I prefer music
alive and breathing
into the empty space
between classes, it blissfully distracts me,
uplifts me,
and persists long after I take my headphones
off.
I feel its chemistry, its biology, its math, and its poetry,
its native tongue that changes with every repetition,
and I let it speak, and pretend to understand,
I smile or cry like
an infant in a mother’s arms.
-Silence-
Delicately, tenderly untangling
umbilical-like chord,
fed into life and it cries out anew,
the one or two songs
I’m into
right now.
A hard tiled floor,
scuffed, speckled with dirt
and dust swept to where the edge meets grey wall,
backpack balanced, upright
as I slide down and sit.
The birth of warmth,
the feeling of life,
of heating the tile with my body,
breathing in rhythm
with the heartbeat ringing
out,
pumping intravenously
pulsating softly,
the energy palpable
for no one
but me.
A nodding head
a tapping foot,
the faintest heartbeat
echoing
down an empty hallway.
hike – Andrei Bucaloiu
your green eyes blend with the thicket
and root you in the softened soil
that, mashed, rises between your toes
i insist on wearing shoes and socks
you insist on feeling the coolness,
the tickle of grass kissing your ankles,
the rush of pine-needled steps,
and the firm thump of footprints
when home, I lay barefoot and
you touch your fingers between my toes
your heart beats green, beats slow
against the soles of my feet
like the first few droplets of rain
dripping on thirsty leaves
Waking Up in a Canopy Bed – Andrei Bucaloiu
We lay entwined,
in a knot of limbs
deep
in our forest of curtains
white, and filtering sunbeams
into infinite flurries
that cover our bodies
with a blanket of snow.
We close our eyes
and try catching snowflakes
on our tongues,
but swallow pearls,
and form ivory lumps
in our throats.
Salt from our eyes
rolls on the
crinkled sheets.
The snow
melts on us and leaves us bare
but collects
on the curtains,
delicate
and laced,
stronger than ever before.
Farm – Gari Eberly
It will be a long long time before we see
these cumulations again, these birds again, Carolina
conure wafting westward with the smell of
cockleburs, noise plummeting
It will be a long long time before we see
these peatlands again, compress burn decay store
again: Bog, Fen,
brackish plummeting
Watch now these stiff men, pale
dim faces like the ground we pasture
skillful with sickle and the tearing and the grazing
Watch now these sick men, shale
as the ground cutting farmlands to sudden boundary,
selfish, it seems, to the battle of
worms in the ground,
for their gnawing, smothered soon
with the interests in their ichor,
their silver, their plenty,
will birth old problems, old illness, old
borrowers, will dam like this soil clogged
in the sediments by which this bog coalesces
to new niches, new soils, new
gardens, the salt of the water minced
with the fire and the vegetation
the mosquitos and marrow, the green and the
nausea of motion in this eroded and rooted place.
Wonderlies – Christine Capobianco
White Rabbit’s pocket watch murmurs tick tock.
Entering the playful realm of beauty, truth and premonition.
Frolicking in friendly fields, trailing White Rabbit.
No, twas not heel to warm, rich soil –
Ground bare, crisp, quenched.
Tumbling down, mystical rabbit hole.
No, twas not magical mess of a stumble –
Nosedive, plummet, dusty disorder.
Wandering the whispers of wooden doorways.
No, twas not liberating, optional –
Tapped, locked, narrow.
Beyond doorway: lay luscious garden greens, buzzing beauty.
No, twas bare, lifeless, soundless –
Dead, shivering, untouched antique.
Longing to undo doorway, tempating gadgets gaze down.
No, twas not sweet alteration –
“DrinkMe”, “Eat Me”: instantly irreversible, nausea, sour swallows.
Hasty, honest alarm clock chimes: tick tock.
Instantly escaping the playful realm of beauty, truth and premonition.
Back to the wild wonderland of beauty, lies, and repetition.
this leaf – Bethany Johnson
I paint this page with words
So eloquent each stroke. Precise.
Strategic in exposing the hidden dirt.
And in the darkest of corners, shine this light.
I fill this page with words
In hopes to empty this heart—
Of mine. So resilient to the hurts,
the crimes, leaving the toughest stains and marks.
I pack this page with words; in
love, onto leaf I transfer these transgressions
When pen kisses paper, I deliver these burdens
Released repression, pain provoked obsessions, my confessions.
I burn this page of words
Smile as smoke rises, goodbye caresses me
Only now am I able to move forward
No longer my pains but yours. I am free.