Best Valentine’s Day Gifts for Each Love Language Accompanied by a Rant on Redefining Love

The season of love is on the way!!! While we should show love and gratitude for our loved ones all year long, it sure is sweet to have a day dedicated to it. I know Valentine’s Day can be difficult for those who feel that constant dread of being/dying alone. (Definitely can’t relate…) BUT I’ve found that V-Day can still be sweet and special when you branch out of the idea that romantic love is the most important type of love. You have friends! And pets! And parents or parental figures! Redefining your concept of love will help with feeling less alone, especially on Valentine’s Day. It’s important to give a gift that makes them feel special, heard and understood. I have compiled for you a list of the gifts that I think each love language would appreciate most. And remember, anyone can be a lover!!!

Receiving Gifts:

It may seem obvious to gift jewelry, but here is the thing: you need to specifically gift it in the color that your loved one wears. Massive mistake of gifting jewelry is getting a gold girlie something silver. They will say a very sweet thank you and then only wear it when around you. You’ve gotta respect the aesthetic baby. If jewelry is not your or their thing, us gift receiving lovers love trinkets. Those who feel special by receiving gifts are truly not expecting something expensive. It’s not about the money. Receiving a gift says to us: Even when I’m alone I think of you.

Words of Affirmation:

Shamelessly and in my personal opinion, the perfect gift is to get them one of our personalized typewriter poems! From my side of things, I see your google searches. “How to write a love poem.” “Poem for girlfriend.” “Love poem for girlfriend.” “Valentine’s Day poem example.” My darlings, we are here to help you. We have loads of poets at your service to write something specific to and for your lover(s) that is also incredibly aesthetic and cute. Give it a try!

Acts of Service:

There is no one on this earth who does not have a list of projects that they are so totally going to do some day at some time. I cannot be the only one who has a trunk full of items I have collected over the years because one day I will need it for an art project. Help your lover get started on their project! Go to the store to get the extra things needed. Bring them snacks and water to bite and sip while they work on it. Do the chores that are keeping them from having the time to do said project. For our acts of service lovers, it really is the little things that count.

Quality Time:

If you haven’t made a reservation for dinner yet, you probably will not get one at the place that you want. We all mistakes and that is so fine! If your honey or bestie enjoys quality time and trying new things together, it’s your lucky day to be reading this article. Our NYC Poetry Brothel is on Valentine’s Day this year and I promise you it is an experience that you and they will not forget. For those who do not know, it is an immersive literary cabaret that fuses poetry, activism, vaudeville, burlesque & magic with 1-on-1 poetry readings. Picture this: you walk down the stairs to the venue, as you walk in the door you are greeted by our lovely poetry whores ready to seduce you into exchanging a token to get brought into a private space and have poetry read directly to you. I can truly tell you that is not an experience you will get anywhere else.

Physical Touch:

I have never been good at this one. Take a nap together??? Try to imitate those pictures of the cats that look like little hearts with your bodies! Kiss them on the face! (This includes your friends! There is literally nothing stopping you from giving your friend a little forehead kiss.) Hold hands walking through the park and play along when people mention how cute of a couple you and your friend are. Lie through your teeth about how you just got engaged but the ring is at the shop for sizing. Run your fingers through their hair. Intimacy is not just for romantic lovers!!!

The bottom line is that true love comes from understanding them fully. Try this year to show everyone in your life that you love that you love them. We all need a little treat to get us through the day. Cheers! <3

Poet Math

You’ve heard of girl math. You’ve heard of boy math. But have you heard of… poet math?

Poet math is the ways in which we use mental gymnastics and acrobatics to rationalize our silly little habits and desire to write and read anytime, anywhere. It justifies, rationalizes, and whispers into our ear don’t worry, you’ve earned it. Follow along to see if our minds think alike. Cheers!

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• Poet math is believing that if I bought a book for someone else, I didn’t spend any money…

• Poet math is believing that a new notebook is an opportunity to write more, making it an investment in your future. And if it’s pretty to look at, it is an investment in your mental health. Economics!

• Poet math tells us it doesn’t count if you’re late if you were writing a poem in your notes app on the way there.

• Poet math justifies that $25 submission fees don’t count if you get an encouraging rejection letter.

• Poet math is wholeheartedly concluding that if you write best at cafés, $10 lattes are a career-based investment.

• Poet math is only writing Haikus to save money on ink.

• Poet math is thinking that a poem is an appropriate gift for any occasion. The fact that it doesn’t cost anything is merely a coincidence!

• Poet math is romanticizing your dead end job as an inspirational struggle that connects you to your favorite authors.

• Poet math causes us to make extraordinary efforts such as living WELL beyond our means, to cure or prevent writers block.

Relate to us or have your own? Let us know on Insta! We always love to hear from you. 💖

2023 Holiday Poetry Horoscopes

It’s holiday season and we’re seeing so many beautiful things in store for you, poetry besties! We’ve been sharing poetry horoscopes with our PSNY Members and this month we’re spreading the cheer for poetry-lovers everywhere!

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Aries

Your strive to be the best takes you places. Maybe not always the best places, but places nonetheless! December is the season of joy and celebration and fights at the dinner table… Remember to choose your battles wisely this year. You deserve a happy holiday season just as much as the next fiery sign! If you’re looking for a reprieve, come join us for a glass of wine and a night of learning about poet and cultural critic Alejandra Pizarnik. (Check out our holiday market for discounts!) We think it will be right up your alley.

Gemini

For the genuine Gemini December is bound to be, while gloomy and grey, a time of practicing gratitude, giving and getting! (Alright, done with the alliteration.) Picking the perfect present can be near painful due to your indecision. And while practicality may not be your strong suit, don’t panic. We invite you to give the gift of poetry this season. (Alright, I lied. Now I’m done.) Happy holidays to you and we hope to see you at one of our happenings! (OKAY, I’m done.)

Leo

Hello lovely Leos! The holiday season was MADE for you all. Maybe not as great as Leo season, (Birthdays are a holiday.) it’s time to lean into your generous and warm-hearted nature to celebrate others. (Definitely not because giving means getting…) It’s okay to splurge on yourself as well! We’d love for you to check out our holiday market to find the perfect personalized present for your loved ones, and yourself. Cheers!

Libra

Hello fellow Libras! We hope you’ve had a year of love and harmony. You deserve it! It’s the season of sharing and we’d love to celebrate such a season with you. Picking the perfect present is maybe our worst nightmare? (Fun fact for you: PSNY is chock full of Libras! So we really get it.) If you want something personalized for each of your lovers, check out our holiday market. We think you’d especially love our commissioned poems. Our poets will write your love language so you don’t have to.

Sagittarius

Holiday season? I think you mean Sagittarius season… It’s your time to shine and be grateful you were born early enough to not have your birthday on Christmas. Can you imagine? No thank you! It is the time to splurge on yourself a little. Looking for an idealistic adventure to look forward to as we bare this winter? We have a feeling Poetry Camp night spark your interest. Disappearing into the woods surrounded by creatives? Yes please!

Aquarius

Happy holidays to our favorite humanitarian! As the year comes to an end, it’s time to reflect on the last 12 months. Emphasis on reflect. (Not the same thing as overthink!) As the most outspoken zodiac of the signs, it is a great time of the year for you to express gratitude to your loved ones and get them (and yourself!) something as unique as you are! Our holiday market has plenty of options for you — from wine to workshops, we know you’ll find something that catches your eye. Feel free to think on it, we’ll be here until the end of the year.

Taurus

We salute you, Taurus, for the devotion and stability you bring into the world. It could use more Tauruses! (Taurusi?) December is the best month to spread love and admire beauty as the city lights up and people cheer. If you want to delve into the kindness that runs deep in your veins and find a personalized gift to your loved ones (or yourself!), check out our holiday market to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list.

Cancer

While it may not technically be your season, what’s more cancer-esque than a season of cozy. candle-lit homes and families sitting around the fire? This month, try and explore celebrating the season out in the world! But if that’s too much for your gentle heart, we welcome you to create community with us virtually from the comfort of your bed. Confessional poetry? What’s more Cancer than that. (And Taylor’s moon is in Cancer too… just saying.)

Virgo

Welcome to December Virgos! You’ve worked hard this year (as per usual) and it’s time to be a little selfish and give yourself the grace to take a break as the year comes to an end. Sit by the fire! Read a book from the TBR list! Buy new books and chapbooks instead (or read Milk Press for free) for yourself or others. Whatever you decide, we wish you the best and would love to see you at one of our happenings. (Discounted until the end of the year!) No stress, we will be here when you decide to give yourself a break. <3

Scorpio

This holiday season is a time to celebate all of the people who stood by your side this past year. You might just find that your love with be reciprocated more when you speak your love gently to your loved ones. Poetry can be hard, but if you pour your heart out to one of our poets, they can help you express those deeply passionate feelings that you have. Take your time, we’re here when you need us.

Capricorn

It is almost the new year! While the world is drinking hot cocoa and listening to Mariah Carey, we’re not judging youfor assessing the fiscal quarter. Someone’s gotta do it! (And it’s you.) As we celebrate the holiday season, it’s time to tell your friends and family how much you love them. The presents you are looking for are likely to be practical. Which isn’t a bad thing! Check out our holiday market for some gifts that fit the budget, and the personality of your aforementioned loved ones. There’s truly something for everyone.

Pisces

Happy holidays to our gentle, loving sign! We hope your year was full of love platonic and romantic alike. You deserve the best from people because you give the best of yourself. As you search for the best gifts to give those loved ones, just know that we’ve got options for you. From event discounts to PSNY merch, you just might find the perfect thing for someone (or everyone) on your list. And remember, it’s okay give to yourself a little something too! Go be a little selfish.

twenty-one ways to prosper as a child of a dying world

by Anne Gallagher

1. Never take clean socks for granted

2. Make your bed every morning

3. Never buy college textbooks. Do people still go to college?

4. Wipe front to back

5. Eat your lab grown vegetables

6. Call your mother

7. Call your representatives

8. Go on walks

9. Go on walks and do your best to avoid falling flaming branches (if you even still have

   trees)

10. Flossing is really important. It’s not lame to floss.

11. Try not to panic about the future, you’re probably not going to have one anyway so why

    freak out about it now?

12. Give yourself an hour a day to read, draw, or write

13. Rising sea levels provide fantastic waves for body surfing. Or normal surfing. Whatever

    floats your boat!

14. Florida is gone-- get over it.

15. So is California. You can mourn that one a little. But not too much.

16. The past is the past! Try not to be too angry with your great grandparents for placing

    wealth over you or your spawn’s well being-- maybe you would have done the same.

17. Organize

18. Collaborate

19. Yell, scream, and or cry cry cry about the injustice of it all.

20. Gather some friends and storm some politician’s palatial mansion-- torches optional but

    definitely encouraged.

21. Learn to dance in the acid rain

Ten Poet Pairs Who Would Have Been Best Friends If They Were Born in the Same Period

Written by Jane Brinkley, Festival Development Intern

Sappho and Adrienne Rich

Though one was born in Lesbos and the other in Baltimore, both boast a generational re-innovation of what it means to be a gay woman– Sappho with her love poems, Adrienne with her introduction of the term “compulsory heterosexuality.” To fall in love with another woman– to fall in love with letters and poems –maybe these things would make them good community members. But if not, they could at least commune with each other, critiquing work over a couple of drinks and commiserating over what it means to be a queer writer in this– and any– time.

Lord Byron and T.S. Eliot

Known for their adaptation of modern themes in surprising ways and dying of diseases of the lung, these two men separated by time and an ocean offered similar lyrics of being and love befitting their personal experiences. Maybe they wandered similar streets looking agape at the night sky, maybe they sat on similar benches as they composed similar poems. Both often assigned as long-form writers to new students learning to annotate and analyze, they might share a laugh or build a friendship imagining the worlds their poems have built in the hearts of poets new and old.

Emerson and Mary Oliver

This one is fairly obvious– nature bends toward the page when it comes to both authors. Though Oliver writes a hundred years or so after Emerson, the two likely wandered in the early morning dew and thought of flowers and mountains and what it means to be free, even if they belonged to different schools of poetry. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to belong to the world? Who knows– yet Walt and Mary might, writing on behalf of any and everyone who wanders.

Baudelaire and Allen Ginsberg

If the heartbeat of the metropolis were a genre, both of these poets would be in the business of capturing it– though they dealt with different moments, one in Paris and one in New York, their long-form poems of radical change, of fervor and the death of culture, work well in concert. Though Ginsberg’s disciples wouldn’t likely read too much Baudelaire, there is no doubt that they would have been friends if given the chance.

Ocean Vuong and Langston Hughes

As gay writers in the city writing of diaspora, belonging, and change, these men would have much to talk about. Reviews call them pariahs and voices of a generation, they’re headers on recommended reading lists for social justice and change, but most importantly their prose and poetry sings with an understated quality of the quotidian, little moments that build up into a resolute and alchemical change in feeling across neighborhoods and then worlds of meaning.

Maggie Nelson and Anne Sexton

Nelson wrote her thesis at Wesleyan on Sexton, but that isn’t the only reason we see these two women as being part of the same poetic family. Nelson’s brash and prosaic language and Sexton’s feminist confessionalism belong on the same bookshelf, and not only for their literary similarities– they share a certain feminine yet brutal verve that transcends the particularities of their personal oeuvres. Besides, what makes better Sunday brunch conversation than the inherent carnality of womanhood and its attending frustrations? At the very least, this is a meet-up I would like to attend.

ten things poets don't want you to know

Written by Heikki Huotari

These trees are helices, all saints and sinners

per their birth certificates, unloved or loved with

strings attached. A blushing husband in a blushing

husband's body, you would choose the barber with

the bad haircut, the dentist with the crooked teeth,

the cop that's black and blue.

As hemispheres are glued together crudely

so entangled cantilevers are grandfathered, four and

twenty to a pie. To monopeds on unicycles there is

no emotion but in person, advanced placement or

domesticated carnivore. Let's stipulate im-

provisation, Chubby Checker, like we did in 1964.

Unmitigated hummingbirds belittle your

position. Barriers are bustle-supplemented. On the

butter sculpture you like best perhaps you'll pin this

ribbon. Every deity a distribution, my center of

gravity is yours. So subsequent to radiator failure

you may stay in Grant's Pass, Oregon forever.

how to discuss your ex-lover

Written by Nicolette Daskalakis

Speak of them in the past tense, like they are deceased, or moved to a far-off country

devoid of an internet connection and cell reception.

Do not use their name in conversation, refer to them instead as “a friend of mine” or

“someone I knew.” This is less intimidating to present and future romantic prospects.

Allow them to take on the qualities of an estranged elementary school friend or a

distant cousin whose name you occasionally forget. Always occasionally forget their

name.

When someone mentions them, nod slowly, like you’re trying to remember what their

face looks like. Try to forget their face, especially if the person you’re talking to has a

face like their face.

If you find yourself in conversation with someone who regularly sees them, do not ask

about them. Instead, talk about yourself, preferably using a lot of positive adjectives

like wonderful and amazing, even if adjectives like shitty and depressed would be more

accurate.

Rewrite memories as to make the new ones more accessible in conversation: Go to the

museums you went to together, with someone new. Eat at the restaurants you ate at

together, with someone new. Listen to the music you listened to together, with

someone new. Speak about something new, with someone new.

Avoid discussing your ex-lover.

january blue (night I)

Written by Evan Neiden

the night i lost january, they were playing pretty music on the radio

[we interrupt this broadcast to bring]

the music told me first, and then the calls came in

[you breaking news tonight a body was]

i turned the music up until i couldn’t hear the ringing

[found washed up, frozen on the edge of lake michigan]

i don’t remember what they were playing on the radio but

[the body was waterlogged past recognition but]

i remember i listened in all night long

[whatever the cause, it happened weeks ago]

even as, hour after hour, my ringing phone went quiet; even

[before the body found its way into the water, it was]

when the sun came up and the frequency went

[dead.]

dead.

[once again,]

the night i lost january was the last night anyone called, it was

[those investigating could not identify the deceased but hey are]

the last night i called myself my name

[still attempting to put a name to the body; the coroner was]

and found something else in the radio silence

[unable to determine an exact time of death, but]

I don’t know whether their name was really

[they’ve surmised that the individual died sometime in]

january

[january]

but it’s my name now

[now back to your regularly scheduled programming]

and tonight, as i listen to the radio

[good night]

my name is pretty music too

Clickbait Review: How To B*tch to Strangers on a Park Bench

Written by Nate Rosenfield

Each line in Popular Longing seems to drift up from the presence of a dear friend seated right beside you, laughing at how strange and sad life turned out to be. Published this year by Copper Canyon Press, Natalie Shapero’s new collection names the desires, fears, and inadequacies only those closest to us seem to understand, but all of us silently witness and endure. True to its name, Popular Longings is a study of what people want: “people'' observed in the broadest terms by the humdrum pastimes that ferry them through life (jobs, grocery stores, art galleries, tourist attractions, funerals) and “longings” presented in their crudest, most accessible forms—universal, sordid, and thoroughly commercialized (the new restaurant to try, the flowers he didn’t get you, the small town historical reenactment, the jewelry you’ll be buried in). Reading the collection feels like people-watching with a brilliant cynic who knows you better than yourself, and can effortlessly speak to the symbolic meaning of what surrounds you. Natalie Shapero is that stranger in the park you’re glad you happened to sit beside.   

Although the collection depicts the nuances of interiority, it’s main object is how our inner worlds react to social conventions, particularly the market-driven forces that dominate so much of our lives. Why do we go to museums? What does our garbage say about us? How did we interpret the branded blanket the company gave us as a reward for our hard work? These questions are anything but commonplace when Shapero asks them. 

Her observations possess many of the same qualities as a roadside bomb. What seemed perfectly ordinary suddenly becomes lethal under her gaze. With biting humor and insight, Shapero tallies all the ways our dreams have been bought and sold to us, obsessively rummaging through every dark corner of her thoughts in search of some unconscious urge left untouched. Her despair, her pessimism, her immaturity, her hatred, unsayable and unthinkable longings for death and blind retribution—every last item is flipped over and torn apart, but at every turn the market seems to have her cornered. 

The humor and honesty that colors the collection allows us to share in Shapero’s desperate search with a sense of amity, but what she uncovers is hardly reassuring. Each encounter with our collective desires begins to resemble an abiding lack we can never fill (“How to feign lust for whatever is on offer. / How the largest possible quantity / of anything is a lifetime”). When the paint and gloss are worn away, Shapero shows us that essentially what we want is to live as long as we can; yet this seems to be the worst possibility imaginable in the life we’ve built for ourselves—the bulk of which consists of producing and consuming what will ultimately become junk through quiet, unthinking acts of destruction. As Shapero says, “What are our choices [...] might I suggest / LESS IS MORE against MORE IS MORE?”. But what does Popular Longing suggest we do in a condition such as this? 

The answer you would expect from a poet—that art can uplift us into a life of meaning—is the object of Shapero’s sharpest criticism. Art is a running theme throughout Popular Longing. Shapero depicts it as an attempt to escape or destroy the conventions that restrain us through reflection and criticism, but one that inevitably fails—corrupted by the forces of commercialization that it seeks to destroy. In the poem “Man at His Bath” we see this state of entrapment boldly on display: 

Six years ago the big museum sold eight famous paintings

to purchase, for unspecified millions, 

Gustave Caillebotte’s MAN AT HIS BATH. 

Now it’s hip to have a print of it, 

and whenever I see one hung for decoration, 

I’m almost certain that this is what Caillebotte

had in mind when he broke out the oils

in 1884: some twenty-first-century bitch in Boston

catching a glimpse of a framed reproduction, 

recollecting a study about how washing oneself may induce

a sense of culpability[...]

What’s truly for sale in the metaphoric museums through which Shapero guides us is a mass longing for freedom, escape, and revolt. Shapero often associates artistic works with spectacular displays of violence, disfigurement, or suicide, but these acts of destruction are understood by everyone involved to be simply a playful exercise: harmless, lustful, fun. In the poem “Don’t Spend It All in One Place” destroying oneself or the art that claims to represent you is presented as the highest form of expression: the essence of the priceless objects draped across prestigious (high-security) gallery walls. Rather than escaping the monetization of life, however, these artworks simply recreate it—a theme Shapero splatters throughout Popular Longing in bold and terrifying colors:

[...] specific paintings

enter into cycles of finding themselves slashed

and restored, punched through and restored, effaced

by aerosol and then restored. Once a painting

gets famous for having absorbed some disturbance, 

everyone wants to have a go. It’s like the woods

where a few people killed themselves and then all

of a sudden all these tourists were planning

pilgrimages there to do the same.

Shapero doesn’t separate her work from this dilemma. Quite the opposite—Popular Longing actively entices this same lust for destruction, provoking us to mock, scorn and delight in our self-hatred with abandon. With the drive and sneering scorn of a thrashing punk song, Shapero’s lines pull you in just to pummel and toss you around. The exits unreachable, the sound blaring, each stanza leaves you trying desperately not to fall down, as the comforts you vaguely took for granted are dragged across the stage to be jeered at and kicked around: love (“We often ate late by flameless / candles and took turns choosing / how best to be disposed of”), family (“Don’t worry. Wars are like children— / you create one, offer scant / effort, then call it botched as the years / accrue, go off and make / a new one with somebody else. / A chance to finally get it right”), the future (“The future, with its color / palette of airport whites and its / unrushed glace, its involute / beckoning. I see it. I can see it. At least / somebody wants me”), the past (“I’m ready to stop remembering. The trouble is / there’s nobody else who can do it.”), and, god knows, the present (“it’s juvenile / to cry for the everyday—so get over / yourself, I say / to the rat, who squeaks each time the dog / bites down, sounding just like those rubber chew / toys, which I suddenly understand are made to make / the noise of something getting killed—”). 

Shapero draws you down into the pit at the center of Popular Longing through cold-blooded wit, torn up elegance, and entrancing ferocity. You’ll be glad to have been ripped apart by such practiced hands (well worth the ticket price of only $17).  But her most provocative act is that she never lets you forget what you paid for. Shapero designs her verses to constantly stimulate this collective craving for destruction, to remind you at every turn that when art plays this game—leading a person to imagine they’ve broken free from all restraint—it’s simply another lockspring clicking into place. She offers no way out. The René Magritte epigraph at the start of the collection stands like a warning over the entrance: I do not like money, neither for itself nor for what it can buy, as I want nothing we know about. 

But how seriously are we to take Shapero’s nihilistic leanings? Her humor often makes it difficult to tell. At times a hush falls over her verse, and you feel as if you’ve been allowed to walk into the quiet of her innermost fears. But irony always shoulders its way in somehow and disturbs the scene, like in the following lines from “And Stay Out”: 

Rough days I’m trying to live

as though dead, to satisfy

or at least dampen the inclination 

to actually die. I’m holding 

mainly still. I’m forming my face

into no specific expression. 

I’m lowering the lights

so I can’t see my poster

of one world leader grinning

and shattering, over the head

of another, a trick bottle 

of champagne—a dead person

wouldn’t be looking at that, 

or at anything. 

The one moment in the collection where she seems to reach out her hand, searching genuinely for an answer, is in the poem “Some Toxin.” After lambasting human life as essentially a pollutant and bantering about the benefits of different ways and times of dying, she says: 

[...]All I want is for someone

To understand me, but it seems my keenest friends

and I—we’ve scattered. We’ve struggled for peace,

for permanence, and somehow in that struggle, 

we’ve ventured far from each other.

Rather than presenting this longing as the seed of some solution, as one might expect,  she simply says “[...] this is what / we get. This is our penance.” There is no hope in hope it seems. 

Or if there is, it’s not of interest here. Popular Longing is concerned with where a certain brand of collective desire leads us.  There may be promise in a life understood in other terms, but Shapero’s focus here is the brutality and futility of our market-driven cravings—it’s their essence she’s after, not a life that exists apart from them. If you’re looking for uplift, try somewhere else. What Shapero does offer is the honesty and grit to show us how implicated we truly are in the mess we’ve made of this world—and to do so with the cleverness, craft, and poise of someone willing to account for themselves. Like a true friend, Shapero doesn’t try to prop you up with false promises. She simply assures you, with all of her artfulness and integrity, that to be understood for all you are is better than comforting yourself with lies, or drifting away into obscurity. To turn misery into a joke that invites and restores you—that’s Shapero’s gift, and it’s not easy to put a price on. 

How to Cross Bright Country

Written by Shari Caplan/Madam Betty Boom

Count street lights when you’re unsure

how far you’ve walked

under the fluorescent suns of cities

thinking you’re a coyote

which legs are your legs are your legs are you

how many times tall tragedy can repeat

Let the plane fall back from you

as the camera pans the present

as the camera forgets my scene

your eyes will find horizons in every passing skirt

in every passing horizon a present.

Drinks with names like Lemon Scorpion

served on silver delivered to you

will cover your mind with my lips like the curtain

will curtain your lips like night in the desert '

served on silver delivered by you

with a grimace

you grimace most charmingly and get away with this

get away

will sizzle hot as your nerves, hands in my shirt

you hand a horizon into my shirt

can I keep it?

Stand in the cool grotto and press

your head to pink stucco

messages to me I’ll never read

because they’re sand-writ

because you mean nothing by them

because you mean nothing to me

except sunflower stalks shot through my ventricles, blue planets swinging backwards, frustration of pendulums, houses painted and ready for families who can’t find the key to what they’ve already mortgaged, red wax peeled from lucky cheese like lips from lips from my luck to your lips to you oh you oh you oh love oh too

But this is about your journey.

Strip naked in the ocean

an exercise in impermanence if someone (not me) steals your pants (though I would)

an exercise in feeling how cold you are

could you feel where you are

can you feel the limb you lost

which legs are your legs are your legs are you

where there are actresses in bikinis

you’ll never think of me again

there are actresses in bikinis you’ll never think of again.

Think of me again.

Write your movie

from a hill looking at plastic people.

from the hill of your un-climbable heart,

king of the mountain, with no attendants.

king of a mountain with only room for one.

not about impossible futures, but in the breath,

to bring you home wherever you take it, like a plane

You don’t know if you’re ready to board.

You’re ready

I am selfish.

I have no room.

Only for you.

Count street lights when you’re unsure

how far you’ve walked

under the fluorescent suns of cities

thinking you’re a coyote

Let the plane fall back from you

I am selfish.

Drinks with names like Lemon Scorpion

you hand a horizon into my shirt

can I keep it?

Stand in the cool grotto and press

except sunflower stalks shot through my ventricles, blue planets swinging

But this is about your journey.

Strip naked in the ocean

you’ll never think of me again

Write your movie

to bring you home wherever you take it, like a plane

You don’t know if you’re ready to board.

You’re ready.

THESE WORDS TOO COULD BE YOURS FOR A PRICE

Written by Stephanie Berger

Dearly beloved     I’ll be your host 

tonight     a very sassy ghost     your auctioneer

for we are gathered here     to celebrate 

the union of two     beautiful clauses     I’ll start 

the bidding at a hundred dollars     Just kidding!

At the low, low price     of a single single     I told him 

to say that     to put it in     those very words 

to auction off this sentence     which is not mine 

to keep locked inside     lady's gut causes 

truth decay    over time    shut down    

gets expensive    depreciates so   I would encourage you     

generally     of course     support your 

ectoplasmic lips       opening      thirsty skeletal              

but also     to divest      yourself of all       

belonging     to live with a pack    

of hungry street dogs     for once    in your life    

you could empty yourself    like a bucket      but of what     

do I know      really     about life?     

I am not Jesus      nor have I ever been      

hungry     I did not live     through the Black      

Death & become      modern     

with the rest of you    

Cedarwood

Written by Jackie Braje

At times and        away from           I

litter     my little words         along    the horizontal 

like crumbs     a             dumb distance.

Away  from        is   how  moss          extends from

oak.         Sidewalks  of      childhood        and women

breaching them.      They walk            away   from   

and back         again.                 Everything I say     now

is          away from       them.   My         idealism

concerns them       in that it          moves from   .

I already exist.             This, a child’s     predicament;

some pristine        thing opposite      its      dusty

origin.      Conditions      of this     fabulous

conflict         require walking.              Away from 

a white      dress      waits its           coffee stain 

runneth over.     Everything     remains to       be     

constructed          before arriving. 

I went             away from,              I’m sorry    . 

Even     sorry is a way           of getting         away from.   

In language     is a    full range   one      can walk      across ;

I   listen   and       I’m carried         away from. 

Grew up      in a house            built   over      a grand  collage. 

Furniture   legs             and stationary      things

push         away from .       When handing,         say,   a rose

to someone                  extend     it       away  from.

I’d       never   label     a form as             feminine            

but if I  did        plural    would be its  shape.         The rose

leaves     one hand            to join    another;     salt

takes      with pleasure    when   waves                     away from.

Voicemail for Christine

Written by Jane Brinkley

Could we be cruel in arms and like it?

You left last night, and, waking, still

in the velvet chair, I changed my mind.

I always liked your angle of gesture, its poke,

like a thermometer, like Vivaldi,

his first note, the rest of them rote,

I always liked those libertarian henchmen

in old Gothic yarns who will do or kill

anything for a buck–

pare the ribbon from the Duchess’ neck,

not exactly roast but certainly warm

the liver of some heiress

until it’s full like a trophy,

a new backyard for practice,

big enough to kick in,

“recite the Lord’s prayer,” they’d say,

their victim feeling funny, under

Frost Bridge, the ice growing runny,

Their favorite though not for function’s sake,

more as a matter of taste.

The Carps and Oscars, so nice,

the bridge bucolic.

“You get me,” one might say to the other,

before landing a punch,

the bruises pretty dark tomorrow,

and awfully nice to press at.

Though they won’t talk about it like this.

narc support group #1

Written by tova g.

Inspired by Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

you rummaged through our mother’s house like a raccoon in a dumpster behind a westchester

diner & ran 

away with memories of me, my hummed autobiography in disjointed colors like maya angelou’s 

caged bird.

since the month i considered you dead i’ve been thinking about how you never taught me how to

mourn the living.

(you did think yourself the aristotle of death. your relationship became intimate when you 

fucked him 

with his black sweatshirt & scythe necklace in the back of a prius in a burger king parking lot.)

i remember when i 

was eleven i dissected a cow eye & my friend hid it in her mom’s car. how can i gauge the

time of last 

breath if there’s no nearly-warm body splayed on a cold autopsy table. if i could i would hold

the same rusty knife 

as in my sixth grade classroom & like michelangelo crafting david (with poise &

godliness) etch 

your skull until what you stole from me spilled out onto the unforgiving steel. i wonder how i

would feel seeing 

my love for myself bloodied & undulating for the first time. maybe it would be like reuniting

with a long lost lover

after twenty years. (the only thing i know about jewish kabbalah is that there’s a divine spark  

of god in everything, 

including us. i’ve been searching for it in myself for six months but i’ve had a nagging feeling

that it’s in a box 

under your bed wherever you are, a nightlight that burns a little too bright to let you sleep, &

unknowingly

keeps us both awake at two a.m., your own dorian grey portrait you hope one day 

no one will find.)

I'll Still Be a Bitch in Hell

Written by Lisette Bower

What if I never fell from heaven?

Maybe I crawled out of hell before

anyone could drag me back under.

Always full of heartburn and spite

that holy water just can’t put out.

I’ll drown in the sins of your God

and take you down with me.

I’m not here for redemption or

what you call salvation. I’m just

looking for a shitty guardian angel

and enough nails to dig a grave.

Paint them in red shellac and

peel them off one by one. We

can gift them to the devil then

revel in our wild deliverance.

I don’t want higher sanctity, if

it means always wearing white

and never making love in wildfires.

Ablaze, my body will be as I knew it

nasty, unhinged, and unrestrained.

fields of haystacks.

Written by Sadhika Ganguli

I saw a Rothko in person

and it felt like an enlarged part

of something Monet

would paint.

my eyes saw the two hues

of magenta and royal blue

and suddenly without warning,

i was taken to

a field of haystacks on a

summer morning.

5am and my barefoot feet

are

sinking

into

dew

i’ve been whisked away into

a light blue garden of peace

where the haystacks and i meet.

i’ve always adored serene

and quiet scenes,

not like a loud film on a screen,

but a place where i can greet the

green blades of grass that

Whitman once praised!

i wish that one of these days

i can be in

my own quiet haze:

where my only divide

is the nose between my eyes

the spaces in between the lines

and the blades of grass in the dew.

for a moment i was there

(dawn’s mist still felt in my hair)

but now my feet are covered

with socks and shoes

and i am in a crowded room

surrounded by absent-minded

people in an art museum.

Not Invincible but Alive

Written by Esther Eidenberg-Noppe

After Ross Gay

i dreamt of the hesitantly slammed door giving way to a ripped open wrist / mom saying “now would be the worst time to go / to the hospital” for the bleeding to stop (whether or not it comes with the breath) / i dreamt the racing heart / finally caught up with the freight train speeding past / of plotting claws mistaken for softness, eyes of I.V. drip snake venom and radium / i remembered yesterday they left heaping piles of toilet paper on the doorstep / that i must first have wiped down the plastic with thick layers of tide / that even goodness could poison this sickness / i dreamt an entire lifetime of waiting: for the dam to break, floods to evaporate / knowing which was more likely (even if unfair,) the water knows how to get where it is going (even the lungs.) / i dreamt of eyelids as unhinged door knobs / waiting to be ripped from their sockets, / (meaningless) apologies dangling (like the legs of school children on seat edges / tapping toes to clock ticks before recess,) from the tips of meaningless tongues / saying they are sorry: knowing it is no white flag or red cross for the hurricane of the chest / for what is growing next to the heart: analogies simply also excuses to pretend love out of fear / always waiting for the blood which must spill eventually (somewhere...)

but biking along the beach,

watched a crow drink from a public-use dog water bowl chained to a spigot

remembered water could not only kill but quench a thirst

saw the elderly monk sitting every day atop the same picnic table

facing the waving (puget) sound,

waved and he waved back

(whispered) thank you

passed by a middle aged man roller skating in a closed-off parking lot

watched my mother place childhood stuffed animals in the windows

for neighbor kids on quarantine scavenger-hunts

saw little free libraries stuffed with groceries, string lights hanging in the backyards of strangers,

twelve year old boys shooting hoops in the middle of the streets, neighbors talking from adjacent

garden beds, wind chimes singing from front porches, seafoam sprouting from contented waters,

lungs being lungs

(kept breathing)

i woke to the mercy of the sun

preyed in my wordless way to the wind

with grateful goosebumps and eyes, ears, lips,

drank from the spigot

(whispered) thank you

again.

Step 9 Retrograde

Written by Allegra Parks

I forgive you for dying

A little inside when the fantasy withered

For not having the working memory

To cook eggs and waffles concurrently

I forgive you for plunging your hands

Into the hill of perfect flour

Before baking

For “Stop! I want it!”

your favorite slogan

I forgive you for dreaming of more bloody

Childbirths, slow mo all

You ever needed

Symbiosis separation reunion, repeat

For painting

His nails while he slept

For forgetting to put oil in the car

It burst into flames on route 29

I forgive you for not fathoming

Suicide threats can be fatal

Despite your mother, her deadness clear

I forgive you your brightness

Its shine accidentally blinding children

I forgive you

For using Jameson to quit

Heroin and heroin to quit

Jameson

For failing

To simply listen

To birds

Wishes

To the slick loop of time itself

To a Woman Carrying a Full-Bloomed Orchid on the Subway Platform

Written by Brandon James O’Neil

Heaven, perhaps, is

a push of petals through

the bud skin

The afterlife a

flowering of

something rare but

something common too

An orchid

bought at

a drugstore florist

When I die, will

my flowers be full, like

yours astounding too

subway grime and smell

of piss exhaust heading

home from work?

Who like you

embraces my bursting

soul flower eagerly

envisioning the hall

table or countertop where

against a mirror my beauty

will be admired?

Is there even an

embrace? Is there a

mirror? Or is there only

buds retreating and

collapse and never-

again blooming?

Heaven, I hope

is a push of petals but

my dear I do not know

if the petals will ever

open much less if the A train

arrive to carry you home

Of Living and Dying

Written by Kevin Farrell

Haven’t been cutting my nails as often,

cut my own face,

she caught me chewing on a nail,

“when did you start doing that?”

Didn’t know what “that” was until it was pointed out I had a finger in my mouth.

Heard someone say something about “our time in quarantine...”

and I thought of my grandmother,

visiting her window,

talking to her on the phone,

I hear her voice.

I see her face.

Not the face I saw last,

but closer to the face I saw Christmas mornings,

the face I saw when she smiled and shook her head at some whack job bullshit I said.

“Nan, I feel like this is all a dream and I can use a remote to change the channels if I want...”

“Kevin, you can do whatever you put your mind to.”

And if I really could, I would have taken away her suffering,

but I couldn’t,

so instead I dream we are talking one last time,

I’m caught in mid conversation with what looks like myself,

I guess it’s better than biting my nails.