Boys

By CRALAN KELDER
when the boys came over
theo with his banjo david
brought his voice we set
some poems to music
berrigan’s Train Ride &
the one about his old house
that he would miss and
the one that got to me
was Letters from Vicksburg,
Civil War sonnets, true stories,
transcribed by Gildner in which
the boy who never came home
wrote to his wife and friend
about how they “hit and
cut us all to peases” and about
the boys who “huncked the ground
and wept as close as posable

 

Cralan Kelder is the author of Give Some Word. His work has recently appeared in Zen Monster, Poetry Salzberg Review, and VLAK, among other publications. Kelder currently edits the literary magazines Full Metal Poem and Retort. He lives in Amsterdam with the evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers and their children.

[Purchase your copy of Issue 02 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Boys

Related Posts

Caribbean picture

Self-Portrait in The Caribbean

PAOLA ASSAD BARBARINO
Sometimes I am emboldened, / I decide to stand in the people’s balcony / I decide it is Maundy Thursday I decide to place a priest behind me that can speak to the people behind / my back / I decide to put out the fire and light my throat / scream

Feltspade

ELIAS SADAQ
I serve out my conscription / sleep in a bunk bed / for four cold months / in the engineer regiment at Skive Garrison / in a room with three other men / I fuck the colonel / the only sign that time is passing / is a pile of snow outside the window / that grows smaller

Book cover of Fifty Mothers

Mother is a Kind of Holding: Jenny Qi interviews Preeti Vangani

PREETI VANGANI
With vignettes, I could plumb its narrative arc to become a force propelling the book forward. It also felt haunting yet warm that the mothers kept reappearing throughout the life of this grief. That repetition created a chorus of voices that angers and despairs, yet cradles the speaker.