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