Tag: poem

Floor Bare | Jessica Rigney

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Image: Tim Huefner

Floor Bare

And here you are standing
two feet bare on the floor of
your kitchen turning back
to the wall behind as though
he were standing bare-footed there
with you again as he did
those years prior. Before
the days dissolved into the rising
of time immemorial and you
who had just kept your head
above water now live
in the after so far below you have
come to know the nocturnal
creatures who in quiet habits roam
from shore to shore only under
all the weight of dark stars.
What can you do but let
flow through your fingers—the now
and him too though he was yours
for a time and gave you
such happiness.
The distances between
keep widening and soon it will be
that you cannot recall his eyes
or the scent amongst his thick curls.
Turns out you knew—had known
all along this was coming. It was why
you held him close for so long
why you saved him in dreams
so many times you lost count. It was
the one sure thing you held
in your heart and though you knew
it to be true you gave him
everything even so—even though
you knew in the coming years
he would be gone from you.
And here you are standing
two feet bare on the floor of
your kitchen turning back
to the wall behind you as though
he were standing bare-footed there.

Jessica Rigney is a poet, artist, and filmmaker. She is the author of Follow a Field: a Photographic & Poetic Essay (2016), Entre Nous (2017), Careful Packages (2019), and Something Whole (2021). Her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022. She lives and wanders in Colorado and northern New Mexico, where she films and collects feathers and stones. www.jessicarigney.com

This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, 
Dwell: Poems About Home. Purchase here.

A Special Place | Norbert Góra

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Image: Birmingham Museum’s Trust

A Special Place

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.

Pots & Pans | Zack Kopp

~ South Broadway Press ~ 1 Comment
Image: Alexander London

Pots & Pans

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 | Cipriano Ortega

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Image: Cipriano Ortega

I am queer noir

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.’

Pansy to Pale | Liam Max Kelley

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Image: Mohammad Naderi
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.

Transplanting | Lillian Fuglei

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Image: Matt Artz

Transplanting

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.

HOMESICK | M. Palowski Moore

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HOMESICK

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.

Rooms | Liza Sparks

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Image: Guillaume Lorain

Rooms 

“I dwell in Possibility—”
-Emily Dickinson

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.

Apartment | Wheeler Light

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Image: Nathan Dumlao

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.

Tell It Slant | Cortney Collins

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Image: Chris Bair

My family grew corn in the heartland, but I’ve never seen it quite like this:

Angelic, husk-winged, guarding every shard of bone hidden in the soil. 

How is it that I didn’t know I had thousands of angels? They were with me all the time. 

I remember going out into the fields with my grandpa, crossing into the humid network, stalks sending out messages to each other across droplets of August air. 

I could hear their choir, their low and incandescent hum, the sway of bass clef notes rocking me to sleep in the farmhouse.

Emily Dickenson advised us all to tell the truth slant, and I remember this is what hailstorms taught the fields. The slant truth seemed tragic, in a way, as if nothing stays upright or rooted for long. Not even cornstalks.

Not even families. 

Not even farmhouses, burned to the ground long after they’ve become vacant, when the small town fire department needs a fire to practice on.

Something is always missing.

Maybe it’s just a three-hundred-sixty degree view, the ability to see that everything is overflowing, 

all the time.

Cortney Collins lives on the Front Range of Colorado with her two beloved feline companions, Pablo (after Neruda) and Lida Rose (after a barbershop quartet song in The Music Man). She is the founder of the pandemic-era virtual poetry open mic, Zoem. Zoem produced an anthology of its poets’ work, Magpies: A Zoem Anthology, of which she is co-editor. Her work has been published by South Broadway Press, 24hr Neon Mag, Amethyst Magazine, Sheila-na-Gig, Back Patio Press, and others. Cortney considers herself a poet secondarily; her first calling is encouraging others’ beautiful words in community. 

This poem is from South Broadway Press’ new anthology, Dwell: Poems About Home. Dwell will be available to purchase August 1st, 2022.