Abandoned Vehicle: Chapter
1 of "The Damning." Change instensified, the undoing exponential.
The dazzling opening shot of John Kinsella's new eight part novel.
A.E. Stallings
A.
(Alicia) E. Stallings
was born in 1968. She grew up in Decatur, GA,
and studied classics at the University of Georgia and
Oxford University. Her poetry has appeared in
The Best American Poetry series (1994 & 2000) and
has received numerous awards, including a Pushcart
Prize, the 1997 Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry,
and the James Dickey Prize from Five Points.
She also serves as an editor for the Atlanta
Review. A finalist for both the Yale
Series of Younger Poets & the Walt Whitman Award,
her first poetry collection, Archaic Smile,
awarded the 1999 Richard Wilbur Award by Dana Gioia,
was published by the University of Evansville
Press. She composed the Latin lyrics for the
opening music of the Paramount film, The Sum of
All Fears, and is currently at work on a verse
translation of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura
for a major publisher. She resides in Athens,
Greece with her husband, John Psaropoulos, editor of
the Athens News.
A.E. Stallings
Athens, August
Even the days of the week have fled for the islands.
In the broken shadow of ruins, tourists huddle.
The citizens have vanished, melted away
In August's neutron bomb, its blinding silence.
A remnant of the faithful, at the bus stop,
Awaits the coming of the four-nineteen.
The pigeons mill through empty squares, at a loss.
No one heeds the prophesy of cicadas.
In dusty parks beneath the tattered palms,
Bareheaded statues cannot shade their eyes;
Stray dogs lap water from a leaking spigot.
As the sun reaches the height of absurdity,
A tree lets drop a single yellow leaf
To the pavement like a used bus ticket.
A.
(Alicia) E. Stallings
was born in 1968. She grew up in Decatur, GA,
and studied classics at the University of Georgia and
Oxford University. Her poetry has appeared in
The Best American Poetry series (1994 & 2000) and
has received numerous awards, including a Pushcart
Prize, the 1997 Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry,
and the James Dickey Prize from Five Points.
She also serves as an editor for the Atlanta
Review. A finalist for both the Yale
Series of Younger Poets & the Walt Whitman Award,
her first poetry collection,
