Poem by Ayn Frances dela Cruz

Richard Running

Richard running
Through sideway streets
Beautifully forgettable
(I could have been here
Once), all cobbled as
Time slips nautically
Beginning passages tense
As arteries. Richard running
On pavements without clue
Holding hands up
Gestureless, numberless,
Stumps, how does one
Touch, forgetting a street
The feet still walk.
On and on is a universal
Theme, beginning left
Then right. Richard running
On nights like this, passing
Winds that howl,
Passing faded houses.
Lives memorably
Withered. Richard running
Full on greyscale,
Everything dotted as on
A matrix, haunted.
Richard running on empty,
On emptiness
That is the depth of
Abandoned houses,
Lumbago and waterlilies,
Sunken skies that never
Not even in a past life
Sees the blue
Of Richard’s eyes.
Richard running so long,
So long, his heart
Won’t stop, not even
For a song.

Photography © Allison Goldin

Ayn Frances dela Cruz is the founding editor of Paper Monster Press. Formerly the Assistant Artistic Director of the Galleria Duemila Art Gallery, she now freelances as a publishing consultant. Her works have been published in My Favorite Bullet, Under the Storm: an anthology of Philippine Contemporary Poetry, and LITA: Poems on Women.

Allison Goldin is an artist living in Cambridge. Her work is a collection of spontaneous drawings from the imagination. The most common link throughout her art are the semi-recognizable creatures scattered amongst and bringing together the surrounding doodles. She is currently studying Illustration at The School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.