POETRY
“Poetry is what happens when nothing else can.” - Charles Bukowski
Females
By: Anna Berglas
I see you framed in memory laced albums
Deep curls swaying to the tune of an imaginary breeze and a
Forgotten joke balanced on your lips that
Splits the mountains behind you
Your tenacious figure
Brave and bold against the cliffs
Those photos are dusting now
Decaying in our bookshelf
The irreversibility of decades
Lost to domestication.
I never knew you as the fire starter and heroine
Just as mother
Soft and muted, by
Marriage and children
Unborn potential a whisper on her lips
A bedtime story of when
Mummy travelled the world
Why do you pretend to enjoy making meals and laundry
Can’t you see we’re watching?
Why do you need to sacrifice your identity to be a mother?
You lost your career to me
Your strength to dad-
Is this love?
Sacrifice?
Am I expected to do the same?
And So It Goes
By: Anna Berglas
And So It Goes
By: Anna Berglas
My friend flounders in class
Birthmarks stain her papers and sap into those
Melting eyes like
Summer popsicles that never stained her lips
Teachers can sniff out the
Irreplaceable absence of
Day-trips to dinosaur bones rotting in their cases and
Clumsy bedtime stories drawn up by drug-addict writers and
Stuffed up car-trips into the sun-glare of oblivion, past the
Beggars stuck on their
Street corner
Other children would stare blankly at littered humans but my
Melting eye girl knows too well. And so
Chalky, pastel innocence is lost to instability
When I’m feeling cynical a mirage floats on my road-trip pavement
Lawyer, accountant, doctor, two children, three children, red fish, blue fish
Potential waits for me to step into business shoes
Meanwhile
Melting-eye girl will stare at me from underneath a street corner and
I won’t even notice
To Dive Into a Book
By: Tess Martin
Don’t ask me what I’m doing, ask me where I’m going
On an adventure into a book, my excitement is overflowing.
To read a book is to dive into the depths of the darkest ocean
Chaotic, navigating, flailing around in slow motion.
To read a book is to soar in the blue skies above
Flying high over worry, chores, and excess love.
To read a book is to jump and land in the grass
Soft, comforting, feeling at home at last.
If you have some spare time, I encourage you to look.
Get cozy, drink tea, and dive into a book!