ily - Hello Poetry

Jun 2015

OldSchool Bill

Coffee in hand
Bob observes from
Behind self imposed bamboo roller shades
Sun launch’s everyone’s day
Road, runway, path, sailboats just out of reach
Too hot, cold, dark, bright, wet, dry
Need to eat something
Breakfast most important meal of the day
Nothing to wear
Need a haircut already
Sink so *****, what if someone saw
Run dishwasher or wash by hand
How did the fan get ***** again
Gas $3.09 a gallon
What if there is a break in
Tomorrow will be Better
Just know it Will
STOP
Turn Around
That’s what Friends Do

May 2015

Megan Grace

monday (reprise)

i was hoping you would take
everything from inside me at
least         swallow  part  of  it
because i've taken   bullets to
my legs   mostly from myself
because i was too  b  i  g   too
small     too too too too much
for my  own  skin  to  handle
that i thought about          the
roundness       beneath      my
surface everysecondof  every
dayuntil i  learned to despise
circles and buy everything in
smallboxesandnarrow    lines
where i hope to fit one day is
your glucose enough for you
is your steak justrightdo you
want another slice of cake do
you  want  to  be  a   w h o l e
planet or a piece  of cotton in
the wind do you want to  eat
me do youwant to eat me do
you want to eat me  until i'm
whole                              again

Apr 2015

Terry Collett

SEA OF GREEN.

John watched Elaine
get off
the school bus
with her sister

he looked to see
if she looked up
at him before
the bus went off

his insides were tight
wondering if
she would
not wanting her

to look away
or ignore him
and the fact
that not long before

she had looked over
from her side
of the bus
and they'd stared

at each other
and she had blushed
for some reason
and he had stared

wondering if
she would turn
and look again
but she didn't

and he kept
looking over
but she didn't
look back

the bus began
to drive away
and at the last moment
she looked up

and she stared at him
and he was sure
she began to smile
but he couldn't be sure

and then
she was gone
and hedgerows came
and fields and houses

and then
just fields
and hedges
and trees

and he looked
at his hands
in his lap
and tried not

to listened
to what Trevor
was saying
about football

and how he nearly
scored at lunch time
John tried to hold on
to her face

at that moment
and the maybe smile
he was sure
he'd seen

and the fields
passed by
all was flowing by
like a sea of green.

A SCHOOL BOY AND A ******* THE BUS HE LIKED.

Mar 2015

Megan Grace

millennium park

i loved
you in
pajamas
and royals
shirts, black lungs
and black tongues and
windy mornings heading
to the train while you pulled
me along behind yourself in a
fury of cigarette smoke and sea
water stored in your fingers
i never expected us to be
anything to be apple pie
and an i love you from
your mouth in your
grandma's living
room i was
content with the
bit of you in chicago
i had swished between
my teeth i did not want
those coffee shop
goodbyes
i did not want those
coffee shop goodbyes

you made me into this.

Mar 2015

Tyler Durden

Keep the lights off

I'm homesick and
there's a monster underneath
every bed
I lay in.

Jan 2015

Joshua Haines

Father Mosquito

Father mosquito
drank my blood
and promised me
that there was a lot
to live for:
***, money,
women, love,
food, water.

But *** is only worth
the ten seconds
after I ***:
the ten seconds
where my body breaks
but not my heart.

And money is an idea
that belongs to someone else.
So, the money I have
never really is mine.
The things I need,
I'll never have.
The things I have,
I'll never need.

I do love the softness of women,
Father Mosquito.
You have understood me
once.

It's just underneath
my skin.

But you say love
and no love
is as important
as self-love.
No lips stitched into mine
is worth the feeling
unless I understand my worth,
and you're currently
*******
it
dry.

What happens when food
loses its taste?
And water is no longer cold?
What happens when
my body fails me?
Drink my blood
since it is yours, too,
father.

It's just underneath
my skin.

Dedicated to my father.

Jan 2015

Traveler

TO YOU

Velvety roses so pleasing to the senses
Convey such messages as apologies and love
The aroma of angels in blue blurry skies
Stardust, rainbows and dreams from above

To brighten your new day
With magic and laughter
A spectrum of colors
So brilliantly captured

A life refreshed
Each moment within
May the blessings of new days
On this day begin

Sorry I've been gone so long!

Jan 2015

Davin Jane Andrews

****

warthogs for men singing amen
i ink my scars with a ball point pen
buffalo grass and ******
they want *** but won't die
i want *** but it's not me
they tell me that I'm pretty

i smoke **** in a blazing forest
i feel as rubbery as a curious tourist
and plenty of coke goes in my nose
i bleed headaches, when it rains it snows
i'm dreaming of a white christmas, i suppose
with my squad when i don't want to feel alone

i make lies but can't hide like room raiders
i cut up coke for all my haters
with a side of oxy
tells me that I'm foxy
right before he knocks me
my brain goes on high alert
i can ******* stomach
because cake was yesterday's desert

i say that we're proxies
i take the red pill
some like oxys
some like bikini ****
some nights aren't so chill
some brains are mentally ill
but he doesn't like to feel, y'feel

tell me if you want a
*** flavored banana
a broken heart from havana
or to drink my coke flavored blood
dragging me through the mud

whoops
son of sam
touch my **** like we're not fam
drug me if you want to slam
my head off the coffee table
i'll choke on fear until i'm not stable
i pretend i'm in a fable
this can't be real
does he not feel

break it off and shove it down my throat
cut me into pieces
make a blood moat
oak splinters suffered through winters in my spine
find you in jail and you ask if i'm fine

i break off rhymes like i break out grams
shaking because of a spiked promise
i wish i wasn't here
i wish i wasn't here

sham in the garden of clouds. when you '****' you want people around
when i cry, you hear no sound

buffalo grass and ******
they ******* but ask why
my box in their face
i don't want to be in this place

Dec 2014

Natalie

do not date a girl who writes

do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

Dec 2014

r

hallowed

I like how my lips
fit that hollow
by your collar bone

I could sing an anthem there
or whisper sweet
sweet nothings.

r ~ 12/7/14

Dec 2014

Terry Collett

FAIRGROUND WITH INGRID.

There's roundabouts
and bumper-cars
and a big wheel
and a coconut stall
Ingrid said

and a rifle range
I said
I won a goldfish
in a plastic bag
here once
on the rifle range

we were at the fairground
on the bomb site
by Meadow Row

bright lights
and noise
and laughter
and people shouting
and girls screaming
and music blaring
out of speakers

she was excited
to be there
her brown eyes
lit up
like fireworks
her brown hair
pinned back
at the sides
with hair grips

got to have a go
on the big wheel
she said

I want to go on
the coconut stall
I said
have you money?

yes
she said
2/-

your old man
give it to you?

no my uncle
gave it me

why's that?
I asked
as we gazed
around the fair

I do things for him
she said
as we approached
the big wheel
can't say what
it's out secret
my uncle said

I nodded grimly
and we climbed
on board
the big wheel together

and off it went
up in the evening sky
the Elephant and Castle
beneath us

our flats visible
because the Square lights
were on

the area was like
it had been bombed
over night
rather than
about 15 years
before

look at that
she said
pointing

and I followed her finger
and saw the horizon
of lights
and it was like
an explosion
of brightness
which brightened up
this best of all nights.

ON GOING TO THE FAIRGROUND WITH A GIRL IN 1950S LONDON.