National Poetry Month, Day 27 | Urizen Freaza & JD Harms

April 27, 2021

Photo by Urizen Freaza

Photo by Urizen Freaza

Facial Elision
by JD Harms

Stark love heard in the gasp, a finding of walls, of support. The scorn of fragility, the tattoos of a wisdom pixelated into the looseness of movement. You bring the wine, the legs, and the face goes sliding away.

The trading of the seat for a cushion of the air you wished for, leaning. The edge of the shout dying on the mouth. The scream hopes for a new eyes to take it in, to hang onto. At first you love the distance, but then you stop looking for your other hand.

Screeching through the world, decisions going sideways, going up, taking you along while you look and crease the photographs with a stick, with a light. 

Yes, fire makes all things fine. Dry perspective, now, the blur of the world shaking past. There is that needle in the thigh, a new way to sidestep Mars, get frustrated with an apparent future.

All propped up, now, half-observed, still obsessed. The avoidance of everyone, the hiding masks that fit in the back pocket with room for a life of expression, and constant elision. Alone.

The heart clangour moroseness stitched on a perpetually closing mouth. Skip the vodka, the rum, the night where you weren’t lonely. For once. Speculate, by the gods, keep up with the speculative. Nowhere is somewhere nearby, I know.

Strand courage where it belongs, between the pages, but don’t read it later. Or, read it later with the cigarette still unlit, that letter that signals the return of the stark love.

Connect

See more of film photographer Urizen Freaza’s work on Instagram.

Read more writer JD Harms’ work on Twitter, and on Medium.

National Poetry Month, Day 26 | Ellen Goodman & Melissa Coffey

April 26, 2021

Photo by Ellen Goodman

Photo by Ellen Goodman

Curiouser and Curiouser
by Melissa Coffey

Here’s to the curious girls,
books are bursting with them; Alice,
Pandora and Nancy Drew, Mary
discovering her secret garden

Girls who don’t sit quietly with dolls,
but steal the magnifying glass
from their brother to count
legs on a centipede, petals
on a daisy; to see
the kaleidoscopic eyes
of a dragonfly, caught in a jar,
gazing back at them

Who peer between
and poke beneath,
cobwebs in their hair,
exploring the crawl-space, searching
for Alice’s rabbit-hole,
attic dust on their dress, following
Lucy through the wardrobe, eyes alert
for a glimmer of Narnian snow

Always asking why; she wants
torches and magic kits,
chemistry sets for Christmas
let your daughters be curious, don’t
tame or shame their questions; let them,
like Dorothy, ride a tornado to Oz, or venture
through the looking-glass; let life
be their endless encyclopaedia

Curious girls
become scientists and spacewomen,
mathematicians, politicians,
change-makers, ceiling-breakers,
mouthpieces for an ailing
Mother Nature; curious girls
become clever women who
challenge and change the world

Give girls magnifying glasses,
engraved with their names;
let your daughters be
curiouser and curiouser

Connect

See more of film photographer Ellen Goodman’s work on Instagram.

Read more writer Melissa Coffey’s work on Twitter, Facebook, and on Medium.

National Poetry Month, Day 25 | Wing Hong Leung & Kirk S. Pineda

April 25, 2021

Photo by Wing Hong Leung

Photo by Wing Hong Leung

Ocean Strategy
by Kirk S. Pineda

Full.

Like a daydreamer, I’m full of ideas

with a world of room to move

Free.

At no time could I ever be bound

by any rule, law, or dogma

Forever.

I will be here from my beginning to end

outlasting some, somehow outlasted by others

Constant.

I know that in me, my waters will never dry

inspiration to artwork is like how the ocean meets the sky

Depth.

I am the result of my foregone ancestors

so deeply does the roots of my history sink

Flowing.

And as I move, my waves will crest, shaping my life

into solid hills and valleys, a foundation worth fighting for.

Connect

See more of film photographer Wing Hong Leung’s work on Instagram.

Read more writer Kirk S. Pineda’s work on Instagram, and on Medium.