Marsi White - Getting Back on the Horse

Mischief and mayhem,

I heard it has been said,

That friends are bonded,

Through the stunts ahead.

The whispers and planning,

The very next game,

The cocktails, the parties,

Rich, loud and untame.

Fun had by all.

Though its the glorious few,

Who scheme and connive,

Motivate anew.

Out of sorts, out of time,

Personal restrictions.

Friends pulling me back,

To their chaotic missions.

Cherishing every minute,

Holding their hands,

Like leading me to water,

My soul fed, commands.

Through thick and thin,

Girls, saving me,

From myself and the mundane,

From my problems and worries.

Mischief and mayhem,

They most definitely start.

But they do it with love,

They do it with heart.

Marsi lives in San Diego, CA with her husband, two children and dog. A private foundation grants writer by trade, Marsi explores her creative side by contributing to Writing Writer Writest. She is a breast cancer survivor who is fighting a long fight. She keeps a blog of her journey, entitled Nip-It.

Sanam Shahmiri - The Tourist

They stood in doorways
picturesque postures
symmetrical eye makeup
objects for your gawking.

I was fifteen
surrounded by drunkards
and out-of-towners
pockets dripping euros.

They call it the red light district
‘cause you can’t help stopping,
eyes strive to capture
these pleasure domes,
scenes set to singe innocence.

The neighbor raps on the door
for a cup full of condoms
and the stairs spiral upwards
uncomfortably narrow.

I was fifteen
and it didn’t bother me,

at first. Next stop, Iran;

where even doorways

tuck away, in shame.

Luke Lagraff - You Bonnaroo

Burnt light like muck,
drizzles life over the night music
for us to strut.

Molly talk with these sounds,
reaches into desire and the flower
shades the fun.

My mind and its’ eyes
blind in its disguise

Of health on the inside
for fear of the far side;

And to ascend the magical search
I require the furthest perch.

Great dark like freedom,
opens the soul sublime to see
even needs your worst friends need.

Travel the fields like a kite
forever now you dance in spite
Belching rock and loving blues
forever now you Bonnaroo.

Luke LaGraff is a lover of sandwiches, egg nog, and one of a kind days. He used to forget them, but now has realized he shouldn't; they have more meaning than ever at this point of his life. He enjoys the sun in LA and watches hockey and funny things whenever he can. He listens to people. He's from Tennessee.

Emily Idzior - Untitled

Dear ________, Is it too late?

Is it too late to tell you how much I loved holding your hand? Too late to say how courageous I felt, the two of us, getting coffee, eating food. Late like a period maybe in a sentence. Too late to say you were my favorite scar for-- how long -- still, to this day? I touched your hair. Too late though, you wanted someone else. Or, simply, didn’t want me. I wore your rejection around like hair dye. You were my cherry berry red highlight. I gave you so much that when you weren’t there anymore I had to choose a different way. A more lighted path.

Is it too late to say how much I miss you? Too late to read you that poem just one more time? Laying across your lap. Was it too late then? You kept the book which I think is weird. I would have done the same.

Is it too late to apologize for the manic phone calls? I called and called and hoped you’d call me back. Invite me up. I walked by your apartment insane. Tired. Listening to music you shared with me. Hoped you’d dedicate something to me. Little old me. Little old ugly me. Was it too much to ask that you follow through with your little, drunk, typed letters? I think it was.Is it too late to submit this poem? I wrote it just yesterday. Could it make it in? Can you validate my life’s work? Deadline seems more like a suggestion but it’s not. It’s a dead line that will not get a funeral. Only other dead words. Is it too late to even try? I wait and wait for every deadline to pass, hoping I won’t have to experience rejection ever ever ever again. But I do. I still do.

Is it too late to apologize for that fight?

Is it too late to apologize for every fight?

You’re not dead but some part of us is.

Is it too late to go back to the way things were? Hugging. Two bodies together, innocent. Easy. Admiration without feelings. Laughter but not flirting. You’re far away in that other city. I’m married now, which I like. I like that I’m the one who made a decision. I like that you make decisions, too. I still check in, when I can, but, isn’t too late, isn’t it too late, it is too late to go back to where we were. I’m glad. I think I like you better this way.

Emily Idzior is an aspiring poet and librarian who has to shush people poetically. She has a MA in salad making and wishes she loved tea without sugar but, alas, has a sweet tooth. She cannot quit waffles or coffee and writes in her personal blog once a year.
Also she has a cat.

Luke Lagraff - Flesh Poem

I got flesh to live!
I got it to spend.
I got till the end.

I wanna ruin my body, wanna shove it into the dirt, I'll give another moment to death
A pale daydream, me looking at me, awake but not quite alive
A sad eye, half of it available, the other oozing liquid flesh

Got a chance to see tomorrow
If this flesh can stand
It might have been all spent

The town of my actions
Has divorced my floor
Nowhere to be, no body is me

Luke LaGraff is a lover of sandwiches, egg nog, and one of a kind days. He used to forget them, but now has realized he shouldn't; they have more meaning than ever at this point of his life. He enjoys the sun in LA and watches hockey and funny things whenever he can. He listens to people. He's from Tennessee.

Luke Lagraff - A Stranger Kind

The orbiter of odd
Has a few friends
A few go to lots
One is always the end

But unity can have division
It does love
It involves cohesion
And that stranger from above

The divide is grown
Through thinking like mad
It continues through when
When you have what you had

And all those strangers
The ghosts, the host, the
ones that matter most,
kindly give this cosmic day
a mind the reason to exclaim,"uh!?"

Cause it's such a sunny way
and a grand funny feeling
When you say to yourself,
"A stranger gave me this! UH?!"

Luke LaGraff is a lover of sandwiches, egg nog, and one of a kind days. He used to forget them, but now has realized he shouldn't; they have more meaning than ever at this point of his life. He enjoys the sun in LA and watches hockey and funny things whenever he can. He listens to people. He's from Tennessee.

Emily Idzior - These are a few of my favorite things

These are a few of my favorite things

1.

The way the air smells in the morning in fall. It smells like cleaning supplies and new books; dew and dying flowers. The way you look at me with your eyes that are greenbrownblue covered in glasses. The way it dies, all of it. Something tells me to look left, right, forward. We were all trembling during the final chapter and then wished we could read the book again, fresh, like we had never read it before. Every time we kiss I think of how much I love you. Every time we kissed I felt courageous. Every time we kiss I don’t taste anything, is that okay? When you hold me in your arms and I think we were made for each other and I get up and my neck hurts. You made me drink coffee and you don’t even make it anymore for me. The way you brush my hair with your fingers, like so many men are doing right now, like us, in a café somewhere.

2.

The words felt dead on the page until I read them out loud and fall into the o’s and I’s and land in the middle of the lyrical sentences. Every word Emily Dickinson wrote. Every poem Billy Collins writes sounds the same but God, I’m telling you, it’s kind of good sometimes to read them. The way poetry brings me back to life and then kills me again at the end of each poem. The way I admit I will never be famous. The way I never submit work to literary journals. My favorite excuse: I’m not good enough. My favorite thing is everything about the page and the way it is so easy to fill it with words twirling inside my brain making their way out through bitten fingernails and soft fingers.

3.

Memory. Picking raspberries in the backyard with my Grandmother. Camping in a pop up camper that made me think Camping was easy and cool like wind coming off the lake with the faint song of a loon miles away. Fireflies at night in a field look like little glowing periods at the end of lovely sentences. Sometimes the frogs sound like birds. A bird song scared me until I realized it was a bird song. I love the way the hair falls in my face, I might look pretty like that. The color pink makes me feel safe like it’s a big dose of Pepto-Bismol all around my consciousness. Soothing. I like the way organized books feel. Being in a library you know contains stolen kisses. Being in a nook looking out at the world unnoticed noticing the world walking back and forth.

4.

I had a stuffed animal when I was a child named Snuggy. He was a bunny. He had no gender. Sometimes he was a girl and sometimes she was a boy. I loved snuggy. I don’t have anything amazing left to say in this paragraph except that snuggy was there for me every step of the way through childhood.

5.

The snow falling in December, little embers put out falling to the ground. Frozen, dim fireflies fleeing the sky. A blanket of white word documents on the ground. Yellow splotches of highlighter in some places. Brown spots of color make me feel less excited to curl up in snow. Seeing my breath is never ordinary. I like looking at beautiful men and beautiful women. I like imagining them doing things like ironing or dancing ballet. Maybe they hate good literature but I imagine them reading it anyway. My birthday. My birthday and how I always manage to forget to ask for what I really want until after it’s over. The cat belly. The cat fur. The chin of a cat. Step of the cat.

Emily Idzior is an aspiring poet and librarian who has to shush people poetically. She has a MA in salad making and wishes she loved tea without sugar but, alas, has a sweet tooth. She cannot quit waffles or coffee and writes in her personal blog once a year.
Also she has a cat.

Luke Lagraff - Bum Master

This day feels rented
With morsels of blood
That flow through dented
Hearts wanting love

I get up with another
Quarter’s worth of will
He didn’t want to give
But I told him I kill

I look like shame
That question’s all the same
I guess I’ve learned that pain
Is inherent to the game

But I’m seen everyday
Paw-happy in rain
Managing my spirits’
And the famous nicknames

Do I think about tomorrow?
Do I give? I can make it there.
Will I make it by on sorrow?
Will I forgive? I’ll only bum air.

Luke LaGraff is a lover of sandwiches, egg nog, and one of a kind days. He used to forget them, but now has realized he shouldn't; they have more meaning than ever at this point of his life. He enjoys the sun in LA and watches hockey and funny things whenever he can. He listens to people. He's from Tennessee.

Emily Idzior - Hollyweird Boulevard

Crazy ass bathroom broke into the coffee

ate all the stars and went home

Where did all the people go?

I counted the stars four by four through my breath

Broke into your heart and took it for myself

I still talk about the past

Buy something here buy something now buy something whenever

$2.99 for a memory of you and me

I’ll never remember you better

Cold and windy sunny and windy my hair is full of sand

I want to color inside the words

I took a picture

I held your hand on the beach

I took a picture

and laughed

When I went to Hollywood, I felt weird

and stiff like someone might see me

you saw me standing there walking away

the stars were outshone by the city lights

but they’re closer so why wouldn’t they

I broke into the coffee I broke into the stars

you broke into my heart

Emily Idzior is an aspiring poet and librarian who has to shush people poetically. She has a MA in salad making and wishes she loved tea without sugar but, alas, has a sweet tooth. She cannot quit waffles or coffee and writes in her personal blog once a year.

Also, she has a cat.

Mary - Untitled

What the fuck am I doing when I let someone actually see me

What the fuck am I doing when I take down the layers that cover the words inked on my wrists

The heart carved into my tin man costume

I swear I have a brain

I swear I have a heart, look, it’s right here

I swear I have a home

And I just want to go back to it

And show you what the fuck I mean

When I say I’m scared, when I’m afraid, when I’m doubting

Every second every word every thought every move I make

But I do it anyway because I have to keep moving

And I have to take steps forward not back

And live in the moment

And live in the risks

Even though they scare me into feeling one hundred percent

Like I don’t know what the fuck I mean or what the fuck I want

But I can’t stop won’t stop shouldn’t ever take no for an answer

So here I am and here we are

It's me, unedited, unadulterated, uncovered.

And what the fuck else can I even say.

Mary is a somewhat recent college grad who still hasn't quite figured out where she wants to live or what she wants to do with her practically meaningless degree. She is currently settled in the cornfields of Northern Illinois and spends her time dreaming of a world where she could get paid to write and drink coffee all day.

Emily Idzior - Silver Lining

I could be anything the text could be anything could be everything and here is the text as everything:

I listen for clarity. Like a violincellopianoconductorsheetmusicflutetrumpet

Like a place where I can fall into loss and hold still.

I listen for the clarity or the clarity of a sound. Of the sound I am looking for the moment of clarity or a moment of aha.

Except that there is sometimes the moment of crickets under a clear sky full of stars
or moon. Or stars and moon. Or clouds and stars and moon. And crickets. And you and me and the thought of “where is the clarity in this?”

Sunday morning I am thinking of rain or piano pancakes or food. Clarity of some sort.

Please stay for the anything of the text or the anything of the anything. The stars are everything and anything and nothing and somehow there but not there in a few years or a few years ago they weren’t there but we still see them somehow. A thousand sunrises. A red sky. I can only see one thing at a time.

Emily Idzior is an aspiring poet and librarian who has to shush people poetically. She has a MA in salad making and wishes she loved tea without sugar but, alas, has a sweet tooth. She cannot quit waffles or coffee and writes in her personal blog once a year, http://ylimejane.blogspot.com/
Also she has a cat.

Malkah Duprix: Untitled

This bag of colorful fabric from the thrift store

It’s been crushed inside plastic and stapled in

Unfold it. Iron out the creases.

It could make something pretty or keep somebody warm.

Someone gave it away.

Big ideas maybe, plans for purses, bags, coats, aprons

A stuffed animal

A pillow case

A checkbook cover with elephants or birds.

Nothing came of it.

Maybe hands got tired

Mine do, from time to time

And in those times when grey pervades,

my hands have no purpose here.

But I can make things:

Unfold,

Regard.

Pair and match,

Stitch and clip.

Time is made of what we have on hand

I’ve got this bag of colorful fabric from the thrift store.

Open it. Let the colors out.

Marsi White: 3-Day in San Diego

Rain pouring down,
Feet never stop.
Except to nurse a blister.
A single step, a hop.

Pink all around,
Smiles unaware,
Of scars they are healing,
With passion and flair.

Hope is the wish,
3-days, 60-miles,
They keep going,
Steps constant, single file.

In memory signs,
Posted along the way,
Angels floating,
By will or skyway.

Sisters in hand,
Husbands, sons too,
Bras on the outside,
Tears there too.

Legs soar,
Eyes bright,
Friends wishing,
Encouraging the fight.

Thanksgiving to follow,
This glorious quest,
Blessings abound,
Maybe a seat empty, lest.

We bow heads,
As we say grace,
We remember the rain,
What sisters have faced.

Thankful, I am.
For all listed above.
For every step taken.
Every step full of love.

Marsi lives in San Diego, CA with her husband, two children and dog. A private foundation grants writer by trade, Marsi explores her creative side by contributing to Writing Writer Writest. She is a breast cancer survivor and keeps a blog of her journey, entitled Nip-It.

Steve Strong: A Change in the Weather

There’s a change in the weather. A bitter helplessness in me.
Life and love once in my grasp now drifting out to sea.
Attitudes once sunny now seem doomed to cloudy skies
And people you once trusted are now telling only lies.

You can’t understand the mind of people looking at their skin
And the treachery within a heart is hidden deep within
But comes racing to the surface to bear its wretched fangs
Destroying any innocent who trusts or loves the thing.

You can blame it on the weather – say these changes come with time
And like seasons change, so people too, naiveté is blind.
Warm breezes change to winter snow and icy winds that freeze
And hearts once filled with tenderness, now pain that has no ease.

Like children born with promise - a laughing smile upon their face
The winds of age have hardened them, and scowls now take their place
While simple joys that we all shared, of trips, and games, and love
Become nostalgic memories of a home that’s torn apart.

Children have better things to do than listen to old men
Besides, they say, they’ve heard it all, it’s just the same old vent
And like the fools who insist on learning from their own mistakes
They travel down those well-worn roads to the darkness that awaits.

And lovers too who pledge their love, their life and all they’ll be
Forget those vows and plans they made for all eternity
And chase the dream that can’t be reached or thirst that can’t be quenched
Because the answer lies within the home they’re looking past.

O tormented souls with wanderlust who search outside their vows
O children of a loving God, who push against their bonds
If you could view your future with the wisdom of the past
And understand that wickedness never was happiness.

Tie down your tents and hold on as the winds of change will blow
Pound deep your stakes and steel yourself from the icy wind and snow
Protect your little ones from howling monsters as they roar
And lock your home against the wolves that beat upon your door.

And hold on to the fragile string of love that holds us bound
Draw near to struggling lambs who are crying to be found
Though rain may sting and snow may blind, and feet may feel the frost
Gird up your strength; you’re needed now to gather in the lost.

Miss Mokes: Summer Vacation

Between the two of us
Summer and hope and grief and change
But fortune favors the brave:
We could meet, another place and time
We’re not as we once were

He is better than I remember.
Material form, smell and taste
Do not exist in digital, memory
His locksmith mind opens doors
I did not remember I had; where I’d left the tools for the windy shaking crush of This

Oh, but being good
Being vague
Being hollow for The Other One
Who is now just one
No-mind, no heart

We are as true as the lies we tell
We are as good as the blood we spill

When I finally see him, peeking from the cover of my hiding pillar,
I know that desire is the key to a longer life
Waiting weeksdayshoursminutes
wherein time is unglued
deconstructed
without its steam train rhythm
We both of us lived several years

See his face, touch his hands
Try to will ourselves into one
In the background, somewhere
Baggage
does a slow circuit
Lights flash
Alarms sound
But inside our small world: shaking, touching, imploding

An old man walks by, and is kind enough not to mention
The fog of desire that chokes us

Meg Wood: Close

First came Alexander.
I met him an hour after he met the world,
Red-faced and wailing.
I’d seen his foot on an ultrasound once;
The same foot now fluttering against my palm,
A lively miracle.

I was pushing him on a swing when his brother was born.
A warm spring day.
The next morning, we met Matthew together.
I cupped his head in my hands, breathed in his breath.
Xander covered him in stickers,
A prized possession.

My sister’s first took me whole, no surprise.
I spent a week with Luke just after his birth.
I held him for days, hips rocking as to a metronome,
Heart wobbling like sea legs on land.
Atoms, energies exchanged, traded,
A permanent bond.

Then came Sydney, first girl, last.
I kissed her toes the day we met (one hundred times, I counted).
I love you, I whispered. I’ll be here, I’m here.
We girls stick together. We ladies, we stay.
Shared gender, shared blood,
An immutable connection.

People ask if it’s hard not having my own.
It’s hard sometimes, I say.
There’s a loss there of dreams, grief for a plan, a falter in moving on.

Then Syd curls up in my lap, calls me “Grandpa,” falls asleep;
Luke’s face lights up when he sees mine, so happy he claps as he laughs;
Matt listens rapt, sometimes skipping a breath, as I read him adventurous tales;
Xander teaches me football, tries not to laugh, high-fives as I finally score.

Some days it’s hard, the ones I’m alone.
My pockets emptied of toys.
Most days, though, I marvel I’ve earned such a life:
A lap full of nieces, piggy backs with the boys, the sound of “Aunt Meg!” through a door.

Desert body, oasis heart:
A closeness of close-enough.

Meg Wood usually ends her poems with knock-knock jokes. You can read her opinions about books, films, and TV at http://megwood.wordpress.com, as well as her internationally revered (or reviled, depending on what she's said about Christian Bale that day) Boyfriend of the Week essays at http://megwood.com.