7/31/24 12:29 am Don’t Dive Too Deep

By Charlie Black

I want to be back
In those flowers
All pink and green

I felt strong again
More graceful than before
Is it because my body is now a woman’s body?

Age
Not gender class

Bodily integration

The sandbar beneath the wave
Refracting light

Take another hit
Taste the air
Make a list

Green things:
Leaves
Cartoon poison
Limes
The ocean
Sour apple sour straws
Grapes
Cars
Moss

Blue:
Their eyes
Grandma’s pool
Glass bottles filled with bath oil

Purple:
Blueberries
Sunsets
Extra large polo shirt
Amethyst

Pink:
The inside of the eyelid
Peonies
Your tongue

Tell me something new about the sun

Or Hercules

Or the best kind of pickle

Or maybe even plan the revolution

My ex used to say they wanted to run into the woods and live in the trees and throw bricks down at everyone

But how do you get the bricks up in the trees?
Cary them up and then throw them back down? 
Climb down and pick them up? Climb back up the tree carrying a bunch of bricks?
Only to fling them back down again?

Even if we had ape-like feet,
I think we would struggle

I like it here on the ground

Sometimes

MARCO

By Jameson Gillihan

Marco was my neighbor’s dog. They never bothered to train him which I never thought was fair, not to him or them or me and what about me, what I deserve, I’m up the street, your neighbor. The dog’s name was Marco and he was black with cute tan eyebrows over which he had immaculate control, raising one, the other, pleading begging crying or manifest-excitement his eyebrows flying off his face he’d run. We took him for walks when the neighbors were out of town and listened to him howl on the weekends when they threw their parties. Marco had sharp teeth and a wet, pink tongue. His nails left shallow ruts in the living room floor. He was always so full of energy. Who has that much energy?

Dogs. Dogs have that much energy. What do you really want to know the answer to?

I guess I want to know why he couldn’t calm down. What’s so hard about sitting still for an extended period of time, really. Why my neighbors thought to get a dog in the first place if they were never going to bother trying to train him—

Sorry. Really though, what was that decision process like. Or what is it like to share a house with an animal you never want to spend any time with, or what it’s like to spend all your time an animal thumbless covered in fur. How to be a dog and never trained. Could you not afford me this small attention? I just want to be good for you but I never learned how. And I have so
                                                                                                                                                                           much
                                                                                                                                                                                              energy
                                                                                                                                                                                                                   racing
                                                                                                                                                                                                       through me
                                                                                                                                                                                                          rib-rattled
                                                                                                                                                                   hyperactive
                                                                                                                                                 mongrel
                                                                   breaking chains I
                                                                   needed to know what would happen if I pushed your
                                                                   limits or
                                                                   if you even had any
                               I was wrong/
wrong/ wrong/ wrong I was
                              paper-whacked righteousness I was
                                              red-skinned blushing I was
                                                                                                   blushing
                                                           I knew I had done something wrong
                                                                          I did something bad
                                                                                                   To you

What did I do

*

I develop a habit
                of licking myself pink
                                of tongue-scraped bald spots under my ribs
                I lick myself nauseous
I puke black hair
                You clean for me while I watch
                                guilt-touched but pleased with the attention
                                                I taste the creases between my arms and belly
                                                                the arch of my thighs
                                                                                my tail
                                                                                                my shit
I develop a habit of whining
a tool I will keep with me forever a smoke signal catharsis a thing to do bored

I’m always bored

Marco was always bored
but the poor thing never could control himself and it was easy to grow resentful,
my second-story
glower snipe-shooting from afar
telepath misanthropy
my neighbors were immune to,
poor Marco, I think he absorbed it all for them.
He was gone eventually not sure how, or
when our last walk was or if he’d jumped fence or
tugged himself loose mid-walk one day or if
his owners finally got tired of guarding the gate and decided to just let him go for it.
He was gone but they were still there. I watched them dismantle the dog house from the second-story window.

Anticipation

By Violet Russell

Frostbit cheeks, 
slices of leftover 
apple pie, my legs 
quiver like a fawn. 
I’m waiting for you 
To call me by my name, 
standing out on the 
front porch steps. 

All night, I wait for 
your recognition, 
I'm waiting for a reply 
I never called out for, 
too tired from the nights 
before, before, before.

Listening to the gutters 
moan, straining against 
heaven's weight, 
waiting until it's 
quiet enough to 
hear the upstairs 
radiator's thrum, 
it's lonely here, 
isn't it? 

Light scatters into 
crocodile print, 
a road glazed in 
frost, a wayward 
airplane scrapes 
the skim off the
dark cream sky, 
and I am still 
Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Lake Eyes

By Danielle Halnen

i have brown Eyes

But you tell me the brown i see isn’t the same you see

That my Eyes were born from a lake

A lake that you can pull clay from at the bottom

And make into pots

A lake that’s water reflects the sky

But the day is always cloudy

So the color is deep, deep, deep and your feet can’t touch the bottom

Which scares you but who can’t look away from a scary thing

A lake with ripples in the water that are like the furrows of my Iris

A lake with vibrant green algae which multiples in the heat of the sun

A lake that is lined with pine

One cut open where you can sit for hours and count the rings

And i gladly count them with you

Until all i see is brown again

And you kindly tell me to dive back in

Missed

By Ava Mae

Torn from the place of my birth I have clawed

careless men 

With chipped nails; 

Tattered talons. 

I’ve not been used 

But overlooked; 

Mistaken 

Misled to the well with no water; Where will my

wishes wash up?

Leaving Chinatown pt. 4

By Reese Staples

I think of you
Freshly brewed jasmine
A sweetened brass kettle 

The back of hmart 
Someone hung omamori 

Intimacy like a shelled fruit
Peel it, 

Then it’s sweet 
Just like the calpico sitting at the back of my fridge 
At home, so I can leave a piece of you anywhere I might find myself
I light a red out the window

To turn around,
And you’re there, like always
Waiting with your stained wine glass
And the pile of pistachios 
I spilled across my persian rug made in China.

I started wearing more grey 
You said that grey reminds you of the sky on a perfect day
Like the beauty of evenings in Russia
Now I’m wearing your Mother’s jacket

Your father doesn’t speak much English
I hope he will understand how greatly I talk of you
How his son is an artist 
Just like he is

Put on more green, 
It brings out your eyes
I wish you could see me dance 
Under those green lights I chose
But you’re gone
Away in Honshu.

But everytime I see a rabbit
I think of you 

Autumn

By Teddy Giourard

I wish autumn had gone differently 
Can’t we paste the leaves back on the trees?

Before the leaves were brown
November, and her cruel winds
Before they were crimson
October, the betrayal of friends
Before they started to change
September, and the original sin 
I’m tired of the moral victory 
I just want to win 

Let me be greedy for a change

The leaves are falling
I keep calling
Out for help 
Like the chorus of a song 
I need to end

The leaves are falling
The leaves are my hair
The leaves are my heart and my humor 
I am going to end up a withered tree
Grasping at the sky for help 
My arms, outstretched branches
And the Sun will whisper “no”.

Dancing Lines

By Emily Clairmont

Silver patterns against peach toned skin
this patchwork of my body
left behind by surgical steel
is revolting

At first glance,
all barriers have disappeared
and on display are
ugly divots left by your hand
gorges to be filled by sinew not yet created

On the second,
they have become purple speed bumps
red lined
hot to the touch
the first thing my eyes latch on to

But the third glance,
that is when fire has fizzled out
red turned pink turned silver
the delicate lines emerge
hiding in plain sight on a peach canvas
never quite managing to blend in 

The dance they create tells
the age-old tale of victory
against a foe unseen

The boy

By Coltrane McGonigle

his steps weary 
a doe whose danger close 
to go left, to go right 
death has made her decision 

the steps he walks refute him 
a lonesome warrior’s journey home 
the pencil leads him not otherwise and the eraser knows its 
task 

the canvas is blank 
but how does one play? 
he goes through ‘enth memories 
to recount the numbers to 10 

for what does he know 
the boy with no name? 
to rhyme, or to write, 
she sees clearly her lesson

Painful Painting of The Way I Desire

By Vittoria Burgess

Somehow the rain does not cool these rooms 
A singular window 
stretched 
as far as it will let me 
Sweat pouring down my back 
I forget I’m inside 
Face reddening
full of warmth 
my stomach churns

I find it hard to write about things I love 
Unless I am loving until destruction 

I will overanalyze my every action 
Convincing myself it makes me a better person
I am aware this is pointless and unrealistic
I cannot stop myself from believing it

When love fills my lungs 
My knees give out
Sometimes my arms twist when I land  
Often my ankle forces itself over
Either way, I am injured 

The smell of wet paint is intoxicating in this tiny room 
I cannot tell if my light-headedness is a result of these fumes
Or the idea that love could transpire
Flaws and injuries – the only way I have ever loved  
My brain has forced me to break my wrist 
Over someone who has not shown me love in return 

Please nurse me back to health 
I will not scream when my joints are forced back into place

Alzheimers

By Will Flandach

Dick Jane Mom Dad Home Lawn Car Church God
Mom Dad Dick Jane Home Car Church God
Mom Dick Home Dad? Car House Church God
Mom Dick House Walls Car Man God Priest
Dick Jane House Walls Men Woman God
Jane Dick Walls Television Rug Microwave Men Woman God
Dick Jane? Walls Bed Picture Question Rug Men Women God
Dick Sibling Walls Image Blur DVD Rug Men Women God
Dick Girl Walls Women Men House Green Bible
Dic Girl Walls Walls Walls Women Men Green Bible
Di Girl Walls Walls Walls Women Men Color Book
D Girl Walls Walls Walls People Color Book Light
I Girl Walls Walls Walls Light Dark Noses Hands Feet
I Love Walls Walls Walls Shadow Lips Hair Me
I Love Walls Walls Walls Figure Freckles Black White
Eye Love Walls Walls Walls Eyes Freckles Grey
Eye Love Walls Walls Walls Eyes Marbles Symmetry 
Eye Hate Walls Walls Walls Watching Division
Eye Hate Paint Shade Strangers Lust Rage Guilt
Watching Black White Strangers Fear Mom
                              Mom?

THIS POEM

By Jameson Gillihan

this poem is listened to 
not spoken
body whispers
gurgles gasps
tender vocalizations
pressed through bands of muscle

i’m listening to my body
my speaker-stethoscope
distracted lyricism
this poem is listened to
not spoken

i sculpt my lips into shape
i form little o’s with my mouth
breath wrapped tight inside me
make the lip-shapes with me
spit-slick potter
you won’t need to use your hands
your mouth knows what to do

this poem wants to know what people sound like, really
how quiet does a room need to be before it hears your heartbeat
how much can it learn about you from
your silence, well
you’re never silent
not really

how much of the world’s information is conveyed through noise?
what percentage of you is contained in
a pulse of blood or the pulling of wind through windpipe,
can i really know you from
vibration
am i lying to myself when
i hold my breath a little too long and
articulate the ringing in my ears
whoosh or hiss or
ten thousand e’s or
other ways of pretending the thing on the page is
something else

my mechanical keyboard drowns out the silence
my finger-tapped touch screen drowns out the silence
my graphite on paper drowns out the silence

on stage or behind a podium or in a college classroom i find that lip syncing stops working
no one is compelled by my mouth puppetry
marionette tongue
slinging spit with strings attached
i struggle to keep quiet
not to render new sound god isn’t there enough sound already

nothing can justify speaking up the
latest introduction of nonsense the
repetition of what everyone else has already said
ten thousand times before
nothing justifies the pen on the page
all that information on unrelenting record
overwhelmed and undiscoverable
oversaturated market

god forbid we oversaturate the market

sorry for writing
sorry for reading this aloud or
giving it to you to read to yourself sorry for
putting my sounds in your head 
this poem just wants to know what’s
going on in there

see it’s been pseudo-silence for so so long
it wants to know the sound of something different
does electricity crackle
when it jumps from nerve to neuron
can i hear the hum of laughter
from the inside of your head

this poem says carry me with you
please
i want to listen

Solitary Sunset

By Olivia Burdash

I had a dream once. 
(I have them often.)
(But this one stuck out.)
I was in a place I knew well. 
But I also wasn’t.
Warped, perhaps. The same, but different. 
Myself in the dream knew it to be no different. I still knew it as I knew the worn pages of my favorite novel, as familiar as my own flesh. 
It felt like I floated as I walked around– effortlessly, calmly, gliding across the path. 
It was open. Picturesque buildings and stone stairs. 
It was massive. Labyrinths of worn paths and vibrant gardens. 
It was a beautiful evening. The sky was clear, decorated with puffy clouds, perfect as cotton candy. The gentle breeze pressed the most delicate of kisses to my cheeks. The air smelled faintly of blossoming flowers.
I walked alone. The sun was beginning its daily descent. 
It was going to be a beautiful sunset this evening. I just knew it.
I had the most peculiar urge to tell everyone about it, a herald reporting the spectacle. I wanted to share this moment with anyone who would appreciate it, for anyone who would simply live and breathe and feel. 
It would be stunning, after all. Everyone should know. Everyone should have a chance to experience its magic, to forget their troubles for only a moment.
I walked around, looking. It seemed I had someone in mind. Or perhaps several somebodies.
(I did not know who.)
It seemed I was lost. 
Or perhaps I simply enjoyed meandering, pointlessly wandering, a mellow spirit perpetually drifting around Asphodel. 
To no avail, or so it seemed.
The sky started to shift above me, transforming into the most vivid and breathtaking landscape of colors I had ever known. 
It was an ombre of colors. Of corals and scarlets. Of golds and tangerines. Of lavenders and violets. Of indigo and silver. 
It was a field of flowers. It was a watercolor painting. It was a celestial portal to the gods themselves.
I stopped in my tracks to admire it. There was no color so saturated in reality. Perhaps that is why it was so captivating, so otherworldly. It was a fantastical fairy tale. A brief escape from mundanity. 
Not all sunsets are like this, of course.
Some of them are lackluster, an ordinary sight we take for granted. Some of them are invisible behind blankets of thick clouds. Some of them can only offer teases of what they wanted to share with us, yet we had done nothing to deserve it.
But some of them are like this. 
Some of them make you forget everything else.
Some of them make the rest of the world fade into insignificant nothingness. 
Some of them make you realize that you, too, are only a cog in the machine of insignificance, and that thought somehow makes the twilight’s spectacle seem more daunting. 
This was one that froze time. It was endless. It was all I could see. 
All I could do was live. And breathe. And feel.
I could see the colors reflect on every surface. Twists of fire on the shiny stone stairs. Hints of bubblegum on the metallic railings. 
The world was a dome, encased by a precious canvas. 
It was a moment you felt more than you saw. I breathed in, as if I could make it a part of me.
I watched it alone, because no one cared to see it.

            When I woke up, I thought about the sunset. 
            I thought about other things, too, of course. But nothing so much as the sunset.
       The dream came back to me in puzzle pieces that I was left to assemble for myself. I remembered the corners and edges before the rest of it put itself together. 
       At least, the pieces that matter.
       What a wonderful dream, I thought to myself. 
       I thought of the geography and landscape where I traversed. I thought of the peace, the lack of urgency, as I walked.
       And I thought of the quest I undertook. A search for someone to share this moment with. 
       And I thought, really thought to myself, have I no one to share a sunset with?

Anti-Pyro Safety

By Vittoria Burgess

A boarded-up brick fireplace
Its entirety untrusted to college students

Grease lines my fingertips

This unfinished book stares into my soul
When I listen to the radio 
I wonder if I’m meant to hear it

Each brick scratched and scraped with intent 
Markers and paint have cautiously vandalized secret valleys in its grout 
Burnt edges peak out from underneath 

The beginnings of mistrust 
Far before we met

New rugs hide history in the recently buffed-out wood floors

Indecisive about personhood

Is it okay for me to change ideologies so quickly?
to fully believe one thing and then fully believe the next? 
There is deep-rooted guilt in my every action 
I’ve been given things and told I should be lucky I have them at all
Learned to settle for less 
Believing I don’t deserve more

This red brick fireplace clashes with the silver wall in front of it

Hiding a trusting life 
One that’s fulfilled

I’m supposed to change with the seasons
The weather
I’ll let the temperature tell me how to feel

If snow ever falls again 
I will pry that grey slab away from those red bricks
And start a fire in the heart of this college house
Let something feel useful against the ideas of my youth

The next time I am bad 
I will blame the weather 
And sneak off to feel better

Against someone’s pleading wishes
For their own image

One Of These Days

By Anson Wang

We’ll try again. Instead of all this talking we do
Things we should be trying, experiencing
Not thinking about what we’re told we should be thinking about
All we do now, it feels like, is talk 
Nothing ever happens in this neighborhood
What’s normal?

_

Nothing ever happens and the heat wears me down in the afternoons
Scrubbing at dust on the shelves I remember
These walls, how in another’s lifetime, they were white 
Like milk, like school uniforms and worksheets
And rice paper candy
And now they’re beginning to resemble my father’s teeth.

_

All you do is talk, but everyone else just wants to yell
About things we should be doing, preparing for
Hustling like immigrants but we’re American born, American made 
Wired for war, perpetually preparing
Perennially domestic until the time comes
And we’re expected to take leaps, to shoulder the
Regular disappointment, nobody sees the irony
In a 井底之蛙 who wants to journey outside its walls
Everyone is yelling but no one remembers what’s normal
This neighborhood doesn’t understand
How small it is.

_

One of these days
We’ll do something cool, something interesting
Something you’ll remember
I’m home for the summer, I can drive now
Nothing domestic, nothing to be prepared for
Not a leap but something,
Something still.

Hunger Mountain

By Violet Russell

The ferns pressed assumptions to her hips, 
Where the curves stopped and spirals spun, 
A figure so becoming. 
Brooks babbled out braided hair, 
And made rivers down her thighs. 
Let me lay awhile in 
Her shade and shadow, 
Where blooms a great plum tree’s 
thousand white flowers dance. 
So soft and shallow, her sleeping breaths, 
Too gentle to cause a wind chime unrest, 
Yet I am afraid I’ll never stop shaking. 
Is it summer when the Black-eyed Susans grow 
Between her every finger? 
Or is it a new season when I watch 
Her wake greeting me with eyes a-glow
as midday sun casts magic 
Across the mountains?

DEATH WEATHER / AIR CONDITIONING

By Jameson Gillihan

summer heat and sticky peat
abc gum sidewalk
stagnant sinkhole swim retreat
mosquito larvae crosstalk
garbage fire beer and ribs
folding chairs
explosives
swinging hammock heavy lids
hydrangea buds and roses
it’s hot it’s hot it’s hot it’s hot it’s only getting hotter
there’s algae blooming in the brine
of ever rising water
when it rains it rains and rains
and rains and rains it’s raining
there’s nothing i can do outside so i’ll just keep
complaining

a return to form

By Emma Kearny

it starts as a suggestion in the back of your mind, a quietly invasive worm wriggling its way into the cracks of your skull, an insistence that something is wrong but you can’t say what, there’s only this weighted dread threatening to crush your ribs like an EMT, who maybe you should consider calling but that feels silly doesn’t it? because there can’t actually be anything wrong, and so you suck in a breath and calm yourself the best you can but this is your second mistake — the first was cracking your head on the concrete, letting the scent of your blood permeate the earth and invite it in — it kisses your wound shut but your body, it realizes, is an open sore, and so it digs itself deep into the layers of your skin and pushes your bones out of its way, proceeds with a lovingly delicate symphysiotomy to clear the way for your fingers, cracks your highest vertebra and slide it into the column of your throat to make way for its mouth, wrings your intestines out of your stomach and settles them into art for you, which inclines you to bite your tongue off and replace it with the ileocecal valve and chew the rest until your teeth fall out and grow in anew like fingernails, and you swallow the old ones and feel some of them get stuck to the back of your throat while the others accumulate at the mouth of the carrion flower that sits inside your pelvis, and you find that the muscles beneath your skin jump and twitch like they’re more alive than you are, until it kisses them too and with its earthy lips swallows them and spits them out again in a dance that leaves you staggered and burned and beautiful, and its last act of violent adoration is to cut you open once more and allow you to marvel at what’s become of your insides, which writhe and sing gorgeously, and in your awe you sing too, so loud that the teeth in your throat taste the sweetness of blood.

The Battle of the Most Devoted Believer

By Tyler Thoms

Þæt wæl-stōw      forþrysmode mid līcum,
Se blōd fyrdrinca      foldena þurstas leċeþ.
Iċ fielle      fīendas twēgen— 
Þā synne fāge      fīendum frēanes— 
Ac fēower ma      gīetaþ þone feld.
Min magas      ymbe mē slæhtaþ sindon;
We fǣġe forþferan,      wælgrime wīġe
Forwordenesse for      hāliġan hām ūre.
Iċ ġeseah frea      on þone felde onwhīle.
Sċīman sweord his      scimerede mid heofonleōmum.
Blōd ūre fēonda      blostmode ġelīċan blēdum
Dropan blodes befēollon      to þone foldan
Ġelīċan blēdum      fram ġierdum rotiaþ,
Swa frea fielde min      yfel fēondum ānwīglīce,
His cynegierelan      clǣnan.
Þisne wæl-stōw      þa þe stande on iċ
Is īdelan Godes.      Hu wit mæġ feohtan
For frēan hwonne he hafaþ      his dryht ānforlēt?
Min magas tealtriaþ,       hira sweorda ecgum grētaþ grund;
His feohtaþ alibban,      ac iċ feohte for frēan.
Iċ ġesēo se      deorc-feðra
Lācaþ ofergāþ, fȳsan gewistian      on min magas weorþaþ hrǣwum.
Iċ wille feohtan oþ      se grǣġ-pāda āhǣtt mē.
Þone scaðan      stingþ mē.
Min blōd rīet      min ansien sweðel.
Iċ wille wyrd wolde      frēfran mē,
And mē ġeann geseon      min ansien frēan leofes eft.
Becwelan æt beadu for frea      eom min miċel ġeþingþe ac
Mæġ iċ geseon      him hwīlum and
Mæġ min blostm-dēag blōd      ne besyle him.

Translation

The slaughter-field choked with corpses,
Soldiers’ blood slakes the earth’s thirst.
I fell two enemies—
Those sin-stained enemies of God—
But four more flood the field.
My kinsmen surrounding me are slain;
We are fated to die, this fateful fight
A failure for our holy homeland.
I saw God on the battlefield once.
His splendent sword shone with holy radiance.
Our enemies’ blood fluttered to the field
Like petals from rotting branches,
As my God felled those rotten enemies single-handedly,
His royal robes unstained.
This slaughter-field I stand upon
Is bereft of God. How might we fight
For God when he has abandoned his army?
My kinsmen waver, their sword edges greeting the ground;
They fight to live, but I fight for God.
I see those dark-feathered ones
Soaring overhead, preparing to feast on my kinsmen turned carrion.
I will fight until the grey-coated one calls me.
An enemy stabs me.
My blood stains my bandaged face.
I wish fate would be kind to me,
And let me see my beloved God’s face again.
To die in battle for God is my greatest honor, but
Let me see him once more and
Let my flower-colored blood not stain him.

The Carp

By Violet Russell

A timid gray swishes 
Near the bottom of the tarn, 
It’s movements thinly 
veiled by long grass or 
Idle lily pads, affording 
a sense of modesty 
To the small creature. 
The carps large underbelly 
Scratches up against 
quartz pebbles, 
Weaving between 
A submerged log and 
An abandoned sandal 
Stuck deep into the 
Tan mud, nothing much 
Happens here.
The duskless night 
Rolls over the hills, 
And settles down, 
Letting its weight pull 
The edges of light 
Towards the tree line. 
Soon there is nothing, 
And nothing much happens. 
The birch whispers 
from the slight breeze, 
Snapping twigs off 
It’s budless branches, 
Nothing of importance happens, 
And the last traveler drives 
Out of the parking lot, 
Leaving a receipt for 
Chewing tobacco near the bank,
absolutely nothing that matters, 
And the carp does not 
Dream, it just continues 
It slow weaving between 
The weeds, grating layers 
Of scales off its stomach, 
Digging deeper into the skin, 
Tender pink nothing, nothing, 
Nothing. 
I become nothing