The Wall
Posted by Garrett Carey | Filed under Announcements
We were like colors
quickened from the palettes
of dreamers unfamiliar
in their own skin. We
grafted to flax and gave
back what we got
in shifted spectrums,
narrower, not
so final. I tasted
sunlight on your back
and knew nothing of who I was.
Looking back, I think
maybe I was as you drew me
all bundled up and still far
too big for my own skin,
bone softened with milky watercolor
and too well contained
on canvas to jut out
at uncomfortable angles, and maybe
you were just something
I dreamed about and tried childishly
to stick to the wall.
I too liked the flavor of black
paint. I spoke in the industry
of romance, smearing
sadness where I settled
to collect and whisper warnings
from crude, iridescent
puddles. We were artists
only in the sense that we knew
what the aftertaste of heaven
felt like on our tongues.
We were geniuses
counting on inadequate
tools, trying to cheat the science
of happiness,
painting our utopias
with colors that were never meant
to be pretty.
Fingerprints
Posted by David Warner | Filed under Poetry, Print
Her hands are old and deep
Like grandmothers’ laps and love songs
Wide, dark, and moist
Like deep cavernous stomachs
Moaning for the slightest hint of nourishment
She’s starving
For just one touch that isn’t overtly disrespectful
One touch to let her know her hearts there
For a reason other than a reminder she can still hurt
She was used and beaten by too many men
Rushing for the parts of her that are easiest to understand and easiest to open up
Passing her mind and her palms
En route to her body
Which was used and beaten
By too many men ready to leave their kids in her
Cause it was easy
Cause she was “easy”
Cause her mind isn’t easy
It’s used and beaten
Creviced, cornered, and nuanced
Clever, caring and nimble
Like her hands
Weaving warm winter dreams
For her patchwork family
Navigating stream after stream of tears
In gravy boats instead of giving them food for thought
Because her mouth doesn’t mesh with her mind the way her hands do
Just another hole for dicks to go into
And misled, misshapen products of her pain to come out of
She shoulda named her kids Fuck, Shit, and Bitch
Instead she made them all euphemisms
All lil prisms trying desperately to turn their mother’s
Dull flickering light into a rainbow
Raindrops bursting from the clouds
Returning to the sea to tell their mother how beautiful the sky was
And begging her to come with them next time
Instead of just shouting her love at the heavens from drowning lungs
Acquiescing to the random ebb and flow
Until she’s the next to go
Hands smashing together
Like old sunken valleys collapsing around long since dried up rivers
as she prays to just go easily
To go quietly when she goes
Somewhere where she can watch the sea
And collect the sand in her hands
To make stain glass monuments to women like her
lullabies across the sky
To rock babies to sleep in grandmothers’ laps
An old deep love song to hold hands to
So she can finally leave her fingerprint on
A world that’s so careless with its hands
Army of Gods
Posted by David Warner | Filed under '09 Spring: Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Poetry, Print, Show Poems
Sit still
Sit still
Sit still
Two words that hit like “kill yourself”
As her toes tapped during math class
She didn’t look like much
Just a shy little girl
clothes too big for her
And a smile too small for her age
But lil did they know…….
The clothes were still too small for her soul
And the smile was the wry smirk of warrior
So she tapped her feet
slow and steady
til the tap tap became a BOOM BAP
and heaven could see the vibrations
Now she’s a goddess
The ground shakes under her
Rattling like the space between lovers
Jittering like the tips of fingers hanging
from hands waiting to touch someone new
Quaking like lost hearts
Rumbling like a war zone
As she floats like an angel deflecting bullets
And saving soldiers
Moving with every boom
like a speaker pulsing with every beat
Like bombs were bursting in her abdomen
And shrapnel was bouncing off her ribcage
Carving her heart into a dagger sharp
enough to cut through diamond mines
she doesn’t dance
she marches
toes pointed like AKs
shouldered by rebel soldiers
never holstered
ready to give everything til she’s empty
and her body lays limp in the hushhhhhhhh
SHHHHH
Shhhhhhhhhhh
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Just a sound to most
But to me a death sentence
As I whispered rhymes
over a dirty mead notebook
with my eyes closed
to a distant toe tap on the other side of the school
No matter what my age is
I was made to blaze stages
11 yrs old and already spitting lasers
I’m the king
There was nothing intimidating about me
6’ limbs hanging from a 5’ torso
all tied together by braces and ugly glasses
but the truth is
those glasses were x-ray binoculars
used to see into the souls of everyone around me
the braces were to hold in my teeth when I spit
cause I always had a voice bigger than my lungs could carry
With a heart bigger than my brain and a mouth that intercepted the words
before the two could communicate
Now I’m a God
And I chuckle at the days when teachers tried to stifle us
Everyday another suggested suicide
Every period another death sentence
Chalk flaking off pointed fingers as they asked us
To fold our wings under our backpacks
Fasten our lips
And walk and talk like everybody else
Squeeze in with the mortals
lol
the two of us
we’re an army of gods unto ourselves
this is our Mt. Olympus
So next time you see a kid tapping his feet
Or scribbling in a notebook
Or doodling on his hands
Or fidgeting with a broken watch
Be quiet and observe
You’re witnessing a god in the making
Slingshoot This [Gaza-Bound Poem]
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under Poetry, Print
Arabia holds Palestine in her drought-cracked palms,
As if its her miscarried fetus,
Blued,
Only strips of what it once was
Watch her shove it back into her womb,
An Arab woman refuses to give birth to death,
This is as Palestinian as the intifada,
From Qubbat al-Sakhrah
To Kanisat al-Qiyamah,
Pass by the Wailing Wall,
And shake off the dust,
Will you promise to continue believing in fragile dreams
Even after they tear them down,
Even if it leaves you with nothing but pain,
As much pain as digging up limbs and scraps of flesh from under rubble,
slowly you see it so perfectly resembles someone you love,
And they’ve been missing for so long
Will you promise to choose to live after this?
When their soldiers come marching into this Gaza strip,
Suffocating our melodies into their lethal rhythms
When even this earth starts shaking its hips to their bombs,
a soldiers feet starts stomping the concrete.
Will you belly dance to the beats until he bows down to you
Dance as if to prove to everyone nothing can break you,
let them know our sweat will always be easier to trickle than our blood,
Palestinian woman,
let you shake your hips
remind them of your flesh,
and how mortal it is,
they might have forgotten,
Believe me, only I know the difference between sweat drop and tear,
I see you
Dancing with wet cheeks, but smiling,
Still smiling,
you Arabian Queen
I can feel you breaking,
Remember only I know the difference between shake and tremble,
I promise they think you’re dancing,
But I see you crave life,
..And I wish I knew how to do it like you,
Laugh,
when they tell you our guerrilla fighting men got them thinking we were apes,
they don’t know this is as human as anyone could get,
We fight, because we crave life,
Can you ever crave life,
Like 4 Palestinian children,
Found starving,
Have been holding on to familiar corpses for days,
Cuz only in our deserts does a mother’s flesh freeze,
Crave life,
Like Molotov bombs,
Let that final blaze shine when you break and go.
Look around,
See men strap bombs to their chest as if its Palestine’s life-vest.
Stand as strong as these millennium old olive tree in your back yard,
Prove them wrong
to think ages of hardship can uproot you from your land,
When they point their guns at you
Will you take out your slingshot,
No, dont kneel down
not even to pick up rocks,
see, we are in no need of them
Take Stars of David,
Kiss your pain into that ancient peace sign,
And send it over,
Maybe it’ll hit them…
that this was never what their king had taught them,
Before they pull the trigger,
Will you take your most daring dream,
Pull the elastic of your slingshot far far back,
Aim at the sky’s abdomen,
cross fingers, hope hate does not shoot it down
then just…let go,
Will you watch your mother launch prayers into heaven like homemade rockets,
You hope they don’t shoot them down,
You know this is everything she has to defend herself with
but she
she prays they don’t shoot you down,
You are everything she has left,
Will you take your tongue for a rubber band…
Slingshoot Quran before you fall and hit ground,
Let them hear God speaking in poetry,
One day I will swear to them you are human,
But I don’t know if they’ll even believe me,
Please just continue believing
Believe in life,
Never stop slingshooting
peace.
