Here’s a Poem

by Susan Sherman

to the poets who die unknown who live their poems day by day bare the chaos of lost words Here’s to the poems that never get published that lie fallow in someone’s veins that burned in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Vietnam New York City Portland, Maine Here’s to the poets in Nicaragua Cuba South Africa El Salvador in the southern countryside of all the Americas and in the northern cities too Here’s to the women and men who never even knew they were poets had no one to tell them didn’t know how to tell themselves Here’s to the millions of words buried in a million places all over the globe the mouths and hands silenced forever Here’s to all that magic music beauty surprise that died unsung that dies everyday that blood that moves us forward that holds back the tide

A Night in May

I am a night in May Where flowers stay in stasis Wishing that time would stay And traveling to many places

I'd tell you that I love you But I don't know if you'd mind This world can make one feel blue And clarity is hard to find

"Sad Cat Poem" by Spencer Madsen

My cat is sad.

Ok so I'm not sure if this will work but

If this post gets 5k notes by 11th March , then I will

1. Read as many classics as I can

2. Read a lot of poetry

3. I will post a few of my poems on here!!!

Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

being an older sibling is like. you've never known a life without me. mom yelled at me and it taught her she never wanted to yell at you. I painted my room purple and grey and then you did too. we live in the same house but I haven't spoken to you in months. I don't know your favorite color. I saw it was going to rain so I picked you up from school on my way home so your books wouldn't get wet. i was so worried when you woke up sick when you were three. you don't remember being sick. mom and dad made their worst mistakes with me and I'm glad they didn't make them with you. I'm doing everything for the first time so you won't be in the dark. I don't know any of your friend's names anymore. I used to know them all. if something happens to mom and dad you won't have to worry because everything will fall to me. you don't like to be home alone but even if you don't see me just knowing I'm there makes you feel better. at least that's what mom told me. you still give me jars to open for you because you can't quite get them. I only see you during dinner. i'd never even think about missing one of your concerts. I stand at the counter when I eat and now you do, too. when offered a selection of books you picked the same one I did when i was your age. I'm terrified you compare yourself to me. I love you. I don't know if you like me. I want you to. mom says dinner's ready

Fady Joudah, from "Venus Cycle", part of 16 Love Poems by Writer's of Palestinian Heritage, pub. AAWW

DIRECTOR'S NOTE • Nov. 2023

You can't go home. This play has a particular care for and interest in its victims. The resident

inciting event is endless. tragedy is much more concerned with footnotes than it is with gods.

well acquainted with what happens afterward, storytellers claim they can't diverge from what's

written: resist. rage against what must be. tell a story about war without talking

about love. survive its aftermath. fail to find resolution. make this suffering

a home. There's no breaking this chain— fate, as always, gets its way.

Poetry assembled from the program of an Oresteia production. Nov. 2023.

crying in my room rn actually .

i had been used for my body before, i didn't mind it. i had a good trick about it - i didn't have to be there, not in my skin. i could wear the mirror, wear the puppet. you would see your perfect girl, a little monster i had concocted. she would glisten, distilled out of my own blood and venom. it meant i would be using you instead - you think you are taking from me? darling, i think this is a fucking joke, a role i am playing. you can't hurt me, i'm not present for the event. this is just a body, like a book is only words.

and then you came into my life, easy and honest. reaching for my hand in the crowded holiday market. passing me a water before i realize i'm thirsty. checking on me once, twice - the first time i said i'm okay, you knew i was lying. i keep thinking about the shape of your blue eyes and the wild of your hair the last time i saw you. how you got out of my car and when you looked back, i was looking back too. your quiet breathing in a hotel room.

you kissed me like you meant it, is the thing.

i don't know how to be a person yet, not fully. i don't know how to let you kiss me and touch bone. i tell my friends i hate this so much i want to throw up. your name slips into my head - i am no longer really ever alone. a little frazzled heartrate keeps splattering against my collarbone. my therapist asked yesterday - why are you afraid? what is the cost of vulnerability?

a terrifying thought: when i'm with you, it feels like finally coming home.

fake to real relationship speedrun record

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.

HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY ACE!!

Support me on ko-fi! ♥

found poetry

btw I’ve mentioned this on here before but I had a really shitty ex boyfriend. while I was in the relationship, I would write poems about him being my lifeline, the thing that kept me floating, he brought color to my world and I would praise him for giving me the tiniest of kindnesses. But there was a lot of red flags and bad shit he did to me and things he put me through, that honestly I couldn’t admit and realize until I went to therapy. A lot of those poems have been changed in my head, the meaning of them changed, and I even wrote poems changing the meaning of the earlier poems. The good was good. The bad was worse. I know that now. I’m older now. It’s brighter now.

If I can do that for myself on a private level, why can’t Taylor do it publicly? Why can’t she do this for herself? She wrote him into her world, let her write him out if she needs too. She’s older now. Let her do the same.