Poetry by Chrissy Schreiber in the style of Simon Armitage:
Cat
She sleeps hard tonight.
Thin skin covers the orbs
and I think if I peeled those away
I would hide the balls
beneath the couch.
Tomorrow I will
pierce her ankles
over and over and over.
It’s a game, you see.
She doesn’t feel my head
on her shoulder.
The Unthinkable
He wanders down the sterile halls of the place,
one he had never wanted to know again.
It smells of formaldehyde and the sickly-sweet mix of
cleaning products covering years of decay. They say
your brain links smell to memory, more than any other sense.
He knows that’s true; each breath brings back images
of those days, before things soured. They are looking for him,
but he wants to see different walls for a change.
He’s never been to this part of the building.
When they bring him back to his room, he has a visitor.
She sits by the window with a book; always the same one.
They offer her lunch, tell her they had an extra. She smiles,
and accepts graciously, but he knows the truth:
that tray was meant for someone else. They’re just gone.
He looks outside as the windows fog up.
Turning Point
He watched that day, closer than usual,
because it was an important day in this
man’s life – a Turning Point, as they call it.
He wanted to see how they would react.
The others don’t understand why He watches
so closely, but today He wants to see if they
catch the signs and use the tools. The woman
sees the first and rejoices, though she does
not understand. Then the man sees the second,
and he voices it. It’s in the open now.
The woman picks up the third, turning it in her
hands, forcing it down the man’s throat. He smiles.
The smallest of tools is often the most valuable.
They seize the fourth, understanding the urgency now,
and the man thinks of his father that day on the beach.
They drive and He watches as they hit sign five and holds
His breath as the others miss six, but they know and
they have made it around the corner. He relaxes.
Poetry by Jacquie Burckley in the style of Chris Tse:
Synesthesia
I see color. They range from
black to white – stones and bones –
punctuated by trust, indignation, and
substantial banter. I met a Cobalt in high school
who brought clouds that suffocated charm. Brick
by brink, I led a life in kevlar. Next was a Mauve.
She made snapdragons blossom from hedges below
the wall. A smile sticker appeared on my vest.
I sleep next to a Peridot. The sun tastes sweet
and there are trumpet vines and rainbow pins.
My gardener, my partner, a frustration,
and my best friend. She is
Canary, Lemon, Sand, Honey –
she is my favorite color.
It’s True
It’s true;
I once pushed the girl in front of me down the slide
because she was standing in the sun’s path to my
winter face, blistered from lonely wind –
but to be fair, the top of the ladder
is my only chance to see the skyline.
It’s true;
I peeked out from behind my hands to watch
as if I wouldn’t know where she was hiding –
but to be fair, I knew she was smarter than me from the
moment that bitch squeezed her way out of
Mom’s jellied tummy.
It’s true;
I nudged the pawns a few spaces up
because I couldn’t stand to see him win
another round of “It’s a Man’s World” –
and to be fair, I was born with a disadvantage
so I made it square.
It’s true;
I lied and cried and then cried because of the lie,
so I lie to erase the other lie but the old lie stains my
teeth, tarnishes my word, blackens my love
while I tape a smile and ignore the clang,
clang, clang of the kid behind me on the slide.
Kokkinisto
I think I’m stuck between the seventh and eighth grade.
Stuck in my head and in my actions. I’m in the galley
and yia yia teaches me to recognize the sharp scent of
kokkinisto on the stove; she lets me drop in the
cinnamon stick and I watch as it slowly flakes out, like
an inkblot painting – symmetrical on both sides.
The table is set for ten instead of four. Her master
quilters will slurp and slobber, schmooze and booze
until their lipstick stains from red to pink, mimicking
a child who disregards the lines of his bargain-bought
coloring book. I never minded the dishes that stacked
up not he counter, unbalanced and sneering at me.
They were silent embers and grains of sand
left over from battle. Yia yia is gone now, and mother
always forgets the cinnamon stick.
(Read) Between the Vines 