Nomadology Volume 1, Winter 2025: The Modern Prometheus

CONTENTS PAGE

Editor’s Note 3

Art

White Duck 6

The Bird That Never Dies 7

Bruised Knees, Open Mouth 22

Purple Hibiscus 38

Synthetic dreams of not being lonely 34

Poetry

Titan of Forethought 4

Ladybug 5

Amaneunsis, Forgotten 8

fruit seller 9

To Coleridge, Composed on the Night

After His Passing 10

Past Gravity’s Law 12

Trains 13

eldest daugher rambles 14

That Certain Circle 15

prologue 17

reel ‘er in! 17

oh, irene 18

roadkill 18

mirror, mirror 19

Forever, Water Dancer 20

1985 21

D

23

in the heart of the sea 24

heaven scorched 25

Hangman 26

small drafts 27

Prismatic Prison 28

Don’t Swim 29

Wildly Grasping 30

Poem 31

Luddite 32

Judgment Day 33

Unreachable 36

I write more about September than I

should

Raised By a Flower

Genesis of a name: abridged 40

Budva in the time of war 42

Somewhere in the Catskills 43

Imago Dei 45

The Tower 46

My Muse as Fire 47

Essays & Fiction

Greenland Pasture 49

The Meaning Behind Our

37

39

Coincidences 60

The Prosecutor 65

Involuntary 70

EDITOR’S NOTE

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos;

the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances,

but cannot bring into being the substance itself.”

– Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

NOMADOLOGY Volume 1, Winter 2025 is an expression of love. First ideated in

January at the back of the classroom during a Chinese language class, we were

frustrated about the inaccessibility of most literary reviews today that made

publishing one’s literary work a herculean task.

Nomadology aims to change this. From the very beginning, our goal was to

democratize the writing landscape. We set out to provide an accessible, safe space

to publish the work of talented writers from marginalized and underrepresented

communities that would otherwise go unheard.

Our inaugural issue’s theme is the Modern Prometheus. Staying true to the ideals

of creation, we invited writers and artists to explore with us the duality of creation

in both the exhilarating possibilities it offers and the shadows of uncertainty it

casts. We sought to capture the essence and courage of Prometheus — the Titan

who dared defy the Olympian gods and bestow upon humanity the gift of fire. For

what maxim could be more gravely important than the warmth that urges us,

fervently, to keep pushing forward?

Within this vein, we extend our deepest gratitude to the incredible writers, artists,

and essayists who entrusted us with their work. Within these pages, you’ll find no

fewer than 45 beautiful pieces, contributed by voices spanning 4 continents and 15

countries. Lastly, thank you to each reader for giving us your time.

This is for them. This is for you. Welcome to The Nomadology Review.

With love,

Jamie and Luke

Co-editors-in-chief, Co-founders

TITAN OF FORETHOUGHT

nana virrueta

The one who saw everything

as it stood before him,

hollow and ripping in the dry wind,

a dirty pecking at an unhealing and undying flesh wound.

He saw the landslide of his world at every second

and took an unwavering step outside of Paradise.

“Here,” Zeus had told him,

“You need not create anymore.

You may have anything you could want.”

Prometheus grabbed hold of the torch, a branch of knowledge, and walked on.

Sturdy and dignified. Sacrificial and understanding.

Prometheus felt the chain around his wrists,

even now, his neck craned over his shoulder

to see the rocky cliff where his decomposing body would be torn apart,

to melt back together every night,

he watched the eggs crack open

and birth the very ancestors that

—begin a lineage of eagles

to poke and prod at his immortal flesh until

gaping open wide,

and stick its nose into the stench,

yanking his insides apart with

dirty mouths—

for now, sing beautiful morning songs

at daybreak, when the shadows slowly inch

onto the Earth’s cold, wet dirt.

Prometheus saw the table of judgment

where his sentencing would be set in stone,

just as he would be.

He carried all this knowledge, and fire too, as he left Olympus,

the one never to break loose from his own escape.

4 POETRY

NOMADOLOGY, WINTER ISSUE 2025

LADYBUG

Kate lauren lam

you passed me the carton

your fingers straining white, like milk teeth

and i clenched my fists (thought of summer)

and you told me you didn’t care for the metaphysical

i let you, but i confess

i was looking at your hand and thinking

if god were real she’d look like you

i don’t know when i started to memorize you

but i think i know when it started to matter –

you told me that you loved ladybugs

so i carved myself black and red for you

gaping and oozing and glistening with luck

August, waning and yearning and leaving

you told me of your past lives

and i thought of everything and how

your cheeks turned pink in the blazing sun, and

how i’d like to do something like that to you

on the hot concrete i stamped my palms down

and screamed,

and you laughed and laughed and laughed

and knelt down beside me,

and turned your head and in your pupils i saw my ladybug

my heart i wept until i couldn’t breathe

5 NOMADOLOGY, WINTER ISSUE 2025

Collage by Irina Tall

40 x 50 cm

WHITE DUCK


Collage by Irina Tall

40 x 50 cm

THE BIRD THAT NEVER DIES


AMANEUNSIS, FORGOTTEN

(Thanks to Cloud Atlas)

Sunt lacrimae rerum: these are tears of things.

Stephen Mead

The souls astonished by soundlessness set up reverberations in his head --

they & the rain, his unacknowledged hunger walked through for days,

talking to himself as had become his custom.

They were the chromatics as was the city mapped by his feet,

familiar corner after corner chanting,

"Pick back up the stars, dropped from your hands."

He did, note by note, some symphonic crown sparkling around his cranium,

ringing out spectral, the structure of music in a glassine web.

These instruments are woodwinds with strings over there

for nature's timbre & pitch, every chattering finch in shrubbery,

& the background of buses a hush round as umbrellas,

such an acoustic amphitheater, this paper, his score

would live on in - or not - he thought, absent apostle

lost dazed to the faith of the spheres at their businesses.

Composer pause, listen well, neurons aloft to jot it all down again,

the spirits returning, sun lacrimae rerum, through the atlas of heavens

where, for awhile, as amnesiacs celestially-winged, we may become.

8 POETRY


FRUIT SELLER

NARAM Khalayli

fruit seller by the sidewalk i

step on his shatter ed dreams i

buy strawberries to apologize

and yet do not feel

redeemed

9 POETRY


TO COLERIDGE, COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT

AFTER HIS PASSING

—After “To William Wordsworth, Composed on the Night After

His Recitation of a Poem on the Growth of an Individual Mind”

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Alas, my friend, that dream of ours

was simply not to be. Had I but known

my drive was foolish vanity,

a hubris to rival Icarus—oh, had I but known!

Neither he nor Lucifer could have foretold

their fallen fates, and who could say

if they had smiled or sobbed as they fell,

flames extinguished, plummeting into

the deep dark waters of the ocean?

How then was I, a mere man,

to have imagined the machinations of God?

My mind could scarcely conjure such a future.

Surely Prometheus had thought himself a hero

when he bestowed upon us the fire of the Gods,

and surely Milton had envisioned a daring epic

on the triumphs of a king, now unsung. [2]

Dearest friend, do you recall that Winter’s night,

of a lowly hearth in Coleorton [3]

and the moon belonging to Dionysus,

hanging upon the crown of our cottage,[4]

when I recited the grand prologue to our

shared endeavour, [5] a prelude you exalted

with stedfast eye. [6] With eagerness, I regaled you

through verse and rhyme the details of my life,

inner workings of my mind, intent

on spurring us onwards, forwards, towards

our life’s greatest ambition, purpose which divined us

to pursue a feat so much like Milton’s, and yet,

now falls to me as life’s greatest strife.

I had hoped to cheer you into good health,

that with heart and soul inspirited, we could yet conquer

The Recluse we so desperately desired to write. [7]

Tay Kai li

10 POETRY


Paradise Lost. This, of course, never happened.

But Coleridge, my friend, would that we had known,

would that I were more than my words’ worth,

that I may be free as a fleeting breeze,

or a bird in the wind, and live a life

all but forgotten to history

having succeeded in my singular will,

instead of remembered as I am now,

lofty hopes, failings greater than triumphs,

a Mariner upon the world, beholden

to the whimsies of a mind tethered

solely to that very poetic conquest

whose destination we never arrived.

Dear friend, I wrote to you in such hurry,

witnessed you wither upon the bed made

partially by your hand, in ailings of drug,

and wine, and love with no requite.

I pleaded for you to persevere, prevail, yet

death had decreed it your time.

You passed onwards without me,

leaving me behind, a burden far heavier

than the weight Atlas was assigned.

Your death has unmade me, oh

I am undone before your grave!

Did I not promise you a poem for the ages?

Did we not swear to leave behind something

to mark our time? [8] Our legacy now lies as

unfinished manuscripts, entombed where

I pray even Mary would not find. [9]

All that remains are these late musings,

our mutual letters, the Ballads of our youth,

and those forsaken fragments, within which,

our bygone vision still exists, no end in sight

nor poet to recite, no audience waiting to receive,

and yet, even so, eternally enshrined.

2 “...some old // Romantic tale by Milton left unsung” (The Prelude, Bk 1, ll. 179-180) 3 In January 1807, after an extended

time abroad, Wordsworth personally recited The Prelude to Coleridge upon his friend’s return to Coleorton, hoping to cheer

Coleridge into helping him with The Recluse 4 The sword over Damocles’ head was hung by Dionysus

5 The Prelude was intended as the introduction to The Recluse

6 “with stedfast eye I viewed thee in the choir // of ever-enduring men.” (To William Wordsworth, ll. 49-50), Coleridge’s last

major poem, written in response to Poem to Coleridge, Wordsworth’s working title for The Prelude

7 A long three-part philosophical epic the two had planned to write, with the intent of surpassing Milton’s

8 “I cannot say what a load it would be to me, should I survive you and you die without this memorial left behind.” —

Wordsworth’s letter to Coleridge, March 1804

9 The Prelude was given its title and published by Mary, Wordsworth’ wife, 3 months after his death. It was never published

during Wordsworth’s lifetime.

11 POETRY


PAST GRAVITY’S LAW

Stephen Mead

Little bird fell from the nest, or was it pushed?

The fittest survive only says someone between snaps of

nicotine gum,

adding don't be mawkish ever, even if the sentiment's true

as a riff from a Blue's guitar.

Remember what it is to be obsidian,

the glass of black volcanoes fired smooth.

Scratch hard for a fault line but no mark is made.

Polished opal-bright, this onyx marble,

arrowhead-cool in the palm, wants flint

to turn on itself, go deeper, split the rock

by weather's repetition.

Drip constant, cataract.

Wind gust by caress just falling on caress.

What warm nectar's at the center?

Is it the green dreams of sibling excursions

slumber holds the childhoods of?

Yes, feel the adventures of tree top forts,

every branch a look-out for pretend Indians & cowboys.

We're not as ancient as thought amid moss paths

& grasses twisting with streams.

Follow minnows to tadpoles, the turtles, the muskrats,

skunks, porcupines, & frogs. Under asphalt's basalt

nature's universe goes on still with Sis catching a bullhead,

& brother, a sunny, using just twigs & twine.

String bait to the hook, innocent as we once were

to know love's lava preserves what was before the launch

of our Icarus days.

12 POETRY


TRAINS

Stephen Mead

This one might be the one, you know,

some significant omen.

Call it grand passion or lay it

to superstition on the line:

these tracks, a vision,

this ticket, a chance.

Consider Martin Luther's dream,

obsessions die-hard, faith in the face

of guts, blood.

There is a lot of smog here,

the exhaust which jars nerves.

If in shock, in denial, if all the essential

values held seem disassembled,

what may be left is just a single ethic-----

That train to be gotten on,

its whistle hypnotic to one's soul which,

short of death, there is no not boarding.

You have such a dream---don't you---

for, if not, then why, what---

Excuse me, last call, gotta go,

(push, push away),

before hope moves off.

13 POETRY


eldest daugher rambles

Sam van Meerbeeck

14 POETRY


THAT CERTAIN CIRCLE

Stephen Mead

where the rain remains at arm's length, not, for once,

even blowing inward,

as that hush fizzes wet on pavement

& this

perfectly-arched handle is a swan boat's rudder

guiding the steady wrist connected to slender spokes.

What a wheel, that parachute, all with dome corners

& cathedral-window hues, where the clear drizzle runs

in shade after shade without stain, though to travel

so attached to such awareness is to be

glass with the ability to drip, run into gutters

before plunging, river-fed back to the ballast of a balance

with an umbrella's ballet urging step after step,

to open outward, a shelter, enclosed

by the rainy dance.

15 POETRY


INHABITANTS OF THE MIDWEST

a collection by Lilian Farias

16 POETRY


PROLOGUE

though her lands

have since been overrun

with strip malls and condos

slivers of her animal kingdom live on

hound dogs still howl

geese still guard the median strip

and the optimal location for hornets nests

remains the human garage or playground

her love reigns unconditional

every hodag and drunkard

is taken into her embrace

and welcomed home

REEL ‘ER IN!

up north

on the cusp of canada

where the wealthy reside

in their comfortable cabins

mitchel anderson and his fraternity brothers

tucked into one too many beers

and hit the lake,

intending to reel in dinner

to mitchel’s surprise

he found it rather difficult to hook a fish

and as he sailed back to land

empty handed

an uncomfortable thought entered mitchel’s mind

maybe

he wasn’t as clever as he thought

17 POETRY


OH, IRENE

on the corner of riley and bandimere

irene o’connell perched on her porch

witnessing the wind

and waiting for her son to call

as summers haze grows thick

and mosquito bites ache

a sudden stream of feathers

begins floating out from beneath her

upon further inspection

a mallard has made herself a home

in the shade of irene’s porch

and though any other old coot

would want the world to herself

irene was rather pleased to have compan

ROADKILL

splayed across the highway

was the final resting place

of a poor creature

dismembered with such brutality

it's unrecognizable of former figure

nothing but a pile of bones

but i know

the sun shines a little brighter

and the grass grows more fertile

in its honor

as it gives back what was stolen

18 POETRY


MIRROR, MIRROR

on one side of the Abbott’s glass patio door,

stands their 6 pound chihuahua

ferociously trilling into the night

devoted to protecting its territory

on the other side,

amongst the thick of their untamed yard

stands a coyote,

staring motionless at the savage creature

19 POETRY


Forever, Water Dancer

Gather around

While I lay my smile down here.

Guard it

While I’m reaping the harvest

Of the season I was in.

I grew my berries, nettle, and lies,

All the sorrow I ritual danced to.

Remember a time

When the opus was at its high,

Now my ground is unearthened for light.

FOREVER, WATER DANCER

Let the water come against my will,

Let the rain sink its teeth in my neck,

And old tears are scars now on my cheeks.

I’m tired of swaying in a city

That only comes alive at night.

May I have the pleasure of taking flight?

Where land was, I bruised my knees;

Where crowds were, they whispered bad.

Really miss the voices that weren’t in my head.

Want to go home now so I will always flay.

Be one with motion—

Civilization falls through my riptides.

Soda bubble laughter,

Eyelashes turn into rainbow scales

For the flying fish to drown in.

Like water always dancing timeless,

Knowing forever never ends.

Forever, Water Dancer, I will be,

Always coming up for breath,

Always coming up for more.

Let the water come summoned at will,

Fill up the empty parts of my body

For the Pisces and luminaries to bask in.

And in my heart is the anchor,

Sinking that sets me apart from the sullen.

I will be floating away still—

Forever, Water Dancer, I will be.

Ajmal Shaniq Cassim

20 POETRY


1985

Claudia Wysocky

I do not know what he wishes me to write, but I do not

know what he sees

when he looks at me

for he stares quite differently.

He raises his face and makes me shy

—I see him as he speaks.

I hear not what he hears, but I see all he feels.

His eyes are a purple flash

Strong as steel. O' colors unknown

—And I see beyond them well.

His voice is a ribbon of sound

Waiting to be kissed, or cut.

—Here he is changing before me.

His nose is broad and cold,

But his voice is sweet and high

—his mouth twists and he strains to cram in words

Yet I am so deaf to hear

—I merely stare.

But I see still,

His hand— His hand is cold.

He's dead.

— Since 1985.

21 POETRY


BRUISED KNEES, OPEN MOUTH

Aleena Sharif

Oil on canvas, 30 x 50 cm


D

Claudia Wysocky

It's just a pity to waste our time,

With ideas we have had before

—Everything is but a few words.

So never bother to speak.

You'd be like a fish deprived of water,

swimming. It's not really worth it.

In a jiffy, a dull thought floats past,

Like a crossword's a different word.

—In a jiffy—

Another thought floats by.

—Another thought—

Swim, swim, swim.

—A thought floats by.

—A thought swims, swims, swims.

—Gone.

Your mind's made up.

—Not kept.

23 POETRY


IN THE HEART OF THE SEA

SONIA CHANG

possession of water’s colour / and sound / it is endless / it is breathless / cold light seeps /

through

summer and / the surface of water / cutting / a path to a sun / never in reach / breaths and /

sentences

scarce / a handful of / siren song / yet no kiss of oxygen / and chlorine / to fill his liquid

eyes / he

gives himself / to a liminal transcendence / nothing human or worldly / the sleepy hum of /

opalescent shells / almost a cacophony / his skin translucent / almost opalescent as / coarse

as sand /

as fleeting as seafoam / heartbeats drowning out / alveoli and irises / erupt / in climax /

blooming /

catching light / burning in grace / then stasis collects /on his / skin in stellate beads / the sea

traces

his / flowing form / softly / with the tenderness of waves / he sinks with / the heaviness of

being / no

one’s grief / sleeping eternally in / dense silence / thoughtless darkness / and the tide / still

rolls

backwards / green over blue / spilling the / names and bodies / he will / never know

24 POETRY


HEAVEN SCORCHED

Cloud Sinclair

you were born with defiance in your blood

it runs hot and fast

magma replaces plasma and you burn

with all the force of a heavenly comet

held aloft.

thou shalt not kill one’s own flesh

why not break the rules

twist the arm of the invisible man upstairs

after all what is man without violence you

wondered. you’d seen your brother carry sheep

to the tip of the oceanic blue mountains and with

all the sweetness of a mothers kiss

cut their throats open

your father would take you to pick a cow

you would then eat for dinner that evening

are there different types of violence you wondered

holy violence

and the accursed

blasphemy

which was yours?

from the river of blood that poured from abel’s head

would come guns. knives. bullet- riddled shields.

combat rifles and the atomic bomb.

the second amendment is more or less written in

your name. cain the butcher. cain the curious.

one who dared to defy god and knelt terrified

trying your best to piece back together your

brothers split skull like a 1000 piece jigsaw with

shaky hands.

your curiosity birthed the very hatred and jealousy

man would bare the brunt of for all time. a modern

day prometheus indeed except now there’s no eagle

to peck and pluck at your sore belly. instead

you walk, you walk for eternity. forced to

follow the river of blood from your beloved

brothers head. damned to walk a damned river.

25 POETRY


HANGMAN

Beatriz Seelaender

I see the shadow better

by the gallows in installments

The world is up for grabs;

the hangman a lifeline or an anchor

hanging from a deep-sixed seven

the gallows no singular, what’s that about?

Just wait for gravity decay, yours may come first in a

vacuum

cleaner, cleaning up after the ritual:

A story told for generations, slightly modified,

but still at its core the myth of creation

We tell ourselves stories that’ll slip our minds

shadow of a shadow of a shadow

The narrator doesn’t matter if you have it all

written down on your tablets

but your tablet’s a tabula rasa

it’s fine, stick to your subconscious

mind the gap in remembrance

So you recount in your own voice

the avoidable inevitability of the end

how singular our fates

how questionable your innocence

when alien detectives investigate

the anthropology of extinction

the reversibility of the particular

versus the universal despondence of

the bygone present:

the end and the start are the same, full

circle, perfect

traitor, but

were you ever on our side?

26 POETRY


SMALL DRAFTS

Purbasha Roy

Yes, I’ll drink the poison if I get to be the first

I’ll admit to anything admissible in court

Regretting crimes I cannot commit to

My fate is unspoken for

and I cannot break the code

from the wrong side of the door

In a hurry in the taxi you cannot pay for

It drives on to outskirts of borderlines

You think, you could use any one reason for surrender

You’d give up, but to what, to whom?

Even now you aren’t sure you’re not merely an actor

playing someone who can’t quite work out

why they never really hacked it

Drop me off when I was seven,

The cab driver asks me what happened

and I cannot remember

But I’ll only drink the poison if it tastes like cherry soda

and it’s all captured on camera

27 POETRY


PRISMATIC PRISON

Ivana Tubić

Drenched in oil spill

Hyper-focused on the aesthetics

Sunrays are lasers cutting through skin

Add rivers of orange juice to the injury

Trapped in barred balcony breaks

Sunsets feel like a premature decay

Holographic hell on the concrete

Vanilla ice cream with a bloody topping

A lifeguard patch inspecting the murky seas

Searching for a lifeline for my own sanity

Instead of an awakening

My prayers have been misheard

The ill-shaped Moon has proposed

A kingdom overturn

28 POETRY


DON’T SWIM

isobel burke

lately, i am known best,

maybe,

as fishing

barbed hook and thin line

pulled taut

not unlike sebastian’s abdomen

blood in water

is feasting

these days, i am white teeth,

maybe,

i am drowning but i am still

thirsty

saints are not greedy but hunters

may be

i was born in december

so i am always

grasping

i am not unlike

a funeral for orion

even if i hold you too tight,

darling,

don’t swim.

29 POETRY


WILDLY GRASPING

Louis Faber

We are the new Golem

still envisioning ourselves Gods

transmuting ourselves into myth.

The night sky pours down

its rain of stars,

celestial tears, worlds

imagined and real.

We thirst for that

we cannot name, known

only by lust or ignorance,

a golden beast were we only

alchemists of our desire.

This is our burden, this

is our curse, to wander

parched souls amid

the abundance, seeking

the alms of enlightenment.

We traverse a desert

of dreams soon enough forgotten

burned to ash by the harsh

abiding sun of reality.

30 POETRY


POEM

Paul Hostovsky

When I finally figured it out—

you know, life, the whole thing—

I couldn’t write it down fast enough,

and I was shaking my head in disbelief,

smiling at the sheer dumb luck

of each new line revealing itself to me

like a winning scratch ticket, hitting it big,

I mean really big, the kind of big that

comes over you slowly and all at once,

like what it will mean for the rest of your life,

how you won’t have to work at it anymore

because everything will be different now

and the same. It was a little scary actually,

and my stomach started to hurt but the pain

was different now—it was part of the joy,

and the joy was different too because

it was unbelievable. I mean I knew it was true,

I just didn’t believe it. And that hurt, too.

And then the old hurt gave way to the new

and suddenly everything rhymed a little.

31 POETRY


LUDDITE

Paul Hostovsky

Part of me, a very big part, like 98%, wants to toss this laptop

into the garbage can (which I really shouldn’t do because

it would end up in a landfill and leak rare earth elements)

and write this poem instead with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper.

And that same part of me, which is greater than the sum of the other parts,

wants to jettison the television, the smartphone, and the car,

in that order (because I’ll need the car to take the television and the laptop

to the recycling center, and the phone to pay the cathode ray tube recycling fee

with my recycling app). And that’s the side of me—which is the side that

I am on—that is against airplanes, cruise ships, credit cards, video games,

social media, free shipping, and plastic. All plastic. Especially the plastic

that protects our food and prevents waste. And especially the plastic

that’s used in hospitals to save our lives: disposable syringes, surgical gloves,

blood bags, IV tubes, catheters, plastic heart valves. Because what’s the point

of saving our lives when the plastic is killing us? Or of protecting our food

with plastic when the plastic is in our food, and in our water, and in our air,

and in our poetry—just look at all the plastic in this poem! And I wasn’t even

thinking of writing about plastic. But here it is. It’s everywhere! And a big part of me

wants to toss this poem because of all the plastic in it. But a small part, like maybe

2 parts per million, kind of likes this poem and wants to put it out there in the world.

32 POETRY


JUDGEMENT DAY

Beatriz Seelaender

No later as I sit to draft my emptiness

I think of how the harbour feels after each

ship leaves without sadness. How something

shapeless,blooms a question. I wanted to ask

you. Will you become mine if I stare at you

the way windows stare at the world. Take time-out

and watch my chest gather torn-things of this

world. Sound of wind breaking among autumn.

I have burnt dreams to keep my imaginations

warm. Last night, I held breathless the ritual

of words. What they did? Gave me meanings

of their shadows and I perceived I have tasted

their secrets. When it was familiarness of your

absence and the blank page. I could have filled

if only I had loved you the same way as harbours

33 POETRY


34

SYNTHETIC DREAMS OF NOT BEING LONELY

Aleena Sharif

Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 cm


UNREACHABLE

Sesso Nullo

The zipper always gets stuck, around the third or fourth layer of skin

That separates me from I don’t know what. Inevitably, when I peel off the

last layer of flesh,

Another doesn’t appear; instead, the bare skeleton lies there, without frills

or muscle fibers,

And I finally tell myself that this is my stripped-down self. Without all

those convoluted

words

And commitments that are invariably too numerous for a single soul,

Life begins to feel cold with its gusts of wind seeping through the bones.

It’s tragicomic to see oneself wasted to the core

When we used to dress up with all those attentions

Or accumulated extravagances to make up numbers,

From vaguely seductive human semblances

To a pile of remains ready for the common ossuary,

And it truly seems so absurd, even if I think about it, and think,

Ruminate until I vomit it out of my brain,

The feeling of being a white thread hanging without head or tail,

Stretched without hangers resting on it to remind which garment was

supposed to go

there,

A bit like emotions, to remember which was meant to be felt there,

A bit like desires, to remember which was meant to be pursued there,

A bit like layers of skin, to remember which was meant to be worn there,

In front of you. I’m having an identity collapse,

Not because anything has changed; on the contrary,

My personality has stayed the same since I was twelve years old,

And then I realized that I wasn’t an asshole because I was feeling bad,

But because I’m constitutionally one.

I understood fully, down to the calcium and phosphorus, that what I was

for you was a

mask

No pirandellisms, I’ve just understood, fully pondered that the zipper will

always be

jammed,

Not at the first, nor the third, nor the last shell that separates us,

Until it leads to nothing but a skeleton in the closet.

I refuse to see myself as white, candid, crystallized in reality, and innocent

as a lamb.

I can only imagine myself guilty of my own flesh.

36 POETRY


I WRITE MORE ABOUT SEPTEMBER

THAN I SHOULD

Fallace Poh

September dawns like a bluebird’s chirp

over the hills and spreads its wings like a

peace offering for the hell to come.

The shadows leave imprints on the sand

like scores of stories underlined over &

over; I fit my hands into these vicious outlines

and find the open cut that can comfortably

bleed into the lines on my palm. I lie when

I say the pain burns me because I welcome

the fire licking at my fingers. I close my eyes

when September bows, a hasty sunset — and

I do not bid it goodbye. I’m drunk only on

the familiarity of how broken this month is.

Look — all that red beyond green-tinted bottles.

Run it red like the rawhide of my heart.

37 POETRY



PURPLE HIBISCUS Illustrated by Kate Lam

RAISED BY A FLOWER

Fallace Poh

Mid-June. Orange juice stinging my lips

like a silent vow to sweetness. Ferns bloom

like molasses up my thighs, curls of green

tangling with the hairs on my legs.

I am the pomegranate tinge in the wind

and the warble of a robin captured in

a dewdrop. Butterflies tripping over

their shedded wings, all muted colors now.

The sun is bleeding, its yolk messy in the sky’s plate.

Lemon-crusted muffins sweeten my teeth in

reassurance that this heavy nostalgia will be

gone by cricket-cradled night. Lemonade.

Lemon-shaded dress with saffron ribbon.

Summer is this. The season all tinted with loss,

longing and love. Allow me to grow flowers

where your chest gapes wide. Breastbone

transformed into a trunk. A bit of me in the

most intimate idea of you. This is June

before September crawls in, blue with sadness.

Strawberry juice now only tastes good with

the bitter tang of regret.

This is summer when you're old.

It is the time where birds flock back

to their nests and when I kneel amidst

the sunflowers and return to the roots

39 POETRY


GENESIS OF NAME: ABRDIGED

Yev Gelman

It goes like this: her name was Chavah and no one thought it wise to tell her.

I guess that when Adam named the other creatures, he didn’t tell them

either, and maybe there is truth to this: what use does a snake have knowing

she is

a snake? Philosophy tells us the act of naming is in itself a human

compulsion. Unlike us, beasts do not demand a title.

Like us, they get no choice.

One must accept these things as fact before any attempt at

deconstruction. One must be rational; see things for what they are.

Or, in other words:

Once a Chavah, always a Chavah.

When I was born, they told me I was named after the first woman.

Here is my confession: I do dream of having been born Adam.

It goes like this: God takes a single rib out of Adam’s body and out of that rib sculpts her.

Let’s, for a moment, neglect the precise logistics of turning a single bone into a whole

woman, and focus on the timeline —

the rib, the body, the name.

Consider this possibility: the name preceded the body.

Imagine that there was at one point a rib, and it was not

nameless; we just don’t know its name. It was a pale bone,

smooth and curved like a crescent. Remember:

it had once been a man’s bone, and now

it is displaced

and waiting.

I like to think that the rib also dreams

of staying in that first body.

As it is, she is who she became:

a name that’s given cannot be returned.

So goes the story, anyway.

40 POETRY


I know this much: when an organ is transplanted, the host body

may reject it. I am no

doctor, but something tells me it’s true: the source body, too, may

reject the emptiness. It’s

not that the surgeon doesn’t consider this – he does – but the

procedure must move with

the story. The story waits for nobody, and offers no take-backs.

Any complaints must go

directly to the author, who is long since dead.

So instead of trying to return what had once been

given, I turned the name over in my hands until it fit.

This, too, is a sort of timeline:

Chavah in Hebrew. Ева in Russian. The English Eva

, a name I do not like to linger on.

Then, this.

I can explain: you learn to carve a body by first learning to carve a

name.

Take out the parts you do not need;

the last vowel had always been

extraneous.

It goes like this: I speak my name;

I introduce myself.

It’s morning. Today, I am neither snake

nor Adam, and tomorrow, I may be

both flesh and bone:

smooth, curved

like a crescent

and pale.

Remember: I was once

a man’s bone

but for now

I wait.

41 POETRY


BUDVA IN THE TIME OF WAR

Yev Gelman

The sky is white with thunder

and clear. This is a poem

for the country that has housed my kin. Behind me

black mountains rock and Before me

the sea rocks and Before me

were my father and my brother and

his son, and ahead

the thunder of distant clouds.

i.

ii.

My brother said this country isn’t somewhere you go

but somewhere you end up in. Here is the little boy

who calls me uncle and a girl who hid in the basement

while Russian soldiers took her town. There’s a sister

I never knew I had and a pair of fourteen-year-old metalheads. By the

end of the summer, they will all go back to where I came from except

for me.

The war has gone on for nine hundred days now. I have been gone

for three times as long, and I haven’t been back once. I likely never will.

When I come home, my city will be full

of ghosts: my friends’ pale bodies lining

the sidewalks and boulevards. I say his name

aloud to every tree I pass as if it will change the name

they buried him under. I try to open every door

as if it holds a key to some older, clearer sky.

Beneath it, I am walking with you. It’s springtime and

There is no war. There is no war.

iii.

42 POETRY


Somewhere in the Catskills

Yev Gelman

The sun has just come out, and already, the snow

melts to reveal what’s under it: malachite-lichen

carpets the stone; last year’s rotten leaves become

mulch; become the damp earth below. Somewhere,

an ancient pine has fallen on another, so heavy that

both trees are now broken and bent. The fallen pine

rests over the other pine, and below it, a frozen beehive

is stuck to the bark by honey-embers and time.

Underneath the beehive,

the forest churns.

On the inside, the broken trees are fleshy and

pale. Like a child, you are poking at the

beehive.

Me, I run my hand over the bark: rough

under my fingers, smooth in the cup of my palm.

Once, someone marked this tree with red and now

it’s fallen as consequence. This is not a metaphor;

The marks you leave are red, but contain no warning.

I know you do not mean to hurt me. Here is a secret:

It was me: I threw the first snowball.

It was you I loved.

Walking back to the cabin, I think about the word ‘sapling’

which sounds exactly like what it is. Inside,

we strip our clothes off and your skin is rough, cupped

inside my tongue, smooth, wrapped around my finger.

Seconds like these, I wish I had two mouths:

one to explain that your body is also a kind of sapling,

43 POETRY


and another to keep kissing you.

I only have one mouth, and it is kissing you

In bed, your back is lined like the bark of an ancient pine,

and the place in which I am torn open drips with

honey.

Here is a question for you: can two trees be this close

without the consequence

of both breaking?

44 POETRY


IMAGO DEI

We were made in God’s image.

Don’t take the Bible’s word for it,

see for yourself. I see it—

the divinity in the workings of our minds.

Tay Kai Li

You won’t find Jesus in a mirror,

nor anyone else’s eyes; no heavenly principle

observable in our faces’ lines.

What you see are the descendants of Adam and Eve, the inventors of the Original

Sin.

Yet, for all that mankind is condemned to corruption,

a sliver of the divine slips through

— in visions of towers and Icarus’ flight;

choral singing and acrylic paintings,

steam engines, automated machines;

God is in there, in our every craft.

After all, what is invention but our closest link to God?

It’s curious, really, and perhaps sacrilege to say,

but damned as we are by Adam and Eve’s sin,

exiled from Eden and estranged from God,

it was the first invention of mankind.

And the thirst persists, inherited.

What are we reaching for? God, or His divinity?

How to be close to God if not to become Him?

When the serpent tempted Eve, it said “you will be like God.”

It didn’t lie there. Man carves faces out of marble and clay,

as God had shaped man out of dust and dirt.

God breathed life into the body of Man; Man exhales

over wooden puppets, blowing sawdust from our sons’ heads.

Now, we try whispering in code, the modern tower of Babel,

building up towards some mythical dream of artificial intelligence,

electrical sentience. Mary had this nightmare too,

when she birthed the son of God, son of Man—

Victor Frankenstein achieved creation with the very same spark.

It’s the Gift of Creation, the Original Sin; the image of Man, the image of God.

And one day, the image of our Accursed Descendant,

who will carry on this affliction of inventing new gods.

45 POETRY


THE TOWER

Gil Asif

46 POETRY


MY MUSE AS FIRE

Hope Nitta

I throw my arms up towards the sky and I let my hands burn. The sun's rays

pour through my fingers, its heavenly light shines on my face. I close my

smoldering hands around that blazing body, and pilfer the glowing warmth

from the hearth at the core of the universe. I pillage the celestial realm for your

coveted golden presence, and I don't regard the wrathful devastation it will

bring me. Oh, lovely temperate day, our mutinous summer will never end.

Name me Prometheus, the primordial heretic. I ransacked the empyrean

expanse for fragments of you; eagles will swiftly swoop down on me because of

that reckless hubris but still remorse has yet to capture my being. I ripped a

piece of heaven’s cloak, and that fray sparked fire. Take my liver, take it daily,

my heart is elsewhere. Adoration forces sophia to flee my being, and amathia

consumes me like the fire stolen from heaven.

When I sculpt with clay, it can only come to fruition by basking in dancing

flame. With eternal lines I carve our existence. I whisper oral verses into being

nightly and they hang in the air for mere moments before dissipating into

smoke, but as long as men can breathe and their eyes can see this monument,

death cannot erase your splendor. The eagle will rip into my chest and tear my

heart from me day after day, but sparks have flown further than even it can. I

cannot return fire. I wouldn't erase its splendor.

47 POETRY


WHITE KITTEN

Irinia Tall

ink, gel pen, paper, 21 x 30 cm



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Nomadology Volume 1, Winter 2025: The Modern Prometheus

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