The Zingara Project

Month: August 2019

  • When I Got My Ears Pierced by Sophie Cohen

    Well, I was walking trying to mind my business
    and guess who came by on his bike!
    Yes, it was him and his hair was short,
    if you can believe he’d let someone cut his hair.
    He stopped to call my name and come beside me,
    walking his bike and the chain came off.
    Do you mind waiting just a minute?
    And I waited, because there is something about his voice
    I’ve always liked, and I wanted him to walk
    beside me, asking questions people don’t ask.
    Do you go to New York a lot?
    I said I did, sometimes, but I don’t like it there.
    We should go. In the summer.
    He even went so far as to ask where I was walking,
    so I said to get my ears pierced, and he asked
    if I had any other piercings on my body,
    as if he’d never seen me naked.
    But no, I said, I only have them on my ears.
    Then he was away on his bike,
    and for a sudden moment it was the fall again,
    when at the crossroads as he walked me to the doctor
    I said I knew the rest of the way, and it was raining,
    and I saw his eyes afraid before he turned and ran
    down the street, catching the arrow green.

    —

    Sophie Cohen is a rising junior at MIT, where she studies mathematics and creative writing. She is a writer for MIT Chroma Magazine, and a teaching assistant for calculus. An active member of her sorority, Alpha Phi, Sophie leads the fundraising effort for the Boston Walk to End Lupus Now. Her favorite poet is Brigit Pegeen Kelly.

  • Paperplane letters by Kristina Gibbs

    Love was pressed between
    Stained smudges of downy diction
                Creased along the edges
    Bent over backwards
                Then folded forward
    Sealed by the weight of waxy hope
    Sent with a flick—
    but the sun beat on
          And on
          And on
    So it flut ter ed
                Falt er
          ed
                    Fall
                ing
    Hitting the water
    A distraught Icarus.
    The whole of its failure upon it
    Contributed to its
    Sinking.
    Words raged
    And swirled
    Unleashed—
                Torn open
    Harboured in
    The inky black deep.
    —
    Kristina Gibbs is an emerging writer from Tennessee pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in English and minor in Linguistics. She has previously published in Speaking of Marvels and North of Oxford Review. When she is not reading or writing, you may find her clambering over both hiking trails and paint brushes.

  • a modern sonnet by Cleopatra Lim

    i know that it is okay because i said yes but it should mean
    that i don’t have to feel like a suckling pig before slaughter
    and i did this, i think, to feel like an adult now that i’m eighteen
    but i went too far– i go too far– ten bucks that he has a daughter

    somehow i can see myself in an hour, picking the curly aged hairs he shed
    off polka-dotted sheets that laid witness to my first lunar blood
    and soon he’ll unlock my beloved chest, spill jewels of cherry-red–
    hindsight says once a flower blooms, it’ll never again be a bud

    but reason and rationale are always late and the party don’t start
    til they walk in and see me: emptied and filled with cheap wine
    and tears… they said when it happened, i would feel in my heart
    completed, perfected, and his gaze would be sugary sunshine….

    instead the bed shakes and i am seasick until the north star, i can mark.
    he tries to see me but he can’t. i am with the stars that glow in the dark.

    —

    Cleopatra Lim is a student currently attending Columbia University. She most enjoys writing prose poetry and personal essays, and has been published in some smaller literary journals. She currently works in NYC as a marketing assistant and a junior agent at a talent agency. In the future, she hopes to be able to work with both film and writing, working to incorporate poetry on to the big screen.

  • Eden by Kayleigh Macdonald

    We all have ways to weigh ourselves.
    Eden’s way: stay in motion.
    She would still the silence by
    praying to God, eating her vegetables,
    journaling in the achy fog of morning.
    She would lean against the counter when she stopped.
    Chairs were much too comfortable.
    I never saw it was defense
    until I, too,
    heard bees in my head.
    I see myself in Eden’s race
    against the unfair haste of silent time.
    There isn’t ease in inner peace
    when a piece of you is missing.

    —

    Kayleigh Macdonald was born and raised in San Jose, CA. She is a recent graduate of California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Graphic Communication and a Minor in English.

     

     

  • Flash Fiction Contest – $500 Award

    One week left to submit your best short fiction for the 2019 Julia Peterkin Award for Flash Fiction – $500 prize (ends August 15, 2019)
    • Previously unpublished fiction of 850 words or less are eligible for this contest. We are especially interested in stories that demonstrate a strong voice and/or a sense of place, but we consider all quality writing.
    • All submissions will be read blind, so do not include personal information with your submission. Submissions that include identifying information will not be considered.
    • We will select one winner to receive a cash prize of $500.
    • Four semi-finalists will be chosen for publication in South 85 Journal
    • Winners will be named in October.
    • All winning entries will be published in the Fall / Winter issue of South 85 Journal, which will be released December 15.
    • To read last year’s winners, visit http://south85journal.com/issues/fall-winter-2018/flash-fiction/.
    • Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your entry if your piece is accepted elsewhere.
    • All winners must be over 18 years old and reside in the U.S. in order to claim their cash prize.
    • Please use double-spacing and a 12 point, standard font. We suggest Times New Roman. We consider only previously unpublished work.
    • Current and former staff members are not eligible for participation.
    • Current Converse College students and Converse College alumni are not eligible for participation.
    • SUBMIT HERE
    South 85 Journal does not publish work which has been previously published either in print or online. Our reply time is typically six to eight weeks. We acquire exclusive first-time Internet rights only. All other rights revert to the author at publication, but we offer formal, written reassignments upon request. Works are also archived online. We ask that whenever an author reprints the work that first appeared in our pages, South 85 Journal be given acknowledgment for the specific work(s) involved. Only the main contest winner will receive a prize.

  • A City Like a Dead Man by Jake Sheff

    I dreamed our city’s slender attitude,
    of ruined moonlight
    in the bombs. The dreamer’s femur is

    the squeaky wheel. If love could only speak
    and never hear, she said
    between the bombs. I loved her

    safe route to mercy. Lyme disease
    and bombs had similar inaccuracies. On foot
    she wandered through

    pretentious fire. You wouldn’t think to
    look at death, she said
    at night, the doctor who delivered it

    was darkness. As fever struck the garbage
    dump, I dreamt I was her Carthage.

    —

    Jake Sheff is a major and pediatrician in the US Air Force. Poems of Jake’s are in Radius, The Ekphrastic Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Cossack Review and elsewhere. He won 1st place in the 2017 SFPA speculative poetry contest and was a finalist in the Rondeau Roundup’s 2017 triolet contest. His chapbook is “Looting Versailles” (Alabaster Leaves Publishing).

     

  • The Kiss by George Cassidy Payne

    (Inspired by Gustav Klimt)

    The kiss is nectar-filled
    skin wrapped over a corpse.

    It stands still in the mouth like
    a crouching tiger at a motionless
    midday stream.

    The kiss knows that figures are
    keeping watch. As tarantulas scuttle
    underfoot, it cracks apart like stepped on
    craw fish shells.

    Petite. Pink. Long and patient. Stingless
    and vaporizing. The difference between
    waiting and enduring.

    The kiss was never meant to be a hand
    shake or a goodbye. Like a moose, 5,343 feet
    below a canopy of charred balsam, scarfing wild
    shrooms, with instant knowing, The kiss bustles.

    Plunged into the minerals like an ice ax. Breaking them
    open upon a bed of prismatic sands. Submerged in
    asteroids. The kiss. Colliding intentions. Like the wind nudging
    two chimes. Existing together as they must.

    —

    George Cassidy Payne is originally from the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. He now lives and works in the City of Rochester, New York. George is a poet, photographer, essayist, professor of philosophy, and social worker. George’s poetry has been included in a variety of  journals and magazines, including Chronogram Magazine, Allegro Poetry Journal, Mojave Heart, the Red Porch Review, Albany Up the River Poets Journal, Teahouse, The Adirondack Almanac, The Mindful Word, Talker of the Town, Pulsar, Moria Poetry Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, and many others. 

  • Call for Submissions – South 85 Journal

    South 85 Journal is open for submission beginning today, August 1, 2019. South 85 Journal accepts poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction and is published online twice yearly. Please read past issues for a sense of our aesthetic.  Submission fees are waived from August 1-14 for early-bird submissions. Click here to read past issues and full submission guidelines.