Poetry
Tracks
By Colleen Boucher Mar 2010
It wasn't your boots that left the trailor your snowshoes now framed
against the wall your family photo
telling tales of how you arrived
your tracks didn't show as you
crossed that cold lake...
Leaves
By Colleen Boucher Mar 2010
Leaves have stories to telllike that brown one basking
in the sun like being at the beach
and burning but loving the heat.
Or the crimson and curled straggler
bleeding through its last frost...
Faith
By Colleen Boucher Mar 2010
The night was dark and it was the first of its kindthat ever seemed long. Morning couldn't come
sooner and the lark that should greet the day,
but no one was home and all the guests were
gone...
Fires cleanse the future
By Nic Custer Feb 2010
Oil Chem is refiningbeauty. Caustic clouds
are prayers to heaven
as livelihoods go down
in smoke on their way
to hell. Flick a match,
burn the cheap cigar,
ask yourself
why do they have a...
Fear Tactics
By Nic Custer Feb 2010
"I'm falling for you," said the tower to her lover."...Are you scared?" he asked from behind a knowing smile.
"I feel like Cupid shot me through the heart ... and I'm terrified," she responded...
Postcard from a high country
By Grayce Scholt Feb 2010
I am remembering on this pagea fine Tyrolean spring,
another age, a hill we
struggled up to where
a crumbling castle stood
amid descending slopes
alive with...
Monetary loss
By Rita Heidtman Feb 2010
Corporate slavesDraw gridlines
Into numerical mazes
Cubicle comfort
Clacking calculator keys
to fill wallets with pennies
Watching the clocks that stop
each time a glance is...
Famous
By Rita Heidtman Feb 2010
Popcorn seeds and cotton candyI met her in the middle of a movie
While she dreamt of big fame concert halls
and laughed with her head back
about all the people she knew
But there was a...
Regress
By Rita Heidtman Feb 2010
Little girls with afro puffsPedal down
in pretend purple convertibles
Down to downtown
in a city divided by chalk lines
drawn clear and defined
to the road they must go
Limitations...
Inside a box
By Rita Heidtman Feb 2010
Lining pockets full of secretswhile packing cardboard lives in plastic
inside quiet rooms with no roommates
The space quickly changes shape
So I'll tuck the city under an arm
That was...
At Radicofani
By Jan Worth-Nelson Feb 2010
Old poem emerges before dawn. As present life seems to be full of questions and doubts, I remember another troubling and haunted time. Thanks to Witness Magazine, where this poem first...Ghetto of a Girl
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
No, no.You've mistaken my
aimless wanderings
for planned exploration
through the avenues
of your body.
Exploration where I've carelessly
caressed the 3rd rails of your thighs,
thrown bricks...
The Trees of Rome (Roam) have Fallen
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
"Evolve...like me."
my old man
said, through
his art.
"Start in
your dreams,
you can't change
the world
without changing
how you perceive.
I understand why
people Believe
the...
Simple Life Minutes
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
Blood doesn't run,it curdles.
Life doesn't end
in the blink of an eye,
it ends in front
of many.
As the cook takes
his smoke break,
red lights are run.
As the police line
is stretched...
Dextroy
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
There are pathways i open up behind my ears —stretching for miles, but i tread them without fear as
Gnarled hands wander like prayers across my temples
incensed thoughts float, and the future...
Andy A-hole
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
Dear Andy,We feel like we're an artist's still life,
play things for pretension.
The canvas Pops like pills, and the poke
of a needle — I'll be bigger than a Beatle.
God, I'm vain. God is...
She called me Unbalenced, I called her Cute
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
We have the same conversation every other dayand face the world fewer times than that.
Our life together is my closed-eyed fantasy,
windowless tans radiate off the fluorescent bulbs
as the...
Tending the Garden
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
A hoe and a smile, that's how it always starts.Followed closely by her eyes, probing
my charisma for a place to bury
deep green seeds.
I will weed her thighs
of all the guys
that came before...
An Island
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
Lost memorabiliaof childhood can be
found in the pit
of my breast. Behind
the heart, i have hidden
treasure —
of sitars and shoestrings,
Bob Dylan and other dinosaurs.
I am the new...
Ragged with Rage
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
The tidal waves thatflow under your bra
must be guarded
by the moon,
since they only come
out at night.
They cause my blood
to move, to come crashing
into Western shores of the...
Die Already (Let me be Your Idol)
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
Die Already (Let me be Your Idol)—With a rebel yell
i cry, "buy, buy, buy."
Come when i yell,
and die, die, die.—
Let me enlist your ears:
I want to be your idol.
because the...
Keith Moon Rising
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
The man's sign read"No sex, drugs or Rock N' Roll.
Anything helps."
So seeing as I'm
generous, I smashed
his sign like a
hotel room and beat
Baba O' Reily into
his cowering figure...
I'm...
For When a Girl Goes Crazy on Your Ass
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
I know you still love meand maybe knowing
that makes me an asshole.
But today, I thought you
were dead and
the piece of me that still cared
died too.
(From the collection Delirium...
From Heroes to Drunks
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
The village hates you.Dreamer, Failure.
Prisoner, Jailer.
That's $14.67, cocksucker.
Slap that chedder.
...Slap it!
Smile for the camera.
Cheese. And fine,
it's tomorrow time,
today's...
Arthouse Movies
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
Your body is a gallery.Let me walk your halls.
Your body is a gallery,
let me paint the walls
Wood frames the artwork
of your eyes — Sloshes of
golden sunset lashes
burn fields of...
Risky Romeo
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
Juliet, Juliet,show me your wild side.
I'm old enough to tell you
what love is.
If you want to learn, I kiss by the books
and study harlequins.
My stars may be crossed,
but when you...
Wolves and Rainboats
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
Survive the night."The wolves are skinny
and they've been drinking
all day."
Survive the tongue lashings.
Keep god at bay
'cause his knife was
sharpened on my wit.
And he whittles...
Tow the Flagship
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
The concrete is calling.So let the caravan
carry the carbon
copy (of) our mission.
With city limits
dragging off
unique positions,
— organize unorganized systems—
using tail pipes...
Writhing with the Holy Spirit — backdated 1992
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
You've made me speak intongues and writhe
like Jesus on the cross.
But that was before
you found god
or were faithfully lost
or were gone.
But I have been lost
since birth — its been...
Au courant and sleepless the night before class
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jan 2010
Getting ready for bed, my husband tells mea joke that I don't get.
To make matters worse,
I'm propped up on six pillows reading
the latest touted book of poems.
It won a prize in New...
Newlyweds
By Rita Heidtman Jan 2010
Old lonely men hunch shouldersAnd hinge their wobbled knees onto bar stools
While crumpling withered faces
Like used newspapers
That are tossed aside
Inside the bars that we distribute...
Rhetoric
By Rita Heidtman Jan 2010
She comes in softly sweepingdragging her draped gown across the ground
silently...
She opens her mouth
to unveil two circles drawn
that separate into world dichotomy
She keeps each...
No future
By Rita Heidtman Jan 2010
Oh you've bent over backwardsWith my fate fallen in your hands
Hand gained brute strength
Over Control
Over exposure
On the opposite end
Of the camera lens
Oh you...
Needle Deep
By Rita Heidtman Jan 2010
Young lovers tattooIn vintage music rooms
Amongst strangers
Homemade hurt
In the boredom of the night
In goes the needle ink
Dot
dot
dot...
Thinking themselves strange
They...
Fire
By Grayce Scholt Jan 2010
On those wild nightsthe fire whistle's screaming
from the town hall top
just down the block
sent me to shivering so hard
I squeezed myself
between my mother, dad
in their warm bed
and...
First grade -1935
By Grayce Scholt Jan 2010
(Remembering Mrs. B.)
While she rubbed our
June Ann's hands to life,
we heard our teacher saying
frozen, blue. We gawked,
Wolf Moon Morning
By Jan Worth-Nelson Jan 2010
Kitchen windows today:chiseled triptych of ebony
against blue, the trees Japanese
in taut hysteria against
the dawn, stripped branches
stretched up like lithe ballerinas.
Here inside...
An Island
By Nic Custer Jan 2010
Lost memorabiliaof childhood can be
found in the pit
of my breast. Behind
the heart, i have hidden
treasure -
of sitars and shoestrings,
Bob Dylan and other dinosaurs.
I am the new king
of...
She ain’t making it up
By Nic Custer Dec 2009
She ain't making it upbecause her imagination
is naturally beautiful.
She doesn't have to
wear a masc-to-take-care-a
the stories written for me.
Those Maybellrings that
circle her (I)s in...
The night that Santa came
By Grayce Scholt Dec 2009
Santa came just once.I was sitting on my mother’s
lap and she was singing,
I remember that,
and then that
rapping on the window!
Waving, laughing
in the light of
that red wreath we...
Water/Ice (A reflection)
By Grayce Scholt Nov 2009
Surrounded by thesweep of autumn - brush,
sparks of light reflect
from what is left in
our old bird-bath - bath
shooting diamonds bright
into our kitchen - dark;
I hear you...
Closing the Cottage
By Grayce Scholt Oct 2009
(For Jane)At the end of an October day of
draining pipes, hanging storms
and bolting windows, shutters, doors,
we piled our boxes in the car,
the trunk, the seats with all our
summer store...
Fall equinox
By Grayce Scholt Sep 2009
The equinox has come,a fall day oddly warm,
the gulf stream having snaked
across the weather map
and dropped its blue snow
on the North.
But this warm blessing
still abounds, so out of...
For Honey Boy, a dog
By Grayce Scholt Aug 2009
(At Gravel Lake)His golden hair streams out behind his hocks
in aureoles of light, as crashing through the grasses
toward the shore, he splashes into swirls of lake
and stops.
With...
Railroad Bridge
By Grayce Scholt Jul 2009
Running toward the river, grasses partedunderfoot like knives thrown quick
beneath our feet. (You never could step on a snake
not even if you tried but oh I never tried, not me.)
I lifted feet...
A committal at the Great Lakes National Cemetery
By Grayce Scholt Jun 2009
(For Tech 4 Cyril M. Leder)A fierce wind off the lake whips
trouser legs so tightly
we see outlines
of the guardsmen's thighs,
their firm-set jaws
their fixed eyes;
we see the shuddering flag
they...
Dawn, May 5
By Grayce Scholt May 2009
In valleysdeep with sleep,
a bright throat
cries its mischief
at the May,
and flashes through
on red wings
scattering light
the apple blossoms
of exploding...
Reflections on a morning in early April
By Grayce Scholt Apr 2009
1.I walk across wet grass
where yesterday
a warrior's feet touched
long before it was a lawn,
or where a sleepy garter snake
left winter skin awakening to the sun;
or long, long time ...
At Longway Planetarium
By Grayce Scholt Mar 2009
(At February's Poetry Under the Stars)I kept searching for Leo
in the years' revolutions
that passed overhead
in near nauseous
reruns,
I kept seeking my
heart star, Regules,
pole...
Cranes at twilight
By Grayce Scholt Feb 2009
(At the Great Lakes National Cemetery near Holly)Marble markers cross,
re-cross the rolling hills so
green against the blue of
Fagan Lake, beside the road
that curves between the
Avenue of...
Walking to Delphi
By Grayce Schol Jan 2009
The building now is Schoolhouse Mall.There's concrete on the path,
the swath between the grass so worn
it had become a rut of mud or dust
or snow or slush whatever month it was,
whatever...
Moments
By Nic Custer Jan 2009
I held her tightest on the winter solstacenot because she was my babe,
even though she was,
and not because I was scared,
even though I still am,
but because on the shortest day of the...
Around the clock
By Nic Custer Jan 2009
I bought a watch
so these arms
could be outstretched
around the clock
for the time
when you need them.Does it ever snow in Fiji?
By Grayce Scholt Dec 2008
This is that kind of morningwhen I'd want to take my skates
to Gleckler's Brickyard pond
and wobble round and round
and fall and fall and never mind,
or haul my sled up Bunker Hill
(all...
The cat kills on winter solstice
By Jan Worth-Nelson Dec 2008
Frost glitters on old boards at the backof the garage when I pull in, and I say
out loud to no one, what a beautiful world.
Back with whiskey and bread and Roquefort,
I'm ready to wait out...
Crows in the morning
By Grayce Scholt Dec 2008
From deep within syringeal foldscomes morning music of a single crow,
this Sousa of the dawn,
that's standing on a broken stub
of one dead ash tree's podium,
its beak a black baton that...
Poetry: To gil scott-heron, I agree Gil
By Nic Custer Sep 2007
And the revolution failedwith flower children lighting up dreams,
igniting the Black Panther bombs.
Devouring everything they could shovel in
yet eager to bite off the hand that fed them
as...
Poetry: Letter to a Childhood Friend
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2007
We grew secretsin the sling of a city maple we knew so well
we could climb it in the dark, and did,
arms and legs around the trunk
the truest hug we gave for years,
cheeks against the...
Poetry: The Day After the Summer Solstice
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2007
Yesterday my own bonestold me winter was gone, and
yesterday I felt like dancing,
something bluesy and slow
to make it last,
a brocade of sunshine
on my arms. Yesterday I
sang to my...
Poetry: Listening To Handel and Wanting To Believe
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2007
His head so crowded with musiche was deaf to everything but
the cornucopia of chords,
the spiraling arias and joy.
He worked three weeks straight,
myth has it, in that garret "...
Poetry: Ruined By Happiness
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2007
I was more before,lodged each night
in dread and doom, complex
misery I wouldn't sell
like a falling stock. I hoarded
losses in an ancient basket: black
stones, smooth and slippery...
Poetry: Post-industrial spring, love poem for Flint
By Jan Worth-Nelson May 2007
Winter ends in the graveyard shift,austere branches poised
for the insurrection
their silence cocked. They
already hear the first strike. Underground,
October - absurd hyacinth
retools...
Poetry: Bring Out Your Dead
By Nic Custer Feb 2007
Only holy ghosts wander through this desolate wasteland.Cocaine white lips shivering below ravenous eyes that have peered into the deepest circles of hell in search of a quick fix. The crackle and...
Poetry: Fear and Loathing in Buick City
By Nic Custer Feb 2007
Dark clouds spew from smoke stacks to circle overhead, and dissipate in the morning breeze.Streets awash with (bored)ed up landmarks, industrial husks full of lofty visions and Renaissance...
Poetry: Flood Plane
By Nic Custer Feb 2007
The rain flows from the skiesAnd streaks down my face
Hiding the tears the follow
On these dark fall days.
A burst water main in heaven
Slowly flooding our lives
As we wait for the...
Poetry: Last Days
By Nic Custer Feb 2007
A gaggle of nuns taking shots of Drano to wash away their sins, while Hari Krishna lay down a fat beat.As the end times tick away, Jesus misses his flight from Denver to Toronto. The son of man...
Poetry: Rome Has Fallen
By Nic Custer Feb 2007
Fall is upon the city.The leaves burn crisp and brilliant orange,
torches to the heavens
violently bursting to the cement
in a final act of desperation.
The blazes smolder in the...
Poetry: So Late in the Year
By Nic Custer Feb 2007
Gleaming sunlight through the grey, hollow clouds hits the autumn grass with dangerous foreboding. Nicotine fills the blood stream as plumbs of dull smoke follow my footsteps across the concrete...Poetry: Oratory Atomic
By Nic Custer Jan 2007
An introduction like too-late warning siren sounds, as the speaker takes his place behind ground zero.Verbal mushroom clouds spew from between his lips to gain searing attention and silence the...
Poetry: Body Language
By Nic Custer Jan 2007
There - a bomb in my brain,diffused, keeping me sane
but who knows what tomorrow will bring,
gone is the time when such thoughts did sting.
I can hold on unlike then,
self-destructing...
Poetry: (Graf)ic Design
By Nic Custer Jan 2007
i am the purveyor of liquid dreams.aerosol stimuli bleed from my wrists
littering streets with desperate prayers,
on the tip of the tongue,
caught in stares, giving an epicenter (proof of)...
Poetry: Communion of the Moment
By Nic Custer Jan 2007
Writhing under the sheetsrocking back and forth
to the beats of your heart
tensing up from the start.
Raising my lips to breath a prayer in your ear/a sigh
Feeling ecstatic
let out your...
daily mantra 1
By Nic Custer Oct 2005
the sweet numbing drugs that sweep through my systemthe surrealness of our LIFEs
i ask to live, to be conscious, to be awaken
and the doctors dressed in white
just smile their ignorant...
daily mantra 2
By Nic Custer Oct 2005
to run through that fabled meadowyou know the one
where only good things happen
and no one can hurt you
the grass grows tall and defiant
and flower children make love under the sun...
daily mantra 3
By Nic Custer Oct 2005
locked away in thecold, glass skyscrapers
a blight on the world,
a great sign of progress,
there i must remain.
trapped in the garbs of another
a career, a mortgage, new chains
armani...
American Disgust
By Nic Custer Aug 2005
How many will have to die?How many will lose their chance to fly?
Sending Bush youth to fight for "their" freedom
Our leaders have lied to us…do we really need them?
To tell us...
What Did You See?
By Chris Ringler Aug 2005
If wanting were enough you'd be mine.You would be in my arms, my bed, my heart. You would be sun-moon-goddess-god.
If wanting were enough Hope wouldn't be another ghost to haunt me....
Painting Emotion
By Nic Custer Jul 2005
I thrust my brushesOnto a virgin canvas
The great somber blues of strife
Brilliant reds of a violent past
Deepest blacks of my lonely life
I can't make up for the pain I brought
Our...
Katelin
By Mark Osmond Jun 2005
Watching
her
smiles
e x
p l
o
d e
&
comeback
together,
I resent
death,
myself,
and
the
eyes of
everything
but her.
Rainbow field of carnage
By Nic Custer Jun 2005
Day-glo soldiers raging through the nightIridescent glow of their brilliant weapons
Zulu war cries, and the lines held tight
trampling the soft, grey ground
as the hoards march onward to...
False Deity of the Lost Paradise
By Nic Custer Jun 2005
The transitory nirvanaMeditation. Hallucination. Enlightenment.
I know all, I am all
I'm a child of the universe
My brothers are the stars
And there is balance
Contentment. Material...
Listen
By Nic Custer Jun 2005
All of the sudden it changesa smile and a chat
And they all rush to me
They want me to listen, consol,
to help them see
Why their boyfriends and girlfriends
Lie, cheat, so readily...
Hate as u must
By Nic Custer May 2004
why must u hate?is it jealousy? is it envy?
do u wish your life to be this good?
must you take away mine?
well then hate as you must
it bothers me not
for i'm far greater
and...
The bluebird
By Nic Custer May 2004
the bluebird is near i know iti desire enlightenment, inner peace
why won't it come? why do i deny it?
because i am afraid of serenity.
Graffiti
By Nic Custer May 2004
you tag my home, you mark my treedont write your name, just tell me
why the hell can't you just see
you dont have to graffiti.
Melissa
By Nic Custer May 2004
she runs far, she runs wideshe stole my heart and ran away
and as i tried and tried to catch up
i slowly gave up
knowing it was in a better place.
Winter joy
By Nic Custer May 2004
the ground is frozen, the trees are bonesno birds to sing the carols
no flowers to deck the halls
— Only desolate wasteland —
kids drowned in a sea of powder
and the bums hid in the...
Girl
By Nic Custer May 2004
i feel trappedsuffocated, no way out
why cant u see
what its all about
just let me be
i cant breath
give me room
to be me
ill get in my car
vroom, i drive away
yet i come back...
Flickr Photos
