Tag: colorado

tassili n’ajjer (cave in algeria) | Dan Fijolek

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ Leave a comment
Image: Azzedine Rouichi

tassili n’ajjer (cave in algeria)

when the earliest shamans
emerged from the primordial mist
adorned in skins and skulls
with fists full of mushrooms

the dimensions flowed freely
like rivers cutting through the rock
after the younger dryas impact

our spines and chakras were aligned
to receive those dimensional outputs
magnetic bands of frequencies
flowering from the gravitational center of the universe
like a fractal mandala

shiva and shakti
creating and destroying everything all at once
bringing balance and purpose to the whole

but we became too focused
on the physical environment
overly busy avoiding predators
while hunting and gathering food

our powerful thoughts
became consumed with fear
bending our spines
and misaligning our chakras
filtering out the higher dimensions
hardening the density of physical 3d space
replacing balance with chaos
adjusting our bandwidth
away from the meridians
of the universal body
trapping us in the concrete filaments
of our devolving human minds

Dan Fijolek is a writer and poet from Longmont, Colorado. He has previously been published in Boulder Weekly & Jasper’s Folly Vol. 1. 

Tolling | Jasmine Nicole Maldonado Dillavou

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ Leave a comment
Image: Bruno Thethe

Tolling

We were always gender-fucked
Wannabe Lover Bunnies
Pink in Gay Bar lighting
Drunk on
Drinks more expensive than our worth and worthless in our day glow night crawl awe-ness
We own nothing
But the love we exchange in Instagram photos and photosynthesis
which is the product of high heels on wood floors
This place
once a post office now a dance club now a church
I can’t pray anymore though
I get tired
and horny
Like winter-born babies
and serotonin thirsty high school drop-outs
We are in love with each other.
We
the chosen family that resembles some cult-like Ghost Club
We haunt each other’s hearts
Never letting too much in
Never letting our feet touch the floor-were always dancing
Even in our dreams
SZA beats bounce off living room walls
But it sounds like church bells
Tolling

Jasmine N. Maldonado Dillavou is an okie-Boricua poet and artist based out of Colorado Springs. Her work explores the intricate private-sphere of Latinidad and femininity through large scale installations and written word. She is most passionate about telling stories in vulnerable ways in hopes that it may open the door for others to do so as well. 

Three Poems | Aimee Herman

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ 1 Comment
Image: Michal Matlon

removed

Trae sang Frank Sinatra to my left as the doctor removed a drain from my right.


I wasn’t ready to look down yet.  


Later, I apologized for the blood I leaked onto the paper, covering my doctor’s white leather chair.  


I’m sorry for my mess, I said, an apology with a footnote, of which the dissertation is still being written.  


With compression off for the first time in eight days, I assemble as much oxygen as I can.  I inhale 


the width of North America and exhale four decades in this body.  


My eyes unclench; they are not fists.  


The doctor praises my body, her work.  


You are an artist, Trae says to her.  


Slowly, I drop my head.  


My chest is my favorite book pulled open to the best part.  


It is flat, bruised. Nipples like squashed berries on the sidewalk, sort of charred and uncertain.  


I have survived this pain. And my new chest is  
                                                                                                                       beginning

a narrative therapy exhibition

part one.

Debra, my therapist, writes me a letter to prove medical necessity for bilateral mastectomy. I become  a card catalogue of mental distress, two disorders and a dysphoria. The letter calls me consistently  depressive; suddenly, I feel so seen. Why must we demonstrate our unwellness for health insurance  assistance when no man has to take a photograph of his flaccid penis in order to qualify for erection  renewal.

part two.

Strobe light images of sensations and feelings. My feminist hides, squinting every letter into a scared  pill bug. My body is a neighbor I wave hello to, with preference to keep our conversations no longer  than a nod. We pretend we are strangers; it is better this way. There was a time before I flinched. Before  I looked at men and thought about their penises as bullet holes left in women’s bodies. Before what I  wore became a billboard for who I was, how I identified, rather than just cotton and comfort. Before  my dentist declared all the reasons my teeth were complicated derelicts: drugs, lack of flossing, all  those panic attacks and New Jersey water. Before my body had scars named after the men, named  after the meds, named after me. Before that HPV diagnosis. Before that colposcopy where my  girlfriend and I watched my cervix projected on a screen as though it were the star of a new sitcom  about genital warts and bad decisions. Before my body became a crime scene or the DSM-5 or a chalk  outline of a former life or a tear-soaked handkerchief or a protest poem or a ghost or a  misunderstanding 

or a question mark.

footnote

It comes back. It threads itself into the thin skin of my eyelids, jackhammers itself against my chest,  creeps into the wax in my ears. It has been cut out, but it comes back. It has been drowned out with  liquor and hops, but it swims to shore. It has been numbed with powders, chemicals, pickpocketed  medicine cabinets; it keeps waking back up. It. It is genetic. It is unruly, unpredictable. It does not care  you do yoga now or pretend to meditate. It has no interest in what you call yourself now, how you  (try to) see yourself now. It is not going away. It. It stops you from getting jobs, from believing in  yourself, from maintaining friendships, from committing to most things. It starts fights. It. It carries  a switchblade. It. It cannot be quieted by pharmaceuticals; in fact, it dares you to try that again. It does  not cower under doctor’s orders. It hates the term self-care. It is the most persistent part of you. It is  the one element of you that has not given up. It. It. It has locked your doors and windows, so forget  trying to walk out. It reminds you (in case you have forgotten) how worthless you are. It. It expects  nothing of you. It. It. It. It is immune to surgery and sermons. It may will never go away. It. It. It. It.  It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It. It.

Aimee Herman is a queer, nonbinary educator and writer. They are the author of two books of poetry and the novel “Everything Grows”. In addition, their work can be found in journals and anthologies such as BOMB, cream city review, and “Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics“. They currently host a monthly open mic in Boulder called Queer Art Organics. Aimee is extremely enamored with libraries, ukuleles, and the moon.

Hymnal of the Heaven-Stormer | Connor Khalil Marvin

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ 1 Comment
Image: Adismara Putri

Hymnal of the Heaven-Stormer

I.
When God looks into the marble slab of me,
She sees Herself. Chisel and hammer in hand,
She is the One who shapes me, chipping away
all that is not Her.

My insides have grown tired
of this furtive distance.
She’s so close, that’s why I can’t see Her.
Closer to me than Myself.

My throbbing wound, oh my gentle perfection,
dots on a grid. Lines between dots. Rippling,
all glowing, rippling. A single jewel
in a 350 degree mirror. Looking like a net.
I’m caught, gasping for water
as She pulls me from the ocean,
into the blinding light.
There is no such thing as “eventually.”
It has already happened.

I strain the kingdom’s rock.
I lift myself in two.
My armor pales in comparison
to my Self. I’m a pit-mine,
stripped-down for change. I’m wheat seeds,
ground to flower by the millstone of the stars.
When it’s i that speaks, it’s really I that speaks.
Say My Name. Ir-Rahman. My breath
breathes through every living point.
My particle wind, My immaculate gravity.
My hammer made of kindness
meets my chisel made of wine.

Feel yourself baptized,
chisel’s kiss
met
drunken shrine.

II.
When I lay down to sleep I pray my heart stays awake.
Gabriel come and tear my heart from my chest,
replace it with a holy vinyard, so all might drink
and become quenched.
Home is where the heat is
hear the bells ring forest bliss, my God
please hope my supple sin and
consecrate my wand with light.
My God! As who, what voice, where from,
drenched in Sunday, stuffed with lion-blood,
tackled to the brine with fishnet gravity.
Give me gravity. Bring wine to orbit me.
Bring thrones to bow before. Bring doorways
arched filigree, gilded dew. My God!
I remember when Dionysus swarmed.
I remember the ivy on my head. Thyrsus high.
I am a hole in Krishna’s flute
that the Christ’s breath moves through.
Listen to this music.
I am a concert from the mouth of every milkmaid
singing with the myriad chorus.
My aura is drunk. My wake is oblivion.
My tenderest melody bruising hearts.
Make me a vine, make me a grape,
make me a press, make me a cask,
make me a cup, bring Yourself to my lips
so Your taste might stay forever
on mine. Pass me around
this squalid wasteland of Puritans
until reveling takes the night
and lights it on fire. Let the howl
of the Maenads, the Gopis –
frolic and playful, gasping and wild-eyes –
tear down the black curtain
and shred it forever.

Connor Khalil Marvin is a poet, instructor, and ritual specialist based in Golden, Colorado. He currently works as a house witch at Ritualcravt. He teaches contemplative and spiritual practice through his own platform as well as through the Ritualcravt School. He is also a professional Talismaner as Merlin’s Workshop. He has represented Denver at the National Poetry Slam championship four times, and was the Mercury Café 2017 Grand Slam Champion. His first full-length poetry book is out on Albion-Andalus Press, available at most online book retailers. He tries to avoid opinions and welcomes the annihilation of belief by direct experience.

The Fertile Tree | Diana Kurniawan

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ Leave a comment
Image: Joshua Cotten

The Fertile Tree

On barren land at the corner

—————————of a long constant highway 

The Good Samaritan guards 

–————————-a tree of sparse green leaves

A most desired nesting point 

————————— for the American finch across

this homeland of Colorado

– ————————–A mother of homeless avian

The unmarried tree stands tall

————- – — – —–despite the dry gritty street

Finches flock to this virgin mother

————————- the kindling of all avian children

As the single woman without

———————– – –true love nor a loving partner

The tree reminds of the strength

————————- of women with dignified values

Preserving those around her life

—————- – – – —-with a fecund heart and soulful tears

Valor of hopeful spirit undefeated 

———- ——— —– Spiritual Mother of all children forever

Diana Kurniawan is a poet and writer based in Berthoud, Colorado. With by lines from Denver Life Magazine and Longmont Times Call for non-fiction journalistic pieces, she also previously served as Community Journalist for Denver Voice, a newspaper for the homeless. Recent publications include Twenty Bellows and Sortes Magazine for fiction and Ridgeline Review of Eastern New Mexico University and RawLit for her poetry in Spring 2023.

a worm | Yuu Ikeda

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ Leave a comment
Image: Ivan Ivanovič

a worm

lethargic hope
is limping in the bottom
of my mind,
like a worm is creeping
on the floor.
it never allows me
to give up on everything.
it leads me to dawn
again and again.

Yuu Ikeda (she/they) is a Japan based poet. She loves writing, reading novels, western art, and sugary coffee.She writes poetry on her website: https://poetryandcoffeedays.wordpress.com/. Her latest poetry collection “A Knife She Holds” was published from Newcomer Press. Her Twitter and Instagram : @yuunnnn77

Two Poems | Andrej Bilovsky

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ Leave a comment
Image: Bruno Mira

Factoring

I did not see the naked man on King Street.
He was one of those “Nudes for God.”
Instead, Jacob slides in like a snail on pink slime.
wailing, as high-pitched as a gibbon.

He rubs his puckered eyes roughly.
And his jelly-mouth ripples in the clock face.
Five in the morning detaches itself from time.
His kiss unties me though it smells of dead cologne.

I am only here so I can be here when he’s here.
My secret life continues it existence in him.
But he’s kin to a decomposed insect.
I squeeze his innards into a likeness of myself.

Well-Spread

There are parts of me everywhere.
Like curled up on a park bench.
Or preaching the dead cult of sex.
Or naked and looking for work.

I deserve breeze but reap the stillness.
My gloomy fire begins as ashes.
In the reading room of the public library,
that’s my head opened wide at page 3.

Herman Melville spits in my ear.
I follow a handsome man into a doctor’s office.
I slink into a movie theater, drink out of an army boot.
Snow or gay bar, the flakes prove inconclusive.

Andrej Bilovsky (he/him) is a gay poet and performance artist. Former editor of Masculine-Feminine and Kapesnik. His poetry can be found at the Quiver and Down In The Dirt.

Fog | David Dephy

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ Leave a comment
Image: Nathan Anderson

Fog

Fog lies low over the land.
Rain drives soft across the fields.
Comatose landscape.

There is nothing immediate we can hope for,
now we have nothing to do but breathe,
until something better shows up.

We are holding each other,
expecting a miracle at dawn,
as if there were no one and nothing to hurt us.

Beginning in mid-May the nights draw in,
our look turns warm and soft,
the fog passes gently over us,

we’d like to ask the fog—
don’t talk to us, our heart’s been broken,
we can’t listen to you, we can’t see you,

but the fog covers us and says:
I never see myself either,
in my own mind I’m invisible,

that’s why you may feel I’m almighty,
you are like birds, your flight
begins and ends in silence,

you will find yourselves in each other only,
silence is garden, among the growing dreams
and precious wishes

you will discover each other again,
everything that will ever be discovered,
already exists in the mist.

David Dephy (he/him) (pronounced as “DAY-vid DE-fee”), is an American award-winning poet and novelist. The founder of Poetry Orchestra, a 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee for Brownstone Poets, an author of full-length poetry collection Eastern Star (Adelaide Books, NYC, 2020), and A Double Meaning, also a full-length poetry collection with co-author Joshua Corwin, (Adelaide Books, NYC, 2022).  His poem, “A Sense of Purpose,” is going to the moon in 2024 by The Lunar Codex, NASA, Space X, and Poetry on Brick Street. He is named as Literature Luminary by Bowery Poetry, Stellar Poet by Voices of Poetry, Incomparable Poet by Statorec, Brilliant Grace by Headline Poetry & Press and Extremely Unique Poetic Voice by Cultural Daily. He lives and works in New York City.

I ACKNOWLEDGE MY MOUTH WORM | Aliza Saper

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ Leave a comment
Image: Sergei Akulich

I ACKNOWLEDGE MY MOUTH WORM

What do I know of my own tongue and the taste of love?
For one thing, I savor the bitterness of envelope glue.
This is love;
and the metal of minor open wounds in the absence of band-aids or tissues,
and the rim of a water glass that has sat reverently on a nightstand for too long.
All the food I eat on a day when I don’t feel like eating,
and toothpaste…look at me, taking care of myself.

What does my tongue know of me, and the soft skin of my inner cheeks?
The spots where anxiety has compelled me to bite.
Blisters.
Blisters are kind of like love.
Too much friction, and evidence to show for it.
How many flavors of Chapstick?
Where sweetnesses and disappointments traverse the landscape.
An ecosystem within an ecosystem.
Mother tongue.
My mother, tongue.

A muscle strong from carrying all the messages that never made it out of me.
Laced with secrets, and receptors of breaths both known and foreign.
A transformer, look!
Slack, and pointy, and soft, flat, and rigid.
Hot dog!
Clover!
Funny faces are love.

My tongue is well versed in survival tactics;
like, how to breathe through smoke,
and how to hold, and hold, and hold tension.
Braving cold summer snow cones and steamy winter teas.
It maintains equilibrium when the rest of the body cannot.

What does my tongue know of travel?
Having trekked roofs, and hollows, and caverns.
Cavities, too.
A paleontologist in its own right,
and a philologist, and a virologist, and a cytologist.
Knowing of more -ologies than a brain might ever be.
Teaching me, and teaching me, and teaching me.
This is love.

For a prisoner of the mouth, my tongue manages to sustain a taste for life.
For love –
and the bitterness of envelope glue,
and the metal of minor open wounds in the absence of band-aids or tissues,
and the rim of a water glass that has sat reverently on a nightstand for too long.
All the food I eat on a day when I don’t feel like eating,
and toothpaste.
Look at me, tasting it all.

Aliza Saper is an original Denverite, and a wearer of many creative hats. She is the winner of the 29th Paul Rice Poetry Broadside Series Contest, and a 2018 National Poetry Slam qualifier. Currently, she is a resident teaching artist specializing in theatre arts integration; fiercely advocating for arts education, and spaces that support it. Her affinity for self expression, and meaning-making has led her to pursue endeavors in storytelling via the visual, literary, and performing arts. Follow her on Instagram: @aliza_lynn.

glad god said i’m allowed to be alive | Tall City

~ South Broadway Ghost Society ~ Leave a comment
Image: Aditya Vyas

‘glad god said i’m allowed to be alive’ he said to whomever was listening,
sang a tiny song to praise god and included everyone in the room
buildings across the street bathed his armchair in rainbow neon
the combined aura of different advertisements at different distances
he sang a praise song to combat difficult feelings
the neighbor’s little girl asked him not to die until he got older
he promised not to die until he got older
so when she dies, everyone would be there to meet her in heaven
to walk her to her room

he washed dishes and wondered
if they were still rolling dice down the street,
he wiped down dishes and wondered
if all the stores were open,
he found his armchair was a neon tinted throne
his shadow on the floor held a stairway
he knew if he went down into the shadow stairway
he could keep going down forever
he wanted to go up instead
forever
but there was no staircase in the ceiling, not now
god said it was not his time to go yet
god said he was allowed to stay alive

there were just moths there, studying the lightbulb
there were just moths on the ceiling
with crushes on the lightbulb
he was sure the ceiling wouldn’t open until death
he promised her he wouldn’t die yet
she wanted to die now so she could see grandma
he assured her that grandma would still be there
he told her to live a life, find a man, have kids, grow old
she didn’t listen she was afraid of going outside
when she went to bed there wasn’t any music
just her voice improvising praise songs
to combat difficult feelings
he fell asleep before her

didn’t dream of anything at all
every night is a strange mystery
still he said ‘glad god said i’m allowed to be alive’
when he prayed at church we caught his cheating,
opening his eyes a crack to copy our wishes
opening his eyes a crack to check on his own shadow
to make sure there wasn’t a stairway there
to make sure the trapdoor was closed
so he wouldn’t fall into his shadow
and leave the sanctuary suddenly

the streetcorner crowded
the stores still open
the street goes past the bridge
but there it is just factories and warehouses
nobody there are night except those who don’t know what’s going on
the people who stand around like ghosts and
disappear when you turn your head to look

Tall City (Chris Bullock) was born and got bigger on Long Island, New York. He did a few things then moved to Colorado Springs after trying to study in Paris. He did a few things there too, then moved to Denver, where he went back to school for foreign language. A couple of years on scholarship in China, and he is back in Denver.