Poetry Summer 2019
fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Antoine Petitteville
Laura Apol
Easter Morning
& other poems
Taylor Dibble
A Masterpiece in Progress
& other poems
Julia Roth
Lessons From My Menstrual Cup
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Ceaseless Wind. The Drying Sheaves
& other poems
Nicole Yackley
Mea Culpa
& other poems
George Longenecker
I’m sentimental for the Paleolithic
& other poems
Taylor Gardner
Short Observations by Angels
& other poems
Greg Tuleja
No Thomas Hardy
& other poems
Joanne Monte
War Casualties
& other poems
Nathaniel Cairney
Potato Harvest
& other poems
Steven Dale Davison
Wordsmouth Harbor Founder
& other poems
Heather 'Byrd' Roberts
How I Named Her
& other poems
Greenheart
sunny ex
& other poems
Ashton Vaughn
Through the Valley of Mount Chimaera
& other poems
Linda Speckhals
Borderlands
& other poems
Lucy Griffith
Breathing Room
& other poems
Steven Valentine
Written
& other poems
Emily Varvel
B is for Boys and G is for Guys
& other poems
Jhazalyn Prince
Priceless Body
& other poems
Marte Stuart
Generation Snowflake
& other poems
S.J. Enloe
Kale Soup
& other poems
Meghan Dunsmuir
Our Path
& other poems
Steven Valentine
Written
Your Father has already
written your story.
Even the poet’s.
The difference remains
that we continue to write it
into existence.
My Father Built These Things
by Hand, I Say
it was a green house, a house we knew
was green, not the hue or the paint
of the panel, or the President heads floating
into it, no, no, this was a green house, a green
house so vile and toxic, it breathed a musty
camouflage, a darkness that sat atop the stoop my
father built, a stoop my father cemented like
the times, like the time he gave me condoms before
prom, like the time we discussed my girlfriend and how
both she and his insomnia were make-believe but
both a pretty butterfly in the green grass, both miracles on
a sunny Sunday on a stormy stoop, my father built that
stoop and his depression held the jackhammer, keeps
buzzing to the melody of the stream line, the green
on the glossy coated memory affixed to the sealant, bastardly
it was, a house, a house that didn’t feel like home.
Metal and Magic
As a boy my father always brought me to the car wash.
There was something about metal and magic and the idea
that something could reappear polished;
It was like a dream.
It was a father and son moment when our slates were clean
and we were happy.
As I got older we stopped going to the car wash.
My father didn’t seem like he wanted to go anymore;
His sadness overshadowed him like a blackened smoke.
By now, I knew he wanted to but physically couldn’t get up to go.
Depression, festered its way into his torso;
His polish would never reappear the same;
He was a vase with a hairline mosaic.
That day I learned that sadness muddles bodies into an unsettling being.
That day I learned the gritty of a man’s tongue when anxiety got the best of his throat
And that day, I learned even family can serpent-tongue their opinion into a father’s suicide note.
You see they thought my father fit
for electric shock treatment, thought him fit
to lightning bolt his conscious
to live under the hellfire
They would tell him to get over it;
To stop overreacting;
Ask him why he can’t just be happy again
As if happiness wasn’t a roadblock right in front of another roadblock
Depression, doesn’t come in seasons, but when it comes, it is always a Fall-out
Depression, is the nosy neighbor, who forgot they could, just be a neighbor
They always feel the need to ring the bell
But my father—My father
is not a one-way ticket to a hospital-wing;
He is not admission to your nearest explosion
He is not a warning label;
He is just the vessel that God used to test the boundaries
And he’s had to live behind them–always
Walking the tightrope above the lion’s den and sometimes falling into it
Shouldn’t you--Be the one to feel shock after seeing a melancholy man so unscathed,
But one who survived the pain?
Isn’t it ok for him to feel pain here?
Isn’t it ok for him to feel here?
Now I’ve tried
I’ve tried to make him happy
Tried–to bring him to a car wash--maybe he’d reappear clean and polished
And I’ve tried and tried and failed
time and time again
and despite it all he keeps living.
He keeps moving forward--Here
is a man who thinks he lives in a world that doesn’t love him back--
He’s wrong and each time he keeps living
He reminds me he is the bravest man I’ve ever met.
A comic-book dream, nature-loving Demi-God,
Each day I drive past a car wash I cling to his voice.
I say—That waterfall of a man has always been polished.
And he shines like it too.
A Son’s Trust
My father told me
He warned me
He said:
Remember who you are.
Only for it to take four years of college and
twice as many girls to totally forget
the places I find sanctuary in
He told me:
Reach for the moon. Reach for the stars.
But I find myself searching for pussy and power
in these bars--these poems are my walls
incased in brimstone they seldom fall:
I don’t trust things too often.
But as for my father,
I trust him.
I trust him often.
When Tomorrow Comes
and the followers roam,
they’ll ask of our existence.
Tell them we were born into a bottle of warmth
and found out how cold-hearted this cruel world could be.
Tell them
we faced darkness at the split of a cliff
but saw sun before dawn at the edge of a mountain peak.
They’ll ask of our existence.
Tell them we’ve built the back of our homes
with our spine to the sky and power in our palms.
Tell them
we lived in a city that collapsed in the sea
and we mustered the strength to form the monuments we lead.
They’ll ask of our existence.
Tell them we lived.
Tell them we lived in a house
that didn’t always feel like home.
Steven Valentine
is a spoken word poet hailing from New York City and recipient of the Lena Horne Performing Arts Award from the UAlbany’s NAACP in 2013. He was later crowned the “Nitty Gritty” Slam Champion at Albany’s Music Hall, placed fifth in Jazz in the Gardens’ National Poetry Slam, and placed third at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café in 2018. Steven then competed in the Individual World Poetry Slam and Rustbelt Poetry Festival later that year.