POETRY
“Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.” - Charles Bukowski
Untitled
by A.V.
They put me in a room full of curious eyes
Speak up, and curiosity becomes judgement
They put me in the front row, where eyes bored holes into my back
Speak up, and the holes will grow bigger
They put me beside someone I deemed untrustworthy
Speak up, and you’ll become an outcast
They put me in front of a crowd, even though they saw my nervous face
Speak up, and you’ll become a disappointment
They put me in a room to talk about how I felt
Speak up, and just pray they will understand
I put you in my head so that you can understand
What it’s like to live in fear and loathing
I put you in my head so that you can understand
To never put us in the spotlight, for our voices will tremble like our hands
I put you in my head so that you can understand
We don’t speak up, because our mouths force themselves to shut
Cosmetic Testing on animals By Tessa.C.
they test on animals because they’re like us,
they harm animals because they’re not us
the line between testing
and torture
is a tightrope
between morals
and money
thin
like a strand of frayed hair
the hair they shave off helpless animals
creating a canvas out of their red, raw skin
to paint on their poison
dead
like the millions of innocent animals they kill each year
souls so voiceless,
it’s like their mouths were sewn shut
sealed almost as tightly as our ignorant eyes
while the ones of bunnies blister and bleed red
everything is red
but the scientists must be colorblind
because everything is red
but all they see is green
how much is that doggie in the window?
By ella t.
How much is that doggie in the window?
The one with nobody to care
How much is that doggie in the window?
I do hope that doggie’s for sale
I want a little baby puppy
Not like that old one over there
I want one with a pure golden coat
Not like that mixed one over there
How much is that doggie in the window?
The one with a mother locked in a cage?
How much is that doggie in the window?
I do hope that doggie’s for sale
I want one that costs a fortune
Not like that free one over there
I want one who isn’t scared
Not like that one over there
How much is that doggie in the window?
Oh why is that doggie for sale?
Picture
By S.j.r.
It all started with a picture
But then there was the first comment
Which turned into a conversation
And everyone thought it was alright
But everyone couldn't see the faces behind the screens
Or the eyes that looked in the mirror at the end of the day
The eyes, now full of tears
And to think
It all started with a picture
the sponge forest
andrew kawam
A pellucid and crackling screen
Of ice
With a mammoth and fidgeting bulk
Encloses with its drifting, divided sheen
The sand
Speckled grey under the chilled water’s hulk,
Folds dormant like a vat of collective rice
Over the archaic land.
Suddenly from the calloused earth,
There thrusts
A cluster of stalks tinged green
With the texture of a gelatinous firth
Of lime
Dimpled with dark pores that preen,
With their canals cutting deep through unhindered flesh,
The water pulled into their bowls.
Each miniscule speck of life,
Each flake
As pale as the far-off sky,
Is escorted through a crystal portcullis rife
And alive
With the pounding of slick, sliding cells,
Some pouncing with tendrils dispended and flayed
On these lively stars of the connective waves –
On this plankton all bulbous and hived –
While others with sinewy tails, as glee
And as thin
As the mine between life and tough slime,
Beat their whips with laborious energy
While their heads
Are stuck tight to the oscillating mass and the grime
From the outside stick tight to the fins
Of their collars, the gates to harsh death.
All under the howling boreal wind,
The cold world’s gelid breath.
snails
andrew kawam
Sliding down botanical blades,
The orbs of fluorescent dew,
Glowing with the refracted rays of light
Piloted from cavernous space through
The drizzle remaining from the night,
Glister their omnipresent domes
On the feathers of filamentous moss,
Beating under spore-filled sepia aeries
Mounted on towers as finite as floss
Above liverworts’ flayed knees
On an amorphous roadway adhering
To the delicate skins of dark green –
A ribbon of pellucid mucus released
From the furrows of a foot contracting and keen
As the lifeblood that has never ceased –
A tank with a saturated skin
And a couple of recoiling dots
Set on top of a pair of translucent stalks
Unleashes a blade full of hooks, like ingots
Of silver, forming the swaying locks
Engulfing the unraveling glades
Of grass and of leaves succulent,
Flaunting their venous and moving cards
Giving off an aroma so inflorescent
Even when the light will sink and fade.
best friends forever?
bella crysler
​
Two girls crying on the corner,
Where what went wrong,
And what comes next,
Meet at a four way stop.
Next to the park they mixed love potions in,
And all the trees they climbed,
They sit vigil on the curb,
As the summer sunlight dies,
Listening to echoing memories,
Bouncing off stop signs,
Of their size four footsteps on the pavement,
Running home from monsters,
That didn't exist.
Now their tears splash the worn streets,
For the monsters they couldn't see coming,
And the everything they'll leave behind.
- Best friends forever?
venus' flower basket
andrew kawam
On the crumbling grains of a precipice –
A pedestal of dissociating dust
In a night sightlessly bespeckled by the flakes
Of marine snow harvested to combust
The enzymes in the ravenous cells that must
Extract succor while the bright world awakes –
Glinting out in a web of slick swords
Of white silica in crossing hatches,
Is a sponge like an artistic archer’s sack
Of arrows with solidified patches.
As the millions mouths stall, the dimmed matches
Conduct on their continuous train track
Paths of ecstatic, nearly weightless electrons
And rid the beast of the clogging muck.
Trapped by the neck of the flossy, polished glass
An entwined pair of crusty shrimp is stuck,
Eternally whisking away offspring with luck
That kneel through the instars that blossom and suck
In and out muscles circled tight as grass.
radiant
vanessa ippolito
the moon at a glow
radiance bestowing light
brightly blinding beauty
right then, she was happy
basking in the night air
without a breath of spell
lighting bugs arrive
bringing her much, much joy
welcome home, they murmur
bouncing off her skin
a luminosity inexplicable
fingers tickle with magic
sprinkled with delight
at once, she drops her cast
peace has reached her
Mince my words
by zineb nour
It’s that spot that I often run to.
That “already” home, that my mother meant to rent.
That key she had lent.
And while it’s a short trip,
with no glasses chipped,
nor chess pieces spent poorly,
my mother still locked the door.
Now this was apt, but my naivety found nothing
except fault and somber mistake.
This Hoax, this spot, that I would eagerly run to,
it’s just whimper filled shores, tinged with blue.
Just an “already” home.
And while my mother will gloat and speak with nothing but rancor.
(she would say there is no time to mince your words) and
my father will sit and say:
The time spent in this haze,
will still feel like days on the drive back in
our car remained becalm,
in the “already” streets of my “already” city,
a statement my brother should balk at.
But instead we sit silent, watching the moon set.
DEAR YOU
by vanessa ippolito & claire keenan
I love the way you never vacuum
I love the way you ignore my tattoo
I love the way you were late when meeting my parents
I love the way you're condescending
I love the way you answer the question "How was your day?"
"Fine"
I'll love the way your face will look after realizing what this all meant
I Love it when it rains
by Grace Macgarvie
I love it when it rains
Those are the days when everything quiets
There's no noise
No people
No static
Merely the sounds of pitter patter
The wind seems like it's gently sighing
And the rare whoosh of an approaching car
Seems to ease the world around
When the sun just can't peek through the clouds
It's almost a warm sort of grey
That makes you want to cuddle up
As you watch the fire
Glowing from ambers
It grows
The warm blues and yellows flicker
And the fire seems to dance
As you sip on a warm tea
Taking a deep breath
Steam with an infectious smell
Rush through your whole body
That fire makes you want to dance too
And the rain gives you a sort of glee
That air that it brings
Fresh and clean
Like the first bite of an apple picked straight from the tree
And all of the sudden you want to feel
The way you feel when you dance alone
And the world is silent around you
All there is is the softness of rain as splashes onto you
It's cold but not a bitter cold
You're moving so fast that the whole world stops
The rain it's falling in slow motion
Panting you can see your breath
The storm takes you whole
And you are soaking wet
Your shoes squish as you run back inside
Your wet hair whips you in the face
But you don't care because your hearts beating so loud
You can actually hear the thumping
Your blood being pumped through your whole body
Every sense is heightened
You feel so free
And it seems like you're the only person in the world
You love the rain
Those are the days when everything quiets
There's no noise
No people
No static
Merely the sounds of pitter patter
