poetry by – Ben Nardolilli /art by Chad Swanson 

Cross My Name off the Petition

What does it take to win?

Maybe I can stop the supermarket

From selling gun magazines to kids,

Then again, what would a ban

Do other than make forbidden fruit

Bloom where there is already produce?

Anyway, it might distract

The youths from the kind of racy

Material which they should sneak

Away and smuggle out for private use,

I do not want them fetishizing barrels,

Only butts than come with bodies.

Something Quite Geometric

A black bird flying

Low and high

Between the painted

Rocks of the cliff

A new knowledge

Comes with the wings,

The beak piercing

The dry blue sky

I am not just

Walking by the river,

I am in a canyon

Deep enough for flight.

Holy Land Retreat

Egyptian vultures circle overhead,

They have crossed the border, unlike me,

But they do not change their name

Based on the airspace they may inhabit.

I sit under the Aleppo pines and Syrian

Junipers which grow in these hills

Far away from their original sources,

I take in their shade and try to keep still.

I do not fear becoming fresh prey

For the birds that cycle above the groves,

I only want to bore them so they fly away,

Arid landscapes are best with a clear sky.

– Ben Nardolilli (bnardolilli@gmail.com)