POETSWEDNESDAY & More

Adele Kenny

Adele Kenny is the author of 23 books (poetry & nonfiction). Her poems, reviews, and articles have been published worldwide, and her poems have appeared in books and anthologies published by Crown, Tuttle, Shambhala, and McGraw-Hill. The recipient of various awards, including two poetry fellowships from the New Jersey State Arts Council, she is founding director of the Carriage House Poetry Series and poetry editor of Tiferet. Visit Adele online at http://mysite.verizon.net/adelekenny/

Asa Drake

Asa Drake was born in South Carolina, but has since migrated to New York State. She is a graduating senior at Binghamton University majoring in Creative Writing and is currently a member of the Grey City Slam performance poetry group. Her favorite color is blue.

Brendan Wolff

Brendan Wolff is a student poet majoring in Creative Writing and Psychology at Binghamton University. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and still goes back often just to ride the D train.

Broken Dream Catcher by Adam Martin

Broken Dream Catcher

I found you on the ground
beside the parking lot
coming apart at the strings.
Dried leaves caught
in your tangles, long since fallen
from the trees that divided
the pavement from the grass,
and when I picked you up,
I could see the broken dreams
lingering there too.
The center hole,
where good dreams pass through
had been pulled shut,
and within your frayed circle
ambitions and wishes
shone like gemstones.
But when I turned you over in my hand,
another of your strings came undone,
and the dreams that were attached
fell into the tall grass.
So what could I do
but put you back down
to lie among
the pieces of yourself
that I had scattered
carelessly?

 

Adam Martin

Adam Martin is an 18 year old poet from New Jersey. He finds inspiration in dreams, in the motions of life, and in human interaction. He is currently living between Readington and New Brunswick filling his time with enrollment at Rutgers University. He has been published in the Edison Literary Review and Elan.

 

How to Beat the Boredom by Jonny Erkkila

 

 

How to Beat the Boredom

 

 

Buy lottery tickets,

pour your life savings into these stubs.

 

Can tomatoes,

fill quart Mason jar after jar

and store them in the cellar

so you’re prepared for nuclear fallout.

Do the same with pickles.

 

Work on a plantation,

where the toil never ends.

 

Walk across America,

then do it again

and again

and again except this time in a three-piece suit

and again in a wedding dress

and again, backwards.

 

See the world,

see the world the way a blind man sees it

by touching everything.

Make sure to take plenty of pictures.

 

Raise a child star,

steal his money and abandon him

when his voice deepens

or hair grows out of his ears

and he starts thinking about his future.

 

Take up smoking,

just to make you look tough,

an addiction to blow all your money on,

and an easy way to end life before you get bored again.

 

Go out and fall in love,

cheat on your girl the next day,

have your first love find out

and tell her that it was a fluke,

commitment problems or some garbage like that.

Have your women awkwardly

meet you in the same location the next day,

the day after that tell them,

“Baby, I don’t think it’s gonna work out.”

 

If all else fails, go to the sporting goods store

and buy a set of golf clubs.

Take the boredom out back

and beat it within an inch of its life.

Beat it until the blood pours from its nose.

Beat it until it’s blue and black and swollen.

Beat it until you’ve taught it not to fuck with you ever again.

At least that’s what works for me.   

 

 

Published in Arsenal Magazine

  

Jon Erkkila

Jon Erkkila is from Whitehouse Station, NJ. He graduated from
Hunterdon Central Regional High School last June, where he studied
poetry with John Smith and Karen Malzone. He attended The Evergreen
State College in Olympia, Washington until last December. He is now
set to start one class at Warren County Community College with BJ
Ward. His poetry has been published in The Idiom, Edison Literary
Review, The Apprentice Writer of Susquehanna University, Arsenal and
Élan.

Tree Opera by Bianca Stone

Tree Opera

I have taken my madness out into the parking lot

and smoked with it. I have bowed

among the fish bones and rubbed

my hands with natural oils. There are

several lines of poetry I can remember

but cannot bare read. There is

a servant standing beside me

with a glass tray of cups. I cannot hear

the train anymore. Nor the wind

that drives ahead of it. I can only move

inches at a time. Only bend

into your kiss.

My allegiance is to the tree

lit up and dutiful. It is no fault of mine

that we have not lain in the grass

in many months. Somewhere amidst this

my skeleton, never drawn to the sea,

the bureaucratic shore, the way you wade in

and so quickly lose control

of your legs, pulled by some vivid hand.

I cannot stand the selfishness

of the sea, gulls who assemble on a wave

or stand cultish and suddenly quiet

with their stock, spiritual faces raised

to the elaborate dusk.

Bianca Stone

Bianca Stone was born and raised in Vermont and is a recent graduate of the NYU creative writing program in poetry. She co-curates The Ladder Poetry Reading Series in New York, and edits a bi-annual chapbook that features readers from the reading series. Her most recent poetry publications include The Patterson Literary Review, Fou, Agriculture Reader,Elimae and Maggy. Apart from writing poetry Bianca is an illustrator and cartoonist, currently working on a collection of works that merge poetry and illustration, exploring the space between genres. Her blog is called Poetry Comics.

 

...And, she is granddaughter of the wonderful poet Ruth Stone.

Aponia by Ben Pease

Aponia

 

I.
Through the whir of sirens
a phone call goes unheard
in the breast pocket of another
pressed-for-time pedestrian
compelled to jaywalk amid
the halted traffic frantic
to get out of the way.

II.
Leaning over a half-eaten
bowl of fried egg and tomato
over rice, a man cracks his fortune
cookie to reveal the message
“Feeling low ain’t just for
the lonely” to which he would
agree had he more of an appetite.

III.
Accustomed to the occasional
receipt or business card forgotten
in a back pocket, the garment
folder stops for a moment to
uncrumple an envelope—the names
washed clean but “Open if I leave”
intact in a permanent scrawl. 

IV.
The lights turned low
to encourage the whole bar
to sing along: a malfunctioning
marquee flashes diligence,
devotion, dignity as a patron
finds it in himself to get off
his seat once more and dance.