Category: Poetry Fall 2014

Envelop(e)s

.Reading time 1 minute.

Winter began with a sense of closure;

December 4th: driving until 4 in the morning.
I always hoped hope would stop this.
I didn’t know that night I told you I was lost stayed with you like it did.
I’m writing letters to a past on the back of tattered photographs.

and she said “you scare me in the most beautiful way.”

The rain on the window says things never end after they begin.
There’s constant reminders that distance took her.
Hair ties on the floor, there’s still pictures in the drawer.
I’ve got a pile of clothes that I wish was yours.

sometimes we have to be ruined so we can start over.

Things you’ve never seen remind me of you, I look at them and know what you’d say.
Late night drives and I’m at the church again.
This is sorry for leaving. This is sorry for making it seem-

i don’t believe in God, but there’s grace in everything.

i stop thinking and that feeling of you echoes through my head

this is sorry. this is sorry.
this is

Jack Rechsteiner

In the Founder’s Hall

.Reading time 1 minute.

 

The rasp of coffee, followed by the hiss of whipped cream;

Pocket change singing after the ding of another sale;

A clatter of ice accenting the hum of the cooler;

 

And in the corner, a keyboard clicks.

 

 

The door thumps open at the rattle of the bar;

A woosh, then the slap of it closing;

Alarm beeps send annoyed footsteps back to the library desk;

 

And in the corner, a baby laughs.

 

 

That familiar voice, the slide of a chair;

A backpack slumps to the floor, the laugh of a close friend;

Timeless ringtone, the click of a phone;

 

And in the corner, a woman sighs.

 

 

“Hello”  ”How are you?”  “When’s your next class?” ;

“Nice shoes”  “Nice phone” “Did you see last night’s episode?” ;

“I love you” “Goodbye” “I need to get going.” ;

 

And in the corner, a young mother juggles life and dreams.

 

Bryan Haiser

The Panther in My Living Room

.Reading time 2 minutes.

In a woodland forest of my mind

There are oak trees with

Bark warped into faces,

They whisper on the wind

Of remembrance—stories

Once lost but now found,

They tell me these stories,

I listen.

And write their rustling rumbles

In a journal

Of leather bound parchment.

 

The oaks blend in

With the forest surrounding

Of grey green

The air always holding a hazy drizzle

Of mossy wetted earth

A panther is known to

Roam their forest

I mustn’t talk to her

They say—She has yet to become what

She was created to be—what I was to make of her;

A beautiful creation trapped in

The lucid bars of thought

Where I reside most

Of my unearthed days,

Lost in an eternal

Agitation until

Pencil meets paper once again.

I hear her sharpen

Her claws on the backs

Of the oaks.

Searching for her

Story to be written,

To find purpose in this

Forest of grey green drizzle.

Her eyes flashing green

Like the rustling leaves rooted

In the firm mudded ground

While I hide within the oak’s hollows

Like a wise owl

With a journal

Of leather bound parchment,

Writing stories for this

Creature of my creation.

 

This forest to me

Is home—forged out of necessity

Of an endangered imagination.

The forces of evil lurking in

The real world threatening to lumber

My oaks that hold the stories

That I’ve long forgotten.

I hide them

In the forest.

A home where the real world

Is a forgotten thought

That does not disturb me

While I write the story of

The panther that lies in wait

In the woodland forest of my mind,

Ready to become everything

She was meant to be.

 

Hayley Durham