rediscovering fire

by: stacy

if secrets were sparks,
i could burn down the walls
that you've built to protect me,
with the secrets i've kept
just to protect you.
if secrets were sparks.

if secrets were sparks,
i could light myself with
bitter, agressive flames.
i could melt and disintegrate
so you wouldn't even recognize me.
if secrets were sparks.

if secrets were sparks,
i'd be too hot to hold.
i would sear your skin, and
scar you forever with lightning
bolts of scar tissue to carry.
if secrets were sparks.

oh, no.

i couldn't.

i'll freeze myself over,
because if secrets were sparks,
it'd be ashes ashes,
we all fall down.

A Haiku for College Nerd Angst

by Nik

sorry professor
I just can't find the answer
its not in my UGGS

smoke and sparrows and stars

by: stacy

you only talk when you smoke,
exhaling words into nicotine clouds
and toying wiht philosophy as you toy
with the cigarette between your chapped fingers.

ideas and thoughts spitting themselves from you lips,
like sparrows fleeting tree branches.
they could race the shooting stars above us
and match their pace with ease.

you only talk when you smoke,
at night, sitting cross-legged on
your concrete steps,
emptying your mind onto the pavement
as i bathe in your tobacco haze
beside you, breathing hesitantly.

but i'll risk lung cancer
a thousand breaths over,
just to hear you speak.

Some Girls

By Amy Lipman

Please, Please

When I heard your voice fighting the up and down
You, sopping and shaking
Were held

You can be sure I’ll not pretend
To be what you need,
And there was snow

Gliding down the bus ramp
Skipping you home
Holding onto your hands
So you’d be warm for once


I Danced

I danced in front of the mirror
Used the heels of the red boots from my mother
Unzipped the red coat from my mother
To own the platform and be touched by smoke

More things are the color of blood and flame
Than people who have never
Seen a houseplant explode
Would think

I love the other side of reflection
The side that shows nobody really
Looks like themselves
And that tepid domesticity
Manifests in foxes who eat their young

The Mercy of the Insides of Her Wrists

by: stacy

the mercy of the insides of her wrists.
soft flesh so easy to rip,
so generous in its spilling of her blood,
and so pale as if to show it off,
just as white summer dawns present
the crimson sun.

the mercy of the insides of her wrists,
so quick to satisfy once opened,
like a choir's collective mouth.
perfect pitch and
loud and
honest,
singing hauntingly of some crypted agony.

the mercy of the insides of her wrists.
so quick to scream.
so quick to burn.
so quick to tell the stories
that pen-laiden fingers can't.

The Right to Drive-thru

by Nik

Hi.
Can I have a #5 with a side of trankweelity?

I'm sorry
we don't serve
your kind
anymore

What does eeht take
just to get a fuckeeng
reegular sized freedom
I'm not askeeng to be fuckeeng supersized

I'm sorry sir
Since the towers came down
We do not serve the hamburger brown
especially the facial haired
and toilet-paper turbans
So, you immigrant son-of-a-bitch
take your imported piece of shit
and move along

I will take this gun
and fuckeeng shoot you

and feed the stereotype?

No, you sun-of-a-beetch
I will keell it

Sir I don't think-

OF COURSE YOU DON'T THEENK
You think we will reemove theese from our heads
and shave our fuckeeng beards for you?
What kind of freedom is that?

It's just our policy sir

FUCK YOUR POLICEEY!


.




Freedom at last.

Here's to a new semester

By Amy Lipman

Gas Stove

In a parking lot
Cars burn rubber for the same space
Like when boys started making promises to me in backseats

As I got older, I hoped that
His car would be home
That she wouldn’t be by herself
That he’d be there for dinner
And for the night
And for the rest of the repeated excuses of weeks
Because days promise endings
But there was no rest in that house
Dry skin mixed with grating fingers
On one another’s throats
We all speak in monotone
Can’t afford to waste ink or blood or expression
By any brightening or rising of octaves

And Jenny today said she wishes she
Had a stove like mine
But I clean and clean that stove
And it never makes any food
That I’ll actually eat

You are the house I tried to build
Before I knew that stitches meant to fix split skin
From acidic hands I come in contact with
When he forgets exactly who I am
Are better off putting together monuments
That nobody will ever go to see on family trips
And nobody will ever ask if they are there yet
And nobody will ever get hurt


Splitting Skin

I feel guilty for having curves and hair and a body
And feel like I owe my synapses a rent check
When I stop scrubbing mountain passes and stop
Holding tension in my neck, since they say that
Survivors
Never
Let

Anyone touch that part of them
I vow that I’ll get all the stiffness back
But then I remember touch
And how good warmth is in a cold room

They say that I need to let someone in
As they try to knock down the door
And litter my kitchen with
Their living ashes and two by fours that they wish I’d make something out of
They say they’ve brought a present
But they found it in the hallway
I saw them sneak it in
Where are my flowers

Well, maybe I’ll make a man out of you
When you carry me home when I fear the snow
But I’m not scared of cold
I never dread being alone
I skitter and snatch up my keys when faced with a face
That tries to widen its eyes
To let in mine


Justin

You asked if I’d stay
And you wouldn’t tell anyone
And I couldn’t tell anyone
Because I’d left my mark in your bed
A mattress on the wooden floor
You’d come all the way from California
To seduce an undergrad

And you said you wore my
Hair band around your wrist all day
And you said you wanted to lie like that
All week
But you had auditions
For the Milwaukee Rep
And I weight to lose

We talked in the dark
About my brother
We were shocked that you are his age
You asked if I were seeing someone
Asked if I would stay the night
Asked after a time if we could be friends

I don’t regret it
You made me feel gorgeous


Jaron

I think that you think I’m a fully-grown colt
And you like how I shake and you like how my teeth
Reflect everyone’s shadows when I smile
Which is most of the time
Because I look for backings of nails
Behind lovers earlobes
To make sure I won’t cut my mouth
If I tell them my secrets
Since what keeps them listening
Is how red my lips get

And you think that I’d loosen you up
Relieve you of sweaters
And free you of fences made from our skin
Throw everything down on the floor
And fold all the scents press them to my chest when you’d fallen asleep
That I could still rise as a bread to feed our family while suffocating
Hold your hand in the synagogue
Tell the rabbi we’d been friends for a while, now
And return your phone calls

I think you are a nice boy
I think you think I’m really blonde


Yanna

Your hair is long and dark
You talk about “the island”
You talk about your family
You nod your head and I nod mine
When we speak about the men who
Did it
The men who
Ran
The men who
Wouldn’t stop
Even on our first birthdays
They were thinking about what they’d take from us
When we had nothing to give
We were pink and hairless and not women
And they liked that because

We didn’t have voices or bellies or any real places to hide
They wouldn’t like us now
Now that our hair is longer and darker and
You think I’ll be your girlfriend, girl
I couldn’t bear to hurt you
So I’m asking you stop asking


Dominique

I want to lose it to a black man
So go ahead, you are beautiful
We laid in your bed and you
Asked me questions
And traced my body with your hands and your eyes
And I didn’t even flinch
I’m not darling or a dear
I’m everything from the empire
That couldn’t be burned
And was left because I’d age and increase in value
And be harder to swallow

I kissed your neck when you walked me home
And you wanted me to come back
To your apartment
But my friends were sleeping on my floor
And I couldn’t leave them
Because nobody likes waking up alone
Track star, you were too quick for me
It was over too soon
You made me laugh so hard I almost
Forgot what I was worried about

My First Realistic Dream...

by: stacy

Skin departs Body first,
peeling back from muscle,
flying off in sheets
and disintegrating into soil.

Next, the hair,
made a victim of the wind.
Long strands blend with the breezes
until they can't be separated.

Then the fingers and hands
and toes and feet,
hips, shoulders, arms, spine,
forming the forests and boulders.

Blood digs itself riverbeds.
The spaces between ribs create valleys,
while breasts create hills.
Eyes removed and stretched
to fill out a blank sky,

until all the organs and parts
morph and scatter.
Save the Heart
and the Brain,

disguised as the Moon and the Sun,
left to wage war amongst
a newly lifeless geography.
Which will rise? Which will settle?

some work

mikeswanberg


all of it all of you all of it

I hear the hunger in you as a different girl
I watch your body turn to matchsticks then bloom
So are you surprised that the voice in your head
is unapologetically mine, that he sings dumb songs
from the bathroom washing his hands but forgetting
to brush his teeth Does it surprise you that this boy
wants to lick you clean c arry all of it all of you all of it
down to some river he made up and wash you there as
well Standing in it to his ankles with his pants rolled up
casting an invisible net over what you swore could never be caught


Authority
For vincent

It is the sound of authority that allows this all
How you say fuck and everyone waits, heads nodding
For you to clarify or help them along
Because you say it and it seems clinical,
clean not at all like the girl I fucked on Justin’s futon
Or how fucked up we got just singing songs
pretending the world was ending

when you spoke with no authority about the bookshelf
and art and how lonesome it gets and the girls
who fill it all up. I trusted you more then when your
words came rushed like water through a hose you thumbed
and for the first time maybe I knew that you were
in love with everything like you had said

so friend keep your authority close, I think you and she
have a lot to give each other, and I will call you as often
as I can for drinks and conversation. But know I must move
forward without that authority you have found my feet forever
just kicking the small pebbles of every shared experience


Destinations

Tonight lets drink to that point
where everyone agrees but you
still want to have sex when we get
home oh if that was a destination
on a map I would never stop driving there

Tonight lets laugh at our own mistakes
just this once and I wont be secretly hurt
nursing my wounds like the proud and stubborn
child embarrassment turns me into

Lets turn out the lights and lay like cobras
then like concrete lay like your hand on my
forehead when he left and I couldn’t stop
crying again the proud child who wanted
none of his friends to know

Oh how I once considered my weaknesses that
Instead of gateways to the parts of me I truly needed
to reach my lungs work so poorly when its cold
but I can sing my hands refuse to be delicate
Oh I have embarrassed myself

But who would know when the look on my face
Is always one of surprise surprise that I am living
surprise that you are carrying the same colored robes
as me surprise that when we look towards the future
there is still a place where we make it

So let me mark that on a map instead
a beautiful town off the coast that I can only
reach by walking forward as blindly and as
resolutely as my ancestors had so that when
I finally make it to that town I have at least one story
worth telling my children


elegy for everything

I knew of them but had to see
The videos of snipers in Afghanistan
With guns designed to split men
It made me sick but I had to watch
What looked like rocks on a hill
Turned into bodies into bone
And all so close to independence day

That It could have been fireworks had I not
Searched it out not watched it again
and paused at different moments, as though
If I walked out of the room that man might
Still be alive someplace with the sun on his back
Before war walked to his door and bade him
Pick sides

Oh let us pick the side that always kisses both cheeks
Let us find a side finally that lets the little things go
I watched the buildings fall, I changed my shirt
I watched them fall again, I sighed

Let us live in a country with no memory
So we can forget that we were ever taught to be afraid
And maybe then men wont be split and sent to every corner
maybe then I can understand fifteen boys
Trying their hardest to get to god

Oh we are the children’s crusade all grown up
Useless and loud but ready to fight
I refuse to throw my hand up in agreement
To any of this done to protect me
Let them come and bomb my city bus
I will walk I will walk

Crashing and Burning

by: stacy

Upon sunrise,
Gravity sleeps,
and I'm left floating.

Sunrays reach out -
with fire fingertips light my skin -
edges burning, flying on flames.

Kind Moon,
silver Friend,
rise and bring me Home.

Suck me into your tides.
Chain me down with your glow.
Soothe me with Gravity,

and the rhythm of waves,
and blood,
and breath.

Keep my down to earth
and don't let me fly so high.

So I may avoid crashing
and burning come sunrise.

The Disease Where You Get Old and Lose Your Memory

by Bru.

I will watch my children
hug my knees.

And watch them manufacture
families.

The blankness will be
a slow surprise.

Midwest

by bru

The reflection in the window
looks like mountains.

And for a moment I picture myself somewhere
out there amongst a Western state.

Holding out my right arm for a handshake
to the snow on top of the mountains

or a handshake from the bottom
of a new next door neighbor's closet;

empty except for a few photo albums
and a few letters never sent
and a few words never said
and too few lies never meant.

I am going home in an hour
and will watch flat lands seep past my eyes.

Here in the midwest,
the holes in the streets come out as mountains on the other side.

She's So Heavy

By Amy Lipman

You are a tree
Little woman, shake a leg!
One-footed, old stump
We sold the other to the grocer
Because you cried for food

Your eyes have turned to breeze
Rock the baby in your head
Keep track of wooden dolls
That big brother shames to bed

Liquor cabinets douse us with
Suburban Living’s freeze
The King is unemployed, and it’s because of you
If you’d just stop growing
He would be a big man

I stopped eating when I set
The alarm off at my sisters’
I’d gone out running in the morning
Before breakfast could infect me
When all the police came
I thought they’d heard about my hunger
And I swore I’d never put anything inside my mouth
That would make me feel dirty
That would make some call me woman

All your pleasantries pollute me
You’re every tropical commercial
For romantic getaways
On impoverished TV screens

Little sister
Wingless angel
Show me how high you jump
Mom and dad say that you’re treasure
But all I’ve touched is junk

January 7

By Amy Lipman

Boys I Used to Know

You are technical
Wired for a spoiled age
Of nuts and bolts I proclaimed love

May I see your sparks?
Snuff them out in my bed
If you touch me here
I will freeze


Growing Pains

Isn’t there something in your stomach
That makes you want to talk?
A mound of ice
You try to melt
With words reserved for women?

You haven’t eaten since I stopped running
You must be hungry, I must be thin


Men

Some apologize and stay angry in heaven

They used to wake me
Make me listen to nightmares
And expect I'd be up all night long

A Po-Hem for the New Yee-Haw

by Bru.

When will we stop taking rushed showers
and finally sleep in for once
after dreaming of ways to budget our time;
some of which include
day planners, palm pilots, and time travel machines.

When will we start collecting
the memories that truly matter to us
and forget the memories which defeat our hearts.

And if we do develop a blossoming collection,
will we cherish the new ones
as much as the old ones
or the old ones
as much as the new ones.

We just need to start.
Here is the time we will start.
Point at it with your eyes
and with a spirit that is concise.
Here is the time we can start.