Category: ON-Poetry

Me & You, A Sunday Morning Of February 2021

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Open this poem/love letter from our Editor in Chief Tommaso Cartia sent to all the lovers out there celebrating this St. Valentine’s Day 2021 in all of its love’s forms.

St. Valentine's Day


Me & You, A Sunday Morning of February 2021

It is not a Holiday
Until Billie caresses this Sunday
With the sweet roughness
Of her “Body & Soul”
Outside the window
Winter solmizates 
A snow’s symphony
A concert of ice and lights
Embracing and salvific.
The world is violently shaking
Sneezing blood, death, and confusion
We are prisoners of our hugging desire
But today you are with me
“Body & Soul”
Suspended 
In this house of red brick walls
Warming and fragrant
Like freshly baked bread
A house full of music and future
Of candles lit up to our dreams.
We are a reassuring parcel
To be opened next Christmas 
A lovers’ music box
That plays this fragmented present
With new harmonies
Audacious, adventurous, experimental.
Visions of us getting out of the house
Unmasked 
Hand in hand 
To go embrace of little wriggles of happiness
Our friends tonight at dinner.
A connection of loving sense 
Some wine, some laughs
Some singing, some foolishness
A melting of bodies, voices, sensations
A glimpse into eternity 
And then the present, the ordinary
The dreams of the trip we plan for next summer
More dreams
…
“I can’t wait to go to her concert…”
“…she is great, though she’ll never be like Billie…”
“promise we’ll see each other next week, good night!”
…
Later the love, me and you at home
The love
Unmasked
And the tomorrow gets trepidant with trivialities 
Once again 
The necessity of living as much as possible
Before nothing will be, again, impossible.
Me and you, Billie Holiday, and a Sunday morning of February 2021
Outside the window
The pandemic is sour
Flaking down
Even more violently than this snow’s tempest
But it will subside, will melt, and settle
Flash up once again and for all 
And be swollen by the darkness of time.
It will leave us dry, rested, rejuvenated 
Full of love for the days ahead.

Me, you, Billie Holiday, and a Sunday morning of February 2022.

It will be so, beautiful. 

Tommaso Cartia


ON-Poetry Presents “Jupiter Rising” by David James Parr

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Jupiter

We inaugurate our ON-Poetry column featuring the second video from the new book by David James Parr – PERSONAL TRAINING: poetry & exercise tips

The video-poem “Jupiter Rising” is read by the author and shot around various locations in NYC. PERSONAL TRAINING is now available on Amazon and Kindle. Please enjoy here below both the video and the poem.

Enjoy the video Courtesy of David James Parr Fiction Official Youtube

Jupiter Rising

David James Parr
The book is available now on Amazon and Kindle.

Steady as my glass that just fell off of the table—

don’t worry it wasn’t full—

and what phase of the moon are we in now?

which tide just got pulled?

Today I felt all bitter and fucked up

like a poem by Dorothy Parker

brittle on the outside

but fragile at the core

They say Jupiter is visible tonight

but I can’t see it through all this rain

On 9th Avenue the boys are cruising one another

            and they’re all starting to look the same.

So Jupiter is rising high 

in the cloudy sky tonight

Michaelangelo must have spilled his paints again

leaving us this pearly drop of light.

Today I felt like a Henry James heroine

crafty and unfulfilled

dreaming of a perfect match

                                    in a rudely imperfect world.

In my back pocket I have a business card

from—I think his name was Ed?

He works in technology

but I didn’t hear a word he said.

I was only thinking how the way he held his glass was sort of like

the way you held my wrist in the movie theatre

stroking up and down as if I might break

stroking up and down as if I might purr.

Tonight I felt like a French film star

leaving by the back door

I’d tell you la raison porquoi

                        but then again, what for?

Can you see Jupiter from where you sleep?

Can you see it from his bed?

In my back pocket I have a business card 

—I’m sure his name was Ed.

Today I felt like a ballad by Adele 

all bittersweet and corny

distraught and crying out your name

            yet deep down just plain horny.

Jupiter is visible again tonight 

impersonating a star

like a drag queen on a good night

think we could get there by car?

And how long before it twirls around?

Blinking its big red eye

How long before it rolls back over?

to a completely different sky.

About the Author

David James Parr
David James Parr lensed by Shushu Chen

Writer David James Parr was born on a cul-de-sac in suburban Ohio and grew up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania, where he learned how to spell “cul-de-sac” and to mispronounce “rural”, respectively. He is the author of the novels Violet Peaks and Beauty Marks, as well as the collection How To Survive Overwhelming Loss & Loneliness in 5 Easy Steps: Stories. His title story How To Survive Overwhelming Loss & Loneliness in 5 Easy Steps was chosen by Michael Cunningham (The Hours) as one of the Top 10 Stories in The Tennessee Williams Fiction contest, and is included in the anthology The Best Gay Stories of 2017. David’s story Mata Hari was also selected in 2015 as one of the winners of The Tennessee Williams Fiction contest. David’s plays Slap & Tickle, Albee Damned and Pluto Is Listening have been produced all across the U.S. including Chicago, Dallas, New York, Provincetown and St. Petersburg, and his play Mimi at The 44th Parallel was a Top 10 Finalist in The Austin Film Festival’s 2019 Playwriting Competition. His fiction has appeared in Saints + Sinners, Mosaic and Feminisms. His play Eleanor Rigby Is Waiting was made into a film which premiered at the 2019 Manhattan Film Festival, winning Best Independent Feature.