Issue IV - Love + Hate
Welcome to the Pinnacle's fourth issue, Love + Hate.
Welcome to the Pinnacle's fourth issue, Love + Hate.
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ISSUE<br />
<strong>IV</strong><br />
Select<br />
LOVE + HATE<br />
Poetry & Prose Oct 2024<br />
Compiled & Edited by Anita Pan<br />
THE PINNACLE 1
CONTRIBUTERS<br />
THE PINNACLE<br />
ISSUE <strong>IV</strong>: LOVE + HATE<br />
Abhishek Udaykumar<br />
Dana Delibovi<br />
Fabrice Poussin<br />
Grace Curley<br />
James Jackson<br />
Maria Marques<br />
Olivia Burgess<br />
Sarp Sozdinler<br />
Oct 2024<br />
2
contents<br />
Anita Pan Editor’s Letter 4<br />
Dana Delibovi Afterburn 5<br />
Grace Curley What it Means to Be Polite 8<br />
Maria Duran MUSEUM WORK 22<br />
Sarp Sozdinler The Tail of a Gypsy Moth 25<br />
Olivia Burgess A Poem About Lost Media 30<br />
Abhishek<br />
Udaykumar<br />
Holiday 33<br />
Fabrice Poussin Cool Steel 36<br />
James Croal Jackson The Moon is Slowly Drifting Away 38<br />
3
EDITOR’S<br />
LETTER<br />
Are there any two emotions which better<br />
encapsulate humankind than love and hate?<br />
The two have inspired countless literary<br />
masterpieces, spawned countless relationships (and<br />
farewells), and ignited the most enthralling events in<br />
history. Indeed, most prolific writers and poets<br />
began by musing about love, or hatred. As we reach<br />
our second anniversary, the Pinnacle celebrates the<br />
extraordinary amount of talented submissions we’ve<br />
received this year.<br />
We have encountered poems, ballads, plays, and stories on nearly<br />
every topic imaginable, but two enduring themes prevail: love and<br />
hate. To that end, our writers in this issue pay homage to the raw and<br />
gritty spectrum of humanity. There’s something for everyone:<br />
longing, betrayal, sex, liberation, violence, death...the list goes on.<br />
Perhaps most importantly, the pieces in <strong>Issue</strong> <strong>IV</strong> are like mirrors: they<br />
invite the reader to see themselves, reflected.<br />
We’re excited for our next journey into <strong>Issue</strong> V. But until then, thank you for reading the<br />
Pinnacle’s fourth issue, <strong>Love</strong> + <strong>Hate</strong>. We’re incredibly grateful for your continued support.<br />
Here’s to another year of great literature.<br />
Anita Pan<br />
Editor-in-Chief of The Pinnacle<br />
4
AFTER<br />
BURN<br />
By Dana Delibovi<br />
Dana Delibovi is a poet, essayist, and translator. Her<br />
new book of translations and essays, Sweet Hunter:<br />
The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila, was<br />
published in 2024 by Monkfish Books. Delibovi’s<br />
work has appeared in After the Art, Apple Valley<br />
Review, Bluestem, Fish Barrel Review, Noon, Psaltery<br />
& Lyre, Salamander, and many other journals. She is<br />
a 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, a 2020 Best<br />
American Essays notable essayist, and co-winner of<br />
the 2023 Hueston Woods Poetry Contest. Delibovi<br />
is consulting poetry editor at the literary e-zine Cable<br />
Street.<br />
5
Your overcoat,<br />
the vermillion sundown,<br />
a crumpled bag beneath the trestle,<br />
and me, with no food all day:<br />
I stalked you on platforms<br />
watching for you in train windows.<br />
I knew you liked to smoke by Grand Central’s<br />
gray columns,<br />
to shelter from the rain. When I walked<br />
the bridge across the river, mirages<br />
of you shimmered on the far shore.<br />
Every night<br />
I moved my only light bulb<br />
from lamp to lamp<br />
in wild exhaustion.<br />
I broke<br />
my moral code when I blacked out<br />
on your bed.<br />
6
I left you long messages, one after the other, and<br />
in the morning I would find<br />
piss-full pans all over my apartment. I would find<br />
little sketches and sonnets with your name.<br />
None survived the immolation<br />
it took to get me out of there.<br />
7
WHAT IT<br />
MEANS TO<br />
BE POLITE<br />
By Grace Curley<br />
Grace Caroline Curley is a current MFA Candidate at the<br />
University of New Orleans. In 2021, her one-act play, “Something<br />
Blue.” was performed in the Sacred Heart University Theatre<br />
Arts Programs new works festival, TheatreFest. In 2022 her play<br />
What It Means To Be Polite was accepted to the Mid-America<br />
Theatre Conference's Ten-Minute Playwriting Symposium, in<br />
Cleveland, OH. Most recently, her play “Your Children Will<br />
Follow” was performed at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe Festival,<br />
and was a recipient of four stars from The Derek Awards. Curley<br />
is a current MFA student studying Playwriting at The University<br />
of New Orleans.<br />
8
Cast<br />
Cassidy: Funny and very charismatic. Is a people person and is<br />
generally confident but is still very insecure. Early 20’s.<br />
Zoe: Incredibly sweet and mild-mannered. Big heart. Early 20’s.<br />
Setting<br />
Undisclosed locatiom<br />
Present Day<br />
——<br />
SCENE 1<br />
ACT 1<br />
CASS and ZOE are sat in an undisclosed location.<br />
CASS<br />
I really believe that Jo’s sisters are a representation of all the paths in life<br />
that Jo feared taking.<br />
ZOE<br />
Feared?<br />
CASS<br />
Yeah. Was afraid of.<br />
ZOE<br />
Well how so?<br />
9
CASS<br />
Well, Amy married the man that Jo rejected.<br />
ZOE<br />
Sure, but then Jo wanted him again.<br />
CASS<br />
That part doesn’t count. She was distraught - her original answer to<br />
Laurie was no, and it, for the most part, remained that way. She didn’t<br />
want to marry him, but Amy did.<br />
ZOE<br />
Amy got to study in Europe, which was what Jo always wanted.<br />
CASS<br />
Yet Jo would have done it differently.<br />
ZOE<br />
Maybe. So what about the other sisters?<br />
CASS<br />
Well, I mean, Beth dies. She dies young. I think Jo fears dying before<br />
getting to live her own adventure.<br />
ZOE<br />
Beth was talented. She wasn’t a writer, but she was a wonderful<br />
pianist. Jo fears not being able to make something of her own talent,<br />
like Beth.<br />
10
ZOE<br />
Beth was talented. She wasn’t a writer, but she was a wonderful<br />
pianist. Jo fears not being able to make something of her own talent,<br />
like Beth.<br />
CASS<br />
I think so too. And then there’s Meg. Who settles down and gets<br />
married and has a family young.<br />
ZOE<br />
Yeah, and Jo has a distaste for it.<br />
CASS<br />
I think it’s the worst path of all, for her anyways. This particular path<br />
explores the fear of the mundane, of being boring, which sounds<br />
superficial -<br />
ZOE<br />
But it makes perfect sense. And she saw herself becoming that person<br />
if she had said yes to Laurie’s proposal.<br />
CASS<br />
Exactly. (Pause) Although…<br />
ZOE<br />
What?<br />
CASS<br />
I don’t think I would say no to a proposal from a man who in some<br />
universe is Timothee Chalamet.<br />
11
ZOE<br />
(Laughing)<br />
That is so counteractive to this whole conversation.<br />
CASS<br />
How?<br />
ZOE<br />
We spend this whole time talking about the limited options this<br />
particular woman has - but now you’re thinking about Timothee<br />
Chalamet.<br />
CASS<br />
Okay, you’re right. You’re right. I never really liked that specific<br />
proposal anyways.<br />
ZOE<br />
You wouldn’t want someone requesting that you marry them out of<br />
nowhere?<br />
CASS<br />
(Laughing)<br />
No, no I wouldn’t.<br />
ZOE<br />
Like completely out of nowhere.<br />
CASS<br />
Oh I know.<br />
12
ZOE<br />
He expects her to say yes.<br />
CASS<br />
Yes, I know.<br />
ZOE<br />
And isn’t thrilled when she doesn’t give the answer he wanted.<br />
CASS<br />
I know.<br />
ZOE<br />
I know the character is more than that… but it still bothers me.<br />
CASS<br />
How so?<br />
ZOE<br />
He thought she’d just bend to his will - love him because he wanted<br />
her to.<br />
CASS<br />
I see.<br />
ZOE<br />
You just can’t do that.<br />
CASS<br />
No, you can’t. It’s interesting… to say the least - that what was a<br />
problem then, is still a problem today.<br />
13
ZOE<br />
Nothing’s changed.<br />
CASS<br />
Not at all.<br />
ZOE<br />
How is it that almost 200 years have passed, and women are still<br />
treated in the same manner as they were 200 years ago. It’s just more<br />
subtle now.<br />
CASS<br />
Women back then were anticipated to give, and give and think<br />
nothing of it.<br />
ZOE<br />
Do you think anything has changed since?<br />
CASS<br />
I guess not.<br />
ZOE<br />
Even now, any shimmer a woman has is completely stifled by the<br />
people who just take.<br />
ZOE and CASS are silent.<br />
CASS<br />
You know, I went on a date last week.<br />
14
ZOE<br />
A date?<br />
CASS<br />
Yeah.<br />
ZOE is confused as to why CASS is bringing this up.<br />
CASS<br />
I wouldn’t say it went well.<br />
ZOE<br />
Why?<br />
CASS<br />
I’m just thinking of it now, what we were talking about reminded me.<br />
Like the way people expect things from you.<br />
ZOE<br />
Reminded you?<br />
CASS<br />
Yeah.<br />
ZOE<br />
Okay, well how?<br />
CASS is silent for a moment.<br />
15
CASS<br />
I don’t know. (Pause) It just didn’t go well. This guy- I went on this<br />
date with him once. Only once- and I didn’t text him back when he<br />
asked me out again- because I don’t know- I was too nervous to. He<br />
was so- so weird and I - I don’t know.<br />
ZOE<br />
Did he do something to you?<br />
CASS<br />
No, he was just weird. I shouldn’t have gone but I figured it didn’t<br />
matter. I got bad vibes from the start to be completely honest with<br />
you- but he asked and I didn’t want to be rude.<br />
ZOE<br />
You don’t owe politeness. We don’t owe anything.<br />
CASS<br />
Exactly, I know. I feel like I’ve been brainwashed into thinking I have<br />
to do things for others. I don’t want to hurt others feelings so I forget<br />
to protect my own.<br />
ZOE<br />
Did something happen?<br />
CASS is silent again.<br />
CASS<br />
He just kissed me. I didn’t want to but he wanted to walk to my car<br />
and I knew it was coming but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to. I<br />
didn’t know what to do. I don’t know, it bothers me but it happens to<br />
everyone, so.<br />
16
ZOE<br />
Right.<br />
CASS<br />
It just really bothers me. He probably thinks I had the most<br />
wonderful time, he probably had a wonderful time.<br />
ZOE<br />
Right.<br />
CASS<br />
So when the guy shows up at your job, knowing where you work<br />
after one off-hand comment you make, you just move on with your<br />
life, right?<br />
ZOE<br />
What? He showed up at your job?<br />
CASS<br />
Yeah- He came in asking for me, he came in with a note for me. My<br />
manager didn’t let me see it but it was probably something insane and<br />
critiquing me for not answering him when he asked me out again- but<br />
I don’t have to answer him- I don’t owe him that- I don’t have to be<br />
polite. Not again, not ever.<br />
ZOE<br />
You’re right.<br />
17
CASS<br />
I mean, he gets to live his life after this. He gets to go on and be<br />
himself for the rest of his life. The only harm done is a little bruised<br />
ego because a girl he went on one date with didn’t call him back. But<br />
that isn’t going to stop him, it won’t hinder his quality of life. He’ll be<br />
fine. I won’t be though. I will get chills whenever I hear his name, I<br />
will walk with my arms crossed everywhere I go and I will be looking<br />
over my shoulder at work and in grocery stores for the rest of my life.<br />
Five minutes out of his day will haunt me for the rest of my life.<br />
ZOE<br />
I’m sorry.<br />
CASS<br />
They will all be fine and we will carry their shit for the rest of our lives.<br />
The girls are silent.<br />
CASS (Cont.)<br />
(Defeated)<br />
He showed up at my job looking for me. You don’t do that.<br />
ZOE<br />
No.<br />
CASS<br />
And… I don’t know… I’m going to be stuck in that parking lot<br />
forever- Time will keep passing, my body will age but I will be left<br />
there forever. Does that make sense?<br />
18
ZOE<br />
It does. It makes sense what you’re saying. That one person's actions<br />
could define your life. But you can’t allow yourself to fall behind. You<br />
can’t let this dictate your life.<br />
CASS<br />
They get to be fine. It’s not fair. We give and they take and we live<br />
with the consequences.<br />
ZOE<br />
I know.<br />
CASS<br />
Aren’t you angry?<br />
ZOE<br />
I am. I’m angry for you. I’m angry for myself too.<br />
CASS<br />
I just wish I knew why.<br />
ZOE<br />
Why? What do you mean?<br />
CASS<br />
Why do men feel entitled to us? To our time? To our lives? (Pause)<br />
I’m all over the place. I’m sorry.<br />
ZOE<br />
You can’t ask yourself why forever.<br />
19
CASS<br />
I can.<br />
ZOE<br />
What good is it going to do?<br />
CASS<br />
I don’t know. Give me closure or something.<br />
ZOE<br />
You won’t get closure by doing that.<br />
CASS<br />
What do you mean?<br />
ZOE<br />
Closure has to come from you. I mean, you can ask yourself a million<br />
times “why”. You could get a million explanations, but it’ll never<br />
really make sense. The only person who can make things right in your<br />
world is yourself.<br />
CASS<br />
I guess.<br />
ZOE<br />
Put yourself first from now on. Don’t feel bad for being rude,<br />
because it’s not being rude when you have your best interest at heart.<br />
(Pause) I think we can both work on that.<br />
20
CASS<br />
You're right. I don’t think I’ll ever not be angry.<br />
ZOE<br />
Me neither, but I think that’s okay. We learn to live with it.<br />
21
MUSEUM<br />
WORK<br />
By Maria Marques<br />
Maria Duran (she/her) is an art history PhD<br />
candidate from Lisbon, Portugal. Her literary<br />
work has been published or is forthcoming with<br />
Helvética Press, Gilbert & Hall Press, Black Moon<br />
Magazine, Erato Magazine and tiny wren lit,<br />
among others. Her art work has been exhibited in<br />
digital exhibitions and several zines. She is a finalist<br />
of the 2024 Lisbon Poetry Festival.<br />
22
Piece #29001 - DILS ARCH<strong>IV</strong>E:<br />
(Documental Inventory Of Lost Souls)<br />
scrap of paper,<br />
pulp and charcoal,<br />
preserved in leather satchel.<br />
Inscription of love:<br />
Milky moon, kiss me sweetly,<br />
hold me close.<br />
Bad singer, tall lily, windy hill, swift<br />
weaver,<br />
sweet beloved, hold me close.<br />
Oh lover, I go voyaging for silver beneath<br />
the cold moonlight, I go in the chain-gang<br />
as a beast with many hands.<br />
Every step I take is not my own.<br />
Our language they would stifle<br />
inside these bonds, silence dead;<br />
but the heart<br />
that praises and reveres you cannot be<br />
undone, and is yours only.<br />
23
Conversation condition of the document:<br />
poor, heartbroken.<br />
Author: Anonymous pressed man,<br />
Irish, between 1750-1800.<br />
We can tell by the curve of his calligraphy<br />
that he was hungry,<br />
would die hungry.<br />
Found in Lisbon, never sent.<br />
Found in 2013, never sent.<br />
Found, unfound, never sent,<br />
Never.<br />
24
THE TAIL<br />
OF A<br />
GYPSY<br />
MOTH<br />
By Sarp Sozdinler<br />
A Turkish writer, Sarp Sozdinler has been published in<br />
Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review,<br />
Trampset, Vestal Review, DIAGRAM, Normal School,<br />
Lost Balloon, and Maudlin House, among other journals.<br />
His stories have been selected and nominated for the<br />
Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and<br />
Wigleaf Top 50. He's currently at work on his first novel<br />
in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.<br />
25
States hear from each other from one disaster to another, your<br />
cellmate used to say (“like family members”). Like when the earth<br />
splits and swallows a village. Like when two planes ride into as many<br />
towers. When a fucker tries and blows up an airport. Take California<br />
for instance, he’d say, or Mexico at your will, where everyone talks<br />
about cartels, about how dangerous life could get in those places, how<br />
drugs run like water, what have you. No one mentions the upsides<br />
when sober. Stereotypes strangle everyone like a handwoven scarf<br />
from home, and we all battle the collective ghost of other people<br />
constitutionally similar to us, day in and day out.<br />
Today, it’s the absence of news that tells you a lot about what<br />
has become of your life lately. Just the night before, you closed your<br />
eyes to a world without hope and opened them to one full of<br />
possibilities. You aimed for a world beyond the four walls of your jail<br />
cell but ended up in this six-by-eight motel room roughly the size of a<br />
coffin. Maybe the world didn’t spin fast enough, after all. Maybe all of<br />
this was designed in a way to leave your thirty-two-year-old heart<br />
broken again and again, you who was once full of life and had<br />
chestnut color around your chest unlike the inch of blondish white<br />
regrowth invading the root of your horseshoe hair these days.<br />
Today, none of it makes a difference.<br />
Today, you turn on your laptop and embark on a journey on<br />
Google Street View. You start from your motel room in San<br />
Francisco, then click eastward once, and then click on and on. You<br />
click your way through Nevada, Utah, Colorado; from Ohio and<br />
Pennsylvania to New Hampshire; from one Portland to another, and<br />
from there all the way to the easternmost point of America.<br />
26
The nation on the screen offers you a curious vista: cascading tract<br />
house suburbs and trailer parks and grain silos and gun stores and strip<br />
clubs and hypermarkets and self-storage facilities are shaping the tail of<br />
a gypsy moth; the longleaf pines its head. The fuzzy portraits of men<br />
and women of all ages, weight, and complexion, sharing drinks in the<br />
parking lots or surviving on odd jobs or selling door-to-door magazine<br />
subscriptions or drilling at oilfields or riding along the ocean-like<br />
plateaus of the West Coast, until they flock to the next best deal the<br />
moment they get bored or run out of money.<br />
Today won’t allow any room for boredom, so you invent<br />
another game. One you have dreamt about since your days in<br />
journalism school, years before they locked you up for nothing. One<br />
with a smiley picture of yourself cropped on the sidebar, taken on the<br />
day of your graduation. With a black-and-white picture of the Pacific<br />
Ocean placed onto the header, and the Atlantic on the footer. One<br />
with a subtitle that reads, A community for the great beyond—<br />
something you came up with while staring at that old round clock on<br />
the prison yard for long, uninterrupted hours. You sketch on the<br />
screen a black circle with crude contours, then upload it as the logo.<br />
The circle is empty inside its orbit, a form without a beginning or an<br />
end, the perfect shelter for infinity. You crop and filter each<br />
screenshot of America you’ve taken on Street View, then drag them all<br />
into the body of your first post.<br />
And then that’s it: your blog is all set up, ready to share with what<br />
your cellmate liked to call the “Other Side.” With the matchless pride<br />
of an artist, you roll back in your chair and stare at the first real work<br />
you’ve done as a free man.<br />
27
The nation on the screen offers you a curious vista: cascading tract<br />
house suburbs and trailer parks and grain silos and gun stores and strip<br />
clubs and hypermarkets and self-storage facilities are shaping the tail of<br />
a gypsy moth; the longleaf pines its head. The fuzzy portraits of men<br />
and women of all ages, weight, and complexion, sharing drinks in the<br />
parking lots or surviving on odd jobs or selling door-to-door magazine<br />
subscriptions or drilling at oilfields or riding along the ocean-like<br />
plateaus of the West Coast, until they flock to the next best deal the<br />
moment they get bored or run out of money.<br />
Today won’t allow any room for boredom, so you invent<br />
another game. One you have dreamt about since your days in<br />
journalism school, years before they locked you up for nothing. One<br />
with a smiley picture of yourself cropped on the sidebar, taken on the<br />
day of your graduation. With a black-and-white picture of the Pacific<br />
Ocean placed onto the header, and the Atlantic on the footer. One<br />
with a subtitle that reads, A community for the great beyond—<br />
something you came up with while staring at that old round clock on<br />
the prison yard for long, uninterrupted hours. You sketch on the<br />
screen a black circle with crude contours, then upload it as the logo.<br />
The circle is empty inside its orbit, a form without a beginning or an<br />
end, the perfect shelter for infinity. You crop and filter each<br />
screenshot of America you’ve taken on Street View, then drag them all<br />
into the body of your first post.<br />
And then that’s it: your blog is all set up, ready to share with what<br />
your cellmate liked to call the “Other Side.” With the matchless pride<br />
of an artist, you roll back in your chair and stare at the first real work<br />
you’ve done as a free man.<br />
28
Letters indeed look grander on the screen, you’ll give your<br />
cellmate that. Those words that you have carried in your mind all day<br />
—all those years—even the commas and spaces in between, are now<br />
resonating more profoundly on the pixels of your newly launched<br />
blog.<br />
Before publishing your first post, you smoke two cigarettes by<br />
the window, lighting the second one before extinguishing the first.<br />
You get back to your desk, type in a few more lines on the screen, edit<br />
this word or that, fill in your cellmate’s email address, and finally click<br />
the SUBMIT button.<br />
29
A POEM<br />
ABOUT<br />
LOST<br />
MEDIA<br />
By Olivia Burgess<br />
Olivia Burgess is a sleepy student reading English<br />
at King's College London. Aside from her insane<br />
cooking skills and her incapability to stop telling<br />
jokes, her poetry has been featured in an array of<br />
magazines and journals, soon venturing into other<br />
genres unknown. You can find her staring at the<br />
stars on any given night.<br />
30
In a house fire, the first thing I would reach for is all my notebooks.<br />
~ Me, probably<br />
Someday, none of this will matter,<br />
the google docs, the line breaks,<br />
the little incomplete clauses like falling stars. The way it is,<br />
the I and the lyric I, all this me and myself,<br />
clawing all the way to an end-stop. Like a star plummeting.<br />
Like cryptocurrency, just blinking idly away into pixel dust.<br />
Will this all matter someday?<br />
In a way, it never will,<br />
a void, your favorite echo chamber,<br />
my desirable, delicious words bouncing off scratch-post walls,<br />
the vibrant delicacies of humankind.<br />
Think of the lost languages,<br />
the burnt texts, the words purged by silence<br />
under sun or moon or time or wander,<br />
think of me,<br />
a star and a crater the size of a heart puncture,<br />
31
the fall so delirious the words arranged themselves,<br />
the end stopped line crawling back to my senses,<br />
the way it might become worth it<br />
if I could have that shred of time,<br />
that little blinking glow.<br />
32
HOLIDAY<br />
By Abhishek Udaykumar<br />
Abhishek Udaykumar is a writer, filmmaker and<br />
painter from India. He graduated from Royal<br />
Holloway University of London with English and<br />
Creative Writing. He writes short stories, novels and<br />
essays and makes documentaries, fiction and<br />
experimental films. His narratives reflect the human<br />
condition of rural and urban communities, and<br />
explore eternal landscapes through studies of art,<br />
criticism and absurdism. He is passionate about oldschool<br />
illustrations, carnivalesque tales and marine<br />
life. He has been published by different literary<br />
journals, and has made thirteen films and several<br />
series of paintings in different styles.<br />
33
Dahlia had grown fond of her oversized hat and the way it turned<br />
her into Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I watched her<br />
stomp the cakey shore like a tourist adamant about having a good<br />
time, while the evening blinked ahead of us and resembled a Beach<br />
House music video. The sand made me imagine how the French<br />
cottages beyond the avenue would look if they crumbled to a fine<br />
powder. The black birds anchored in the listless sky dragged<br />
themselves home, and a muted ferry drifted along the horizon towards<br />
its sanctuary of ships.<br />
The coast was like the tundra when it lost sight of the sun. The<br />
winds yanked the boats out of their nests and made us feel cold despite<br />
the heat. We reclined into the corpselike mud and<br />
observed the landscape like a movie. The beach was deserted and<br />
Dahlia was listening to Helpless by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. She<br />
told me about the time she drank two bottles of Chenin Blanc and<br />
called up the Heinz customer care. She had rambled about Fanny<br />
Mendelssohn’s piano compositions and her Criterion Collection of<br />
Márta Mészáros’ DVD’s that she didn’t want to watch by herself.<br />
That evening, we spent many hours in the Vintage Inn lobby,<br />
strolling out to the porch until dinner was served. Dahlia lingered by<br />
the lawn on the cliff overlooking the sea, she refused the garlic bread<br />
that came with the salad because she was on a new diet. When she<br />
returned, she was in a better mood and finally looked around the<br />
lanternlike hall and its antique cabinets, pale crockery and crusty<br />
colonial journals. There was a print of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s<br />
Luncheon of the Boating Party hung tastelessly over a Persian carpet<br />
and a meat safe with a row of pickle pots, biscuit jars and National<br />
Geographic magazines inside.<br />
34
Dahlia explained that the painting portrayed aloofness and<br />
inhibition amongst the adult bourgeoise. The youthful characters<br />
sitting around the table and the besotted girl by the railing represented<br />
innocence, sensuality and freedom. The women demonstrated a vivid<br />
awareness of their emotions while the men in the background talked<br />
about themselves, or lingered awkwardly in the corner. Impressionism<br />
was novel for its unique brushstrokes in the1800s; but modern<br />
research had become preoccupied with the underlying narratives of<br />
art and their alignment to contemporary discourse. I sat there<br />
dreaming of Canción Mixteca from Paris, Texas, Super 8 reels and<br />
Rhonda Cams.<br />
That night Dahlia made love to me like it was a driving test. Her<br />
thrusts and caresses exceeded their natural duration, as though her<br />
intention was to assess their theoretical significance. She would stop<br />
abruptly and ask me to repeat my moves, studying me with<br />
nonchalance. Our frosty encounter reminded me of the socialites<br />
clustered in Renoir’s painting. She posed and looked through the<br />
French windows to watch the lighthouse revolve around the bay. Its<br />
soft golden beam dressed the blankets, the baked walls and her long<br />
body as I waited beneath her and tried to paint her Black Diamond<br />
Apple fragrance into my memory. Her eyes were large and still like an<br />
animal suddenly aware of extinction.<br />
The lithograph of Ferdinand Magellan above the bedrest peered<br />
downed at me while the Roman pillars in the yard with their curly<br />
white locks and flatheads deflected the rain perfectly.<br />
35
COOL<br />
STEEL<br />
By Fabrice Poussin<br />
Poussin is a professor of French and World Literature. His<br />
work in poetry and photography has appeared in Kestrel,<br />
Symposium, The Chimes, and hundreds of other<br />
publications worldwide. Most recently, his collections In<br />
Absentia, and If I Had a Gun, Half Past Life were published<br />
in 2021, 2022, and 2023 by Silver Bow Publishing.<br />
36
What might they do without the blue steel<br />
of the double barrel they hug in bed<br />
for they may hold to dear life<br />
perhaps even theirs.<br />
She boasts an arsenal below the three-car mansion<br />
a combination safe never to be broken<br />
full of lovely rounds in metal and lead<br />
but for the dexterous boy with a vengeful streak.<br />
Every risk is worthwhile so long as<br />
bearded to the navel in a sea of tattoos<br />
brandishing a flag or strange hand signals<br />
the man of the house can protect his brood.<br />
Yesterday they lost a son of six<br />
tomorrow perhaps a daughter of two<br />
maybe even a wife or matriarch at the farmer’s market<br />
still, he will stand proud on his rusty truck.<br />
In the name of a corrupted freedom<br />
we must sacrifice you see, innocent lives<br />
for the fortunes made on this are too great<br />
just as those ballots during the primaries.<br />
How many will it take for the monsters to cry<br />
it seems they are never there with their armies<br />
yet a stockpile they must have for protection<br />
from the little children and their rainbows of crayons.<br />
37
THE MOON IS<br />
SLOWLY<br />
DRIFTING<br />
AWAY<br />
By James Croal Jackson<br />
James Croal Jackson is a Filipino-American poet who works in film<br />
production. His latest chapbooks are A God You Believed In (Pinhole<br />
Poetry, 2023) and Count Seeds With Me (Ethel Zine & Micro-Press,<br />
2022). Recent poems are in Packingtown Review, JONAH<br />
Magazine, and ONE ART. He edits The Mantle Poetry from<br />
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (jamescroaljackson.com)<br />
38
I know some things<br />
about impermanence.<br />
A photograph can fade<br />
in the sun. The moon<br />
is slowly drifting<br />
away from Earth<br />
and the days will<br />
only get longer–<br />
our love’s foundation<br />
eroded. The words<br />
we said to each other<br />
muffled by distance,<br />
then silence. Everything<br />
changes and<br />
we do not notice.<br />
39
STAY<br />
TUNED<br />
FOR<br />
ISSUE<br />
V.<br />
Arriving January, 2025<br />
THE PINNACLE<br />
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