Of Legs and Lamps

Author: Mallory Currie

It’s Christmas time,

Which means Holiday cheer  

Of Christmas caroling “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,”

Of Christmas trees, of strategic mistletoe,

Of Secret Santa, of Dirty Santa,

Of a woman’s leg clad in fishnet stockings,

Wearing a pointed toe, one-inch high heel,

Topped with the skirt of a yellow lampshade.

It’s Christmas time,

Which means festivities

Of my mom running ragged buying presents,

Of my little brother still believing in Santa,

Of trying to keep off the naughty list,

Of my dad with ruddy red Santa cheeks

Chugging down eggnog like water,

Sliding his hand up the leg of the lamp.

It’s Christmas time,

Which means visiting family

Of my mom’s side, Mimi and Papa,

Of my dad’s side, Grandma and Grandpa,

Of my mom’s house, her dachshund Brutus,

Of my dad’s house, his girlfriend Sherry,

Putting her foot down so that

The lamp is finally left unmolested.

It’s Christmas time,

Which means another year

Of wishing I was taller,

Of waiting to be a woman,

Of wanting to become a mermaid,

Tangling my fin in fishnet stockings

So my future husband never leaves me.

You and I

Author: Rachel Wurstner

You and I,

We are cut from the same diamond,

Dust fallen from the same star.

There is lightning in my lungs

When you say my name.

You and I,

We are chiseled from the same marble,

Sparks flying from the same match.

We go together like milk and honey,

Sweet lemonade in a summer daze.

You and I,

Intertwined by a spell we’re under,

Your heart beats with the sound of thunder.

Natural Disaster

Author: Emily Tallaksen

You are the light in my eyes,

the curl of my lips. 

I'm not sure my body is equipped 

to feel your avalanche of a kiss. 

After, landslides for weeks on end as I try to convince myself to fall like the mud did. 

To forget about grace and tumble helplessly towards my hands gliding across your face,

The way my breath catches in my throat when you whisper my name. 

But maybe we're not a landslide, but an earthquake. 

Because baby there's grace in the way you touch me. 

One more time and you'll make my legs shake,

Quivering every day you're far away. 

What do you say--

How about we take it up one more number on the Richter scale?

Breathe me in every time I exhale,

Feel my skin shattering beneath your fingertips. 

There is no natural disaster that could feel more miraculous than this.

Ode to the Passive and Complacent

Author: Mallory Currie

“…Where the wolves are killed off, the foxes increase.” – The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville

And the sheep that have

That predisposed instinct

Ingrained in their wool

To fear that which is different

No longer watch for wolves  

But turn on each other,

Try suspiciously to glimpse

The true character in

The woolen coats of others,

And pay no mind or heed

To the sly foxes that come

In the night, picking them off

Until there aren’t even

Black sheep left.

And the chickens now no

Longer band together,

No longer rely on

The rooster’s warning call,

But they ignore how those

Neighboring hens subtly –

Suddenly – disappear

Not wondering at all

Where they have gone to in

The night, not wondering

If they’ll come back, because

They know that they will not;

Until there were no more

Chickens left to wonder

Or know at all.

And the geese who expect

A snake in the grass are

Ill prepared for their eggs

To be plucked by soft mouths,

And their ears are untrained

For soft-footed small paws;

So their hearts are broken

By the loss of an entire

Generation, and they become

Obsessed with their own

Woes and grief until

There are no geese

Left to mourn.

And the cows do not care

If other animals

Suffer and disappear,

Because that means their calves

Are safe for now;

So the cows prosper and

Conveniently ignore

The plight of the others

And continue to prosper

Until the foxes grow hungry

Again, and then the cows

Suffer the same fate as the others.

And for all the pigs’ wit –

Supposed cleverness –

And intelligence they

Offer no advice or

Aid claiming that those that

Cannot protect themselves

Deserve what comes to them

As sacrifice is a

Necessary evil

For the rest of the farm

To thrive and survive

Though all that is left

Of the farm now are pigs until

The wily foxes grow hungry again.

And the single old mule in

His frank obstinate disbelief

Neglects his appointed

Duty and does nothing

Because if the wolves are gone,

There are no threats to handle,

No fox has ever dared

Or been capable of

Stealing the young of a

Mule – no matter if there are

No young of the mule –

So how can the others

Be affected since

It is not a burden

Shared by all of the farm?

And the distant farmer

Who made the farm

In His likeliness

And stepped back

To merely observe

His creation in motion

Now sees the farm

Overrun by foxes

That grew fat and strong

On first mutton,

Then poultry and fowl,

Then beef and pork,

And then tear the mule

Down and drink his blood

Until there is nothing left

But the self-acclaimed

‘Pure’ race of cruel foxes

Tearing each other apart.

Genesis Uncharted

Author: Chelsea Yates

They wanted to take us over. We harbored them beneath our foliage, covering their naked, new born bodies with what little warmth we could. We let them pluck from us our ripest fruit. They forced us to close the gates by taking our most sacred possession, Knowledge.

Justifications erupted from them, but we had lost our Reason. Beasts grew dumb and our senses dulled with Feeling. Knowledge gave to them well-pronounced voices and a corporeal form of their own. Why then when we possessed it, did we not evolve as they had?

A man and woman emerged from our Paradise, the remnants of Eden desecrated. We watched as they carved out our skin, broke us into pieces of our former selves, and retired wholly content. We let the wind carry our silent tears away for we thought content meant satisfied. Want shaped their forms and in their eyes we glimpsed Greed. Not even a day later, they returned with our dead, broken tree limbs and weathered moss to create a more destructive force.

Many of us burned and with it hatred kindled itself in our hearts. Still, we stuck together for nothing could break our spirits. When we died, we became anew.

Night was a time for peace. Yet, both man and woman prowled our borders. Soft steps and whispered words couldn’t hide them from us as their eyes roved over thickets and among trees. Silver glinted in their hands, almost like the harvested slivers of the moon.

Scampering by, a creature stopped, nose perked at them. Perhaps, the creature smelled not the malicious intent exuding from their cores. Perhaps, it thought nothing at all for our warnings went unheeded.

Man and woman struck fast. The creature wriggled in their arms. Silver entered the soft creature’s underbelly, letting the crimson gush spill forth. The creature let out one last squeal, but they showed no mercy. Its twitching subsided. Before its body even went cold, they put the creature’s flesh to their mouths.

One bite, then another. It sickened us as fur and blood coated their mouths and stained their hands. No preparation. No prayer to send the Soul someplace better. They just discarded the limp body at their feet.

Knowledge made them human, but when did they revert back into beasts? Or had they always been this way? Sin transformed them into something darker, beings that could no longer be called human, but what else could someone call knowledgeable beings that donned the guise of flesh? Monsters.

When the man and woman finished, they moved on to each other, licking clean the remains from sticky lips. Gluttonous Greed guided their movements as they sampled the other with more aggressive bites. These ripped skin. Still they hungered, lustful eyes roaming valleys uncharted. There would be no end.

We could take no more.

With the last of our strength we drew ourselves tall. Our gates lay open, welcoming their souls back within our garden. Atop the grandest tree, an enticing apple grew plump. The sweet smell drifted to the outsiders.

Dazed, they followed. Like Knowledge, they would succumb to the forbidden fruit’s temptations. Man climbed the tree bringing his prize before woman. They both took bite after bite, the succulent juice rolling down their chins until all that remained was the core.

While eating, they began to change. Hands and feet turned to paws. Hair shifted into downy fur. The human skin fell away in clumps until they became the creature in which they ate.

Man and woman were lost, but now they were found. Everything would eventually return to the forest. The sinners would become flock, mindless to their crimes. And we, who knew too much and saw too far, would wait for our Eden to spread. There could be a little bit of Paradise “taking root” in everybody.

To the Father that Never Was

Author: Julian Shelnutt

My father now only exists in half memories,
distant little things.
A hair covered barrel chest with a heartbeat-
the grit of a close shaved beard coarse as cat's tongue-
A nickname of sweet pea which no longer applies to me.
I've lost the sweet and greenery.

All my young life I've been in search of a father.
A man with kindness,
a man whose prerequisites aren't simple to define
because Man cannot be defined.
I look for a man who is kind,
a man who is attentive,
a father that could be there and know what I wanted.

Instead I only received the half memory,
and I became a hungry ghost,
lost somewhere in the middle of the family tree,
and only taken out to be shown as the unique granddaughter
among a baker's dozen.
There I am no more or less.

A dad, a father, I would even settle for an uncle now.
Wacky, joking, distant but charmed I'm sure.
I thought I had found such a figure
yet he lies dead now
like most times when I think I've landed the one.

A figure that was rancorous, but not cantankerous,
Casual, yet had a lilt, and a man who was a man
because he had, at his core, been thoughtful
if at times absent in his own mind, judgement.
A figure who travelled the world and came back
as if to specifically tell me all he had seen.
And his messages had always ended with the fact
the world is not to be scared of, not then and not now,
that the world is to be loved, adored, and admired for all its beauty,
even the beauty hidden in its sorest and teensiest pockets.

I wept when he died. Even though I knew I could hear him,
even then, inside my head as I went to heave in the shower,
the voice which had spoken many languages roughly,
a voice that had soothed the ears.
The figure said to me,

"I was dumb. I did something stupid, and I can't take it back this time. You can cry if you need to. You can place bets on how many tattoos they'll find on my body. You can drink a little to deal with it. I could apologize, but I'd rather not. I admit what I did was stupid.
“But, it's better now, as they say. I'm not in pain anymore, as they say. I'm in a better place now, as they say. Do what you need to do, but don't follow me here. Cry for a day or two, but because I'm not there doesn't mean you don't need to be. Cry a little harder and get past it."
And I cried a little harder and got past it.

My search might not end
it might never be resolved
my young life continues forwards
and I sway with the dawn.

And later on I hear the own cries of my own children.
They don’t call me father, or exactly an uncle, but dad.
A pillar to lean on, a little rough, but marbled in matter.
I repeat the same mantra as before but with significant feeling,
It’s no longer taking a drink to get over.
The bitter drink that touches my lips is only in celebration.

In the Process

Author: Julian Shelnutt

I’m waxing poetic today
I can’t resist it’s what happens every time.
In a tizzy I get into the ideal you and me-
it goes a hundred ways.

I understand the concern with rain. Flooding, livelihood lost, basements gouged with twigs and sopped with water. But when something has been built up you start wanting to see it happen-
find me at the square dressed in black-
and you grow tired of the weather always being wrong-
I’ll wait for you there, come find me, let’s have coffee-
somehow it always ends up a little wrong.

There wasn’t even a scream as it happened.
I was dreaming of your garden days ago
I wanted to be led to see your hydrangeas.
I was hoping for your bedroom
but here we are.
I’m picking shards off of me and I
taste them in my mouth.
The broken glass is too dull to cut my tongue, but
judging by the way it melts
it was all bittersweet.

No more candles in the window for you.
No more time cut out for you.
No more physical relics made for you.
No more presence from you.

I wrest myself from love’s jaws, again, hurt twice more than last. I wonder, as my sides heave and give out to spasms, why I ever kept the fire in my chest; let myself fall into the passionate fire pit. Why did I like it like that?
What folly love leads us to fall into.

When Two Writers Make Love

Author: Bethany Leader

When two writers make love,
They get oh so much more than they bargained for.
When they finally decide to let one another in,
They will be doing so much more than this-

When two writers make love,
They do it for the same simple reason that they must write,
To create a world
That’s
Oh so much better
Than the one they were given.
They will disappear into each other’s flesh
The way you disappear into you favorite books,
The kind you can never put down,
Even when it’s over-
Oh it will never be over-

Even after the book is closed,
And their bodies retreat back into their covers,
Their touch will still linger.
You will feel them in every chapter of your skin.
The way they made their way
Through every word your body has ever produced-You will feel the way your spines bent
to make room for one another,
Even after they must straighten themselves against the shelves-

You will read each other
And feel each other reading,
over
And over
And over-

Again.

For when two writers make love,
They can never stop~
Oh they wouldn’t even begin to know how to.
It would be like asking a writer to stop writing-
A reader to stop reading-

There’s no way
Of taking them apart-
Even after you’re apart~
A brush against your paperback skin
Can bring everything back-
The way their kiss reverberated your bones
Like the sweetest alliteration
The way their hands sent shivers through your stanzas

When two writers make love
There’s no such thing as going back.
So be mindful of who you give your words to.

You never know where they may take you~

And what may happen to them in the process.