Poetry By Frankie Spring

bitter                 dissipate

lo-fi the rhythm of our footfalls in a dream
bitter winter the warmest in human memory
lo-fi the imaginings of a heart watching smoke-
stack belches dissipate in the rain, lo-fi the
same song of a heart in a world so quiet
you could hear a needle drop

breathe in, sweet succor of the seemingly happy death

surround my cradled arms in a world defined
by do no harm Kant recedes to a sour-tasting
corner and bleeds longing for hierarchy into
a plastic cup

collect the essence of generation
blood is left in the shelled land
call the blood-letter
solve leftover longing
like clipping purple flowers
--water their thirsty veins in a windowsill vase
as the cold sets in, try to save
them, do not let them die
a good death at first freeze--

will you call the blood-letter with me?
will you drown the last vestige
of the flower in the freezing rain, will you
strangle the spirit of a tiger doomed in
his cage to misery?

yes
your answer melancholy:
dilute this blue
pumping unreachable vein with
clear water, blood will dissipate

it will no longer taste bitter to lick your open wounds

everyone agrees
wilting brown-tinged rotting stinking petals
matted snow and shit-stained pens
we cannot abide the stench
we will not abide the stench

as with a flurry of birds taking flight in the morning
leaving the place of congregation for the sky,
the enslaved will escape by edicts of nature
from the crowd that calls them nigh unto death

but isolation grows its own morphed and jagged
leaves, though there is no freeze
in the south, on the plain, flowers of perpetual summer
float the subtle fragrance of submission, put
the petals in a pot and brew up once again

sweet succor of the seemingly happy death

i pray the dirge begins while we yet
have breath in our lungs, yet blood in our limbs,

for nothing could be more beautiful, you said,
nothing could be more beautiful than
the glory of a lost cause and the lament
of a tragic end




epiphany and the endless march of time

remember the cold of december has passed
the worst is all behind us
i grow older not smoothly but with tantrum

i miss the plains, i miss the almost-desert-never-rains
warm-in-winter, i miss one particular sinner
i fear will never repent with the force
of a whirlwind tearing through the silent cattle-fields
at the turn of spring to summer

this is to my warm young season coming to
an end, i do not grow old gracefully
but with a fury i learned in the lion's den
of lances and tourniquets, medieval tournaments
slap the crook of your arm can you feel life there
can you feel it? rushing and floating

danger. i am in danger, of growing backwards to
this past
will verse ever progress beyond
slant rhyme
now i see as in a mirror dimly
will you clear away the grime
accumulated in a million capitulated conversations
will you, my queen and my mother

let me fall formless into a mass grave
dug for all those who chose and opposed
of a generation

while the old man sits by his hearth and
his field which demeter will tend,
and never fail, forever and ever.




serious girl

i danced and thought i was beautiful,
i danced and thought it was beautiful
silhouettes of skeletons underneath models’ skin
in magazines-- depravity in everything,
graffiti the flesh of young fresh people peeling away
baring iniquity to the face of the blind world
i danced and thought it was beautiful
my body unfurled in ribbons,
thwarted violently were the arms
of all god’s guardian angels

​

Bio: Frankie Spring is an undergraduate student at Indiana University South Bend majoring in English Writing. She has never understood a single joke, or the elusive art of social networking, but likes to think she's a nice person to hang out with anyway. So far, her poetry has appeared in her college's literary journal. It will also soon appear in Retirement Plan, a zine showcasing South Bend artists and writers. 

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