Poem of the week: Catching Wind by Bittersweet

catching wind,

slender fingers reach out,

grasping everything and nothing.

curling over like dead men: five fallen.

this smothering air you breathe in;

you live for the unobtainable.

yet it’s always moving around you,

for it cannot leave. it will not leave.

it fills you up,

and it pushes you away.

your foe is your friend.

Love me.
[Read full poem on YWS!]

Poem of the Week: You are Fantasy, I am Island by Chevy

Shell by shell, imperfection compresses itself into mid-air.
It creates a silent state of delirium throughout upstate New York.
Right before human eyes, it made the front page and we’re wondering (by the thousands) if this is Reality or a trick of the Times.
The wife: the Fantasy, He: the Island:
William, William wake up Honey—there are men out [...]

Poem of the week, SOS by Mandorelute

silence for the heart that sings,

the mute man’s mile,

brings bandages and mysterious green

that turns the tiller towards tomorrow

an insatiable tomorrow – Oh when!

Words drip wet, weighty and worthless,

turning to steer towards torment,

the chilly lord of the word, lips n’ tongue

the bitter captain of broken unspoken

unsatisfied, but on board, salty splintered

from sirens singing,

“Sail bayward, sail [...]

Poem of the Week: Waiting by Jasmine Hart

The rain has made spots

on the window panes.

Now the long dish of gravel

and the almost-jaundiced shrubbery

are speckled, so maybe it’s time

for your arrival.

You can dent the paving

with the soles of your old boots,

and watch the wall surge downwards

like the advent of absence.

[Read the full poem on YWS]

Featured Poem: Josephsdotter by Kylan

stairsteps up, each labeled like specimens
each promising a new plateau
where a name sits, in company of
a date of birth, of death, of christening –
your life before me, simplified like a fraction.
the weevils have gnawed you down to dates
and a few stories.
crinkly, suffering pages of an old bible
which you used to own, lie spoiled and aged [...]

Poem of the Week: Parallel by erratik_statik

Parallel by erratik_statik (click to read it on YWS):

Good morning, darling

I hope you are well.

Take a breath,

inhale the ink-dredging sunrise

that creeps over the hilltops

and chases the frost back to the lake.

Let the children dance,

softly, raindrops on your irises,

as sparrows laugh at their stumbling

and their shadows catch them when they fall.

Feel the sand disintegrate between your [...]