There is no such second place in the world where so many noteworthy moments have been saved. How many of your breaths flickered on the walls, how many of your tears soaked the floor, nobody knows. A part of your heart will stay here forever, no matter where the wings of fate take you. It’s a magic point, the mind remembers it as the heart longs for it, one and only—home.
Norbert Góra is a 32-year-old poet and writer from Poland. He is the author of more than 100 poems which have been published in poetry anthologies in USA, UK, India, Nigeria, Kenya and Australia.
This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home.Purchase here.
I’m airing out the house of my heart. All the cobwebbed corners, the shelves of knickknacks, are being dusted unmercifully. I’m opening the shutters letting the wind blow out the musty smell of disuse. I’m putting flowers in all the rooms. Even the basement, the attic ignored for so long are getting a going over. All that old junk has got to go. It’s just shelter for spiders that tap away when the lights come on.
I’m trying to put the house of my heart in order. “Smarten up,” I say, adjusting the bowties of my fears. “Stand up straight,” I say, brushing off the jackets of my doubts. “Everyone be on your best behavior,” I say to my wants and needs. “We have a guest coming.”
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.
as in the one who feeds you with her chest, the one who housed you next to her most sacred innards, the one your eyes search for as you cry.
a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth; [3]
the unparalleled truth of motherhood: only one person will ever birth you.
the unbearable truth of motherhood: no world she births you into will as be as safe as the one she made.
(also in extended use) a woman who undertakes the responsibilities of a parent toward a child [4]
every place that has ever felt like a second home to me has had the influence of a woman who houses the strength and presence of a whirlwind framing everything from the door to the walls to my heart.
I hadn’t seen the woman from Chicago in months though the guy still walked their hulking labrador.
But this was the city in sickness and in health, it wasn’t polite to impose.
Under what conditions might a sheet by the road not assume a body? The shroud
stained funereal so near to the point of some levied labor.
Is there a condition in which a ghost is not suspected?
Plastic bags trawl the landscape. Stone beds wait for us to seed.
The clementines congeal into the grapes shrink past sweetness and affix themselves
in the rot of last month’s spinach. Already dust settles in the bedroom and piss from a recalculating cat
shadows the tile in the study if you know where to look.
Last week I found a sand dollar with only a small hole left of center, I reminded myself
even the winged rats had to eat, had to play some part, so we’re told.
Even birds, requiring something solid to alight have been known to thread the nest with our disposal.
This morning I saw the black spot my left ovary a cavity
from which my ark had wrested in motion. But what about the body
that might or might not have been underneath the sheet?
The condition always the same:
Let me be some manner of ship or yes, again, a fish
suited to these streets
Abigail Chabitnoy, member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak, is the author of How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), shortlisted for the 2020 International Griffin Prize for Poetry and winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award, and the linocut illustrated chapbook Converging Lines of Light (Flower Press 2021). Her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, LitHub, and Red Ink, among others. She currently teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts and Eastern Oregon University low-residency MFA programs as well as Lighthouse in Denver. Find her at salmonfisherpoet.com.
Lack of a lover Lack of children Lack of pets Lack of flatmates Lack of arguments Starting out petty Lack of partitioned space Lack of visitors Unless they’re invited— Just me In my little house Two room Inner sanctum Where I could be Just me— A living Situation I seem Condemned to & somehow
Prefer—
Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active on creative writing & Spoken Word since the early 1990s. Author of 7 books–Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, Skeletal Black [ all from POOR Press ], Elohi Unitsi [ Conviction 2 Change Publishing ] and from February 2022, Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate [ Vagabond Books ] and Plans [ Nomadic Press ]–and 42 anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far.
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.
I can recall my father walking me through the process
At an early age, he would say
Walking is one of the simplest ways you could show someone
Your freedom
“See, the first step to being enslaved is to actually get caught!
Why do you think Martin Luther King Jr and Cesar Chavez
Spent all that time marching!?”
“You have to stay on your toes, Mijo
This system has interesting ways of turning a man into a slave”
If you asked my father for a ride
He would tell you to
Walk
After crossing the desert for a better life
My father sees my walk to any Open Mic
As an easy stroll through the park walking
In my father’s footsteps has taught me that
If you love something you will do anything you
Can to get to it
Your feet will get you there if you allow them to
My father walks with the determination of an immigrant
Like his children will starve if he doesn’t walk fast enough
Like there are immigration agents chasing after him
He is America’s worst nightmare
A bad ass in a foreign country and I
Always wanted to walk just like him but
I always seem to take the wrong steps
Walking in and out of Jail
Pacing in my cell like a caged Ocelot
These must have been the ways you get
Enslaved my father talked about and
It all started in the seventh grade when doctors
Explained to my parents why I walked with a slight limp
My right leg was shorter than the left
Forcing me to apply most of my body weight on the right side
I developed a walk that would quickly label me a thug
I guess the inequalities I was exposed to finally
Drenched through my clothes and into my bones
So now I walk like I got a wounded knee
Like the structure holds me down by my back pockets
Saggy jeans are one of the side effects left over
From my oppression and
When you walk with this much weight at an
Early age your steps
Begin to sound like ticking bombs
The type of walk that’d make a motherfucker
Move out the way the type of walk
That’d make a cop want to follow you
In 2012 Trayvon Martin
and all the years after
Mike Brown
Eric Gardner
Jessie Hernandez
Sandra Bland
George Floyd was murdered for
Having the same walk as me
Trayvon was only 17
They asked me why I cried
Because he walked just like me
Because he was just like me!
Still perfecting his own walk still getting use to the
Feeling of walking in a black man’s shoes
This is the reason why boys like us
Never achieved social mobility
How can we climb the ladders of class if we can’t even
Walk through our neighborhoods without feeling like
Someone is chasing after us
But I’ll risk it all to show my son and the rest of the
Chavalitos in the world that we can walk to a
Better future instead of having to walk away from everything
That we can walk across the stage and graduate
Instead of having to walking in front of a judge
That if we all walk at the same time
The weight of our steps would force the world to flip its rotation
So stand up and walk with me
We have the world at our feet I think it’s time
That we exercise our freedom
Jozer G is a poet, musician and actor based out of Denver, Colorado! Jozer’s work has been featured on American Theater Magazine, HBO, PBS and Univision. Jozer released his debut EP on June 24th, and a new book at the end of the year!
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.
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