Special Section

Exquisite Corpses

3 judges took their favorite lines from the contest
& threw them together to form new poems

Untitled
– Mitchell See

Tonight, I’ll burn every bridge in the city
veins of the woods and fields,
But up here, it’s a matchbox city

Ha! Ha! there’s rainbow all over my face
It falls with iced indifference

Mary’s burning up the boulevard
In Pickerel, Wisconsin,
the sunflowers are dying
under an overcast sky.

Walk a mile in my own shoes
sculpted by those blessed hands

Powwow in the dark
as we connected the planet
by filaments and fibers
flowing with vibrating energy

You are already a princess to me
There is something to be said of starlight
more and more I Fear the day
when no Innocence Remains ...
Keep your rod steady
Feel a big-one hit!

Maybe this is how he felt –
Sisyphus smiling,
as I distill your beauty

i run in nature
the sky looks at me smiling

This is the locus of loneliness
paint it high

just a dim and mindful taste
smelling beautiful as old books do

LP records and 8-track tapes
there’s a trail of Cheerios
from room to room

---

Untitled
– Nikki Humphrey

I am an angry bear
I love cheese
while playing trumpet

Eyes closed – I smell lost kelp.
Eyes open – I see lost oil.
Musky odors inflame my imagination.

I will dance
Before my God.
Pull up my pants

like half-drunk,
backwards question marks
staring into holes.

Its cold grasp like the North Pole
The place where I watch House M.D.
With his words like daggers of ice

My mother’s personality was soft as a sponge
Lean on her; She’s probably against you, too
The backstabber

Her blonde hair was like a tangled mess of noodles wobbling
Wonders sprinting through every
hemisphere of her head

When we were bad, “YOU $%*%&#@$ KIDS,” she’d bellow
Then turn and answer the phone with a cheery “Hello”
Smile girl and look like you really care.
Who seems to excel
at excuses and excursions
into relationship hell

Our love will concur all she tells him
Our love concurred all
Tears plummet like a waterslide

Time continued to fly
the purple knight seemed to die
sometimes in the darkness though, we would almost stare eye to I.

I’m digging into life,
With a magical fork.

I’d rather see a ghost
Than eat burnt toast
The fruit is not conspiracy.

The clouds look like an opened bag
Of cotton balls that exploded
If you try to memorize some of it you will be screwed

Two dogs fight to the death
And they have rabies
tighter than mighty putty

if I have to take the bus everywhere
and I am forced to wear underwear,
I would still get by.
And sideswipe a tour bus full of nuns.
 

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Another 13th birthday
– Kinzy Janssen

Armed and ready, I grab my aspirin
with its yummy gel-like stuff.
I listen to my iPod scream in my ear,
“Party in the U.S.A”
until the bone is etched.

I have to deal with these sounds to be able to live life right.

Like a love fountain
dost breed in the dark septic,
I will feel agitated, angry,
and clean myself each day –
Febreze
just sitting in my heart.

Another 13th birthday
in stiletto heels and hose,
trying too hard to be Bono.
With a highball and some wit
I plop down hard on the accelerator. Ugh.
Life is the same –
the incapacitated animal with the broken leg
daintily nibbling my special treats
So I guess I’ll get a degree.

Hush, here comes a man!

I have boobs, I thought, looking down.

Grab the coat! Cover your hair!
Charge! Charge! Forward we go –
there is no antidote for man’s venom!



But in my fantasies
(if cigarettes didn’t roam the earth),
both genders could get some talking to.
We squash them as if we are
making a berry surprise
and henceforth then does the spirit no impurity mar.