Category: poem

it’s not enough until it hurts – sarah d.g. larue

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water

independent
codependent
spoiled privilege
down the drain with
chronic pain
typical jewish
virgo sun
control freak critic freak
freak freak
sag rising, flaky bitch
cancer moon, emo baby
for some tangy
twist of balance

hippie helper healer heart
princessy anxious
horizontal workaholic
crass asshole mind
bend-over-backwards stubborn
overlover and undersharer
with a body that just
won’t quit quitting
addicted to pain
killing with kindness
to everyone not-me

rage fills my mouth like blood
spills over without good reason
other than overlong suppression
an invisible inevitable dam burst

when can i soften
soften (and forgive)
soften (and forgive)

when can i feel
other than this pain

SBGS December

Sarah grew up singing, dancing, and making stories. After a few lifetimes of creative suppression, her inner child is back with a weird little vengeance. Poetry is where Sarah’s need to make things pretty tries to dance with her need to tell ugly truths. She believes in the healing power of friendship and the memo app on her phone. Facebook. Instagram.

Photo: Ameen Hussain Fahmy

illjusthideposterlargeSarah will be having a release party this Thursday December 13th at Syntax Physic Opera at 7pm for her new chapbook, “i’ll just hide until it’s perfect.”

in that pit – megan heise

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pic 5e - Edited

on grief. you. can’t look. at his. face. in pictures. avert. your.
eyes. quick. you wait. to teeter. over the. edge. into. oblivion.
obsession. remember. he said. it’s okay. he said. to be evil.

 

 

 

mirror. your old face. no. you don’t. see. his. face. except in.
dreams. blame it all. you think. on the caffeine. sconced.
lights. flicker. he tells you. no. soft. message. soft. received.

 

 

 

more. uh. lord. than pot. more. uh. night. than day. you
wonder. googling. medical. or medicinal. must. get. search
terms. right. gut genug. he says. good. enough. but. you
swear. you. are right. like. before. like. intrinsent. wasn’t real.

 

 

 

well. because. she’s not. the one. who’s dead. you say. maybe
if. you say. you read yours first. stack. on windowsill. mushu.
speaks. no. that. was someone. else. computers. you ask. try.
to remember. there must. you think. have been. computers.

 

 

 

latin. german. english. french. when you. came back. from
europe. you had. you say. a new. rule. you say. tens. on jacks.
a slap. ping. them. atic. sch. eme. sch. ism. sch. ool. sch. ade.

 

 

 

oh. no. that’s not. where it. ends. farm. cat. burn pile. field.
her. them. sand. sting. sex. on the beach. ice. in our teeth.

 

 

 

grasp. suck. pull. stuffed. scarecrows. suicide missions.
suicidal. king. charlemagne. trick. or treat. house. calls. car.
wrecks. ayn. fucking. rand. ponderous. tomes. wait. not that.

 

 

 

that letter. breasts. brushing. the food. collegiate. attire.
where. did you go. you don’t. re. ah. yes. head. member.
pounds. all that. yes. blood. her house. right. was haunted.

 

 

 

names. diaries. pink. brown. blue. but. you lost. you lament.
the old notebook. with. all the. poems. you say. about you.

 

 

 

snape. not like. you. gave. a shit. scale of. viggo. to alan.
grease. honor. lightning. you. must. have. been. in. that. pit.

 

pic 1h.jpg

SBGS December

Megan Heise is a writer, artist, and teacher, who lives in and is from the American rust belt. She has three plants: Lenny, a bunny ears cactus who lives in Greece; Louie, a bamboo shoot who loves to travel; and Wally, an aloe plant who is having a hard time adjusting to life “back home” after many adventures elsewhere. She curates the education and advocacy blog, Solidarity with Refugees.

Photography provided by Megan Heise as well.

 

three poems // sam pink

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3

MY CARTOON

BY SAM PINK

Turning a crank

on the side of my head

& shooting diamonds

out of my eyes

into your face

where they explode

with little dinging sounds.

You’re in my cartoon now

honey.

JUST NO

BY SAM PINK

Sometimes

when I try to understand

where someone is coming from

it feels like

doing a math problem

& coming up with an answer

that’s just

the word ‘no.’

TOO BEAUTIFUL

BY SAM PINK

I wonder

how soon

is too soon

to go downstairs

& ask my neighbor

to take down her windchimes

because the songs they make

are just

too beautiful

Sam Pink is the author of books. He’s a painter too. Twitter @sampinkisalive.  Instagram @sam_pink_art

Photography: @florviadana

 

chance the goldfish // alessandra ragusin

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chance the goldfish

BY ALLESANDRA RAGUSIN
chance the goldfish

Alessandra is a queer feminist writer and philosopher. She enjoys the finer things in life: chowder, dogs, hooded sweatshirts, wandering on foot for hours on end, and talking in accents. She has a BA from MSU Denver in Creative Writing and Philosophy, has been published in the Metrosphere Arts and Literary Journal, and has been featured on the Denver Orbit podcast. Find more of her work at www.greenworldwriting.com. 

Photo: Zhengtao Tang

crew to sleep – ghost #4

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snow cabin

Memories act as detritus, lettertorn ice
avalanched into my cabin: I stare at the ceiling
for hours, paralyzed by my sleep meds,
by fear, or by the memory of a memory.
Atop the submarine I am rooftop dazzled
by a piercing white sun. I wince at a beauty
that can kill me. We are not seeking a white whale.
We are not seeking anything. We go out to sea,
& we sleep. I have an application around here
somewhere. It reads, Fill in the blank: I function
as a _______. You get the job if you leave it blank.

 

SBGS December

photo: Thomas Henke

overflown – bethany moore

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caito foster

Sweet rage of thunder calms
the crashing of my youth, I
struck and glass shattered
as if I’d tripped and turned all over myself
on purpose, or as if punished.

Sour grief, I light a flame
and bury a girl, no, burn.

A banging, my beat on my drum, releases
the stagnation that holds thick in the air, when
rain will not break, when
thoughts run too dry.

Pity, pity me, when a heart breaks,
when my jaw aches or my
frail emotions were more
than my half-empty glass could take.

There’s rebirth in
a candle flame and a
balefire, and in
a scream.

sbgs cowskull

Bethany Moore is a poet, practicing witch, and cannabis activist, and enjoys the study of healing, alchemy, and ritual work. She is also a singer and lyricist, and produced an album in 2013 called Witchrock by producer Burntsystems.

In the early 2000s, she participated in spoken-word poetry circles in Washington, D.C., and currently manages multimedia and communications projects at the National Cannabis Industry Association, including hosting a weekly podcast on CannabisRadio.com.

She self-published her two debut books of poems within weeks of each other in September and October of 2016. Her most recent book, published October 2017, is a short-story, dark fairytale about a Witch and her quest for love titled “A Witch’s Tale: the taming of a daemon.” Her 2018 poetry collection is forthcoming as the title “Crying Spells: rituals of bone, blood, and sorrow.”

Photo: @caitofosterphoto

submit to south broadway ghost society.

the last time i was awake at this hour – D.o.t.B.

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window

The last time I was awake at this hour
You were in my bed
These sheets still smell like you
We both know why I haven’t washed them.

There’s a ghost in my car with his hand on my thigh
Looking away from the road into his eyes
He’s gone before I can kiss him
There is no ritual to rid me of this.

One horrible comfort in all of this mess
Is that there is a spectre on your skin too
They have my hands on your back
My mouth to whisper sweetness in your neck
And eyes that haunt you like mine do.

sbgs cowskull

D.o.t.B. is a Godde that currently lives in the body of K.V. Dionne. Boulder artist, poet, and photographer, they are one of the founders behind Writer’s Block and are current editor in chief of Writer’s Block zines. You can read some of their work in Spit Poet and can look forward to a collaborative poetry book coming out soon. They have many Hawk friends and Crow songs to share! Instagram: @o.macbeth

 

hoard – anthony lawrence

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red trees

editor’s note: this poem was an ekphrasis piece in response to a call SBGS put on twitter for poems inspired from the white house’s very grim choice in christmas decorations as seen above.

Before we understood
that hoarding was included
in the Mental Anguish Act
we kept the tapering trees
in the hallway, their needles
abundant and invisible.
Their cones were ampules
of congealing blood
that broke underfoot like ice
in a poem involving death
under arboreal glass.
Like extras who outstay
their welcome in a scene
where a woodsman taps
his wrist for a pulse,
each tree mapped
it’s own trajectory
from seed to being else-
where in the world.
They grew. Their shadows
were cropped and kept
in specimen jars inside
the pockets of our coats.
We gave them names.
In the one-way flight
manifest we hammered
to the wall, we called
each bleeding specimen
to account, then stripped
them to the bark.
Our hoarding healed,
we went like crime
scene cleaners, gloved
and masked into the stains
light leaves like sutures
in the dark.

red tree 2

Anthony Lawrence often tries to extend the metaphor he lives in into prose, but poetry sets snares at every exit and he returns to the broken line, the phantom rhyme, the image with ‘do not revive’ stamped into its skin. He teaches Creative Writing at a university in a town with high levels of humidity, and lives beside a bay in a Queenslander with a painter, a dingo and a kelpie. Twitter: @tide_inspector

frank o’hara apocalyse – erik-john fuhrer

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silhouette

I read a Frank O’Hara poem
and ate a cheese sandwich
The apocalypse replaced the sandwich
with a torch
that led me down a dark tunnel
vibrant with the rich fur coat of its odor

Its ragged breath is its own thick body
and it is this body that I follow

Suddenly the apocalypse is gone
and then it is all around me

It has swallowed me and I hang onto its tooth
until my grip slips
and its breathbody carries me
through its esophagus
and deep into its ruins

sbgs cowskull

Erik Fuhrer holds an MFA from the University of Notre Dame. His poems have recently appeared, or are forthcoming, in Crack the Spine, Maudlin House, Ghost City Press, and Cleaver.

submit to south broadway ghost society.