Tag Archives: poet

Poetry

Human Nature – Ivy Juniper Manchester

“Even the mighty succumb to human nature.
There is no beating the beating of our hearts,
No defeating the monsters we bred,
The demons we define as thoughts,
The poisonous lies dipped in honey
Which we so arrogantly accept as honesty.
We cannot overcome that which makes us strong,
Simply because we believe it makes us weak.
There is no denying emotion that we feel so fervently,
Simply because we fear its strength.
We cannot run from ourselves,
And we cannot be brave if we fear ourselves.
Despite the notion that we are invincible,
We cannot defeat ourselves.”

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Prose, Prosetry

Aerial Views – Matt Grydzuk

And so you were skipping stones across ponds

“Every time I walk past a balcony I think of throwing my phone over it.”

Same, but I think of throwing myself over

For just a split second, then realize it’d be too up-front

Too gaudy, and then it sort of fizzles out


And so you were skipping stones across rivers

Playing records backwards to get the real meaning

“I think maybe I should leave,” you said

But I could never understand how someone could fit

That much sadness in such a small thing


And so you were skipping stones across canals

“They’re all just intersecting lines,” you said

We’re all just intersecting lines

You followed up with

I think that maybe people don’t know you

As well as they should have


And so you were skipping stones across lakes

Hands tied behind your back, you were writhing

“I don’t want to be here!” You said, taken out of context

Were placed anywhere else

You didn’t know how to address matters outside of literal meaning

So you just stopped talking

So you just stopped addressing the bleach stains


And so you were skipping stones across deltas

Frozen over for a long while, now thawed, you turned to me and said

“I think this is where depression stops and starts”

And so I am standing at the edge of the balcony

For the first time thinking of throwing something else over

Thinking, “Maybe”

“Just maybe, one can make a monologue out of anything.”


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Prose

Looking for Lost Words – Elena Barrera-Waters

I think there’s a reason I’ve always loved mornings when no one is awake yet, or sentences that take up half a page, or sitting cross-legged in the dark of my room at one in the morning. There’s something significant to me that comes from being entirely taken away from the world, in the literal sense and also the figurative. I read a book recently that quoted Henry David Thoreau, “Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we are lost from the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are in the infinite extent of our relations”, who was able to speak everything I think about in words more elegant, more reflective, more well put together than mine could ever be. And that itself was able to take me away from the world, just a little snippet of words mushed together that were able to make mine feel insignificant, but in just the right kind of motivational way. I write when I’m alone, and that’s always been for a reason. That’s when I see most clearly, that’s when everything blocking my mind suddenly is able to poof into dust that will not return until I am finished. Of course, it’s not just writing, it’s an endless number of things that I do better on my own, no matter how much I sometimes wish and hope and dream of the day I could do everything in the presence of people, and do it well. I can’t yet, though. And that’s ok. It only takes Henry David Thoreau to convince me that, yes, my desire to be taken away and separated from so many of life’s busy tasks is just a part of life, and eventually it will be these little lost moments that help me to discover those words I’ve been hoping to write all along. 

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Uncategorized

Deported – Alexandra Mayer

I heard bodies and sledge hammers slap the cold concrete

bodies climbed over each other

and bodies flooded out

to blue jeans and radio.

“Tear down this wall Gorbachev…

Freedom is the victor!”

 

And I wanted to run away too

to microwaves.
I was greedy.

 

Yesterday’s ghosts trashed our streets.

The old bakery crumbled under eulogies.

Bottles scattered the park, where my sister stole the lips of her first love
Life was decaying.

 

The woman offered me $500 a month

How could I have thought–

Her hands weren’t like ours.

They were soft and white.

Soon, mine would be too.

 

She told me I’d be a waitress.
He told me to bend over.

His eyes were cigarettes, put out on my thigh.

“This hurts!”

 

“What are you doing? I’m here to serve!”
“You’ll be serving alright.”

I wanted to die.

 

Months in peeling walls

staring down the balcony

while he clasps his meaty hands around my neck

and he shoves his gaunt fingers into my body

and he wants me to suck on his thumb.

 

My youngest client was 12

His father brought him.

My oldest was 82.

 

My body is the “unavoidable consequence of globalization.”
My body is the supply.

This is free trade. Unfettered capitalism.

I guess that makes me a business woman.

Not a victim– A business woman.

 

You can charge twice as much if you’re pregnant.

They like a nice glow

Hope makes a girl prettier, you know.

 

Months more in peeling walls

Thousands more hands

Sometimes sixty hands a day.

Staring down the balcony.

 

The man I was sold to ripped a hole in the mattress

shoved my stomach through

so their hands could be more comfortable.

 

It’s okay.

We’ll get out. We’ll get out.

I am not a victim.

We’ll get out.

I love you.

 

A man with cracked yellow hands started to pity me

It was his sixth visit when

he led me down the stairs and into the street.

It’d been two years since my feet touched the ground.

 

Three days later, falling into a hospital bed.

She’s more beautiful than the sun

dipping into the fields we toiled

than dirt stained sun dresses

than my sister’s laugh

than any young, and naive, and alive eyes I’d ever seen.
She’s beautiful and her hands are so small and so clean.

 

The man I was sold to hovers into the room

and over her.

I scream.

 

Two policemen rush in.

I recognize their hands

When they say to me:

 

“Get out you’re old

you’re minced meat.

We want a new body. Always a new body.

You can’t take her with you.
It’s the law.”

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Prose, Prosetry

You Called Me the Sun – Ivy Juniper Manchester

The world does not breathe until I do. 

I send out love like I know what I’m looking for but the plants and animals soak in the rays, never once wondering where the heat comes from never once feeling blessed but god isn’t it just so human to pretend? When it rains they beg me not to be sad and when it thunders they all run and hide. But when it doesn’t, and the sky stays clear, I don’t matter again. The curtains are pulled aside and thank god the people can continue their lives. All i want to do is love you but if i love you too much, you spite me for my warmth; when I give you space, you beg me to come back. 

Forgive my indiscretion but why do you keep saying it’s okay?

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Prosetry

Nevadian Botaty (The Ego) – Matt Grydzuk

The other day I started a small garden chiefly of plants I could use
Built from those one-dollar Target herb thingies and anyways
I thought to myself how interesting to have such a straight-forward existence
To be consumed, to only have purpose
Never filling in the blank spots never
Playing with narrative structure just
Existing in ground, as part of the earth, in part of something more amazing,
synthetically.

How interesting not to be multipurpose
And to consume chiefly; the product of progress amalgamated
To the point where it’s taboo
I think about these matters while doing simple things like watering basil
Like constructing culinary masterpieces
Perhaps wanting to exist and existing are two halves of the same maybe there is no purpose
But to be consumed by something we’d
Never see coming
And when a friend of a friend reminds me that we are all mortal
I start to think that maybe stagnating is congruent with plant life
Or plant food
I think about these things while watering basil.

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Poetry

Observatory – Haley Ingram

I love it here.
the view reminds me of life. 
The sky the way it paints over our hands and onto our skin,
The way the color doesn’t mix together as much as an artist would like it to.
The lead in our paints is heavier than we were ever capable of lifting, but it’s all we had.
It’s all we are fed. 
We closed our coffins with the nails we’re chewing on in hopes that
You need to be undead in order to make a move-
But I don’t want to kiss death anymore 
He leaves my body to rot 
My teeth hurt from grinding against him
He has violated
All of us. 
We are all iron cast replicas forged in the fires of our own hell. 
We paint our bodies with colors of the sky and call it identity. 
Nobody likes the night 
Everyone is afraid of the dark
Why am I afraid of the dark but find so much comfort in the makeup of hell?
We call ourselves artists, 
There is no artist.
There is only nature and our mimicry,
We feed on the idea of existing originality. 
Why don’t we open our coffins?
Let’s swallow our nails and puncture our throats
To allow the nervous words to spew into one another. 
Till death do us part-
He’s not getting between us. 
We are survivors in a world imprisoned by 
The impressionable weight of shackles
And strength to carry them. 
We are convicts in that we are happy together
So that cannot be. 
But in this moment. 
I love it here. 
The view reminds me of you. 
The way the sky paints itself and the willingness to relinquish power. 
The way I don’t want it to be easy to touch you 
The way no one can touch you.
Painting doesn’t make me an artist
But it makes you a masterpiece. 
I can lift you over my head 
And in this moment. 
Life is worth living.

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Poetry

Capgras Delusions and You (The Body) – Matt Grydzuk

Degauss the stars like cathode ray tubes using only your hands

The body first thinks explicitly in omens, or foretelling the end of things

Sleep less than intended; corporeality was tailor-made for you.


The body is just a suggestion, though, like the outline of existing

Akin to the stars lacking crystal clear imagery yet making shapes

Yet causing images in the night

And I sat and watched them unfold, shaking mildly, how beautiful.


How beautiful, the suggestion of form;

The existence of existence

Like wisps of stardust off the tips of your fingers and the rest of your outline

You are a degaussed constellation.


How beautiful the burning sensation; the smell

How beautiful destroying the innards

Like dying stars or a comet moving faster and then it’s gone

Creating outlines creating memories making

Sentences with your movements but no words.


How beautiful linguistics; complete sentences with two independent clauses

Intertwined to make the sun rise.

Watch it leave you like blood from the mouth, like stardust from the nose and eyes.

All other things beautiful like the suggestion of an outline; like actually falling asleep.


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