Poetry by Jacquie Burckley in the style of Tracy K. Smith:
30 or 40 or 50
The rusties hoard oil: prudence.
The machines, whirring, shift slowly: alive.
Markings that envelope our skin: icy.
They move in tune with the pattern
Of our hearts, racing and pausing,
naturally.
this was my reality.
The redwoods stand tall
But I feel the field of magnets.
They keep me skating: electricity.
I smell the sap: bitter.
It is not everyone’s.
The machines are flying. They
Scream out fire and fury. Cotton
Ablaze, burn the resources.
Harnessed in bubbles we jump
Hovered above the dirt, flatted
If but a second too late. Veins
And empty shells recycle the old.
You are salvaged. We are special.
The Good Life
There’s a version of me that turned right rather
Than left and I wonder if she is also slathered in
Gravy splayed atop her plum colored chaise
Listening to the best of Nancy Wilson, or is she
Singing from the stoop for bronze coins
Wondering if it will be rice night or broth night,
Beans or chicken, bath night or the third
Day of napkins, and if by chance it is the latter,
Could I drop a stone on the dirt and watch it pass
Through for her to catch on the other side?
Fry, Baby, Fry
Signs of marker, paint and jokes bobble above the heads of men.
They remind me of pigeons: grimy, bothersome and small.
Ordered by code. Programmed to shout while saying
Nothing, yet, they are catered. Bits of bread.
Bread crumbs.
If I remove their bodies, will the beaded leftovers writhe on the pavement?
Wind-up toys. Still controlled by ______. Choose one:
Stitched and mobile by data or wrenched for a bit of autonomy.
Braided together, imaginably for use. Life line or noose?
I think the men with signs were born with leather blinders,
Horses that chew on grain and slurp up sugar. I’ll sit
And watch quietly from the storefront next to the
man who owns the bodega down the road.
Poetry by Chrissy Schreiber in the style of Mazel J.
I
my exhaustion is nothing
compared to the
joy my heart feels
III
Time is a wheel that turns,
my body wasting away
with each revolution.
But my heart
and mind know more of myself with
every turn.
II
There was a man once,
who’s not in my life now,
but he shows up
in my writing and
in every corner,
seeping out of my veins
as if my blood were ink.
(Read) Between the Vines 