Two poems by Sam Kelly

Prison Walls

ashen
void
a familiar emptiness,
your pale body
weak from constant bareness
the whites of your eyes
pushed far back into their sockets
unconsciously
you sink into the colorless land
seeing nothing
noticing little
a face so blank
yet a spark of warmth lives deep within
yearning, wanting, hoping, desiring
black prison walls far off,
what may flow beyond this pallid emptiness?

trip far past the world of Never Never land
glimpse young children flying with guardians
a young boy in love with his youth
and radiating Stars
gaseous wonders of magenta teal yellow
swirl around each other
they engage you,
pull you into a memory
remind yourself of those years
merry-go-round upon merry-go-round
turning, Never Never ending,
yet somehow
you’re no longer there

step into the cold night’s water
bright hues dying pallid skin
swim around the corner
whimsical water splashing color
that moist spray
dripping down your face
a look into moon lit reflection
shows a zebra grazing alone

Wonderland
where Alice skips along a path of illogical life
the Mad hatter sits at tea with rabbits and playing cards
such an unnatural thought
nothing more than a mysterious vision
it makes you wonder
where have you gone so fondly, dreaming?



Dandelion Field

I peer into your eyes, glassy pearls sitting above the bridge of your nose and below your finely-tuned brows.
I can see myself in you like a mirror of all my sins.
I know the world is a hazardous place but I feel safe trapped in your eyes.
My soul has committed itself to you.
You eat away at the flesh.
A feast for you, a famine for me.
My irises burn as the sun reflects off the glass shield over your eyes.
I am blinded for a moment but regain sight of you quickly.
Your reflecting eyes and beautiful lips sitting among a field of dandelions.
How can a place so serene exist in a world of so much hazard?

Two poems by Cecilia Young

Why must you run?

Your senses go numb

You need that high

So you can hide

It's never beautiful enough

Dull your senses til the sun comes up

Your problems won’t go away

Images distort your brain

What is it that you hide from?

What on earth will you become?

Back to earth, how do you feel,

High or low, none of it’s real

When the time comes will you know

Or will life waste, lose its glow

You see, you won’t be the same

Only have a similar name

But even that won’t mean a thing

Get that fix, the buzz, the sting

Crazy nerves and hungry head

Who you were is almost dead

How will you ever find yourself?

Just one more trip? That won’t help

This confused age clouds your eyes

But you can’t always be on cloud nine

Come back to me, come back home

I am yours and yours alone

Is it that feeling you want and need?

I’ll be your addiction, you will see

Laugh and show that beautiful smile

No one’s seen since you were a child

■

Let it mist

Blinded by fog

Turn the sky into a bog

Let it drizzle

Soft and smooth

Pitter patter like horses’ hooves

Let it rain

Strong and steady

The clouds are looking much too heavy

Let it pour

Bring on the rain

It washes away all the pain

Let it flood

Rivers flow high

They will pour back to the sky.

Butterfly, open your wings!

Your colors have a song to sing —

A song unheard in dark of night

So regale the world while it is light!

See the blazing sun it sets

And water calmly reflects

The last few rays of fading light

Giving way to growing night.

Something about the first sunny day

Stirs the storm cloud heart

When the first blooms touch the hills

No rain can make a day too gray.

The sky smiles at her reflection on the water

With cottony clouds framing her face

And the breeze tickles branches of trees

Taunting them to sprout their leaves

The sun will beam warmly down

On this day and many others

But this day, this day is special

Because it is the first.

Poem by Lauren Castaldi

We try too hard for that low class teenage angst

Cry about every secret leak
Any trust circle breach
But I know you love to watch
Your mistakes be talked about
The center of It all
Walk into room and hear the silence start to fall
Because we love each other’s problems
So much more entertaining than our own.

And we find any reason for a disrupted mood
Or self-inflicted wound
We try too hard to brood
Over some pathetic dude.
We get attention because we whine.
Over every single time
I’m told I fall short of a dime
Not a ten but just a nine
And scrutinize over what the hell could I do to shed that image of a nine??
Surely nothing natural.

I fill my empty heart with inadequate distractions
Layered with false hope, knowing what I’m lacking
I stare at fictional characters through disconnected screens
Numbing my brain until real thoughts can leak through by any possible means

And maybe I’ll imply
That the real reason why
We feed off others' weakness
Like some great huge swarm of leeches
Is to safely hide our own
So our secrets are never known
But I’ll admit I laugh at others
Who face the same regrets I have known
I’m just a better secret keeper as I have clearly shown.

Two poems by John Alter

Old man you offer me the gift

Old man you offer me the gift of

recurrence the way the wind through the

curtains brings with it tonight the fragrance

of kites as if in some library a

blind poet is moving the pages of 

a beloved book     that is you      we watched

your eyes turn away from us at the end

of your days with us     you were bored already

with that nonsense about a king and

a one-eyed man     with all the nonsense of

moderation     and sometimes only we 

heard you speak to us from where you are now 

Prayer Flag, Deodar

The first pale light of a new day

at the windows like water-color.  I

understand why these trees insisted that

we associate them with the gods.

Prayer

began as

a tree, on a morning like this

the first pale light at the windows

like water-color,

on the edge of a mountain

where, swaddled in mist, the gods

are born

and prayer thrusting itself

up out of the muddled mind.

Before and beyond words

the mind is a mountain where

gods are born.

A small breeze moves

in the branches.  Somebody has hung

a prayer flag there, the words obliterated

by mist.

2.

A prayer flag begins

with legible words from

the sutra

a man can read,

each syllable clear.  He

knows the words by heart.

And the words

flutter then in the morning

light,

alone for the first time.  Mist

enters the

household of syllables.  Slowly

the walls will dissolve,

the furniture of meaning.

The prayer flag

remembers a man reading

the words by heart and the man is

like a dream, he

dissolves in the mist, and the prayer flag

turns now

to the wind… 

Poem by Thom Hart

Switchback

If you were even to consider
trying out my point of view,
you would have to reverse
your entire outlook on life
several times over.

You know what?
switch time zones for a while
then come back.
Wear what I wear with
the same pride, that only
comes from a favorite pair
of pants worn several days
in a row.

And when you can't figure it out,
ask me "hey, are these glasses on right?"
and I'll say "Damn straight,
you look just like you always wanted to,
ever since you saw that video on MTV."

What if, while flying around
in your automobile, you saw
yourself walking down the
yellow line, and you turned
and caught your own terrified
eyes in the headlights.

Don't get me wrong now,
I'm not saying you ran you over.
Maybe you're just seeing things.
I wouldn't blame you for
perhaps believing
that you're fucked in the head,
just don't start wearing
tinfoil helmets and sitting in class,
staring at the ceiling,
while acting like a mute.
Not one word escapes you,
as you focus on blocking
extraterrestrial, or
government-sponsored mind probes.

I'm sorry if this cookie-cutter
community isn't what you thought it was,
We looked happy you say? Are you sure
you were even visiting on that day?
Oh right, last month we were all good,
slapping five as we walked by.
But I'm estranged now.
You all point, stare, and whisper.
And I know there really is no
problem, it's all me, it's just
that the little kids who cannot see,
they're the ones who need be set free.
Free from all your animosity.

And here I stand
on my little soap-box,
cardboard actually,
it's caving in at the sides,
all the angst is too heavy
and only builds
as I shout high up
from this street corner,
at the intersection
of "not interested" and
"who gives a flying fuck" street.

But look what I made you
from all my doubt and despair.
Clear as day, but out of sight,
you know it'll do you oh so right
to remember, just remember
where we all were two years
before tonight.

Poem by Erin Sullivan

To Separation

The heart and the head, what kind of a separation
Is that? Is it brains disjoined from unthoughtfulness?
That is something I want to know: what causes
That split. My head is telling me to stay, to try
To work. But my heart wants me to wait,
In the cold and the wind for you to pull up.
Illegally, breaking so many rules. I want to go with
You, somewhere, anywhere. Down the hall, down south.
Pick the destination and I will meet you.
The separation? Is it just the distance? I wish
That’s all it was. Everything to me, oh how
I wish you knew. I joke, I kid but I just wish you knew
When I say I love you, I mean it. When I say
I want to see you, I mean that I would do anything
In the world for you, just to see you, to hold you. That separation
In us: are we kidding? Are you serious? I need to know.
That is my heart talking I guess. Screaming at me
Shouting, pick me. Love me, be with me. My mind is telling me
Run, don’t look back. Forget about it all.
Forget the memories and the times that we had.
I want separation to disappear, to fade
Into blackness. I want it to be right. Show
Me the way to end the separation.

To Distraction by Cecilia Young

Distraction, why do you follow me?
Evening now, time for real work
And instead I sit down
To work on thinking...
Thinking about not working, and THEN
Writing it all as the sun sinks down,
Down. What was that homework I didn't hear about?
Nevermind. Nevermind. I'd rather just
write.
As thoughts come and go
Clouds smear the sky, which is so many colors
But a blank canvas
Like my mind, right now, early evening.
The clouds are my thoughts.
I have a letter to write
And polynomials to factor,
History questions that must be answered,
This and that,
The digestive tract,
Anatomy review tomorrow.
And English? Distraction.
Because this is work, but not really.
I could be working on work
But I prefer
Working on thinking
Thinking about not working
Everything in between,
And writing.

Poem by Sagine Corrielus

To Patience

You are a virtue which
many do not have, which I do not have. Waiting and waiting
as the tiny clock ticks away the time we have left.
Thus, your lack drives me crazy. Making me wonder,
making me think. And in your absence,
I am a stone cold wind of fury. Capable of demolishing
anything in my path. A soft silent yearning,
a harsh summer’s heat, an ungraceful Giselle.
I am everything and nothing all at once, each tiny
discrepancy causing me unrest. But really who am I to deny
your healing, gracing me with your prowess.
Your keen sense of stability conducting me away
from the wind, the destruction, the self-loathing, the hate.
And into the soft, quiet, maudlin center of a thousand lullabies,
making me want. Yearning for the calm, I am everything and I am nothing.
A flame slowly extinguished, with a deep sense
of profound knowledge and prudence.
Relaxing and Relaxing, drifting into the cool blue light.
Relaxing…relaxing… relaxing…

Poem by Ian Riley

Imagination

When I was just a little boy, I used to play pretend.
Never did I give a thought that happiness would end.
As I became an older boy, imagining became the norm.
Pretending was for little kids, an immature art form.
Now that I am all grown up, it’s only dreams I keep,
And even then I only dream, unknowingly, asleep.

Symphony no. 25 by Manolo Gonzalez

I had continued to practice my art most dutifully, garnering about three or four subjects every other fortnight. My art, as well as my heart, were swelling to the most sublime depths, like the strings in a symphony. It was a most exciting time, what with my studies at the conservatory and love blossoming in the stagnant Tuscan wind. 

During the mornings I would dive into the melodious sublimity of instrumentation, and in the afternoons I would relinquish all thoughts and put forward all of my available attention to her, my swan queen. We would spend the hours in a state of pure ecstasy. Whether it was love or lust, I dared not press my advantage past that of pure courtship, with hopes of marriage in the near future, of course. It was a delight watching her eyes spill fewer and fewer valuable tears. In fact, I believe that after that first night she never spilled tears at all. It was not only I who had done that, but the music that pulsed through my veins, the frequency of which penetrated her bones. 

My hidden art was, of course, a touchy subject. Although I wished to show her my masterpieces, I could not be persuaded to believe that she had the capacity to fully understand such crowning artistic achievement. So, I didn’t. It was, shall we say, exciting to my person and my art to harbor these glorious achievements. It made it all the more fulfilling knowing that while she went home in the evenings to take care of a dying aunt, I was out, making art for the whole world to relish. To keep such a fantastic secret from an innocent girl who had no secrets was both terrifying and wonderful; forbidden, in a most titillating way. There can be no love without deceit.  This little knowledge in my mind helped me through a great burst of artistic output. As if in a procession, one after another after another would fall to my instrument, with the same care taken each time. As a violinist, my arm would race back and forth across not strings, but the neck of artistic vigor. I was a factory of pure, unembellished art, and my own god. 

This spur allowed me to take a chance in performing my greatest and grandest piece. I entered into a rather large disagreement with my most mediocre maestro, and my fellow colleague who acted as more of a lapdog for him. I decided that I would save them from their own mediocrities, and do them the favor of allowing them to become immortalized in art. Doing this, of course, required some planning, as I was dealing with two subjects this time. 

On the first day I bound and gagged my colleague in my apartment, and held him sequestered in my boudoir. Luring him into my flat was no large feat, as all it took was the weak promise of sambuco. My professor, the mediocre maestro, was a bit harder to reel in, naturally, as he actually used his mind to think, and not to follow, like my colleague. I had figured out that the man was fond of the many fallen women that plagued our fair town. So, I offered to host a night of musical discussion accompanied by drink and ladies of his choosing, a custom of young bachelors. Knowing that, as he was the proud owner of a faulty memory, he wouldn’t remember to make such a call to a woman, I jotted down the address of my domicile on the Via Antonio Alfieri on a thick sheet of parchment and handed it to him. 

The next evening I awaited him dutifully, wearing my best waistcoat and breeches, as I sat in my study with my colleague bound in the next room. When he arrived, we chatted about Brahms and Bach and then, once he was filled with vino rosso and limoncello, I began my latest masterpiece. So grand a piece required an act as bold as leaving my front door unlocked, which I did, and began to prepare the two men, laying side by side on my large oak table, by disrobing them and sharpening my instrument. 

To Evening. Sonnet by Ugo Foscolo

Perhaps because you are the image of that fatal quiet

so dear to me, you have come,

O Evening! And when happy summer clouds 

and the gentle west wind are your escort,

and when from snowy restless heights

you send shadows and darkness into the world,

you descend summoned always, and gently hold 

the secret ways of my heart.

You make my thoughts wander forms

that vanish into eternal nothing; meanwhile 

this cursed time flees, and with it, the throng 

of cares with which it me destroys;

and while I gaze on your peace, that warlike spirit 

sleeps, that yet within me roars.

translation by Nick Benson of Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), ‘Alla sera,’ published 1803

Un Amor by Manolo Gonzalez

It was a glorious afternoon in Firenze when I first laid eyes on my beloved. She was holding an old wooden rosary in her porcelain hands as she walked out of Il Duomo, with bright red lipstick on her lips and nail polish to match. After my first masterpiece I had gravitated around the cathedral looking for new inspiration. Artistically speaking, this quiet Tuscan town was the ideal place for art and artists such as myself to flourish. The city once inhabited by Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, masters of their craft, truly, would serve as nurturing mother to my art; an art that would have enchanted the world had I lived in the time when I could have the patronage of the Medicis.

She walked slowly, with purpose and yet with hostility down the twisting narrow passages of the city, as moist eyeliner made a zigzag down her round cheeks. I followed her to a yellowing derelict building on the Via Ghibellina, and stood watch outside what I guessed was her window from the cobbled streets below. Several men of no particular importance or significance, especially to my art, made their way in and out of the building in timed procession. Very musical, I thought, and gave the matter no more thought.

After about midnight, she left her abode and strolled down the streets with fresh tears in her eyes. Not letting such beauty pass up, I persuade the enchantress into a dim Spanish tavern, Salamanca, with wooden floors and blood red paint on the walls. Flamenco filled every corner of the room as I walked in and took a place next to her at the bar. After some persuasion and charm, of which I have an abundance, she granted me the honor of buying her a glass of the establishment’s sangria. Her bright red fingers circled the rim of the glass as she spoke; her neck bowed and twisted with every sip and clenched every time she encountered a piece of floating fruit. The sound of hidden despair rang in her voice and filtered through the room as I fixed my eyes solely upon hers. 4/4 time of the handclap began the Catalan rumba that would become our first dance as inamoratos.

The guitar strings pulsed as I held her fair hand in mine; the vocalista’s heartache vibrated in her eyes, as the bongos and guiro lead our steps in time. Over the sangria I had learned nothing from her; over the flamenco, I learned everything. Un Amor. Without the utterance of words, our hearts conversed, matching a joy that perhaps only the practice of my art could match. At the end of our dance, the slightest glimpse of a smile twisted her face exposing pearl-white incisors. Her sadness captivated me, and my joy beguiled her. She glanced at the crumbling clock on the wall and announced to me that she had to return home for a previous engagement.

I lead her back to her home on the Via Ghibellina that night, hearing her steps click to the beat of our shared flamenco. Before she went in for the night I caught another glimpse of her pearl-white incisors pronouncing the resolution that we should rendezvous again soon. She went inside and I took up my spot under the gas lamp which limply lit the pathway, and watched at her window. A small man wearing a waistcoat much too small for his bulging stomach entered the palazzo some time after she did, which made me ponder if perhaps he was her previous engagement. I then started to ponder who my next artistic subject would be.