Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

poetry

Colas Breugnon.

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by Jerzy Liebert.
(translated by Charles S. Kraszewski.)

 

The angels drive from Eden bold
Men, birds, and deer trembling with dread.
No more ambrosia, sweet and gold.
They’ve given us cow milk, and black bread.

God thought that quartering black bread,
We’d wring our hands in anger rank
But — bread tastes better than ambrosia
And thus we raised our hands in thanks.

And as the cows on green meadows
Squirted warm milk in jars of clay
In the sweet milk of gentle cows
We found the Eden He’d stolen away.

Thy bright and shining Majesty
Is blocked out by silver songs brimming
With apple-trees, whose fruit forbidden
We pluck and share with lovely women.

Our hearts are flooded with knowledge, joy,
Two effervescent streams that shine.
You gave us, Lord, a cup of gall:
We’ve changed that bile into wine.

The painted arches of Thy fanes
Brood like brows wrathful, in furrows.
O Lord, rend Heaven’s veil and show
Us the bright face of Dionysos!

This translation supported by the „Sample Translations Copyright Poland” programme of the Book Institute, Kraków.

 

Waterfront, Memorial Day ’88.

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by Stephen Mead. “Good Morning Vietnam” the theatre marquee read. I could see it between these porch beams & our neighbors roofs. It takes awhile to sink in, twenty years or more back then, to bring the war home, let the unmentionable surface for what it was, was not & will forever more be: both. […]

Since you asked.

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by Diana Morley. what two weeks in a hospital bed was like— my mouth so dry I’m careful— I fear losing tongue cells on opening doc explains, my intestine dry as a Lowe’s outdoor plant—adding too much water at first could simply drown it scooping last bit of ice from a paper cup with a […]

Forgetting.

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by Caitlin O’Halloran. I once lost my hairbrush and spent an entire evening looking for it. My mother always said I’d never get anywhere in life if I couldn’t keep track of my things. “You’re just like your father,” she’d tell me. My father could never remember anyone’s name. On the rare occasions when we […]

Countervailing Forces.

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by Sean Murphy. An email, an angry thought, a meditation, a prayer; ill-will directed toward those who thrive on the perpetuated misery of those accommodating it. A severed friendship, letters to the editor, a withholding of affection, a refusal to smile mutely while the usual suspects recite talking points from pundits. Do you ponder that […]

Bottom of the Heap.

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by David Griffith. The working class has always been considered the bottom of the social heap. While working as a carpet-layer in Houston, I used to live with several other people in the back of a mechanic garage on the west side. We used to play guitars at night, and there was always lots of […]

For an Acquaintance and His Wife with Alzheimer’s.

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by Barry Vitcov. Who are you to say I would not be there? After all these years, you still have some doubt that in the end, when the world seems unfair, you would be abandoned and left without someone knowing well your questions and fears. Although we’ve often talked of the unknown, with worry in […]

Straight.

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by Holly Day. There is a stretch of highway in Kansas where the guy who was responsible for painting the line down the middle of the road fell asleep and drove into a field instead. It’s not usually a problem to pass this spot in the daytime, although if you’ve been following that white line […]

Grandeval.

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by Cliff Beck. When the Hittites took Babylon I was not there nor did I fight in Iraq for Bush and Blair. I refused the cross, was never on crusade and bought no penance, yet still paid all my dues. I wasn’t seen when the great witch hunts were made and was never one to […]

Cryptic Dreams.

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by Barry Vitcov. Before waking from a baseball game where the right fielder was an amoeba a limbless organism without arms playing a position requiring the best arms in a championship game doing the most harm. Or was I confused? Maybe it was a player named Joe Amoeba, or Mickey, or Willie, or Duke. What […]