The Voices Project - POETRY LIBRARY

Untitled~ By Iris Summerlin

11/24/2020

There’s a lull in conversation--
anyway, I realize I’ve been the only one talking--
and your arm is curled
around my waist, but you’re not holding
me. I put my shirt on, borrow your lipstick,
and sit at your bedroom mirror
to paint my mouth like yours,
pretending a piece of your kiss still
lives in the pink. The red
of my cheeks has dulled to an empty blush.
I grab a cigarette from the pocket
of your jeans that are crumpled on the carpet.
I place the damned thing between my teeth
and the flame accompanies my breath
with the only noise inside the these walls.
With my pink lips around the perimeter,
I realize my kiss keeps you
from missing her.

You spin
from your stomach to your back,
staring at my silence. We both
watch the smoke from my fingers and mouth rise
into nothing, slowly disappearing between my breaths
again and again and again.
You ask for a hit, so I sit
near the indention of your bare hips
on the mattress and I place the unlit end
in your mouth. I lay beside you--
my own will against your indifferent stillness--
and place my empty hand
over your heartbeat. Though my body
is against your skin, there is a distance
between us, like a mouth that never closes:

I’m the trembling bottom lip bitten
by silence— a locked jaw that doesn’t want to let go.
You’re the unmoving upper lip,
only shifting when you’re hungry.
She’s the cigarette at our center:
keeping you warm,
but burning me.

Author Bio:
Iris Summerlin is a twenty-year-old writer of poetry, prose, and music. She has spent the last several years of her life creating and sharing her writing that is heavily influenced by romance, spirituality, and mental health. She values the power of language and the universal experience of love and art. She is currently pursuing a BSc in Psychology. She lives by her own motto: "I am burning with passion and I hope you are melting."

Woman’s Definition of Cat-Calling~ By Morgan Spalding

11/17/2020

The first time it happened,
I was 12,
maybe even a little younger.

“boys will be boys,”
right?

Cat-calling
verb
A man’s way of reminding us that we
will always be
seen
before heard.

A man’s way of claiming a right to our body,
our appearance.

A man’s way of taking authority
over me.

A man’s way of
reminding us
that no matter how smart, how witty, how accomplished we are,
that we will always be
seen
before heard.

Cat-calling
noun
Something given to us before we enter puberty.

An assault weapon thrown at us,
making us self-conscious,
as we attempt to walk from point A to point B.

Cat-calling
A letter to the man who took it upon himself to shout at my body today
I didn’t get dressed for you
So
kindly,
Fuck off.

Author Bio:
Morgan Spalding is a graduate student and Teaching Assistant in the English and Philosophy Department of ISU. She has always loved creative writing and, in more recent years, has been pursuing a career in technical writing, grant writing, and teaching. Currently, she is writing her MA Thesis on the ethical importance of trauma-informed technical writing.

Hunting and Gathering~ By Christine Shultz

11/17/2020

Progress undulates up the interstate
A formation of citizen soldiers advances
To take what we value
Agricultural land holds new worth
Along the scented trail
They’re tracking the imprints
Of fresh Benjamins
Coins passing through dirty hands
That never planted or harvested
What God intended from our earth
We left industrialization
So our children could roam
The solace of greenspace
The state pushes the village
To develop from woods and wetlands
Where Indians once hunted and gathered

Pride discharges from blind ego
Lifting Chicago’s high-rises
In shrewd deals with slick words
We close welcoming doors
Pull gracious curtains
Yet weary of our own righteousness
Taste the bitterness of cultivated black soil
Now covered in concrete
Raised in grey steel
Cold monuments pay homage
To an enterprising billionaire
Continuing a legacy of weapons
Veiled in non-profit
Educational institutional
Cries of foul silenced by bullets
What shall we do against the right to bear arms?
Follow the path of the red man
Noble men they were
Further north and west
Deep into the woods and wetlands

Author Note:
Hunting and Gathering is written about the effects of TAWANI Enterprises, owned and led by Jennifer Pritzker, retired Lieutenant Colonel of the US Army. Pritzker founded the TAWANI Foundation and Pritzker Military Foundation to promote her personal and military philanthropic interests. Her Pritzker Military Museum & Library in Chicago preserves the stories of the citizen soldier. The private wealth firm recently acquired more than 280 acres near Interstate-94 and Highway E in the Village of Somers, Wis. The land is targeted for a limited-use museum and library, archival buildings, an extensive indoor shooting range with gun and ammunition sales, and highly contentious outdoor shooting ranges, which the organization has worked to keep quiet.

Author Bio:
Schultz has been a ghost writer for twenty years. She is the 2020 SE Wisconsin Festival of Books coordinator through the UW-Waukesha Foundation. Schultz is completing a historic nonfiction about murders that occurred decades apart and over a century ago, rocking the community in which she resides. She received a journalism degree from UW-Madison and attends writer’s workshops through the university’s continuing education program. She enjoys being a poetry group member with the Kenosha Writers Guild, serves on the Wisconsin Writers Association board of directors, and manages the organization’s annual Jade Ring Writing Contest. You can find her at https://cschultzwrite.com

Southern Wind~ By Dennis Reed

11/17/2020

Sincere,
you move

though him like liquid
long cold drink

on a bastard
day,

honesty baiting
becoming

the nobility
your face.

rising above
onion fumes,

chopped liver,
the sandwiches

you create,
there is something

innocent and clean
about your attraction

2.

being unaware of how
others’ see you

is like not knowing
why the bullets are shot

at your movement
art,

know the motivation
of haters

lack of logic
in their brains

“someone is always
looking at you,” Aunt Mary

told me,
with arrows in their eyes,

blunt their arrows
with steely imagination

do not let
path full of weeds

3.

touch your primroses,
change cascading

images of the dream
they are a waving gallery

of hatred with
spotty handkerchiefs

in the air.

Author Bio:
Dennis Reed is a native New Yorker and former member of the infamous poetry group, Bud Jones. His work has appeared in STYLE, CLA, BLACK CREATION, DISCORD, the LINDEN AVENUE LITERARY MAGAZINE and many other journals. His book of poetry, DEFINITIONS is available through OPUS PRESS and his memoir, a semi-finalist in the NCTE/NORMAN MAILER High School Teachers' writers of non-fiction award (2014). His screenplay, LOVE ON THE CORNER, was a fourth place winner in the Scriptapalooza screenwriter contest. His memoir, MIGRATION MEMORIES is available at Amazon.com.

The Day I Lost My Eyesight~ By Tom Squitieri

11/11/2020

I keep wiping
My eyeglasses
With the softest cloth
The best lens cleaner

Yet the world
is still blurry
See less and less
Clearly

The smoke clouds are
Going from the sky
Yet sunshine strains to
push and open
Its streams
Of beauty
Cowering

Once having
2020 vision
Meant seeing
things clearly
Knowing where
the road
Was leading

Now, a fog
Scares the eyes
Not from age
But from sage
Testing my reputation
For strategic prowess

A college philosophy
professor
Once posited to me
If a man with 2020 vision
Puts on glasses
Will he see things
That are not there?

Our 2020 vision
Has been blurred,
Clouded, distorted
In 2020
By evil’s unrest and mockery
Foisting its blinding lasers
On us 24/7
And now we see things
We wish were not real

Author Bio:
Tom Squitieri is a three-time winner of the Overseas Press Club and White House Correspondents’ Association awards for work as a war correspondent. His poetry appears in several publications, in the book "Put Into Words My Love,” in the film “Fate’s Shadow: The Whole Story” and in Color: Story 2020. He has taught writing, journalism, media studies, political systems and realities, foreign policy, and practical street knowledge at Washington & Jefferson College and American University, and writes most of his poetry while parallel parking or walking his dogs, Topsie and Batman.

Star-Crossed Lovers~ By Madison Rau

11/11/2020

Star-Crossed Lovers
Two lovers were separated by time
But joined by a red string
That she wore in her hair, and gave to him with her name.
Back then, he was unaware of their connection
Because she was three years too early, but his soul searched,
Unknowingly, for the girl that came as fast and as beautiful as a comet.

I once heard a story about a comet,
Said to be the greatest celestial sight of all time.
Everyone had stepped outside, searching
The skies for that light, that thin blue string
That could be seen from one end of the country to the other, a connection
We all feel as we stare up at the breathtaking view, but can’t name.

Their love was like that, without a name
But with the same ethereal longing as a comet,
The same breathtaking connection.
He couldn’t feel it when they met the first time,
But that changed the second he caught her string.
And then they were separated, doomed to search

For each other, always searching
The back of their minds for the name
They could feel more than they knew, a severed string
In the memories that felt like a streaking comet.
They didn’t know they lived years apart, thwarting time
With this unspoken connection.

Perhaps Destiny forged their connection
Because She saw they needed what they weren’t even searching for.
Perhaps She brought them together through time
Because She knew how quickly he would forget her name
But how her eyes would bore their way into his memory, like comets.
Perhaps when Fate saw them born, She made sure to tangle their strings.

Whatever brought them together, gods, goddesses, or strings,
There is something special, undeniable about their connection,
A once in a lifetime experience, a passing comet
That’s beautiful to everyone and leaves everyone searching
For something just like it, like what some would name
A soulmate, in inevitable bond, incorruptible by time.

Author Bio:
Madison Rau has been tinkering with poetry since she was seven. The first poem she remembers writing was about autumn, rhymed “leaves” with “cheese”, and was specifically requested to be read out loud to the rest of her class by her teacher. Since then, Madison has pursued an education as an English major with an aspiration to be a writer and an editor of anything remarkable and unique. She hopes to write a full-length novel one day, but, for now, poetry holds more satisfaction because it is much easier to finish. She gets her inspiration from movies, make-believe, and the occasional profound life experience, like a broken nose or dancing in the rain. Sometimes the world is a hard place to be, and, just like they do for her, Madison wants to help people not feel alone. If she could be any kind of food, Madison would definitely be peanut butter; sweet, smooth, and a little salty.

Not in part, but the whole~ By Savanna Halfaker

11/11/2020

I drew on my hands in pews
traced blue ink pen
on creased palms
mapping out curves with each
stroke, blotching lines with the bend of
fingers before ink dried.

Until the pen was snatched
away, palm turned down
on an ankle-length black skirt because
although quiet and contained,
blue ink would stand out --
make marks on hands I had
to shake—as if that’s any way
to greet an eight-year-old.

Hymns were therapeutic,
I knew them all by heart
—from the banks of the river
Jordan to the hills of Calvary,
holy lands running blood
red with war, cradling ideology.

Felt board with cut-outs of
white washed apostles, disciples
dictated Sunday nine o’ clocks but
no one asked my thoughts
on sermons, they just knew
I knew all the stories but
didn’t bring my friends with me
so my star chart was never full.

Author Bio:
Savanna Halfaker is a second year graduate student at Southeast Missouri State University earning her Masters degree in Professional Writing, while holding a B.A. in English: Writing. She is an editorial and graduate assistant and has been pursuing writing since a young age. Many of her poems are centered around theology, images and the subversion of nature, and the questioning of femininity in our modern society. She is currently an unpublished author.

Less than the Lion or Lamb~ By Sam Barbee

11/10/2020

Feasted over by night,
a circle of feathers,
as tiara shining like abundance,
like an enhancement of adverbs,
sadly reframed, neatly in vain.
Starlit narrative how the hunter
prevails -- talons’ plunder;
beak and jaw settle debate.

No taint or taunt hinder
the goshawk. Prey perished
at the edge of red azalea bed --
confirmed vulnerable --
crowns the green fescue sea.
Black corvid, hinterland captain:
mastery without mercy,
brute with no malice.

Morning wing shadows
remains. Earmarked pinion
restates the argument, elegantly,
in a tier without veal or gristle,
lower than angel or jackal.
Savage hour’s velour
extols before coyote’s sing,
reverently.

Author Bio:
Sam Barbee's poems have appeared in Poetry South, The NC Literary Review, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina, Georgia Journal, Kakalak, and Pembroke Magazine, among others; plus on-line journals Vox Poetica, Sky Island Journal, Courtland Review and The Blue Hour.

His second poetry collection, That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. He was awarded an "Emerging Artist's Grant" from the Winston-Salem Arts Council to publish his first collection Changes of Venue (Mount Olive Press); has been a featured poet on the North Carolina Public Radio Station WFDD; received the 59th Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society for his poem "The Blood Watch"; and is a Pushcart nominee.

Somedays~ By Clara Freeman

11/2/2020

Somedays I don’t feel like jogging or running in place
trying to emulate Nikki eating cotton candy on
rainy days
Somedays I don’t feel like turning the other cheek
like Martin advocating for non-violence in a country
rooted in hate and bigotry,
Somedays I don’t want to stand on principle
somedays I just feel like marinating in
the ways of chicken parts left to soak in its own flavorful juices
before baking, frying or sautéing
Somedays I don’t feel like being me.
the forever optimistic
slave to empath feelings
willing to give to a world that takes
one’s kindness with impunity.
Somedays I just want to exercise my God-given freedoms
the right to free speech
to protest, to assemble peacefully-
set laws into motion with the click of my pen
give its arrogance a shrill tongue lashing,
set the world on fire
Somedays I don’t want to be bothered
close my eyes to the despair
and destruction,
somedays I wanna SCREAM!

Author Bio:
Clara Freeman, a former nurse of 30 plus years, is a poet and author currently writing and living her better life in the Midwest. A lover of words since elementary school, she deems herself, “a Southern woman of voice and substance”, who enjoys the silence of solitude, the ambiance of Mother Nature and, the fright in “scary movies.” Clara’s work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, anthologies and several websites.
Her book, UnleashYourPearlsEmpoweringWomen’sVoices, was published in 2017 and is available on Amazon.com. Follow her on Twitter@C50something.

Preparing Our Daughter for College~ By Michael Maul

11/2/2020

Before our daughter went to college
we had a different talk.
Part One (held long ago)
was about not getting pregnant
and hitting the books.

This one, Part Two,
focused on not getting
raped or killed.

At its end, my wife placed on the table
with two survival tools:
one a lipstick tube-sized
canister of pepper spray;
the other a metal whistle.

“What are these for?”
our daughter asked.

“One is to get you out of danger,
when you spray it in a boy’s eyes.
And if that doesn’t work
the other is to summons help
while you try to wait it out,”
my wife replied.

In silence we all stared at the table
where survival tools remained.
Which now, even to me,
looked suddenly inadequate and absurd.

Then tears began
down a tortured face
as she pushed away the whistle,
and the mace,
in the direction of my wife.

“Its too late” she whispered.
as she struggled momentarily to rise,
then found her balance and
a hurried stride to leave the room.

In the moment
as she walked away
I felt more helpless,
than any day
since she was born.

Author Bio:
Michael Maul, a 2019 “Best of the Net” nominee, lives in Bradenton, Florida. His poems have previously appeared in numerous literary publications and anthologies. In 2018 he authored Dancing Naked in Front of Dogs, a full-length collection of poetry. In 2019 he published his first chapbook, Birds Who Eat French Fries.
He is a graduate of the Ohio University creative writing program.