POETOGRAPHY
from frame to phrase
Some guy
Poetry by Clara Carter-Klauschie
Photography by Nina Segal
SOMETIME IN MAY
Poetry by Tamara SK
Photography by Nina Segal
we used to play eye spy on road trips
it never really worked.
because the blue cord on the semi-truck
(**carrying hazardous materials**)
passed out of view
before you spotted it
and there were too many cows to
know exactly which one you were thinking of
so we gave up and went silent and
started trying to draw faces with an etch-a-sketch
one time, you told me you saw a fish
i looked up from the etch-a-sketch
and, laughing, told you i saw a giant
you told me you weren’t joking
at all
the fish was up there,
white
and swimming through turquoise water
i stared at the clouds
i still couldn’t see it
you said you saw a woman
then a crowd of people, sitting there on the roadside
then a man
in the truck?
no, just leaned up against the sky
god?
no, just some guy
What’s the point of having a choice
When the decision’s already been made?
What’s the point of having a voice
When it’s being drowned out by all the noise?
Does my stubborn disposition
Make it so I’m not broken?
What does it take to break a person?
Could I find an outlet that
Won’t put them under the assumption that I’ve gone mad?
If they’re afraid to leave
Does that mean they realize they are the problem?
I’ll understand the disconnect someday
Won’t I?
I guess I’m the only one left advocating for myself.
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 that seeks such is bound to fall
Into an unescapeable 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 envie
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