Tag: Poetry

From Vol. 9: “Shame (A Spell to Forget),” poetry by Charlotte Covey

This is a darker magic.This is crawling through his door at four a.m. and begginghim to take a bite. This is slipping between lucid and not, hoping he will finishme off. Somewhere, idly, I am thinkingI don’t even like him. Somewhere, not here, that matters. Somewhere, you arefalling asleep soundly, while he is taking offmy…
From Vol. 9: “Statement of Purpose,” a poem by Nicholas Bon

It’s important for you to know that I’m a fucking mess, that so often the drummer in the corner is too loud for this polite conversation. There are people, even now, asking me what I can bring to the feast. I left my hands at home & can’t get my shit together. How…
From Vol. 9: Four Poems by Emily Blair

An IUD Is a Silver Bullet That Could Kill Me so I’m not taking recommendations at this time.Instead this body is as this body doessmoke sometimes. I quit and quit quitting. In the dark of a power outage,I live alone and lie awake in the silence of a thousand people panickinginside our little homes, 5…
Two Poems from The Future: Jessica Morey-Collins

The Day We Learned Most of us immediately pulled off our shoes and popped our shirt-buttons, released the thunder of our hearts to quarrel with the administration. The teenagers who found it had been up to teenage no-good—pushing each other in a stolen shopping cart, gulping begged beer and whooping through the sidewalked night. They…
Three Poems from The Future: Caely McHale

Mona Lisa My hands are the last human thing about me.I keep my fingernails pink.I arrange them soft like the Mona Lisa. I imagine delivering a baby, scaled and cold.Scoop the mucus from his throat!My hands are the last human thing about me. My brother’s hands have gone to shit,Dark and spotted from a magnified…
Poem for Flavor Town USA: “Testimony (Toward JELL-O® Cake)” by Avery Gregurich

I am reminded of birth by JELL-O®. My mom kept the couponed color, no matter near or far, each cake a sponge cherry-red with memory—the question persisting: should I be outside? How I have lived! Have lived amongst the stars at the drive-in movie, and here as well. I honest to God thought that Springsteen…
Bad Survivalist: Three Poems by Emily Pinkerton

Go Like This Write in front of mirrors. Talk to yourselfin the bathroom. Spend late nights alone.Wake early, follow the sun. Tread carefully.Forgive with a watchful eye and an ear to the ground. Emergency Control in case I emergency. I handleas indicated. I open. Door turnsand I emergency. I plan. Responseincoming. In case I need.…
“This Sultry Thing Called Home,” a Bad Survivalist Poem by Dhwanee Goyal

Loosely after Katia Krafft, a French volcanologist. Also somewhat inspired by John Ashbery. There were no landscapes where I lived, only water, its animals. Still, my father used to come home with fire burning the ends of his moustache. You know the story of birth: how woman meets woman, shrieks for every tragedy that could…
Side A: “Taxonomy of Amnesia,” a poem by Tam Nguyen

Taxonomy of Amnesia I swear I’d trade my body to remember and instantly regret it. Ma and Ba—children of sweat-glazed faces, too-short ribs. Their spines the bridges connecting no worlds. Am I your son at all?The answer a teethmark left on a just-ripened bomb. Anywhere on earth my body will be hijacked by explosions, even…