July Poetry Submissions

July brings a crop of new poetry from our readers and writers from around the world!

Thank you to all who submitted their work. Stay tuned for next month's writing and poetry prompts!

Summer Road Trip

Somewhere, sometime,

I’m in a car in summer

on the forever journey,

taking the pilgrimage north.

The world is scored

by the ever-present hum

of wheels on pavement,

the pitch demarking counties and states.

Desserts go by.

Trees go by.

Desserts with trees go by.

We only pack the essentials:

cookies, pillows, and

a thermos full of ice.

And cassettes.

Carefully organized tapes

of Juice Newton and Billy Idol,

the now Geneva-banned

Yentl soundtrack.

My slump of a teenage brother

contributing Dead Milkmen, B-52s,

the much-debated Police.

Time is meaningless on

this forever voyage,

but he always leans.

Leans on door handles,

against windows,

through the seat partitions,

forever leaning,

decades only stealing in

through his accessories

and the number of times

he sighs.

(The guitars are supposed to sound like that.)

Mom, the stalwart captain,

drives. Keeps driving. Drives some more.

Sunlight in her eyes,

dusk falling about us,

too early for words,

Mom drives.

She sings. She points out geology.

She makes every road sign

a member of the alphabet.

Mom drives. Ever onward,

on the endless road

hurtling toward mountains,

toward horizons.

She drives.

I puddle. I squirm.

I push the seatbelt

past the edge of

factory specifications.

I pull countless distractions

out of a backpack

too big to be carried by me.

I stack the pillows,

I alphabetize the tapes,

distribute the cookies,

monitor the ice,

count the miles,

count the minutes,

wait.

Try to wait.

Try to wait one more road sign.

Before asking to stop.

Before requesting an ETA.

Before huffing and whining

and wondering out loud,

will this go forever?

Because of course it does.

It’s endless.

Somewhere unseparated

from the reality of time,

it’s always summer,

and we go on,

in the humming car,

in the heat of the sun,

on the forever road

of the eternal journey to Denver

we go on

every summer.

— Anne Trominski

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I've spent months writing this. 

I don’t know what I did today. 

I don’t remember today, 

I remember typing and typing and then erasing and starting over and typing again. 

My friend tells me I have time to finish it.

But every fiber in me is telling me it has to be now. 

The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t get them out. 

I haven’t slept. 

I write another line;

The words are there, I just can’t find them. 

But the words are so close. 

I ask her for help. 

She wants to know what I’m writing about. 

I don’t know. 

But the poem is in my mouth,

I’m practically screaming it. 

I need to eat. 

But I have to finish. 

There are so many words to say 

And not enough time to say them. 

She tells me I need to stop writing about so many dark things. 

But I’m not afraid of the dark,

I have no real fears but somehow fear is all I can feel. 

This poem is an ocean, 

I am walking on its surface, dipping my toes in but never becoming submerged. 

I look for my words in other poems 

As if someone else can somehow explain my thoughts better than me. 

They still don’t make sense. 

Nothing makes sense. 

And I realize it’s because I’m trying to neatly describe something that can’t be neatly described.

— Grace K.A.

---

Broken

Broken like a bird with a broken wing

Even a missing feather

The poor little thing can't fly

I feel broken

Alone

Unloved

Not able to fly

I am the bird with the broken wing

Broken Alone

— Sherri Rabinowitz

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Photo: Pushkar V on VisualHunt

There’s nothing left for me here Just broken pencils and crumpled papers. Boxes left unchecked, Questions still hanging in the air, waiting to be answered. Are you persistently tired? Check yes or no. Do you feel sad and hopeless?

Indicate whether this occurs some of the time or most of the time. Do you spend hours writing words you don’t understand so you can understand the thing inside you that makes you incapable of understanding anything? Mark yes or no. When was the last time you slept? I can’t answer. I am not tired, I am not tired because I can still recite this poem. Are you going to do something? I don’t ask what something is and she doesn’t tell me.

I provide no answer and she seems to accept that. What’s wrong? There’s nothing to say. Nothing is wrong. Yet, there is nothing right here, Just notecards filled with different words and equations all bearing the same question:

What is the point? I spend days trying to figure it out But I never can. I come to the conclusion that there is no point. I am like this because I have to be. There is no explanation, no God pulling the strings. It is just me.” — Grace K. A.

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Terrific submissions for July! Thank you to all our poets!

Please submit your original poetry, and we will publish it next month on Flapper Press!