4/4/2024 Poetry by Jill C. Jones liebeslakritze CC
Always For Casey who had 33 years --- I dug in the dirt today Thinking of Casey Raking furiously Til my hands blistered Red and raw Like a broken heart. Then I walked in the park where The oak trees reach sanctified branches toward the sky-- A cluster of children playing Throw and catch volleyball – little control over closed fists or open palms-- Cheered each other on Even when they missed. This life, the smell of leaves, Always only a gift And always fleeting-- Life is always too short And always unfair And so –I savor a moment of joy And dedicate it: Hoping that the rumor of angels is true But knowing absolutely That I am never fully here But for love, And you are never truly gone-- Jill C. Jones is a professor at a small liberal arts college, has published on subjects including sin and Jerry Springer, and has a chapter forthcoming on the American con woman. Favorite poets include Langston Hughes, Dylan Thomas, and Mary Oliver. And always, Emily Dickinson. 4/4/2024 Poetry by Madeline McConico liebeslakritze CC
Our Lungs I remember when dad had his hands I remember my dad held a gun before he around my mother’s neck. Her back ever held a woman. That he was trapped pressed into the kitchen sink. The sound on the outside of the entire world. of water running. Where the public pools were closed. Where the fences weren’t white and the Wishing more than anything that if I lawns weren’t green. But the Police opened my mouth wide enough, and always came. The sky could fall and breathed deeply, that I might be able to Hell could rise and no one would notice pull air into both of our lungs— the sound of another Black boy drowning. Seeing God’s face too soon. That she might feel the rush of God himself leaning down, touching her lips And so I remember my mother's neck. with his. My dad’s tensed knuckles. The sound of running water. And think about calling Feel the cool rush of breathing, the police. And I think about this… quintessentially— before the Fall. Where men did not press women into If both your parents were drowning-- sinks. struggling to breathe— and you could only save one— My eyes met hers and together we hoped that if God truly sees all, that he might see this too. Madeline McConico (she/her) is a Chicago-based poet, editor, and artist. She holds a BA in English from Iowa State University and completed her MFA at Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in Allium: A Journal of Prose & Poetry, Opal Literacy, POTLUCK, and more. She currently works as a part-time adjunct, while serving as the Co-Founder, Editor, and Creative Director of the upcoming project and publication Unwoven Literary Magazine. Madeline is a Co-Curator for Off the Page: Poetry Reimagined. In her free time, Madeline is an impassioned intermediate yogi and an avocado toast eater. She lives with her roommate Annalise, who she hopes to buy a clown fish with soon. 4/4/2024 Poetry by Jennifer Martelli Drew Stefani CC
American Anemone My friend can grow anything in her backyard. We sit on her porch and eat olives out of a jar. The days are growing longer. Now, at five, it’s still light. Soon, she says, the crocus and the bloodroot will bloom. The American anemone, too. Just one more week for this too-warm February and then, before we know it, the vernal equinox. Spring is hard for me, I tell her. I’m unhappy for no reason a lot, and anxious, angry all the time—I drop things and break them. The oily salt stings a small cut on my fingertip. It’s the light, she says, and the wind. There’s too much to see, it comes at you so fast it feels like panic. Sandy’s Electric Griddle Once, at a meeting in the golden basement of St. James Catholic Church, my friend Sandy shared he believed we’re always moving forward, even, he said, if we use again, we’re still going in the right direction. Do you believe you have a soul? Do you believe it’s always moving forward? He loved (in no order I’m aware): his brass alto saxophone, ballet, he loved being clean, mean women. When he left to die, he stopped by my house, asked if he could store an electric griddle, here, in my basement. We smoked and I said don’t leave, Sandy, stay here where we love you and can help. Do you think I’m foolish? To cling to and hide this greasy scratched thing? After his funeral, his ex-girlfriend called me for the griddle: I lied, said I gave it away to someone who needed it, gave it away for free. Jennifer Martelli is the author of The Queen of Queens, winner of the Italian American Studies Association Book Award and named a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book and My Tarantella, also a “Must Read,” and finalist for the Housatonic Book Award. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The Tahoma Literary Review, Folio, Jet Fuel Review, Tab: A Journal of Poetry, and elsewhere. Jennifer Martelli has twice received grants for poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is co-poetry editor of MER. 4/4/2024 Poetry by Emilie Lygren Torsten Behrens
“So you’ve gone pharmaceutical” is what a friend said when I told him I’d started taking antidepressants. And my brain went into free fall. My jaw lagged open in a half-spoken reply. Like a punch to the chin. My mouth never fully got around the word “yes.” More of a half grunt half hum assent. Mumbled something about it being the lowest possible dose. Said “it’s nice to see you” and walked away. So I’ll say it now: Yes, I’ve gone pharmaceutical. Yes. I started taking antidepressants after my doctor said gently, “I think you shouldn’t have to work quite this hard to be OK.” After he said “I have lots of friends and patients who were so glad they tried.” Who said “If it doesn’t help, you can stop.” Yes, I’ve gone pharmaceutical, like so many of the women on my mother’s side. Which I know by hearsay. Know that worry is our inheritance. Sometimes I still feel the echo of my body gripped with adrenaline. Sometimes I still feel worry starting like an engine pounding through my chest. And don’t think it’s easy to tell you all this. That I’ve gone pharmaceutical. Don’t think I feel some days like I should have been able to fix it all if I only tried harder. I feel like I need to tell you about the decades of trying. Of healing. Of working on myself. More than almost anyone I knew. How I did get better and better but never better enough. And don’t think It’s easy to be at the hippie neighbors’ house and talk about any of this. Where they smile smugly and say, “I healed my depression with crystals.” Ask, “Have you tried meditating?” Say “Maybe you should stop eating wheat.” Talk about how Ayahuasca showed them they actually are different, better than “normal people” which somehow made them less anxious. My throat gets clogged with unspent replies. I don’t say that I tried almost everything else first. I walk away. And all I know is that I used to spend every day lit up in fear. Anxiety a torrent through every muscle. And all I know is I healed so much of it. Before the pills. Dug and filled holes with what I didn’t get. All I know is, it’s better now. And still it’s hard. Still, I have to work at it. Being happy, I mean. Not being so afraid. But I am happy. I’ve gone pharmaceutical, yes. To give myself a fighting chance. Death found me like a knave after “Because I did not stop for death” by Emily Dickinson Death found me like a knave upon the rattle of a train a clouded door flew open while dirt inhaled the rain. I joined the roots and battles under sullen earth where worms wove slyly up my arms mycelium a wedding gown my hair wrapped up in pearly cloth my flesh turned right to air under tooth of beetle, body gone in sweet and soft decay. I’m dead like dirt, dead like rain, dead like a finished song– which is to say in essence I’m not dead, not at all. Emilie Lygren is a nonbinary poet and outdoor educator whose work emerges from intersections between scientific observation and poetic wonder. Her first book of poetry, What We Were Born For, was chosen by the Young People’s Poet Laureate as the Poetry Foundation’s February 2022 Book Pick. Emilie lives in California, where she wonders about oaks and teaches poetry in local classrooms. Find Emilie on Instagram (@emlygren) or at her website (emilielygren.com). 4/4/2024 Poetry by Dana Kinsey Tero Karppinen CC
I’ll Take “Things That Can’t Be Ruined” for One Thousand Someone once told me I was broken, but doesn’t everybody need a break? Happily-ever-afters depend on spells broken by handsome prince kisses. We break chocolate bars into squares momentary shares of melty sweetness. I felt warm water rush from my body, broken like a dam before my son arrived. He’s alive because something in me broke open to release him head first into a world where he’ll break patterns of men ashamed to speak with softness. See, I break silences like an Olympian breaks records. Gold medal me please. Codes were designed to be deciphered, broken by mathematicians stopping wars like referees breaking apart brutal boxers before blood pours into puddles onto mats. What matters most is breaking falls, saving skin and bones from concrete. Blockbusters break box office records when actors crack hearts into halves. Having bad days sometimes just means sunrays haven’t broken through clouds. Only broken horses know to run, escape reins, thrust lustrous manes into winter winds. Artists use the golden repair of kintsugi to heal breakage, turn tragic cracks into rich history. In the future, don’t ever circuit break me, just measure my currents by testing my will against yours when you break open my body, a pomegranate packed with rubies shimmering from a place where I will never be less than whole. Dana Kinsey is a spoken word artist, actor, and teacher published in Fledgling Rag, SWWIM, SoFloPoJo, The Champagne Room, West Trestle Review, Wild Roof Journal, and more. Her poem “Show Me, Earth, Your Day," was a contest finalist in 2023 at Sweet Lit. Her poem “Paying My Respects” was chosen by Oprelle for their Poetry Masters Anthology. Dana's play, WaterRise, was produced at the Gene Frankel Theatre. Her book, Mixtape Venus, is published by I. Giraffe Press and was selected as a “Best Dressed” feature for The Wardrobe at Sundress Publications. Visit wordsbyDK.com. 4/3/2024 Poetry by Valancy Green Danielle Henry CC
Live, Laugh, Love The yearning to be seen Or not be seen To live, laugh, love And laugh at love But also live for it Cry for love Because we’re all crying inside And love to live And live to laugh To laugh through ink on paper And cry on paper in ink Bleed in ink So that others Can see your pain Do you see my pain? Do you see me? Because I can see you And you are just like me In pain In ink On and on On paper Some Fucking Answer You scramble through life in search for some answer some higher meaning to your existence. And in your journey you discover three truths: 1. Mediocrity smells like day-old socks. Stanky, but familiar. Wear them for five to seven days, but no more. 2. Swearing at the toilet paper roll at three in the morning doesn’t make it unravel any faster. Or in the right direction. Trust your instinct. Your muscles will know what to do. 3. Collect every slip of paper you receive from fortune cookies (except for the broken ones; those are bad luck). When you turn twenty- eight, draw a random one from the jar you keep them in and read it out loud. This is your fate. Ignore all other advice given to you by family and friends. They don’t know you like a fortune cookie does. Although these are truths none of them are answers. That’s the truth. You’ll never find the answer to your question and that’s okay because when you’re sniffing your socks from yesterday or grappling for the toilet paper in the darkness of night you seek the mystic for some meaning scrutinizing the words of a white-washed cookie when all you need to do is turn to the mundane. You don’t know the answer but you know you. Valancy Green is a queer Vietnamese American poet and writer hailing from the Minnesota Twin Cities area. Her interest is in expanding the representation of minority perspectives like her own through written words that are both entertaining and introspective to the human psyche and interpersonal relationships. She is a senior undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota studying English literature and publishing. In her free time, Valancy volunteers at local youth writing centers. Button Poetry has featured her poems in their past Short Form Contests. 4/3/2024 Poetry by Dion O'Reilly pseudoplacebo CC
Dazzler I’m goin where the sun keeps shining Harry Nillson He skitched behind her go-kart on a skateboard while the sky broke open and crows filled the gaps. Cars lined the beach road waiting to be stolen and he stole them like a genius with a hanger and a knife. Then they’d drive up the coast, the air dry, full of a power that wicked from their blood the backhands and broken teeth the rifle shots and lost dads. More light and light it grew more light and light. The day blazed over them, to the west, the ocean crazed with silver, cradling boats. She didn’t know what she wanted. She’d listen to the same song over and over. Every time, it hurt. Dion O'Reilly’s debut collection, Ghost Dogs, was shortlisted for The Catamaran Prize and The Eric Hoffer Award among others. Her second book, Sadness of the Apex Predator, was chosen by University of Wisconsin's Cornerstone Press for its Portage Poetry Series of new and emerging voices. Her work appears in The Sun, Rattle, Cincinnati Review, The Slowdown, Verse Daily and elsewhere. She is a podcaster at The Hive Poetry Collective, leads poetry workshops, and is a reader for Catamaran Literary Quarterly. She splits her time between a ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains and a residence in Bellingham, Washington. 4/3/2024 Poetry by Jason Heroux Danny Navarro CC
Hidden Valley Trail I Make me a clear night sky, make me a dry lakebed. II Where no stars shine, where no lake wakes. III Make me live in the world without me. IV Like an echo, I was heard by the ones who spoke me. V Like a bucket from the well, I was raised by whoever lowered me. VI Let me be repaired by those who broke me. VII Make me live without me. Pathway After death the final breath of an orange lingers near the peeled canyons of its skin. Our grief’s graffiti has no wall. We feel the way footprints feel in the snow, our lives shaped by what has moved on. I have a pathway buried within me, waiting for your step. Jason Heroux lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His publications include the short story collection Survivors of the Hive (Radiant Press, 2023) and the prose poem collection Like a Trophy from the Sun (Guernica Editions, 2024). 4/3/2024 Poetry by Hannah Dilday Torsten Behrens CC
My Old Dad Don't know when I first realized I had an old dad, Almost fifty when I was five Still, I would never trade Cus' the father you once wished to have You had become. But the kicker about having an old dad is They die before the rest. Now mom, she's older than you were when you died Watching her grow old without you beside her To make her feel young, it doesn't feel right. I wonder, what would it be like To have a dad as a woman, not a girl? But that, I can't even comprehend. When I realize I'll never know what it feels like To have a dad again, I cry for you My old dad. The Last Time You Got This Sick, You Died Dreamt we got to say a proper goodbye-- Used to grieve for myself, now for your fate Cus' the last time you got this sick, you died. Got me wondering if memories lie No longer a child, as you replayed-- Dreamt we got to say a proper goodbye. Dad, grant me a glimpse to the other side, I held your hand as I begged you to stay Cus' the last time you got this sick, you died. Said you fainted just before I arrived I asked you did it hurt, were you afraid? Dreamt we got to say a proper goodbye-- Told me you still see yourself in my eyes, Dad please don't worry, I will be okay Cus' the last time you got this sick, you died. Let me wear your pain like you wear your pride, I feel my second chance slipping away-- Dreamt we got to say a proper goodbye Cus' the last time you got this sick, you died. The Dress I'll Never Wear Again I used to love this place, I'd go here with dad to shop for mom For her birthday, for Christmas But today I was here with mom To shop for another occasion, one for dad. It feels like everyone is staring at me As my eyes trace the ground. Mom tells them we're shopping for a dress, for me What's the occasion? The saleswoman's words crescendo in my mind-- Mom asks her if they have any black dresses for girls my age The saleswoman nods, and I can feel her pity now. I wait in the fitting room Avoiding eye contact with myself. Maybe if I don't have anything to wear I won't have to bury my dad, If only it were that simple. She brings me all the black dresses she can find in my size but Nothing fits right, I guess the occasion was to blame. Black feels too real so I settle for something dark blue. It wasn't the right size but it wasn't the dress that didn't fit, it was him being gone. Itchy, scratchy, suffocating, I feel like I can't breathe In this dress, in this new reality-- Still, I do my best not to cry. A seamstress comes in to pin the dress where it doesn't fit, I don't care about the dress. She tells me it looks beautiful on me, I don't think she knows what this dress is for. She pricks me a few times but I don't even flinch cus' nothing could make me hurt Worse than I already do. She hands mom the tag and says it will be ready tomorrow I retreat to the fitting room to change While mom pays for the dress I'll never wear again. Hannah earned her bachelor's in Philosophy from The University of Oregon and studied abroad at The University of Cambridge. Though she always had a passion for writing, she did not realize her calling to poetry until relocating to The Netherlands in 2020. When Hannah was 17, her father lost his life to Acute Myeloid Leukemia two days after receiving his diagnosis. Hannah's late father serves as her inspiration not only in poetry, but also in life. 4/3/2024 Poetry by Kyle Ulrich liebeslakritze CC
born bad vol. 1-5 how to get right, regroup and buy time. except, the opposite of that. volume one. be born into this world to someone that didn’t want you. that's number one. be a problem in all things, number two. will we be on time, how do we get there, does it cost more. searing memories of arguments, fighting and crying melted down right into the middle of you. from the start she drilled it in that you were her biggest mistake: she has no choice but to raise you. one year later, you have a brother. volume two. he needs love, he’s that kind of person, he needs it. love might’ve saved him. look at us. look at you. you're fucking bipolar dude. lol you went thirty-two years undiagnosed, you wandering manic lunatic. volume three. all these years, you’re going up and down, everybody sees it. you're depressed, like mega-depressed for weeks at a time, before you’re hyper and sweaty and up all night. i think it gets caught early on with most kids but you weren’t raised right. no one gave a shit about you. volume four. dependency on drugs and alcohol. you drank yourself into poor health. see your face peel down from the wall you ran up against. your twenties were wiped out, foot on the gas, asleep at the wheel. you'd quit drinking in 2017 after three hospitalizations. how the light got in thru the tiniest of margins. volume five. you've been sober for six years. drinking is like a ghost in the mirror, one day it was everything then another it’s gone. you think it’s pretty. call it getting clean, but every step is heavy with grime. the payoff is, you walk a mile like that and you’ll come out stronger than you could imagine. so where do we go from here? up, dude. it's all around you. see him get right. regroup. buy time. see him chase life. Kyle Ulrich is a poet and illustrator from Chicago, IL. He plays modular synth with his friend Steve. |
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