Category / 2018 / Fall 2018 / Poetry

Regrets   I run around like a wet dog, fur dripping with affection, no one wants to get close enough to me to pet me in my desperate bit for attention, I chase after people as they run one day I met another wet dog and he rushed to greet me, so excited that he…

AS I WALKED The sun was humming through the clouds just enough that this particular morning felt brighter but still gray the snow was in piles touched with dirty footprints the people looked miserable and rightly so clumps of ice and dirty snow fell around me as I walked all was calm yet dull steam…

Empty Caverns Why do you feel the desperate need to gouge and scrape at me until there’s no diamonds left not even a stone? Only black, cloudy, ash of sooty coal leftover and unwanted. The same way it felt When I watched you Slowly              drag your pickaxe to another…

A Curse Upon Myself     May a tree grow from the roof of my mouth. Mice swim in my sink. My thumbs drop out.   May we marry your sister’s cooking. Gather in clumps. Throw glass in a stone house.   Oh me is woe. Have a mosquito sing in my ear. Stir my…

Aria by Janette Schafer   I let your sheet music sit atop the Bechstein where you left it, one corner slightly raised where it rests on a champagne bottle made into a vase for a silk orchids.   The cadenza is stained by a ring of dribbled coffee. The cup’s mouth is dusty and I…

Fishbowl Daydream Drew Pisarra   Can a dead goldfish still swim or does it drift around round abandoned castles and trailer park snails, simply out of habit…   And what of the fish alive, does it measure time in invisible ripples, is it tirelessly circling   in search of escape, is it chasing its tail,…

Author: Elizabeth Nisly Junior at Bluffton high school Live Arts Contest | High School Poetry _________________________________________________________________________________________ Divided by a narrow line Soft and light and hard to see The nuances are very fine Both involving only me Craving one, I fear the other Solitude’s uglier brother I fear no one will ever see All the finer points of…

Author: Lily Hauge Sophomore at New Orleans Center of Creative Arts 2nd place Live Arts Contest | High School Poetry _________________________________________________________________________________________ Please, Excuse the mess. The shutters are falling off, The wooden walls are rotting, And the roof, Oh! The russet stained metal roof, Surely, it’s rusting away. Vegetation, There is none. The drought took it away, Along…

Author: Sydney Osterday Senior at Shasta High School Honorable Mention Live Arts Contest | High School Poetry _________________________________________________________________________________________ Sometimes it hits me, And suddenly I’m overwhelmed with grief and sorrow that seems to come from an unknown place within; perhaps an incarnate knowledge of terrible things to come, But what do I have to be sad about, really?… What…

Author: Imoni Brooks Senior at Da Vinci Design High School Honorable Mention Live Arts Contest | High School Poetry _________________________________________________________________________________________ I hate the city. It’s a convenience for transportation and what not, but it’s not for me. I crave adventure. I crave the feeling and rush of exploration. I want to walk barefoot in the woods, not…

Author: Lexi Baysinger Undergraduate Junior at Greenville College 3rd place Live Arts Contest | Undergrad Poetry _________________________________________________________________________________________ “I love that you’re that kind of black person” Excuse me? “You just don’t take offence to my jokes, I love that about you.” Excuse you. “Can I touch your hair?” Look at my face and dare to ask again. “Come…

Author: Mandy Pennington Undergraduate Freshman at Greenville College 2nd place Live Arts Contest | Undergrad Poetry _________________________________________________________________________________________ time’s waltz hourglass beach sand trickling trickling like falling off a cliff the tiny grains scream the loss of time ticking they used to live under rough, tan feet swept in and out by turquoise cascades violent some…

Author: Madeline Kohlberg Undergraduate Senior at Greenville College 1st place Live Arts Contest | Undergrad Poetry _________________________________________________________________________________________ Salted you feel as though you’ve lost it, lying on a bed of broken ice – walk turned snap on a starless night blood stuck to nails and ice on face – blue ice crunches under swollen limits…