Category: 2014 — 7.1 (Fall)

By: T. A. Parker

 

We’re all just animals

Deep inside us all lurks a wolf

A salmon swimming upstream

Crows cawing at passers by

We’re loners and livers and critics

Bags of flesh, filled with organs, bones

All moving towards death

Each of us on our own paths

I remember the when I was young

That time at the carnival with my parents

I remember the terror I felt

When the rodeo clowns grabbed my mom

She volunteered to be wrangled as part of the show

Not everyone has the choice to be part of the show

Like that goldfish living in a bowl too small

Or that pervert who hangs around the toy store in the mall

A chronic masturbator with pedophilic habits

He never hurt anybody, but he watched

Recording the face of every child to his memory

Preparing for his solitary night of furious, frustrated masturbation

But it’s not his fault – it’s his illnesses

I remembered how I howled for my mother

To think of that day still stings

At least I got to ride the elephant

Elephants never forget

Worse, they mourn for their dead

We don’t understand why

It’s difficult for us to fathom the viscera of so many other organisms

I can’t understand the clowns anymore than an elephant

We’ve got an understanding though

Just like the toy store owner and the chronic masturbator

A 200 dollar monthly bribe keeps the owner from calling the cops

The cops, like a pack of starved lions

Would pounce on this child watcher as though he were the last gazelle

The only one to mourn the man

The toy store owner

The clowns eventually gave my mom back

But if we truly lose the last gazelle

Unlike the chronic masturbator

There would be no more

By: Megan Finsel

She

     Asked

          For

               Escape

 

Bio: I’m a Special Education major with a love for books. Writing is my passion; it is how I connect with the world and share my thoughts and emotions. To get to know me more you need to read my stories because I put a piece of my heart into each one. My goal is to inspire at least one person through my work; then I know I’ve done my job. ​

 

By: Danielle Dean

 

Suspended up in the sky
millions of miles
and worlds away
hangs a string of stars
connected only by
a few threads of
twinkling stardust.

Dwindling high above
your head and my own,
I spot the Orion.
There’s the Milky Way
lodged up there, too,
or so I’ve read.
The books all say the same thing–
Latin for “a set of stars”
Together making lines like jagged scars.

Scientists throw around
all of these words about
this celestial circle of cosmic proportions,
but it’s hard to know much
when you live on the ground;
compared to stars, we’re down, down, down.

Eighty-eight of them sleep in the sky
casting an astronomical blanket over Earth
and dating as far back as the
Ancient Egyptian and Babylonian times.
From Andromeda to Cancer to Draco,
the sky becomes nothing more
than a lunar mansion for the
clusters of stars we identify;
by name, by location, by shape.

In the end, we personify that
which is miles and worlds away
in the hopes that maybe one day
humanity will be as brilliant and bold
as the shapes we see in the sky.

 

Bio: My name’s Danielle Dean–I’m an English major with a passion for creative writing of all genres and platforms; I’ve always viewed writing as one of the greatest ways for people to express themselves, and I hope to continue on with it for the rest of my life.

By: Michelle Valkov

 

My body lingers its pale skin.

The cold, sticky mud wrinkled my bones,

Into pigments of dust, mustered into cones.

Death was something I felt, and lived.

No sound, and no light to look to.

Not a dream, I already knew too.

Faint noises driving my insanity.

A real nightmare vanity.

I can’t get out, I’m too scared,

And too frightened to care.

An agitated part of my corpse disturbed by a crawler,

no feeling if it bites, and my world getting smaller.

This is an antic,

No longer frantic.

My eyes are out of their sockets and my brain no longer in my skull.

I need to push and jostle.

I only dream someone might one day discover me, a fossil.

No one will hear me, even if I shout.

I hear a jeer that panics me from inside out.

I’m a big mess, twisted and distorted.

Deformed and contorted.

Consumed to the very core.

I have distant memories of being attacked.

I was murdered.

He didn’t care and made me grow up too fast.

This haunts my past.

My future captured and thrown away.

He shall pay.

My mind can never be at ease.

Am I hidden forever?

Find me please.

 

Bio:  My name is Michelle Valkov and I have always loved to write. I was  born in Washington state, my mom was born in Russia, which at the time was USSR, and my dad was born in Bulgaria, so in a way, I’m like a mixed child. I can speak Russian fluently, and a little of Bulgarian. I love the beach, sunny weather, long walks, music, reading, and my favorite, watching classic movies. I haven’t seen the snow in about 9 years, and I’m not complaining. Florida is my vacation, for now. Traveling Europe would be a dream come true.

By: Bluefin Jones

 

Freezing fires, freezing lives, on the winded path so old,

Through the frost-bitten hail storms, so distant from home.

 

Crossing frosty plains so bleak, little signs of life,

Through the dead forest ghosts, we’ll make our mark now.

Still burning towards our destiny, we traveled on and on,

Pierce the darkness endless as our hearts refuse to die.

 

We burn with the passion of a thousand suns,

Forced against the blackest knights, the march has begun,

Friends and foe alike will taste the iced tundra below,

The time has come for battle now, to make legends untold.

 

Freezing fires, freezing lives, on the winded path so old,

Through the frost-bitten hail storms, so distant from home.

Battle forged soldiers forever fought during lives past,

We’re all lost in darkness endless, so distant from home.

 

We test the boundaries of our souls with the burden of despair,

And we will die in our sleep for a world that’s so unfair.

We travel in circles tired, our tortured souls repeat,

The voice inside calling to us another wasted day.

 

Can’t you see the history, slow creeping madness,

This land of fallen heroes, there’s nothing left, no place to go,

We have traveled far across this wasteland,

Forever searching for an answer, for the right to understand…

 

Freezing fires, freezing lives, on the winded path so old,

Through the frost-bitten hail storms, so distant from home.

The gates of our promised city will never unfold, forgiven we are not,

Only a shadow of pain remains, still in time, so distant from home.

 

 

By: Bluefin Jones

 

You are the fond memory of happiness, and the forced laughter in a crowd.
You are the hew of a bitten apple, and the breathing earthworms after rain.
You are the freshly crumpled paper, and the wet peels from a potato just washed.

 

But, please consider that you are not the crisp morning air during sunrise, the soft droplets of dew on a tiny sapling, or a finished mahogany china cabinet.
And your voice is not the sweet chirping of baby birds… your voice can never amount to the sweet chirping of baby birds.

 

However, it is quite likely that you are the puddle of water on a newly paved road, or the worn treading from a tire, but you will never become the sunset behind a cascade of purple and orange clouds.

 

And asking a few honest friends will prove that you are not the open book gently resting on a pillow, nor are you the soft flesh of a newborn.

 

In your wisdom, I’m sure you have a great collection of experiences to recall from… that I am the moment before a car accident. I am also a flickering light in the kitchen, your gas tank almost on E, and the plate of brownies at the gym during cardio;

 

but please don’t panic for I am not the fond memory of happiness.
You are the fond memory of happiness.
You are nothing but the fond memory of happiness,
and the freshly crumpled paper.

 

 

By: Bluefin Jones

 

Paper. Just paper.

Only paper. Your paper. My paper. Our paper.

It’s feel after you dry your hands; goosebumps. It can cut. Cuts shallow but feels deep.

Words, pictures, words, pictures, words, pictures.

A love letter

on paper can be bad.

Too bad.

 

A cover letter is so smooth of your interest. The interest of your job interest.

That’s a lot of interest, huh? An interest, you’ll know, stems first from curiosity.

A B C D E F G.

We were all there once. With paper. Always paper.

Trees are good thus

paper can be bad.

Too bad.

 

A birth certificate, social security card, money. Paper money. All paper, all important to someone.

A death notice can really liven up the mood to the greedy, but

paper can be bad.

Too bad.

 

Parchment was before, when it had value, real value. And now. Paper.

No one cares about how paper fees when a discarded idea is flying in the air into the trash.

Paper can be so good… but

too bad.

 

 

By: Monica I Castro

 

Sing me a song of silver let

It flow gracefully in the wind

A thousand pent up memories

Like penchants strung on a whim

 

Whispers ripple through each moment

Cool rings that burn leaving no trace

True fire need not mark each sin

 

Executer, please, you need not linger still

 

Remembrance pierces the dark, forcing me to stumble

A rage it wields like daggers, a fury forged from spite

It saps my strength, binds my will, and

Pries all but misery from my trembling hands

 

Every moment is a battle, each breath a gasp

Time was once my battle ground and

Yet now it is my prison

There is no home left to bargain

True hope can only come from within

So take this empty shadow, its strength so paper thin

Forgive this ghost that echoes

And let my slate be wiped clean

 

By:Helen M. Ulrich

That Person cut me off on the highway today.

Maybe that Person was having a bad day.

Maybe that Person was rushing to the hospital.

Maybe that Person was late picking up their child from school, or…

     was late for a flight,

         was late for school,

           was late for work,

            was late for an interview.

Maybe that person was in a hurry because…

     their child was sick in the car,

         they were having a heart attack,

           there was big spider on their lap,

             they spilled their hot coffee.

Maybe that Person’s mind wasn’t on the road because…

     they had an argument with their mate,

         they were worrying about a test,

           they were diagnosed with a terrible disease,

             they were exhausted,

               their loved one just passed…

Maybe that Person didn’t mean to cut me off today.

By: Leah Glaser

Fresh out of the womb,
Our minds are molded to believe
that unless our bodies fall into Barbie doll shapes
we might as well fall into the notion
that we are worth less than the tails up penny
found lying in the middle of the interstate

That unless we succumb ourselves to every
grapefruit diet we will be nothing more than rotten fruit
on the tree of one too many shakes and one too few salads

We are taught that owning ourselves is too big of a purchase,
that we must loan out our worth to the opinions of others

And so we stand in front of the mirror,
pinching at our extra layer of warmth
As if to tell it I have never loved you and I never will.

 

Bio: I am currently a freshman at the Bradenton SCF campus, but will be going to Florida Gulf Coast University in the spring. This poem was inspired by watching multiple spoken word artists.