Bio: A reluctant carbon-based life-form, Herrmann was surprised to find himself on a farm in Kansas in 1951. He’s still trying to make sense of that, but has grown fond of grass waving under wind, trees and the enchantment of moonlight. His work has been published in print and online, even in languages he can’t read: nine collections of poetry, and more. He has carried baby kittens in his mouth, pet snakes, and conversed with owls, but is careful not to anger them! All this, despite a traumatic, abusive childhood embellished with dyslexia, ADHD, cyclothymia, an anxiety disorder, and PTSD.
TALL GRASS HIDES
A covey of baby quail scuttling for shelter, snake slithering looking for food, large rock unseen until too late, nest of a rat – pile of twigs and leaves, that broken toy missing so long, fabric now rotting no longer good, sadly, regrettably no diamond ring, yet likely, the most amazing surprise: among a few bones – skull of a deer.
READY ALREADY
I want to write, but about what? The flat tire in the back of my truck and driving on the spare? Heat stroke yesterday spraying, clearing brush? Ugh. How boring normal life! Mosquitoes? Been there, done that. Ticks? Done them too. The joys of summer? I've just listed them. We had a week of summer – I'm ready for it to end.
WET DAY
Wet grass, dripping trees, cool breeze, and low clouds all indicate change and passing of a season; searing heat is gone, autumn days arriving with cool nights and turning leaves. Next passing will bring winter; and a year changes round.
TOUCH OF INTIMACY
I. SOLITUDE BUBBLE
An emergency of time many lived in social bubbles of solitude. No contact saved lives – their own, or others. Some politicized and confused rights with life while many died. Science, method of learning, often ignored or belittled, so millions died. Others lived to stagger on to next emergency.
II. TO TOUCH
We did not know how much we touch until such touch could bring death. Do not hug, Do not hold the baby, Keep distance: it's the only way to be safe.
III. STRANGE TOUCH
After a year of pandemic distance the senior man who lives alone got his first shot. A reaction wait was needed, time noted on a sticker pressed by staff to his chest. So strange, he thought after a year of no touching, to be touched now – very personal almost intimate, by a stranger he did not know: yet, human again.
NOT ALONE
“In you is the presence that will be, when all the stars are dead.”* That presence, that essence, unknowable and supreme, above all things is there to sustain, guide, and protect the essence of you, so proceed, without fear, into unknown time and space that lies ahead. You are powerful and not alone.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet ~ Bob Dylan
Mister Sleaze
May I take a gasp between your margins To see you Tear yourself open I need to see your crack May I take a gasp Do you think I’m your hack I get it You were looking With your paper and crown For a loading zone You were crying for mother Like she was horny Yes, I know It isn’t yours But yours isn’t mine either.
To walk within a crowd, footsteps muting the sound of truth inside your voice. Immutable, that pain. Invisible, the self and lost, to a dull hum.
Monotonous grey hum. Reverberating crowd. An intense loss of self while you can make no sound in a cloud of shared pain walking with one sad voice.
Weaponizing the voice: high cries pierce through the hum. An attempt to speak pain inside the moving crowd. Though they all know the sound that burns inside the self.
One must protect the self. Don't let it show its voice: such ugly, painful sound. It means death of the hum, or perhaps, of the crowd and their crusted, old pain.
As for your tired pain, quiet its sense of self lest you obstruct the crowd with its ear-splitting voice. The safety of the hum is broken by one sound.
Truthful, exhausting sound-- reverberating pain-- is trauma's secret hum located in the self, finding its own voice within a sprawling crowd.
Are you, at all, the crowd? Where, indeed, is your voice? Or are we lost to self?
Venus’ true curve comes not from her lips. Titian looted the curve long ago, bestowing it instead upon her curved finger, rendering it mischievous for eternity.
Soft velvet breasts, he painted for her. Each of them, along with her finger, desires you. Each mound bathes themselves in gold, glimmering from somewhere out of the world—
out of our world, but from Titian’s. He needed her body as gold. Any other power would be nothing but a curse.
A soft, bulging stomach was necessary, lest we forget her purpose. I guess we live in a world with a mind like a sieve—fertility, the beauty, the belly, the baby, and the woman are all that stays in the net. Her cruelty and power flows beyond the mesh and out of the private room.
The undulations of a man’s vision of femininity is dotted with coin and colour, reflected in yellow wisps of hair and the notion of a touch the viewer gets to have. How can a Goddess have no say?
In control of Divinity? A mere artist?
We see her truth from the gaze of her empty eyes. Titian could not portray the spark of Divine, not remove his gaze from her.
Is it possible for any artist to remove the lenses from their eyes? They will ask, and you will sew your own mouth shut before giving the answer.
Forget defending the Goddess, you feeble mortal.
As it is, Goddess Venus’ reality is a mirror. Titian could never paint that which he didn’t know. A man is not a reflector, but a transporter to a private reality.
A reality where Venus is stripped for you, in every sense of the word. You can now proclaim her Your Goddess of Love.
Flesh Bag I’m the waterbed containing all of my organs. Difficult design, irrational and indecisive: the promise of bursting with the threat of withering, and a constant anxiety filled with bubbles. Eating is a dice roll with thorns on every face. Puncture holes never healed on my fingertips, toetips, footsoles, and handpalms. I kee making my flesh bag walk on the equivalent of lego pieces every day and then wonder why I need constant bandages. We suffer from viscera with a thin lining. Utter reality is slimy and raw, I’m sorry. Any beauty lies in the shine that glimmers off a wound, and if you think too hard about which oily fluid releases its iridescence? You will hate yourself, and your gases will escape out of all holes with no warning.
I wanted to dance without fear and as bold as I could, to awaken all creation from its daily torpor, to warn everyone that spring was coming, that the beautiful season was beginning and that it was time for the world to emerge from its hibernation, but the world, instead, wanted to continue sleeping and then I started jumping up and down, as hard as I could, as one of my gypsy sisters once taught me, I, a deluded and desperate, disappointed and aggressive woman I wanted to appear like a graceful woman and hover like a real butterfly, I wanted to whirl sublimely, as the world slowly but surely sank into its long abyss and I also wanted to be good at rising from my ashes like a skilled phoenix, but the world wasn’t ready, they told me, he still wanted to doze, and I seemed to hear all those stupid conversations of the people, about wars, about football and about things women should or shouldn’t do at all and even be able to fly over all with my sweet pirouettes, while the indifferent world didn’t even turn to look at me and then I started looking at the world from afar and I thought how cool it would be seeing everyone suddenly stop sleeping, of treating women unfairly and waging war on each other and then, finally, seeing everyone dance.
CHEWING GUM, I DON'T LIKE ROSES
I was chewing bubble gum and inside was all the chaos in the world but above all there was all the chaos I had inside myself, mixed with your taste. Yes, there was everything inside, absolutely everything, there was my story and then yours and then the chaos, the noises in the street, everything was mixed and confused with the sound of car clacsons and I wanted the moon... while the world was mine, all mine and I had only lost it inside... at that point I was savour it.
RAIN, THE MOON DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN TONIGHT
When you'll feel tired listen to the sound of the rain, think about my selfies think of our smiles and our jokes and laugh, you laugh heartily... even if I'm far from you because everything moves, and sometimes fast... too fast to understand, then don't try to understand, the noise is too loud to hear... think of me and smile, go closer to the window and look... it's raining... and you will hear me inside that noise.
Bio:CLELIA MOSCARIELLO was born on April 13, 1981 in Naples. In 1999 he graduated from the Liceo Classico Vittorio Emanuele II in the same city and in 2008 he obtained a degree in Communication Sciences with top marks: 110/110 with honours. Passionate about music, cinema, fashion, aesthetics and creative writing, in 2008 she obtained a diploma as a literary consultant and editor of publishing houses, from here she worked until she became a freelance journalist and deals with culture, collaborating with the newspapers Periodico italiano magazine
In 2010 he published the first anthology of poems and stories entitled "L'ultimo notte da falena" with Davide Zedda La Riflessi. In 2017, his second collection of poems entitled "This Spring" was released by Irda Edizioni. In July 2018 the collection of ballads, "Battiti", was released by Mezzelane Casa Editrice. His new collection of ballads and stories, entitled "I don't love roses", published by "Pav Edizioni", will be released in November 2021. In March 2023 his fifth collection of stories and ballads called "Se ne fre la luna, stanotte" will be released and his new collection "Fuoco Sacro" will be released shortly, again for PAV Edizioni. Currently, in addition to her work as a journalist, Clelia Moscariello collaborates with various advertising and editorial agencies as a copywriter. Since 2018 she has dedicated herself as an author, blogger and social manager to her social page "Psico Baci" regarding literary quotes and author photography and to the blog connected. Her recent debut as a radio presenter at various web radio stations, including "Radioattiva", "Extraradio" and "Radio non uno dipiù". Finally, she recently obtained a certification in web marketing and social media marketing at the Milan Digital Coach school and collaborates with the "Amori.4.0" project in the team of professionals as a journalist and writer, specialized in awareness issues and female empowerment, gender mainstreaming, breaking down of stereotypes regarding education and cultural awareness relating to being a woman.
Fevers of the Mind 