By Faith Brammer When I have fears that I may cease to be    Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,    Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain; When I behold, upon the nightâs starred face,    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace    Their shadows with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,    That I shall never look…
By Ash Moen Sometimes a writer will write a story or poem and to them it is fairly simple and straightforward. They donât think much into it. But oftentimes there are underlying meanings we weave into our words unintentionally. Thus, different readers can interpret the work in different ways and find all sorts of hidden meanings that the writer did not intend. It is an amazing part of poetry and writing–the ability to find new meanings in stories and poems….
By Halima Elmajdoubi Even before I learned how to read, I was an avid lover of story. Some of my earliest memories involve being lulled to sleep by books, planting in me an early passion for the written word that has only grown stronger over time. However, while I have always loved to read, there is an undeniable line drawn for me at poetry. Donât get me wrong, it isnât as though I dislike all poetry. On the contrary, Iâve been…
By Isabela Bernstein I am very bothered when I think of the bad things I have done in my life. Not least that time in the chemistry lab when I held a pair of scissors by the blades and played the handles in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner; then called your name, and handed them over. O the unrivalled stench of branded skin as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in, then couldn’t shake off the…
By Erin Ross âLoveâs As Warm As Tearsâ Loveâs as warm as tears, Love is tears: Pressure within the brain, Tension at the throat, Deluge, weeks of rain, Haystacks afloat Featureless seas between Hedges, where once was green. Loveâs as fierce as fire, Love is fire: All-sorts-Infernal heat Clinkered with greed and pride, Lyric desire, sharp-sweet, Laughing, even when denied, And that empyreal flame Whence all loves came. Loveâs as fresh as spring, Love is spring: Bird-song in the air,…
By Ethan Brooker “Bar Napkin Sonnet #11” Things happen when you drink too much mescal. One night, with not enough food in my belly, he kept on buying. Â Iâm a girl whoâll fall damn near in love with gratitude and, well, he was hot and generous and so the least that I could do was let him kiss me, hard and soft and any way you want it, beast and beauty, lime and saltâsweet Bacchusâ pardsâ and when his…
By Miranda Miller somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose or if your wish be to close me,i and my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly, as when…
By Kasey Ackert “The Chimney Sweeper” When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry ” ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!” So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved, so I said, “Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white…
By Denis Harkin “First Poem for You” I like to touch your tattoos in complete darkness, when I canât see them. Iâm sure of where they are, know by heart the neat lines of lightning pulsing just above your nipple, can find, as if by instinct, the blue swirls of water on your shoulder where a serpent twists, facing a dragon. When I pull you to me, taking you until weâre spent and quiet on the sheets, I love to…
By Alan Cohn “The Dark Prophecy” The words that memory wrought are set to fire, Ere new moon rises o’er the Devil’s Mount. The changeling lord shall face a challenge dire, Till bodies fill the Tiber beyond count. Yet southward now the sun must trace its course, Through mazes dark to lands of scorching death To find the master of the swift white horse And wrest from him the crossword speaker’s breath. To westward palace must the Lester go; Demeter’s…