over in blurry bliss the ghost-pressure of your hands stamped into my waist squashed into the backseat of my mum’s Corolla parked in front of your house, time turning gelatinous flurries of rain glimmering the windows to veil us from prying sisters and nosy mums and the stern eye of New South Wales Health’s public hygiene protocols as I turn my mouth to yours, drinking the violence of your urgent teeth, mouthing: da mi basia mille! Jocelin Chan is a Hong-Kong Australian writer based in Sydney who studies dead people and deader institutions. Her poetry has been published in Voiceworks, Visible Ink, Pencilled-In, and a few other journals besides. New Jersey, USA
// Mortality is in the air Sifting through the Bisquick mix for crunchy corpses, souvenirs of the last 18 years So I can get clean “flour” to delight in some baking After newfound freedom from 14 days of masks, and not touching anything at all At 32 I am still cooking from this same box of pancake mix that I bought at 14 When I was trying my hand at being an adult. That was 2 days ago when I made healthy “cookies” - and my parents feigned satisfaction with these butterless sugarless creations All week I played front door goalie to keep them from their inevitable trip to Costco and thus - the disease ridden outside world My father addresses viral contamination with surgical precision, so it’s less dangerous but also intense hours of work for him Yesterday, while my parents visited Costco, I started asking around for names of psychics To get in touch with my grandfather who newly returned to the spirit world- and give the guy a chance to make a last impression Today I find a 25 pound bag of flour on the floor, new loot from the treacherous world outside It dawns on time that when I reach the bottom of this bag of flour, it will likely be 18 years from now I will be 50, and my parents in their sunset years God willing, if their suns do not set amidst this pandemonium, or the next. // Liz R, long-time resident of San Francisco. Currently quarantining in New Jersey, wishing she was still floating around Mexico like a plastic bag in the wind. Sydney, Australia
A thought creaks between my eyelids like a bird standing on a branch, swinging between my ears. The blanket landed soft on my body like abundant leaves on a lake, covering the sky’s silver reflection, over rusty longings trying to escape my skin. I ran my palm across the electric guitar neck, soft satin like someone’s spine, where palms used to land in a sincere hug. My self is disintegrating on the river like an abandoned boat, yearning only to sink, sloughing towards a wider ocean, deepening into another dream I’ll forget. But longing is a tornado blowing within a brown photograph, where time had stolen all the colours. I reach my fingers to catch the dust left from thoughts of you. Night is like gravity, pulling me away from the past and further into dreams, where I restore the lights and forget about time. I hope I glimpsed you through a glass and not a reflection. After all, I’m just a translator, transfiguring desires into another’s image. Now, I sit on the spiral again and watch myself sink into yet another repetition—words still circling over the same melody, not admitting the band had long ceased to play. Alvin Chung is a writer living in Sydney, born in Hong Kong. New York, USA
27 march, 2020 when i told you i was going to be staying at his house during quarantine, so i wouldn't put my immuno-compromised roommate at risk, you baulked. i get it, i suppose: just another rebellion, where your daughter loves a boy you love to hate. but this time i mean it to try and cull the spread of disease, not to rebel. not to make you mad. today i played disc golf for the third time, walked in the woods. i felt free, lobbing plastic through the air with all my strength. letting part of me loose, to whip over the grass and spiral down onto the turf. the spiral is not a metaphor for my life. i told you a long time ago when i was sad and lonely, but you didn't seem to understand. this is one more attempt to not be lonely: to self-isolate with a person i love rather than go it alone. Genevieve Hartman is a Korean American poet living in upstate New York. She enjoys calligraphy, plants, and being outside when it's warm. Salt Spring Island, Canada Aurelia Blue is a twenty-something British/HK eurasian. She has recently started to post her work on instagram @aureliablue_. She will be starting her career as a commercial lawyer in London later this year, but hopes to continue writing at every possible opportunity.
Los Angeles, USA
Because I am writing up student reports and grading homework, it is close to midnight when I go downstairs to wash the pan, sticky with garlic powder and a palm-sized remnant of my giant salmon filet. I see my brother has eaten dinner. I took two mouthfuls of fish earlier, in between performing on Instagram and teaching an online lesson. Admitting that teaching sometimes feels overwhelming makes me feel ungrateful, because I can afford to work from home, so I don’t. Tonight we solved a murder mystery. Tomorrow we will say goodbye to Liesel Meminger, and Death. Oil and water spool down the drain. How do I teach things like similes and argumentative essays and how to use a comma in moments like these? Most days I feel like a fraud – I teach writing, and yet do so little of my own nowadays, startled by urgency into absolutely nothing at all. I compile lists. Emergency libraries, cute productivity apps, articles. I send my students lists. Virtual museums, penguin livestreams, cartoon videos. I don’t know why I am afraid they will lose their voices. They seem alright, riding tricycles in cul-de-sacs, flying rainbow kites against a glum sky. I read articles and memes about working at home while you have kids around. I miss them. I want nothing but the best for them. I blow out my twin flames and clamber into bed, counting the number of breaths it will take to uncurl the comma of my body. Tiffany Wu (@green.teaffany) is an L.A. based writer and harpist. She enjoys late night jam sessions, handwritten letters, and an exorbitant amount of tea. This is an exquisite corpse game played between Shangyang Fang and Jiaoyang Li. In the time of boredom, we each blind write 7 lines of nonsense and intersect them into this sonnet.
~ Fast Fetch Is a hollow ceiling a hollow or a ceiling? The hat on your head is yet another face. Whose tongue tumbles in my imperceptible pond? Why bring an umbrella if you own a subway? The overdose of yesterday perplexes me for all I want is to bury my lips in your crotch but hedgehogs, that's the whole point. The mushroom isn’t an umbrella zoomed. Your sentry, my clematis, the unquenchable. The whole world is yellowed by one lamplight-- what is inside what is behind two of us-- yet the lamplight is immune to its infectious hue. In the solstice of pestilence, a ship with its shore, abreast. How could I separate evenings from the color of your arm? Shangyang Fang is a bowl of succulent grapes burning in Austin. Jiaoyang Li is a freelance cupcake melt between New York City and New Jersey. Canterbury, United Kingdom
27th march, 2020 yesterday / was your birthday /drifted past like white cotton / in your larynx / the goddamned cough / wake up today / your phone/ blank, stillness of a face / as if dream / your breakfast: an old egg and the soy sauce / bleeds along your fingers. lick it / off your wrist / savouring / a thought: hey, siri / play my favourite song / do you mean call my lover? / yes, call my lover / i don’t see my lover in your contact / who would you like to call? / … / switch off / curtains / shout in your room Jinhao Xie writes poems, is a postgraduate student. |
STAY HOME DIARYan online archive of diary entries by Asian artists and writers, recording our lives from March to April 2020. |