Gabriella Brand

Three publications with three different perspectives contain some of my latest work…LePanPoetry, Hoolet’s Nest, and Macrame Literary Journal.

LePan Poetry Review, which is a multilingual African journal, has published two of my poems “Retrouvailles” and “Le Sabot de la Vierge“. You can read them in French below, or by downloading the PDF. If you don’t read French, you can imagine what they mean. The first is about meeting a friend after twenty years, the other is about ladyslippers, those beautiful and sexy forest flowers.

RETROUVAILLES
Dans la forêt moite, mousseuse, mouillée d’été,
j’amène Joëlle, amie du passé, arrivée du loin
comme la tramontane, apportant avec elle
une bourrasque de souvenirs.
Le bois nous appelle
On y entre parmi les sapins
à l’odeur d’août, à l’odeur de Noël,
une cascade de paroles, le ruisseau du temps jadis,
déroutées seulement par le cri du pinson,
les framboises sauvages, séductrices de la piste.
Au bord du petit lac, on s’assoit sur deux rochers,
et là, on rebrousse chemin
vers la belle saison de notre jeunesse.
Ah, que la vie nous a gâté, nous a tordu, nous a rempli
On taille la bavette, comme deux grand-mères,
déroule doucement les années, ces boules de laine,
pour refaire le beau tricot qui formaient nos beaux hiers.
On fait de débroussaillage, quelque chose de buissonnier,
on se ballade dans les mots, les rires, les silences.
La forêt nous écoute.

LE SABOT DE LA VIERGE
Pareils aux floraisons, identiques aux buissons
partageant les veines, la sève, les courbes,
le tige érigé, les bourgeons, on se retrouve
toujours dans le bois fertile,
variation sur un thème,
fécondé par le destin.
Dans le petit Sabot de la Vierge, je me reconnaissais,
telle femme, telle fleur, étoile printanière,
surgissante du sol forestier, bulbeuse, magenta exposée,
presque criarde, comme un mannequin qui frimait
au podium.
Sans pudeur, sans maquillage, j’appâte l’abeille
qui goûte le début du monde.

Gabriella Brand (Etats-Unis): sa poésie et récits de se trouvent
dans plusieurs publications mondiales, y inclus Cordite (Austra-
lie), Room Magazine (Canada), Gyroscope Review (États-Unis)
et Shiuli (Inde). Elle présenta ses poèmes au Open Mic of the
Air, ainsi qu’au Poisson Rouge de New York.

And now some drabbles

I’m delighted that my drabbles (these are short short short stories, sometimes under 100 words )entitled Alms and Soldiering On found their way to the Canadian publication Hoolet’s Nook, a publisher of microfiction. Read them at http://thehooletsnook.com or below:

Bowls

Melissa cut her hair, preemptively. The bathroom floor looked like two gray cats had been fighting, tearing out each other’s fur. The cut hair curled around the base of the toilet and stuck to the porcelain. She would clean it later, or maybe not.

When she looked in the mirror she told herself not to cry. It was better this way, rather than waiting for the portal and the drip and the nausea.

When John came home, he stared at Melissa in the same way he had when she had told him she was pregnant, thirty years before. As if an asteroid had hit the earth. But, once again, he regained his composure and once again, he said, “Hmmm….that’s amazing.”

He did not tell her that she looked pretty, because she didn’t, and John was anything if not honest.

He did not tell her that it would grow back, as he had once told their toddler who had gotten adventurers with scissors.

He did not tell Melissa that he loved her just as she was, because she already knew.

But he didn’t say anything of real comfort either.

The person who made her feel a little better was an acquaintance in her book group.

“You look like Pema Chodron, you know, the nun?”

Melissa had nodded and ran her fingers over her stubble, suddenly feeling more tender towards herself. More charitable. More inclined to breathe.

She wondered if Pema Chodron had ever been a mendicant, wandering around asking for alms. Probably not.

She had heard that the traditional Buddhist way to beg was to just wait. Not ask. Not plead.Not bargain. Not cajole. Not pray. Just wait.

So when no one was looking, she made her fingers into a little bowl shape and she began waiting.

Soldiering On

Years ago, she would have screamed. Hit it with a rock, the edge of a hoe. Killed it, if she could have, because life hadn’t yet mellowed her.Now she just stared at the young, coiled snake that had surprised her in the garden. She had lifted up a cinder block that had fallen off the fire pit…..and there it was, pale khaki with thin blue-green stripes, like a military uniform. She waited for it to slither away. But it didn’t. Fear glued it to the earth. She stood there for a while letting awe creep over her.

And finally, I’m pleased that Macrame Literary Journal published “Not Rumi“, which you can read here: https://macramelit.com/ or below:

Not Rumi

The house guest left a mess in the bathroom, didn’t bring wine, critiqued the curtains,complained about berries at breakfast, lush organic sweet berries, who can object? I gritted my teeth as I waved goodbye, tried hard to imagine what pain drives her from her house to mine, from mine to the next stop, what fuel burns inside her, stored up from the dark places of the small town, the cruelty of brothers or uncles, the metallic taste of powdered milk, the hand-me-down skates. She turns a corner and I stay there a minute, breathing in the fumes of her exhaust.