POETOGRAPHY
from frame to phrase
These Walls
Poetry by Mae London
Photography by Nina Segal
Canadian tux
Poetry by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Photography by Nina Segal
Soulless brick and concrete hold
Thousands of memories they ache to share
Each smear of mortar
A cigarette stumped on its corner, ashes peppering the sidewalk
An elbow scraped on its rough texture, skin pilling from the friction
A cluster of moss climbing up it, felty blanket of green covering the stones
The walls beg to talk, to tell you their story
But ash-laden, bloodstained and mossy,
They stay quiet.
We played Monopoly last night at your apartment
And you did what you always seem to do:
Monopolize the conversation
I wore my Canadian tuxedo
for the first time.
You didn’t seem to notice
You told me about your collection of CDs
You played a few and talked over them
Then told me how you’d like to just sit and be
quiet with someone, sometime,
But not in an awkward way
In my head, I said: Why don’t we try that?
I left my jacket on the gate outside your house
On purpose
You still haven’t noticed
You text me as if I’m your therapist
Constantly
The jacket still hasn’t been taken
I haven’t taken it back
It probably smells like the city you’ve always romanticized,
like trash.
Summer here is hot garbage.
I took the jacket back today
Then sat down next to a stranger on a park bench
We didn’t talk
And it wasn’t awkward
I’d tell you about it if you ever asked
Alive Again
Poetry by Rebecca Johnson
Photography by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Life comes alive
Amidst the life of a party
People dancing
People signing
People living their best lives
Happiest of moments are from these
They’re small, yet a memorable memory
1,000 doors
Poetry by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Photography by Nina Segal
Asylum
Poetry by Rebecca Johnson
Photography by Nina Segal
Are there more windows or wheels in the world? A common internet debate, or so I thought.
I looked it up just now and discovered no one is debating that question. It’s: are there more wheels or doors in the world? But why wheels and doors? We could be asking an alliterative question that adheres to the brain more easily. A double W. But I guess that isn’t the point of the question.
Most people seem to think that there are more wheels. That is, more wheels than doors. No one has an answer for the windows question. That is, no one besides the AI overview that shows up first on the search bar. No, I didn’t want to hear from you, Google Gemini. I wanted Reddit or Quora. I wanted to receive a flurry of daily emails from Quora, about some woman who found an alien in her garden, or a man who thinks he has a rare disease. I wanted to find a thread of people arguing futilely for windows or wheels. But no such thread exists. Because no one ever asked about windows.
So I asked the magic eight ball that sits on my nightstand. The 20-sided “icosahedron” inside didn’t answer me. I shook again, and it said, “Try again later.” I tried again later, and it said, “Better not tell you now.” So when?
I’ve never lived in a world where people are comfortably uncertain. Where a large book is needed to answer a question, and you can be curious for ages, never to be handed the “truth.”
With this windows-wheels query, I’m in the dark. In a dark room with one wheel, zero windows, and probably over 1,000 doors. There’s a cockroach a few feet away, laughing at me as my thoughts try to gain traction, but slip off the question because they’re wearing knee-high boots. The question is the wheel, and no amount of estimating or even calculating could tell me how many windows. I slam the locker shut, and the roach laughs harder.
I ask Google, “How to not know?”
Behind brick walls
Glossed windows
There are rooms
Some occupied
Some not
Yet they all are used
For the same reason
To contain those
Who are not “able”
To be in society
The past that haunts
The very same building
Warning the new tenants
Of the horror that lies
Behind these walls
After the Third Flight
Poetry by Tamara SK
Photography by Nina Segal
Two days of mindless journey
For the smallest hotel room of the trip
The hum of an AC held up by three screws and a stick of gum
Is a nice reprieve from turbulence
I’d call it worth the view of
Neon signs so warm against my cheek I could imagine
Reaching out and scraping my knuckles against them
Nearby enough to leer out the window
Etch my name into a billboard
Wrap a feather boa around my neck
Call myself deserving of the stars
The course grit of handmade-quilt beneath my palms
Makes me wonder why they don’t call it an inn
Sheer curtains remind me it’s only midafternoon
Hours to unpack for a minute of glamour
Before I’m off to the airport once more
Glowing Hollywood lights fog up the constellations
Rather stare at the ground that glitters more than the sky
Mirror World
Poetry by Mae London
Photography by Nina Segal
Once standing over still water
You can see a vague, rippling reflection of yourself
Gazing up at you
The arched, sloping sculptures loom over your silhouette
Like skyscrapers, they lean in
Their imposing, cold breath against your face.
The world under the water felt the same breeze
It holds our deepest wishes in cheap copper coins
And even though they couldn’t grant your desires
We give them to the world underwater evermore
And with a metallic plink they roll to the bottom.
Mossbody
Poetry by Mae London
Photography by Nina Segal
BRUNCH
Poetry by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Photography by Nina Segal
Vines try to abscond
Stalks stretched up to the heavens
As if escaping
Fanned leaves in sunlight
Branches sway in trembling wind
Acorns in the grass
A hardy, ribbed trunk
The palms whisper sweet nothings
Humming in the breeze
Stepping on the porch
Sinking into the soft planks
Creaking with each move
If only I could
Watch the garden forever
I’d live happily.
There’s something absolutely, outrageously, crisp and
untouchable about a great brunch
There are maple breakfast sausages
Hashbrowns (the fancy, shredded kind)
And cold orange juice
At 11:00 AM, we’re positively civilized
Brunch in the garden
Brunch with people who eat loudly
Brunch with distant relatives
Brunch with matching table settings
Woven place mats
Floral tablecloth
This has to be the best
The tippity top
The pinnacle of “brunch.”
Brunch bunch
Brunch with some crunch
Honey, don’t hunch, we’re at brunch
Brunch scrunch
Punch
Not fruit punch
I’ll punch everyone at brunch
No, I won’t.
Never, ever at brunch
Are you done, hun?
Can I take your plate?
Chalk for 1.99
Poetry by Tamara SK
Photography by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Drought always conjures the image of sun-bleached desert
So why does a knee scraped against cement bleed
When sifting sand through fingertips
Has never once given me reason to put on a band-aid?
Boots were hardly the right attire for thirty minutes of
Squatting beside a storm drain with a strange concoction
Of chalk and sweat and condensation from cold water bottles nestled in my palms
Though I must admit cerulean is a good contrast to
A spontaneous bout of Crayola-yellow
It’s an even better contrast to green
But it feels the continents are more privy to concrete these days
Storm drains in the summer are parched throats
When the season goes on from the end of June ‘til following May
My knees groan as if they’re in need of oiling
When I finally get the chance to stare down at my work
An abstract depiction of the cesspool that is sunlight
Or maybe it’s just a pretty thing for the next person who passes by
To Be
Poetry by Rebecca Johnson
Photography by Nina Segal
To be seen is to be heard
But to be heard is to be disregarded
One who seeks such is bound to fall
Into an unescapable void
Drowning in its contents
Struggling to grasp air
To be heard like the owls that sing in the night
To be heard like the dogs in the park
To be heard like the newly born infants
Yet to be heard is to be cursed
Said opinions don’t matter
Not to them
Not to anyone.
Some have major luck
Those I envy
To not be cursed
To be like the blessed
Why must it be hard
To be heard.
Train of Thought
Poetry by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Photography by Nina Segal
ARE WE HOME YET?
Poetry by Rebecca Johnson
Photography by Nina Segal
To sit beside someone on the bus
is oddly intimate
Hearing their breathing
Maintaining the thin space between
your arm and theirs
As if brushing across their skin
or the fabric of their clothing
might infect your sense of privacy
corrupt the estrangement
most assign to strangers
Because maybe they’re dangerous
You know a part of them
that can only be known
when you have never heard
their voice
or seen their smile
or their eyes
or the crinkled corners of their eyes when they smile
You know their profile in your peripheral vision
and the scent of their laundry detergent or body odor
or perfume or last meal or workplace
Maybe all of the above
Have you ever seen those videos where an artist draws someone on the Subway?
When I ride the train, I’m scared
someone might draw me.
It’s a narcissistic fear
I think they’d capture me
And even though art is so predisposed to romanticize
I know I’d hate to look at it,
and I might never recover
But one bit they’d never capture
is my breath
or my scent
The vulnerability of proximity
These artists draw people from afar
Never from right beside them
There’s a man masturbating in the seat to my right now
I look down and
try to forget
The world around me buzzes
Chitter chatter
As the background gets cancelled out
The only noise is music
The stark contrast between
My world and theirs
Feeling like a kid again
Just me in my own world
With music
Though now the world has dulled
Maybe younger me would’ve seen this
Through vibrant nostalgia
Swinging my legs on the seat
Wondering when I’ll be home
The familiar vibrations gives me security
Lulling me into a peaceful slumber
Skip Chime
Poetry by Mae London
Photography by Clara Carter-Klauschie
the circle park
Poetry by Eduardo Lopez
Photography by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Swallow the warm Californian sky
Supping the rich cerulean day
The sunlight bathing evergreens
Your gaze averting the blinding sky
A sigh, a breeze
Languidly rolls around us
and stirs up leaves.
Sing to the pallid moon
I’ll ask you a few times to
serenade the world as it lulls into slow darkness
soft white light
formless and ephemeral
seeps from the window
and soaks into olive floorboards.
leaning over the scratched up benches, I sonder in that moment where the breeze meets the quiet laughter of the early children playing parachute at the circle park
the morning hazes away in that glimpse of light shining through mothers branches and my hands begin to clash beneath the technicolored grass I softly sink into
I look over the scratched up benches which are no longer bare but draped with the colorful cotton the children wore in the frost of dawn
I glide my hands through the grass a second time, suffocating in its creamy gardenia aroma, capturing the feel of its soft roots kiss me back in that glimpse of light
I rest my head upon the scratched up benches once more, the colorful cotton raveling up around my thigh, intertwining its energy with mine
the children have left now— only the moon accompanies me to share the sight of dusk
I bathe under that glimpse of light, it is blue now
I take a deep breath
I sonder, and I fly
Tunnel Vision
Poetry by Mae London
Photography by Nina Segal
running the pads of my fingers
on soft bamboo
the thrum of my fingernails hitting each ridge.
a gentle light hazes through the tunnel,
whispers of heaven wafting through
but not enough to see your way out.
i decide to sit down
the plush chair swallowing my legs
indiscernible in quiet dark.
i face away from the light
my mind fading to white noise
it could have been a moment,
or it could have been forever.
Responsibility
Poetry by Tamara SK
Photography by Will Zevon
“It’ll be quick”
But after the hard part’s been done
So has ended the quick segment
Though lights are still flashing
And every scrape is more deafening than the last
The only reason one wishes for it to end
Is because it’s been so long since it began
Each moment stretches,
A cord bout to snap and yet still it thins
“You’re doing it for me.”
It’s a nauseating thing
Ties the conscience in a noose
Strangles the mind in a vice meant to kill
Tears at flesh until the throat is incapable of protest
Yet still it pries a nod from deep within the bowels of better judgement
“That wasn’t so bad, wasn’t it?”
It never is, not while ankles are shackled to cement in chains of ignorance
The decision still one’s own
A marionette with a ball of yarn
Their grand entrance greeted as a savior
Opening night in the eyes of a hero is a pitiful thing
Reality reduced to a rosy sheen
“It wasn’t my fault!”
There are more things yet that come quickly
Just to go on into oblivion
It isn’t a moment before it becomes sickening to gaze into the reflection
Of a stranger even when they are all that will ever stare back
Because your hands would never slip through cold fingertips
You wouldn’t have laid them down with disregard
Eyes behind a meter thick vault wouldn’t have kept a slip knot for company
You couldn’t have killed a man.
A stranger could.
INKy
Poetry by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Photography by Nina Segal
IN the quiet, a declaration
Poetry by Tamara SK
Photography by Nina Segal
The stain is a Rorschach test
I see a dragonfly
And wonder if my wall is alive
I’m making two pinpricks in the blotch tonight
And one will grow larger than the other
So I will tape a picture over the ink and let it be
One afternoon, I will remember the insect
Capture it with my talons
Go to the red room and paint it blacker
I will think that dragonflies cannot be real with their
Eyes that see in every direction
But in case that is true,
I will leave it in the red room to see in
Black and white
I will encode its wings with the ink
That collects in the corners of my eyes
The next day
The holes in my wall will sprout wings
And they will diagnose me
With some deadly neurological disease
Or maybe,
just a concussion
Writing is just a collection of lines,
And a pen is useless without someone to write.
And a tapestry’s just a snapshot in time,
A face stamped on some long-forgotten dime.
A voice is just a sound in a cacophony,
Gagged and wrists bound, still nothing is stopping me.
For as long as one thinks, their word’s getting out,
A bird with wings clipped doesn’t need means to shout.
An idea is just an affirmation of doubt,
That honey-sweet comforts aren’t all life’s about.
Posters on walls ignite a storm in the mind,
Thoughts are more unruly than a stab in the eye.
A word is a platform to undo years’ shackles,
Stations along a railway of society’s strange debacles.
Wars perpetually caused by a noise in the quiet,
A whisper’s always the start of a forbidden riot.
A photograph’s the only version of a memory unmistaken,
Though a picture is with means and intentions when taken.
One doesn’t require a grand reputation,
Opinions will forever weasel their way into a nation.
Oppressors be damned and silencers fell,
For if not, I’ll start a fire with an inkwell.
NEst​
Poetry by Mae London
Photography by Nina Segal
My bleary eyes wander lazily skyward, catching the light and burning mirages into my vision.
Weak rafters creak overhead, catching rays of sunlight, holding them in their palms, slipping like sand onto the ground.
The keen of a cicada breaks the silence, the buzz rings and fills the hollow building, its hum filling the cracks in the floorboards.
The sun rises as if on cue, smearing the sky into gradients of deep royal and cerulean blues.
Watching the dawn through a cramped window, hands outstretched as if I could stain my palms the same shade.
Moths unfurl their feathery paper wings, nesting on dim lightbulbs, craving warmth, craving light.
I close my eyes, mirages and patterns burned into my vision, resting once again.
Up on the hill
Poetry by Rebecca Johnson
Photography by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Deserted forever,
Nothing ever lasts forever
Each piece of history, framed for eternity.
Each tells many stories
Though some lost in the breeze.
Many of its past inhabitants still wander
Lost but in the shadows
Invisible to the non believers
A handful would say unstable
Yet hear creeks in the distance
They lie to themselves
Play it off as worn building ambience
But really we know what lives
In the house up on the hill.
​Ephemerality
Poetry by Mae London
Photography by Nina Segal
TANGRAMS
Poetry by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Photography by Nina Segal
For a moment,
the whole world is caught in a breeze.
Every leaf, frond, and branch
sways in tandem,
every bloom and bud
blossoms and flourishes.
For a moment,
the air was brisk and clear
the sky shone with the love from above
and the sun spilled into every crack in the concrete,
but only for a moment.
A tangram is a puzzle for children
Involving polygons that can fit together in a perfect square
But only if one has the patience for it
Ours were wooden
And I secretly wished they were green
Green things are better to look at
Because they aren’t “blue”
Or “yellow”
Our tangrams were wooden and
I never could make them a square
You’d pattern them across the green of my face
Frame me as an indecisive, impatient wanderer
Trap my being in the grid of their meeting
I’d quietly run from the titles you cast
Turn pink under your rigid construction
But despise the canopy cover just the same
Hidden or falsely entrapped
​
Paint over the green
And hunch my pink back until I could fit
in the blankness between your lines
Maybe one day I’d steal you away from your solid shadow
And show you that though I am patient,
I will never fit them together
LOST​
Poetry by Rebecca Johnson
Photography by Nina Segal
Lost in the wild
A forest
Yet all the corners around
Trapped me in like a box
No matter where i walked, turned, leaped
I always ended up in the very same spot
I see glimpses of hope
Seeping through the box’s cracks
Though i'm unable to reach
Maybe just Maybe
If I climbed, took a ladder even
To reach the unreachable
Maybe I'll find what I truly seek
In this forsaken forest
Sunshine & Rainbows,
Daisies & Braids​
Poetry by Tamara SK
Photography by Nina Segal
I wish to live a life laughing in the heat
With my cheek pressed against a window.
I want to rest my head on someone’s shoulder,
To not have to worry about who I’ll see when I wake up.
Hands clasped, knees knocking, snowflakes whipping in the wind.
Where I’d never be lost and even if so,
Unburdened by the worry of finding my way home.
I wish to live a life of giddy grins,
Doubled over in laughter words bounding,
A pair of Jackrabbits in the spring running,
Until I’m grasping for breath as would a beggar for coin.
Taking flight without a chase,
The slap of heels on concrete
Without a deadline wound around my wrist.
To sprint when I know where I’m going,
And continue even faster when I’ve no clue.
I wish to live a life with daisies strung in my hair.
The supple scent of morning dew to keep me company,
Days untethered by floods of doubt.
The soft lull of songbirds in the breeze,
Inhibitions bubbling up into a froth and blown away,
Parted alongside wishes on dandelion fluff.
I wish to live a life where I don’t count the days.
Where every morning is colors and braids.
THE FALLEN SOUL
Poetry by Rebecca Johnson
Photography by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Crawling through the fire
Unrecognizable
Smoldered from the heat
Crawled upon ashes
Its saddened eyes
Not bright nor hopeful
Reaching for the light
Only to be trapped
Tis a dimmed soul
Cresfallen forever