Kristen D. Scott (USA) – Former Editor in Chief of KNOT
Kristen D. Scott is a seven-time nominee of the Pushcart Prize in poetry for work from 2022 and six poems from her 2014 collection Opiate. She is an award-winning essayist for her work on Federico Garcia Lorca and his books the Divan del Tamarit, Poet of the Deep Song, and essay, “The Duende.” She has published in several anthologies, newspapers, and ezines, including two front covers from Nacional Newspaper in Albania, Atunis Journal, the San Diego Poetry Annuals, Nomos Review, Perigee, and Alesbuyia. She has published two poetry collections from Garden Oak Press, Liaisons (2012) and Opiate (2014). She has been translated into Arabic, Albanian, Türçe, French, and Italian. Scott is currently the Editor-In-Chief, founder, and web designer of KNOT Magazine, she is originally American, but has lived in Turkiye for several years.
Reading Machado as My Son Sleeps
he rests his curls on a gray-striped pillow
his favorite charcoal velvet blanket
yawns at his side –
this a gift from a grandmother
he’s never met.
slumbering, dreaming dreams
of adulthood, making his own decisions,
truths of an in-between age.
I read Machado in my solitude
sipping coffee, mind wondering to Sahur,
the last Muslim meal before sunrise. But,
Machado’s “Grey Olives” beckon,
speaking of “her memory” how it “dries downward”
through him.
Seville, Spain! Your sons are rivers.
my son, a Turk, will travel far, swim your ballads,
Machado, speak with your mother and brother at
Palacio de las Duenas, weeping for the death of Seville.
Water Wheels of Hama
“We breathed together then,” she would say, stirring her spiced lamb; Arab, Kurdish, Druze, Armenian, Circassian, Assyrian, Alawite, Turkish, Palestinian, Ismaili, Greek, Jewish, Yazidi. Samira, my mother, told stories about the Water Wheels of Hama. She would laugh making her kibbeh, my great grandmother, Anissa would nod her scarfed head, the old Spice Road, “Allah, Allah.” Anissa always told the same story of Ottoman recipes brought by Chinese caravans, sweet and sour recipes too – mixed meat and fruit- the Persian way. But, momma kept mixing her kibbeh made with quince, cooked with pomegranates, lamb, and minced onion. This was her Aleppo- her kibbeh.
We hold these traditions, like the Water Wheels of Hama hugged Orontes River. Tomorrow, I wait for another story from Anissa, Momma says we will make more kibbeh, but I know she is lying. The lambs have gone missing. We are missing too, trapped someplace between Kilis and dying.
At Pelican Cove
The sound of muscular waves
overwhelms playing children, ergs merge
with seagull huoh-huoh-huoh’s, moonstone
gatherers, and anxious parents.
On the boardwalk, your eyes spy a slender
blonde, ever an aficionado of female body language.
I am jealous, but then your eyes alight on her cranky
toddler. In an instant, you net toddler and mother,
hands, eyes, and throaty Midwest voice.
Ah, my Lebanese Sinbad with loose, khaki, cargos!
Families, seagulls, and crashing waves unify
for your performance… entranced
I couldn’t wait for bed, to ride that moment, shout,
he is mine!
And you were …
for the turn of a screw
a setting of sun
a strum of oud,
a dervish whirl…
for as long as you could be anyone’s,
even children, crashing wave, gull, toddler, and mother.
Intervals
Time escapes as banditos
traveling south
through ponderosas
buckskin sacks of coins
jingling between
tobacco and braided leather whips
I want to escape with them
draw up my skirt, let them swing
me on Appaloosa’s back
bare- riding through painted
canyons: pink, sand, blue, and
green. Rivers of nothing but time
time amid time
time echoing the chants of shamans
and sages. Time singing to the vulture’s call
picking through the dead monster ball
And, so we ride time —I bareback
through Rio and Red Canyon
into that other world where lust abounds.
