POLITICAL Poem: RACE, by Paula Maria Rodriguez

I was, maybe, three
years old, when my mother
said: “I challenge you to run
from here to the corner.”

And, delighted, I ran.

On my spring stick new legs,
I ran,
giving it my all,
I ran,
alongside the old stone building,

While holding my mother’s hand
and I felt the wind
in my hair,
and that delicious,
palatable,
infinite
sense of freedom
for the first time.

It was 1974
and the country was on the verge
of shaking the shackles
of a fifty year-old dictatorship.
shots resonated against the darkness
and the first morning lights
unveiled the corpses of
insurrectors,
lying,
their eyes wide
with surprise,
by the roadside.

But that day,
I ran.

TRAGIC Poem: In Memoriam of a Premature Friendship, by Cecilia Garcia Luengas

You took half of our memories, our stories.
You left, and the void grew… and grew, and grew.
I miss being someone, a friend, to you.
I miss the inside jokes, the love I knew.

And I miss you. I will always miss you.
Because the person I met in first grade
No longer exists. Time caused her to fade.
Now, I am no more than a blurry shade,
But m’love remained as from the other we strayed.

Distance, miscommunication—a blade—
Sharp, inevitable, and misunderstood.
Did we not do everything we could?
I mourn our friendship, our faulty childhood.

Echoes of your resentment may or should
haunt my days, but I will let them. I’ll sink
and soak. I’ll let it drown me as I think
about the torn up pages and smudged ink
that rusts our decaying chain’s early link.

Let me feel it all at once—purge the thought
Let the wound finally sting, bleed, and clot
Let my selfish conscience unload—the knot
in my throat untangle. The bond I sought

‘S-no more. Ne’er was. May’t rest, as it once fought.

LGBTQ+ Poem: teach me to remember: an ode to Sappho, by Sam Leonard

[intertwined with Anne Carson’s “If Not, Winter”

never have your words belonged to you.
the etched papyrus
[covers
those who hold your heart,
those you lost.

[bitter
they left you –
begging, pleading to stay
[I simply want to be dead
than be without you.
[their hearts grew cold
from sterile time spent in sterile marriages,

and you. you were frozen.
immortalized.
[grieving for the past
while she moved forward.

I find myself yearning,
[cloth dripping
with blood from torn, delicate hands
that hold your ruined remembrance
together.
[whatever you
keep hidden from me, I tell myself,
is to keep me safe.

I am
[aware of this:
I cannot stop myself.
[you burn me.
forever, it will be
[you, I want
You.
[I shall love
you, my darling.
[as long as there is in me
a heart that beats. even after its
final note,
[I shall love
you then.
to love is
[to suffer
you once told me, and
[in myself I am
unable to disbelieve a word that falls
from your lips,
soft petals from dying violets.

[rejoice, go and
[remember me.

I will. I do. I lay next to her;
you are
[right here
with me.
I kiss her once, hear your voice
[ (now again)
I kiss her twice, hear your voice
[some sweet song,
dripping,
[honeyvoiced

–Submit to Aphrodite,
[to love’s desire.
She loves you with something
[new
that others will remember

[even in another time.
I cry out to You in the night, and
[into desire I shall come
but, my Beloved, it is
[not easy for us.
there is
[no grove
for our love to flourish,
[no dance
our weary muscles remember,
[no sound
as the weight of Their hands remain
[around your soft throat.
They want you to
[sing to us
through Their mouths
and leave you
[trembling.

never again will you be wholly yours.

[I am broken with longing
for a soul drowning,
chest Agape –
[golder than gold
you glisten in the ink, and I
sink in
to float alongside you for
[as long as you want.

RHYME Poem: Just One Day, by Doug Ellis

What if we chose to live each day
As if it were our last
With no worries of tomorrow
And no burdens of the past

How would we spend that last day here
With loved ones or with friends?
Or would we just go crazy
Tying up loose ends

I don’t think one day is enough
To do all I want to do
But yet we waste the days we have
Just trying to get through

I think instead that we should try
To treat days from above
As gifts of time here on this earth
To share with those we love

So whether it be seconds
Minutes, hours, or days
Spend every one with care
Just as money parts it’s ways

Don’t throw away this gift of time
To things that we don’t treasure
So in the end you won’t look back
And worry for the measure

So as the days turn Into weeks
Then months and even years
We will share the benefits
Of time used with no fears

HAIKU Poem: Unit 1 Project: Imagery and Non-Fiction, by Ring Bol

Arizona sunset- – –
Beautiful and fleeting
Its golden and orange hues
So mesmerizing and captivating
but never as breathtaking as the next.

Childhood- – –
Short and serene
When I lived my days worry-free
wishing we could go back
To times of ease
When I would eat saltines
And have worry free sleep

Life- – –
Fleeting moments
Like sand in the wind
Feel like yesterday
Now fleeting memories
That we look back on
Like any other day

Nature- – –
Birds chirping
The creek glistening
So quiet yet so loud
A peaceful chaos
Full of beauty

Philmont- – –
I walk so much
Till I can no longer walk
Till I can no longer talk
Legs aching
An endless journey
For I am just waiting till it’s over

ROMANCE Poem: Can we Really Help it?, by Aireanna Combs

Can we really help falling in love?
Once you hold those feelings in your mind,
Is there really a way to swim back up?
More you deny, the further you drown.
Is it really worth it?

Just seeing them, makes you smile
In a way you can’t explain.
Is it worth it to deny the pain?
Should you move on?
Can we really help falling in love?

BALLAD Poem: THE MAN IN THE WOODS, by Aaron Stidham

The light tapping of rain dripped down my head the world spinning around me with the sounds of silence shining through the blackened storm clouds the forest of soft pine blocked the sounds of only filtering the feeling through the ringings of others.

Watching the world from the tree line was interesting an act only carried out by creatures of nature and people seen as mentally ill but I watch the buzzing of others and their stories of love, compassion, the ups, and downs even the broken stories followed within their pages there lines

That would cross between the main plot and background characters in their own sitcoms the stories never changed each story only had different characters the world was left cold and Lonely for the watcher.

But who would know because no one was watching him in the white static of nature.

POLITICAL Poem: Spiraling, by Christian Andrei Laplap

Hysteria
resonates across the land
as famine, death engulfs men
in hundreds, thousands.
The bourgeoisie apprehends the faint outcry,
echoing within the hems of encrusted gold,
and ichor of the impoverished.
As tears begin to drop
among the hundreds, thousands,
one with silver spoon whimpers,
pondering where the gelato,
explicitly Rocky Road,
is.