Dear Beach
Posted by Chloe Wayne | Filed under '08 Fall: Notes from Underground, Poetry, Print
i went to the beach this morning
packed just my Raybans, this notebook, and two Coronas
went by myself– would have brought some friends,
but didn’t want to be alone.
the shore was blissfully empty
like silkscreen seconds before an Andy Warhol piss job
or a masturbating afternoon sun
enjoying her post-peak release
hours before the moon comes and fucks her into oblivion.
today is Wednesday,
and i’ve come to free myself,
by myself
didn’t bring any friends because
sometimes New York City nightclubs
and crowded dinner tables get lonely.
and i’m tired of looking for myself
in my loved ones
or at the bottom of an empty shotglass
just to find distorted reflections-
you can blame my hazy vision on the alcohol
but i know
that i’ve only ever seen myself clearly
in one person’s eyes
and he doesn’t come around here anymore.
today is clearly not a beach day because i’m the only person here,
i guess Monday boxed everyone into suits and ties
and the workweek isn’t over
but the earth doesn’t dance to the thumping of their calendar
or bop to the ticking of their mass-produced clocks
it’s only Wednesday because they say it is
and i’d rather be deaf with two left feet
even if it means i’m lonely and the other kids won’t play with me—-
today,
i’ve got my own sandbox
reconstruct memories in hand castles
collect sea shells the shape of nostalgia
swim in my father’s tears and wish he believed in the glory of a high tide
uncrumple my mother’s broken down spine
with seaweed that i stretch to the sky
and my first love is two baby crabs upside down
that look like blood red hearts beating side by side
new and uncertain against grains of flesh
cuz our butterflies haven’t migrated away for the winter yet.
i’ve never needed church or religion, and I’m only 19
but these days I find myself – palms pressed,
knees itching to genuflect, and
wondering if God has gills
if he can carry downpours on his shoulders
swallow the sea and never choke on his own sanity-
i’m wishing for a rainbow sign
but the floods only multiply with age and time
someone up there spits on my white flag and mocks my flailing hands
as if to say i should have learned to swim or pray before Judgment Day.
friends are not fish, after all
and love is not a lighthouse…
so when trust becomes a sinking ship,
i go down with it–
hope can only float so long
until the bubbles burst into
angels’ breath and i’ve just got foam and fantasy left.
i’ve learned to count on nothing
but an unyielding past and my mother’s cracked fingers
but today, i have the beach to cradle me-
i sift through her for olive leaves
the waves tumble like sapphire bass beats
the seagulls…they’re just Miles Davis on a bad day
my footprints Sketch Flamenco in the sand
and the sky looks Kind of Blue
infinite like something i’d jump into
i’ve always wanted to get behind the horizon
see if shit is brighter on the other side
wonder what i’d find if the ocean and the sky
could stop lovin’ just long enough for me
to unseal their lips and jump into that space
once benighted by their kiss.
and i know
it’s only been three minutes
and that’s the third time i’ve used love as a metaphor
to describe things that are so – far – away
but i need to believe it exists somewhere -
so dear beach,
here’s my message in a bottle-
i pray that some people can be mermaids
breathe life into the rest of us
whose lungs may crumble under the brutal tentacles of time,
i pray that little girls can find glass slippers and pearls in your arms,
that i can grow old as your sands and still push the tide from my back
and that tomorrow,
someone else will find this.
The Manhattan Project
Posted by Justin Ching | Filed under '08 Fall: Notes from Underground, Announcements
We held the Manhattan project in our blood line,
So we danced around New York City lights like we were born to,
Electrons with an affinity for lamp posts and all the glowing things in this world,
Tell me how to get closer to you,
Because I believe in a science called fusion,
And I want the atoms of our hearts to mingle,
To create energy and explode starfire into the night,
“Yes this means I love you,”
And I thought we would glow in the dark forever,
But I was just a boy,
Caught playing hookie in one too many science classes
when you were already three grades ahead,
And I was just too good at fakin’ it with the advanced curriculum.
So I never learned that even the sun will burnout sometime,
No longer able to kiss two protons into one helium smile,
She too will die,
A collapsed star,
I never liked how black holes sucked all the light from everything,
I said I’d rather not go out like that,
I think there’s more energy in parting,
It’s best if we go our separate ways,
And you said gladly,
Just give me what’s left of my love back,
But I never realized that breaking hearts is like splitting atoms,
How chain reactions fill chest until it weighs critical mass,
Until ribcage becomes radioactive chamber,
And my heart, a nuclear reactor,
Erupting into the three mile island of my sternum,
This is the stuff bombs are made of,
This is Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
This is Doomsday,
Screaming “My God what have done” from the Enola Gay, with mushroom clouds in our eyes,
This is fallout:
When the nuclear winter blocks out the sun,
With the ashes of everyone,
because everyone is dead.
Reminds me of times I wondered if you would be with me if I were the last boy left alive.
And it’s a curse to survive,
Radiation’s fried my immune system,
So I’m left defenseless,
To rot in my skin,
The napalm of my bones burning me from the inside,
Only I will know what pain is,
The horror of amputated limbs,
After my family tree returns from war,
And fate hacks off all the branches of our future children,
My genetics feel more like genocide,
And I’m not quite human anymore.
So lets start over,
Bring me back to the Stone Age,
And show me my basic instincts,
Whether cavemen throw rocks at storm clouds to pierce nimbus for sunlight,
Like shooting through fog for the moon,
Like cigarette burns in Brooklyn back alley ways,
Like rockets blossoming in the sky at midnight,
as if we could replant our love with explosives,
Remind me what fire feels like,
Because I’ve forgotten how to glow,
And I’m the only living boy in New York,
And you were more than just another “F” on a science test,
But even Einstein flunked out of chemistry,
And look what he gave us,
Limitless energy and a nuclear holocaust,
So I don’t know what about this project scared me more,
The possibility of success or the chance for failure,
But I’m willing to accept the consequences now,
I know you’re not here tonight,
And I know it’s my fault,
But when all seems lost in this experiment,
Lay by my bed and teach me,
That even uranium, rapidly decaying in half-lives not lived,
Does not die,
It just grows old together.
Like Names on Bathroom Walls
Posted by Aysha El Shamayleh | Filed under '08 Fall: Notes from Underground, Poetry, Print, Show Poems
We were children…
Born alive,
we survived some nights only prove to you we were odd looking miracles.
He was hardheaded like our dictators,
often found running clinch-fisted
feet stomping the concrete paving our playgrounds.
at mid day, we would write our names on the walls of narrow alleys,
let the sun rays stare at them.
they were everything we could call ours.
Besides…
We were just like our countries,
Arab, and messy.
our kings treated world maps as if they were high school bathroom stalls,
signed I was once here Mr.
As if the world ever gave a shit.
well, unlike our kings,
we were no fools.
we wrote the names and then laughed at ourselves.
“unapproved sovereignty”
we hid under our beds waiting to get caught by the parents.
like Saddam hiding underground waiting to get caught by America
it was only a matter of time.
but we…
we laughed,
and I wished the world would for once take notice of something beautiful before its gone.
Because after that mid-march night they held him down.
too much of a coward I watched from a distance,
Never seen him this fragile,
look,
never this weak,
cuz this time he wasnt stomping with his feet scaring the kids around,
his face was pressed against the concrete,
we was bent down.
arms and legs spread apart like a 9/11 airplane crashed on ground.
One older man had his pants down,
and the others were keeping the boy in place.
I was only a child but old enough to know
This isn’t how it should go,
Men would push in and out in the wrong places,
and they would alternate on him,
his screams might’ve been pleas
I dont know,
they were hesitant, they would break,
and then sound.
I hear him break under their weight,
If you were standing in my shoes, maybe you would’ve swallowed the silence too,
But maybe not, maybe you would’ve joined them,
They were done with him now,
his crevices filled with more semen than they could hold so it overflowed,
promising no children,
no legacies of whatever this is.
please understand we used to walk around with lollipop rings on our left hands.
I guess we were kids
naïve enough to think the world ever owed us something.
Maybe a dream, or a future,
After all, we were fools to think the world ever took notice.
They walked out on him,
one by one,
no one looked behind.
he stayed laying on his belly for a while
mind conflicted,
then he stood up and i wished he didnt
eyes pouring.
He’s naked
rectum burning,
and blood barely dripping down his thighs…
tell me what is there for us to love now,
we were curious kids, but we never wanted to know
we were as fragile as this,
left behind with
only disgust,
only nausea,
only stench of blood and sweat,
and semen
and wrong sex,
he was suicidal,
like civil wars raging within his skull’s confines.
untaught how to love,
we were beasts
no longer children
after this
not knowing what to expect from anyone around,
all we wanted is that they keep their fucking hands off us.
he survived that night, then chose to live though the ones after it,
only to make it to the day when he can look you in the eye
and tell you I was once here Mr.
like a name on the wall of a high school bathroom
begging you to take notice.
But on world maps he would always sign his name
Iraq.
see its you who’s doing it…
raping him.
see people and countries are the same thing,
he’s bent down,
and he has blood barely just barely dripping down his thighs.
…you’re pulling out now…
..walking away.
A Love Letter to Black Girls
Posted by Justin Reilly | Filed under '08 Fall: Notes from Underground, Poetry, Print, Show Poems
So I date black girls..
and everyone who falls in between ebony & ivory
I love hair Straight, wavy, and curly like Ivy
I guess you could say im a dog
because im color blind like Lasey
and where i’m from
we bark at anythang
with parashaped hips
and that ‘mmm Oh Jesus’ flavor of lip gloss on your lips
we would spend hours
quoting old Biggie tracks
and working on punch lines
just waiting for school to let out
but here
I’m supposed to have a type
5′7”
blond hair
blue eyes
can’t dance
doesn’t eat
oh and she thinks my poetry is ‘nice’
shed rather drink than talk
gossip than walk
and she cant chew gum and do either
I Ken
She Barbie
commanding the road on the way to the playhouse
but i never played with dolls when i was a kid
based on these hives
i think I’m allergic to plastic
and I used to write for hours
about that ebony girl who sat in from of me
outlining her curls
with 5th grade metaphors
and naïve
sentence structure
you see white kids
are supposed to sit in the front of the class
but I gotta tell ya
‘the back of her head was ridiculous’
and I just enjoyed the smell of her hair
somehow
I knew all that scribbling would pay off
you see I learned at an early age
that coloring in between the lines
was only taught
to hinder my creativity
I never found comfort
In coloring books
Etching conformity into my veins
Just so miss Jones wouldn’t
Check my pulse
I would flat line in art class
I guess I thought
It was just a waste of my time
Assigning names and colors
Like Adam
But this is no Eden
b/c clearly Eve was
a feminine mirror image of her husband
and that just doesn’t work for us
they wouldn’t even dare
to crucify us
side by side
on the same color wheel
fearing we might bleed together
and I hate to break it to you
but Jesus didn’t look like me
laying helpless
hoping you stain my hands
watching colorless
blood cells drip
to count hours instead of sands
I just wish I could freeze time
We are in a black n white film
Mouthing affection
Smiling as the wind blows
Wishfully hoping for the depression to end
Living in speak-easy dreams
Drinking red wine in prohibition
And playing charades
With our words
We were rebels
Even in a time
When we knew boundaries
Were the difference between life or death
You could find us laying in the graveyard
Mean mugging the stars
And cursing the gods
For not making us the same
Sadly we were only
comforted
when the sun and moon made love
Even though we were told
Wed go blind
If we looked directly into
The eclipsed moonlight
They were worried we might
Find enlightenment in the stars
We would color in our existence
And try to paint our love
within a tattered stencil
Trying hard to be different
And wish
We could roll around in the mix
Just long enough
To let the paint dry
And I feel like an artist
With no brush
Desperately trying to finger paint a
Tragedy in the dust
You will never be able to color in our ashes
You see
There’s no right way
To color
And no right way
To kiss you in public
Because its too much for them to stomach
So here
Is sum Pepto-Bismol
To easy ur fears
gargle ur bigotry
spit out your sickness
because I don’t have time
to worry about your insecurities
I have a master piece to finish
