Sheikha A. and Cal Freeman
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Sheikha A.
ummeaimanali@gmail.com
Bio (auto)
Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Over 300 of her poems have been published in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. She has work upcoming in/with Poetry Repairs, Poetry Bay, Dreams and Nightmares, Illumen with most recent publications in/with Praxis, New Mystics, Peacock Journal, Futures Trading, Atlantean Publishing, Allegro, Cruel Garters and elsewhere. Her book Spaced [Hammer and Anvil Books, 2013] is available on kindle. With having had her poems recited at two separate events in Greece, she looks for wider venues to connect with people through her poetry. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com
The following work is Copyright © 2017, and owned by Sheikha A. and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
NthLinguistics, and the need for expression brought us together – for a while. We argued about the chattering of sparrows, their tales of distraction, never quite wanting to let the other have the last word. We were a series on a code that was deliberately left undefined – silence too noisy in the quiet – too awkward, too pure, too raw, too honest. There is a term for couples like us: never, for holistic, bohemian, curious, detachable became too familiar. The act of not being made for one another yet losing nothing is the part about wings we never argued, spoke of logic like truth pulled from a hat, believed in fairy tales, yet spoke none of the never we could have been.
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Cal Freeman
jfreema@gmail.com
Bio (auto)
Cal Freeman was born and raised in Detroit, MI. He is the author of the books Brother Of Leaving (Marick Press) and Fight Songs (Eyewear Publishing). His writing has appeared in many journals including New Orleans Review, Passages North, The Journal, Commonweal, Drunken Boat, and The Poetry Review. He is a recipient of The Devine Poetry Fellowship (judged by Terrance Hayes); he has also been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and creative nonfiction. He regularly reviews collections of poetry for the radio program Stateside on Michigan Public Radio. He currently lives in Dearborn, MI and teaches at Oakland University.
The following work is Copyright © 2017, and owned by Cal Freeman and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Dearborna hymn for Kevin Matthews, killed by an off-duty policeman December 23rd, 2015 Our town is a sclerotic beast whose sewer throats disgorge the epithets of Orville Hubbard and Henry Ford, where police give chase beyond duty or jurisdiction and kill the unarmed suspects of misdemeanor larceny. It squeezes the slow river guts to rapids. Its nerves are shot; it shakes the haws and sugar maples then drinks them under. I love this place as the tholepins creak and we take turns rowing down Shenandoah Street, erstwhile floodplain. Its makeshift cinderblock levee spined through Spinks loam, its concrete brow ringed by a high-water mark nobody thought this run- off could surpass. To love any city is violence. The once-ambling body snakes and hemorrhages; thousands of muscles flicker as it runs. Did I ever tell you the story about the night Henry Ford died? The Rouge overran its banks; his powerhouse flooded; his brain bled into itself like the outmoded machine that it was, eagle-shaped blood flecks congealed in his hippocampus grooves like posterity’s dark prizes as his corpse blued and stiffened, no light in his bedroom except a candle and a wood fire. I feel like I am always telling you this story. Do you also imagine these blocks in leagues of water, our bungalows hurtling like failed arks toward a new, unmapped sea, until our brief existence is a pseudo-history, a lesser Atlantis nobody will search for? We live and die in the riverain which is the property of everyone and no one. It periodically lifts its haunches from alluvium to chase us off. But it makes sense that we call our favorite places haunts, given what we know of geology and murder. You were killed behind Cardoni’s Bar the night that by virtue of my skin I stood unbothered on the banks and watched the water rise, trying to remind myself that it was winter.
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