Poems of the Week

A Curated Selection of Verse, From Us to You

Fringe ArtsJazmin Mehrmann & Vernon LeCraw & Charles Gonsalves — Published September 12, 2016

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By Charles Gonsalves

Triumph

By Jazmin Mehrmann

My lungs remember
The way each breath
Curves around
The edges of your name
And how to cry out
Against it
By remaining
Unfilled

On a Plastic Night

By Vernon LeCraw

Don’t cry while you still can,
We’ll just blame the government,
Run away and build a sky,
Sheltered by stars on a plastic night.

While they’re busy counting stars, go ahead and take your time,
We could be counting corrections, so they can bathe in lime.
Sadness is a used diary, read by a burner of books,
Forest fires, unknown desires and all the leaves they shook.

You will bottle them up and distribute them to your comrades
Mermaids in the sand and something else attempting to be emotionally provocative.
If only we were certain that this sadness was extraordinary,
To reassure ourselves we are not crying over a fair dosage.

Well I don’t like to casket aspersions,
But we’ve cast pearls before swine!
We are cats among the pigeons,
With eight lives less than nine.
Grab your slice of humble pie,
Hear the eleventh hour tick,
Remove your ear from the ground,
It is time we face the music.

While they’re busy counting bodies, go ahead and pick and pry,
We could be counting causes and reading between lines.
Happiness is a warm scalpel, lead by a cold heart,
Surgery is less than helpful, and quite the dying art.