Compilation Poem for July 23, 2015

When I pass through the veil and leave these eyes and ears behind
what message do I hope to send to the world?
I have something to say about tomatoes and corn,
a cup of earl gray and ginger cookies,
a magic waxing and waning.
I imagine the image of two smooth bodies moving across a dance floor
Someday you will see me scaling a mountain in a tutu
but broken people are heavy and her love was not strong enough to hold on.
Although he wanted to scream he has no air to breath
her eyes were sad, like a New York hipster
a shift in stellar position
the best and only means is to be found in a poet's heart
allow your dreams
the government has decided to give each person 167 words to use per day
there are two sides to every story
love is a kick in the face
ordinary everyday touch became as longed for as a first kiss
one day you tease with thoughts that will never leave
when your heart brings you to the darkened door
you keep me locked away from going deep
you were meant to be a host for happiness not a servant for your fears
your light and life shine, spreading cheese happiness
I am afraid of the dark
I wonder what the snake thinks?
such are the fruits of curiosity and reason
these fill the space between neural stars
as I rise from my grave I can see the last hues of the setting sun
beckoning me into the night
like a leathery envelope of the past
spoken like a poem breathing in and out
I need your voice
there is more to this but books close mid-story for a good reason.
I still open your book and end with paper cuts.

Compiled by Laura Smith and Daniel Gladden

Compilation Poems for July 16, 2015 (Yes, That is Plural)

Another SFYS first: two compilation poems for one night!  Our compilation poet, Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen, compiled a found poem for the featured writers (Chadd VanZanten and Russ Beck) as well as for the open mic portion of the night.  Here are both poems!

Fish Lit

by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen

part i

You don’t even have to go outside.

The bank of a river, a creek in Montana;

I started hearing him everywhere.

Not completely out of thin air,

the old drunk told me about trout fishing

before he eventually killed himself.

Everything long and white, I behold Pittsburg for the first time—

bend a pin. Something about its motion was wrong,

changed a flight of stairs into a creek.

I remember mistaking an old woman

for a trout stream.

There’s always a festival and a photograph

of a pretty girl in a bathing suit—

huge-moving, child-eyes when the hammer clicked back.

It was kind of a friendly look.

part ii

Ten miles after Ketchum, where the good fishing was,

Deanna Durbin, the woman who travels with me,

put a blue rock in the pocket of Trout Fishing in America.

She needed money for something, and the Missouri was frozen over.

I had a childhood fancy—Hemingway and a dozen colored rocks.

The woman cooked all night, her menstrual cramps stone cold.

This went on for months, the menstrual cramps. Forgive me.

part iii

The higher the expectation for catching fish

—they are there.

Everyone has a secret spot, rituals, sacrifices.

The fly simply always produces the confidence in the secret,

and what is secret is sacred.

We hush up all that has to do with faith.

Belief conjures new strings of religion,

turns fishing into something I just can’t get behind.

Testimony orders the chaos,

like farting and tap dancing at the same time will produce a fish.

He’s never wrong and I’m an agnostic angler.

My back is sore from casting.

part iv

It’s a rare sensation,

where I want to end up all along.

___________________________________________________________________________

Prayer of Youth

by Bonnie Shiffler-Olsen 

Spoken like a god, I think I am young,

unsure why I am suddenly on two feet

—it’s probably my fault.

My girlfriend signed me up for this.

I have the emotional asshole of a kid trying not to stink,

a folding chair taking up space,

cupholders that can’t hold cups.

I wake up, in mourning,

missing the sacrament,

and fetal cells born on Easter Sunday.

There’s no one to note time of arrival,

to signal a long week repenting.

I don’t even feel bad.

It only takes one drop of gray to ruin absolutes.

I can run from the cops, from the popular

possession of a penis.

When the wind stops blowing,

my nips are hard companions,

poised like fat pipe bombs

—social misfits,

not in the same league as you.

I promise you lightyears sputtering into flames.

A thousand milliseconds that see us,

not as soul mates, as much a matter of completion,

the fleshy pink tongue

floating in the core of forever.

You weren’t the only thing making me happy.

My young self wore a black miniskirt to my baptism,

immersed in younger youth, but the city pond is empty.

I’m waking up vertical today, because you can’t

go long sleeping without commitment.

These sweaty palms won’t give in

to the scissors in the underwear drawer.

On my tongue bread and water,

sacrament, oral diarrhea.

I keep my damn mouth shut.

The only commitment I’m good at is to

Love and love more. Poems

will have to wait.

Compilation Poem for July 2, 2015

There was one rule in my past – don’t touch the mic

How do I capture this poetic moment
before the grass is sticky with fallen fruit
and the cupboard is left full of apple raspberry juice?
My bones shake like it’s the middle of December.
Zip up the green cape coat
across the existence of my earliest skin,
my feet naked in canvas shoes
against the dirt straw and twigs,
soaking into the wet grass, sound
waves rippling the air like water.

I can live in my own insanity.
You’d be surprised how many personalities I have.
It’s like a drinking game where everyone
is doing shots of adrenaline
and everybody tells us how fabulous we look.
I forget about tomorrow
and how it accused me of guessing wrong.
I keep writing over everything,
continuous as the stars that shine,
made from the sun, like Orion’s belt
hung on the west canyon rim,
like three diamonds, I thrive
with all those stars so strewn upon the road.
I emptied my pockets and gave
what was in them to a homeless man.

Compiled by Trish Hopkinson

Compilation Poem for July 9, 2015

You got to be something else to be a poet,
more like echoes than graffiti on freight cars.
I am a work in progress.
I want to forget my name,
looking for more than just a word.
If you're feeling financially reckless,
etch it into stone.
You need to inhale deeper,
This verbal trap of dread.
Let's all quit school and become poets,
because fixes aren't quick.
Everyone knows the stage is on fire,
as sure as fate.
There's plenty more of space/time to kill, and doesn't that sound like death?
We're all screwed.
I am not your cough syrup, and yet
I ironically caught the bride's bouquet.
The injuries are worth it.
Try lighting candles, I can't baptize myself
Running with bare feet, you will return to this:
a quiet orchestra of death.

Compiled by Tyler Clark