A Collection of Poems

Out of My Head

I have been studying the difference between solitude and loneliness.

A trivium of knowledge anchoring down in the harbor of

Complaints about love,

Researched hate and

The science of triumph.

Iron and wood keep me grounded,

While the white walls collect harlequins,

Canaries,

Antwerp and

Bottles of wine.

I have been studying the difference between solitude and loneliness,

Only to discover that ships may be sinking.

~Cori Lydic

Esther

This queen knew what

the rest of us need to remember.

It might endanger

a whole race

for a woman to keep

her mouth

shut.

~Colette Tennant

 

Lazarus

“Jesus wept.”

The only miracle bigger than a resurrection

was the God that showed humanity.

“Lazarus, come out.”

His bones rose and came to the light

which was the glory of God.

He shuffled over to the one that set him free

and said nothing.

And his serious face looked as if it was trying

to articulate what he’d seen the last three days,

but he stood wrapped up in the linen and the wild air,

and considered the things left to say.

~Andy Tennant

 

Fortress of Solitude

Where I hold everything in

And let it all out

Where I find myself

talking back

…All a different person in a different time

All with old and new feelings

long Forgotten

or Remembered.

In my castle,

The world shrinks around me.

Until I am a prisoner

Shackled with my own thoughts

With little escape

With little hope

I am secured in my solitude.

~Kevin Green

 

In Egypt

Those ancient stones cut into the sky like teeth,

as bold as the day they were formed by ancient hands.

A dusty, bright-eyed boy stands, flinging a string of postcards into the air.

“One U.S. dollar!  One U.S. dollar!”

Paws outstretched, the Sphinx lazes in the sun,

grand and immovable.

A man without legs hobbles on crutches wrapped in cloth,

turning from face to unbending face.

The sun smiles on the wide river, the same sun, the same river

that were there four thousand years before

While across the bridge trots a donkey,

overladen with  tin and plastic trinkets to sell.

– Amelia Kaspari

Woman with Crow

If she gives her sin away,

she can feel the absence of its warmth

as it nuzzled against her torso.

 

Her squawking pet,

Her greasy companion that

everyone could hear and smell

 

What is she without it?

 

It’s loyal to her, as

it perches on her lap,

black as the world behind her eyelids

 

Keeping it close,

She strokes its feathers with bony fingers

that begin to resemble talons.

She hunches over, wings

breaking from her shoulders.

  -Jenna Harbeck