This Goes out to the Dead Poets Society Hunter '09

When We Were In Tandem

Night
the last night.
closure presses against us
the heavy humidity moves moments
forward in endless
intangible wheels
3rd wheel, 6th wheel, 6 wheels round
with bond and brew

The moon draws its own clouds – the dark smog of the Hudson presses on
the edge of the Island,
amber dots melt onto the silent black tar of liquid
A gull and the soft distant caucus of the Phoenix,
echoes

The light of young breath streams
through the once still night
Hope, the frayed feather we harbor
brings life
full again

Sweet Pinot quenches our arid lips,
appeasing the notion that we die
before the dawn of summer
and yet we know that we travel together more new,
more whole, seeping into the pathways

The pillowed abyss, the praise and prey
tremulous talent
Hope’s hope- recorded

A lost Mother, Father a child, every twitch of DNA, lonely discovered
A Binding
- Everything happened poetry-
Pages surround the whirling sun, the sudden salience of life
– there! there! it happened
Ahab’s stabbing heart
we hold together
terror
this watery world

A Gap, A gap between
the burgs mossed with discontent
A sudden flower of conscience
fills the crevice
with fertile fields
And yet we wait
Wait for a disconnect from the trite,
the multitudes who etch their names on oak
in hopes, to achieve rings of passing years
but the trees vanish
into the endlessness of burnt forests

So still we wait,
connected only by this the murky remembrance of six faces
trembling in the grain of oak
our voices caught onto
the umber glow of our glass
as we raise this
our bittersweet toast

©Goldberg,Pestana,Michailov,Collazo,Mendoza, Gerard

An Oldie But Goodie

You are like a bottle, useful and delicious, what you hold, you rarely share it. You leave drops on my pallet. You come in the spring, tracing steps around the same horse, while I ride up and on, further away. You keep tiptoeing through and I see you when each new song begins. Your in the eyes of a man on the subway. Your in the laugh lines around his face, hes holding you there for me to see. Once I was close enough to see past your iris, past the heat and over the engine block that crumpled with the weight of fear. I can not remember how it happened. I only remember the rush of sparks as your mouth moved with mine, the moon and how bright it was. How shocking the night.

Yellow

It's been quite the long while since I have written in here. I'm just getting back on the poetry wagon, so to speak and its proven difficult this semester. The intensely comforting vibe of last semesters class, despite petty differences among classmates, is gone and in its place is a somewhat strained atmosphere this semester due to the attitude of the professor. Relationships aren't as organic and its definitely affecting my creative flow. That aside there is still plenty I have written that I will attempt to post soon and some free verse that I will put down now....


Everything is different and yet the same
I still call you yellow
because in my mind I know you to be no other color
you step in and out of my life in no exciting way
its as if you are the cat
that only if fed will return for the food
and not the affection

I have many of you yellow
and each of you
I have loved

I see you and I am taken back to thirteen
or was it twenty?
It has been both yellow
For you always look the same in every year
in every shape you take
sometimes you are a lover
a friend
mostly you have been nothing at all

its one am and you leave a message
fighting the duality in your mind
yellow you speak of her
always her
the irrevocable
that has done you harm
the one that will do you harm
if given the chance
the one that has cornered you into
being so very fragile

and yet you crave
just for a moment yellow
to remember
to taste
to deliver what you know is truth

The message you leave is short
"um its me, where are you, call me back"
you never leave messages
and this one is your form of urgency
and I don't respond anymore yellow

Sometimes I listen though
sometimes I see you
sometimes I remember and mouth the words
its only a habit
something I have yet to grow out of
yellow grew in me
and when I see you
I am yellow
because I know no other color
I am present
like the paint on the wall.