Final Poems

#finalpoems / [?]

Dear Human

all I ever wanted was everything
repeated

milk and
honey over the face of the ocean

and behind each gill
hyacinths

it’s hard

to get it
even once

the calm arrangement oblivion
offers
the body

a star
in the mouth

every fountain dissolved by zinc
and copper

when all I ever dreamed
was déja vu
and the future buried

alive in the fifth stomach of my
past

like an ancient fortune cookie

unfolding dimension
lifting a hand into the air again

holding it
in my hands again

fanning it out and out and out

Dear Human

I am leaving the light on for you

a string could be drawn between our windows

of course a pane of glass
can be a shield

but every night it is a portal

my mortality lies prostrate inside its frame inside
my body waiting

if love is patient if love is
a kind of mourning

my wingspan is feather-by-feather
a pigeon pacing its sill

passing shadows over
your last trace

a book you left glows
within its glossy cover

poems at the foot of my bed about a lover’s feet

my fingers almost entirely reach

dear flux dear decay dear
vibrations buried between vibrations buried

between space

Bryce Lillmars received his MFA from UC Irvine’s Programs in Writing where he served as Art Editor for Faultline. Most recent ‘Dear Human’ poems have appeared in Conduit and are forthcoming from Green Mountains Review, American Literary Review and Southern Humanities Review. He’s at work on his first collection and lives in Los Angeles collecting succulents on his sills.

#finalpoems / [?]

The Unspoken Not-yet

What can be said at all can be said clearly;
and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein

What can you say?
You can say:
nothing.

No cacophony of choristers, no
operatic arias adjusting
to affliction, to the tender anguish

of the somatic suggestion that
your warranty might soon expire.
You say what you can say

in a body;
there is nothing
that can be said

outside of this.
There is nothing but this body—nothing
but this slow slaughtering of self.

As if you ever aspired to stay
earthbound. You’d prefer
rootless asphyxiation.

No. More like:
the sudden silent breathlessness
of isolation—just before you are

marooned; shipwrecked; a hull, shattered.
Not altogether capsized, nor drowning;
and then, this, quickly now, the quiet

promise of the unspoken
not-yet, of becoming everlastingly
unchained. You say nothing

except what you can say.
Nothing else can be said
outside of this:

body erased;
soul
flown.

Jennifer Stitt is a poet as well as a historian of modern American thought, culture, and politics. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. intellectual history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her writing has appeared in Aeon, Aura Literary Arts Magazine, Big Think, Chronically Lit, Essay Daily, On Being, Quartz, Quiet Storm Literary Arts Magazine, Public Seminar, and other places. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and is currently working on a book about the history of solitude.

#finalpoems / [?]

Blinded

Right before the end,
Just up to the point of annihilation,
Hovering over the off-switch for this world of ours,
Heading for a no-repeat shutdown,
I had one small hope;
To be a part of something
Greater than my fear.
To be linked to a phenomena
More firmly rooted than my own internal mush,
My stellar I-am-not-doing-this-right regime.

That desire was realized
By the flashing white light
Of acceptance
Blinding all other concerns
With pure unclouded luminosity.

Robert W. Monk is a writer and poet originally from London, England currently residing in Sydney, Australia. His work has been featured on the poetry webzine Ink Sweat & Tears. He is also the vocalist and lyricist with electronic music projects Echo Rescue, and Points of Convergence. He blogs at https://robertwmonk.wordpress.com/

#finalpoems / [?]

And pity sits beside me,
tongue lolling long, jerking with every breath,
And I think that if I were ever to be alone
it would be better than this
and that the skies in that place
redolent of shivering constellations and laundry soap
would bend their backs just a little
to whisper
there can be joy, even here.

Gretchen Adams is a writer of speculative and historical fiction. Her work has appeared in Canvas Literary Journal and Lunch Ticket. She lives in an increasingly damp apartment in Portland, Oregon.

#finalpoems / [?]

Do not just play a role,
accepting that this world
is normal. Do not fall into
the trap. Run the Gamut
of experience. Then run it
again. You never know what
You missed the first time.

Do not live as a Queen among
the lay people, live as though all
are worthy of love. This life is too
Short to pretend to be anything
but divine.

Live and let live. Do not
Hold onto old grudges
This world doesn’t need more of that.

Find something positive
And live each day for that.

Zoe Eudene Grace is a poet from the Treaty 7 territory on Turtle Island. She spends most of her time watching the collapse of the empire from her twitter account: @beingandzoe. Previously she has been published in In Media Res and Wax Poetry and Art under a dead name. Most of her free time is spent watching sports, wrestling, and re-reading old fantasy novels.

#finalpoems / [?]

Templo Mayor

I centered myself, pressed lips to salty sandstone, pivoted towards
Thousands watching then strutted higher:
I inhaled as you carved my heart
And threw the shell of my body down 30 steps to meet Coyolxauhqui,
Who, despite being displaced herself, cushioned the fraction remaining of my soul, soothed my
cuts, and shared her ground. My blood transfused to strengthen Tlaloc, igniting red rain swells
Flooding plain grasses like combed hair of a doll.
Swollen valleys cradled your bed laden lovers, submerging their passion like
The pinching of a flame with bare fingers. Waters creeped to your chin, pushed it East, where I
rose and watched as you
floated.

Stephanie Garon received dual science degrees from Cornell University, then attended Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Her environmental art has been exhibited internationally in London, Colombia, and South Korea, as well as across the United States. Her writing, a critical aspect of her artistic process, has been published in international literary journals and performed adjacent to her artwork. When she’s not in her studio, she’s jumping across river beds to comb through pine needles.

#finalpoems / [?]

GARDEN PATH REVISITED

Gold on green
Sunlight kisses sway
Freshness, affinity
Absorb into my bones, yet
Layered in the undergrowth
A waiting

Time
You perplexing burden
Heavy hypnotising snake
Unfathomable
Unfolding and unleashing
Years upon seasons
Generations
This torrent vanishing all
I know

Caught in the current

We are
I am

But not lost

Born in the U.K., Ann van Wijgerden has spent most of her life in the Netherlands and the Philippines. She has had nonfiction, poetry and fiction published in a number of literary journals. Ann works with an NGO providing education for children living in Manila’s slum areas. www.youngfocus.org

#finalpoems / [?]

and the night recedes

you only feel ‘woman’
when he dyke-s you from his truck window
when she deems you worth your skin enough
to steal it
when they crown you “glorious burden”
you only feel ‘woman’
in the cacophony of poisonous masculinity
of Nair-hair and petite feet
& wow have you lost weight?
you only feel ‘woman’
when you don’t want to
and when you do want
you feel nothing else because to want
means the same as to        .        woman

you feel ‘woman’ that night
walking to your car far from campus
& an open facing yell screams—something
obscured from you        .          & you’re glad for the unknown

you feel ‘woman’        .          at dusk
driving 55 down an empty road
your favorite song bass-ing
with the moon watching your back
and through the speeding you never felt safer
you feel, well not woman but something close and better
when you wake to the orange sun on their face
and their sleepy hand     .       reaching for yours

you only feel you when you stand:          .      a false woman

unearthed from the stone-ash
of a self you never claimed—
on all those nights you’d rather forget
growing from a fire of noiseless hate
as the forest of street lights flicker—
you sing soft the night-edge
‘til the moment’s fading silence pulses
and the night recedes around you to the new dawn

of She

Lauren Miles (she/her/they/them) is a queer poet, playwright, and comic artist from Dayton, OH. You can follow them on Twitter (@andro_meyda2527) and Insta (lilypheonix1252) if you want to see more of her work or just to see retweets of tiny octopi or photos of overcast clouds and their sunshine partner.

#finalpoems / [?]

My Dress Hangs Here

Para Frida

Of course it does – at 6am the men
bring my innards from a low truck
with battered rims; they carry them on
their backs into the rear of the restaurante –

they are the parts of animals, i can make out
intestines and other salichicha type shapes
they will be cooked to perfection – later
not resembling anything como mi muerte feo

such a pretty dress – I wear to my
quinceniera – I wear it to meet the gringos
San Franciso – porque no? me quieren asi
me desean asi – y ademas mi Señor le guste

the part of me which is not hanging here
not divided – but was divided, as the house
and the sisters and the mujer, su marida

I wonder if he would like me to be Russian…
I wonder what happened to the indigenes en Cholula
I wonder if I had a day to myself – what would I
do with it – If I could walk, say to market, la iglesia

en mi vestida – como nativa – que hermosa –
I would watch the men bring the parts of bodies
into the back door of the restaurant. Pieces of
ears for pozole – i might even come in

have a seat –
and eat myself for breakfast

Elisabeth Horan is an imperfect creature from Vermont advocating for animals, children and those suffering alone and in pain – especially those ostracized by disability and mental illness. She is Editor in Chief at Animal Heart Press, and Co-Editor at Ice Floe Press. She has several chaps and collections out at Bone & Ink Press, Fly on the Wall Press, Twist It Press, Rhythm and Bones Press, Cephalo Press, and Animal Heart Press. Her newest collections: Just to the Right of the Stove, with Hedgehog Poetry Press, and Alcoholic Betty, with Fly on the Wall Poetry Press are forthcoming in 2020. She is a poetry mentor to many up and coming brilliant poets, and proud momma to Peter and Thomas. She recently earned her MA from SNHU, and her MFA from Lindenwood University. She is a 2018 Pushcart Nominee and a 2018 and 2019 Best of Net Nominee. Follow her @ehoranpoet & ehoranpoet.com

#finalpoems / [?]

Someday

the point is never to wait to say what’s true
whilst knowing and honoring the pace of things
     .       (which is never my pace of things)
never knowing what time we have,
     .       what’s true

i’d like to tell you how i’ve felt sans risking what we’ve had,
which will happen, always happens
     .       once you know

you promote truth but
don’t know mine or
what’s coming or
that you’re it    .  that
i’m chronically in love
and

i see more than ever why this can’t    .  and shouldn’t    .  be and
     .       that we are impeccable as is   .  but

it’s just you have this spectacular brain
which prohibits consideration of    .   my love for you
     .       which is prohibited      .       which

creates a chronic, crazed kinship with the forbidden

  .       you don’t see

you’re my ideal world but not of it    .  you’ve made quite sure of that

so,    .   but

i still find i’m right in the end
whilst heart throbs with wrongness

     .       do you fear me like the others

     .       now you see

secrets have been, always
the only way my
life keeps going
holding all these secrets
i can never say
hoping to someday, maybe,
   .       say them
dreaming of what’d happen if you knew
maybe everything would be different
  .       maybe nothing
maybe you’ve always known anyway and i’m just here
.       having wondered away life
.       praying you’ll find me soon

Paige Frisone is a body-based writing coach, writer and poet stationed in Boulder, Colorado. Originally from Chicago, her writing pursuits began at Butler University, finishing school at Naropa University with an integrated contemplative psychology focus. Her work has been featured in Rebelle Society, Elephant Journal, Rogue Agent and elsewhere. Learn more about her psychosomatic inquiries at: www.paigefrisone.com.

#finalpoems / [?]

For The Ones Yet to Die

death is nothing

you only move to a parallel dimension

and become less obvious

so in my departure

call me by my name

remember me for who I am

be not remorseful for I dwell

somewhere waiting for you

life is just the place to wait for something

              .           and

death is the place to stay for nothing

so cherish these brief moments you call living

because – you become nothing when the wait is over

remember

life comes with its own curse

to be born is to die eventually

life itself is the act of waiting

then

you come to the reality that there is

no such thing as immortality

we are born(e) to die

so remain with your shadow even in death

he would become your soul and live forever.

mortality is in immortality

Semilore Kilaso is a Nigerian writer who loves to collect photographs of humans, architecture, wildlife and landscape. She believes intelligence is relative and every individual should be responsible for the consequences of their actions. When she’s not reading books, she’s reading lines from architectural drawings. Some of her works appear in international magazines; culturalweekly and litvalley and in the anthology “A Country of Broken Boys.”

#finalpoems / [?]

– Out of the Sinkhole –

Like an August Floridian thunderstorm,
I can see the clouds turn darker
than the circles beneath my eyes;
I can hear the clouds collide louder
than the ringing in my ears;
I can feel the wind begin to flap
my sweat stained clothes;
and yet, when raindrops the size of my dilated pupils
fall with fury as boomers quake the ground beneath my feet,
I’m always caught
unprepared.

I even do what I’ve been taught:
I tense every muscle, clench my teeth, squeeze my eyes shut,
let the warmth of the rain flow down my soul.
But my eyes don’t relax like I’ve been told they would,
my teeth don’t release like I’ve been told they would,
my muscles don’t melt like I’ve been told they would.
Instead, the soil saturates and the supporting pressure
sinks and sends me sliding beneath the surface.
Water floods the sinkhole, lightning strikes surround,
water moccasins and gators swim smiling around me,
and I–
I am the weakest motherfucker dying.

And that’s what I’ve learned about depression:
I go to counseling, I deep breath, I exercise, I love,
I write, I read, I visualize, I practice, I give, I thank,
I take 40 mgs in the morning, I take 50 mgs at night.
But I’ve also banged my head against a freezer door
until black spots dotted my vision. I’ve raced my car
to 100 m.p.h. on a lonely road at 3 in the morning
with the intent of ramming that shit into the giant trunk
of an Oregon White Oak. I’ve told a coach I need to quit my
scholarship because this depression makes me a bad
teammate. I’ve left my poetry slam team the night before
competition for the same reason. I’ve taken so many Ativan
at once I slurred through a set list, stumbled off stage and startled
awake with no recollection of driving to an ex-girlfriend’s
place. I’ve stayed in bed for the majority of a three-year cycle
and let myself disappear from all the spaces I claim to love
with a note ready that says I don’t understand it, but it’s all my fault.
See, that August Floridian thunderstorm is always in the forecast,
and I’ll always be unprepared,
and I’ll always slide into another sinkhole.

But I’ve also learned about depression:
When I’m the weakest motherfucker dying,
the lightning will miss me, the rain’s fury will subside,
the wind will slow, the clouds will separate,
the water moccasins and gators will not give a fuck
about biting me because they’re just trying to survive too;
and when somehow I crawl out of the sinkhole,
I will be the strongest motherfucker alive.

And I’ll see all the other strongest motherfuckers alive
somehow crawling out of their sinkholes too. And we
will understand that those who didn’t make it out
of their sinkholes are strongest motherfuckers too.
And we will look at that forecast, and we will be caught
unprepared
together.

And we will slide into our sinkholes,
and we will do whatever we can to be
the strongest motherfuckers alive
after every
Storm.

Ty.Brack is a poet, Hip hop artist, teacher, and youth organizer from Tigard, OR. His poetry has been published in Northwest Passage and will be featured in WritersResist and Eve Poetry Magazine, and his music is available on all major digital streaming platforms. Additionally, he can be seen competing and performing in poetry slams in Portland. Believing that poetry and the spoken word is vital for social and emotional growth, Ty.Brack also organizes youth poetry jams in his community, providing young poets the opportunity to perform, workshop, and network.

#finalpoems / [?]

My Photograph

You are beautiful.
Three words, a simple statement on a common magnet.
Yet, so much kindness with this gesture.

Framed by the fresh feeling of being me, but
with the freedom to be someone else.
My chance for raw expression in the exposure of your lens.

Is it strange that that vintage camera gave me the most comfort?
Its character and quality used to capture
so many previous faces, bodies, and moments.

This camera that has seen so much,
now angled to capture me
in this moment.

Spine resting against
the cool leather chair,
as my head tilts towards you

Legs stretched out in their length,
with slight bend at the knee.
Feet resting on ruby heels.

The outside tree creates a tango of shadows
on the hardwood and across the deerskin rug
as the evening light pours through the window frame.

Cars can be heard passing by three stories below.
But they are in their own separate world,
missing this moment that is mine.

Rachel Michael is a physician based in Toledo, Ohio. Her love for arts and literature have inspired her to begin writing. She writes poetry and fictional short stories, and is looking forward to sharing her words in future publications.

#finalpoems / [?]

thickness

Because the fever hasn’t let up.

And I used to mesmerize myself by the way you walked, the pendulum of feet pattering one after the other, the sway of the hips and your laugh exploding from the crackled timber of your tongue. You used to simmer in the kitchen, lock your fingers together, push your glasses farther up your nose, lift your hips to the counter and dangle your legs like little wind chimes, and I opened my mouth and blew breezes at you just to hear your ankles jingle. Remember the time I watched you in the mirror and mimicked the way you spread your lips apart and tongued the air, and we almost kissed like that, but there was a void between the gums? Remember the smoke and the bread crusts flicked down over the fire? Remember the ineffable heat and how the sweat that poured down our noses formed puddles where our scents welded together? It was the first time we touched.

The last time we walked together, there was a violent presence in the air—in the squeak of your chair wheels, the cold concrete, the grimace on your face where the pain filtered through the fleshy layers of your mask. In wanting to feel closer, I bent down and mimicked your open lips, growled with you, said I, too, knew pain because it was in you.

But you shook your head—

I wish I was your body, so I could once again comfort you, crochet your skin anew, take ruined palms and sand them soft, take breasts and massage the pulp from them, take your pain and squeeze it from your flesh, wring you out and run your fever dry.

I wish I was your body so I too could feel the shatter you felt, so my empathy was not just another churlish phantasm of our love.

You left residue all over my body and it is hot to the touch—

Mira Glasser is an artist, writer, and bookseller living in Portland, Oregon. She is studying at Lewis & Clark College, where she won the 2019 Dorothy Berkson Gender Studies Writing Award. She has been a featured reader at Survival of the Feminist and Grief Rites Readers Series, and has a stack of unpublished chapbooks in her fridge, where they stay good and fresh.

#finalpoems / [?]

Her Zest

Her list of accomplishments was long, long, long.
Her work, her love, her song – – – now gone.

The measure of one life lived,
the purpose of what we give.

Was it fate that gifted her with it all?
Her zest left the rest of us to fall –

ow behind her tremendous lead,
left us planting the seed

of inspiration she gave,
with one small wave

that provided our moral scope
and allowed us some small hope

that life will go on and on and on
even now, that she is so, so, long gone.

Annette Gagliardi has poetry published in Genre: Urban Arts No. 8- Print, Southwest Journal, Summer & fall 2019, Dreamers Creative Writing Online and in their Year 1 Anthology Down in the Dirt Online Magazine, Trouble Among the Stars, Issue#2, Poetry Quarterly, the Poetic Bond VIII & IX. She has work in the League of Minnesota Moccasin, the South Dakota State Poetry society Pasque Petals and in Arizona State Poetry Society’s Sandpiper. Annette is a contributor and one of two editors for the anthology, Upon Waking: 58 Voices Speaking Out From The Shadow of Abuse.

#finalpoems / [?]

Late September 2001 Rorschach Test

in memory of Farhad

The daily morning paper dares,
who do you see here? Newsprint’s
blotches of black and grey form a face

no more terrorist than the turbaned man
who enters this E train at 3rd and Lex,

such assumptions another cause for terror
for the Sikh man who decorated his taxi
like it’s the 4th of July to ward off the ignorance
from skin white like mine. I asked him to deliver us

to Queens Memorial, please. I cradled Philip, fevered
with sickled cells. He’ll recover in a bed next to Farhad,
who’d learn he is dying of cancer, who’d feed us, two weeks later,
when we’d visit, dried white mulberries from Iran and bid us

to take care of each other. I rode home on the E train that once
ended at the World Trade Center through tunnels
linking English to Spanish, Hindi to Yiddish
like the cupped palms of girls make telephones
that carry misconceived messages around a slumber party.

Like Priya’s terror broke through my phone that night:
                         .                     .     A man shouted, ‘I’ll burn you Arab girl.’
Tamil, not Arab, she was walking home
on Avenue A, in New York winter

when it is never truly day or night
and everyone’s skin fades to a washed out
version of the self. In the morning, these faces unite

in their need for coffee as they create a line
of silhouettes, a fresh Rorschach test.
The bagel cart owner knows what each prefers:
black or sweet and light. Saeed saved me

the last poppy seed muffin that morning,
like many mornings, my arrival always near his workday’s end —
he’ll start a round of golf on Long Island while I start
a day of editing and dubbing in windowless rooms.

As he prepped my coffee – scooped the sugar,
flipped the spigot in one move – I searched for
my wallet, missing. “I think I left it …” He handed me
the brown paper bag with my breakfast
and some cash, “here, something to buy lunch.”

Lisa Eve Cheby, a librarian, poet, and daughter of immigrants, holds an MFA from Antioch University and an MLIS from SJSU. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in various journals and anthologies. Her chapbook, Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is available from Dancing Girl Press. http://lisacheby.wordpress.com

#finalpoems / [?]

“From a Crumpled Note in the Back Pocket of the World”

Come home.

Clothes off.

Coffee on.

Tip back

Tropic of Cancer.

Commit felony

To memory.

Mug down.

Turn it off.

Bathe half naked

And relinquish soul.

Bring the ghosts

Out and

Drink fireball

In the shower.

Balancing act.

Keep forward.

No refunds.

No end.

No win.

Sit by the ocean

In your mind

In the cheap motel room

And try to save your

Self.

Allison Ursa is a painter and writer residing in northern Alabama and currently makes work that lies somewhere in between. She is unsure of but inspired by the endless possibilities of what color the light at the end of the tunnel is.

#finalpoems / [?]

The Laugh with the Lilt
Dr. Jannette Goddard-Finegold, 1948 – 2019

Fifty years
since we spoke
since we laughed together

We planned to meet again.
I read her poetry
She read mine
She died last Sunday.

My parents are gone,
a sister, a wife

those others
I guarded with my skill
but could not save

and Denise
her brilliance, her quickness
her kindness

and that delighted laugh
at her own work
The Day the Audience Walked Out on Me,
and Why.

1973 Reading — Denise Levertov

Audio Reading

Don Krieger is a biomedical researcher living in Pittsburgh, PA. His poetry has appeared online in Uppagus Magazine, Entropy, Tuck, Vox Populi Sphere, and others, in print in Hanging Loose (1972) and Neurology, and in several print anthologies including in both English and Farsi in Soodabeh Saeidnia’s Persian Sugar in English Tea, Volumes I and III.

#finalpoems / [?]

Solace

Raise them,
Hold them foremost.

Your hands, your wands, your pens.

Be it whatever may.
Show solace.

Shadow the hypocrites.
Show them the least of pity-I plead you.

The sun has vanished long before.
The light we hold now, be not the aura of god.

We are all children of the devil now.
Trapped in a game of reality and fiction.

Fools who do not comply, are fools.

Only to the many, for they are the few.
It is their hands that are raised.
Their tears that matter. Their hearts – for they are still pure.

Unbridled with guilt, greed and blood and power.
Release your prayers for them.
Join them as they mourn the death of humanity, the death of nature and the death of god.

For I too am no longer with the living or the dead.
I remain forever, with the fools.

Saqif Maqsud is an admirer of words that twists and bends the subconscious. Devoted to Tagore from an early age, he is an avid fan of literature that reserves multiple interpretations. Occasionally, Saqif tends to dive into the world beyond, only to dabble in dark literature momentarily. He also prefers vinyl over digital music.

#finalpoems / [?]

Rain’s End

The rain poured
the day you walked away from me.

I was sick and shy.
I wanted to hold you.
I didn’t want to say goodbye.

The rain poured
and the hallway was so tiny,

Paint peeling, wood moldy.
A door on either side
created a box we couldn’t get out of.

The rain poured
and the sound was like a thousand drums

trying to get our attention
beating a divine message –
now now now now now

We closed our ears,
and the water washed you away.

Now 14 years later I sit, pen in hand,
surrounded by family and friends,
yet completely alone

breathing in the sweet essence of
the hundred purple flowers you promised to send,
still

waiting

For your hand on my shoulder
your whisper in my ear, waiting
for you.

LM Neal is a Queer writer working to transcend binaries and borders. She hails from the ocean shores but lives now between city and woods with partner, child, and pets. She has been published in a range of journals and anthologies, and is happy to be participating now with a #Finalpoem as we perch at the edge of ending.