Tag: Poetry

Poem about sobriety and inebriation by Valentina Ale

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I get high sometimes
Sometimes I drink.
And 
when i’m California sober,
I speak 
Spanish. 

Valentina Ale born in the underground heartbeat of Queens, New York, immerses in the shadows of the Lower East Side and the enigmatic aura of Long Island City. With verses as raw as the city’s pulse, Ale is a clandestine wordsmith navigating the hidden veins of urban grit. Their poetry, an unfiltered dive into the unconventional, whispers secrets of alleyways and echoes the untold tales of overlooked corners. Ale invites you to step off the beaten path and explore the clandestine realms of their unconventional poetic world

2 Poems by Sophie Ruth

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Visit

It was a Monday morning, the first real day of fall. I was on the 11th floor and the air outside was cool and the sun was shining through the dirty window. The doctor’s hair was thinning, he wore brown tortoise glasses. I let him touch the lump on my torso and I was glad; I wanted him to get everything he wanted because I felt like he deserved it.

Nights

I grab your seat from under you and you tumble backward onto the floor. What the fuck?? I want to get dust on your pants. Do you to understand that I do nothing by accident? My actions are remarkable. I cherish you, and so you should feel cherished.

Sophie Ruth is a writer and psychotherapist based in New York. She has a chapbook titled Find Peace Either Way”published by Blush Lit and a book of poems Hot Young Stars with House of Vlad Press. Sophie’s poetry has been featured in Hobart, NY Tyrant, Columbia Journal and more. 

Excerpt from You’re Gonna Break My Heart by Caleb Jordan

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As meaningless as the piss
currently streaming steaming into my mouth—
the great ghost of becoming
gives up.
Night night. I sleep underneath
the bed with the secrets and dust.
Brutalist church made of dried
shit—the poem writes itself
on paper made of steam. Night
time on the soundstage (get up
and get a beer from the fridge),
soon we enter the dark night of the soil.

Caleb Jordan is an autistic poet from Oklahoma.

NYC by Lilly Hogan

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little boy on vacation on subway tries to make it look like he’s not w parents
staring at parents on other side of subway

That’s me everyday 
but parents not looking back at me cuz they’re not there

I’m in NYC everyday now where it’s obvious there are homeless people
hiding elsewhere but here they sleep in the middle of the sidewalk

my brain starts to move faster here 
my shoulders tighter my dreams bigger 

I’m being excited I’m being devastated 
I close my eyes and see myself on train tracks 

I open them and see paintings plays influencers 
hot soggy but I’m still glamorous girl 
in little high heels in soho 
clack clack click click flash flash

Lilly Hogan lives in New York City and doesn’t know how to explain who she is very well. 

3 Poems by Jaime Barash

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Instagram Blues

Look at me
look at this watermelon juice
I just made it, fresh
Look at me
look at my ass in these jeans
in this bikini
in this picture
don’t I look hot?
My lips are as plush
as Kim Kardashian’s
I bought the same 
shoes as her
we fly
we out here
hashtag
Look at the moon
look at my bedroom walls
look at me
all drunk
and stoned
waiting for your likes
your hearts
your attention
your approval

Messy Bedrooms Filled With New Lovers

I am an Artist
I say,
lean back in my chair, kick up my heels, hike up my skirt,
breathe in the ocean
I smoke a cigarette, I rolled it myself
Drink tea and martinis,
wear one pieces
rock mini skirts
enjoy cake in the afternoons by the pool
I have rooms with views
I enjoy the company of myself
I listen to Pink Floyd on repeat, lie in my hammock, wear heels while I vacuum
I go to New York for cocktail parties
I contemplate the molecular structure of matter and spirit,
and I think I am starting to see ghosts
I see through you, yes I do
I like to put a new paint job on things
So I say,
I can’t hear about billions and bailouts and banks anymore
J’aimerais trouver honnêtee
I explain my need to go to more drum circles,
dance in the twilight
swing under moonshine
I wanna wear more feathers in my hair, I tell him
I need to get lost in more train stations,
dance on more tables
have sex with Jim Morrison
I’ve got my mind made up
I want to be wild and unruly,
live a life without logic
enter the fifth world unapologetically
I’d like to read more romantic poetry,
go to Graceland,
have burning love light my morning skies
In the near future, I plan on time traveling,
riding on horseback
to lands with eternal dimensions,
ever living ghosts,
and messy bedrooms filled with new lovers
I’d like to hang out in my bed with John and Yoko
probably on a Saturday morning or something,
get around to brunch when we get around to it
I wanna walk a tight wire and
find a shade of lipstick I’m crazy about…
I take a breath and sip while he listens
I see, He says
FINALLY, I say

If Poetry Were A Gossip Magazine

Oh
My
God
Becky
Look at her poem
It is like, so bad
as if she doesn’t
punctuate properly
like she doesn’t even
capitalize
Duh
like, she is so not
literary enough
who does she think she is
writing poems
with no degree
no professor
no followers
lol

Jaime Barash is a writer living on the shores of Lake Erie. She is currently working on her forthcoming book of Essays, Poetry, Mantras, and Musings, SODA POP WISHES & COFFEE STAINED DREAMS. Her poetry has been published on Hobart and on her Substack.

Five Simpsons Haiku by Noam Hessler

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A garden slug
As caulk between my teeth.
D’oh!

■■■

Spraypainting
A
Dull
Washed
Wall
Again & again.
Guerillas dismembering someone in the mountains.

■■■

I am tender towards
My children
And potatoes.

■■■

The straydogs hate
My saxophone. Ha! —
I’ll outlive them.

■■■

A baby meets an anteater in the hills. December mist.

Noam Hessler is a poet from New England. Hessler’s work has been published in Apocalypse Confidential, BRUISER, and DON’T SUBMIT. They are currently a student at Vassar College, and can be found on twitter at @poetryaccnt1518.

The System is Breaking Down by Colin Partch

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When I was young every space had a secret room inside

Now I shoot up candy-shaped pills in front of a Coldstone

Below freezing lemon trees at sea level

There’s a man disappearing at the end of that branch

The grass is dead trampled—I’m sitting on a dry patch worrying at the curdling sky

My body breaks into a waft of balloons

I hope you recorded my voice

I hope my letters reach you in time

I hiss to my neighbor a gaggle of numb words

He says that he’s proud of how I turned out

The hour has neither auspicious signs nor dense gardens

I climb the stairs to the wilting apartment and wait for my tongue to unravel

I sit in a field and drink until I vomit

Colin Partch is a poet living in Los Angeles with five cats, two rabbits, and partner Phoebe. He edits the literary journal Second Stutter with Solomon Rino. He likes reading and writing about psychoanalysis, stuttering, and alcoholism. 

Profound Opinions by Olivia Zarzycki

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I think small dogs are better
I think cable TV is back in 
I think women should get paid 50 grand for every baby they have
I think that water is blue actually
I think that my plane is more likely to crash than anyone else’s plane
I think the 9/11 memes have gotten a little insensitive
I think the trip to Japan would be long but probably worth it
I think running is hard but probably worth it
I think a big t-shirt is the best thing to wear
I think violins are the best sound
I think your name is the best name
I think I need to laugh more
I think everyone should try harder to make me laugh more
I think that endings are sad and we don’t have to think of them as new beginnings we
can just let them be sad
I think I drink too much sometimes but not enough that it’s actually concerning
I think if we print more money it will solve the problem why wouldn’t it
I think if we talked more it would solve my problems why wouldn’t it 
I think I have the most problems always
I think I am really near the end
I think this poem is finished

Olivia Zarzycki is a Philadelphia-based poet whose most recent work has been published in Feed Lit Mag, The Creative Zine, and Toho Publishing, with work forthcoming in Canthius literary journal and Remington Review. She is an Editor at Thirty West Publishing, based in Pennsylvania. You can find her in the city with her chihuahua Margot or on Twitter at @olivia_online_ .

Cartoon Suicides by Aqeel Parvez

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Cartoon Suicides Pt. 1
you can kill yourself while dreaming. i mean it’s socially acceptable and you can do it in a much more entertaining and lighter way than out here. you could clone yourself no problem, into a samurai. you’re kneeling say. the other you is on some yojimbo shit and flies through the air, slicing your head clean off. samurai champloo style, no cap. headless corpse now. your noggin rolls around in the warm grass. the sun god opens a fat mouth and swallows the strange warmth of dreamlike delusion. all I mean to say is that when your therapist gives you some ‘tools’ they won’t mention this neat little trick.

Cartoon Suicides Pt. 2
monday, regent street, 5.36pm. a lorry is speeding towards me. i cross the road anyway. halfway or so, i trust my timing and close my eyes. my legs still moving. i imagine perishing. seconds later i open my eyes; i am still here. does this mean something, must it mean something. i’ve had a right week and toying with death takes the weight off. there are moments when i wish i could overcome my instinct for survival. those times we’d rather be dead than stuck. i close my eyes and I’m chainsawed to death by a masked man. the only bad dream is waking up. the only threat is monday morning.

Cartoon Suicides Pt. 16
later, I’ll stand by the disaster sign. melt tabloid filth. succumb to a glorious chartreuse. pills for the delicate. this fuck-me reality. wake to muck. dream in Gatsby and wake to bedlam and pathetic coffee and pathetic living. notice how if you write it the French way, pathétique, self-pity is suddenly an art form.

Aqeel Parvez runs a podcast / press / events called MALNOURISHED INTELLECT & Poets Talking Bollocks. Check his IG: @ap.writer

Humanmade by John Biron

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The secondhand smoke is relaxing
I’m up to my ears in Sunlight
More smoke, more something like breathing in
More, all there is and in an endless sprawl the shaggy carpet stained with fluids,
some human some human-made,
I can feel at peace like a rope of cum shot onto the sidewalk.
The comfort of erasure,
without ever knowing what they had just narrowly escaped.
And some people laugh at immature things well into their maturity
I don’t wanna be the villain, ma, really
I know you aint raised me to be
So set me right again
I listen to my boss tell a story about how big his cat’s morning shit was
How it was discolored
How it puzzled him incessantly
I try to hold the silence of the Sun
Squeezing, ending up with blood under my nails

An aw shucks kinda humble guy who hopes to inspire the nation ❤ @JohnBiron90196 on twitter