Bryant Park
Posted by Garrett Carey | Filed under Poetry, Print
I don’t know what a girl is
sometimes,
the small of a back
peeking, shy,
a secret spoken in an outside voice;
a good day,
when one should decide
to breathe upon you,
seems foreign, magical.
I see her, lying,
testing the cold grass toe-first
in an invisible patch of Manhattan -
jazz whispers in the background
like a jealous ex-girlfriend,
a movie scene.
I am sure I see her
a little uncomfortable
at the peak of my
dream-woven everything
but I don’t really know what
“seeing”
means.
Kissing is easier. You can feel
the borders
when you reach them,
map them.
Everywhere
there is a misplaced fantasy
forlorn. The hoola-hoopers
are close, but oblivious
and almost Burtonesque
in their brazen eccentricity.
The watchers are
watching. The listeners
are listening. In three minutes,
a siren
will nudge its way between us
as if the world resented being forgotten
even for a moment.
This is a girl.
It is a good day,
or
at the very least,
I think it is.
EP Underground is BACK this THURSDAY!
Posted by Chloe Wayne | Filed under Announcements
Thursday, September 17, 2009
8pm-9:30pm
LGBT Center, Carriage House
3907 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104
(by Gregory College House)
Get your minds and bodies ready for the first spoken word poetry show of the year from the sickest poetry group on the planet. The Excelano Project is kicking it off early this year with a continuation of last year’s EP Underground Tour to raise money for our November show.
As usual we’re bringing a sick set of Excelano poetry and we’re opening up the stage for all our unsigned Penn/Philly talent to join in with the fun. Also, the night will be a special HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY to David ‘Bless’ Warner, one of EP’s finest.
Free to enter, definitely donate if you want, but most importantly just come and enjoy your show.
Excelano hopefuls are recommended to come and get some exposure on the open mic before auditions this Sunday!
Excel
Posted by Melissa Pavri | Filed under Poetry, Print
crestfallen
sitting in a sea of coffee and tedium
hands
frowning quills
hungering for something worth writing about
i am old world weariness
zipped into high waisted slacks
sunday morning bubbles
burst in my pockets
whatever was left of
saturday champagne fantasy
it’s monday
the week ahead
crushes the small of my back
an all too familiar load that
leaves its depression on my spine
a hypnotic qwerty humdrum
colonizes my fingers
and i begin typing
manic
shackled to the keys
hands ticking
like a bewitched clock
pupils tightrope walking
two invisible axes
through some magnetic field
to a blur of recycled words
and reversed equations
i gawk at the tiny font
on my screen
like a dumb beast
trying to make sense of the world around me
astonishing
how every character pops
in and out of existence
as if it were
just
that
simple
funny mindless little creatures
happy to live in rectangles
i blink twice to make sure i am
still human
still made of flesh
and skin
and soul
i know
this view is skewed
mechanics beyond my control
myopic to the bone
something like
one way tunnel vision
on a yellow desert road
two by two
numbers and nonsense
wake from sleepy trenches
like possessed men and
march across the screen
into an alternate universe
where ideas go to die
this matrix of monotony
and vapid spreadsheets
where the secrets of the cosmos
take on numeric disguise
where everything looks freakishly similar
slipping into cracks
deathly afraid of being greater than something
scared of being significant
until i whisper
fly to the moon
outliers
and take your souls with you
when you get there
free the comet in your chest
so i can follow it to the sky
i will fasten my days
to the backs of fireflies
and wish them
magic migration
to yesteryear
i used to be
wondrous and technicolored
i want to fix this broken mirror
