St. Baudelaire
I dream of you at night
entangled in the spires of evil,
tied to a living pillar in the
profane sanctuary of Poetry—
the spores of wild flowers in
your nostrils, the ecstasy of
“the Word” painted on your face
& slowly dripping from your
St. Sebastian-like wounds
in sanguine lines.
I twist the arrows in your flesh,
I dip my fingers in your scars
as you spit out your own
poisonous mythology
into my soul.
—
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.
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