Secret Garden
2023-2024
Sojourn
By Ishan Bhattacharya
By Ishan Bhattacharya
Atop your ship the high sails flap as black clouds start to dance,
Great beams now crack and cold wind snaps, your departure will be soon,
To Scylla’s maw and Charybdis draw, by towering waves consumed,
On an olive tree nest nevermore to rest, no home return for you,
To banquet hall where lechery crawls and prowls from room to room,
Your valor spoilt, your riches gone, your clothes have turned to rags,
Your men are cleaved and torn apart by giants, beasts, and hags.
Rue the day of your depart toward conflict not your own, it was never for
you to feel the warmth of fire, hearth and home.
Why do you still venture on, oh hapless hero of old?
Is it not better to drift away in lotus blissful hold?
But be deaf to the ringing and sweet, sweet, singing of loss within your ears,
Let wisdom guide your very path and your troubles will be cleared.
For next time that you are harassed by sirens of your woes,
Remember now and always still, it is just flesh and bone.
Dry Ocean
By Emily Zielinski
By Emily Zielinski
The sea in its looming glory/shines brighter than any star in the Milky Way/
Its enormous figure/presents itself as microscopic/and i seem to be in the middle of it
I am lost at sea/waving to myself from the seaside/
I watch myself drown/as i wipe the gritty sand from my feet/
The ocean is dry/i feel its water fill my lungs and I choke on the tide/
The ocean is dry/i try to claw my way out/my fingernails bleed/i can’t swim/
On shore the land is dry/and the sun is hot/and everything is as it should be/
But the ocean is a god with no rhyme or reason/
I can make sense of it if i try/with my own twisted ideology everything makes sense/
But how accurate am I/if I’m on the shore/and i won’t even help myself/
The Leaves We Left Behind
By Jessie Mullen
By Jessie Mullen
Picked leaves hoping you’d love me.
It was never enough you see.
Unsure why I stopped picking leaves.
Perhaps the past was enough to keep.
To keep you
To keep our love
But it’s cold now and the leaves have withered.
We didn’t make it through winter.
At night wonder flows afore I fall asleep,
If the seasons stood still, would you still leave me?
The Lovers
By Taly Nudelman
By Taly Nudelman
hold me where I can’t see your arms
they have fled the frame and I
decided already I was going to trust fall
maybe when I feel my feet give out
the small of my back will suddenly grow
warm against the palm
of your hand
or
my body will catch itself
with the whipping back of a foot
and
the crack of a heel that
so desperately needed a break
don’t break your empty gaze
gather the skin on my face
and weave it into white linen
stitch it thickly
so that I no longer see
my dress and your suit
the only things that make coarse
the space between us
weave it with a softness that
dissolves my face
into the gray sky behind you
and to secure the end
pull it tight around your neck.