Eduard Schmidt-Zorner
Eduard Schmidt-Zorner is a translator and writer of poetry, haibun, haiku, and short stories. He writes in four languages: English, French, Spanish, and German and holds workshops on experimental poetry. Member of four writer groups in Ireland. Lives in County Kerry, Ireland, for more than 25 years and is a proud Irish citizen, born in Germany. Published in over 170 anthologies, literary journals, and broadsheets in USA, UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, Japan, Sweden, Spain, Italy, France, Bangladesh, India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Some of his poems and haibun have been published in French (own translation), Romanian, and Russian language. He writes also under his penname Eadbhard McGowan.
The following work is Copyright © 2022, and owned by Eduard Schmidt-Zorner and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
haiku
lone lost bee
on the back of my hand
anticipating spring
hands of a clock
raise arms in desperation
fight against time
whisper of the night
the sound of soft falling rain
moon’s lullaby
time dissolves unmarked –
day and night drip like water
into fate’s hollow hand
last hug for a while
feelings will die a slow death
thirst of dry flower
falling cherry blossoms
blind the eyes
with their bright white
grape blood on my tongue
a wine fairy tale
red lips
Lori Lasseter Hamilton
Lori Lasseter Hamilton is a 52-year-old rape survivor and breast cancer survivor. She is a member of Sister City Connection, a collective of women poets, storytellers, and spoken word artists in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Lori is a medical records clerk in a local hospital. She graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1998 with a bachelor of arts in journalism and a minor in English. Some of her poems have appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Synkroniciti Magazine, Global Poemic, SWWIM, Steel Toe Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, The Stray Branch, and Avant Appal(achia). Lori’s fourth poetry chapbook, “limo casket,” is forthcoming from Voice Lux Press in 2023. Visit Lori on Facebook here.
The following work is Copyright © 2022, and owned by Lori Lasseter Hamilton and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
The things I remember
A ship made from seashells on the brown downstairs bookshelves
by the Bear Bryant Coke bottle.
A green spatula in a kitchen drawer. Mom used that spatula once
to spank me. Its holes
were the size of the holes in the cheese grater
I’d shred cheese with for El Paso taco shells.
I remember a big brown teddy bear Christmas morning,
1980, downstairs, when I woke up at one a.m.
I ran back upstairs, giddy to tell my sister
we both got giant teddy bears
but she didn’t care.
I remember a white record player I got that same Christmas
and the first album I received, Neil Diamond’s
“Coming to America.” I was ten and it was 1980
and I remember a cardboard foldout house for my Barbie,
cardboard covered in vinyl
with fake painted scenes
for a bedroom and a makeup room.
But my Barbie house had no actual furniture,
no actual rooms.
I remember the red VW Barbie bus I’d drive
across the den floor, carpeted in yellow-gold shag
to match the storage room walls, mustard yellow
like nerve gas. I remember the storage room
where there was a maroon carrying case
of headless Barbies. Their decapitated bodies
belonged to my sister and me.
Some of them were naked, with perfect smooth boobs
but no nipples. And now I’m half-boobless
like that dumb calculator equation
a boy showed me in high school.
I remember an Elvis poster my sister made for grade school,
stored by Dad’s downward sloping drafting table
where he’d draw blueprints in the mustard yellow room.
I remember the miniature Nativity figurines I played with
on the den floor, pretending the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph,
an angel, the three wise men, the shepherds, and a cow
all lived in a shoebox I turned sideways, and every day
Joseph would go to work selling oranges and furniture
to support Mary and the baby.
I remember the Raggedy Ann and Andy toy box
painted red white and blue like America
I stored my toys in.
I remember the footstool in Gadsden
that belonged to Aunt Jackie. It was round
and green as her gallstones, and me and my cousin
would jump up and down on it,
singing “Jackie Packie!”
I remember the ice cream maker
Papa would make homemade ice cream with
every fourth of July.
What I don’t remember is why
we went to an abandoned building once
filled with glass Coca-Cola bottles,
where it was, what year it was.
All I remember is Mom, Dad, my sister,
me, my aunt and uncle, my cousins were there.
Maybe it was 1980, the same year we went
to a relative’s funeral on Mom’s side and after,
we stopped at an ice cream parlor
where Air Supply sang “I’m All Out of Love”
overhead on the radio.
What I don’t remember
is the name of the Black woman
who gave me her velvet Salvatore Ferragamo shoes
ten years later, 1990,
when I was away at college
at the University of Montevallo,
and when I told Dad she was going to be my roomie
he said No, threatened the police on me
over the phone.
I wish I could remember her name
but I don’t. When I try to remember, silence
fills my head like the silence I heard
when I picked up a seashell off the downstairs bookshelves
to try and hear the ocean,
or the silence of the air conditioner as Dad said a prayer
before Sunday roast beef dinner,
or the kitchen silences of Saturday nights
when Mom would wash my hair
with Finesse shampoo in the double sink,
or the silence in the First Baptist Church of Center Point
that smelled like grape juice and fresh baked bread
as we’d sip and chew and bow our heads.
