icaughtmytempo

icaughtmytempo

abstract shapes and long telephone

fillmydays away from home crying into the fruit bowl and scraping at closed boxes getinside getinside

put on the [blind fold] to see better and taste the n i b a o r w

Marketing! i’m hungry: e m p t y s t o m a c h calls

Ouch! raspberries hurt–not the fruit–i picked fruit once and Human Beings Killed Them With Their Teeth–i like smiling at myself in the mirror until i start crying–just kidding–i wish i had allergies so i had an excuse to scratch my eyes out–MY PHONE IS OUT OF DATA

38

Henry Stern

39

LILA STERNOFF

Music Box

She wears grooves in the floor when she turns spins twirls across the room. she urges her tiny body tinier, spinning until that invisible tuck of skin that life ruining career ending invisible tuck of skin vanishes. I think she knows it never will. I think she spins

like the girl in a music box like she knows she will never stop like she knows that even if the music that roars in her ears dies if only for a second It will come back someone will open the box she will start to spin again.

40

The box wasn’t always open but once that melody begins It’s hard to hear much else especially for the porcelain ballerina trapped inside so she wears grooves in the floor flesh disappearing with every twirl, and all she can hear is the song a ceaseless echo that becomes a roar.

she’s lighter now. but the song doesn’t end.

41

Pills

White knights in clear orange armor come to fight the fires in my head. one by one they storm the beaches dissolve in swirling formations bitter tasting they stomp over my mind, numbing every thought so I won’t dwell on the fact when they stop fighting I will too.

42

Butterflies

her hands shake moving across the soft skin of her forearm drawing butterflies. they dance across her arm, replacing the army of faded red strokes her shaking hands had drawn with silver tipped pens. She rubs her butterflies with the pad of her thumb watching their wings flap in time reshaping in her vision in peaceful pinks and blissful blues She never uses red.

43

KATIA LAWSON

God of Insanity

You, You who sits there writing a poem about hate and fear and tears and smiles And cries while you laugh You who wish the clock would stop at 7:50 every minute but grins when it’s morning. You who feels the graveyard dirt after dark and talks to the man beneath the stone.

She tells you the world is an ironic mess of smoke and mirrors and sunlight and tears and Abbey Road endlessly circling our brains. She sits with him smoking his last joint before the clock starts again. Stop. Stop! It should stop. She tells you not to worry when your glass is empty and the sun is gone and your father is dead And the world burns and your mother cries And don’t worry when they drag you to your grave for the insane. Don’t worry when they wipe your tears with the Bible and tell you God is watching.

You, who writes this poem and reads this poem and Knows the glass is empty even though your Grandfather told you it’s always full. You who knows very well that the man beneath the stone can’t hear you But maybe you hear her and call her crazy for talking to the unborn flowers while gardening your white Roses. You tell she. You tell she to stop. You tell she to sing Rocky Racoon and dream of Saturn and Sangria in the snow.

Don’t come to me when they tell you I’m insane And that the only measure of success is through numbers and names and money. 44

Don’t come to me when your glass is empty and you realize you failed, And not because of the numbers or the names or the money but because you can’t see the sun In the morning and your brother yells while painting a masterpiece of misery on the walls of The White House.

Don’t listen to me when I tell you the only reason your eyes can open Is because there’s a fountain pouring out of them and nobody is there to throw in their pennies, Maybe they’ll give them to Homeless John who sits on the corner of 10th and 3rd, No they won’t. People don’t do that.

You, You who sits there and can’t write a poem about love and loss and the cliches they cry for. Not because you smell it’s bullshit, But because everything is cliche, honey.

When they drag you to your straight-jacket while pouring God’s sweat on your unblessed forehead, remember I warned you. When they pour pills down your dry throat Because you can’t stop screaming your father’s last words, So you quote Allen Ginsberg in a testimony to your pure insanity, Remember I warned you.

I told you they don’t speak your tongue, They don’t bleed red, They don’t release the hounds beating through your mind onto the world, I warned you, They won’t get it when you’re praying to your God of Insanity.

45

ZOE EHRENKRANZ

Saline Song

All feet fear the sea. So I dip mine, sockless, into the glassy blue deep It gazes back, unflinching; My legs recoil, Thump against the wood hull Soles scrambling for solid surface cower hanging Above thousands of leagues But I am pulled Beneath thin layers of froth and drunken sunlight Toes tangling with seaweed fingers Graze the reef’s razor edge, Scalloped oyster-knights Guarding fragile bodies with pearls As whales waltz below without corsets or bones I plunge deeper, called by a saline song Past a forgotten fleet, mariner’s names remembered only By seabed, their echo of ‘Exodus’ on the current; Past skeletons of coral cathedrals, Bleached spires preaching the ancient faith of tides, While silvered herrings worship the moon.

46

Nina Sloan

47

INES CHOMNALEZ

Statue of a Young Mother

Mom learned from her mother to fill every spare cavity with prayer cards, statuettes, wooden crosses I read the inscriptions for the names of places: Sinai Peninsula, Rosario, Sante Fe, Catholic Book Publishing Co. New Jersey

Above my desk they form a poorly curated bazaar upon a tottering column of used math textbooks Chipped wood and worn leather encircle a young, ill-defined face, coronated by a wreath of pale, pink flowers, she cups in fragile ceramic hands: a single rose still stemmed, forever commanding the attention of her blank irises So that wherever I stand, Her eyes never meet mine

48

Charlotte Vacarro

49

DYLAN ANDRES

My Bench

My hair swayed with each gust. I was down to my last three teeth. Lone wolves in a vast expanse.

I had found a pair of blue plastic scissors yesterday. I could have threatened them, forced them to leave, punctured their hearts. But I didn’t.

Something was stopping me–the empathy I was told was coded into my heart, or my familiarity with inaction. Maybe it was the police I knew were stationed a block away.

50

If

I looked out my window, the steady Monday air was dark, the waves bit the sand.

Red flyers to caution us locals still bound to the beach’s entrance.

Radios had warned us, police had surveilled my view, but he swam nonetheless.

I had watched the paramedics take him. He lay on his back, red threads tied into his beaten skin.

I watched and I liked it. Strangled in blood, his eyes, open still, met mine.

I could have known him. I could have kissed him. We could have been a thousand things.

The beach should be devastated with mourners–yelling, eating the sand, doing anything at all.

But the waves crashed, blue replaced red, and the steady air continued.

51

GEORGE PORTEOUS

Sometimes I forget to remember you

But there you are again, Arms extending, spanning oceans Never really gone

I am trying to hold onto you In the quiet ways now. In the moments between sleep and waking Half-dreamt ghosts Conjure up the recipes you buried–Tins of Scottish shortbread And wild Ojibwe rice

At Salisbury Cathedral I light a candle for you Or maybe for myself And there you are again. Did you ever really leave?

52

MEI BOCK

The View

I want to think there is an art to looking at the skyline and losing myself in the different windows, the sheer awe of floating lights. That when I smile at the fog settling over the Empire State and proclaim my undying love for the New York Life building, it is the churning of a greater soul.

Simon and Garfunkel had it right: I want to be the only one living here, staring straight into the edge of the universe. Millions of people in the swathe of my vision, shuttered away in homes but on this roof I have the wind howling through me and know, really, what it means.

53

Nights

Pitch black this day has lingered on past its due.

I have never been one to let things go. My greedy palms caught frogs from open lakes Held on for too long so when I put them back they wouldn’t swim right.

Sometimes I flip through old photos and worry I will never love anything as much As I loved summer in elementary school The simple art of sweaty arms, leaves so green They hurt to look at.

I will never love the same way Because now instead of trees I look at the past and feel hurt By the ease of it all.

Once I decide that some things are forever unspeakable I am left to wonder If they are dark by nature or because I refuse to let them come to light.

And why do I need someone else To say it’s okay so I can make it Through till morning? When are my own words enough? Until then I won’t sleep one goddamn night.

54

Days

Evening in the park where the sky sits blue beneath the surface, statue of a general on his pedestal. But as the night deepens I pick up the pace. He looks at the world through copper-plated eyes, mine often fail me.

On the morning ride to school there is a boy crying, so quietly I almost don’t notice the glassy run of tears that he lets finish their course to his chin and I should look away but I can’t shake him.

I can explain it like this: a well between the appendix and diaphragm cracked mossy walls damp airs hard basalt shiny drain at the bottom. For as much water you pour in with Laughter and chocolate In time it all slips out And nothing left to bear but the terrible floor.

When the world sits upright again I almost forgot the carpet on my cheek, hours gone by, older now afraid of the light instead. Midday seeping through shuttered blinds when everything is immovable and I let myself hold my unwavering hatred for old men on the street who say I’m beautiful. Liars.

55

Nina Sloan

56

CAITLIN MONSKY

Tree Dream

My 10-year old legs brush against the trunk, Jabbed by insignificant splinters. Standing on the top branch as the city floods, ground turning blue, Cars float down fifth avenue. I wonder if I can fly home, but I don’t know what it would feel like to fly away from invincibility.

Below I see myself emerge from the sea With longer legs and deeper wrinkles desperately trying to climb the tree. I reach out for a helping hand. Grasping hold, feet dangling above water, I decide to let go watching myself plummet into waves.

57

Julia Radomisli

58

Teeth Dream

The smell of acrylic and formaldehyde fumes signal my brain to run. Instead I sit in a green-grey waiting-room chair. A disappointed boy leaves with freshly cut wires Connecting cold metal braces, colored like a rainbow glued to bone. He begs to keep his shiny white teeth Exposed like the skeleton that guides me to an operating room. It examines my two front teeth that hang from gum by a string. I stare Into soulless eyes, curious if they could see me, wondering if that’s what I look like. Handed a mirror, I see only bones.

59

Brick Dream

The bright-eyed woman In her pencil skirt and patent leather shoes Scurried toward lunch At the deli around the corner, A newly freed Repunzel From her corporate desk job.

Good Vibrations flowed into her ears, Drowning out car horns and pedestrians Crossing streets on cell phones and a child holding a cardboard sign for money stating “not a scam” in bold. She still stopped to give a dollar Receiving a thank you and disapproving stares.

Towers looming overhead, Her heel became trapped on a piece of pink gum embedded in the sidewalk. She struggled To remove the sticky substance, noticing A lack of interest and slight disgust From those around her, until a brick fell slowly Picking up speed to land on her Ending the song.

60

Will Bousquette

61

Elephant Dream

Pink pearls slap onto my skin like bullets rolling down my arms, covering my feet, sinking Until my heart pumps blood to my toes. They rise and I run

To where an elephant wades into a river of pearls, Clearing a path with his trunk like Moses. I’m the only follower, trudging behind uncertain if I’ll make it through, unsure Of where I’m going. Somewhere important, maybe

To my sister in a hospital bed, waiting for a miracle Drug to free her from cherry jello and cable TV. She coughs, peals spilling out of her mouth, scattering on the floor, knocking over The IV. No elephant in the room, just me And my sister, patiently waiting to drown.

62

Poppy Edwards

63

Crowd Dream

Ghost-like figures envelop my personal space In a never-ending white room. One calls me by name And asks if I am living. I recognize the voice, Raspy and cold, as belonging to the man that sits outside the subway entrance Begging for spare change and a slice of pizza, watching commuters stare at their phones and ignore. He offers a cigarette,

I inhale. The need for fresh air transports us to the beach. The crowd of ghosts dissipates as I dive headfirst into white-tipped waves that await the arrival of alien mammal lungs. Swallowed by the sea’s open mouth, floating sediment and rock beat against my expanded rib cage begging for nonexistent air.

64

ATV Dream

Dusty fumes from the wide desert path coat my hair and mask. Gripping onto the person in the front seat steering the massive metal machine, I smell burning flesh. My left leg presses against heated metal.

Reaching down to feel the remains of my ankle, skin covers the surface.

I baked cookies yesterday, refusing to eat them straight out of the oven in fear of burning my tongue.

65

Doll Dream

It occured to me that I was a paper doll on a chain

our drawn on faces and clothes an attempt to make us look different, but our shapes and sizes the same, attached so tightly together we didn’t have hands. floating in the wind, I waited to rip apart. My attachments mocked me.

My non-existent paper-thin body, my inability to detach from others. My helplessness in believing that I am special.

66

Charlotte Vacarro

67

Henry Stern

68

Mama

KAITLYN POHLY

The moon begins to fade into blends of orange and red As the night rolls further down a winding, twisting road. My hands tremble as I dial the number Plastered and frayed above the kitchen counter. “Mama,” I whisper As the clock continues, its endless march of time. The line is silent on the other end An incessant buzz of nothingness, yet My ear stays plastered to the plastic “Mama?” It’s past the time when she returns From her days of making feather beds and Nights of scrubbing kitchen floors For men in fancy suits And ladies in shimmering pearls Her days are always long and hard Eyelids heavy with the sleep She never gets So I sit and wait, Wait for her to come home And stroke my hair, And sing me a song, And say “Mama loves you, goodnight.”

69

Grandpa’s Kitchen

Mom told me to come with her to clean out the old house. She hasn’t even been able to plan services yet, It’s been almost two years now.

The front door clicks, the crumpled up newspapers, half-empty beer bottles, and coupon clippings scattered across the floor.

Now it’s Thanksgiving Day, and the parade in New York City plays on his ancient kitchen television set.

He sets me down behind the kitchen counter, the ingredients sprawled in clumps, a mess. “You just sit there, Angel,” and so I do.

Playing with the sugar and the flour, the two whites running together, I am trying to be helpful.

There’s a clash of dishes and he shouts words my mother told me to never say. He’s touched something hot in the stove.

Leaping down from the counter, I grab an ice pack from the freezer. “Thank you, Angel,” he says.

70

Claire Jiang

71

CHRIS GUMINA

the trek

White rings cap six peaks of stone battered by wind and hail and we see him among the dancing white undaunted by the gail swiftly swirling around he trudges forward with icicles growing off his eyebrows and out of his nose while white monsters wage war without a care for the man picking his way beneath their frigid feet as he travels through caves and valleys over hills and mountains until he comes to a squat, red, building. He walks inside, sits down, and gives the teacher his homework. That’s how my grandfather described it. I walk five blocks.

72

Dylan Lee

73

NAOMI UMLAUF

My Body is Ticking and I’m Starting to Hear It

I’ve learned to keep apples In ice boxes to avoid rotting

Ignore school bell doctrine, find faith in grandfather clocks.

The weather predicts more time Tomorrow for questions. We’ll sleep on.

Hourglasses crack under the Gravity of tree rings. Our bodies resemble their x-rays. Zip skin over carcasses And measure the length of toenails. Even in the Sistine Chapel Adam never touches God’s hand.

74

Nativity

Sunday is holy day.

Is wake up to dog barks and mother, Walk up church steps Laces and fingers crossed day.

Sunday is holy and am I holy and what is holy day?

Leg shakes against pews, Back molds to oak and Bible benches.

Blood and body to cracked lips, This is revival because I practice by my sister This is release because here I become My mother’s daughter, my grandma’s southern accent.

My cheek: Tapestry for sun Reflecting through stained glass. I become what I am not.

At dinner, sneaking food before grace Thank you God For the food we’re about to eat Staring as mother spills syllables of Amen. I want to ask What it feels like to believe. To sustain yourself with hymns. I want to ask What it feels like to love Unrequited, Uncontrollably, Like she says she loves me. Like she loves the blood and body she bore Like something she has never seen.

75

Landline

When my Jewish grandmother calls for me She says “Na” as “now.” Her German scoffs the last syllable.

It must stick to her tongue this way, Wanting familiar sounds For her American granddaughter.

After 9/11 my mom thought she’d lost my father: Your Oma would have been so mad If I’d taken him and this happened.

On the phone Oma exchanges my name: _____, is she there? The metal voice cradles my neck.

Mostly, we converse in pauses. She’ll say slow down. I do. She doesn’t understand, But I tell her I’m well, About my sister, when we’ll next visit.

I know few words in German: bitte, Mädchen, auf wiedersehen, Hallo wie geht’s Dir.

76

Bathroom Soliloquy

In mirror I am sunken eyes, calloused hands, I am doing something right. I am white hair from I am keeper.

I, shaking now am sifting through pleads To put meaning into handshakes. Finding grounding on porcelain Is not different from on a podium. Oak under palms, I stand in front of a crowd of myself. Looking up my eyes greet mirror, Which scan varieties of hair attached to my head and many.

I, still in front of mirror am gripping oak, When throwing words onto walls resonance is empty nods used to promises. I, still in mirror am prey,

I am predator, hunter, I am rifle, I am holster, I am folded over myself, I am limp. I am killing myself because I am scared of myself, because I have been scared Of hating what I do not know.

But in mirrors it seems Not knowing is the same as hatred. Is the same as headlines, one dead, two dead. Body buried in star-spangled liberty I am the house on the hill and I’ll burn myself to show our blood is the same.

77

I can trace thread on slippers to the beginnings of My eyebrows for grounding.

Here I bear stubble to say:

I too once was.

Once heads with tails Play heads and tails Till this is hot blood in, these are our bodies.

Skin of half-lineage glazed over With birthmarks on collarbones. A bone we’ll holster between two fingers. xSliding them on the train For something to play with.

It’s here we’re taught beauty. In terms of sharp Turns and metal poles, For grounding.

In the bathroom mirror, We practice this motion: Of making bone more than bone.

78

William Ricci

79

LAUREN KIM

Frenemies

Mind is self-conscious of its moist wrinkles so it’s the happiest when Body keels over, creating a fold bigger than all of its own combined.

“Better you than me,” Mind will say in its butter-voice. Body knows of Mind’s insecurity so it stays silent through battery.

Mind is gleeful for now, but what will happen when the spider web of cracks forming on Body suddenly open. If Body becomes a bloody, rigid shell lying prostrate, will Mind cry? Or will it eat the carcass?

80

Lake George

Gazing across Lake George, I saw the silhouette of a man.

In the twilight-dark, a swollen head atop slouched shoulders. For an hour, stone-still.

The man convulsed. Tilting his face to a bruised sky, he shook as if exorcised.

Later, he held a young salmon to his chest. A fisherman.

Cradling the shuddering animal, he grazed its steel with his eyes before casting it back.

Again marble-like, he waits, thinking of carving fins and clapping gills.

81

Departure

Dying will be like swimming in a tar-filled pool, the pressure on the eyelids as you push forward denting the balls. The light you’ll see won’t be light, but phosphenes caused by the stimulation of the retina. You’re no longer you’ll tell yourself, but instead of accepting the vacuum, you’ll think your body is shortening.

It’ll happen gradually, but soon you’ll forget your cat, your cousins, your country, your mother your husband, your children, until you’re confused, decomposing matter, wondering whether this dark is home.

82

Claire Jiang

83

Dylan Lee

prose

William Ricci

86