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mike swanberg

you should be asking yourself how
many poems can i write today??
not when you first wake up, not when
the bed is still warm but after that
after the skipped shower
after your toast

everyone else in the working world says it
how many bricks can i lay
how many shoes can i sell
times two one for each foot

but on the other hand never ask
how many good poems can i write
because as you know no poems are ever good
there are only acceptable poems
and rants

anyone who doesn't believe this writes
rants and is a blind fool

i might as well write this poetic advice has been
brought to you by the good people at ford motor
company. this is how day to day your poetry should be
easy on the reader
easy on me

and for another thing your heart is still
allowed to show up sometimes
sometimes poems work as diary
lookit whats his name lookit that brown haired woman
a whole generation beloved by
for thier hearts sharp tugs

here is an exercise
write one poem on monday
and on tuesday write two
by friday you should have fifteen poems
in just one week

and if saturday morning you arent so sick
of yourself that you could scream
you might have something
talk to me.

Apologies

I smile,
palm to cheek,
"We all make mistakes".

Year after year
you can tell
my smile is fake.

Shuffled feet,
cheek to cloth.
Apologize.

Deep breaths
as ears take in
more lies.

Hearts collapse.
Cloth to palm.
You shrug and stare

at the floor,
where you left trust
lying there.

Eye contact.
Parted lips
release a sigh.

And with
palm to cheek,
"Goodbye".

I really liked that mug.

Mug

by Amy

I broke my favorite mug this morning,
I knew this would happen.

I was on my way to the kitchen, carrying some dishes
I had her balancing inside of another,
the other was unfit.
He was typical and blue,
with grooves along the top
making tension, making mountains
when the rest of him was smooth.

She was green to a fault
with aching moldy-looking spots
constellations gone unsettled,
aneurysms from a stopped heart.

My mug had brown blood,
every vessel sprang from clay and
pumped through a shaking base,
I knew that she’d break.

it's really cold.

by Amy

Falling in Love

with a place is hard to do,
there is dirt everywhere a hand can move,
no space has asked me to be truly clean.

Knowing this I still miss rising
and falling,
in Kentucky I could only truly love

the hills,
truest love I’ve had.
The lover I had in that uncertain place

wasn’t ever ever-present.
Never lined the rearview mirror through fog and later smoke the way the hills did
when I first arrived and when I left for good.

I never told you how I felt
about the hills.
Maybe you would have taken me to see them,

that would have been a desperate measure
speaking up about unreachable things.
Nothing I do now is heated

with the fever, the desperation I had
to touch them one more time before I left.
I did everything all wrong.

I traded water for a boat,
I trapped the sun inside a jar just for when it got cold,
didn’t grow what my love would need to keep rolling on.

Hills with feverish continuity, scaling and then setting just as newly,
in spite of vice for the elements I’d have to succumb to if I had stayed,
is what made me love them best, is what made me go.

Peeling Clementines, and Practice

by mike swanberg

Peeling clementines

this is the only time I put
My historically ungentle hands to real work
The short story of the peel unfolding
Thumbnail pressed through soft yielding skin
Unwrapped now, like a present
From your grandparents.
Gently, infront of them, to show

You are not a creature of such stark want,
Though you want.

Then this breaking of the fruit
Into 12 equal parts and the eating
Of them all slowly

The bysight judging of which slice
To leave for last.

Sometimes the sweetest girls
Have a hard time smiling
Sometimes even a lumbering ox
Stops his chewing to write.



------------------

Practice

Nothing to say for my terrible form
As a middle hitter, point guard, or offensive lineman.
And There I am squatting in the crab grass

someone telling me later, that I crouch down
Like a fucking Marshallese, trying to hurt me,
To taunt me into good habits

But I am the unperfect spiral wavering through
A late November pick up game
The fastball to 1st caught in an ungloved hand
And dropped just as suddenly.
My shriek of pain blending with the cries
Of kids practicing perfect front flips
Off the highdive

a block away
Their naked feet climbing those slick steps
Shouldertops glowing brightly in the sun
They take one step, maybe two and then

End over end holding nothing,
They make themselves learn.

Erin

The pedestal demands perfection
but the surface is slippery,
and it encourages sprained ankles.

To stay put, to stay perched
is to maintain a delicate balance
between anxiety and boredom
but it's safe

until you move a little
to the right, and then you
push against the wall
that holds you in your place,
immovable. Distant.

You lose your footing, you lose your place;
it might be miserable,
but it is yours.

It was mine.
and I'm exhausted.
I am worn out
and bruised
but already I can see
the benefits of feet on solid ground,
however unsteady:

There are no illusions here.

On Snow

by Amy

Under snow there is grass,
I’ve learned and relearned that each season, but
even now I can’t promise not to forget that.
In the morning, my friend comes to the door with
a shovel,
but I have no prize for him or his help,
I only offer warmth radiating from baskets of clothes made their way to my back,
false heat in contact with my diplomatic skin
that insists any slight thickening
of blood, or
sharpening of bone
have come from within,
such shame in mentioning someone coaxing light from my skin.

I should have helped clear a path,
but I’m best at the role of rapt wayfarer, shuffle strictly
just heel to toe,
while more snow joins the gleaming colony,
its metal conqueror with one steady wooden arm decides who can stay,
and how much goes.
More weight falls to the grass, my regret is mostly of spring,
I watered only when the grass started snapping under my bare feet,
only if it pinched
blonde hairs on my thigh when I’d surrender in summer
to space not quite mine.
Hadn’t gardened in years,
but complained of brittle grasses.
I let too many things both heavy and wet
fall to grounds that will joylessly, merely
accommodate it.