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