Windhover

Poem for a College Freshman by Elizabeth Hassell

Your name is on the wall
under your ad:

Lost
Two Dorm Keys
Expensive to Replace

I can’t help thinking I know your face—
it’s the one I turned to my mother
when I shattered the driver’s side mirror
while backing out of the garage.

You must know that it’s hard to explain about keys,
or garage doorways,
how they disappear and reappear
in funny places: behind your bumper
or in a sofa you never sat on.

And you must know about loss,
how it’s hard to say goodbye
to someone as familiar as the sound of a key ring
jingling before you open the door.

So I’m watching the gutters
for a gleam in the dead leaves
and keys that match your description:

Lost
Expensive to Replace

The Power to Kill by Melissa Keeney

Guilt, when I’m not even to blame,
Overtaking my mind and body
when exploring the passageways that connect the grounds.
Seeing healthy greens taken before their time to turn brown,
laying helplessly and lifeless on the ground;
they didn’t have a choice.

Animals without the greens
that provide protection and survival.
Us, selfishly taking from the innocent creatures
that thrive equally to us on this planet,
but are thought of as a lower class due to their differences;
they didn’t have a choice.

Watching the questionable fog going against gravity;
such a peaceful and amazing sight,
yet so deadly and toxic to this planet.
Blurring my sight of the world,
and slowly clogging my pure and open life;
we are the ones making the choice.

Who created this hierarchy?
Said that we could take away from others?
Said that we could kill the grounds we live on,
and pollute the air we breathe?
I say it’s wrong, and we have the power to save it,
since we all have the power to kill.

Fee Verse of the Word by G. William Murphy

Words spoken in one breath unbroken by punctuation or breaks in the line
Unbroken by the unnecessary necessities of grammar structure and convention
Words spoken like they flow in the mind jumbled together so only the person who hears them
can make sense of them
Gaps in the words where pure thought occurs
Where the mind blanks and everything is clear
Continue reading…

Sleep deprived thoughts after a college all-nighter by G. William Murphy

6:00am

Done.

Now to enfold myself in the shroud of sleep

For an hour.

6:10

Pillow.

Voices in my room that aren’t real won’t shut up

Just ignore them.

7:00

Alarm.

REM cycle interrupted

or did it start?

Continue reading…

Colorful Lies by Melissa Keeney

I can’t make sense
of the changing colors
in his dull eyes.
A continuous rainbow
that causes the rain
and the malicious storm.
The blue tears that mix with the red wall.
The yellow trying to beam through
the muddy natural brown
I can’t decide
which color is real,
which one to expect,
which one to label
as the one I know,
the one I trust,
and the one I remember.