The nt. is cold & flesh is sold in galleries just down the road
Long spaces of silence are speech & the stars are knives
that stab @ your eyes
You stumble home past churches & brick shit-houses
all the pots & pans hating the buildings they live in
All the houses are heads & the windows are eyes
each house has a different haircut
@ home,
this is goddam
serious business, lazy
electric red lilies asleep in the window, your eyes
playing tennis w/ stars & light
in a glass frying pan
all nt.
Other times it’s a joyride,
exhaust pipes flashing in the sunset—zoom—
You get there. You have dreams. You love someone.
The only certainty infection w/ illusion. Some people are there. You
try to make plans. It breaks down. You keep going. It hurts.
There are books, statues. It breaks down again. You keep going.
You’re the only one there. You’re the only thing real.
A storm of light on the plane of time.
Zack Kopp is a freelance writer, editor, photographer, graphic artist, and literary agent currently living in Denver, Colorado. His informal history of the Beat Generation’s connections with Denver was published by The History Press in 2015. Kopp’s books are available at Amazon, and you can find his blog at the website for his indie hybrid press at www.campelasticity.com featuring interviews and articles and links to other websites. His improvised novel, Public Hair, was described by one critic as “simultaneously the best and worst book ever.” The latest chapter of Kopp’s “fantastic biography” (Cf. Billy Childish), Henry Crank’s History of Wonders is expected in 2022.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
I am queer noir. The smoked clenched night. The dark alley, The pissed stained bathroom club floor. I am the slammed door of rejection. The constant rampant tapping to let me in. The hot palpitation of a night. The hookup line and sinker.
I am the low end speaker, the part of you that know’s something’s wrong.
I hold the light of morning inside my heart.
I am queer noir.
Cipriano Ortega (they/them) has been fortunate enough to have their work recognized and shown both nationally and internationally. Cipriano strives to create works of art that probe the mind and make people question what they perceive as the normative. Whether that is shown in music, theater, visual art or some sort of culmination of all of the above; Cipriano enjoys blending all creative forms of expression. As a sociological artist, Cipriano deconstructs the worlds around them and observes it under a nihilistic perspective. As an indigenous POC, they also have no choice but to deal with colonialism head on by making it a daily practice to see the divisions we as a society create and continue to make the ‘normative.’
She tried to tell me that the past could be simply abandoned like unclaimed baggage at the airport or bus station,
or even, one day, with the closing of a door and the turning of a key—
left behind forever in the rear-view mirror like a house full of someone else’s belongings (not yours, not anymore) in a town full of strangers who never did you any favors.
But, I say the past can slip a microchip on you when you’re not looking;
I say the past always knows your current GPS location.
Jason Ryberg is the author of fourteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is Are You Sure Kerouac Done It This Way!? (co-authored with John Dorsey, and Victor Clevenger, OAC Books, 2021). He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a billygoat named Giuseppe and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
Pansy to Pale
My books in our apartment
have faded a different color
Dark spines now shades of lavender
the titles have gone
from pansy to pale
Even when she fingers the blinds
closed all day
light finds a way
to wear ink thin
To combat excess
new vines dangle ubiquitous
Over each shelf
a graveyard
with shadows tucked
kitty-corner portraits
Sometimes I rotate the words
less direct sunlight
spells a shared wear-and-tear
My toenails shine orange
after I’ve painted them
with antifungal polish
and her paintings each are purple
after she combined
cracked makeup
with acrylic medium
When we moved in
we called it eclectic
Now I forget what my books look like
until she opens a window
Liam Max Kelley is a Chilean-American playwright, actor, poet, and high school language arts teacher. He is the program director at Stain’d Arts, an arts non-profit based in Denver, Colorado, and the co-founder of RuddyDuck Theatre Company, a local absurdist theatre group. He writes poetry to avoid making an argument, to highlight life’s horrid ambiguities, and to turn the heads of those he holds dear.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
bristling old wool shorn and barbed from so much wear. knitted with cheap
yarn, the acrylic kind that tightens too much, squeaks after
time and so many washes. a thick polyester clinging to the body
odor of the great aunt who first wore it. a light chiffon scarf
draped, artful but nonchalant. a coat patched too obviously.
stinking of the mothballs from a long-untouched winter closet.
how you are sewn into it
how you drive around a town you have not lived in for fifteen years. the
streets so foreign for the first few days. you, without clear compass or
signpost. home, a place of now-unfamiliar intersections. until on the
third day you feel a strange tug. a too-tight stitch pulling beneath the
muscles in your chest. a breath caught in the button of your throat.
because you suddenly know these storefronts, just with different
names. because you remember the shape and weight of who still
patterns the pavement below. who forever married a part of you to
this neighborhood. whose cord has been knotted to yours all along. you
have driven frightfully close to where something terrible happened. until
now you forgot the event even took place in a house at all. it existing
all this time only in the unnamable space of your hazy recollections.
and the stains it collects, the memory
every time you put on the shirt, your eyes go right to the small spot of
redness. you know the exact meal you were eating. how you were sitting at
a not proper dining space. how the sauce splashed when the pot boiled
over. how her homemade jam was thinner and dripped more. when the
brown corduroy got that conspicuous patch of dried glue along the front
most thigh. the leaking pen. the accident. the accidental. that which
you pick at and sniff at and rub in and soak with hopes of it fading more.
how you wear it, but also, how you are woven of it
you sense the distinct tastes inside your mouth whenever you look at the
photo. it is almost unbelievable now, teaching kindergartners to cook.
trusting such small and wild hands with knives to chop the radishes, a hot
griddle to fry up tortillas. you made butter as a class, taking turns shaking
the mason jar of cream. the excited aggression you all stifled around pet gerbils
and younger siblings having found an escape. a riot of children given task
and purpose for their agitation. you hold a photo of this day, see your own
smile as you chew a bit of buttered bread. see how you once delighted
so in it. how delicious it could be, the violence of so many hands.
Jade Lascelles is a writer, editor, musician, and letterpress printer based in Boulder, Colorado. She is the author of the full-length collection The Invevitable (Gesture Press, 2021). Selections of her work have also appeared in numerous journals and the anthologies Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism and Precipice: Writing at the Edge, as well as being featured in the Ed Bowes film Gold Hill and the visual art exhibit and accompanying book Shame Radiant. Several of her poems were recently translated into Italian for the journal Le Voci della Luna. Beyond her writing endeavors, she is a longtime steward of the Harry Smith Print Shop at Naropa University, a core member of the art group The Wilds, and plays drums in a few different musical projects.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
Prune the leaves- pluck the crisp ones that no longer serve her, watch them hit the floor with a bone crunch. Gently untangle her vines from their previous cage. Dislocate her from one pot, descending to the next.
We place her into the soil. Pearlite and peat moss, spilling past the edges of her new shelter, dusting your Pine-Sol purified floor.
Pat her down, our hands meet under the dirt, a brush of unearned domesticity. Specks of soil, line the ridges of your fingertips, granting anonymity to your palms.
Sitting knee to knee, surrounding her dwelling. I gaze into your eyes and wonder, will this be her final resting place? Or will we uproot, disrupt her growth, push her past the point of no return?
Lillian Fuglei is a Colorado based poet. She began writing poetry in High School, after a lifetime of attending open mics thanks to her mother. She currently bounces between two of the highest paying jobs possible, substitute teaching and freelance journalism. You can find her on Instagram at literary.lillian.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
I am dreaming of An Alabama night- Crickets chirping; echoing Of sentiment, breaking The song of the loon Diving, strutting Through phrases, phases Of a honeysuckle Milk glass moon Whose distant sway Ripples, pools, pulls Pebbled ponds, precious pearls Where locals gather To swim, fish, skip stones Across reflections of sky and stars.
I am. falling, failing- Form fleeing a cold city An asp escaping This fruitless orchard A moth chained by the Candlelight of a distant beacon.
I close my eyes See the pines, skies White wings, fluttering Glittering patchwork Transforming. I am again A small-town boy Taking the back road, Wooded path winding To the Jackson-Slaughter bridge; Racing in the pecan grove, Chasing shadows, fireflies; Laughing, dreaming, laying Staring, believing- feeling The force; the iron vein Of a vanishing home- Remembering more from Windows that never close A place I no longer belong.
M. Palowski Moore is a poet, writer and storyteller. He has five volumes of poetry, including the Lambda Award nominee BURNING BLUE. His compositions reflect diverse themes and interpretations of prejudice, racism, socioeconomic inequality, homophobia and systemic oppression. He is a contributing poet to the Civil Rights Memorial Center (SPLC) community poem A CIVIL COMMUNITY, a new exhibit that will be featured inside the final gallery of The Civil Rights Memorial Center.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
Every body has a right to shelter in a home. To be safe from cold, the heat, the storm.
///
We want a house built by the people / we want walls of justice / we want liberation / we want windows and doors of possibility / look outside / in a world where everyone has a home / anything is possible / how do we transform /
///
“Home is where the heart is.” The heart is the size of your fist. Some things are worth fighting for.
///
Homelessness is not a choice.
Criminalizing survival is unconstitutional.[1]
///
The body— my body is made of rooms of memory— The body— my body is made of hallways— The body— my body does not remember— The body— my body remembers everything
///
Here is my skin. Imagine all of the things I have touched. Here are my bones.
///
I do not remember leaving the dwelling of my mother’s body. I do not remember being born.
///
What does it mean to care for another?
[1] Denverhomelessoutloud.org
Liza Sparks (she/her) is an intersectional feminist, writer, poet, and creative. She is a brown-multiracial-queer-woman living and working in Colorado. Her work has appeared with Ghost City Review, Bozalta Collective, Cosmonauts Avenue, and many others; and is forthcoming with Honey Literary, Split This Rock’s social justice database—The Quarry, and will be included in Nonwhite and Woman Anthology published by Woodhall Press in 2022. Liza was a semifinalist for Button Poetry’s Chapbook contest in 2018 and was a finalist for Denver Lighthouse Writers Workshop Emerging Writer Fellowship in Poetry in 2020 and 2019. She is a poetry reader for The Chestnut Review. You can read more of Liza’s work at lizasparks.com, IG @sparksliza534, or TW @lizathepoet.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
You open the apartment door and it is just wood. Wood behind the door. You need to enter your apartment. To sleep. To work. To clean. You burrow into the wood with a small drill bore. You carve a desk inside the wood. You leave legs of the wood in each corner of the room so the wood roof doesn’t collapse on you, crushed by mahogany in the night. You wake one day and it is raining paper. A hole has split in the wood from all the paper where it was leaking from the bathtub upstairs. The paper is covered in all your upstairs neighbor’s poetry. Your upstairs neighbor is always so loud, crying for whole weeks at a time. Your neighbor is so loud the sound bleeds through the mahogany. The mahogany is now spilling into your bed, your bed you carved yourself out of the desk, the desk which appeared behind the door, the apartment which was drowned in poetry. The future that is always words.
Wheeler Light is an MFA candidate at the University of Virginia. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, Pretty Owl Poetry, The Penn Review, and Broadsided Press, among others. His work can be found at www.wheelerlight.net
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
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