JS Clark

JS Clark Sep 2018

And so the sublime
Converges with the
Common,
Emerging under the
Street lamp
Encased in
Unlikely cocoons—

Heady and heavy
Conversation
Under the beams
Of many keen suns
And riveted moons
Encompass the universes of
The obvious and the obscure—

The subject matter
Of the ages,
Yes, the *******
Around the corner.

JS Clark Sep 2018

Up Against the Cosmic Downstream

I’m bucking trends—
Tendencies—
I’m going against
The flow of the universe.

It’s what I’ve always done,
Really,
What I’ve always preferred.

In the case of the you and I,
The cosmos seems to speak
Quite clear—
However, I’ve been just too stubborn
To lend it my
Practical ear.

Where you stand, you’re
The queen of my dreams,
Fair or no—
Propelling me against the
Astronomic flow.

Sep 2018

Michael Marchese

The Inhabitant

Surrender your claims
Or give in to the thirst
Then relinquish your bearings
For I was here first
And I’ve parted the skies
With a dauntless ascendance
And opened third eyes
With enlightened resplendence
In ages now gone
And unknown to us all
I gave rise to each new breed
Of species to fall
One by one
To the one
I so foolishly gifted
With intellect
Then how the paradigm shifted

We make the gods

Sep 2018

Gabriel Bonney

to the Heavers, from the Dreamers

When everyone you think you know
Deserts your side, leaves your fight
I will stay with you, I will go
I'll be there, I'll stay the night
You're caught up in your darkest thoughts
Believe me, it's not just you
And you think your mind is all you got
Trust me, it's not your only way through
Stay with me, we are not alone
Our brains sick and our minds prone
It may not feel like it at times
'Cause there's many of you, but we are few
Yet there's an army of us at your side
We're fighting for our minds, our hope in view

There are many people with depression, or who feel like they have no hope, or who are ******* in their thoughts. I see it when I walk down the halls at my school. I feel like they've given up, that they're just going through the motions of living, barely hanging on. I have some friends who are like that. But I wonder how many of us are actually trying to fight it? I ask this sometimes, because the world can feel so overwhelming. But I find poets who are battling this darkness, who are fighting alongside me. I know people who have gone through depression, and now take a stand to help others who are going through it. We fight for each other, for those who have abandoned hope. So will you join the fight? Sleepers, will you wake up and aid us in this battle? Heavers, will you give us a chance?

JS Clark Aug 2018

The Young Man and the Pond

The mantle of dusk
Is being cast upon a heat weary
Northwestern Missouri countryside
As a young man stands upon the banks
Of a pond making casts.

He’s been at this for some time
With little to no luck whatsoever.
His favorite quarry, the largemouth bass,
Has eluded him successfully thus far.

He’s been wandering this pond’s banks
For a coupl’a hours now,
Certainly an eternity when the
Fish aren’t attacking the lure.

The youth knows one can’t catch
The bass just standing in one place,
So he scans the smooth pond surface
For activity.

He gets teased by flopping fish here and There
As they feast upon a mid-summer’s smorgasboard
Of bugs and worms and frogs that chose to Zig
Instead of zag.

He finally spots a place he thinks
Will afford him the greatest chance at Landing that
Largemouth he knows he can catch,
And so he posts up for just a while longer.

He looks to the west and sees
A final sliver of the Sun hug the horizon.
The light is fading fairly quickly, and he’s All but done.
The trek home isn't far, but he has no Lantern
And has had enough of the mosquitoes.

One more cast, he thinks to himself, just One more.
He draws back, flicks his wrist, and lets fly.
He cranks on his faithful Zebco 33
And just as he is to bring in what’s
Always been his lucky beetle spin,

WHAUMP!!!

A bass akin to Moby **** himself Explodes
The pane of glass surface and
Devours the lucky lure.

In sheer delight, the young man and bass Begin to fight,
And what a fight this pond monster Provides!
The young man’s line strains, his pole Cranes, yet holds with the thrashing and Convulsions that only a bass can deliver in Its ****** attempts to divorce Itself from The hook.

The young man was prepared for this fish-
He had waited since he first learned to bait A hook for it--
Prepared with the right pound test of line,
The right rod, and the right reel.

The youth lands the prodigious Largemouth
And takes him off the hook.
Wrapped in twilight, there the teen stands,
With at least a six pound bass in hand,
Grinning and looking west at the Sun Goin away.

JS Clark Aug 2018

Tour of Duty

Why is the Pentagon so sprawling?
Why should there be so many
Doors?
It is so I cannot stand or sit
To block entry,
Or proffer peace down
Its miles of corridors.

Why is the Capitol Building
So big?
Why does it seem so regal?
It is so I may grow weary
Climbing its steps
As I try to remind my congressman
To check against those Pentagon evils.

Why is the Supreme Court so imposing?
Instead of a temple, it should be a
Log cabin.
Imagine if it were a little more cozy,
But hey, we like our justice cold,
And perhaps a modicum
Rabid.

Then there’s the White House.
Her walls have seen so much.
From getting burned out by the British,
To sheltering both buffoon and
Brilliant.
The latter and former rendering more and More out of touch.

For the brilliant, we have the
Memorials and the shrines.
One of these is simply a great ditch.
The black granite cries with you
As you cry;
A proper reminder of brave sacrifice,
And that the Pentagon can be a *******.

JS Clark Jun 2018

Give Me the Gray Spaces

Give me the gray spaces
Where virtue has chosen
To hide.
Let me see the nuanced faces
Of human beings and being
Simple and complex sides.

Let me walk the line
That straddles order and
Calamity.
Let me bathe in strange pools.
May my I be trained to truth,
That's found when the waters cool.

I am just a man.
A guy getting by.
I used to have a plan,
Until I realized.