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Poetry of the Week: Georgie Whitehead

10/21/2018

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Picture

PC: ​ Amy Krencius

Let's Talk About The Past

I tell her that I used to be afraid of ghosts, of the shadows on the wall
but eventually of nothing at all.
I spent all this time believing in tangible
spectres but this evening, in reluctant confrontation with my
reflection, I felt the dread pour into me.
Marble faced, she nods and scrawls.
What are your goals for this - mumbling why
do I feel like a squatter in my own skin, lived and not lived in.
When was the last time you - time. if we’re talking about time,
we are assuming a linearity, that selves don’t flit in and out
like hesitant adolescents tripping over their own hopes.
She operates in questions, I operate in never finding replies
that adequately satisfy those numbered questionnaires.
On a scale of 1 to 5, how often do you experience this?
I don’t know if I can quantify this estrangement in numbers nor tell
you that I’m haunting myself, a parasitic guest without an expiry date.
I leave before I infect her with this disease of dissolution. Little pieces of a self,
transparent and uncomfortably flimsy, are scattered on the floor.

About the Author - Georgie Whitehead

Georgie Whitehead is 19 years old and a student of English Literature at Oxford University. She is Fiction Editor for the ISIS Magazine in Oxford and a contributor to her college arts journal.
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Poetry of the Week: Jacinda Almonte

10/19/2018

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Picture

PC: Lexi Jude

An Unfinished Story Told Through Ink

In my mind I see 
A story told through ink
With thoughts created by me 
Told through images that link

When the moon rose 
Life shifted 
And as the darkness grows
I get lifted

Trying to get away 
From this reality that leaves me astray

when the shine goes away
The floor becomes wet
From all the tears washed away
Inside the books filled with regret

A dark tunnel that has no end 
I hold my darkness in my hands
There’s much pain to mend 
But there’s always a light at the end

The sun above my shoulder
Proves I am a soldier 
in a battle dodging boulders
There are places much colder

In my mind i see
A story told through ink 
With thoughts created by me
Told through images that link 

When the moon sank 
The sun shined
My ink went blank
It’s time to see what’s on this side.

About the Author - Jacinda Almonte

Jacinda Almonte is a writer with a passion. She believes what makes writing, art, and music so special is the expression and message in the work. Through her writing, she's learned that she can take people into a world of her own, a space that could become a place of their own. Her goal is for people to see the world through her eyes when they read her work, whether it’s taking them away from reality or showing them a better way to live in reality.
​
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Poetry of The Week: Gervanna Stephens

10/16/2018

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Picture

PC: ​Jeanine Leblanc

​release

Imagine a cold room
monitors beeping, the scent of disinfectant is awash and thick
and anxiety like heavy chemicals seep into your senses.

Imagine you wake up
bodies in white coats and face masks mill about
and there is no sound of clicking heels or pens or whispered assurances.

Imagine screaming
mouth open, sleep breath released
and no sound comes to express your feelings.

Imagine looking around
darkness greets you; a welcome home party after the cops come
and you can’t get out of bed.

Imagine you can change the scene
decide happiness is for you, loneliness makes you angry
and anger is not welcome in this home of your body.

Imagine two options
blue pill, red pill
and one is the be-all and end-all: the other flings you recklessly down the rabbit hole.

Imagine meeting Alice
finding out the matrix is real
and wondering if experience is what makes things worthy.

Imagine fading
light going out, illusions abounding
and no one can save you.

Imagine loving
so desperately and completely
and holding onto promises and hope and tomorrows.

Imagine a cold room
always below zero
and two options.

Imagine
if only for a minute that red shot happiness through your chest
and like your blood circulating
sparked plugs of fulfillment pushing the darkness out if only for a minute.
​

Imagine
experiencing that minute on repeat infinitely
and what does it look like if not release.

About the Author - Gervanna Stephens

Gervanna  is a Jamaican poet and proud Slytherin with congenital amputation living in Canada. Her work has appeared/forthcoming in Mojave Heart, Empty Mirror, The /tƐmz/, Bone & Ink, TERSE, & WusGood.black,. She hates public speaking, has two sisters who are better writers than her & thinks unicorns laugh when we say they aren’t real.
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Poetry of the Week: John Homan

10/11/2018

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Picture

​PC: Amy Krencius

Thu'um

my words enlarge,
energize weakness,
changing a world,
who pretends it can't be changed.

the body weakens,
diseases encroach,
medicines maintain,
feebleness accepted.

my words remain strong,
fierce & life-filled,
surging with vitality
that kills dragons.

life enduring for a blink
in eternity's eye,
lengthened by my words
changing reality to my wishes.

my words are locked chests
filled with gems of power
hidden throughout space & time.

left on the bus,
tucked in a book,
encountered everywhere
in every form.

I am at your elbow
while you read my words
connecting us forever.

I will still hear
your obvious argument,
even though I may not remain
in this body.

yes we all know it's true!
words are not the same as actions.
but they are endued with energy
that changes things.

even now they contend with you
explaining why you aren't
as smart as you think you are.

my words are symbols;
ancient runes chiseled into stone,
packed with sequences of truths
value systems built atom by atom

audible vibrations
moving through meat & bone,
contractions of wind,
resonating into common
frequential forms

we are half-breeds;
chimeras of animal & spirit
subject to distraction
endued with the breath of the Divine.

reaching…
adjuring…
pursuing...
words eventually
spurring us on
to become who we dream
we could be.

The Voice

the source of the voice is not seen
in the open office arrangement
it surrounds us.
​
the white noise generators
above us in the ceiling
diminish its effect

but there are times
it pierces the low pitched whoosh
like a hollow point bullet
tearing through soft tissue

carrying more
than waves of sound
each word
phrase
sentence
is packed with
complex data packets of
complete emotional turmoil:

the unfairness of it all
the lack of respect
hopelessness
suffering
anxiety
anger

the tone becoming frenetic
increasing in rate
rising in frequency
as if life will end without
communicating all of the
pain within
​
soon becoming unbearable
the entire sadness of the world
expressed in one voice
downloading through our tired ears
infecting our weary souls

About the Author - John Homan

John Homan is a poet and percussionist from the small town of Bend, Oregon.

A graduate of Indiana University, John's work has appeared in Chiron Review, Mojave Heart Review, and Quatrain.fish among others. John lives in Elkhart Indiana with his wife, daughter and two cats. 

Website

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Poetry of the Week: Kim Goldberg

10/9/2018

2 Comments

 
Picture

PC: Amy Krencius ​

Asylum

you discover you are the only one
in your family to never be
locked in a madhouse of blues
is it sanity or fluke?

in your family to never be
hummingbirds fill the garden
is it sanity or fluke
you never grew a peach?

hummingbirds fill the garden
and the wild tangle beyond the fence
you never grew a peach
that turned a dime, but you gorged

and the wild tangle beyond the fence
the silver twist of salmon in mid-air
turning on a dime. And you gorge
on a finding of hermit thrushes
​
the silver twist of salmon in mid-air
locked in a madhouse of blues
on a finding of hermits, rushing
to discover you are the only one

About the Author - Kim Goldberg

Kim Goldberg is the author of seven books of poetry and nonfiction. She lives in a 1940s miner's cottage on Vancouver Island, immersed in the healing matrices of garden, forest and shoreline.
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Poetry of The Week: Pat Anthony

10/6/2018

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Picture

PC:Amy Krencius 

In the darkness

of half light
from an early autumn moon
I throw out a dragline


snag the thorn 
of a last rose, a spike of lupine


build a wheel to hold my rounding


a certain trembling will alert me 
to observe the moth closely 
her sudden lack of freedom


too late to go back

In The Doctor's Office

I decide
to buy you a book
composite people
Finns and Greeks
Italians
some stick people 
a tribal genealogy


I cannot compose
this business of outliving my mother
an obsession tilting toward
rage 


but nothing happens
in this perfect room 
where I practice 
pronouncing five-word names
count pillows 
perfect chairs
deconstruct 
solids
prints

About the Author - Pat Anthony

Pat Anthony writes the backroads, often inspired by soil and those that work it. Using land as lens she mines characters, relationships and herself. A longtime educator recently retired, she holds an MA in Humanities Literature, Cal State, among others, poems daily, edits furiously and scrabbles for honesty no matter the cost. She has work published or forthcoming in Cholla Needles, Heron Tree, Nature Writing, Quail Bell, Third Wednesday, Tipton Poetry Review, The Avocet, The Courtship of Winds, Open Minds Quarterly, Orchard Street Press, Passager, Red Wolf Journal, Snakeskin, Awkward Mermaid and others.
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Poetry of The Week: Ahja Fox

10/2/2018

1 Comment

 
Picture

PC: Jeanine Leblanc 

Spinal Tap

There is a pocket
Packed purple
Giggling, a brown girl’s
Skipping the pits
Hollow                   hollow
This body
Deep puddles
Deep muscles
Swallowing
Needles pine
                            in bundles
I think drip (my nose)
A bleed so cherry-locked
The backsplash can taste
And it’s a crime scene
Of those same boy parts
Their tongues flickering
Thirsty               watch them rim
This body
Wolf   cinnamon.     rigor mortis
Watch me
Sex poetry party
Just mix moods in that throat
That throat
That throat
A rifle opening this floor

Talking Body

The blue sequins line my silhouette as tight as scales hug the flesh of snakes. They exhale around
my hips and take a deep breath at my thighs. The mesh caressed me slow as I stepped into the
dress before, but now, it claws into my back, hemming itself to my spine. The beads wrap over
and fade into my breasts like lovers’ entwined fingers when they know it is love. I run my hands
over my heavily sutured stomach following the complex in and out weaving until it bends under
my bones. Soon I would walk a stage drowning in harsh lights with the growling gossip of pearly
teethed pageant queens on all ends. I gaze at the flickering reds. They bounce from the chimes
that hang above the mirror in my dressing room. The chimes sound off like fairies tittering in my
ears. I turn, retracting my protruding shoulder blades like a plane’s wheels. I run off the platform
with the voices of strangers, the women who dressed me, throwing the word love at my feet. But
love gets caught in the train of this dress that falls seamlessly behind me, climbs up and down
my calves, burdens me with the excess skin I want to lose.

About The Author - AHJA FOX

Ahja Fox is a poet obsessed with bodies/ body parts (specifically the throat). Her tagline is ‘#suicidebywriting’ and her muses are dead things found among the living. Ahja can be found around Denver reading at various events and open mics or co-hosting at Art of Storytelling. She has recently decided to end her educational hiatus and is going for her BA in English-Literature/Creative Writing at UCD. She publishes in online and print journals like Five:2:One, Driftwood Press, Rigorous, Noctua Review, SWWIM , Tuck Magazine, and more. She has also recently been included in the 2018 Punch Drunk Anthology.
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  • Home
  • Mental health
    • Anxiety
    • Bipolar disorder
    • Borderline personality disorder
    • Cyclothymia
    • Depression
    • Eating disorders
    • OCD
    • PTSD
    • Schizophrenia
    • Self harm
  • Journal
  • About us
  • Contribute
    • General guidelines
    • issue two
    • Issue 3
  • Contact