The Murder of Stars
(August 19, 1936)
The garden is still dark and warm, dawn
will come but not for me. The smell of
steel caresses my back as your loving hand.
They brought me here under the bluest
firmament with political contempt. The
duende of the swirling stars burns in me
as a galaxy of lines I shall write no more.
The trigger shoots. My blood is a constellation
of red roses singing from a mass grave.
Then I realized I had been murdered…
They never found me?
No. They never found me.
(all words in italics by Federico García Lorca)
—
This selection comes from Alessandra Bava’s chapbook They Talk About Death, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!
Alessandra Bava lives and works in the Eternal city. She holds an MA in American Literature and manages her own translation agency. She is the author of two bilingual chapbooks, NOCTURNE (Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, 2013) and GUERRILLA BLUES (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012).
THEY TALK ABOUT DEATH is her third chapbook but her first US published chapbook. Her fourth chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She is the editor of ROME’S REVOLUTIONARY POETS BRIGADE ANTHOLOGY Vol. 1 (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012) and ARTICOLO 1 (Albeggi Edizioni, 2014). Her poems have appeared in several journals such as Plath Profiles, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Empty Mirror and Left Curve. In 2010 she had a cathartic encounter with SF Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and she is currently writing his biography.
Margaret Bashaar’s poetry has been previously collected into two chapbooks, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press) and Barefoot and Listening (Tilt Press), as well as in many literary journals and anthologies including Rhino, Caketrain, New South, Copper Nickel, and Time You Let Me In. She lives in Pittsburgh where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press and is a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. Her debut collection, Stationed at the Gateway, will be published by Sundress in 2015.
