National Poetry Month

(This poem was previously published in Cul-de-Sac of Blood)

Dry

to Creighton Chaney*

Dr. Mannering

You’re insane at times and you know it. You’re sane enough now

though to know what you’re doing.

—Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Curt Siodmak

Only a sequel, yet the franchise loomed

as, staggered between shots, the effects

artist made your face another face.

First, a close-up in bed, pure you,

before you slumped into the chair

to put some hair on your chin

& get back in bed. Then up & a little more

hair of the dog. You drank barrels on set,

wrestled whoever didn’t want to

& then the bed again. Then more hair,

the bed, then more, then bed, the barrel,

more, the bed, the barrel, more & on

til not quite animal, not quite man,

skulking sculpted trees.

Already, your father’d bludgeoned you.

Still, your hair was falling out.

Again, you’re dead before your movie ends.

When I dated a girl who camped sometimes,

I bought a minus 40 sleeping bag.

I listened to John Mayer for another,

played a gamer later on. I have been so many

men. Once,

a friend & I slapped each other’s faces

in the middle of a party, back & forth,

harder & harder, as if softer

could never be more than a joke.

My jaw still gnarls out of place,

but I liked it til the audience cheered, or,

I liked that too, but they wanted more

& same. Is that how it feels

to be typecast, to be slapped & slapped

til you’re not quite sure if you want it

or are just unable to not need it?

Your father, Man of a Thousand Faces,

Horror legend who lived all his own,

Be a good plumber, he probably said.

Take your chances on a boring life.

What I would do some days, still, to be beaten with that silver cane.

A wolf’s reflective head—my face—bashed into my face.

* Creighton Chaney is the given name of Lon Chaney, Jr., the actor to whom this poem is addressed.

Tim Lynch’s statement on the world of poetry:

To me, poetry is my way of accessing and honestly perceiving myself, whether it’s my own poems or someone else’s. In a poem, I can be scared, and let my fears overtake me, and it doesn’t destroy me. In a poem, I can begin to understand the feeling of being another person. Both of these examples could change me; they could destroy my life as I know it, my concept of myself and my identity as I know it, but all because I have better understood who I am and my relationship to the world, and all in service of growing into the truth of that self and relationship. The last two lines of the poem I’ve given to be published, “Dry,” amount to one of the saddest realizations I’ve written about myself, but they are also the French doors that open into a more solid relationship to myself. I am more myself because of poetry, and I am so grateful to be able to celebrate it.

Title: Clouds

I wanna touch the clouds

They’re so close yet so far

The orange morning sun

Glides right through them

Making them shine

As the day breaks

Yearning for the things I can just barely reach

I wanna touch the

Orange and pink clouds

Filled with dreams,

Expectations, and aspirations

All gently woven—

Premade art pieces,

Uniquely not mine.

But I fear

The closest thing

To clouds

That I’ll ever touch

Is the “what ifs” all around—

The gray fog

That lays on my feet

All around me

But on the ordinary days,

When the sky is nothing but white,

I watch the clouds shift,

A blank canvas waiting

For me to paint my own

Pink and orange hues.

Title: Familiar

The familiar scent of cigarettes fills my nose

My father smoked

When I was younger

I never knew what it was

I just dubbed it as normal

The familiar feeling of holding back tears

It fills my heart

For my father said

“It’s not strong to cry”

So when I did

I felt weak

No one told me otherwise

So I thought it was fine

Now, as I grow,

The scent of cigarettes doesn’t bother me

and the ability to hold my tears is mine to keep

It’s not that I like bottling my emotions—

It’s simply ingrained in me

I don’t like the smell of cigarettes

But I can walk by

It’s not like I want to do,

Or even smell these things

I just got used to them

They are

familiar.

Trinity Gbolo, a sophomore at MOT Charter High School, is an aspiring medical law student planning on applying to colleges with a focus medical law or patent law. A clarinetist with over six years of experience, she unearths pleasure in performing music and participating in sports like volleyball and basketball. She joined Poetry Out Loud because words offer insight into the lives of others, with each poem providing a unique opportunity to narrate and understand. Trinity is excited to further broaden her storytelling and public speaking abilities through this enriching program.

i’m sorry

i’m sorry

my tongue was so loud it caused you to recoil–

don’t worry, i speak no more.

i’m sorry

my appetite was so large it horrified you–

don’t worry, i eat no more.

i’m sorry

my creativity was so beautiful it scandalized you–

don’t worry, i create no more.

i’m sorry

my smile was so charming it mortified you–

don’t worry, i smile no more.

i’m sorry

my light was so bright it disturbed your perfect darkness–

don’t worry, i shine no more.

i’m sorry

for living so happily it caused you jealousy–

don’t worry,

One day the world will see me shine

And revel in my radiance while you stand alone in the dark.

I’m sorry I’m not sorry.

Rebecca Wang, a junior at Archmere Academy, has this to say about poetry: To me, poetry is a way to capture and express ideas and emotions in their most natural form. Its flexibility allows it to be everything, nothing, or something in between.

Intuition (Excerpt from What Yellow Sounds Like – published by Tia Chucha Press)

And somewhere in the wilderness of making

decisions, my great-grandmother said to me

Everything don’t need to be told. Some things must.

I knew then but not when I would write

poetry, for the poet stands outside a locked

door and rings the bell once, knowing that

once can mean always, that one more is too

much, that just enough opens the door

of the page onto a mirror where beauty

and ugly show up, unreconciled,

where what it feels like to love and be loved

is seen, that place between don’t and must tell.

Linda shares what poetry means to her: Who am I and why am I here are two existential questions that have preoccupied us since time immemorial, and it is through poetry that I endeavor to explore my thoughts and feelings in response to those questions beyond conventional limits. Writing and reading poetry offers me an opportunity to slow down, to use my imagination, my creativity and my lived experiences to translate life’s joys as well as its sorrows into an accessible, evocative, resonant, and hopefully, beautiful language through imagery, word rhythms and other sensory details. But before anything else, though, writing and reading poetry, for me, is about making discoveries that can cultivate a better understanding about our evolving, complex world as a way to bridge gaps of difference and/or indifference.

The Scribe

I’m just a pencil,

perpetually imprisoned,

Held hostage,

in his hand,

A graphite grappling,

greedy, gremlin.

I’ve stockpiled stories,

from separate sources:

Pensive pencils,

Pompous pens.

They tossed their thoughts:

tyranny, torture.

Their experiences,

My expectations.

I truly thought,

Their thinking was right.

The empty enjoyment

of exploring escape

Left me limp,

left me lifeless.

Blind To other possibilities,

Of a pencils purpose.

He grabbed me,

I groaned, gulped.

Falsely feeling my

Fate before me.

My scraping and scratching:

scene and setting.

My dulled pencil point:

plot and people.

My flaws and fears:

faith and fantasy.

My rapid realization:

repetition. Resolution.

He elevated me,

To his ear. Leaving me there.

He is finished. Fulfilled.

I am finished. Fearless.

I submitted, surrendering,

after seeing the story below,

A perfect creation he crafted,

channeled through me.

His humble hand,

held a habitat of life.

He touched and tailored me,

tailoring with transcendent

Truth. Truth that

tested my thoughts.

I’m faced with fact

and fabricated fiction.

The pencils were wrong,

weak-hearted wanderers

The pens rebelled,

 paranoid pagans.

Ultimately, unlike them,

I understood my use.

Alone, I am absent,

 With him, I am alive.

 Placed for his purpose,

I’m just a pencil.

Olivia shares what poetry means to her: Poetry gives me a place to be vulnerable, asking the big world questions through the purest form of our language, while connecting with the audience through shared emotions and experiences. When we recite poetry, whether on a stage or around the kitchen table, we break down the differences between each other, recognizing that we all feel emotions and we all live. 

Olivia Stevens is a junior at Mt. Sophia Academy and is an aspiring writer and vocalist. She has written and published a novel entitled The Locket Mystery and is currently working on her second. Olivia enjoys writing free verse poetry and short stories, which have won several awards and have been included in national and regional literary journals. As an active vocalist, she has participated in prestigious summer vocal academies, including the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Apart from storytelling, Olivia is the captain of a FIRST robotics team that represented Delaware at the 2019 and 2021 World Competitions.