ArLiJo Issue 207

This issue features

photograph by Oleg Doroshenko,
fiction by Tanish Gupta,
photograph by Brian Michael Barbeito,
poetry by Colin Ian Jeffrey,
poetry by Paula Ruiz Santamaría with
translations by Tatianna Verswyvel Popcev

Oleg Doroshenko

Local florist with bouquets for sale, Lake Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir state, India

Tanish Gupta

The Little Song Girl

“And just as she had sung dear miss, the fruits broke off and fell, saturated in their self-sweetness.” said the axeman. Naturally confused, I repeated my query. “I was asking about the way to the florist?”

“The florist!” growled the axeman in his low voice. The axe in his hand rolled an angle in his unmoving hand as if to tease me. “The florist is gone far, for meeting the flower again and again wilted his heart.” he somewhat sang now, flailing his axe as if to punctuate the performance. Suddenly a low voice emanated from him. “Pathetic…. stop.”

He settled in his previous frame, resting back on the lower remains of a tree he now seemed to be working on, his head nested atop the axe-head, his eyes closed shut. The axe had a longer handle than usual, but crooked. Perhaps it was the wariness of the job that had the axeman put in such a terrible mood, akin to mine. The florist was to deliver my pots today and I needed to locate his house.

Presently, the axeman’s eyes snapped open. “Sir, are you okay?” I ask, quite fine he says. “What were you singing just then?” apparently, the song of the little girl. I felt my watch tighten on me even as the axe seemed to wriggle in the axeman’s hand. I was indeed late.

“Where is the florist’s house?” I shot out. “Houses are for animals; people roam in gardens.” He hums. “Stop it”, hissed the axe and I. “What are you singing?” I snap. Again, he says the little girl’s song. “What girl?”

“A little song girl.” He spoke flatly and softly. “She was about this high,” he said, standing the axe on the ground. “I remember seeing her days ago. She came dancing down singing about fruits and flowers and papers.” A smile forms inside his dark beard. “And what do you need my good madam?”

“I needed to see the florist.” I sigh out abruptly, whilst my mind painted to me a little girl, maybe six, in a little red frock, singing to this disheveled idiot before me, of whom I now expected no answer. “Oh he, he lives right across this field; I am afraid no path runs to the house.” said the axeman. “Really, umm, thank you. I will…” I turn to leave, and he grabs my arm. “The florist is not at home. Neither is the song girl. You would only find an empty house.”

“Why would the girl be there anyway?” A question answered by the song girl being the florist’s daughter. Not to mention, that the song girl was quite annoying too. “Well, so are you, now let me go!” I shrieked. He let go almost too easily.

“What will you do now?” he asked.

“I guess I will just run back home and come another… rather, I will just have my pots delivered.”

“Or you could stay a bit. I have tea and cookies, generally for the little song girl, but she isn’t coming back for a while.” In the time I could refuse, the axeman has hopped into his shed and returned with a plate and a cup.

“Wow…” I prepare to begin a polite refusal when I see his expression. His eyes, frantically reading my thoughts; his lips, smiling yet always on the verge of a frown; and the axe, still in his hand.

“Okay. Just for a bit.” His expressions grow firm in relief as he passes me a chair to sit on. As I stare at the plate, the song girl consumes my mind. “I like them round because roundness makes them sweet.” sings the axeman.

“You seem to like the song girl a lot.”

“I do indeed.” he says brightly, “don’t know why she hasn’t been about lately.”

“Maybe she is with her father.”

He stares at me. I down one cookie. He stares. I take a gulp. He stares. I bite into another cookie.

“Her father?” he asks with a tightened brow.

“The florist? You said she’s his daughter, and...”

“I didn’t know that.”

“But you told me just now!”

“Yes, I did.” replied the axe.

“You…” I stutter.

“Oh, the song girl. Stupid and clingy children. And that rambunctious voice; Oh!” the axe said. The axe said it, no question. The axeman was unmoving. It was the axe indeed speaking. And it had told me the florist went somewhere. “Where? Where is the girl? The florist?”

“I am the florist.” The axeman crumbled to the ground as he spoke to himself. “That is my house. And that was my daughter.”

“Was?” I choked out. The axeman turned to his talking weapon.

“You… you struck…” the axeman protested.

“Not the stupid girl” the axe replied. “Your heart. I struck your heart. Remember! Remember this barren house. This lowly life. This disgusting existence. And now remember the girl, always giggling.” “NO!” the axeman cried. “Her foolish singing. Her hollow mind. She craved happiness. You only had sorrow. And so the pest feasted on you. Sang at you.”

“She tried to save me! She sang and played and…”

“’ The florist is gone far, for meeting the flower again and again wilted his heart.’” I softly recounted.

“What are you?” I asked the axe.

“Pick me up.” the axe said. I obliged. By now, the florist had returned and begun his wailing.

“The monster is right there.” I turned to face the florist. The fruit had indeed saturated, in self-righteousness.

About the Author

Tanish Gupta is a graduate of B.E. EEE from BITS Pilani Goa. Originally from Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir. He reveres his hometown, old songs, and trivial comedies. His interest in literature is largely manifest in freeform poetry and gothic short stories.

Colin Ian Jeffery

Howl down the screaming wind

Stem gushing flow of innocent blood

Rescue souls lost from whirlpool's trap

Floundering lost amidst thunderous waves

Dashed and broken upon jagged rocks.

War mongers demands beyond control

Silencing all prayers for peace

Lies told to quell the panic

Inmates running the asylum

Madness giving birth to destruction.

Brian Michael Barbeito

Abandoned Barn

About the Artist

Brian Michael Barbeito is a Canadian poet and photographer. He is the creator of the prose poem and photography books, Still Some Crazy Summer Wind Coming Through (Dark Winter Press, July, 2024), and the forthcoming work, When I Hear the Night (Dark Winter Press, January, 2026)

In times long gone

When I was a boy

Running innocent and free

Supported by family, love and joy

Sweet days of sunshine and delight.

I thought it never ending

Happiness inspiring the heart

Those I love immortal

Death forbidden stranger

Without time aging body and mind.

About the Author

Colin Ian Jeffery is an English poet of the modernist movement with development of imagism stressing clarity, precision and economy of language, and has a strong reaction against war, tranny, and oppression of truth and innocence, but unlike other poets in the modernism movement like Dylan Thomas and Ezra Pound he has a profound faith in God.

Paula Ruiz Santamaría

Barbecho

Como si todo el cuerpo

se tendiera al sol

para curar

vacío ya

de huesos

y dirección

tela,

muerte del músculo

carente de intenciones.

Habitar

arena/hierba/asfalto

hasta secarme

y que ya no quede nada

toda esta carga

de heridas

que no me pertenecen

y las nuevas

Que me vacíen

con una cuchara

y sea tan ligera

que no sienta

ni la piel

que mis pasos

solo me lleven

a donde deba llegar

Y yo dejarme ser

toda entera

Ojalá tuviera alas

hermosas mías

que me abrigaran

brillantes

para poder creer

con ellas

que por fin

soy suficiente.

Translation by Tatianna Verswyvel Popcev

Fallow

As though the body

lied out in the sun

to heal

empty now

of bones

and direction

fabric,

demise of muscle

wanting of will.

Dwell in

sand/grass/asphalt

until I dry up

and nothing remains

this whole load

of wounds

that don’t belong to me

and the new ones

May I be emptied

with a spoon

and made so light

as not to feel

so much as skin

may my steps

take me only

as far as I must go

And let myself be

all of me

If only I had wings

beautiful, mine

to keep me warm,

sparkling

to make me believe

with them

that I am

finally enough.

Si todo fuera esto

En días como este

donde el sol dora mi tiempo

y hace frío en las pestañas

pero por dentro borboteo

quiero vivir despacio.

Agarrada a tu deseo

solamente

sin que duela nada tanto

a pesar de nuestro impulso

Alfa

sin heridas.

Acariciar las horas

en que consigue descansar

esta máquina de letras

que apenas cesa

hasta tu tacto.

Si yo pudiera

entender

cómo lo haces:

coserme las ganas

cada madrugada.

Translation by Tatianna Verswyvel Popcev

If all were this

On days like these

when the sun gilds my time

and it’s cold in the eyelashes

but inside I’m burbling

I want to live slowly.

Clutching onto your desire

solamente

where nothing hurts so much

despite our Alpha

drive

unwounded.

Caress the hours

when it manages to rest

this letter machine

that scarcely pauses

upon your touch.

If I could

understand

how you do it:

thread my thirst

with every dawn.

Nada

La verdad es una guía,

los sentimientos

mapa.

Loca

por saber decir que no

por no creer en Dioses

solo en las mías.

Tantos años

en altamar

y aun así tan próxima

que siento vuestra respiración

En esta nada sin nombre

estratosférica ausencia

Despertar de golpe

y que ya no quede nada:

curarme las heridas

seguir nadando

Translation by Tatianna Verswyvel Popcev

Nothinging

Truth is a guide,

feelings

a map.

Crazy

for knowing how to say no

for not believing in Gods

only in mine

So many years

offshore

and yet so close

I sense your breathing

In this nameless void

stratospheric absence

Waking up suddenly

to nothing left:

dress my wounds

keep floundering

About the Author

Paula Ruiz Santamaría, originally from the Basque Country, is a PhD candidate in Latin American Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on contemporary poetry by Mapuche and Basque female poets. Paula's work has appeared in American literary magazines like Furman 217 and Spanish newspapers like 20 Minutos. She has three poetry collections: Croquetas de nada (2017), Mientras tanto (2021), and Silent Mermaids (2024).

About the Translator

Tatianna Verswyvel Popcev (Caracas, 1999) is a writer and translator. She holds a degree in International Affairs and Literature from Transylvania University and leads a book discussion group for Spanish speakers at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. Her translations have been published digitally on platforms like Círculo de Poesía, Irradiación and Still: The Journal.