The following poems treat human relations and their intricacies. Self and lover, self and stranger, self and society, self and self, and self and friend are all explored herein with delicious imagery and turn of phrase. Read slowly, give the gift of time to each word as though they too were a dear friend or lover, and recall: that flopped romance, the warmth or chill that one conversation filled you with, the unreadable looks in strangers’ eyes, and, perhaps most of all, the invisible web connecting you to all the people you’ve met.
Peace and love,
Mayan Godmaire
Creative Writing Editor
Coconut Summer
by Beth Fecteau
Contributor
people love summer cause it's green
lush
dripping and humid
heavy with warmth
buggy evenings and backyard barbeques
wet nights in bed with the windows open
hands on skin, cool sheets,
the birth of something new
people love summer cause it tastes good on searching tongues,
starved for sweet
ripe mango
citrus ice tea
half-melted sorbet
juice dripping down chins
making kisses sticky and long
never ending and sangria-sweet
people love summer cause they ignore that it rots
fruit ferments
the heat makes your skin feel too small
and you're left with the skeletal remains
of what you had
of what we had
leaving me sweating and tear-stained
summer turns to wet dirt
fertilizing all the little endings
we rotted like that,
didn't we?
those wet nights and sticky kisses snapped
under the cool pressure of autumn
you left me cold
you left
I had to keep myself warm
Long Legs
by Jeanne Hope
Contributor
I have long legs,
broad shoulders, flat
hair that never stays curled,
average, boring, thing of being
when I need to be
sweet daisy with an ass
bigger than my smile
on my Instagram,
when in reality,
I want la-la bullshit,
with sex and songs and spells,
suits, garters, and tied ties.
I want to be serenaded
like a big-chested Juliet,
have a hundred bouquets
delivered to me,
without ever saying sorry,
for being something,
more than just
a commercial thing.
Lost in Translation
by Yara Ajeeb
Contributor
I am rewritten
Until I make sense
My phrases tugged and stretched
Until I make sense
I am translated
Limb by limb, into a foreign language
My mother can’t read me
I get tossed away into rummage
Lost in translation,
I’m barren.
Lost in diction,
I cross the margin.
Please,
Don’t let me be rewritten
Into short proses and clauses
Please,
Don’t let me be erased
From ancient books and faces
Existing in different tongues
I belong everywhere
From the Middle East to the Americas
My name rewrites itself on a flare
Which language fosters me?
Which language understands me?
How did I fail
At pasting myself here
My words become so frail
I can’t express and adhere
How did I fail at translating myself?
From Arabic
To English
How do I go back?
Back in translation
Into a language that no one speaks.
With some adjustments and tweaks
Could I belong in the creaks?
Of some foreign language.
Or do people like me
Get lost for eternity
In translation?
Drama Poem: A High School Transition
by Flora Baruel Vianna
Contributor
Person 1: Once upon a time
I was way ahead of my time
I was told to
Person 2: “Find what is on your mind, waiting isn't a crime, everything’ll be fine”
Pers. 1: WHY then am I now shaking? My chest is aching,
[duo]: my lungs
Pers. 2: won't respond in the bubble that's popping!
The frustration is overtaking, my vision is hazing… Fear rushes through, it feels
suffocating.
Pers. 1: Am I the only one of my nervous kind?
Is everybody else blind? Am I leaving myself behind? Nevermind, I do not have the TIME—
Pers. 2: —for these LIES! Look me in the eye, tell me again your advice? … That implies! My stress will only rise?
Pers. 1: “Maybe, once or twice, but don't panic!—”
Pers. 2: Too late.
Pers. 1: Wait.
Let me get this straight:
We're about to graduate… Change my classmate for a ROOMMATE. Have a “taste”—
Pers. 2: —you mean a punch in the face—
[duo]: And then it's checkmate?!
Pers. 1: “Here's your diploma, then, Au revoir”
… Huh… I didn't think I'd get THIS far…
Pers. 2: … I kinda expected more …
Pers. 1: “It gets worse once you're a sophomore,
Pers. 2: Good luck!!”
Pers. 1: Does anyone else feel as stuck?!
Pers. 2: … This kinda sucks…
Uh-oh, looks like it we're running out of time
Pers. 1: What else is new? Certainly not this rhyme
Pers. 2: GArH! There's something in my eye
Pers. 1: Overwhelming anxiety and the crippling fear of large doors?
Pers. 2: No… But now that you mentioned it, I kinda wanna die…
Anybody else want to cry?
Pers. 1: No, go ahead, it’s alright, tell high school “bye-bye”
[duo] I’m not ready,
Pers. 2: Time just flew by..
Will I ever qualify?
Pers. 1: Will the voices ever pacify?
The doubts only multiply
All we can do is try
our best to pass the test—
Pers. 2 [aside]: I gotta confess, I look great in this dress
I’m boutta finesse my way through this mess
All of the stress and distress compressed can depress—
Pers. 1: —Anyone with or without knowledge, can hold you hostage, tied in bondage.
What can I say?
[duo] Slaving on to college!
Ode to the Ghost of a Half-a-Quarter Lifetime
by Mayan Godmaire
Creative Writing Editor
Again. Sound the navy bells atop the night-hazy tower, in peals
of gold. They reverberate out and fade.
Counting time in the vibrations. Sucker-sweet vision.
I count my words if I scrawl on paper,
I lose my hours if I think of you,
For who the notion of time is only an electric after-taste
in the land of lemon rind.
I cross a bridge to where the grass is greener because colors
flourish there.
You never set foot on a single grey patch. Cause even your feet
gave, although it was your hands that played, tap, tap, tap.
You played through violet and indigo plastic lays,
a relationship who saw the dream-catcher for a forgotten dream.
Red as often as not, as white in shadow-green, as presence in mirror.
Your blackboard taught beauty.
So, again. Dappling in the clear-fresh bluey-silver stream where
orange fishes flash and dash and hide behind round stones.
Two addicts of the senses, splashing their feet til they drip turquoise
in big glassy drops, ecstatic out-of-static,
vibrant.