‘Accelerant’, ‘Thrum’, ‘A Simplification’ & ‘Us’

Ewa Fornal moved to Dublin in 2008 and has exhibited widely in group exhibitions in Ireland and abroad, including shows at the Sycamore Club, Dublin; Filmbase, Temple Bar; The Crow Gallery, Temple Bar; the Festival of World Cultures, Dún Laoghaire; Castlepalooza Music and Arts Festival; Monster Truck Gallery, The Clyne Gallery and Jam Art Factory, Dublin. She was one of twenty participants selected for the International Annual Art Exhibition at BoxHeart Gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In addition to her visual art, she is also a poet and flash fiction writer. Her work was featured in the Autumn 2018 issue of Crannóg Magazine and appeared in the anthology The 'New Irish' Writers by Dedalus Press. Her recent writing can be found in the literary journal Literature Today.

Accelerant

We start as friends
who want to rub each other’s knees
so we sit closer and quieter
until our legs touch. We are moments
from blossoming as hot, blue flames
but we just miss the electric instant.
Then we are lovers
whose skin whispers in a secret tongue
and we are free with pillows and hands
in the exploration of half-sleep and dizzy
longing. There are countless, unbridled pearls
of sweat as we let go, together. parchment and pavement
address these little dresses, left
for deadweight, hanging
in the basement flood the old times
have drowned: envelopes float,
idly; slowly dissolve in wastewater
shoe catches another stain; the drift
and drip whirlpools a box of memory all
this concrete underneath and the damp
pages cover and slime sturdy rock rain
plays games with time; ruins and leaves
so much salvage and selvedge.

thrum

pareidolia hums through the white
noise of static. jets take off and land
with music without tuning in to any
auditory stimulant. i eat this rhythm.
i hear a loud ball game cutting away
to commercials. the words are garbled.
i know their meaning. even at grandma’s
and 6 with a tv, police scanner, her window
AC unit. even without a washer’s slow churn
or dryer’s lull. even when i wake up dying
for the hundredth time. that pulse without
my heart’s blood beats the soundtrack
to every day’s everything. if i run from
the thrum i am doomed to feel the end’s last breath.

A simplification

A black shoe
flat tire

Brown hills
of ankle snaps

Red with worry
in the orange evening

Running towards
your black hair

A brown skirt recoiling
in the wind

There is no red

except your orange mouth

us

sometimes it’s a casserole
of emotions. i’ve turned
the temperature down

but left the light on for now.
i feel like we might need
sour cream and lettuce:

let us cool down. sit. we
can water ourselves wet
by the glass. you taste this

meal. too hot and your burnt
mouth remains silent. pass
the salt. pepper me

with apology. if we make it
through dinner, there’s
a desert for dessert.

K. Weber (she/her) is an Ohio writer with 11 online books of poetry. She obtained her Creative Writing BA in 1999 from Miami University. K writes independently and collaboratively, having created poems from words (& more!) donated by more than 300 people since 2018. K has poems featured in publications such as Stone Circle Review, Writer’s Digest & Moss Puppy Magazine. Her photography/digital collages appear in literary journals including Barren Magazine and The Hooghly Review. Much of K's work (free in PDF and some in audiobook format) and her publishing credits are on her website: kweberandherwords.com. Find her on Instagram at @midwesternskirt.