Band-aid
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Announcements
Bless you.
Thank you for forgetting
to cover your mouth.
I heard you sneeze
all the smoke from your teeth.
It sounded like
cigarettes drowning in jukeboxes
so I knew to leave.
You told me you stopped smoking.
But I wonder now,
what was in all that gray?
I can only guess
there was a coat,
a sock, a pair of books
and a ‘we have nothing in common anymore’.
I don’t breathe much these days.
Avoid me like beestings.
Please don’t look at me,
my hands are raining earthquakes.
I’m kidding,
try and pull a touch or two out of them
before I get wise enough to shove them back
in my pocket.
I will
because I can’t get your stench out my eyes,
you’re making them feel like mildew.
But maybe that was my fault,
it was snowing
when I introduced my face to the sky.
Sop me up with the storm coming,
pinch me to a wall and blow me down,
don’t let me go,
I’ll choke you ‘til you’re brown in the face.
I thought of you
right before the morning,
it felt like ripping.
I woke up melting,
my knees crack so oddly now.
My tattoo upside-down is your name.
I thought somewhere in the middle we tried.
By the way,
this isn’t a poem
it’s a band-aid.
Winter
Posted by Justin Ching | Filed under Announcements
A winter’s night,
Haven’t seen you in awhile,
Apologize if I’m having trouble making eye contact,
But you’re the same kind of gorgeous I remember,
And I’m not ready for that yet,
The weather still reminds me of the excuses we made to play Eskimo beneath bed your sheets,
When our noses were the best kissers this side of the north pole,
Not like those reckless things below,
American lips,
Too much tongue,
And not enough substance,
We used to arc flight paths across the heartland,
Lie upside down and flip them into the widest smiles from California to Manhattan,
You’re not as warm as you used to be,
And I chose a crowded restaurant where everyone knows me,
So I won’t make a scene this time ‘round.
Whether on a stage or a familiar place,
I’m always best when people are watching,
But there’s only been one person,
I’ve never been afraid to see me for who I am, naked,
And it’s been far too long,
How many times can I drive you home,
Watch the front door close stoplight red,
And wonder would you let me run it if no one’s around,
When I got home, I went to play basketball,
Because it’s the only thing I’m worse at than you,
And I need to feel good about us again,
It snowed on the walk back,
And I swore the sky was trying to romance me,
Sierra Leone mine diamonds from the stratosphere,
Have you ever tried to catch a dying star on your tongue,
It tastes nothing like forever,
More like innocence,
The dust of the February wind dancing halos under each lonely lamp post,
Until the earth is a blank slate again,
But I know now we can’t start over,
Because we don’t stick right anymore,
Love is not always white as wedding gowns,
Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty,
Like New Orleans jazz and the hurricane season,
The grit of brass band parades when the muck is up to your knees
Believe we can rebuild a home out of anything,
Take me back to Dixieland, I’m cold.
Identity
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
i am
fading
awkwardly
along
the edges
like
kindergarten
breath
stuck to
window-shaped
nothing.
your
fingerprint
is in the
middle
of me,
sopping up
everything
like
a brand new
rag.
i am
still
sort of
foggy
and worn,
awkward
and
melting.
just
finish
already
and
rub me
off
clean.
Shiver
Posted by Melissa Pavri | Filed under Poetry, Print
there is a shiver of stars
beneath the blue moon of climax
quiet as creed but present as prayer
i wonder if men know the light year
between trust and comfort
the false skip of stone from ear to Jupiter
a sliver of sex shouldering a galaxy
the tales of fancy that twist from wishbone thighs
are two lips shy of honest
but faces feign belief as often as young men sin
women blush like plums
and burst for no good reason
they see the pulp of pleasure in the navel of orange
and the forgiving flesh of mango
beg two eager open hands
too young to know the meaning of defeat
a mother who can teach her son
to peel a fruit with thoughtful fingers
a son who knows a woman is an orchid
with a silk ribbon of tender between her petals
a woman who knows how to fish
the pearl from her oyster without a man
these are the artists of the earth
who paint salvation with their tongues
and mushroom bliss by fingerwidth
but there are still those
who don’t know how to use the brush
float marooned in a sea of wet paint waiting
for the selfish stroke of another
this is for the women who do not rattle
who snake selfless from rapture
for fear of waking the world
for the women who pinch constellations to shine their teeth
and grin only because the moon is telling them to
there is no shame in spilling secret
there is no shame in breaking
in wanting the sea and the sun in the same pant
the orgasm of life was born for the woman
for the pomp of passion
and the want of circumstance
there is no shame in a parade of pansies
cracking at the same supple axis for a bud of joy
and wrestling with the static of thoughtful faces
let them weep magenta
and turn in unison from the December sky
