Welcome to our Poetry Platform. We are sharing some of our writers’ new poems every Monday. Thank you for reading and thank you for supporting them in their creative endeavor and Center for New Americans in our welcoming endeavor!
She Died of a Broken Heart
I was 7, eating an ice cream cone
on a hot July day the first time I heard this,
chocolate swirl rivulets painting my hand, liquifying my napkin, polka dotting my shoe
hopelessly losing the melting race
‘It’s not you, it’s me,” he said,
bombing the village of my heart,
which he’d spent the last six months
painstakingly building to spec,
leveled, beyond recognition in an instant
I knew I couldn’t outrun it,
Wouldn’t savor the last bite,
sticky gooey sweet sloppy in my mouth,
cone ripped from me, ejected into the trash
by my mother’s discerning hand
Instantly bereft, I was yanked by a stronger hand from the carnage in the trash,
hot, petulant rivulets painting my cheeks, open mouthed wail of chocolate devastation,
Somehow I survived.
—jannie dziadzio
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11/8/22
Orange
Full moon
total eclipse
election day
sign holding door
knocking
phone calling
fear
rising courage spreading
Wind blowing
The times they are a changing
Even so
We make soup for Adele
Get help moving furniture
Talk with a farmer about the drought
Look in the pantry
Be glad we have a pantry
It rained yesterday
Kale still grows
Election results start to come in
The cat still needs to be fed
Television charts are lighting up
Fetch wood for the stove
Pause
Look up
And there she is
Full and bright
Cold light
Tonight.
—Jennifer Ladd
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Mirror in the Dark
a frozen pond on a moonless night
a mirror in the dark
closed eyelids on a waking dream
Do I hear something
and strain to see it?
something?
anything?
Do I crave reflection
to assure my existence?
Or do I breathe in the dark
let it fill me
till the urge
to carve out words
images
in white inkflesh
breaks the dark
and lets in the light?
How long before the dawn?
How long before spring?
Winter is this place.
—Isabell VanMerlin
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Precipice
Walk where the precipice meets
Sky crystal blue, layers shimmering
Black volcanic rock
with dusty ochre clay
a hard fragile world
Don’t look back
Walk where the precipice meets
dark grey clouds
shadows low
purple hills dotted in green
a delicate faded light
Can’t look back
Walk where the precipice
edge falls over
in slow motion
boulders tumbled
future is just beyond the present
Walk where the precipice
looks forward
mountains protect you
waterfalls power you
through smoke, thick heat
through turbulent winds
but messages ravens carry
on iridescent wings desire truth
—Jodie Shapiro