Expanded Poems- Second Row
As a Result of a Night Among Friends on November 1st of 2019
J.L. Stephenson
It was somewhere after my fifth,
bourbon,
that i remember leaving my hand
on the frozen floor–
pressed on dusty tile while
the veins drawn along my fingers
pulsated
the same way my heart did
earlier in the night,
when I dared to look upon you.
my heart cries out, notice me
from across a bedroom–
but my eyeline falls short,
into the bottom of a paper cup
which is meant for water, juice, and the
rest of our innocence,
but serves none of them tonight.
i must be growing old now,
because i am not naïve enough
to see
a world with the two of us.
six down,
pour my seventh, let me read the label
and the makers mark–
let me think of Kentucky mountains
and barrels, rather than a life
lived beyond your affection.
Cowboys aren’t born to hurt mama said,
a right hand clasp on my belt buckle–
my heart dead set on Texas
and my left hand plucking at an
American Spirit.
Damn mama, you knew me well.
and all of this is turned to these pages,
into a world you will never know–
where half of my harsh realities
are diluted by poetry
and a cherry wood fermented
descendent of whiskey.
what a blessing it is to look upon you,
and wake each day knowing
there will be another chance to do so.
what a blessing,
to chase this Appalachian love potion
not with coke,
but the sight of your smile.
and here near you,
i rest silent and still
waiting to watch your life in these
real moments.
and now i rest,
easy and with tired hands,
weary eyes
but a soul wild and rampant
with hopes and vivid creations
once held by the impossible.
sleep easy, I whisper,
to this beautiful lull of a world i know.
beyond the morning,
beyond bottles,
I’ll find you again and we can gossip
about the angels among us.
Bees to Flower
Eleanor Myers
and ain’t she the sweetest thing in the world?
I just want to sit on a couch with you, beer or no beer, until the end of time
legs over legs, or head on chest so I can hear the thrum of the bees in your ribcage as you talk,
answering what I’ve asked, just tell me about life while I look you in the eyes
bzzzzzzzzz
even covering the world with you would be nothing without a couch to sit on and to make it feel like
there was no end to time
beer or no beer
hand on hand, or head on bees
it doesn’t matter
there is no matter, is no time
watch the world fall apart to molecules in the background of watching me watch your eyes
cuz when I hear that voice and think ain’t she the sweetest thing in the world—
I know that it’s you standing behind that thought
I think of you when the world spins on her smile, that loving a Her is loving a You, loving a me you
lovingloveloved her
And then I think of (see: love) you all the more til there is no more
til there is no time and there is no world, there’s nothing no thing sweeter than this moment like
honey or this pattern of moments like honeycomb, of being beside you on a couch feeling like
We are the world
Breathless
Aaron Perez
Airless, vacuum
Left me
Breathless.
Heart-beat racing
Left me
Wordless.
In a portrayal of words.
A picture spoken,
Artwork made from
Moving lips
Once inscribed
On white sheath trees.
Now, my fingers tremble
Poems quiver
In my mind
I'm not even
At the mic
Whisper
Not a word
Mind, a ball of yarn
Tangled
Twisted lines
Confusion
At it's best
Weaving words
Like thread
Seeing a quilt
From stanzas, verbose
Lungs pull for air
Like a dumbbell.
Stories written from my soul
Now erased from memory
Whisked away
Like a petal in the wind
A hurricane of words
A squall of thought
Meaningless.
Shall I
Put my heart
On the stage
My
Blood flows red
Though what is written
I'd easier read
Then what is spoken.
Evening in Europe
J.L. Stephenson
Many days and nights have passed in Europe,
many of them before my eyes without any trace of recollection.
I have been left staring quite often, into nothing sometimes and sometimes
into you, which is nothing and everything in all the same.
I am stuttering in my words, my mind spins as if I’ve been on the bottle all evening
but I am stone cold sober, and yet drunk on you.
Because your words take me to Queens, your smile, straight to Paris
and your laugh is perched somewhere between the sun in Texas and Arkansas.
There is tequila and Peroni, some smokes and many memories rapid in the making
and I’m stopped for a moment each evening in the seconds before I rest
because I know this day is gone, and we will never have it again.
The day is gone, and we will never have it again.
You’ve made passing time a glorious thing rather than fearful
and there is no way in which to thank you for such a service.
I do not want to feel anything but a lost sense of where the night is headed,
and I want to sing so loud that my voice fades to a scratch by sunrise.
There will come a point when the nights we have spent here,
are all but a thing beyond us and in a life we can’t even remember living.
But I’ll remember you, dancing and spinning about as if it was all meant to be for forever.
I will not have this night forever, but the memories etched with you are a piece of eternity.
So we rage into the evenings, with a disregard for the future or the past and for some time-
we only have the now.
You and I are The Now it feels, The Now that will be tomorrow night and the following.
Follow me, or I will follow you, and together we will forget that tonight is nothing in the end.
I long for old friends who shared these dreams with me, I long for family in my silence
and I long for every night we will share here to come slowly, to be long and tiresome.
And I hope that when I hit the bed, they all feel as if they were dreams,
so as to provide melatonin to the restlessness, that I am not yours and we are not forever.