In Lieu
Posted by Chloe Wayne | Filed under Poetry, Print
Not sure where to begin.
I could tell you how I saltwater traipsed
across you. Shimmering shoreline of a man.
Afraid of sidling past your limbs. Sinking in.
I could tell you of cardboard boxed daydreams
graying under floorboards of doubt.
I could tell you how I tiptoed.
I could tell you of the casualties.
How I’ve seen one too many woman
bend her bones for your kind.
Cracked Corinthian columns,
pockmarked spines.
I could tell you of a Saturday afternoon stroll,
my Fifth Avenue vertigo. Seeing swingsets
in unassuming sidewalks.
How your eyes were auburn dust bowls.
Mine, two Georgia sun-blackened
farmers fleeing.
Adhering to street signs,
avoiding stoplights–
their speckled hearts bungeeing
into puddles of green,
I could tell you of falling like that.
I could tell you of trying to keep composed,
of being daughter to a six foot brick wall.
How I’m still mortaring the cavities.
How in ten New York City blocks
I unlearned the difference
between walking and flight.
Heels trampolining into concrete.
The flailing of a footstep.
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under Poetry, Print
1. You are a thunderstorm.
2. I am a mouthful of rain.
3. I like it when you hold my hand under street lights. Our shadows aren’t gender biased.
4. I used to have an obsession with disposable razors. I don’t like talking about it.
5. I am a doughnut. Aren’t all women that way?
6. I think I belong in the space between your palms and your chest when you pray.
7. You don’t pray often enough. I wish you did.
8. I lost a friend 3 weeks ago. She thinks I’m too proud. I think I’m too tired of pushing. I love her. She used to make me happy. .
9. I have tasted my sweat a few times. It wasn’t fulfilling.
10. I like tucking people in bed. It involves beds and passion, but no one will be calling me a mistake the next morning.
11. I always leave.
12. The only time I ever feel complete is wiping off the wetness you leave on my neck after you break down.
13. Last night I put you back together. I knew where each piece goes.
14. 7 months ago my sister hoped my transcontinental flight crashes. I’m not sure I’m as alive now as when I boarded it.
15. I like long roads. I often fall flat on my face. I swallow the gravel. The flavor suits me…it’s an acquired taste.
Mwandishi
Posted by Melissa Pavri | Filed under Poetry, Print
he looks like a sun kissed wanderer
with aquatic eyes and tumbleweed fingers
sweating somewhere outside of time
he is the spitting skeleton of
a perfect first word
the kind that makes any man
wanna break loose from his bones
and rename himself a writer
he is the humble sum of everything
between charcoal and ivory
eight octaves of what
the most common existence is made of
slow bass moans and
high pitched hysterics
intersecting at a cryptic coordinate
they say it’s the birthplace of humanity
i wonder if his
maiden voyage is
matchless
a cognac map to Atlantis
fingering the ten corners of the earth
a tangerine rose
blooming into cactus
an impossible fantasy
sailing under a purple moon
in a sea of daydreams
or is it just
where his hands
take him in the afternoon
corduroy pockets and
the small of a back
feels like the cracking of a
cool watermelon smile
and the universal belief that
souls are like galaxies
cupped in the fists of children
waiting to be born
little stars shining placental promise
but he is still just a fleck in his own iris
a crippled conversationalist
a mute symphony of impassioned phrases
that can only exit his being
through his fingers
he would gladly trade his lips
for canteloupe island eyes
and bipolar hands
one quarter note for every unspoken truth
he wishes he had the eloquence
to express
wishes it was
effortless
like melody
like harmony at sunrise
waking between his fingers
a crimson assurance that
everything will be okay
a nocturne euphemism for
a declaration of love
that slipped out from
between his brandy hands
a technicolored vista of afterthoughts
that never scrolled past his tongue
he spills his darkest secrets
on this chromatic canvas
excessive
uninhibited
belief leaking from every cleft
after he empties his chest
he’ll leave his legacy squarely
on the piano bench
look over the
shoulders of his grandchildren
with the full moon glow of
a man who beamed
a cosmos from his fingertips
and he’ll smile
a cool watermelon smile
that looks like dolphins dancing
and he’ll know that
this is what being human
should feel like
Faith
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under Poetry, Print
I
Swallowed
a friend in-
To a secret,
black as a Sunday
morning shadow too clean
for its own skin. I had told
someone I’m in love with I wasn’t
‘man’ enough to be unfaithful. I
was too much of a ‘virgin’ to be trusted.
