June 2018
Poetry an independent publication
the creativity issue featuring
Jill Hanmann AP Photography
the creativity issue
road to freedom • may 2020
Natural
Clifton Harrison
this
My heavy bones, the weight like a million gallons of Unwanted oxygen I drown in my own galaxy. Like darkness I am alone Always. Frozen cold, floating Looking through my own Mulky eyes, lonely for no one. My personality demanding, Fiery, and defiant A supernova A heavy sky of black led mind isMyfor you a jungle of constellations photos from up north I babble to the moon He talks back I ask him, Who do you love? He tells me And I know my remedy.
Imagination Worlds and ideas can't just exist in heads Or in the ink that has bled in a spread of words. It’s not fair, That things impossible cannot exist A kiss and a miss A list of visions And a collision of brain Mind. Over A decision of Matter. Things agree to disagree A tree of thoughts? No, Lots of crops, Millions of dots Rotating around the earth along With the axis I don’t understand how the possible Is impossible but the impossible
Is possible. (Flip) it Takes two to tango 3 minds don’t think alike They bicker It takes one person 1 idea To exist in something else. 2 birds with one stone An image, But magic and teleportation, A thought. A fantasy? Oh, why that’s just your imagination. Or so I’ve been told.
Primary Like sunshine dripping off a flower And an essence of power You made me yellow. The amber in your eyes, That reflects mine of blue The color of sadness, the color of calm. But not around you. You made me smile I ignited You made me laugh I blazed You made me glow I scorched, and glimmer. You made me forget what it felt like to live, To breathe, to blink, to burn. The world didn’t rotate, The sun burned straight into me, yellow. And then I remembered, Through all the light. As blind as I was That I hate you for that. The flare diminished. Sinking into ash.
I remember now, I am the color blue, As cold as ice Like the sky, like the sea. The secondary color of light. You used to make me yellow, Flaming with fire, Like a sunrise in a low hanging fog, like light from an explosion. I was on fire. Bright and happy. But you don’t like yellow. Not at all, not a little, not one bit. And that’s when you decided, that yellow, wasn’t for you. I was yellow, and you liked red. My fire singed, going up in smoke And I was blue again, As cold as ice, Like the sky, and like the sea. But something happened, Something changed. The blue faded to green, And all at once, I was both. Blue and yellow. With and without you. Without you
road to freedom • may 2020
the creativity issue
Absent LOST. I’m sorry. For all of it. I miss you, And all your Things. NOWHERE. I know that You can’t Understand, Half the things I said, But they Were from My heart. TO BE FOUND. A thing People rarely see. Something I Rarely see. I think you saw it More than anyone. PLEASE RETURN But you're Gone. And now no One knows. But you had my heart, And you took with you. IF I keep waiting for you to come back, But you don’t. And Neither does my heart. I miss you. I miss me. I miss the things I used to be. FOUND.
Above Text about the article photo would fit perfectly here.
Night Terrors I am not what you think. What you know. Or a care in your Tiny head full of wickedness.. The unrealism in your bitter And dark voices are everywhere. Easy to ignore but hard to forget. A repeated line for a repeating decision that I think. But I get it now. The dark is your friend And not mine. I can’t move, because you won’t let me. I can’t speak, because you are holding my tongue. I can’t think, because you are pumping fear into my head. You scare me every night. With the satisfaction of what? Something I will never understand And something that you will take for granted. You linger through the darkness in my thoughts, Sneaky and hidden until, I am at peace, And sound asleep. And then you attack. The fangs I imagine that you have, dripping with void and chaos The venom like a serum of panic.
I can’t breathe, I’m scared And I don’t know why. Maybe that’s why they call them panic attacks. You are here, Every night in the darkness. Yet, here I am thinking I’m brave, When I’m extremely terrified of my own mind. A shadow man. That can only exist, In the mind of mine In the night. Where I am vulnerable, And afraid. The doctors say A lot of people get parasomnia. A lot of people see the same thing. You, A shadow man.
So tell me, How do you exist in the minds of others? I ask him He grins as the sun rises, and my answer disappears with the vanishing shadow. The question remains. Every night with the same thing. Press. Play. Rewind. Stop.