FALL 2014 Exphibian

NYSAI Press 1
Staten Island Literary Magazine
fall issue 2014
2 Exphibian
EXPHIBIANE�������� B����
Editor-in-Chief: Jenna Snyder
Managing Editor: Eric Alter
Poetry Editors: Eric Alter, Amy Leigh Cutler, Thomas Fucaloro, and Frank Williams
Prose Editors: Julie Bentsen and Vlad Kanevsky
Art Editors: Laura Hetzel and Julia Simoniello
NYSAI.ORG
FACEBOOK.COM/NYSAI
PRINTED ON THE ISLE OF STATEN
DESIGNED BY JENNA SNYDER
COPYRIGHT: All rights revert to the author upon publication.
Cover image by Keri Sheheen
Inside cover image by Julie Bentsen
Copyright © 2014 NYSAI Press
NYSAI Press 3
editor’s note
Dear Readers,
Exphibian appears to you through the lingering haze of dissolution: a community disabused of community. Our protectors, clothed as patriots. Our bigots, clothed as activists.
Our con�lict is entertainment and our reasoning is disavowal. While we are distracted by
traf�ic patterns and Candy Crush, some people who don’t care about us are installing ferris
wheels and stealing our homes. Although it seems we are born transient victims of the
same mortal trick; we must not heed the temptation to become idle passerby, alone on
our island.
At times, Exphibian champions the voice of the other—and at times, it is everything the
other is not. However, never is it unscathed by its reality.
I hope that you can �ind the time to celebrate the writers and artists in this magazine who
found the courage to address you.
Jenna Snyder
4
Exphibian
contents
poetry
Joel Allegretti / The Milk Carton Poem.........................................................................................12
Ryan Buynak / Better Cancel Lunch...............................................................................................29
Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi / Father................................................................................................34
Mansu Edwards / The Native and The Visitor............................................................................23
Jack Freedman / Oh, Hell No.............................................................................................................15
Howie Good / Pointless Weirdness.................................................................................................20
Aimee Herman / Alms..........................................................................................................................39
Vicki Iorio / Crossing Over.................................................................................................................25
Vicki Iorio / Here is Your Future.....................................................................................................11
William James / Scavenger................................................................................................................16
Kelly Jones / I’ve Tried to Erase This Image...............................................................................24
Andrew Jordie / 90s Fever/The Lower-Middle........................................................................8
Sean Van Kleef / iGoogledU...............................................................................................................18
Dean Kritkos / On the Blade’s Edge of August..........................................................................14
Len Lawson / Blonde-haired Blue-eyed Jesus Bobble Head................................................31
Efrayim Levenson / Baby....................................................................................................................35
Eliel Lucero / The Boy Next Door.....................................................................................................38
Sheila Murphy / Gradually, More.....................................................................................................36
Rhoda Pierce / What Place is This..................................................................................................28
Kenneth Pobo / It Sticks......................................................................................................................42
Alyssa Riganti / No Longer..................................................................................................................7
John Snyder / Why I always go to the Woods in my Poems..................................................41
Felino Soriano / Pensive......................................................................................................................21
art
Kristi Beisecker.......................................................................................................................................37
Julie Bentsen.............................................................................................................................................Inside Cover
Christina Conte........................................................................................................................................26
Christina Conte........................................................................................................................................27
David DiLillo.............................................................................................................................................10
David DiLillo.............................................................................................................................................40
Ira Joel Haber...........................................................................................................................................7
Ira Joel Haber...........................................................................................................................................22
Ira Joel Haber...........................................................................................................................................30
Sam Jay........................................................................................................................................................13
Rena Parisi................................................................................................................................................20
Keri Sheheen............................................................................................................................................Cover
Annie Virginia..........................................................................................................................................33
Chris X..........................................................................................................................................................17
NYSAI Press
5
6 Exphibian
No Longer
Alyssa Riganti
Poetry no longer
makes its way
to my tongue
or �ingers.
It swims in my sky
like unborn children
waiting for the warmth
of a womb that can bear them.
Ira Joel Haber
NYSAI Press 7
90s Fever/The Lower-Middle
Andrew Jordie
When you quit your job,
you might �ind yourself in monkey socks smoking weed;
or at least I did.
Contemplating the World Wide Web for a wireframe on which to build my next
career, I started to think about what it was I wanted to be when I was a kid;
with blonde hair, crooked bangs and an attitude so naïve it would have made Osama
Bin Laden smile.
A cardiovascular surgeon, the next Mia Hamm, the shortest supermodel to ever trip
the catwalk, saving cats, a veterinarian, a hitchhiker or maybe an actress
a bald-headed monk, a Rastafarian princess,
I always wanted to go to Morocco because I loved the hats.
an astronaut, a detective, a muse, the world’s next female Picasso.
I played the mandolin, the Irish drums and a game of American football.
As my dreams crisscrossed into knots that supported the mattress upon which I laid
my head,
The same head of hair consistently full of knots,
turning shades of green from the chlorine in a poorly kept suburban aquarium.
Maybe I could be a doctor?
Or I was told a nurse.
Maybe I could save the world?
But there was no 401K.
Dreams spill from a well-kept mason jar, analyzed, plucked, rearranged and
presented into what could be achieved:
State school.
Certi�icates.
Athleticism.
Poor sportsmanship and unions.
30K a year looked like gold, on a block of lower-middle class low lives just scraping
to get by.
If I were a boy, I would have gotten all C’s and joined the �ire department.
8 Exphibian
Hanging out with the guys, looking good, saving lives
but, now it looks like more lives were lost on that same suburban street;
half-full of fathers but more open to unrealistic dreams.
LinkedIn makes me feel like some type of Sheryl Sandburg.
So let’s all lean in, lean in real far
until we are told what not to do, what not to say, that our ideas aren’t good enough
and lucky we are pretty or else we wouldn’t have made it very far.
We are all 7’s in a world of pro�itable 11’s and superior jeans,
so keep dreaming.
Maybe I’ll be a poet.
Jesus Christ- that would be great.
Maybe I’ll DJ with a balaclava on my head,
betting the dance �loor what I’ll do next,
sweaty kids in a Queens warehouse.
I’ll be the Queen that night
Or more likely the assistant Joker.
Maybe I’ll sell my dreams and hit the road
but you can’t even do that anymore
hitchhiking is illegal, hobos are frowned upon and girls with torn genes and four
Buddhist tattoos will surely �ind their way behind bars.
So let’s all stay home.
Lower-middle class suburbanites,
on the road to success.
NYSAI Press 9
David DiLillo
10 Exphibian
Here is Your Future
Vicki Iorio
Dateless you spend the last night of 1968 with your grandfather
who doesn’t really know who you are he mistakes your bedroom for the bathroom hours before
the ball drops
When you hear the news about Sharon Tate you are drinking Folgers instant coffee
you remember
she had a small part on the Beverly Hillbillies Your older sister goes to Woodstock
she doesn’t come back you stay in your room the one grandpa used as a bathroom
and listen to Jimi Hendrix on your suitcase record player
In high school you work in a mom and pop �lorist
Emile is the pop
Every time you open the shop door the cold air and the smell hits you like a funeral
The night of your senior prom you make corsages and boutonnieres When your classmates
pick them up you hide in the refrigerator You dethorn the roses stun them in cold water
Emile sees your face tells you the only thing that matters is a day that starts
with a good shit He waves his branch of a hand at you and goes back to the order sheets
You marry your college sweetheart Penultimate moment before the I do’s you realize
your mistake You are a rock dressed in wedding white
Your husband fucks his paralegal in a Fort Lee motel
your husband is a soldier and can’t get leave
You tell the labor room team
Every day is a misery He �inally moves out Orders of protection Custody battles
You have a house �ire that kills your cats Your husband doesn’t sign off on the insurance checks
And then he dies You get IBS This is a distraction It’s hard to problem solve
when your body is a rancid melon
You think of Emile long in the grave
and his request of no �lowers
NYSAI Press 11
The Milk Carton Poem
Joel Allegretti
During the years John Lindsay, Abe Beame and Ed Koch
served terms as mayor of New York City
And what happened to
And to
And to
the space cadet in the West 8th Street record store in 1973 who �lipped through a rack of hippie
posters and said, “I want it to be odd and sexual,” while his girlfriend grooved to “Yes We Can
Can” by the Pointer Sisters?
the bony black guitar player in Washington Square Park in the late ‘70s, the one with the
bleach-blond hair, the lavender nail polish and the red plastic phallus around his neck, who sang
the best version I’d heard of “All Along the Watchtower”?
the pair of black hustlers who were selling their stuff outside a liquor store somewhere on the
West Side on a Saturday night in ‘78? Or was it ‘79?
Where are you now,
‘70s Hare Krishna girls who solicited donations in the Port Authority Bus Terminal?
And where are
the top-and-bottom guys who posed on the cover of a magazine called Black Cocks, White Ass
that hung in the display window of a 42nd Street porn shop in 1980 or so?
What about
the poet who showed up on the subway from time to time in ’81, ’82 or ‘83, the one who said
she was trying to raise money to print her work and always recited the same poem?
And what of
the two white women who boarded a downtown train at 100-Something Street in the mid-‘80s,
the ones in the black leather jackets and jeans, one of whom had lion’s-mane hair and a Jack
Daniel’s face, who told her friend, “I love the subway; the smell, the odor”—and the other, who
pressed the �ingertips of her left hand against the door, stared through the glass at the tunnel
darkness and let a little softness creep out of her eyes?
12 Exphibian
Sam Jay
NYSAI Press 13
On the Blade’s Edge of August
Dean Kritikos
Months named for hairy men in tunics.
Stuffed peppers for breakfast
and
eggnog for dinner.
(there is a way)
In the center of your eye
lies a goddess
forgotten.
On the fringes of your palm:
trees and a picket fence.
In the middle?
*spits*
: a goddess.
No, a garden. In the middle
of the novel
there is a crisis.
The plot thickens.
In the beginning, there was
darkness & silence.
I shift lanes gazing skyward
or at billboards;
I write this.
Something to the tune of:
every instant contains millennia,
etc..
The madness, then, of musicians—
14 Exphibian
Oh, Hell No
Jack M. Freedman
Oh, hell no!
The po po fo sho sho
Gotta go go disrupt my �low �low
Their weight they throw
Finding blow on Joe Shmoe
Making dough
Eating doughnuts
No mofo po po will bogart my ‘dro
I’m no ho fo sho
Ho-dee-ho-dee-ho
Don’t jack my condo
Don’t pass go
Don’t collect mo dough
Fo I am po
No quid pro quo
Go eat crow, mofo
NYSAI Press 15
Scavenger
William James
for the man on Mass. Ave. who cat-called my girlfriend while asking me for spare change.
Of course, I am not unaware of my blessings,
& if it helps for you to believe it merely
blind luck or fortune smiling upon a stranger,
if it serves you well to consider it fate
which has delivered unto me this gift
you crave, while the meat of past hunts
still drips wet & red, glistening from your lips,
then call it luck & let despair fall heavy,
a blanket of ash settling thick on your tongue.
Consider the �ields are ripe for harvest,
& all before you are merely wheat
beneath the scythe. There is no debt
to be repaid, no karma demanding
recompense. The way my lover’s hands fold
into my own is no simple transaction
no collection of coins to jangle in your cup.
You throw your lust like a spear,
at prowl on the open plain as though
any creature which catches your gaze is
�lesh for your feasting. You stuff your cheeks
to the point of bursting & fatten yourself –
a glutton devouring without ceasing.
Oh, you jealous wolf, snap shut your jaws,
before the carrion falls from your teeth,
before the stink of stale blood on
your breath draws a larger predator than you,
before the sun’s decay reveals every dry bone
you have gnawed on, tossed aside & left to rot.
16 Exphibian
Chris X
NYSAI Press 17
iGoogledU
Sean Van Kleef
On the way to the union square stop
the train came to a halt and i saw you
A single gasp became the life of me
As my hands �iddled my newest technology
The click of digital photo
is hidden by the screech of our NYC subway car
I have captured you
You have become mine
I crop the picture down to size
and use an app I just downloaded
that lets me compare the photo taken
to every facebook page
therefore linking me to your twitter feed
and Lo and Behold
You love coffee!
Me too!
A dunkachino checked in
at the union square D & D
101 east 16th at 8:10 am
You are so right, Debra
America runs on this
Facebook says you’re attending NYU
Tisch school of the arts
building located at 721 broadway
an illustrious program from the google reviews
You, are an artist
and i stare at the snapshot that started us
Invent the event that made us true
A wedding all down to the font on the invition
I downloaded a great design program
and attached our names to this creation of mine
I hope you will notice how much of an artist that I am too
Today I found an app that takes the features
from our faces in both of our snapshots
and combines them to make one
And Debra it was a son
We made a son
He had my nose and cheekbones
your green eyes
but his smile Debra
His smile was his own
He was so happy
18 Exphibian
I think back to the day we met on the subway
I was so nervous
Almost dropping the phone I found you with
My pet
I am so loyal to you
but you have stopped drinking coffee
no longer sharing our morning glance
My coffee just doesn’t taste the same without you anymore
I saw you come out of class today
and followed you... from a distance
past washington square park
down bleecker
all the way to your house
You know, the blue one on 8th and Bank
The whole way wanting to call out your name
Tell you I can ful�ill all of those desires you tweet so frequently
but as you get to your door you turn
and those green eyes our son wears
stare into mine
You say “what’s your problem
why are you following me”
I want to say because I’m home
tell you that I am incomplete
that our son is waiting
Duncan is waiting
Wish you to let me in
so we can be his smile
Something new
I start to spill my cup as I pull a giftcard from my pocket
10 Free Coffees inscribed to Debra
For your new spot, Lenny’s on 9th street and 6th ave
You take it and after a moment
You say “how did you know...”
Through my single lonely tear-stricken face
I stare into your eyes, our son’s eyes and say
I googled you Debra
I googled you
NYSAI Press 19
Pointless Weirdness
Howie Good
1
Whatever is obsolete is free for the taking. I have a box full of photographs I’ve taken of
clouds! The process is one of clinging to outlaw fragments �loating around me. Pointless
weirdness gets old fast, but I can’t help myself. Buddy Holly looked right at my mother at
the show in Duluth three days before the plane crash.
2
While waiting in the express lane (a serious misnomer!) at the supermarket, I study the
candy rack and then the magazines, my eyes catching on the cover of People, even
though none of the names in the megawatt rainbow lettering are familiar to me, or their
disembodied faces either, and I’m struck, not for the �irst time, by our casual insertions
into ideological circuits, but mostly by the fact that I’m somewhere on the fringes of an
ever-moving mass, like the sick and the weak and the slow, easy meals for lions and
hyenas.
3
We stop in front of the stained glass of Abraham raising the knife. Who is that, you ask,
Elijah? The exhibit goes on for another �ive white, sterile rooms. Behind every work of
art lies an uncommitted crime, Abraham grasping Isaac’s hair. It’s the season’s hottest
trend, an ongoing crisis of representation, populated by ghosts and old men. I have a
hole in my head I want you to �ill with a tongue kiss.
Rena Parisi
20 Exphibian
Pensive
Felino Soriano
nomad-sentence structure (sequences cannot isolate re�lectional conformity to
a within data complement wholeness-lingo mobilization promise-old sepia
conformity construct window-open lucid seeing tree �ixate premise upon the
antique silhouette outlining paradigm of believing functionality as whole-body
dif�icult move-onward signature of age’s rhyme with abridged ossi�ication)
d
i
s
c
o
n
n
e
c
t
e
d
concept-unclarity
held/-in
my hand a silent hand
then of
hand/hand
momentary admit aloneness
is the jazz-wing-fundament
�inding
in the plural of my listening
rhythm s
of my gathering
NYSAI Press 21
Ira Joel Haber
22 Exphibian
The Native And The Visitor
Mansu Edwards
Why are you jealous of me?
I’m a mirror image of you.
Come give me a hug brother.
I’m not African.
My roots are chitlins and fatback.
I wear jeans and button up shirts.
No, my brother your roots are fufu and
chicken yassa.
Take my daishiki and ku�i.
No, I don’t want it.
Why do you hate yourself brother?
I don’t, I hate you for not associating
with my people.
Your people are my people.
We’re just from different destinations.
If we’re the same, then, why don’t you hire us?
I see brother.
But, where’s the ambition of Martin Luther King?
But, what happened to each one teach one?
I don’t see Marcus Garvey’s self suf�iciency.
I thought it takes a village to raise a child.
Blame will never free you.
We come to America for education and success.
Not to beg for freedom.
There is no freedom if we’re separate but equal.
NYSAI Press 23
I’ve Tried to Erase This Image
Kelly Jones
After Saddam Hussein’s execution
my friend’s unit was stationed at one of his castles.
In the picture he emailed me: soldiers, Humvees, weapons,
camou�lage, potted �lowers, and some men barbecuing meat.
Rows of palm trees are off to the sides, like paradise,
like Hollywood, places tourists �lock to.
It almost looked like a bachelor party, those suntans
and smiles.
24 Exphibian
Crossing Over
Vicki Iorio
Wire down on Sixth Ave
can’t get across the street
where Rite Aid keeps my antidepressants
I stay in my apartment on hot weekends
with my medicated cocktails
I’ve picked up Moby Dick again
my college copy dead �ish stiff and yellow
My college lover’s tongue
tasted like peppermints
his major was animal husbandry
he became a dairy farmer in upstate New York
I could have been the wife of a dairy farmer
last week when I went to the fortune teller
she gave me back my money
closed my palm and made the sign of the cross
I can’t shake off the feeling that zombies
are following me it’s the antidepressants
my therapist says
She says the new dosage will take some time to kick in
if I could get across Sixth Avenue
I could start the dosage
but the fucking wire is too big
for the chronically depressed to cross over
NYSAI Press 25
26 Exphibian
Christina Conte
NYSAI Press 27
What Place is This
Rhoda Pierce
Does it matter?
Can this be a city but looking like grass?
I should have taken a picture of the walking
and the shoes under the bed,
an effort to prove the existence of God.
2 shoes at night
No shoes in the morning?
God.
2 shoes at night
2 shoes in the morning?
Could be God.
Could have come and gone.
28 Exphibian
Better Cancel Lunch
Ryan Buynak
there’s a snake coming
out of a wine bottle
below the table
of nod.
there is blood
from the previous poem
spilling on her jeans
in seamless dreams.
there is an empty stomach
an empty church,
a full-of-shit oily fool
called Lola’s me.
there is a world
in whch we live
where we suffer soft
when Heaven was young.
NYSAI Press 29
Ira Joel Haber
30 Exphibian
Blonde-haired Blue-eyed Jesus Bobble Head
Len Lawson
The �irst one thousand hand-clappin’ foot-stompin’
Holy Ghost-shoutin’ saints that can swim through the
dead sea of sycophant souls cascading into the
livest megachurch in town will receive their very own
omnipresent omniscient omnipotent
blonde-haired blue-eyed Jesus bobble head
Who wouldn’t want their own image duplicated in
silicone for hundreds of fans
unless the image were made in dust by the billions
(see the sixth day)
Instead of checking the time on your phone
now you can use your bobble head as a metronome
Numbers on a digital clock do not nurture me
I still yearn to be embraced by the hands of time
Instead of asking what would Jesus do to a wristband
now you can ask this totem of holiness anything and
tap his head for the answer
He always says yes
Forgive me if I don’t giggle at the doll’s continual af�irmation
and I shake my head as he hung his in a heap at the ninth hour
Pray for me if I don’t catch contagious laughter from his toothy grin
and I marvel at his truth-stained face
Please don’t judge me if I forsake the springs in his neck
and choose the nails in his hands
and please don’t prick your innocent �ingers
tapping the crown of thorns around his head
Did we all just come to cheer like a fan in the stands
then to watch a messiah do his thing in
Technicolor audio/video UV LCD AC/DC multimedia
satellite Wi�i super�icial narcissistic blonde and blue
What African European Asian Hebrew or Native American
idol are you cheering as it bounces on the dashboard of
your spirit making you nauseous when you gaze faithfully into
its wanting eyes its needing eyes its lusty thirsty sheep-gathering eyes
hungry and jealous for the next serving of hot holy converts
Why are you looking for the dead among the living
NYSAI Press 31
Clutch this pseudo-porcelain doll tightly until the
springs pop out before the answers �lood
your bouncing scattered logic to
manifest the prophecy in your tears
while the head keeps answering yes yes yes
to your every fear and doubt
He still bears truth through his pain
32 Exphibian
Annie Virginia
NYSAI Press 33
Father
Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi
He came to me
We slept under the same roof
I heard his breathing, snoring and other reptilian sounds
It seemed to me
He was tired of his life
The life had quenched up his last red drop
The empty sap was obvious from his sullen eyes
He got up early in the morning
A casual sign that he was living
He waited for leave-taking
He awaited a long
The left note said:
“My dear son-take care of yourself
You’ve lots of things to see
Before I see you off”
He was not thirsty from his life
But he hadn’t waited for leave-taking
As it seemed to me
I heard his parting, his going
And he didn’t come to meet me again.
34 Exphibian
Baby
Efrayim Levenson
I have some bourbon
you bring the baby sledge
We’ll get smashed
and argue about the pig
who tries to teach the camel
the virtue of bathing in mud
He misinterprets the hospitality
of his desert friend so self-convincingly
he doesn’t even notice
when he’s being spat in the face
Then we’ll debate how the bear
laughs at the pig
while calling his bluff
until we’re ready to kill each other
I assure you I’ll pass out drunk �irst
I’m too old to have a soft spot
but I’m bald enough
for you to draw a bull’s eye
on my skull
There are plenty of towels
and cleaning supplies for the mess
The bay is just up the road
and there ought to be something
in the yard you can tie around my neck
to weigh me down
It’s so quiet around here
You can take my car
There’s no need to rush
You can be two states over
by sunrise
I’ll see you tonight
Thanks for calling
NYSAI Press 35
Gradually, More
Sheila E. Murphy
complex, as in
sleeping
(sense of
(sight
together, very simply (darkening
changing where
night �its
(�irst
equation
(upon
beginning a new
36 Exphibian
(unto this
(praise
Kristi Beisecker
NYSAI Press 37
Alms
Aimee Herman
She let me grab her left hand and sit it in mine; I could have read her lines for hours. She held novels
within each crease. I traced each �inger as though I had never seen one before; hers could have lead me to
believe in anything.
She told me mine were artist hands. You’ve crossed borders on your knuckles, haven’t you? she said.
I could not call her beautiful because that word describes days or meals. She was more like a
mountain. Dif�icult. High. A rubble of lives. Impossible to leave behind.
I pressed my �ingers into her back. Rubbed at her energy: Yellow. Dim. Glow-in-the-dark.
I asked her to hold her gaze into my left eye for two minutes. I needed time to untwist the tether of her
mind. 52 seconds, I tasted salt. One minute 7 seconds, she dripped fourteen yesterdays. One minute
seventeen seconds, I saw why she �linched when I touched her chest. One minute thirty-one seconds and I
felt everything from her twenties. One minute forty-nine seconds and I saw green and owls and could
taste the elephant in her. Two minutes and I asked her what she felt.
She smiled and I wanted to be homeless.
She smiled and I wanted to be homeless so that I could beg her for the shelter living inside her.
I can’t...I can’t speak, she said.
She turned her breath closer to mine and I let her move my hair, which was far longer than hers but more
masculine.
She whispered: Cement. I felt and saw cement.
We shifted into reading each other’s lips. Hers were small and she bit down on the bottom, reeling it in like
something she had just caught. Her teeth, crooked and charming.
I whispered into her left ear a paragraph from Fear and Loathing.
When midnight arrived, I asked her to drink tequila with me because earlier she called this the liquid that
caused her self to be left behind.
We drank it on ice with some sour. We left our straws behind as I handed her my passport and went pageby-page, reading out each stamp.
I wanted to kiss her but I am indelicate with my mouth and instead I press my chest to hers and we
embrace.
Tomorrow, her palms will be hungover and I will wonder about the three identities I located inside her. I
will try to place the name of the forest her smell reminds me of while �inding the remains of her salt still
swimming in my skin.
38 Exphibian
The Boy Next Door
Eliel Lucero
When I was four years old the boy next door
came over to battle with green army men,
or transformers or whichever plastic warrior
of childhood were given to us by parents
whose sole intention was to mold
good strong men of us, but instead
the boy, who was the same age and height as I,
wanted to teach me how people on TV loved,
so he took off his shoes, and I took off my shoes,
and next came all our heavy clothes,
so with nothing but space between us,
we knew this to be a sacred private moment,
so we swung the door’s hook into
the tiny hole, and suddenly we were alone
in the world, and his hand and mine touched
and our lips fumbled together and tongues �lopped like
dying �ish, until we climbed top bunk, covered our child
�igures in sheet, hugged, kissed, mimicked sounds
of soap opera, our only teachers of forbidden touch,
but minutes later we were interrupted by Grendel’s
screech and thud against our door, so the boy
and I sat up and held on to one another, searching
for some safety, and watched trembling
as a knife slipped threw the shaft and lifted hook,
so the door �lew open, and we jumped off our bunk
and a hand wrapped in leather crashed into my chubby
little thighs and arms, and the boy next door, whose
name I don’t remember, was never allowed to
cast an open eye on me again, and later, for the �irst
time in my life, my own father sat down and taught
me that love could be a sin, or maybe it was my
mother, either way, what I didn’t forget was how soft
the boy felt pressed to my chest.
NYSAI Press 39
David DiLillo
40 Exphibian
Why I always go to the Woods in my Poems
John Snyder
If I could have made the choice
based on desire instead of desperation
I would’ve died there.
It’s the �irst place I always run;
The cliff,
overlooking the beach.
I couldn’t help but feel
Wrapped.
Dirt was my family.
Branches were the arms that could always hold.
I found so many lost things.
I was the single earring.
I was the carving that made no sense--permanence without belonging.
The sky was clear.
The sky was cloudy.
The sky was churning out black, little, drops.
But it was always there
I knelt at its feet, in awe
that something so cold
could be so open.
My bedroom ceiling never opened up for me.
If I died on that �loor
the room would be a cask
for my youth.
My blood would ferment.
The wine of my death would not
quench the Earth.
The smell would haunt a home.
Floorboards
are no longer �loorboards
when they’ve carried rivers.
But I did not die.
I did not rot.
I crashed inwards.
And I clawed my way back out
just so I could run again;
to the place where I could not die.
It Sticks
Kenneth Pobo
In Sunday School
we had a debate:
If you are a Christian as a kid,
but you fall away later,
are you still saved?
My Sunday School teacher
said yes,
you are still saved.
My minister said no,
you weren’t really a believer
or you wouldn’t fall away.
We voted. Fifteen kids said
yes, salvation sticks.
10 kids said it doesn’t.
We went home
to reruns of The Jetsons.
42 Exphibian
upcoming
In January, 2015, NYSAI Press will begin to host monthly Slams, with the hopes of creating the
very �irst Staten Island Slam Team, which will be on track to compete in nationals.
On January 1st, submissions will re-open for the Spring 2015 edition of our literary magazine.
If we are eligible for grant funding in 2015, then we will also begin acception chapbook
manuscripts. If you are insterested in submitting, please visit nysai.org/submit
As a part of the Second Saturday Art Walk, we will host Writer’s Block Party at Flagship Brewery on May 9th, 2015. Writer’s Block Party is a festival celebrating the literary arts on Staten
Island. Expect poetry, music, art, and good beer!
thank you
NYSAI Press extends its deepest gratitude towards the local businesses and organizations that
made this publication possible, and to you, the reader.
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48 Exphibian
“Miss Richmond
county 2015 has
a voice that can
sink ships.”
-NYSAI Press
“Yeti is a three-piece
band with the ladies
in control of the
melodies. To put it
simply Jenna Snyder
is a force to be
reckoned with.
She is one helluva
bassist.”
-The Equal Ground
“Yeti is philosophical dream-punk with killer
harmonies. This New York-based trio reeks of feral
femininity, fermenting in the forgotten woods
of Staten Island. Their music fuses Sleater-Kinney
sensibilities with The Cranberries’ emotional power.
Yeti can be found playing at various venues
throughout the New York City area, or in very cold,
dark, remote caverns from which few have ever
returned.”
-Club Culture, Arts Collective
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photo by Laura Hetzel
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