"announcers" poems
it's a friday night and i am sat at the top of the bleachers with three packs of maltesers i told the cashier were for my friends with a blurry grin and the hot chocolate in my hands lied. it's lukewarm and tastes of milk, not sweets, and the taste of it still taints my lips because i'm forcing myself to drink it anyways. the stars are yellow set against navy hues and they're blinking down at me.
there's announcers shouting something about the game occurring on the field but i'm not listening, never listening, never apathetic or empathic enough to want to. the music blares, cheers roar, announcers boom, the scoreboard flashes- it's cold enough to be huddled beneath blankets but i've only got a sweatshirt hiding my hands, hiding my fingers, hiding me. my ribs shiver and the ghosts in the spaces between them gather closer for a warmth that won't come. the moon says hello to me and i struggle to catch enough air to say it back.
my friends are nowhere to be found and i can't feel my fingertips and the flavor of lukewarm hot chocolate leaves me and i'm closing my eyes, shutting them tight, disconnecting.
there's suddenly no one here, just me and the blackness behind my eyelids. it's like i'm watching humans but never being one of them. maybe i'm meant to be an alien- maybe that one star blinking at me is a planet welcoming me home- maybe if i lay my lungs to rest they'll leave me be.
i can feel my heart giving up on me.
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 9:03 PM UTC
The Annual POCU Fashion Show held by the campus organization “People of Color United,” was held in the Student Activities Center on Saturday, April 18. The fashion show is the final activity of the year held by POCU. Junior Martell Prayear and senior Miranda Jackson were the show’s hosts and announcers.
The fashion show is a competition where various designers, or teams of designers, are required to create outfits that adhere to a general theme, but also incorporate the designer’s unique, personal concepts. This year, the general theme for the fashion show was: Thrift Shop. Each designer, or group of designers, was required to utilize clothes purchased from the local Goodwill and maintain a $50 budget. Preparations for the event, Jackson said, were very short. “I was really surprised how well it turned out, because we started practicing for the show at four o’clock that day,” Jackson said. “They typically start practicing way a head of time.” Despite the delayed preparation, the fashion show was an overall success. The first designer to present at the fashion show was Victoria Webster.
Webster’s fashion line was inspired by professional work attire. “I think it can be hard transitioning college wear into professional wear, on a budget,” Webster said of her outfits. Webster was able to find three models to wear the clothes, which she said was a combination of the model’s personal items, as well as those purchased through Goodwill. The second fashion line presented at the fashion show was designed by Iyana Lynch. For her personal theme, Lynch designed outfits that were inspired by the different seasons. The third designer to present that evening was Alyssa Nieset. Inspired by 90’s menswear, Nieset designed a line of androgynous outfits. The final clothing line presented was a team effort from: Jeanita Blue and Angel Powell.
Their theme was considered “90’s Reloaded,” and featured various throwbacks to 1990’s pop culture such as TLC and The Spice Girls. Blue said that most of the outfits in their fashion line were inspired by “eco-friendly fashion,” and were intended to decrease hesitation toward shopping at thrift stores. While the judges finalized the scores for each designer or team, the Urban Dance Association entertained the crowd with a quick performance. The judge’s scores resulted in a tie between Jeanita Blue & Angel Powell, and Iyana Lynch. Despite the general tie, Blue and Powell were awarded first place, while Lynch was granted second place. There was an off-campus reception held in Cleveland after the event. Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/purple-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/green-formal-dresses
May 4, 2015
May 4, 2015 at 10:36 PM UTC
The Penguins are playing tonight
I have a belly full of high-quality
whiskey,
a fine cigar between my fingers,
and a pleasant buzz dulling my
constant anxiety.
The announcers play-by-play,
constant and frantic,
blares through my 70-inch television
adding artificial drama, but I like it.
I'm surrounded by my
precarious middle class wealth
while thousands of
slaves suffer and die in Lybia.
But I’m drunk, oblivious, and happy that
my team
just scored
Dec 1, 2017
Dec 1, 2017 at 8:07 PM UTC
Mr. Ivories
entertains with elan,
daily during cocktails on the mezzanine level.
Jolene always orders a Black Russian,
mine is a Dewar's and water.
We drop a fiver in his basket on the Steinway,
along with a request for "Ebb Tide",
Jolene's personal favorite.
He conjures an image of Fred Astaire at keyboard,
his tails flipped elegantly over the piano bench,
like long black raven's plumes.
Jolene points out two announcers from CNN,
seated opposite. Makes us feel
important by mere association.
Our waitress asks, would we like another round
before the hour's end, as we speculate
about Mr. Ivories' musical propensity.
Time escapes in moonlit harmonic vapors,
leaves us already longing our next soiree.
Feb 20, 2012
Feb 20, 2012 at 12:07 AM UTC
The sun still sets fairly late—
Eight o’clock it’s usually dark.
Its rays are still warming, during the day,
But shadows are growing longer
And the wind under the shadows
Is growing colder and finer,
Weaving between the fibers
Of your jacket to sting your skin,
Like a thousand tiny needles.
Nippy days are becoming more frequent,
But not this one—yet.
It hasn’t changed in, oh, seven, eight years,
At least. The sun shines down on us
Over the grass, the wind
Whistling across the flat field
As we played.
The TV stays on all afternoon,
When you’re home. Always sounds, noise,
Cooking, hollering, announcers
Saying nothing just to talk.
Cut this day out,
Slide it forward five years,
Ten, whatever.
It still fits.
And when you’re not home,
It’s like it was so long ago,
Outside on a day when everything
Is changing, playing
And having fun.
Sep 15, 2010
Sep 15, 2010 at 8:40 PM UTC
My love for you is like a porch in summer, half lit in the fading sun, cicadas hanging heavy from the trees, each bough buzzing with warm electric static. Moving in and out of harmony, they attend to all the ways my mother understands, all the ways I am satisfied with the wisdom of my father, and all the ways words become unnecessary on a night like this.
This night: my baseball glove sits on the porch floor, ball tucked inside. I tune the radio to listen to the sounds of the city. The announcers voice comes through introducing lineups, pitchers, sponsors; his voice sounds like forgiveness, like the redemption of a day's misguided energy. In the background I hear the crowd finding their seats, conversing, smelling hot dogs and pizza, it buzzes through the speakers. Sensations strong and pulsing, like the roar of a passing motorcycle, like the smell of the earth after winter, like the beat of my heart; I pick up my glove.
This night life becomes simple, finds all its complexity expressed in the strain of muscles, the sound of a ball hitting leather, the image of crisp green grass, of a lit up stadium against the darkened city, of which I am a part. Though that remains unsensed, trains howling like wolves through ***** streets and all.
This may be the closest I come to love, what I will see when I look at you, what dreams will unwind when I brush my wrists against yours.
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 9:13 PM UTC
I will keep you; stuff you in a corner of my mind
Wrapped tightly like a Christmas present
Hidden as badly as my mother used to,
Like putting them on a top shelf will do.
The memories are dear to me and near to me,
But I refrain from examining them just yet.
I will leave them secluded and ostracized
Like the kids who play Dungeons and Dragons,
Like the girls who wear boy’s t-shirts,
From the clearance section in Wal-Mart.
Eventually I will be able to dust them off,
Take you out of your mental Auschwitz
Where I’ve thought, even if I tried not to
That maybe I was wrong about you and me.
Maybe my constant rambling, like the announcers,
The ones in Airports, repetitively shouting
Rules! Regulations! Announcements! Things!
Maybe that really got on your nerves.
Maybe things were always imbalanced and awkward.
I’ve built plenty of utopias in my mind,
Ignoring the reality of a situation until it ends.
But I’m not going to know for a while now
Whether or not I was right and you were wrong,
Or I was wrong and you were wrong.
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 5:11 PM UTC
Funerals for him is killing loneliness
He sets the alarm clocks in time for the announcements:
If familiarize with the names of the dearly departed:
he lights up like the light on Broadway:
The dearly departed is at rest: his struggles with reality,
of how the world runs: is unsettling:
the funerals arrangements is always the same:
The tone of the announcers : slow and gloomy,
Black and white would always be the traditional attires,
and the hymn ash to ashes will echo in ones ears,
so long as the tears flow slowly throughout the services:
As they lower the leveler into the ground,
they are gone but not forgotten: R.I.P
Poet and death titles,
Death shall have no hold on me,
Death shall not make me sad,
I refused to mourn death: and that's the truth about me
Drinking and eating after the services: Is it a good gesture?
From soak tissues to soggy appetizers: the crowd pleasers
From the wet cemetery: to the living rooms floors
Poets feel and see the irony:
As they sat in their black and white attire, eating and drinking
Mount Gay or cold Banks beers:
The colorful graveyard welcomes another tenant:
Funeral for him is killing loneliness
He set the alarm in time for the announcements.
Fear man, not the dead: we two are so incompatible
**Regardless of whom you are or where you’ve been
You can be what you want to be. W. cement**
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 9:58 AM UTC
the Internet creates false idols
that wander and spend change
only ever speaking words
through their eager fingers
yet we follow
and the screen obsessed children continue
they rule with soft hands and soft touch
50mm Soft Focus
and we believe in their lips
their eyes
their hair
their makeup
their nails
their lives
we believe and we follow
but every so often
we're reminded how shallow they can be
petty fights
indignant rights
cheap plastic doesn't look cheap
with the right filter
weird, we judge people's lives
through silicon screens
there's a fear of digging deep some hold
personally I'd rather feel
rough skin and rubbery nails
thick hair to run fingers through
long limbs and bony elbows
narrow hips that don't hold his jeans up
thin fingers and slow breathing
torn skin with bumpy scars
silk sheets and warm toes
I'd rather see
rimmed glasses and brown eyes
soft smirks that hint at porcelain teeth
broad shoulders that hunch a little
small moles that lead to nowhere
I'd rather hear gravelly voices
low timbre with my name on tongue
so tell me
are the lips you spend so long plumping
announcers of aspect truth?
do your words have substance full of vermouth?
do you love the life you live or live to wander?
have you done anything special?
have you had a lot of good news?
tell me, really tell me...
can you do all this without posting it for views?
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 7:42 PM UTC
Use all available space!
they must be joking
honing their comedic skills and
that's what kills us in the end,
not the smoke and mirrors
but the utterings of demented
announcers
dribbling out words that would
bounce us from here to
infirmity,
It's beyond me.
what ******* space do they mean?
Seen from the outside the
inside
looks inviting
ha
you couldn't fit ***** in there.
Oops did I swear or was it twice that I swore?
It doesn't matter
the announcers bore me
with their disingenuousness
they caress the ears with sweetness
and light
but it's dark in the tunnels where I
might be
if there'd have been some available space.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:51 PM UTC