Music Arises from Component Parts or The Dream of a Clarinet
By Tobias WrayOnce done,
my father pulled
the instrument apart.
Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.
By Tobias WrayOnce done,
my father pulled
the instrument apart.
By Nathan SpoonYou are living inside the cup of another life. Water
is running slowly. Somewhere a hand is overflowing
with the abundance and celebration denizens dream of.
By Darrel Alejandro HolnesOnly beasts are supposed to hibernate.
But this brother has been lying there
for years. Truth isn’t a news headline.
By María FernandaWe leave our leather. Finding a spot on Miya’s
living room floor, we untuck our bound things:
a borrowed yoga mat, a stretched hair tie,
By Tarik DobbsChorus: Like a bridge over troubled water…
For years, settlers longingly, vertical, build over us, Starbucks has no sinks. Will we go? Lately, the bridge, their throne. When even these are somewhere to watch from, to drop a knee & propose somewhere to feel for a bank.
By Noor Ibn Najamto become earth’s sugar, to be a seedless
orange offered. to want fruit
to unwind from the concept of sex
By Justice Ameer/ he asks me how it feels /
it’s no simple curiosity
nor a question without consequence
phantom of longing lingers so
subtly on the last syllable
By Mejdulene B. Shomalikept the name between gum & tooth
rolled it around like hard candy
cracked the shell of faith like sunflower seeds
spit out doubt & swallowed the sun
By H. MeltWhether it’s raining
or snowing, midnight or
you’re awaking from a nap,
working an eight hour shift
or watching reruns,
By Malik ThompsonMidnight is my first emotion, then starscream, bloodlust—
an impulse to sink my fangs into the nearest man’s
neck. Shotgun shells explode beneath my window,
dragging me from the grip of a ragged slumber—
the winds of this rotting city drenched in gunsmoke.