Elizabeth Harper 8/18/19 Elizabeth Harper 8/18/19

The News and My Feelings

I know the news is not about my feelings.

Erik Lewin 8/12/19 Erik Lewin 8/12/19

5 Short Poems

Guest User 7/28/19 Guest User 7/28/19

Poetry Test & Fluxus Jokes

Congratulations. This letter is your official notice that you have received an adequate amount of credits to graduate, having earned a degree in POETRY, from the Dana M. Jerman School for Obnoxionist Arts.

Elizabeth Harper 7/24/19 Elizabeth Harper 7/24/19

Not Easy

It’s not easy for someone like me to be happy
Always second guessing every decision
Finding something to criticize in every situation
I know others don’t find everything crappy
No irony when they state their mission
But to me their words sound sappy

…

Sheri Reda 7/14/19 Sheri Reda 7/14/19

Cal Embraces the Death Penalty

“You know what I want to get her, I mean, if I don't break up with her?

I want to get her one of those stun guns you can get at Walmart—”

Elizabeth Harper 7/10/19 Elizabeth Harper 7/10/19

Heat of Summer

jailbait skating
rebel looking
for a cause
new ways to be
illegal seducing
sweat from thighs…

Sheri Reda 7/3/19 Sheri Reda 7/3/19

A Rescue Call Despite the Odds

What’s the matter, why don’t you know who you are? Wake up, America,

it’s me shaking you by the shoulders like Jim shakes any given guest star

out on the Final Frontier:

David Himmel 7/2/19 David Himmel 7/2/19

My Old Man and the Sea, and Me

A blackened city looms ahead
With foreboding consequences obvious in the darkness.
Behind us, a bright sky and calm waters and the time I feel we used wisely.
“We would have been home if you hadn’t been so anal,” my old man says.
“It’s better to fix and fully prep your vessel in port,” I reply. “Helps us avoid trouble at sea.”

The wind arrives in furious fashion.
The knots speed up — they tighten and strengthen.
We’re under motor but that don’t matter none.
The tiny and mighty storm has found our little vessel.
We might as well throw the wheel overboard
For all the good it’s doing.

David Himmel 6/28/19 David Himmel 6/28/19

The Sinking of Uncle Joe

And, Hey! Uncle Joe worked with Barack Obama!
He’s got black friends. He’s not a racist. Just ask him.

And he’s not a close-talker or a personal space-invader.
Just ask him.
He’ll put his hands on your shoulders and whisper:
“Hey, now… I’m your Uncle Joe. Remember Obama?”

Then, sadly, and unexpectedly, before you can answer or squirm away
He’ll say mostly to himself with disappointment, “Yeah… me, too.”

Sheri Reda 5/29/19 Sheri Reda 5/29/19

Headlong

When resistance is futile, but you have to resist….

Guest User 5/17/19 Guest User 5/17/19

Hey, Girl, Hey, It's the Month of May — Three Poems

Buying luck with soft licks of cash
Exhilaration alone empties your stash.
Planes cruise overhead, the planet turns
Palm tress sway, but no one learns
It’s all about love in these years.
So, how about love in these years?

Contributing Writer 5/13/19 Contributing Writer 5/13/19

Dialog on Survival

5G? Ah, me!
I need my tree.
It cannot be.

But why? I ask.
It blocks the task.

David Himmel 5/12/19 David Himmel 5/12/19

A Mother’s Day Ode to MILFs

Make no mistake, mothers,
you’re doing great.
You’re better than you think.
So try not to get yourself down
Because what you’re doing isn’t easy
but you’re the best person for the job.

And, um, that ass!
Those boobies!

Elizabeth Harper 5/7/19 Elizabeth Harper 5/7/19

The Many Shoes of Marty Smith

I remember her,
when we were very little,
walking so fast,
my sister and I
struggling
to keep up,
in those high heels,
clicking on the sidewalk,
not waiting for traffic lights,
leaving us far behind,
trying to catch up.

She could dance
in high heels,
even The Charleston.

Contributing Writer 5/2/19 Contributing Writer 5/2/19

look there instead

look here, they say,
but no; i want to look there,
my focus firmly fixed upon things
not so crowd-gazed.

look there with me —
glistening, intricate mosaics
painstakingly crafted
in the arches of the museum stairwell,
unnoticed in the upward or downward rush
to view the expected.

Elizabeth Harper 4/20/19 Elizabeth Harper 4/20/19

Bender

More and more I understand wanting to go on a bender
Get away from it all
Away from all the stuff that needs to be dealt with
All the petty, mundane, routine, inconvenient,
never-ending, time-consuming minutia of daily life

Contributing Writer 4/14/19 Contributing Writer 4/14/19

I Wrote a Letter

I was married and happy and not looking. But I went out on assignment to help him cultivate his fields, and something wild coursed through me. Something not cultivated, at all. I ended up writing him a letter:

I want to fuck your farm.
I want to curl my toes in the brown clay,
mash the wet soil under my arches,
squeeze the juice out of the squirming underground
and watch it bubble up out of the mud,
and over my heel,
and out from under the balls of my feet: musky.
insistent. warm like arterial blood.

Elizabeth Harper 4/13/19 Elizabeth Harper 4/13/19

Monkeys Typing

spanking my monkey
monkeys typing
the natives are restless
and they've got a lot to say

Elizabeth Harper 3/31/19 Elizabeth Harper 3/31/19

Thought to Call

thought today
man knows
noun verb
room mess
too many problems
need to be together

Elizabeth Harper 3/19/19 Elizabeth Harper 3/19/19

Down Deep

Go down deep, to where it doesn't make sense, that place that no one else can see or understand, and you can't explain or tell them about it while you're there.