poetry
a man once whispered, to me
in a dream i did not understand, because
i am not a dream, nor am i
a whisper, frightened me
in the same, life sees the man
down the road, to die
to go away from our lives, to die
in between the streets, amongst
the world we catch our voids, and play
ball with the depths of a shout.
Jonathan Dick is a 21-year-old human being from Toronto, Canada. He is graduating this year from Huron University College with a major in English Language and Literature.
1.
I wanna fly. I wanna be a lollypop
on the dragon tongue and goddamnit
I wanna fly. I wanna kiss wing and wing to kiss me. I want my cheek
pulled back into parachute. I wanna smile down on cloud and goddamnit
god fucking damnit I wanna fly. I wanna spoon that sky and bend it. I wanna tap dance
where the black and blue mingle. I wanna caw
cawcaw scree tweet
twoot twoot twoooeeeet. I wanna build my nest hovering. I wanna fly.
I wanna wrangle that sun. I wanna bathe in that blackness.
I wanna swallow the earth and shit it. I wanna watch that shit crumble.
I want air body. Aether body. No body and goddamnit I want that no body to fly.
I want that no body to sing wind. I want that no body to be all body and I want that all body to
fly.
I want that all body to dance empty. I want that all body to sweat
sweet
starry sweat and I want that sweat to fly. I want to stain your
lash and blur your eye. I want you to blink
and in that blink I'm flying and when you open again I'm right there
but goddamnit I was flying. Let me fly. Let me fucking fly. I wanna fly.
I wanna lay egg in nova and watch it burn. I wanna fly.
I wanna fucking fly. Stop watching goddamnit.
I wanna fly.
2.
You should know that I know that you know that I think there's no such thing
as selflessness in action. I sneak feathers from the pillows too.
And this is not only me although I remember times
I've wished it was. I remember times
so calm and so bright and I remember times on fire and sometimes I remember no time.
I remember no time and it's a marble
hanging still in/as space.
I wish I could unpack that for you. I wish each of my words
were a thousand a balloons. I want you to see me
right now and later I won't.
That's the thing you seem to forget.
3.
Hello darling. Are you watching me
dangle the yarn?
I'm eating sausage. Does that interest you? I know
it should and I know other things should too.
In this poem it's always February but you already
figured that out.
I want to surprise you
but I want you to surprise me too.
4.
I know about JSOC. Did you know
I ate rice and beans today. I bet you
didn't until I told you. You see? I can relinquish
control when I want to.
I am willing to let you in.
5.
Is your boss there? Is your boss's boss there?
Are you the Main Boss? Ultraboss? Alpha and Omega boss? The hidden
crystal mimic? I want you to know that I could be you. Nationalism
is another name for sucking the teat: I love my country
for what it gives! No other
give me so much!
Joe Nicholas is an experimenter, experiencer, and editor of The Screaming Sheep. His work can be found or is forthcoming in BOAAT, Chiron Review, Found Poetry Review, Fruita Pulp, Weave, and other wonderful magazines. He received his degree in Applied Psychology from Champlain College. He can be found at 8rainCh1ld.tk and on Facebook. These pieces are part of a larger manuscript entitled Letters to the NSA and Those Above and Beyond (If You're Watching You Should Know).
About a Year
the leaves all drop
at once
with the rain
last evening
the transit to work
looked like
I shaved the hair
from my arms
the hair from
outside my limbs
all my hair
for the weather’s sake.
He would like that
He would like to play the janitor
keep all my body hair
sealed in a side closet.
He would like to run his mop
over my wet legs.
He would like to take all my pubic hair
and dump it down the drain.
I can regret the shedding
but trees change all the same
I have thoughts with roses on them
my walls have posters too.
and in the corner of my room
there are succulents
freezing on a window sill
somehow still alive
and I do not radiate
for the cacti’s sake
Mango Fibers
In the shower
I cover my eyes
with my hands
picture whatever
it is from
the outside.
I cover my eyes
with my hands
let the steam
cover my else,
I picture something
of a less-dense
volume rising
then expanding
behind me
overwhelming
like what
I think
you can do
I still say
thank you
with your hand
up my ass
and aren’t you glad
I took a shower
today, putting
soap on my tits
putting soap
between my thighs
I floss and
forget about
the mango fibers
stuck between
my teeth
Melissa Jones studies words in the Twin Cities. She works in a museum and reads for Gigantic Sequins Literary Journal. You can find her bad twitter here.
The Champagne of Teas
I steep myself in myself like darjeeling.
This is how I blush,
I am so myself.
This is how I move.
A ghost becomes a girl
becomes a stranger
becomes someone
at the party
in the other room.
I feel like maybe
I can belong here
in my hair’s daydreams
and the smell of whiskey
and my newly forming bruise.
I take a break so
the mirror can
give me back my face.
My face says
remember what we talked about
simple wishes
saying hi how are you
and later
tea that tastes like dew
and mountain air.
Still Life
Have you ever been
A lost and found box
With irregular and
Porous borders?
I saw Cezanne’s
Still Life With Apples
And a Pot of Primroses
And now I am a different shape
Entirely. Talking about
A painting
In a poem
Is like being born
In the nineties
And then
Going to Montreal
And calling someone
From a phone booth.
I look different
In this picture
I tell them.
The world
Looks different.
I am looking
At apples and primroses
And I have never been
So ecstatic.
Unraveling
Monday wakes up and pushes me
out of bed and down the stairs and
out the door on a ticking bike to last year
that makes my soul motion sick to think of,
of the golden crunch steps on leaves and
the smoke rising and disappearing like the
thoughts behind your eyes as they blink
a million snapshots of me,
and I blink a million of you,
before it all unravels like a scarf
and leaves September like a beauty mark
on the face of last year.
Kelly Corinda lives in New York and writes poetry. Recent work can be found in The Sugar House Review, Dum Dum Magazine, and smoking glue gun.
Fly Trap
From your mattress
in the morning, it
looks like a two-foot
long condom hanging
from a hook, orange,
twirled like taffy
poured from a can,
dotted with its trophies.
I see it when I wake
to the memory of your fist
against my chest, your hand
open-palmed against my cheek—
that hasn’t happened yet,
but it’s something you said
last night—maybe,
“I guess I just assumed
you’d be the bottom,”
or,
“You mean if I choked you
during sex it wouldn’t be ok?”
Sometimes I wish I were a woman
so at least I could say
all men are the same:
wolves. But then, you tell me,
honey, don’t you? You tell me
I’m the woman
and you’re the wolf,
the stallion’s thrust,
the seed, the man.
And I lay here as you snore
watching sun stream past a fly snare,
your sweaty skin stuck to my back
and a bruise blossoming
on the corner of my
affection, a fly
in your trap, a nice
shiksa lady to bring
home to your Jewish
mother.
Said the Spider to the Fly
We
stand in
your kitchen.
The water boils.
A symphony swells
from a little black box.
“This is the kind of music
they play when a vampire
bites his pray,” you say.
Yes. You are right.
You clutch my
hands, yank,
bite.
Jacob Budenz is a writer, performer, and occasional witch living in Baltimore. He keeps a small journalistic art blog at afflatusarts.tumblr.com.
A Spell to Draw You Near Again
Essential oil (tobacco/vanilla),
mint leaves (chew), honey, dress socks,
yellow shirt, three undone buttons, boots,
sharp teeth (caps will do if can’t
file teeth/smile with canine
they never filed down), warm water,
tea (no cream!), sibilance, Latin
(before, during, after—sic itur
ad astra, excelsior), wide eyes,
talk fast, dart gaze around room
(say: I am in awe of everything),
schedule to keep, briskness, bracelets,
a hardback book, black ink, lemon,
irony, don’t want it, question marks,
interest but not much interest,
appreciation for archaeology, or
classical studies, or whatever it is
he has his degree in, gold
nail polish (just on each pinky)
don’t be dismissive, don’t want it,
don’t want it, for God’s sake
don’t let on that you want it
don’t want it and when it comes
to get you you get up and walk the
fuck away, look back once
(as though wistful), and don’t
let the door hit him
on the way out.
Spell for a Coy Lover
Lemon grass, vanilla, rose water.
You think you’re out of stories? Try
throwing your underwear at the Moon
when she dresses herself in light
for the second half of the eclipse.
Hollyhock. Maple syrup. Hazelnut.
You think you’re really alone? Try
opening your palm on concrete; trip
on the sidewalk as you run to embrace
the one you rejected the week before.
Cayenne pepper, honey, almond milk.
You think they don’t need you? Try
shutting yourself in a box
with pink and green and turquoise
walls and sleeping until snow falls.
Spring rolls. Egg drop soup. Boxed wine.
If you don’t call him
he will come.
Jacob Budenz is a writer, performer, and occasional witch living in Baltimore. He keeps a small journalistic art blog at afflatusarts.tumblr.com.
Anika Basquiat
I stuffed a budding bouquet
in the head hole of your
black turtleneck sweater
you said you’d be off
breakdancing on trash island
only you know where, Pacific Ocean
it’s for science, you said
it’s for a good cause
I hung your replica on a curtain rod
and asked it about
the way a bird tastes
a dove, a pigeon
like chicken, it replied
but not the actual taste of chicken
but the idea of the taste of chicken
and now you’re here
and we’re standing face-to-face
you look at the bouquet
and it begins to explode with color
purple hydrangea, pink peony
I look right into your eyes,
eyes that I have yet to find anything behind
or really anything inside
and I forget that eyes
are not blown from glass
but are made of fleshy goop
soft to the touch vulnerable
and maybe there’s nothing behind
or inside anyone’s eyes
especially yours, maybe
you put on your turtleneck sweater
like you are stuffing yourself
inside a crystal vase.
Super Saiyan 3
A bundle of arrows, quiverless
decorate the inside of your right thigh
above the knee
you let your summer knit dress
resume its usual place in the world.
You tell me what it was like
to walk through walls as a child
how your father spent late nights
whispering proverbs in your left ear
and how you were either too afraid
or too honest to pretend sleep.
We watched fog eat the tops of
cypresses, firs
while the sky bloomed
into mood-ring-blue
roofs began to steam
and then you were gone.
When we see each other again
in traffic on a bridge
that might’ve collapse today or yesterday
I ask you about the tattoo
but you tell me it’s been removed.
Jordan Burgess is an all around okay guy. He studies, works, and lives in Portland, Oregon.
