By Terra Scott
Decadence dusts balderdash like blush.
Relentlessly, to secure resplendence.
I, am worthy,
swells stunning bunkum.
I, am lovely,
I, am
wishful sorrow’s winsome
flawless, tangible,
with the audacity to
be
stunning, absurd,
and thankful.
omit thin, my sleepy love.
You,
have enchanted bliss with generous wanderlust.
Breathtaking, as gruesome breaks beautiful
Skedaddle gorgeous, we’ve arrived at mutual.
Por Nicole Eitzen
Quisiera estrechar la mano para alcanzar aquello
que frente a mí se desvela,
aquello que mi corazón desea y que a mi alma enternece.
Quisiera ser aquello que sólo mis sueños contemplan;
no una, sino dos: la que se libra y la que permanece.
Es que el querer y desear lo imposible
en mí se viven constantes:
No voy a renunciar a instruirme, voy a mi misma elevarme.
Pero dejar el amor, me dicen, resulta en falsos pasos dictantes.
La vida sin él es posible, pero amar sin él: para nadie.
¡Y paso las noches en vela, por él y su mundo velando!
Por noches de un mundo de encanto que frente a mi se desvela.
¡Y como decirle quisiera, que a su querer le tenga cuidado!
Porque cuando el alma dulce enternece,
el suave roce: desvanece.
By Kaitlin Schmidt
When I nap in the afternoon, on top of the sheets,
I imagine the tingling ghost of something
in the space between my palm and fingers.
I imagine the weight of a hand on my hand.
I like to pretend you apologize to me in languages I can’t read –
“I’m sorry” says the glossy painting in the Chinese restaurant.
“How very careless I am” say the Spanish subtitles.
I imagine that the sparrow who studies me while I work,
who creeps and fidgets, pauses and peers,
houses the diamonds of your condensed soul in its chest.
It bounces here and there; you rattle and shine.
Tipsy and light on melancholy chords, I drink my illusions by the gallon.
I toss them up like confetti and all things ordinary blur as you flutter down.
By Justin Greger
Mandalas
made of steel and dreams
swept into the junkyard of civilization.
Compassion for those who conform.
Sea of milk white sedans
flowing to fabricated fresh out of the box houses.
Purel the colour green
growth must be planned.
Graffiti belongs in the gallery.
Price the homeless out of their clothes.
Gentrify the hood to live the real life.
Young folks come and go
the system remains unchanged.
By Kaitlin Schmidt
Heart dances like a shaker
Love as clean as a Quaker
When he returns to me, the 2nd coming.
Frozen in place like the meditating Buddhist
Several stiff kisses from the lips of Judas
The whole farce droned over by Gregorian humming.
The Lutheran in you nails up my 95 flaws
The Pagan in me boils feathers and claws
And like the Vatican we try to keep it all under the fleece.
I check my Mayan calendar for end
Forgive me sir, for I knowingly sinned
and like a Mennonite, I never stop praying for peace.
By Jordan Esely-Kohlman
In seconds after
exchanging names in a fashion
so pleasant as to
ease my troubled soul,
airs that once clung heavy to lovers
loosened &
crumbled
asunder into
a new bed from whence new truths might bloom.
I hunger for these parcels of your essence.
Feast on
flesh &
drink in
moments unspoken
when I was sure I was you
simply wrapped in a different way, or
perhaps we were jigsaw pieces
kept snug by junctures of
the most supple nothings.
| By Abigail Bechtel
You pass an invisible wall, you begin to snicker and sneer You judge me. You make me your victim. You cannot know where I’ve been or what trials I have gone through nor my joys. And I do not know yours. I cannot judge you back though it would be so easy, though I desperately want to. You make me your victim, but you were victims first, although I cannot know to what. This bonds us. |
We are akin in this way, victims to one another, To prejudice, insecurity, pride The list is infinite. But we are victims, you and I. This doesn’t make you easier to forgive, nor me easier to like. This does not cripple us, Nor empower us. Neither does this make us the same. Those who say, “We’re all the same” are liars. We are not all the same, you and I, but we are also not all different. |
By Natasha Orpin
Listen, child!
Do you hear it?
Of course not. There was little hope that you
would ever hear and know – listen.
For you run about all day chasing monsters and
digging in the dirt
with a playmate no one sees.
How does one put
to paper a thing silent in nature? How does
one imagine the imaginary friend to look?
This is the trouble
with the ineffable. Yet
the instrument – language – is
not the problem. Listen, child!
Your playmate has scampered off with the monsters and now
you are left to the inexpressible.
Hush now.
Ms. Dickinson will be along shortly.
By Cody Claassen
Stuck in orbit around this place
It never decays
always mere miles
from the flowing shadow pit
of melancholy and mediocrity
Sheer exudes from its centre
And this one can hold
Even the idea of escape velocity gets sucked
towards the hostile maelstrom
it creates
Now sitting at the edge of space and reason
I watch like a shamed voyeur
at the things left undone
A great unwinding is happening
and I am doing nothing
to stop the pulling of chords
I should want to leave
want to forge a way out
want something more
But I don’t
and that unsettles me
more than the constant pull of apathy
By Cody Claassen
Silver begets Bronze
just as mother births child;
a cycle continues,
staying the same and yet changing everything.
Whimsical fantasy shifts into gritty noir
that taint everything with a realism
not yet experienced in this day and age.
A legacy is dirtied, a hero dissloved,
and respect for the future
becomes preposterous.
A beacon emerges
flooding existence with its emerald, ethereal glow
and thunderous lightening applauds its coming
Icons from the past usurp the darkness
that simplicity and innocence still have a place.
Heroes made, Heroes, died, and Heroes reborn
Forever a cycle of continuity.
bclines.bethelks.edu 