swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

bearers of light
Addy Malinowski

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we’re at the puperseria
i mean
that was so long ago
overlooking passaic falls
somewhere in a traincar
a long traincar and i’m moving
between doors towards you
at solstice’s height
sleeping

to witness human slaughter
with no recourse to action
live on our feeds
it cannot be processed isn’t
meant to be simply processed
it must be fought
we must we must be bearers
bearers of light

the streetlamp, the flowering dogwood
blessed easter water

my human excrement in sun
oh, springtime! awakens
in me villages of human sex
and the drone strike opera
feeds my hungry night time vision
above a tv lampshade
my diary of this simple stone

we are sitting on 10th st.
sipping Gazan coffee
as rockets fly over Al Aqsa Mosque
crowds jubilant below

the echo of that noise
is not gunpowder
is candlelight
the echo of that noise
is not
a predator drone nor cyber
secured missiles ballistics
, across this vast ocean
i see out my bathroom window
Gaza is a place remember
GAZA IS A PLACE
and i can’t forget, for instance,
mosab abu toha when he writes that
his library, of 150 books,
carried with him from the united states
thru egypt to his home in Jabalia Camp
destroyed
along with the rest of his library
by IOF missiles, made most likely
in Troy, Alabama (if lockheed martin)
or, if the “iconic” Tomahawk Missile, in
an undisclosed location, probably Tuscon,
Arizona at University of Arizona Tech Park
his books buried along with human
friends family comrades
remain intact where i am writing this in Bay Ridge,
Brooklyn, New York City, the other side of
this big ocean
the echo of that noise
is the state
the echo of that noise
is in the ear
a seashell
the echo of that noise
is a dead dog barking
its whisper over many miles
from appalachia to a remote desert village
peering out over red awnings
the Beatles in mystic rhythm
i feel this very deeply,
in the inner ear   (indignant listener)
of streetlamps, shoving at the thing from all sides
we are all shoving at the thing
and it will take all of us diane diprima
wrote i think she was right
lending all our little hands, blood-soaked
living human mammals
the light, a moth, near my neck, hovering
which the dog tries to catch
in between her teeth
maggots
we begin to speak
as if under mounds of straw
made to write
without life —

today the sun hits me from my fire escape
and bugs fly in the open windows
shadows reflected on the red awning
betty eating peanut butter out of an old bone
the hudson is so beautiful right now
i wish you were in the passenger seat to see it
from 96th st. brooklyn to 140th harlem
seder dinner city college GAZA
SOLIDARITY CAMP april 25th 2024
students in prayer
the pigs in riot gear
all it took was the kids
all it took was the kids
gaza solidarity camp what up
GAZA SOLIDARITY CAMP WHAT UP!

May 3rd 2024

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Addy Malinowski is a poet, musician, and educator from Southeast Michigan currently living in Brooklyn, NY. They are a PhD student in English at the CUNY Graduate Center and hold an MA in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. Addy teaches writing at Brooklyn College and their work can be found at Full-Stop Mag, Social Text, Inverted Syntax, The Poetry Project Newsletter, and Indolent Books. Malinowki’s From a Halogen Sea, 2023 is a “poetic translation” of the entirety of Arthur Rimbaud’s “Illuminations”. For more info visit addymalinowski.net