Image of E.

battered, bruised

used, overlooked

forgotten

 

poor yet rich in

faith unprotected

sex object in

the eyes of

bad and dark spirits,

bad and dark souls

 

innocent, saved, redeemed

in time

tired of working

for worth with (already)

a worthy name

 

short of being tall

obese yet healthy

enough to

 

survive, surmount, embrace

being troubled in

mind do

 

like to communicate

with only the truthful,

with only the wise;

 

a teacher, loyal friend

perplexing lover poised

in damaged purity…

 

Image of,

reflection of enmity

that keeps apart

two souls drawing near

E.

 

two shades of color

warming the

beauty of your

presence

 

a ray of sun-

lit sand

an island

who holds its miseries…

 

at a distance here

or far away

waiting, patiently

 

for sound to break

silence hitting

a sea called

lonely ears.

A heart

dying for hope

to have again

the true desire

of equal treasures

 

in a mirror of

equal measures

weighing you

into me

 

as an image

of we.

 

Leah James

 

Leah James is an emerging African-American writer of poetry who writes in combinations of English, French and Spanish. She is a Midwest native who writes with the flavor of Chicago, the syncopated smoothness of St. Louis and gravity of the deep south.

 

adrian ibarra

the Forgetting Look

This late in the year she’s coughing up a bed.

With a pair of scissors and a pen

she begins to lay the flowers out.

 

She opens her mouth and they fall

onto the pages of her book and she’s

started to hate them.

 

Volume after volume full and full of petal bits;

full of stem and seed.

But she can’t bring herself to lose them

nor can she help wish them away.

 

No matter how deep and black her longing is

or how vicious her words want to be

when she goes to speak them

they flock from her lips and flutter down.

 

‘Til they are saved-

crushed in the forever there of her book

(like a bible). Always to remind her

what weakness she is capable of.

 

shirt sleeves.

she goes on and buffs the bone-

how sinew is gold

and ribs pristine.

her temple-legs all adorned

she’s a flaming sword away

from making her point.

 

I’m more than happy down here-

pouring this stuff

down the hole.

my meat is murder and

the only thing hanging

in my halls is dust and noise.

 

she thinks these falling apart

skins are meant for honing and

keeping clean

 

I just want to sin some more

and pile on the dirt-

she won’t let me do the damage

 

adrian ibarra

 

Adrian was one of the last students to graduate from Cal State Los Angeles with a BA in Creative Writing; he took it as an omen. He wrote a poem a day, every day, in 2010. The finished project can be found at fulltimecowboy.blogspot.com.

No Poem

No thing.  No dream.

No soul toward

phosphorescence.

No burn.  No black.

No come.  No home.  No

yes, no. No do, undo.

No sky, holler, hug.

No blue.  No come back

as an ant or a king.  No hover

over the body until it’s time

to let go.  No know.

No now.

 

Whitney Hudak

 

Whitney Hudak holds an MFA from Bennington and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

The Density of Loss

And when it was over

I wondered how long

i would be immersed in that warm and familiar

feeling of loss. it seeps into me.

it never loses its density

can’t dilute it

even with the tears it sheds.

 

the tides come and go

and the moon and sun cycle in and out

but they come back

people and things frequently don’t. they go into a dust heap

of lost stuff some where out in the midwest, perhaps, or the other side of the world

 

they could also be right around the corner in full living color but i don’t see them

 

once i lost a brother for good

he went into an other life or world from this scarred one of wounded

and wounding people.

this foggy life this hazy world

the days and nights gray and black

 

i lost a cat

and then a school

and a piece of jewelry i loved a cottage where

i lulled in the summer’s sun in childhood

lost that too, two more cats

and now i’ve lost a house and another among the men, who’ve left or been taken

or been banished by my self

 

did anyone tell you that’s what life is a procession of losses and

jumping to stones in succession. don’t slip on that mossy one

or skip the shiny one

no telling what you’ll miss

or what will get broken or scraped or burnt or blistered, scarred by the scratch of a low hanging branch

what twigs or soggy weeds you’ll pick up

between your toes or around your neck, and you’ll have to carry them with you

 

the rest of the way.

 

Siobhan Hansen

Isabella

 

Isabella became Iiisssaaa, moments after she was born. Her older brother, Miguel Trubino was five years old and was unable to pronounce her name as he held her in his twig-like arms at the hospital after her birth. What seeped between his jagged teeth was Iiisssaaa!

Their mother, had only minutes before pushed her newborn daughter through the narrow opening of her vagina the way you would force a boiled egg, absent of it’s shell, into a long stemmed shot glass. As she sat, her back propped on flat hospital pillows, her legs stretched beneath the thin blanket, she smiled and said, “¿Iiisssaaa? Qué lindo nombre.”

Iiisssaaa became: Isabella Rosalinda Trubino, weighing 7 lbs, 6 oz, and 13 in.

Isabella would grow up with a preference for knitting rather than sports, reading over socializing, and wearing rainbow colored clothing as thought a bag of skittles had melted and amalgamated into the thread that wrapped itself around her petite body. She wore dresses that reached the cap of her knees and sweaters with pearl buttons. Her dark brown hair and she wore it parted at the center with two braids crowing the top of her head.

She would often hide underneath the kitchen table while her family watched television in the living room or during parties her mother would throw for her and her brother’s birthdays, graduations, or holidays. As everyone else was outside battling for first crack of the piñata or waiting for their slice of strawberry and chocolate cake, Isa was under the table, in her pastel pink dress with hot pink ruffles and purple polka dot socks, knitting or reading.

It was there, with her dark brown hair haloed above her head where she first parted her lips and began to talk to Refugio, her imaginary dog.

 

Ms. Guzman is a first generation Mexican American with a Bachelors of Arts in Fiction Writing at Columbia College in Chicago.

The Chumpion Of Lost Causes

Sharmila is so naïve

She can’t pick between prudence and courage

She flogs dead horses

She allows herself to be found traipsing through the tulips

She’s a slow unlearner

She loves her unteacher

She wants 364 unbirthdays

What she resists persists

She depotentiates herself, silly goose,

Until her soul screams,”STOP”

 

Sonali Gurpur

 

 

Sonali Gurpur writes poetry and fiction. Her poems were recently picked for the ‘Commended’ and ‘Highly Commended’ categories of the Margaret Reid Prize for Traditional Verse, and for the city wide reading at the Austin International Poetry Festival. Her short story “See With Your Eyes Not Just Your Heart” was finalist at Glimmertrain.

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