Posts for June 17, 2025 (page 2)

Category

Poem

Woven

we have to tell ourselves
we have a soul
in between our worn bones
holding us together
while we pretend
everything is fine
when half of the universe
doesn’t make
any sense

but with you
it makes sense
and the only rule
can be measured out
in the waking moments
of you

Amanda Jatta

Category

Poem

6/17/25

untitled

We had sat for a hour,
bumper to bumper,
in the blistering sun,
for reasons unknown.
But with my windows down,
my music up,
and strawberry milkshake
on my lips,
I felt perfectly content.

Maddie Coleman

Category

Poem

6/17/25

The Floor

Wanting to be everything
And feeling like nothing

I lay on the floor,
Staring at the ceiling
My thoughts like a pinball machine
In an old arcade, loud voices
And sneakers squeaking
Closing time is always past due

The ceiling turns into a map
Of everywhere I’d like to be
With to do lists and bills piled on top
Unread books and pictures from the past
All these things I can see,
I could touch and smell
All of the conversations I might hear

But I fear,
I’ll never make it off of this floor

Jim Lally

Category

Poem

6/17/25

The Clutch

i go the least
expected way
off trail

into deep grasses
where a turkey
wrangles the air

with all her startle
and I touch my heart
when I look down

to discover
her clutch of 13
freckled eggs

namaste I say
with a little bow
and tip-toe back

to the beaten path
down the hill
out of sight

praying for the hen’s
quick return
knowing

this scene
is better off
without me

Josie Angel

Category

Poem

6/17/25

Sharing The Darkness

I hold you tightly as we dance

alone in your room

to music only we can hear.

I’m intoxicated by the smell

of your self-inflicted wound.

I try to swallow my hunger

(for once).

I’ve been a teenage girl

for centuries.

This is your first time around.

I’ll teach you.

I want to save you,

meek, dangerous creature.

Looking into your eyes

is like looking at my first love

again

from beyond

oceans of time.

At sixteen,

you’ve acquired the kind of loneliness

that usually takes a hundred years or more.

You tempt me in so many ways.

You want me to help destroy you,

to take the pain deeper.

I just want you,

all of your sadness and mystery,

reincarnation or not.

Even as I hate to let someone in

and complicate my existence.

We cling to each other

long after the last note.

Our darkness is not the same

but we share it anyway.

Megan Slusarewicz

Category

Poem

6/17/25

Three versions of a curse

I.
six river snails
four taps of salt
three ancient newts
each color of the pale

II.
breath unrolled
from deepest lungs
a yellowed scroll
a tongue

III.
feathers tapping eyelids
then the throat
again again
this ritual on rote

Alora Jones

Category

Poem

6/17/25

Return to childhood when you can.

Growing up too fast,
necessity of the life they’ve led:
them, us, me.
State of serious situation after serious situation
turns a child into a man, a woman, a being
stress on top of stress
and endless loop-da-loop of anxiety
on track to chaos
and utter loss of control.
Youth turned old in a matter of years
and they’re only eleven.

Fastforward: child turned adult,
already was far too soon,
but rather than dwell and bitter
they, us, me
we found ways to awaken the inner child
in all of us.
Music, games, movies, shows;
outings with friends
we never got to have:
painting, sleepovers, midnight car talks
about nonsense and everything that doesn’t matter
at least not in adulthood, but in childhood
it’s everything.

Keez

Category

Poem

6/17/25

Processing Grief

I processed my grief today.
Not a loss of a person, pet, place, possession or position…
I am grieving my perception, my progression, my plan…
That my past is still my present.
A poignant reminder I’m stagnant;
And this isn’t pleasant.

Jerielle

Category

Poem

6/17/25

As of Yet Untitled

Part 1

So pleasantly surprised to find outside darkened skies a steadily cool breeze the Red or possibly Shumard Oak erupting in applause

The Pin Oak sounding like sand as it curls down a spiral wooden slide

Tiger Lilies biting the borders of 442- looking down Cotton’s drive I see- what used to be the home of two Great Horned Owls in a massive tree trunk stopped mid fall and lopped- like Pisa for sure, now likely a Racoon family’s respite from the storm drain when comes the rain

Sipping the air that changes rapidly to a stab with the sun, a dampened dandelion tea of grand trees, Honey Locust, Ginko, Cedar, Holly, Maple, Cherry

House Sparrows and Robins and ambulance singing, I cling to the dark with my toes hunkered beneath a shock of hair and a brown hat brim decorated with Mexican embroidery

A couple walks by with their dogs

as the breeze moves again, carrying them upstream-a touch like cold river water

He is repeating “An hour…” “An hour…” “An hour…” “An hour…” and she is answering “Yeah” “Yeah” “Yeah” “Yeah”

My next inhale contains the flavor of my honeyed coffee mingled through the nose of distant flowers-

The great concrete slab step Galumps as I shift my feet and the passing cars answer with a similar Galump, a more metal and rubber Galump, the tires shifting the manhole cover

In the wire stream everyone’s trauma seems to have unsettled something

but so far I’m not feeling mine

albeit a bit more obsessive worry, tight neck, as I think about planning a trip to L.A.

knowing that I will see my brother, or try to, if I can find him, if he’s still alive. I feel that he is though he has hinted that it shouldn’t surprise me. That I should carry on, that he doesn’t want me to care. I haven’t seen my Father for over a year-he keeps posting signs in the stream

Good Riddance Immigrants that I feel come from a deep sense of unacknowledged racism. The same coiled poison which alienated and perhaps killed my mother -though they may tell me cancer doesn’t work like that I’m not too sure that they know how cancer works-

and here I am the same skin color, the same brown eyes, the same thick dark eyebrows, the same nose, only a horse broke hers

and when the doctor went to fix it, everyone was relieved they fixed it not to how it was, but how they all wanted it to be

my mother included

Yes, she was tired of being called a witch she said, even though that was probably, at least some of the time, more due to her eerie clairvoyance. But yes, she did look like Elphaba and since our dreams and ideas seem to me to be as freely shared as the wind on the trees, perhaps Gregory McGuire felt his story whispered in the existence of my Mother, for she was as hated, feared and disrespected-a trifecta of an old ancient hatred in the hearts of society’s moors -A woman who wouldn’t stay in her place, a witch, a Spanish beauty who defied gender in these United States

The couple walks by again, carrying coffee this time. “Five Hours” she’s saying, “Five Hours”

The rain stick Pin Oak sweeps them gracefully from the stage