October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Bad reviews and criticism at every turn
But it catches on, and it’s repeated
Because it’s good, and it creates desire.
And we never noticed our congeniality
Answering what we looked up to
Along with any semblance of uniqueness.
Nurturing our urges, inspiring our dreams,
No, it’s not original, should it matter
Now that we have embraced it?
Making us love it, and imitate it
Masking our truest intentions
Milking the creativity we used to have as kids.
Asking us to believe what ever
Average people love and sing and read
Accepting without questioning motives.
Not realizing that we have power though
Nothing allows us to become self-aware
Never understanding that we write the books.
by Saul Blair
Saul Blair is a student that recently graduated (2014) from Lee College in Baytown, Texas, with four A.A.’s in Literature, Humanities, Social Science, and Liberal Arts. He is an aspiring poet who has written academic papers that have been accepted and presented in Utah, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. as well as outside the U.S.A. in Wales, Romania, Spain, Sri Lanka, and China. He will be enrolling at the University of Houston in the fall of 2014.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Gurgling, squinty-eyed
life form trying to make sense
of the alien sights and sounds
of a double date. My still-together parents,
weary from nightly feedings,
out of the house for once.
Another young couple in seats beside,
a good three months removed—as the stork flies—
from their own life-altering arrival.
The loud noises, a tub of new smells
being passed back and forth,
the incomprehensibly large screen,
whereon another scared, puzzled life form
comforts himself with Reese’s Pieces,
tries desperately to
phone home.
The darkened atmosphere
is my only reassurance. The dark,
I recognize. The dark, I know and love.
Which is why I’ll scream and shout
and cry and wail
until I’m taken to a place
free from strange noises and smells
and bright moving pictures. Back
to the familiar cotton embrace,
the faithful shimmer and twirl
of mobile constellations in the over-crib sky,
the sleep-inducing scent
of powder and safety.
Back to my home planet.
by Ryan Frisinger
Ryan Frisinger is a professor of English, holding an M.F.A. in Writing from Lindenwood University. He is also an accomplished songwriter, whose work has been featured in numerous television shows, such as America’s Next Top Model and The Real World. His non-musical writing has appeared in publications like Foliate Oak Literary Magazine and The MacGuffin. He resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with his more-talented wife and couldn’t-care-less cat.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
This city is full of the dead
(I’m told by the living).
The Irish know their dead well,
6000 years of skeletons and coffins
and unmarked graves,
according to the living.
Here I am, alive in Dublin
drinking tea and listening to church bells
resounding like drunken teenagers
from a Cathedral older than my family name
sitting amongst the dead.
What good is life if we avoid
familiarizing ourselves
with the ninety-nine names of death?
She walks hurriedly around here, I think.
Death scurries from convent to church to pub
in order to meet her demands.
I’ve often considered inviting her in,
the poor thing,
for a cup of tea, or a pint,
or whatever it is death enjoys.
It’s not that I’m insane or anything.
There’s just something about this hallowed city
where the living manage to keep track of the dead
the way stockbrokers keep track of markets
and musicians keep track of the beat
that makes me pity death. She seems lonely
but far from idle. I sit here drinking tea
wondering if death would accept my admonitions
and take a nap in my bed,
curled up like a snail in a shell,
as the church bells howl
and construction workers laugh
above a slab of concrete where a man was shot,
whispering in her sleep about her many tormented lovers.
by Keene Short
Keene Short is a life-long resident of Flagstaff, Arizona. He currently studies English and History at Northern Arizona University, and when he is not writing or reading, he hangs out with folk singers and wayward preachers at local coffee shops.
Page 8 of 10« First«...678910»
