Winter Poems 2017

 

Humming at the riverside, city across the waves hanging low

Lights stabbing across the thrashing water to slip shadows under our feet

Where they, teacher-eyed, observe our dancing and stalk us

 

We cause sand to leap out the way, feet stomping manic

To the intense chorus of acutely heated wind down wine bottles

 

Smoke couldn’t keep up with us all night and so wanders home

Some bearing a distinct scent that sends trees tutting

Ash diving to the sand where it rests, unfolding into nothing

 

Bodies sprawl on rocks and sand and blankets, floating

Burning so vital, those webs of pounding flesh and sounding veins

Throbbing, afraid of skin that might scorch them, but adventurous

 

Those ungifted with a human crutch wobble on,

Sticking to the corners in defensive huddles, cackling

Arms building platonic shields to avoid repeated scars

 

Moon attacks with full frontal nudity, no clouds-modesty is dull

As stars hang back at the dancefloor’s edge, drinks sipped tenderly

 

Humming at the riverside, we beat a clunky tune into the ugly hours

We are a nuisance, attacking the sea as it tosses and turns, trying to sleep

But summer brims over and we are sipping from the cup

Which floods so sticky onto our vibrant skin

 

 

Peter Beattie also goes by Moth, a product of their gender identity crisis. Crises, usually self-caused, are a recurring theme in their life and work, of which this is the first published example.

 

Almost 20,

Baking pasta into

Zucchini

Gracefully

Moves through the kitchen, a bird

Of glasses and spoons

 

Newly 16,

Helping her wash the

Silverware

Carefully

Stands at the sink, a cricket

Of dreams and questions

 

I have these

Thoughts-unfathomable

In this kitchen

(It’ll be okay)

You’ve seen the world and I-well

I’ve seen Hamilton

You’ve never

Minded naivete

Wondering

Anything

I wear like blazers. I have

Always been your child.

 

Moira Armstrong is a junior at Howland High School, where she enjoys stressing over honors classes and extracurriculars. Her favorite is the speech and debate team, where she competes in original oratory and serves as president. In her very limited free time, she likes to volunteer, color, and, of course, write. Her work has also been published in the Power of the Pen Book of Winners and Creative Communications Poetry Collection.

Ruckkehrunruhe

 

I forgot

how the hot, sticky wind of

a hundred passing metro buses and jeepneys

felt on the shins–

the pleasant aching of feet

at the edge of a crosswalk–

when my legs were swept up

by the velvet lining

of a living room recliner.

 

I lost

the New Orleans roar–

the steam of a fresh jambalaya

and greasy oyster po’boys–

caught in the fibers of a shirt

when I stuck it in the washer

with a cup of

mountain fresh

 

And all the morsels of

the world I’ve captured in

a photograph

fade each time

I scroll past it in a

two-thousand memory

digital photo album

 

ruckkenrunruhe-  n. the feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness

 

 

 

Monachopsis

 

The garden holds like

the surface of water

until the gate swings open

and I,

with the careful smack of

yellow flip flops against

stepping stones,

arrive in New Gethsemane

 

But the crabapple tree

whispers to the bitter gourd

the mustard greens

the cherry tomatoes

the chickweeds

and with a thin, spotted finger

points

 

I cannot be the ant

on the ochre fence

with them–

only a thoroughbred

among them

 

monachopsis- n. the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place

 

Katrin Flores, a student in the School for the Creative and Performing Arts program, is a junior at Lafayette High School. Besides writing, she is passionate about Jesus, hoards lipstick, plays the violin, and occasionally writes on gum wrappers when she’s desperate.

 

*poetry inspired by The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows*
www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com

 

I am whittled down to eight years old: all shaky hands and

fingers stunned numb. There’s a muted street & a house

 

hiding behind a lamp. The gutter overflows with pre-dawn light and

the manhole is a wound cauterized, awful in the way it droops.

 

A bedroom lies dismantled. I rest a hand against its underbelly,

learning how a house moulders. My parents are cluttered, scuttling

 

around an orphaned home. This place looks like the still life of a fruit

covered in soot, hijacked & rotting in the palms of our hands.

 

A year passes. And still, there is an awful light in my

mother’s eyes when she looks at the sky. It is different.

 

I know her fears intimately: contorted & swarming.

 

Ten years later, a pheasant couches me, in a bland sketch of

sakura trees. Cherry blossoms scale the mountains of my childhood.

 

I am looking through a window & seeing my parents dappled

with moonlight. Distance is coiled in the strands of our hair.

 

I reverberate with antiquity;

& each place is a second chance I will not miss.

 

 

 

Rachana Hegde collects words and other oddities. Her poetry has been published in Alexandria Quarterly, Moonsick Magazine, and Hypertrophic Literary. You can find her reading, drowsy-eyed, or at www.rachanahegde.weebly.com.

“While he was hunting wild animals… he came across his mother [Callisto, a bear], who stood still at sight of Arcas and appeared to know him. He shrank back from those unmoving eyes gazing at him so fixedly, uncertain what made him afraid, and when she quickly came nearer he was about to pierce her chest with his lethal spear. All-powerful Jupiter restrained him … and set them in the heavens and made them similar constellations, the Great and Little Bear.”

• Metamorphoses Book II

 

 

The evening like a frozen bell. The silver, ghostly

mouth of Callisto as she looks for her son. A spear

tucked into dark, mute hair, she now hunts

 

the idle mothers. Warns: Carry your children

between your teeth, your nails. When the sky veils itself,

do not let them be moonflowers to be picked by men

with fingers like thick wooden pipes.

 

Give them more than birth: This distance is as faceless

as a beast. You will know when they become only a slash

of heart, a blackened window. You will know

when every morning echoes a tinkling light

 

for what you will have lost.

 

 

Farah Ghafoor is a sixteen-year-old poet and editor-in-chief at Sugar Rascals. Her work is published or forthcoming in Ninth Letter, alien mouth, and Big Lucks among other places, and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Farah is the recipient of the 2016 Alexandria Quarterly Emerging Artists and Writers Award. She believes that she deserves a cat. Find her online at fghafoor.tumblr.com.