Winter Poems 2022

I sit back and lean into the turn
urging her forward with my hands.
We turn and weave down the black and white poles.
She takes advantage of me and edges into the lope.
I half halt her to bring her back to the trot,
but the damage is done.
Disappointment flickers across my face
but I won’t let that ruin my run.
Loping is forbidden in the kingdom of walk/trot.
One stride and you’re out.
Last pole on the row, and we swing wide.I guide her back to the poles, and
we turn sharp, and head home.
We trip the timer
I hold my breath hoping.
The announcer calls out my fate.
“Unfortunately, that was a no time for Clara Harden.”
I lean forward, pet her and
walk out of the arena thinking who cares.
It was a good ride.
She did great,
But even now I still long for that shiny ribbon.

 

 

Clara Harden is a student at St. Patrick’s School, in Rolla, Missouri

 

I am a simple painter, though I do not feel as such;
I see things no one else can see, that no one else can touch.
The crinkle, crinkle of dry leaves evokes a satin grey;
The sunlight on my skin tastes like an exceptional sirloin filet.
When music plays, I see the scenes that write out just for me:
The cello’s rich hum is sticky sap, an amber filigree;
A clarinet can conjure smells of lovely cinnamon toast,
While a cryptic triangle reminds me of a ball hitting a goalpost.
A wild violet sky erupts as a tuba gives a blahhht
And a smooth glass window is a grand piano’s coup d’etat.
Round and round the instruments go, kicking up whirlwinds
That transfers to my humble brush, from which the art rescinds
To the blank canvas on my easel. Oh, what a beautiful sight!
But art is not enough to feed me or keep me warm at night.
I am a simple painter, though I do not feel as such;
I see things no one else can see, that no one else can touch.

 

 

 

Savannah Carmichael is a sophomore Creative Writing major at Truman State University. Previously she was given a Dishonorable Mention in the 2020 Bulwer-Lytton contest. In her free time, she enjoys acting and being scared senseless by a good piece of horror.

image: a boy and his void. atlas shouldering a burning chaos.
is this not punishment enough? i think i’ve seen all there is
of darkness, and then, the universe expands—a kind of joke?

the world’s dark ink spills into pain—more, and even more
pain—as if to say: roaming ghost of a boy, what do you know
about living to think you could write poems about survival?

image: a boy in the mirror. a baby wood-louse heaving a load
of sorrow on its head like a curse. i look into the looking-
glass, and like one crazy bird, grief has made a nest of my hair.

wash. how we rebuke fire. rinse. how we rebuke pain. repeat.
grief, if you won’t fall off, won’t you, at least, soften a little?
drown. to put out a small fire, I cover my body with a flood

 

Timi Sanni is a Nigerian writer, editor and multidisciplinary artist. He was the 1st place winner of the 2020 SprinNG Poetry Contest, the 2020 Fitrah Review Short Story Prize, and the 2021 Anita McAndrews Award Poetry Contest. He was also the 3rd place winner of the 2021 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in magazines such as Black Warrior Review, New Delta Review, Palette Poetry, Lolwe, Lucent Dreaming, and elsewhere. Find him on twitter @timisanni

On Wednesdays, the city turns up its collar
Not rough, never vindictive
Subtle as a new chill against your cheek
Or a mist that dims the eyes
Stray thoughts stow like orphans into fastening sleeves
Shadows slimming on the concrete, bereaved by twilight

Today, dusk was an ebbing tide; we drained from school like water through a sieve
I buried my coat in my bag, arms bare and ponderous
Even bowing my head, I sensed your approach, you with your fraying maroon cuffs,
face a study in angles, your gaze like charcoal
softening everything it lights upon,
your hand nudging my hair

I thought, I want a conversation in polychrome
I thought, I want a riot
To lean my head on your shoulder, thread our hands into latticework
Startle you into laughter until your hood falls away

But the cold was biting and my arms were bare
I could only smile, trembling with unshed words
In the interregnum between sense and sensation
I thought, maybe that’s why they say to wear your heart on your sleeve.
If it breaks, the shards slit the fabric and not your skin.

What I mean is: we all crave love, we are all soured by it
Hands cup loose change, hands build barricades
The wind is a lone rogue across the flat sea
Mourning the missing things she will never seek
We are too fragile for this, this restless imitation,
this plundering of ruins for a scrap of our salvation

 

 

Allyson Ye is a high school senior from Hong Kong. She writes prose to vicariously experience the lives of others, and poetry to romanticize her own. Beyond writing, she is a passionate genre fiction advocate, budding fortune teller, and a capella enthusiast. You can find her on Instagram @sunnygally. She hopes you have a very nice day.

 

 

I am sitting here once again with nothing
but a blank page labelled POEMS
and I wonder why
All my poems are about writing poems.

The walls are blank. The cats have
stopped fighting. The child that cries
next door has gone to sleep. It is too dark
to see the birds outside. Beauty is scarce at this time.
And
The room implodes with the unbearable weight of poems.

The radiator screams and I am saved.

If it weren’t for the radiator and my mother’s handball games I would be the most boring poet on the planet.

I would sit at the bottom of The Ocean of Heavy Poems and write poem after poem about what it’s like to write poems. I would kill the fat poem fish with my poetry.

Today she won two games and I won one. Youth and lanky limbs are on my side but she is a much smarter player than me. One day I will be able to slow down and think, or she will be unable to speed up, of course; the cycle will complete.

Today her glasses fell off and she missed the ball and the gray hair of a monarch burst loose for all to see. I laughed and she laughed, we laughed and I imagined my parents’ funeral. I always imagine their funeral as one, a double feature, as if their life force is inextricably linked. At the funeral I will make lots of jokes and they will laugh and smash
their coffin to bits and leap and dance and cry out because their
son is just so dang funny.

A funeral is a good thing to write a poem about.
The other day I attended my first Zoom funeral.
My dead grandfather’s close friends fumbled with the camera and told stories about people they
killed in a war. It was very poetic.

The poetry of my grandfather’s Zoom funeral joins the poetry of the blank walls, my screaming
radiator, the cats that have stopped fighting, the child that cries next door and the birds that I
can’t see
and the beauty is less scarce but it is still me vs. poetry and dignity vs. Zoom and
funerals vs. handball.

 

Liam Powers is a high school senior living in Brooklyn, NY. He is in the Writer’s institute program at Edward R Murrow High School. His muse right now is his eclectic neighborhood of Sunset Park. His default mode is practicing jazz guitar, piano or drums. He also loves wilderness canoeing, handball and every dog he’s ever met.

 

 

~this poem originally appeared in The Magnet, — a literary magazine at Edward R. Murrow High School~

Their silhouettes trace the grey New Jersey sky.
They should be down South, napping
on Myrtle Beach, the empty Florida shore

like a groundhog should be in its burrow.
They should be guzzling spilled Cokes,
feasting on shards of leftover beach

pretzels. But they’re too small, too stupid,
too broken. Down below, a fawn points,
giggles at the funny-looking ones. A fox smirks

at the runts. Soon, stomachs will wither
bone. Dead bodies will dot a neighbor’s backyard.
Feathers will scatter over driveways buried

in fresh snow. But they keep gliding
like tragic heroes, hoping for an elegy.

 

 

Daniel Boyko is a writer from New Jersey. His work appears or is forthcoming in SOFTBLOW, Nanoism, Eunoia Review, and The Aurora Journal, among others. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Polyphony Lit. Wherever his dog is, he can’t be far behind.