Dream Lover
The people you love the most you seem to remember a voice and we’re all getting ready for the upcoming Mini-interview with Paul Ilechko HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)? PI: I used to read only fiction, nothing else but fiction. But then, one day when I was riding the NYC subway, there was a poem being displayed on the billboards above the seats, and it immediately sucked me in. It was “The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats, and that poem became the trigger that started me reading poetry on a regular basis. It was several years before I started writing poetry, but I look at it as the defining moment that began the journey. HFR: What are you reading? PI: Currently reading The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead and Willow Hammer by Patrick Donnelly. After reading mostly poetry for several years, I got pulled into a book club last year. Now I tend to mix up my reading genres much more. My next book for the club is Suleika Jaouad’s The Book of Alchemy, which I have misgivings about. I am fairly convinced that “journal” is not a verb. HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “Dream Lover”? PI: I came to it with the opening lines already in my head, I’m not sure what prompted them. But obviously this was written as the ICE kidnappings were beginning to ramp up, and current events quickly took control of the narrative flow. It’s also meant as a small tribute to my girlfriend Linda, who most definitely is the person who holds my life together. HFR: What’s next? What are you working on? PI: My second book is already finished and accepted, it will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig in 2026. So everything that I’m writing now is for whatever comes after that. There’s currently no theme in mind. My first book, Fragmentation and Volta, was very much about form, and contains only sonnets and short prose poems. The second book, which as of now is titled Post Moby, contains a long sequence of poems all inspired in some way by Moby-Dick, but otherwise just the best poems that were available to me at that time. One change is that there is much more of a narrative aspect to these poems than there was to my earlier work. I already have a good number of newer works to choose from for a future collection, but I’m holding off doing anything with them for now. HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share? PI: Like almost everyone I know, I am utterly horrified by the state of America today. I myself am an immigrant, I moved here from England at the age of 26 (over forty years ago). I’m a citizen and I have the good fortune to have a white skin, but I’m still nervous about having to interact with ICE or CBP/DHS, so I am not traveling anywhere that is not in driving distance. I grew up with WW2 still very vivid in the memories of the adults around me—my own father spent time in Bergen Belsen concentration camp, and my mother lived through the Blitz. I never imagined that I would see fascism take root in a country where I was living. But I’m not going anywhere. This is my home now, and I will fight to get rid of this poison. Paul Ilechko is a British American poet and occasional songwriter who lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ. His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bennington Review, The Night Heron Barks, Atlanta Review, Permafrost, and Free State Review. His book, Fragmentation and Volta, was published in 2025 by Gnashing Teeth Publishing. He reads for Marrow Magazine. Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.
are the ones who come to mind
when you wake up in the darkness
unsure of where you are and how
you got to be thereit’s as stygian
as the movie theater downtown
in that brief period before the titles start
an interval that feels almost dreamlike
and you wonder if that could be
why you are awakebut you have
no memory of waking from a dream
but it’s hard to be sureand the longer
you think about it the further removed
you are from whatever happened
and your mind has drifted back
into the same old familiar rut called
whatever the fuck happened to America
there are still so many things you want
to do with your life before the whole
thing goes to shitbut the triumph
of the will is flexing its muscles
parades of militarized mightsomewhere
out in the flatlands of Texas they are
building concentration campsout there
where the wind always blows
and nobody is quite sure if they will
finish construction before the whole thing
is burning downflames blackening
the southwestern statesall the way
through to Californiaand of course
that’s why she was in your dream
if it even was a dreambecause who
else is going to hold you the fuck
together at a time like this?
Heavy Feather Review 