January - Poem 11
Morning Star & Evening Star / Haley Bosse
You cloak and so
You hold, gazeless
Without radar, rotless
If only rock, a single
Hand outstretched
Across your surface,
Circling smoothly
To grip, unshaking,
At the wrist.
Written in response to this interview of Dr. Vicki Hansen by Alie Ward: https://www.alieward.com/ologies/venusology
time spiral / Jess Bowe
(a fibonacci poem)
on
the
carpet
dusky pink,
imaginary
angel beside me as i cry;
remembering: pink dusk, sitting with a small lost girl.
On Cellblock C, a meditation / Joanna Lee
“De poeta y loco todos tenemos un poco”
--SM
ando por algún lado
y no me encuentra—
I’m walking somewhere
unable to find myself
the fear—erased from existence
and forgotten forever
wrists freshly wrapped
in gauze, the dream
of America in their hearts
asylum a world
away
every person here suffering
looking for light,
the bright, blue sky, the sun glaring
they are haunted
each voice ribboned
with a dark melody of pain
no touching,
eyes scared,
caged
Out the window a large, black bird
my heart, a stone thrown hard into the sea
They want you to know
your silence will not protect you (1)
Dear Children,
please forgive me.
All text found from Hope on the Border: Immigration, Incarceration, and the Power of Poetry by Seth Michelson
(1)quote attributed to Audre Lorde
Grief is a thing with barbs / Thomas Page
I suppose it never gets easier with each passing day. I remember when you broke down next to the cans of chicken noodle soup when someone asked how you were doing. It ebbs and flows like the tide full of red blooms and seaweed clouds. Whoever said it is made of wings never had his head on a goose down pillow trying to let the electricity of the mind calm down after a terrible night—the ohm-lessness of it all.
The barby ball that sits like a lumpy frog in the throat is hard to express in words, at least to someone who hasn’t experienced it. There is a gentleness to grief in the poems we all read in high school that doesn’t seem to be real, at least to someone who experienced it. Grief is not as gentle as the moonless night over the dead calm of a tranquil sea. Grief is more like the bite of a rabid dog that comes at you from behind.
The weirdest things will make someone sad. I remember ugly crying as a child over a dinosaur left on the shore on some t.v show. When you came to figure out what was wrong I could only babble “dinosaur—abandoned—sad!”
My throat closes up,
the chlorophyll-less leaf
fades into speckles.
Aubade / Sarah Paley
I wake at night not sure that you will come
and when you do I question why and how.
Your pink hues, your optimism, your mum
face announcing a new day. Really? Here? Now?
Wake me with blood, surprise me with sirens,
howls from hell, or thunderbolts from heaven.
There’s no room for this new norm– unless –
you were never kind & I was never blessed.
Blessed not by some god but by a fragile
golden rule that has fled along with reason.
My friend Maggie gives me a one-word prompt in early January 2026 / Amy Snodgrass
Gamers? Maggie, really? Gamers are people I know nothing about.
Well, I know they have amazing chairs, almost too comfortable and too clever to be for real. I might recommend they wear bluelight glasses. But I don’t know–maybe they have that covered.
I know my students roll their eyes when I ask them to transition away from their favorite gamer on YouTube and to refocus on the task at hand. They must be getting something out of it.
In my ignorance, I assume some gamers need rehab for the addiction. And I also imagine some of them make a shit-ton of money. I feel like this is true, though, for lots of us, gamers or not.
I worry about the crazy lights and the glorified violence and the speed of all the flashing, and of course, about the evolving human brain. But, then again, I worry about a lot of shit for no reason.
Once, a long time ago, a student of mine named Ledio tried to teach me the differences in play between a first-person game and a third-person game, making connections to the content of my English class. I liked him and I understood his points, but I just kept getting so motion sick—more and more with every game—so we had to stop. I recently heard he is now a college professor, so that’s cool.
Since then, my non-gaming lifestyle has kept me pretty much tied to my limited views, my fears, my assumptions about gaming and gamers. You know what, though? Gamers probably feel pretty much the same way about my poetry writing, my hiking, and my middle school teaching, right? If they think about it all, which is doubtful, but will vary from person to person. We’re different beings doing our things, slowly revolving through our days.
I really don’t know anything about gamers, Maggie, my friend.
But I do know the only way out of our current mess is for people to say to other people things like“I’ll take a Dramamine before we start, so I can really focus and understand,” and “Your interests are as valid as mine,” or even the most obvious: “Your life is as valuable as mine.” Your life is as valuable as mine. Your life is as valuable as mine. Your life is as valuable as mine. Your life.
