Fall 2011 Show Footage
Posted by Lauren Yates | Filed under '11 Fall: An Opiate Utopia, Announcements, Poetry, Video
The footage from our Fall 2011 Show “An Opiate Utopia” is now available in full on YouTube. Watch the poems in show order by following this link.
spark.
Posted by Ivy Sole | Filed under Poetry, Print
There are two ways
to a woman’s heart. A resonant
voice and ample
hands, so when used together a spark
begins. I’m known for burning
my way through
men like good herb
never content enough to simmer
‘til you came.
6’4, matchbox smile, reddish brown clay skin.
Your flesh settled between
my fingers like bread dough, my favorite
parts of you rising
much like the yeast.
I knew you,
before cleats consumed your life
like fire to flesh.
You were muse to explosions in my mind,
fuse for every poem I’ve yet to ignite.
your voice was a gold star in elementary, hard to
come by, but well worth the wait.
I wonder if you remember the day
I found out my chances of procuring breast cancer
were better than your chances of
making it to the league.
You asked me, “What do I feel
when I hold you?” Took my back in your palms
like prayer cloths, smoothing the skin like wrinkles,
and held me like tomorrow was a promise
we’d forgotten in the wake of night.
All you had were questions. Your fingertips
were counsel for my innocence pleading guilty,
asking does it feel good, like you didn’t know.
Candlelight is but a small flame, and shadows
that reach from your smile to my waist
relay messages of proximity that we never
laid claim to; I never realized that lips and duvets
and knees and thighs and
Sade and spaces that never see sunlight
can bring such warmth. You just wanted me to
consider taking the place of your thirteenth rib
and I obliged, if only for a moment or two,
we were one.
When I went to blow the candles
into memory, you asked my bare frame, how it
could be that even when
inside me I was distant. You taught me, so
I let my hands speak: placed a finger to
your lips, extracted a lighter from my jeans
resting on the floor, and sighed into you
that flames only exist with air, and when I
breathe you only time is extinguished; that you are
heir to a reaction that exhales love, perspiration,
and light. So distance is imaginary,
as long flame still arrives
when our fingers summon it. Summon me
my darling, because I’ll come
if your hands and tenor are beckoning,
as long as you can take the heat.
