If You Were Here, I’d Be Home Now
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
There was a street light
singing orange flickers
to the left-bound
snow-scarred gutters
of N. Charles St.
last night.
There were lovers beneath it,
hiding the shine
under their skin
like boxed pastels.
They breathed in
only the boldest stars
and exhaled their own cloudy wishes
in each others faces
while they played
with each others lips
and tried to gauge
whether or not
this place felt enough like home.
The night looked like
broken bones
reworked into twenty-one inches
of fallen skeleton
at 9:52 pm;
A flower on Decembers finest dress.
The potholes were sleeping,
dreaming noisy street corners
among vinyl highways,
blanket-sleeper sidewalks,
and hand-painted road signs.
This city’s skull
was made of water ferries
and abandoned buildings–
it’s skin
tattooed with murals and charm.
Those lovers
wiped their feet on the skyline
and hung their hats
on the harbor.
They made fun of the dark,
the way it cowered to alleys and bedsides
and frowned at the night,
the way it felt like overlooked roadwork
and car accidents.
They reminded me of us.
There was a light on in my house.
Someone was waiting up for me
like I still lived there.
If you were here, I’d be home now.
Sensationalism
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Poetry, Print
A shower laced
coaxed me into
its blunt
and I cannot argue.
I am filthy with a weeks
worth of myself, whomever.
Maybe now, maybe soon,
tomorrow but the past is no fiction.
Editorials of dirt
publish from my back
stories scurry and
drain
as I think,
“I am no intellectual.
I cannot think and
write.
Only feel. There is nothing rational
the way I scratch my
thigh for blood.”
I grabbed the body wash with glowing silver
specks marketed to
housewives all of
them as
glamorous as Tuesday.
Idea of it on my hands,
I scrub.
Skin cries shivers.
This is what its like to
be done with it.
I think, I feel.
I left my jewelry on, trying to prove
a point.
My ring
eager for the floor tried Virginia suicide
but I stopped it with my foot.
I wished all silvers could be stopped by a foot.
Not all can. Not hope
not time.
Maybe hope.
I stand there till pickled,
the bitter
smack of rag
and wash convincing my arms
the world never used me.
Fashion Update
Posted by Alysia Harris | Filed under Announcements
You know, not everything is poems, mic tricks, and sad love stories with us. We like other things as well, such as fly kicks and fresh hoodies. Sooo on the fresh hoody tip, I just got the dopest, sickest, illest hoodie EVER. I would say the designer just technicolor dookied all over this thing… only it’s black and white. Find me on the streets of Philadelphia and you will understand. The designer is called Custo Barcelona. Check it out. and Check me out!! Holla.
Jostle
Posted by Melissa Pavri | Filed under Poetry, Print
sometimes i lose my legs in the sphinx of your sexless laugh
in the quiet majesty of crest come retreat
and the cosmic agony of waiting for you on the tail of my tongue
in the golden harmonica threads of your whisper
and the wind sprint of recollection beneath my lips
in the self righteous flight of your two front teeth
and the unchecked turbulence of my stopwatch knees
i want the second hand to dwell in the solar dynamo of your smile
and the fleeting of a Philadelphia skyline
that doesn’t dawn as easily as i thought it might
in the downhill of a moment that makes no promises
past the finite lawn of your skin
rolling down our spines like fickle children
time is platinum pinned to the cushion of not caring for coordinates
and the casual chronicle of a long time coming
its glisten is unsettling
sometimes i lose my arms in the stomach of a seastruck explorer
with little regard for distance or thunder
in the telescope of intimacy and the black hole of your throat
it’s damn near impossible to distinguish
truth from legend
salt from sea
sugar from dust
i find myself conversing
with the clay cracked nomad in your skull
and the clumsy boy in your constitution
you are falling into your own words
and i can’t help but tumbleweed bind my teeth to the
billowed flesh of your parachute persuasion
so i guess i’ll follow you to the earth
you funneling whirlwind of a man
sometimes i lose my thighs in the evolution of historical haunches
and the novelty of a great unearthing
brush me an optimist but
there is a mantle of promise
in the faultless spell of your geography
in the continental question mark of your face
to the California wildfire in your veins
strike me clean to match a forest
to the peaceful lotus in your iris
do you feel like filling me an ocean today
to the castaway in your gaze
and the black pearl in your gut
wash me a juvenile jellyfish and
let me ink my way to heaven on the rhythmic limp of lust
i am looking for rest
in the acrostic of your chest and
the sack of lonely letters in your abdomen
too true you were never permanent
your breath is but a relic
easily held easily broken
i am caught in the cloud of late night delusion
and the hazardous nosedive of believing in an epic
i know it’s dangerous
but i have mastered the art of drawing us
a dreamscape of early morning wonder
that drafts itself deadlock between my wrists
a cat’s cradle of open mouths
that linger lick from the palette of desire
it’s your bright red sincerity
that jostles my bones like gospel
your blue moon composure that reminds me of prayer
and god knows how many nights without it
but i swear could’ve survived this one
without the pull of your religion
sometimes i lose my alphabet in the risk
of spelling your name by mishap
of a reckless crash into like
and the endless jitter of aftermath
in the belly of waxing philosophical between giant hours
and the watershed of angst crouching in the corner
in the discordant rapture of reason and relish
i have always been told to relish the reason
for dying on the edge of humanity
with naked wanderlust eyes glittered grand for the taking
who knew i would find the Pacific
in the undertow of a bedouin soundclash
in all your tall ship teeth and wayward disorder
sometimes i lose myself in the magenta everything of your neck
i am the uneasy sun in the bipolar horizon of your clavicle
not sure whether to rise or set
i find myself believing in the thundercloud theories
you rest your head on just a little bit more than i used to
i can feel them tap the drum of my ear
like a September rain
like a tangerine fountain of youth
all knowing
striking
yet passing our noses all too swiftly like the crisp tongue of autumn
there is nothing more vertigo
than the slope of your receding brow
the endearing rambler in your gesture
and the uncomfortable truism that you are not coming back
