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Copyright Š 2012 by The Providence Poetry Journal All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reduced, reproduced in any form, by electronic or mechanical means, without permission in writing from the editors of the Providence Poetry Journal, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Printed in the United States of America By: createspace.com
ISBN-13: 978-1475253580 ISBN-10: 1475253583
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Rebecca A. Greenberg ‘14
Assistant Editors:
Meg Hughes ‘12 Lilian Kong, ‘14 JD Nathanson ‘12
Cover Illustration: Faculty Advisor:
Ann Lightcap Bruno
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8*+9':;<+='*& Welcome to Aquiline, a journal based at the Wheeler School dedicated to showcasing the poetry of Providence high school students. This journal is open to any Providence high school student wishing to have his or her work published; no previous publications are required. In this inaugural issue, we have contributions from students from Classical High School, School One, and the Wheeler School. In these pages, you will discover poetry in a range of styles, from odes to ordinary objects to lyrical lullabies. We hope you enjoy the poems. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Rebecca A. Greenberg, Editor.
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>?'%,& Jacob Klein Happiness is singing in the rain publicly showing you’re not constrained to social norms and music trends you’re wearing no rain coat splashing in all the puddles Happiness is running arms out wide at your sister’s wedding formally attired: suit and tie you’re an airplane (nyow nyow) you can fly Happiness is dancing prancing about being silly taking the excuse to rhyme willy-nilly it’s the laughter, the good times Happiness is childhood not material peaches and cream maturing by never growing up it’s childish fancies and desires Being wacky like no one cares Happiness is acting your shoe size, if you dare !
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@:%&+'&+?%&>"*:A=<?&B"C%9& Sherry Romanzi The first Light I See is you, At your granite Altar, looming On a Sacrificed chicken. Great creator, you Take the dregs and give something new; I watch as you Edit away the Pieces that would compromise the integrity of The Whole. Silent savior, you Slice and Sniff And Squeeze while our eyes Are closed. It is To you, secret, sacred artist, that I owe my Strength when I cannot, and my pleasure When I can. For on What more can We hope to Rely Than compact Comfort: A perfect Parcel that smolders Until noon, awaiting !
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Sweet salivation. The call we anticipate, That which would render The most exacting master Culinarily Useless, Is now upon Us. It sets Our empire aflame, So you work by the glow. Deliver us, that We May forget, With the Grudge of your knife, how it Saws Like a Virtuosoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bow in precise, Feverish Crescendo. You let Not a tear saturate what is Meant to be left crusty. You Cannot risk the compromise of your work; It is needed tonight more than ever. Our numbness is Your Determination: Stab at grief, Toast him alive, then Choke him on mustard for good Measure. Fold up his remains; Tuck them away under the tomatoes. Pull lettuce curtains !
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And Lay him to Rest in a yeasty coffin. !
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D%"<?& Jamie Cooper If, one day, you ate a peach, And when it was gone, you took the Sturdy seed with its Jagged edges, And you planted it in the dirt in your backyard and gave it water from a Watering can, every day until it was taller than me, and if a peach grew from this tree from a seed from a peach you ate, I would give every penny I owned to buy that peach, To feel its fuzzy skin and taste the Sweetness Of the work of your hands. Or, even better (and on the subject of hands): Imagine for a moment, darling, that one day You cut your hand on a rose (Presumably it would be a rose for me, because that would make the tale so much better to tell) But imagine it, darling, your scarlet blood Slipping over your fingers and leaving tiny marks on the carpet I would take you by both hands and let your blood stain my fingers, too, And I would pull you to the bathroom sink and cover our hands With soap and water And Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d stay there with you, For an hour or so, just washing your hands Because you have the loveliest hands and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be happy !
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To let the water run for the rest of our lives If I could just stay there with you, holding them. And perhaps one day, my love, You’ll write a song (it can’t be so hard for a poet) Suppose you write a song and one night you take me out on the porch under a Crescent moon And sing it to me, standing together under the sky Well, I can assure you, darling, that I’d memorize all the words of such a song Even as you’d sing each one to me for the first time And I’d take the words inside myself and inscribe them on My lungs So that every time I’d breathe, I’d breath you And maybe, even after that, I’d take the words again and twist them Into a rope And I’d take this rope and tie one end of it to you and myself to the other So that darling, I could go wherever you go I think that’s what I’d do.
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E$F'*:&G;++%9& Drew Zwetchkenbaum Don’t tell me peanuts Are better, saltier, baseball Game companions, Classic sandwich meat, Roof sticking, finger licking, Nectar ambrosia. Don’t look down on my Epinephrine-needy, protein deficiency, My inability to digest a legume That to my ancestors would be in The fields of far off savages Be jealous, be sad. Recognize your life’s worth’s Deprivation of my own jar Of “substitute”. I choose this, I Choose my hippie, organic, Non-commercialized, Non-capitalist-pig-tainted Bread-filler I spoon feed myself the Alien and inadequate Almond spread. It’s made of real nuts. Not just something that Grows out of the ground With the protein-filled !
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Label slapped on, I savor, I spread, I Love my almond butter Morning Afternoon Night I slather, slurp, suck, lick Taste. I am an adventurer I wear the bright tie, I speak up. You are mainstream. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t drool at the sight of my feast. Go ahead, Eat your brainy-looking, Two-chambered, salty, Masses-pleasing Crap. !
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G$"<C&G=$%&"*:&G"#=%,& Chelsea Riordan Settle down. Human warmth passing between bodies Backboard bewitched Manic gyration Manic gyration Feed that crying child inside. You, reaching out for human hide Twitching, chattering But not to be delving into damaging detail. Hiss and fit, hiss and fit Cyclone, tailspin Rub her nose in it But it’s only down. Just buttoned down. Don’t feed it to her By the spoonful, Let us Rip a block of rosin down her spine. (Oh-ho, no!) Only guitar strings and pleasant things Like chopsticks tearing tendons Of muscles from the gam. Only black bile and babies-Such infantile distractions, Can wax free that sour soul From a lurid, rippling city underbelly Where some reveling tortured dancer tiptoes, Feet pointed in her pantie-hoes, Through the etched-out creases in a city’s gray ol’ matter. Does it matter? Not when good boys go funny Or bad boys go gospel !
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(Funny like twanging: “Johnny-Cash-guitar-something” out of tune) Spitting electric shocks Tainted, and moreover Unavoidably wrecked. But still, you’re talking your “Manic Gyration!” Giving your listener heart palpitations Feelings fit only for lynchers and schoolmarms Held tight, By a Savior’s mechanical arms.
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H"*<%&I=+?&B%& Jamie Cooper Dance with me Chase me when I break through that closed door Take my hands and waist and dance with me In the snow falling In our short-sleeved t-shirts and faded jeans Dance with me As it blows my hair around us As it blankets on the street As it blushes our tender skin Dance with me Look at me with those lovely brown eyes Whisper songs to me in the turbulent air Let the snow fall and conquer us together Under the bare and desolate trees Sheltered by sky Dance with me
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E+&+?%&B%*+"$&8*,+=+;+%& Lilian Kong White paper bed On aluminum foil legs Sit here. She hisses knives squirming from her tongue silver stethoscopes tinting her breath with metal Monster monster monster antidepressant medication from monotone lab coat repeats Sit here, the impatience on her face implants me to my place smothers me with her smoky lionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mane as she turns the dials to focus the resolution in her amethyst pupils They work like pendulums I stare Her lips move like expired jelly Blubbering out sickly sweet fumes How do you feel, honey? I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel, you sorcerer As I cannot feel another word In this lowly place stuck with you Though I try to break away She chains me back â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I yet again inhale her poisonous interrogations. !
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J%":&@K%9&J%%$,& Sherry Romanzi Did you just tell me that you are Head over heels in love? Isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t that the way we normally exist? Tell me, when was that earth shattering moment when You got up on your own two feet to stand in front of me As you do now, and every other day of your life, to tell me that You have suddenly, miraculously found yourself with your Head on your shoulders and your heels below you? Surely a more apt description would be Heels over head, As though you were falling, Feet flying out from under you as though You were waltzing on a dance floor of butter. Or maybe you were meandering down a sunny lane, when, All of a sudden, You slipped in a pool of lovesick. Surely love is not something mundane, But a smack in the head when You least expect it. But you mean to tell me that Love is not pain? That your entire life was, in fact, No life at all? And now you long not for Extraordinary, but to stand in front of me As you never have before, with your Head on your shoulders and your heels below you, Because you never really existed Until now.
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L'"$& Natalie Wardlaw Standing there in a field in Austria, forest behind me, mountains in front, I fell in love with the most delicate creature with spindly legs and a black sleek body and muscles so taut and rippling that I wanted to reach out and stroke it, to pick it up and hold it in my hand discount its actual size and let its little hooves run pitter-patter circles across my body until miniature crescent bruises formed under my skin.
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M;$$"#N& Meg Hughes One wants to sleep but one cannot. One waits for certain things. One thinks that things could come, that cannot come. Things that arrive in paper packages, things that diamond rings mean, dreams. One makes promises, one dances in slippered feet, writes epistles, answers them, makes crossword puzzles only to solve them. A merry, unbearable correspondence occurs when children are asleep. Lay your head upon your pillow, dear. Certain people stay awake to wait for certain things But listen, listen, dearest darling, Child of years, bundle of inadvertent feeling, yearning has a revered and ancient place here. Rest. No more questions till the morning, Waking’s nothing if not boring, You’ll be snoring while I wonder, Why the poring over pages I have written to myself, Why the chore of sleeplessness, Why the empty nightly adoring of one who will not come, Why the keeping score of losses, why the broken-winged albatrosses, why the waking vision After vision after vision of blindness, Why the empty nightly open-mindedness Of unreciprocated life of the imagination, indignation, everything, overwhelming, and can’t slow down, doesn’t calm and slow down, !
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one huffs and puffs and blows the house down, like a pig who went to town, like a very gluttonous pig, very big things, very big thinks, thinking of things to come that will not come, thinking of things that were and will not be, one wears oneself out, one tires, and cannot sleep a wink, and thinks and thinks.
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!;F#$=*O& Rye Carroll Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be afraid To leap To fly To try But what if I am? What then? What if my eyes glaze over? What if my stomach tumbles and wrings itself out? What if my lungs start to cave in, expelling and rejecting all oxygen? What if my heart no longer answers my questions?
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P"F%& Drew Zwetchkenbaum The hustle, the muscle Swim into a tussle On the sea of ripped green grass Fast, big ship, big mass Of over-developed teenager Well out of the manger Full of anger, staring Me down from his six foot High crow’s nest head, red. Me, about to be dead under The whip, crack Lacrosse stick smack Head on collision Drown among derision Of the “high school” opponents, They soak in these moments Of domination, physical intimidation with Biological and material inflation. I’m back up at the whistle blow, Splashed and dirty, head to toe Let it go. Scoreboard screams in pain, No pain, no gain. We’re to blame, feel the shame. Head won’t crane, whip-pass, Shot flash, back of the net. No time for regret, heads heavy. Stuck in this eddy. Our parents’ cars sing like sirens, !
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In this tale of deficit Now we sailors are complicit In possible defeat. Seconds marching, sailing as a fleet. Minutes bleeding Drip drop, time won’t stop Hemorrhaging, it flies Can’t cauterize. They step, they dodge, they shoot, goal. Mark made, numbers won’t fade. Degraded, jaded, mutilated Weak, sore, stranded in the waves, Dizzy, exhausted haze. Mud under our feet slips, Slides, glides Flows up through White restraining lines, floats, Beats, bleeds, soaks. Losing, bruised, washed up to the Shore that is but a silent crowd, Full of silent dread, of support dead. Winds in our faces, Can’t paddle out of this hell-hole Place, retrace strokes to find An undefined string of intellectual vacancy Of physical complacency, Just miscommunication, see? Victory drifts, sails, hoists the masts Leaving me a castaway. Bare feet covered in sand, not as I had planned. Can’t scream, can’t stand, !
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Birds go south. Dry mouth, whistle blow. Ready, set, go. Hustle? Muscle? Get back into that tussle? I dive in head first, Surface bursts, Drip drops fly up And burn like crisp, blue flames. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a game.
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B";9=<%&>%*:"C& Charlotte Debossu Well done. We are all in awe of the way you have Pulled the beasts out from our closets And from under our beds, and With the flip of a page, Could throw them under the glow Of our reading lamps. We are not scared anymore! Of the things that roar their terrible roars And gnash their terrible teeth And roll their terrible eyes And show their terrible claws. Imaginations grow and twist in wild ways as the space That was once our bedroom dissolves. Over high seas and through deep jungles We explore the colorful And deliciously mad world that paints The backdrop of our subconscious. Thank you From children young and old For reminding us to dream bravely.
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M%+&L''+,+%Q,&H9'Q& Ian Steller Rain spills and splats the street, As it tickles the pavement with tiny clacks That are short and high-pitched, As I sit and hear thousands of small slaps Whip the ground, Then seep into the sewer. My butt saturates in mulch, Next to a treeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s network of roots. Socks feel pressure from a temporary current, As the collection of splats stream through A layer of wool. I have done this before, Trying not to count the number of minutes That pass. Trying to create a place of peace, And grow to love each smack of rain That strikes. Through the mist, A rhythm of footsteps Clack against concrete. She must be coming home from work, But it is later than she usually arrives. I do not know what to do. My ear drums are flush with a rush Of pressured pitch, And my face swells with sudden swelter. Toes tangle together and grind on the ground, Into the asphalt. !
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I wait for her to get close, Pressing closer to the pine with every second As the thumps inside get larger with each increment. Like it was an ambush, I rise And lift soaked feet onto the curb. I come out from the tree and Head my way home. She does not speak a word, Nor a sound of surprise. Her cadence of footsteps No different. She keeps walking. I step onto the porch, And sit there. And as she passes by, She looks back at me, Like she knew. I catch her, And she jerks her head away, Not changing pace.
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L%"9& Rye Carroll Angry and burning, It collects at the bottom of my stomach, Gurgling and swallowing my conviction whole. Indignant and frustrated, It demands to be heard, Crushing my lungs and burying my faith. Outraged and demanding, Fear takes my heart, And cradles it, In the palm of his hand.
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!'&>;OO%,+&R;"C%9&@"+,& Meg Hughes It is very round and flat here, and I have tasted the comfort of dry oats on the cardboard inside of my thousand pasty tricorn-hatted faces. In the Alpert’s, Shaw’s, Price Rites, and the Piggly Wigglys I sit and look around me and through my laminated eyes I see my portrait. I left my religious devotion in the factories and the fields where oats grow, and when I leave the hall of mirrors of my selves on the shelves of the Alpert’s, Shaw’s, Price Rites, and the Piggly Wigglys I quake in fear and ecstasy as I think of the solidness of me inside my canister becoming one with hot milk, butter, and maple syrup.
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S%:& Tamara Upfal My father’s cheeks when my mother tells him she loves him. Blushing Red. Spurting out of his chest and all over his desperate face, As he makes the front page of the New York Times. Bloody Red. The peeling paint of the mini-van I lived in last summer With breaks that don’t fully stop. Rusty Red. Her eyes when he told her she just wasn’t the one. Watery Red. The itchy wool blanket my grandmother knit for me to use when I’m sick. Wooly Red. Dripping down either side of her face, as she slurps on her fresh strawberry, with both pigtails drenched. In Juicy Red. Valentines Day cards that little toddlers distribute with big lollipops taped to the front. Heart-shaped Red. The face of the little girl who didn’t get a card. Flaming Red. The groups of friends cheer and shout as they see the sparks in the sky marking a new year. Fiery Red. In health class they told us girls we become women, When we see. Stained Red. !
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He took his son’s life when he didn’t see the sign, He forgot to stop. For the Red. In my history book there is a map, It says that some countries in the east with names I can’t pronounce, Were a long time ago forced to be. All Red. In my book there is another map, It has my country, Divided up, Blue and Red. Angelic emaciated pale models walk unsteadily on runways, But all I can see is their lipstick. I am too mesmerized. By the Bold Red.
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B"N#%&T'& Chelsea Riordan I am a plastic bag and my body is emotion Cast, Hurtling past the other teams When the wind hits me I can sing But it's nothing really. When the bottles hit the floor, boy do I fall! Cat claw marks on the corner of my door Guitar strings Sharp ends peeling Slicing open my foot My joints can swing freely. Can I play it like old Bo used to do? Damn, can I belt it out! No, I eat up the sheet music and shit on the notes Step lightly, Go easy, Toes glitter steely. Can you still sing it, ol' Johnny? Like they do in the films? Yeah, I wish I can whistle like him can do. A flick of the wrist A slip of the tic The metal so thick But you get my gist. Yes? No? Maybe so? No. Maybe no !
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Is the way to go Maybe no.
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U=*:%9O"9+%*& Lilian Kong I expected Kindergarten face, Glazed like doll’s eyes, uneven Buzz-cut Saliva oozing from The mouth. Yesterday when he was Smiling with teeth no longer Caked with congealed mixtures Of graham crackers and apple juice, I just stared at my freshly-tanned fingers And tried very hard To exhale But The electricity – So this is what change Feels like, When he sits on the park bench Talks into the July air With a jar of memories in his jacket And brushes back With long piano hands Sylvan ebony curls, Exhibiting adolescent jawline – His syllables roll like dusty marbles Constricting my throat, and With what remaining breath I could snatch from his vacuum I say Hello !
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And wonder.
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BN&L"<%&8,&M=C%&+?%&B''*& Meg Hughes My face is like the moon, Cratered and pale, The color of the slivers of fingernails That pick it every day like fingers on guitars pick a familiar tune. Where I once had charming childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dimples Sit the pits Of zits And pimples. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve wondered why I spend hours Reviewing the eyes in the mirror, Pupils that peer through clouded spheres to say this face is not ours. Why I gravitate Towards reflective surfaces then shy away Repulsed, like night from night and day from day, as though the shiny glass would tell me that it is too late, that whatever thing was once inside me, nebulous and clear like a moon-jelly, like a jellyfish clear has solidified, dried like residue of tea-leaves over time at the bottom of a murky cup of tea. What was my soul Is oozing Pus, is losing What it was. I am not whole. !
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Why in the bathroom after school, if I stand still in place, The motion sensor fails to sense me there In my dark of the moon, my unknown, my tiled, mirrored womb, my lair And everything is blackness, and I cannot see my face.
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8*+9'K%9+%:&!?=*C=*O& Chelsea Riordan I see in polygons and guidelines Squares to sort Perfect monochrome contrasts That mirror their inverse. Thinking, Calculating cogs Meshing together Rotating like clockwork. I will clearcut cleancut through every opposition And seek to find logic Without the use of metaphor. Metaphor-Blank & Verse Twisting psychedelic spirals Connecting eye-to-eye Undercutting each and every solipsistic iris By turning a phrase Like a daisy in dew. Daisy? None to speak for. Solipsism— Twix’t the comatose and subjective Oblivion-wreaking and deaf to any friend’s sour succor. The sound of a cat’s bay May as well be sleet on a rooftop, A monster’s eye becomes emotion, I’ve been extracted from my inherent reality and lost from fair ground. Bell, book, and candle !
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All nothing is accounted for.
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@:%&+'&"&D"Q%9#"<C& Sherry Romanzi I probe, I prod, I Violate you with Crude interpretation; I break your spine, I crush you under the dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Weight. I pull you out, Crumpled, And straighten you over my knee like A naughty child. I Cut you Open To fill my glasses with Your inky Blood. I wake you at all hours of the night, from Your Post next to my head (you used to whisper to me As I fell asleep). I then shove you Back in, And, When I decide I want you again, You still love me.
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