I am

By Benjamin Giroux

I am odd, I am new
I wonder if you are too
I hear voices voices in the air
I see you don't, and that's not fair
I am odd, I am new
I pretend that you are too
I feel like a boy in outer space
I touch the stars and feel out of place
I worry what others might think
I cry when people laugh, it makes me shrink
I am odd, I am new
I understand now that so are you
I say I "feel like a castaway"
I dream of a day that that's OK
I try to fit in
I hope that someday I do
I am odd, I am new.

Benjamin Giroux is 10 years old. This poem was published by the National Autism Association's Facebook page after his parents shared it, and it was picked up by the Huffington Post. 

Bereishit

By Zohar Atkins

Before God could separate the upper and the lower worlds, light from day, earth from water, he was sitting in a tiny room, unable to move. Whenever his mouth would begin to open to say “Vayehi,” he would be overcome. Each day, God would wake up, intending to create the world, and each day, God would be unable to. Sometimes he’d find a physical reason. His hands were too shaky. Other times, he’d find a distraction. Other times, he’d just stare off into space or turn on AngelNews. God surrounded himself with blueprints of his world, but the execution was not something he could bring himself to do. Perhaps on some level God understood that the Creation of the World was also his goodbye, the inauguration of a world that would grow not to need him. Was he ready to write himself out of existence just yet? So Gabriel came before the Lord and said, “I know you are afraid. I know the world you’ll make will not be perfect, that it will only be one possible world and not the ideal world in your mind. But if you impart to it all of your love, you will find peace.”

Oh have you heard

By Shel Silverstein

 Oh have you heard it's time for vaccinations?
I think someone put salt into your tea.
They're giving us eleven-month vacations.
And Florida has sunk ito the sea.
Oh have you heard
The President has measles?
The principal has just
burned down the school.
Your hair is full of ants
and purple weasels--
APRIL FOOL!!

Forget about enlightenment

By John Welwood

 Sit down wherever you are
And listen to the wind singing in your veins.
Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.
Open your heart to who you are, right now,
Not who you would like to be,
Not the saint you are striving to become,
But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.
All of you is holy.
You are already more and less
Than whatever you can know.
Breathe out,
Touch in,
Let go.

(A short story in) 100 Words

By Taryn Renee Nasis

There, growing at an alarming rate, was a snail, clinging to the bowl, half in and half out of the water, black as a Balinese pearl, and just as shiny and captivating. Flushing did nothing to sway the snail from its post. She didn’t have the nerve to prod it. And she most certainly didn’t have the nerve to poison it. So she let it live in her home to grow alongside her, tasting everything she herself tasted and bearing witness to a very private view of her femininity. She called it Constance, not for its habits, but its gift.


 As an artist, Taryn Nasis works with paint and synthetic polymers on canvas. As a designer, she creates print media that attempts to bridge her identity as an artist with my identity as a researcher. All of these roles meet on common ground, and that is her infallible hope to investigate and document various processes in social relationships. She is particularly attuned to the processes of longing and belonging, disenfranchisement and solidarity, rejection and attraction, and the power dynamics between humans that result as a function of all of these things.

Classic Hair Designs

By Moya Cannon

 Every day they are dropped off
at Classic Hair Designs,
sometimes in taxis,
sometimes by daughters,
often by middle-aged sons
in sober coats,
who pull in tight by the kerb,
stride around to the door,
and offer an arm.

How important this
almost last vestige
of our animal pelt is.
How we cherish it –
the Egyptians’ braided bob,
those banded Grecian curls,
the elaborate patterns of Africa,
the powdered, teetering pompadour,
the sixties’ long shining fall over a guitar,

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and the fine halo
of my almost-blind
ninety-two-year-old neighbour,
permed and set
in the style
in which she stepped out
with her young man
after the last World War.

Art AIDS America

By Greg Bisendine

 An artist reacts to artists reacting to AIDS in America.

 Thank God the AIDS crisis is over, thank God it’s a problem of the 80s,
like parachute pants, spiked hair and cocaine addiction.
I am at a museum, I am at an exhibit about AIDS,
I am surrounded by art about dead people,
art by dead people.
This is not my story. I am not affected by AIDS.

Affected.
As if AIDS was a storm over some other part of the city,
a hungry lion burst from the forest into an unsuspecting African village,
a sinkhole that swallowed an entire family when everyone else was at the county fair.
As if AIDS was a speed bump that America encountered on the best road trip ever.

As if AIDS was not a metaphor at all but a virus.
A virus that eviscerates immunity,
a virus that oozes and bleeds and drips inelegantly from orifices and sores,
as if it was a virus that strikes at the core of our squeamish fear of sex,
a virus that punishes men for sex with other men,
punishes men for fucking.

Thank God the AIDS crisis is over.

A patriarchy fears nothing as much as emasculation.
Fears nothing as much as a man submitting to be penetrated like a woman.
Faced with this aberration in nature, President Reagan, and our leaders, and our people
were struck mute.

As if thousands of disease riddled corpses were speed bumps
for which America did not slow down.
And instead of lifting up the sick, the righteous
called fire down onto the abomination of homosexuality,
proclaiming AIDS as just punishment from the God
who had already stated his sexual preferences
when he brought us an immaculate conception.

Art about AIDS is not immaculate, it is ugly and uncomfortable.
There are fluids in frames,
a leather shroud of sweat,
paintings like open sores,
and the stained underwear of a man
who wasted to his death decades ago.

Thank God the AIDS crisis is over. This is not my story. I am not affected by AIDS.

I take a blue pill every morning as a gauzy shield against HIV infection.
I take a blue pill every morning because the secret I’m not supposed to tell is that
sometimes I choose hot, risky, MESSY sex over the immaculate interaction.

I take a blue pill every morning and most days when I do I don’t think about AIDS.
But sometimes, when I walk through a graveyard gallery of men who looked like me,
I remember how at 24 I learned that being true to myself meant I might die for it.

I take a blue pill every morning because drug companies and politicians are on board now
and want you to know that sex should be safe because,
if you can imagine,
you’re at risk, even
if you aren’t gay.

This poem was previously published by Drunk in a Midnight Choir.

To This Day

By Shane Koyczan

When I was a kid
I used to think that pork chops and karate chops
were the same thing
I thought they were both pork chops
and because my grandmother thought it was cute
and because they were my favourite
she let me keep doing it

not really a big deal
one day
before I realized fat kids are not designed to climb trees
I fell out of a tree
and bruised the right side of my body
I didn’t want to tell my grandmother about it
because I was afraid I’d get in trouble
for playing somewhere that I shouldn’t have been
a few days later the gym teacher noticed the bruise
and I got sent to the principal’s office
from there I was sent to another small room
with a really nice lady
who asked me all kinds of questions
about my life at home
I saw no reason to lie
as far as I was concerned
life was pretty good
I told her “whenever I’m sad
my grandmother gives me karate chops”
this led to a full scale investigation
and I was removed from the house for three days
until they finally decided to ask how I got the bruises
news of this silly little story quickly spread through the school
and I earned my first nickname
pork chop
to this day
I hate pork chop
I’m not the only kid
who grew up this way
surrounded by people who used to say
that rhyme about sticks and stones
as if broken bones
hurt more than the names we got called
and we got called them all
so we grew up believing no one
would ever fall in love with us
that we’d be lonely forever
that we’d never meet someone
to make us feel like the sun
was something they built for us
in their tool shed
so broken heart strings bled the blues
as we tried to empty ourselves
so we would feel nothing
don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone
that an ingrown life
is something surgeons can cut away
that there’s no way for it to metastasize
it does<
she was eight years old
our first day of grade three
when she got called ugly
we both got moved to the back of the class
so we would stop get bombarded by spit balls
but the school halls were a battleground
where we found ourselves outnumbered day after wretched day
we used to stay inside for recess
because outside was worse
outside we’d have to rehearse running away
or learn to stay still like statues giving no clues that we were there
in grade five they taped a sign to her desk
that read beware of dog
to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
because of a birthmark
that takes up a little less than half of her face
kids used to say she looks like a wrong answer
that someone tried to erase
but couldn’t quite get the job done
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing
he
was a broken branch
grafted onto a different family tree
adopted
but not because his parents opted for a different destiny
he was three when he became a mixed drink
of one part left alone
and two parts tragedy
started therapy in 8th grade
had a personality made up of tests and pills
lived like the uphills were mountains
and the downhills were cliffs
four fifths suicidal
a tidal wave of anti depressants
and an adolescence of being called popper
one part because of the pills
and ninety nine parts because of the cruelty
he tried to kill himself in grade ten
when a kid who still had his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit
to this day
he is a stick on TNT lit from both ends
could describe to you in detail the way the sky bends
in the moments before it’s about to fall
and despite an army of friends
who all call him an inspiration
he remains a conversation piece between people
who can’t understand
sometimes becoming drug free
has less to do with addiction
and more to do with sanity
we weren’t the only kids who grew up this way
to this day
kids are still being called names
the classics were
hey stupid
hey spaz
seems like each school has an arsenal of names
getting updated every year
and if a kid breaks in a school
and no one around chooses to hear
do they make a sound?
are they just the background noise
of a soundtrack stuck on repeat
when people say things like
kids can be cruel?
every school was a big top circus tent
and the pecking order went
from acrobats to lion tamers
from clowns to carnies
all of these were miles ahead of who we were
we were freaks
lobster claw boys and bearded ladies
oddities
juggling depression and loneliness playing solitaire spin the bottle
trying to kiss the wounded parts of ourselves and heal
but at night
while the others slept
we kept walking the tightrope
it was practice
and yeah
some of us fell
but I want to tell them
that all of this shit
is just debris
leftover when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought
we used to be
and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself
get a better mirror
look a little closer
stare a little longer
because there’s something inside you
that made you keep trying
despite everyone who told you to quit
you built a cast around your broken heart
and signed it yourself
you signed it
“they were wrong”
because maybe you didn’t belong to a group or a click
maybe they decided to pick you last for basketball or everything
maybe you used to bring bruises and broken teeth
to show and tell but never told
because how can you hold your ground
if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it
you have to believe that they were wrong
they have to be wrong
why else would we still be here?
we grew up learning to cheer on the underdog
because we see ourselves in them
we stem from a root planted in the belief
that we are not what we were called we are not abandoned cars stalled out and sitting empty on a highway
and if in some way we are
don’t worry
we only got out to walk and get gas
we are graduating members from the class of
fuck off we made it
not the faded echoes of voices crying out
names will never hurt me
of course
they did

Karma

By Dominique Christina

 We become poets in an attempt to tether words to righteousness'
Our notebooks to social consciousness.
Sitting anxious in wing bat chairs, we sip lattes to news of regimes,
firing American- made artillery into crowds of folk.

Dead bodies pickled by the sun,they line countries we never think about and we
suck our teeth and ask a thesaurus to become a machete and as romantic as pacifism
is,these days I dream of dictators falling head first into karma and forget to be
afraid.
If I could write this shit in fire, I would write this shit in fire.
This ain't poetry, this is rage unmated, a verb, a means and end.
This is my body. This is Sankofa, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, South side Chicago,
Compton, California. Redhook Projects in Jersey, Roosevelt Projects in Brooklyn.

This is severed hands and clubs against flesh, black boots to pregnant bellies.
This is sterilizations, inoculations,leg irons and chains, the bit, the noose, this is a war cry.
Tell 'Massa I coming back, carrying fire in my knapsack.
Tell him "I'm Patrice Lumumba, Steven Biko, Fannie Lou Hamer."
Tell him "they have been born again in me."

Tell him,"I found my mother tongue buried under the rubble of the World Trade Center."
Tell him, "this shit ain't no poem,this is me, running naked from sugar cane and cotton field having dropped my croaker sack."
Tell him, "He can call me Karma, I am refreshing the bones of a witch, a root worker,
a sorcerer, a priestess, a gangster.

Tell him, "this is the result of segregation."
Tell him, "this is the result of integration."
Tell him, "I have never been invisible."
Tell him, "he has never been invincible."

Tell him, "I am melting the steel bars of prison yards, they 'gon flow over him like lava."
I am returned, I am blood thirsty,
I am fangs, and hooks and swollen feet in welfare lines,
the gauntlet thrown down.
Lines drawn in the sand. I am apocryphal -
Historical deletions gathering themselves up
into textbooks.

I am the niece of exploitation on a rice and pancake box come to collect the royalties
for Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben.
I am the line of smoke, a rain dance, the Tomahawk used to kill the first invader.
I am a passbook in South Africa, A Whites- only sign on a courthouse door in Mississippi,
The streets of Benghazi pocked in prayer beads and shell casings, the juxtaposition
of faith and savagery.

Tell him, "I am African wide hips and American bulimia,
peace symbols affixed onto assault rifles."
It is the deepest kind of contradiction.
If I could write this shit in fire, I would write this shit in fire.

Tell 'Massa "I'm coming back.
Howl in the wind I'm coming back
, Burr in your heels I coming back
I coming back 'Massa, I coming back.
I coming back 'Massa, I coming back.
I coming back 'Massa, I coming back."

To hear the poet perform this poem, click here.

A Litany for Survival

By Audre Lorde

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children's mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours:

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother's milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak
we are afraid our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

Burlington Snow

By Allen Ginsberg

Socialist snow on the streets
Socialist talk in the Maverick bookstore
Socialist kids sucking socialist lollipops
Socialist poetry in socialist mouths
—aren’t the birds frozen socialists?
Aren’t the snow clouds blocking the airfield
Social Democratic Appearances?
Isn’t the socialist sky owned by
the socialist sun?
Earth itself socialist, forests, rivers, lakes
furry mountains, socialist salt
in oceans?
Isn’t this poem socialist? It doesn’t
belong to me anymore.

Valentine

By Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

 Not a cute card or a kissogram.
 I give you an onion.
 Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
 possessive and faithful
 as we are,
 for as long as we are.

 Take it.
 Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

 Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

We Who Are Your Closest Friends

By Phillip Lopate

we who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting
as a group
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift

your analyst is
in on it
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us

in announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves
but since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make
unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your
disastrous personality

then for the good of the collective

Evil

By Langston Hughes

Looks like what drives me crazy
Don't have no effect on you
But I'm gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.

Commuter's Lament or A Close Shave

By Norman B. Colp


 Overslept.

 So tired.

 If late,

Get fired.

 Why bother?

 Why the pain?

 Just go home.

 Do it again.


This poem has been hanging in the rafters as an art installation in Port Authority, NYC since 1991.   

Going Down in Flames

By John Tustin

The loneliness gets to be
like a friend who stays
at the party too long:
I resent him,
I want him to go home.

But I know him
better than anybody.
If he goes home,
that means the party’s over.

On to the next
unknown
thing.
The moon is a son-of-a-bitch
an instigator
a pugilist
a whore for hire.
But the sun is a hangover
an angry woman slapping a cheating face
the service of the sentence
an eager disappointment.
Look out
beyond those trees
I’m going down in flames!
It’s morning.
The pen is empty of ink
the eye void of love or illusions
the trellis rips down
her vines
and my final friend went home,
leaving me
to contemplate
the dirty dishes
the dirty looks
the twitching eye<
the betraying muscles
and the inconsolable ache
of the day
of living life
continuance
of the three billionth
rising sun…


John Tustin graduated from nowhere, edits nothing and has no awards. His poetry is forthcoming in Poetry Pacific, Leannan, Your One Phone Call, Bare Back Magazine and Newtown Literary Review. He can be found here.

I Am Waiting

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up   

and I am waiting

for a rebirth of wonder

and I am waiting for someone

to really discover America

and wail

and I am waiting   

for the discovery

of a new symbolic western frontier   

and I am waiting   

for the American Eagle

to really spread its wings

and straighten up and fly right

and I am waiting

for the Age of Anxiety

to drop dead

and I am waiting

for the war to be fought

which will make the world safe

for anarchy

and I am waiting

for the final withering away

of all governments

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming   

and I am waiting

for a religious revival

to sweep thru the state of Arizona   

and I am waiting

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   

and I am waiting

for them to prove

that God is really American

and I am waiting

to see God on television

piped onto church altars

if only they can find   

the right channel   

to tune in on

and I am waiting

for the Last Supper to be served again

with a strange new appetizer

and I am perpetually awaiting

a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth   

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   

and I am anxiously waiting

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   

by an obscure general practitioner

and I am waiting

for the storms of life

to be over

and I am waiting

to set sail for happiness

and I am waiting

for a reconstructed Mayflower

to reach America

with its picture story and tv rights

sold in advance to the natives

and I am waiting

for the lost music to sound again

in the Lost Continent

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day

that maketh all things clear

and I am awaiting retribution

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting

for Alice in Wonderland

to retransmit to me

her total dream of innocence

and I am waiting

for Childe Roland to come

to the final darkest tower

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite

to grow live arms

at a final disarmament conference

in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again   

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn   

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting   

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

Daughters of David Bowie

By Ren Jender

In high school the only legal place to listen to decent music was art class.“I like David Bowie”, my friend Shirley opined to the teacher, Mr. Baldacci.

He laughed and said, “I don’t think he likes you back.” Straight guys, even the arty ones pretended they didn’t understand why all the girls loved David Bowie.

Our Moms would notice in his posters and album covers the glittery slinky clothes and pale thin arms that aped a female fashion model’s. Mom would say, “He hardly looks like a man at all.” Mom’s type of man had a body and face like a side of beef. If she was still married that guy was part of the furniture stewing silently in front of the T.V. with a beer in his hand.

The boys in school were no better. In fifth or sixth grade some of them had been our friends. Their newfound pseudo-masculine veneer was a seventh or eighth-grade vintage at best. But already us girls had had our fill of boys shouting abuse from cars in parking lots. Our Moms would say, “That means they like you.”

David Bowie, skinny, skinny pretty, pretty was the type of boy other boys yelled shit at, the type of boy who would tell us years later that when he was a teenager he made a choice. “I thought if these guys were going to torment me anyway, I’d reeeeee-eee-ally give them a reason.” So he dressed more outrageously, acted more fey and used that persona as a form of judo against the world.

The boys in my school never had a clue: they were getting their asses kicked every time David Bowie was on the radio. In one verse his voice so low, it broke and in the next verse so high he could’ve been Diana Ross. Girls couldn’t resist singing along.

Of course David Bowie liked us. He was us. Shirley explained to Mr. Baldacci, “He’s bi.”David Bowie would later deny he was bisexual, put out some wildly successful, crappy music and acquire an ex-model wife with breast implants and a baby, but I prefer to remember him as the guy from the seventies who fucked Mick Jagger.

Flipping through teen magazines I see the David Bowie I loved on every other page. His slender, hairless body reborn as Orlando Bloom’s. His ivory-girl complexion mapped onto the faces of the young male cast members of The O.C. Straight guys still say, “I don’t get it.”

In a drag-king contest I despaired over the taste in music—and men—Jon Bon Jovi?! Fifty Cent?! Who wanted to be these guys when she could be a queen for a day? All those girls in the lesbian clubs with precisely cut, bleached-blonde hair wearing fashions and shoes out of GQ by way of Mars, the illegitimate daughters of David Bowie: hear my plea.

Bind your breasts. Wear a feather boa. Make sure to put on a functional dick. Because I don’t know if you’ll win or lose, but I can guarantee: you will get laid.

What I Mean When I Say Chinook Salmon

By Geffrey Davis

 My father held the unspoken version of this story
along the bridge of his shoulders: This is how
we face and cast to the river -- at angles.
This is how we court uncertainty. Here, he taught
patience before violence -- to hold, and then
to strike. My fingers carry the stiff
memory of knots we tied to keep a 40-lb. King
from panicking into the deep current
of the stream. Back home, kneeling
at the edge of the tub with our kills, he showed
the way to fillet a King: slice into the soft
alabaster of the pectoral, study the pink-rose notes
from the Pacific, parse waste and bone from flesh. Then,
half asleep, he’d put us to bed, sometimes with kisses.

i am running into a new year

By Lucille Clifton

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me