Compilation Poem for December 17, 2015

It’s going nowhere right now, and I don’t know where it’s supposed to go 

You in the depths of heaven and the eagle in power,
She sat down in the water, gasping at the wet on her skin —
and I only wish the heavens saw your beauty as we did,
a glint of golden light upon a tress

I created a found poem from things said at her funeral
That’s when I noticed the bright pink shoe peeking out from behind the bushes
Brother and sister Coyote, I basically embodied detachment
A trail led up the hill to stone steps, which she had not noticed before
Welcome, young wanderer
she jumped in the lake to sail with a drake
What does love look like? Long drives with no destination
kitty is a week’s holiday

I lied to you because kissing you was never an impulse:
a poisonous kiss — your voice is now a cutting violence
by memorizing and reciting “a drake is a male duck”

The thing about lemons is that they’re sour,
the venom of a hundred years rising like sap —
deep into damp furrows forgotten;
skies swirl and arc over a tombstone tree

We’re going to have a slam and the winner gets a pastry of her choice

Compiled by Dennis Clark

Compilation Poem for November 12, 2015

They wish to remember it all at once
I hate this poem. I hope it's the only time I recite it.
He was my north, my south, my east, my west
He was a poet that liked to vomit into grand pianos
then digested all my brains
one more strike and he'd be dead
our mountain home so dear
so be it when I grow old, dear tampon,
a spectre searching for souls to keep
a summer sound in a summer without end
in an unknown alphabet.

Compiled by Marianne Hales Harding

Compilation Poem for November 5, 2015

You are always going to have fun. Remember that.

Twisted rope of day

Swan beaks on chest of drawers

Box of Umbrellas.

When you are gone,

toiling and tiling the bathroom.

This is my song,My song in Hollywood.

I might be weird but... no you get to live your life around me!

Hard act to follow, long dead monkey head.

Intense geometry, dance of geometry.

Tiny voices,

Tiny voices: 

Wibble wable weeble a;lskdjf sa;l dflksajf sdlf;j asdflkj....

Servant girl to the connection. 

Servant girl to the world wide web.

Wise man knows this is a stencil.

Mix gene pool.

Next big thing- you have no value.

Detective for the wrong reasons.

Take the Snake.

Order is good.

Follow surf line, feel seaweed.

One must be careful. Why? Because experience teaches me how vulnerable I am. 

Which patterns should or shouldn't I wear?

Taught myself.

Cold shell.

Lungs work against me-

Try to understand-

It's chill... It's chill. 

Washing fingerprints from walls. 

Not one to slump under sentimentality. 

Favorite dress with flats that match.

Smooth hair for shine.

Irregular flickers.

Knee deep in,

church bells....

I evaporate.

Be There.

Untitled now.

Sometimes I cry.

Come up short.

Too many actors are unemployed.

Self Image out of focus-

Burn it all!

Don't have a lot of learnin... I Do! I'm Smart!

You have to improve on the blank page,

And God says Yes, Yes, Yes!

Maze of tiny streets.

Lost without a navigator.

Deeper and Deeper in foreign territory,

But in the same church yard.

I want to...

I want to...

I want to...

There's an ocean of life in front of me.

Less awkwardly.

Sing to sleep not concert halls.

Songs save my heart and brain.

Song means I have something more to give.

Play me to be your friend.

Brain is running a marathon.

In 2,3,4, Out 6,7,8.

Everything is Fine. Everything is Fine! 

Broken, broken, broken.

I don't have anything but frogs, but not enough frogs.

Why do we try so hard when this will end.

It doesn't matter if we win or loose.

Foot prints fade.

Take the challenge of Life.

You. Are. Beautiful.

Strive to be the best version of you.

I don't think it does. Funny story.

Ones you love drifting.

Chasing was too much.

Forget.

Fall out.

Over.

No confusion.

Compiled (and sung) by Elisa Black

Compilation Poem for October 15, 2015

Holy Lists of Home

for viewing assassinations in real time

before your very eyes

deep, dark like the ocean

nature's split book of erosion

through their own ever changing faces

found on aisle 9

we don't live anywhere near London

sometimes I cry my way through it

just a dream

I will still throw you a rope

Dennis, can you hear me?

he sacrificed the sacred

holy, holy, holy

magicians and black and white television shows

I lost a little bit of my blood and my dignity

and you said it was a blow to your ego

it felt odd to completely re-brand myself

breakups fucking suck

it kept me from seeing

stereoscopically

smoking out of that damn bong

before she started to swim upside down

perceive the world psychedelically

that was my first mistake

I had that dream about you again

I am somewhere you can't see me

I feel I should explain to you first

we will call that holy

because beauty was only in my dreams

the devil knew my name

in a place called Jackass Flats

slit by the peaks that shadow the valley

stripped of petals, deflowered

to find the same face, ever watching

with wings that never folded

so the applause continues

not silky pole dancers

my home is here with this mic

totally

just another day at the beach

always know your vehicles clearance

you miss meteors

in a gulf of emotions

Compiled by Father Sluggo

SFYS is Growing! Join us!

SFYS has reached the point where it can no longer be a one-man-band organization and I invite you all to share a bit of your time and skills to help this community keep growing and being a resource to Utah County writers.

If we all do what we can, this big job is very doable.  What I am asking is that we each look to see what interests us and what is within our skill set and commit to that area of interest as a part of the administration of Speak For Yourself Open Mic.

For example, being on the host/MC schedule generally means committing to attend one Thursday a month (the commitment will be less as more hosts sign up).

Another opportunity is to write articles or submit creative work for the blog and/or help recruit others to do the same (and format and post the content).

Another opportunity is to regularly update the SFYS Instagram.

Another opportunity is to research free advertising opportunities and pursue them (for example, we are on many of the local online event pages but not all of them and the listings do expire eventually and need to be updated).

Another opportunity is to coordinate educational outreach with Utah County Schools or other arts organizations.

Another opportunity is to recruit features and/or make fliers.

Admin opportunities can be found at the SFYS Open Mic Admin group page, which is a public discussion page on Facebook.  Anyone can post ideas for how to help SFYS grow and if a posted opportunity is something you can take on, reply to the thread.  I look forward to working with you!  You are wonderful writers and I feel tremendously lucky to be a part of this writing community.

SFYS Open Mic Admin Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/591146174317440/

Compilation Poem for October 8, 2015

Pink petals mix with cloudy debris
Waves crashing, kissing the shore
Naked feet in straw sandals
I can feel the surf swirling around my ankles
Forget me not, the night says as it slips behind the moon
Be still, be quiet
A whimper disturbs the air
Paralyzed vocal cords
A sorrow so deep, you're left unable to breathe
The once one are now two
A constant mystery: you.
I never told you my wishes because each one was a prayer
I expect too much by expecting anything at all
I've wasted talents and abused love
And I fall and I fall until I hit rock bottom
Finishing the road that is never ending
Let us suppose there is no afterlife
In blank ink, my love shall still shine bright
And the only light to show it was from a lamp post and the last light from the west.

Compiled by Sarah Dutton

Compilation Poem for October 1, 2015

A poem for my Daughter

40 years past it's prime.

These lips read truth,

the noise that is not you.

 

Did you, brother, become the widow's son?

The text of your next tattoo?

Completely lost, a near miss,

dear Daughter, your secrets are safe with me.

 

What are you counting on your fingers,

dear Ishtar?  I hate being sick, nostalgia,

waves of the past.

With fiends like these, who needs friends?

 

A river of steel, of molten lead, and you,

you are just a drop!

Oh Hush October, shadow of

events to come.

An imperfect curl, where society works

a broken ankle, when the melody gives way.

A sacrifice to the Beast!

When darker thoughts arise.

 

Hearts desires, gaps, holes,

things we want to say.

When the tea kettle whistles-

I just miss you.

Compiled by Paul Francis

Compilation Poem for September 24, 2015

I can't see myself in the reflection of
the perforations in your skin where it might tear
the stars float above you looking like food
Everything is overrated to them and that's sad to me
we dragons dance with our shoes off
I want to kiss your temples and arches of your feet
you feel bad for him because he just wanted his wife back
to go from oblivious in bliss you have to keep sinking
Behind my psychedelic heat exhaustions
It's taxing to feel so all alone
4 o'clock and it is a lone color in the city
the sky turned itself blue from holding its breath
I'd rather be at home, the silent street listening
I blink my eye and hope that you will see me
A solitary heart attached to other hearts by strings
trying to tuck itself in for the night
her toes and knees urging a ghastly dare
kiss me you big hairy hulk
wear and tear, my hands and my feet
first find your ocean
Be the pressure from all directions
The subtle breeze from the lake
Becoming piercingly detached as you step over every grave
In your own two hands
a dolphin in the ocean of my dream
She was actually very clever
He asks me, "don't you believe in serendipity?"
At least we settled into the normalcy of long term friendship
My god's still out there
Whisper my name like salt
these tears drive spare wheels
I sew my eyes wide open
I guess some clocks have delicate faces
But maybe you blink when someone you love claps their hands in your face
The Phoenix begins to burn and burn slowly

Compiled by Beckafer de Faux

Compilation Poem for September 17, 2015

I forgot why I did this. It won't change how fast the hands move.  If the world would just end when it ends and kindly exit the stage after delivering its final line, but this is not so. You will get hurt with all that love lying around. I think I'll get a little high and hide beneath hoods, meditating and marching, seeking deeper connections between anyone, anything, everything, seeing you still as projections onto the silver screens of my eyes. If I were young I'd call this fate your hands long embracing. But your mumbling mocks my mortified memory and I live in lost lies.

She emerged in froth and foam sitting on the beach, chin on knees because it was too long to be away from home wanting nothing more than to hold him in the stillness of 4 am, lying on the cheap and worn carpet of his living room, but it would cost her quadrillions all the heavens that weep, lying in rubble.

The snow slowed all the world, silencing quiet. And the kindred bones, they ached. And they moaned.

Compiled by Devin

Compilation Poem for September 10, 2015

Fourteen years ago today
“He loved my poetry, until he knew it was about him”

She’s swaddled in my favorite color
and all the props of poetic legend —
every country has its crying tale
and rather less than half of that behind.
I never knew you — a penance for your shame.
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

I try not to look too crazy —
I exist only as a melancholy fabrication
smoking a joint on the streets of Vancouver,
a being in possession of her own heart
[unwritten line] —
nights we are hemmed to dreams.

Most birds fly at 30 miles per hour,
far from me {if you knew} — wouldn’t a fly-swatter be easier?
Eeverything burns, stubble to ash for the planting.
Love falls to the floor, threadbare and faded.
Am I a sentient being, or a fetish?
Every time my grass flames, it curls around the shadows.

It lit us from the left as we crossed the Hickman Bridge.
A deer for a pet — oh, a deer for a pet —
This is not my opinion — this is just a poem.
Who calls the bottle into question?  Ghost witch?
I’ll never let you abandon your mouth with teeth —
when there is no sound, we have the most to say.

I am a book that has been printed backwards.

Compiled by Dennis Clark

Compilation Poem for August 27, 2015

Beautiful pink clipboard
totally uncensored
this was the poem that
turned me on
the flowers were beginning to look up
children in the morning looked at exciting picture
gush forth waters of the pond
smelling hot in the sunlight

"It's been a few months since I've been here
but lets just get into it."
muscle tendon flesh soul expand

these are not usually the poems you
read on the first date
a crush not being returned, I want him
leave me once again undone
this one started out as the first three lines
focused on her exposed by lust
salty and semi-sweet menu
bitter fruit I used to like, but no longer taste
go on an ice cream diet and dream
of a better tomorrow

You should read them in French and Spanish
they sound better, a god overcomes me
love is without reason
I do not love you and I love you.
I do not love you yet
exiled from paradise

Broken hearted this world makes us
naked found him, one special light
waiting for someone to find them
they don't even know it's pointless
a couple waiting far behind
cause now they're really scared

"I'm ashamed of myself, so ashamed, shocking."
Structure is hard
"It is easier for me."
He seemed like a good guy, waiting for a light
to shine through
sitting a religious theology, taking a more academic approach
chews at obedience like a leather strap
Oh I've grown so cold in this thirsty maze
"Lord bid me sing!"

I'm reading old stuff.
It's a rerun
blue day dream
the sound of a falling tree
we all got a secret side
it's even stranger underneath
same as a curse
memories are a season
cry, cry baby, cry, come on baby

a silhouette across a distant sun
oblivious of engulfing dusk
a wild and burning desire
relentless hunger, savage indifferent
contemptuous hunger, groan
starved

I guess that's tall enough, right? Right? Riiiiight?
The bones bending and breaking...
"Death wasn't the black and white devil--
you were."
If it goes somewhere, we all had a hand in it.

Improvements after improvements
not a single soul for us to cling to
a line of flatline soldiers
a wild black widow

"I can't sleep. You're tugging
the words coming so fiercely."
I thought I was a pacifist
a little more delicate each time
to the one who got away
like day old newspapers.
They become ragged in the wind.

I was told the theme was treats
chocolate chocolate, no, no, no, goodbye
It's a game of block worlds
this is what a creeper looks like.
Bring your words and begin to shout
it is only the box I work in that pays
the rent, the concrete hell
I feel alone

Seventy
I'm crunching number,
venom smells like loss,
transcribe my thoughts
tracks of my cheaper thrills
music of miles they gripped
the rush of escaping
rising to rest in the sun

Can everyone just close their eyes
and not look at me?
Wave his last goodbye, I've never been in love
why is it the dream I long for
when there is nothing to run to

If I die today?
We cried....I sat back
stories in everyone's eyes
when loneliness became her best friend.
It's in my hands and in my feet.
I grind my teeth to dust
and it feels a lot like jello.
I'm sick of pretenders winning
lies bringing tears to eyes.
I want to love someone real
reality the crutch

My power-ranger night light shines bright
I get nervous around pretty
girls. I dream that I'll be
great one day.
Weird, stupid I want to be myself
reach further than the farthest star
leave the crutches
JUST DO IT!
Dare to be or not to be
Reality!
The crutch

Compiled by Brantz Woolsey and Rachel Oaks

Featured Writer for August 6, 2015: Dennis Clark

I first met Dennis when SFYS regular Colin Douglas recruited him to come read at the open mic and hopefully agree to be a featured writer.  In my capacity as a reader of LDS poets and as a member of the Association for Mormon Letters List (back when email lists were all the rage) I had seen some of his work and was excited to hear more.  Well, not only did Dennis agree to be a feature, he has become a regular fixture on Thursday nights in general.  Would that all of our features became regulars!  I love it!  Dennis read about 40 minutes of original work and then fielded questions from the writing community.  Thanks for your work, Dennis, and for your generosity in this growing community of writers.

Featured Writers/Artists: Chadd VanZanten, Russ Beck, and Tim King July 16, 2015

On July 16th we had the great pleasure of hosting Chadd VanZanten, Russ Beck, and Tim King in an SFYS first (quite possibly a Utah County first): the combination of creative writing and interpretive fly tying. Yes, you read that right.  Not only did we enjoy hearing excerpts from a wonderful prose book (On Fly Fishing the Northwest Rockies: Essays and Dubious Advice), we also learned a little more about tying flies (and some of us took home a colorful souvenir).  The best part was that it wasn't just a gimmick; it was a strong part of the whole experience.  I loved hearing why Tim chose each particular fly to complement the essay about to be read. The essays read were delightful and so engaging.  We hope to hear from Russ and Chadd in the future too.

Compilation Poem August 6, 2015

I'm going to start with the sad one and go from there

I wrote this poem to explain to myself the past pickled here

What I have done here is to slavishly steal his idea

Just think of it as a dispatch from the rabbit hole

Last night I saw the sun rise red

It glittered something fierce

Your prints are everywhere

As long as you don't say a word to me

a dream of love is all you'll be

I can't see why you're here at all

I listen to those lies they tell

Sometimes I contemplate gouging out my own ears

Everything you said is still running through my head

so that's that

I love you is just a statement I let slip

The first dead person I saw crushed him deep in the dust

Too much boy and not enough frog

At least frogs know what to do with their tongues

Is that all I can do? Is that a crutch?

Living afraid is better than dying

We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers

He's yelling in a hushed tone

When did living become a word on a checklist?

Nothing's making sense

We seem to have twice as many words

I've taken one too many drinks and my mind turns off

Forgetting that reading isn't always taking

I'm like really hard on myself as a writer

and anyone else I've forgotten to attack

I only go where the wind takes me

A lot of my poems come from forcing meaning onto everyday things

I'm trying to be responsible

A pseudo-poet in velveteen trousers 

This is my demon

My purpose is to follow my dreams in my bare feet

Tears for your face while it thaws.

Compiled by Marianne Hales Harding

Compilation Poem for July 30, 2015: A Jessica Love Fest

Compilation Poem: A Jessica Love Fest

Compiled by Alyssa Wolf

Super Kickass Poem for Friends and Lovers (AKA I think its good; that's why I want to read it)

Last night at a checkstand 

Jacob came in late and

I'm looking at the price of cabbage

He asks me, "Don't you believe in serendipity?"

He didn't want to miss anything, but he missed so much.

can't go home anymore, wherever that is, or ever was,

I want to touch your soul

flammable like a dry savanna

a wildfire

Like a lighter touches paper

A few minutes later it burns out and you laugh

I stand, then sit

the words are orbiting me, just out of reach and out of order

it all feels like rotating

rewind, rewind, rewind

 I must breathe and take a vow of silence

because I failed kindergarten

I'm always the last to know

I have already had too many takers

Be normal!

Let your bald head show

My scrambled egg words come from a mind

that breaks down life into greasy fries

like a paranoid meth head with bottled-up emotion

my scrambled egg words come from a mind

bound to embrace the storm or die

I can't get the words beyond the roof

I drip down off the ceiling of my own mind

my bones are breaking

the struggle of breathing

Can't get my prayers up to heaven

even those with a stutter can sing

I think I know what I'm saying

"Sorry, man, my dad's chicken farm is up the mountain"

when I wake the metaphors work

Maybe I am because I think . . .

We should have been cooking

In the heat of Milwaukee, Cream City

breath in the clouds, feet in the ground

But one sacred jar of plums in raspberry sauce left in the pantry. 

it's not enough. It never was

There are moments when I  beg to dance

a never-ending dance

with room to make mistakes

my feet are planted in two separate places

I'm split down the center

and sometimes anxiety is my dance partner

high above a gravel path

He's passive aggressive tomorrow

Rushing into the world when least expected

with no one to note the time of arrival

I can feel the surf swirling around my ankles  

a  large predator chasing prey

one must be careful about this wildness

I'm scared I'm gonna mess this up; I'm scared of YOU.  

My courage is not a wild dog with yellow eyes--it won't just come

through the marrow in my bones

when I call it

Revelation writing

I will bear the weight like a verse

push the winding roads into the sea

You have to be pretty late to miss the sacrament

a relationship with God

I'm sick of falling in line

missing the sacrament means a total breakdown

of the morning/the mother

A long week of repenting

my imperfections, my scars

my body, this holy ground

an open book in the hands of my maker

Maybe God knows how to be a friend better than I do

He moves through time like my life is a room

God can straighten the furniture no matter how many times I knock it down.

This is me, overcalculating EVERYTHING

But really, I just can't waste any more time . . .

Like a lighter touches paper

Leave no indelible thing behind you

no concrete slab to sweep

You will be the hope I thought you'd be

to slide and glide and qualify

 I hope you remember my name

because if you don't, who will?

And where the kites fly

I'll invite you for a cup of chai

bonded molecules

savoring the moment

sitting cross-legged for as long as we can

I hope you remember my name

in the palm of your hand

because wherever I'm going, I'm already home.

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

Featured Writer J. Scott Bronson, June 11 2015

We tried a new format for our featured writer in June and it went really well!  J. Scott Bronson, local playwright and novelist, shared his work at three points during the open mic and then followed up with a brief question and answer session.  First, Scott and Kat (yes, that Kat: our server extraordinaire!) read a short play about a husband and a wife who can't quite get rid of the goldfish centerpieces from the wedding.  The second installment was an excerpt from a soon-to-be-published novel and the third installment was an excerpt from an engaging young adult novel about shape shifters.  Most of our featured writers have been poets so it was fun to hear from a prose writer.  Best of all, we got to pick his brain about all things writerly. Hopefully we'll have Scott back on occasion to share more of his work!

 Scott and Kat!

Compilation Poem for June 18, 2015

(apologies for the mangled lines)

Empty pockets filled her hands
as she searched the curve of her soul
and braced herself for alteration
in this paradise of seer and sage
Almost like another dead man
she wanted to sound
like but never to be like
She felt for the pulse on her neck
wanting to say any word but the end
Nearly a woman, she is just beginning
She waited for God to tell her she can fly
Her pulse fluttered under her fingers like a rare bird
at 3 am on a random Monday
she's awesome enough to be both of us
That's what I heard
Her body is not a metaphor
Her miniskirt was on clearance but she isn't
Don't let them see how you coped
Scars are memories of what you survived
Shallow wounds in each other's skin that never healed
There is no beauty she can't dance with
That she may thrive in an earth not made for her
She wanders and remembers that now she is free
She brought her hand to her jugular vein to see if she was still there
The water flowed like pink lemonade around her shoes
If you read and listen
this poem is rated R
she personifies lies
she's been sneaking into poetry lately
inhale exhale inhale stop
Having writer's block is like dying
(winky face)
Another object in my platonic love affair
they never ask.

Compiled by Marianne Hales Harding from the performances of the Speak For Yourself writers