Category: Poetry

by Kat Douse

I don’t know just how to tell you

But yesterday when we were

————- engaged

on our boss’s desk

I was whisked away through hallways

of celebrity faces

and bodies

until I settled upon

(insert favorite celebrity here)

I saw into His eyes and

I felt your/His touch and smelled Him/you

and

He and I fought pirates as

you and i fought back noises

He and I rode horseback through an orchard as

you and i rode bareback through an office

and at that moment when I

almost got there (cuz i didn’t –

get

there)

He was who I saw on the insides of my eyelids

and i forgot

we (you and i)

existed

Kat Douse is a current student at SCF, Venice Campus.  She enjoys her exciting career as a barista, and her challenging course load.  She grew up in Brentwood, TN, and relocated to Venice, FL in 2002.  She loves writing, especially poetry, and hopes to continue it for as long as she can.

By Jay Foulk

Don’t keep

suppressing civil rights

Don’t ask

good people to lie

Don’t tell

of honor

Don’t keep

a lock on the closet

Don’t ask

for silence

Don’t tell

of being one

Don’t keep

the door closed

Don’t ask

for shame

Don’t tell

of the few

Don’t keep

calling it a choice

Don’t ask

nature to change

Don’t tell

of the proud

Don’t keep

Don’t ask

Don’t tell

Jay Foulk is a student at the State College of Florida.

By: Daniel DeBrun

Telling, revealing what’s on your mind

Intellect, collectively to help you find

Listening, receiving what you have to say

Conception, comprehension of a better day

Think consider regrets of last

Loathing repulsive memories of past

Sugary luscious objects of affection

Hard solid impulses of attraction

Possessed seized ruled by temptation

Bursting exploding feelings of frustration

Submitting wickedness through the years

Owning sustaining your deepest fears

Pitiful pathetic memories today

Forgiveness mercy for what you can’t say

Mistakes illusions that bring cry’s

Neglecting forgetting haunting lies

Knowing, shrewd one last kiss

Yearning, longing eternal bliss

Daniel DeBrun is the current Web Master of the Elektraphrog web site. Daniel will graduate from State College of Florida with an A.A. and plans to transfer to one of the area’s art schools to pursue a degree in Web Design and Interactive Media. Daniel is father to the most amazing two boys on the planet, Austin and Aiden, and has almost been married for two years. He has been part of a “Three Time State Champion” wrestling team (placing third individually), spent three years working avionics on the B-1b Lancer, B-52 Bomber, and the B-2 Stealth bomber for the United States Air Force, and spent a few years working in casinos in Las Vegas as a Blackjack and Roulette dealer. Daniel has also done Hollywood extra work in a movie called “Race to Space” starring James Woods and Annabeth Gish, and recently took on the leading male role at Lemon Bay Playhouse in the stage performance, “Cheating Cheaters”. He currently works as a student assistant in the remedial reading and writing lab, and in the computer information systems lab for State College of Florida (Venice). Daniel is proud to be part of State College of Florida’s online literary arts magazine!

by Maria Spelleri

Isotopic sand from Trinity radiates in my shoes and

suddenly I remember cancer runs in my family.

Nothing good can come from trapping gluons

between my toes- there’ll be shriveling, disengagement,

and on top of that now karma’s gunning for me too,

thanks to the bugs, their colossal juiciness,

(attributed to secret nuclear testing),

macabre colliding particles,

smacking out taunts on my windshield “goes ’round, comes ’round, goes ’round comes

’round.”

Of course in these parts they must suspect something,

with the tremors and occasional two-headed calf

which never lives long although

a photo at the Arco showed one did make a decent road side attraction

over a long 4th of July weekend.

But now no one is slowing down long enough to get a look

at a Navajo John the Baptist, his faded sign warning

of the apocalypse,

still as a cigar store Indian and easy to miss

in the shade of a billboard reading

“Wal-Mart 2 miles north,”

apparently some sort of homing device ’cause every pickup veers toward

the off ramp, while on their sticky seats

bare-legged pregnant girls sip 64 oz. sodas and

shift uncomfortably with

the feeble kicks of their underweight babies, asking

the boys sitting next to them do you still love me even though

I’m ugly now, and the boys in damp undershirts check their rear views,

cough up some phlegm, and wonder if the recruiter

(who promised Germany or the Philippines),

got their proof of GED yet.

I know this, you see; it’s in

the fallout, the steady wind, the coppery taste in the back of my throat.

Meanwhile I feel my toes warming up, and like a hot air balloon

escaped from its mooring…..I rise,

arms straightening, hands releasing,

now just fingertips touching

lightly on the steering wheel….

Note to self: FOCUS.

Which I do- on the dividing line,

a wavering yellow tongue uncoiling from

deep within the mouth of iron-crusted mesas,

where scattered mobile homes jut rusted and

bleeding from the dust with the sudden asymmetry of

a meth addict’s smile. I punch the radio but

the distant ghost voice who promised salvation

has abandoned me to astral static, and

I try not to look at something dead

on the side of the road even though

it’s rather large.

Maria Spelleri teaches in the Language and Literature Department of the State College of Florida.

by: Adam Gadomski

In the cemetery is where I found you,
Once again crying for the one you lost.
The tears you cried, the breaths you drew
Fell silently on a small wooden cross.
I stood for a moment, sharing your grief,
Because a part of that pain was my own.
Then I crouched next to you, put my lips on your cheek,
Then we stood together and walked home.
That scene still lingered in the back of my mind
Long hours after you fell asleep.
And in that moment I could search, but not find
The peace I so wanted to keep.
So, I turned in my bed and tried to forget
The visions that plagued me with pain.
“It’s time to move on; no time for regrets,”
But still no sleep could I gain.

Adam Gadomski is a student at the State College of Florida.

by Chelsey Lucas

I
inhaled twice
and felt my mind t i p
and touch the
e
d
g
e
of the
universe.

It was beautiful.

She was curved and disproportionate in a fashion similar to ocean waves
r e a c h i n g
for the sky, the moon, the night; the satellites
of Her eyes shone and sent mixed signals to my
lips, my hands, my skin – all goosebumped and intoxicated –

I

felt the shape of Her hair, Her spine, the
l i n e o f Her c l a v i c l e
I felt Her tremble beneath the weight of my fingertips
– a ripple beneath the looking glass water interrupted;

a meteor shower through the atmosphere, She let me in

I

swam in Her warmth, surrounded in Her
I fell into Her black holes and surfaced for air
I lifted and twisted against the absence of gravity – the (s)urge to gratify –
to hold Her.
To stay.

Exhale: I watched Her f a d e.

Chelsey Lucas is a first year student at SCF, and a lover of English, art, and expression.

Cherstin is a thinker, part-time student, writer, full-time mom.