Whether the heart latches on first
like beggarticks on a passing pair
of socks, or if it’s the body

that stumbles and remembers
as it falls a world resplendent,
everything shines in that light.

Is the passing of that joy
written on the walls
of each heart by a fiery hand?

Or was it that you and I
found ourselves numbered
among those fated to fail?

Jeremy Dae Paden was born in Italy and raised in Central America and the Caribbean. He received his Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Emory. His poems have appeared in such places as the Atlanta Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cortland Review, Louisville Review, Naugatuck River Review, pluck! and Rattle, among other journals and anthologies. This is his first published collection of poems. He is an associate professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and a member of the Affrilachian Poets.

Silence prolongs its
stay, a lover grown distant,

nothing to pass between
us but this

lingering in the doorway,

and then you offer
watermelon, cold,

brought up this afternoon
from the well, melon left

in the dark water too long
then given by you to me

with the dolmas left over
from yesterday’s meal.

–Jeremy Dae Paden,
Broken Tulips
Accents Publishing

Jeremy Dae Paden was born in Italy and raised in Central America and the Caribbean. He received his Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Emory. His poems have appeared in such places as the Atlanta Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cortland Review, Louisville Review, Naugatuck River Review, pluck! and Rattle, among other journals and anthologies. This is his first published collection of poems. He is an associate professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and a member of the Affrilachian Poets.

Jeremy Dae Paden was born in Italy and raised in Central America and the Caribbean. He received his Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Emory. His poems have appeared in such places as the Atlanta Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cortland Review, Louisville Review, Naugatuck River Review, pluck! and Rattle, among other journals and anthologies. This is his first published collection of poems. He is an associate professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and a member of the Affrilachian Poets.

freedom, or must love
get jealous, beg, plead
and stand before you
like a bored, hungry
child that wants to sit
on your lap to eat
her morning biscuit
dripping with butter
and honey, then grab
your hair in her hands
to pull your face close
to hers, simply to peck
your cheek with sticky lips?

–Jeremy Dae Paden,
Broken Tulips
Accents Publishing

More from Broken Tulips and Jeremy Paden:

• “Remember that Night in Cairo”
• Accents Poets Nominates for the Pushcart Prize
• “If I Cannot Be Your Shine”
• An Interview with Jeremy Paden
• Writing Challenge: “Discarded Ideas & Revised Beliefs”

Jeremy Dae Paden was born in Italy and raised in Central America and the Caribbean. He received his Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Emory. His poems have appeared in such places as the Atlanta Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cortland Review, Louisville Review, Naugatuck River Review, pluck! and Rattle, among other journals and anthologies. This is his first published collection of poems. He is an associate professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and a member of the Affrilachian Poets.

Tired of pizza, we discussed
outside the restaurant
whether to try something new,
local and unfamiliar,

how finally we went three doors
down to try the ful medames
and aysh baladi, how the bomb
exploded as they served us tea.

They say that aysh, the word
for bread, means life.

We sat there and tore life
and dipped it in stewed beans
and ate it, while three doors down,
ambulances, weeping, corpses.

–Jeremy Dae Paden,
Broken Tulips
Accents Publishing

More from Broken Tulips and Jeremy Paden:

• Accents Poets Nominates for the Pushcart Prize
• “If I Cannot Be Your Shine”
• An Interview with Jeremy Paden
• Writing Challenge: “Discarded Ideas & Revised Beliefs”
• “The Idea of Land”

Jeremy Dae Paden was born in Italy and raised in Central America and the Caribbean. He received his Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Emory. His poems have appeared in such places as the Atlanta Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cortland Review, Louisville Review, Naugatuck River Review, pluck! and Rattle, among other journals and anthologies. This is his first published collection of poems. He is an associate professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and a member of the Affrilachian Poets.