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Ariel Baptista Jun 2014
It smells like summer on the island
Like laundry and leaves
Like late-afternoon lakewater
And pollen-filled breeze
I remember my summers on the island
The bunkbeds and bonfires
Beaches, bikinis
And dirt roads under dark tires
Birch trees and blackberries
Blue birds and sour cherries
Two hours on the ferry
Summer on the island
Lawn chairs and lemonade
Hammock-hanging, holidaying
Laying in the lazy shade
Hiking high into the bright blue sky
Deep inhale and satisfied sigh
We had been waiting for this
Our summer on the island
Cold tides and closed eyes
Penny candy and pecan pie
Crop-tops, flip-flops, tree-forts and drop-offs
Crayfish, crayons
And breakfast on the dock at dawn
This was summer on our island
Millions of mosquitoes, minnows and movies till midnight
Eating smores in the smoky firelight
Running through the trailer park in the rain after dark
Our summer on this island
Everything was my favourite part
I loved it all
The grass
The trees
The foamy waterfall
Sun, seagulls and sand dunes
Either services or sleeping in till noon
Sweet island summer, over too soon
Summer on the island
Was a lifetime ago
The island was my summer
But I’m letting go.
chels May 2013
I'm beginning to think I have a problem.
An obsession.

You see, I've fallen in love with an item,
an object.

I'm in love with
glow in the dark
plastic
stars.

You see,
I have bunkbeds
So I put them on the bottom of the top bunk
and I put them on the ceiling,
so that I always have something to look up to.

While I'm at it, I should probably tie a string to a stick
and hang it in front of me;
tie a star to the end of the string
so that I always have something to look forward to.
17711 Mar 2019
dark
light

I wake up to dirt
toys
bunkbeds

dark
light

I wake up to a classroom
girls
friendships

dark
light

I wake up to a beard
a 9 to 5
bills

dark
light

I wake up to a wife
kids
wisdom

dark
light

I wake up to wrinkles
loss
deterioration

light
dark
JB Claywell Aug 2020
There are gladiolas,
black-eyed Susan
growing in wooden barrels
behind the chain-link, below the razor-wire.

The Powerhouse
they call it,
the building that houses
the generators, the boilers,
whatever else it takes to keep
these cinder-block cell-houses
warm, cool, or otherwise
habitable.

As I make my way up toward
the building I work in,
I pause to look at these blooms.

I must.

For it is in seeing them
that I may be seeing the
only beauty offered that day.

There is so little here
that is beautiful,
one might say.

The floors are scuffed,
the walls,
the paint, chipped away
or graffitied with pen-caps
or makeshift knives,
not looking for that space between a cell-mate's ribs
just then.

There is rust on the window sills,
on the bedposts bolted together,
bunkbeds for the bruiser or the bruised.

Still,
the gladiolas, those black-eyed Susan's
persistence in palpable,
as is the potential of every single
human being housed inside.

The perspective shifts.

There's beauty in that potential,
presented in the form of actualized,
engaged participation in today's classwork
or
small-group discussion.

'What's this?
A breakthrough?
Sir, is that a teardrop?'

Real,
not tattooed.

Beautiful.

More so than any gladiola
or
black-eyed Susan here
could hope for.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020
As I sit
In the middle
Of a blunt
Rotation

I lean back on
The chair
As the birds
Fly by,

The sun filters
Through the
Leafs of an
Oak,

“What is it
That you guys
Say again?”
“Puñeta”

Everyone erupts
Simultaneously,
“Puñeta!”
And we laugh.

a corona gets
Passed from hand
to hand
And I watch

This salvadorian
Make a perfect
Puerto Rican
Impression

That for a second
Got me at the edge
Of my seat
Holding on

Onto the arms rest,
Sobered up my high
And made me feel
Like I was sitting

Back home
At the edge of
The bottom
Bed

Of my friends
Bunkbeds,
I laugh and
Take a swig

Off the cold
Bottle and wonder
Why it tastes
So bitter sweet.

— The End —