VOICEMAIL POEMS

1. Trigger happy target

2. Archangel of the burnt and bruised

3. Newport ash on a papi store floor

4. Pants way passed where his mama taught

5. It’s my car sir

6. Ocean front scalp

7. Jesus in hiding

8. Unintentional vaudeville show

9. Fireflies in his palms

10. A friend’s blood

11. Tomorrow’s bedside prayer

12. Tonight’s prime time special

13. It’s just my phone sir

14. I just want to go home

15. I didn’t ask

16. A gunpowder freestyle

17. A stained glass dice game

18. A white man’s orgasm

19. My hands at 16

20. His voice before the shots

21. Stop sign eulogy

22. Mom alone in the chapel

23. No angel

24. All blood

————————————–

Dagmawe Berhanu called us from Philadelphia, PA.

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Sometimes I wish I could stop you from talking

when I hear the silly things you say

Alison, I know this world is killing you

Oh Alison, my aim is true

- Elvis Costello, “Alison”

I was named for a catcall strung out into three verses and a chorus Ballad

drowning in mystery fansites say she’s a pretty stranger his eye caught

at the grocery store maybe an ex-fling scraping out a fetus

with half his DNA Elvis Costello says my aim is true

he might mean it literally No one wastes time on what Alison might say

but I am Alison so to Elvis Costello to anyone

who has ever claimed to love me

Take my name out of your mouth.

Your eyes lied when they looked at me

and told you muse Damsel I’m the troll under the bridge

Asked for peace Got this trap, trap trap Every echo

hissing my name in a hated cadence saying: we sing because we love

Who wouldn’t want a passion sharp enough to carve the melody of you

into the air? I was a child the first time I was dragged from my body

and into verse the first time someone thought their love meant

they could take my name bend it into a circle to crown them prince or

failing that martyr against the heresy of my refusal

I ran into the arms of a boy who never sang did what Elvis couldn’t:

gift me a contagious silence whistling a hole through my head

to land in my own mouth I survived him only to stumble through more poets

stitching me into metaphor muting me to make way

for the romance they knew they deserved If I were love, I’d say:

take my name out of your mouth Set it ablaze I would rather be ash

than what you’ve made of me

Alison means “of noble birth” A princess of course needs not just a hero

but a narrator Her voice only good for singing to the forest creatures

The moral only ever Sit Wait Someone will love you

enough to speak for you to dirty your name

What a happy ending.

————————————–

Alison Kronstadt called us from Boston, MA.

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A few years ago a machine peaked into my head

and found a section dead.

Most likely from a lack of oxygen in utero,

but really, that’s speculation – what’s done is done

and there’s no undoing it. Like when I was eighteen and

someone pilfered the contents of my lingerie drawer.

They took it all: the see-through, the satin,

the blood-spotted cotton panties and all the socks and bras.

It creeped me out, but I cared less about how it all went missing

and worried more just about their being gone.

————————————–

Kelly Jones called us from Burlington, NC.

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For Owen Steinmann (2016-2017)

Sugars trickle from maples’ taut trunks, sapping

summer energy, the crystallized light of wanting

to stay alive. But what melody the drops make a man

from a pulpit always says as they leap out the spout,

percuss the bucket’s galvanized bottom. Yes, such sweet

vasculature and saccharine, this living always

toward death. He calls for recalling thinner times,

the feel of liveliness not yet stuck in the spiles

and given up. Forgetting doesn’t rid

our bones of any ache. Look—I’m trying

to hold open every leaking word all winter long

but this bark cracks, defenseless against air

and overfull. For each legible ring,

more lost. For each lived ache, a flume

of language unspun by air among us.

————————————–

Katherine Indermaur called us from Laramie, WY.

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I finally want to talk about it

has taken me a decade more

than most and all my wisdom

teeth have fallen victim by now

there is a draft buried beneath

this you will never know of

a pleasure of released dioxide and

simile I don’t write because

the block asks I do this out of

an empathy for myself, a backlog

of tears and this body knows that

the deal is ending soon it just thinks

it can wait out having to pay

the delivery fee and this is just

like me to go on and on nodding

to the tune of ephemera in my head

without letting go I can count on one

hand how many fingers I have lifted

to speak to my grandmother or

times I even perused a bible yet I

could tell you more about how

many times I opened my mouth

for favor this week alone.

————————————–

Olatunde Osinaike called us from Nashville, TN.

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…july.

wilted cereal in a bowl / we

drown in brown boiling milk.

the haze of sparklers and fire-

works add to the deafening heat

that drips into

august.

caged in by smog,

air smells of cigarettes and melted tar.

surely this place is meant to

ignite.

september,

when he arrives,

he thinks this is a flat plain,

where desert dirt covers everything like snow

and sweat is meant for breathing.

but then-

october,

and the devil’s breath laps up lotion,

claws skin with its vicious teeth.

yowling roofs beat whoosh and

bend of threatened windows.

tree leaves sound like ocean.

stripped-dry littered bare limbs.

the hard ones snap, ripe for a switch.

usedtabe gangs of tumbleweeds ran the streets;

now, solitary wadded balls of rootless limbs roll by.

november

is a postcard miracle,

surrounded snow capped crisp sky

where our eyes hang glide like eagles.

we perch low in the valley shadow

straining to see

the walk of fame.

sunset and hollywood.

palm springs.

peer into the pier of the pacific.

every mountain peak is

paramount. he says,

if it weren’t for the devil’s breath,

i’d never know

where we are, and

just how beautiful

————————————–

Romaine Washington called us from Rancho Cucamonga, CA.

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The eyes have it: weight, such that they can’t even roll.

This is one of those moments when I should probably listen

to my body but you know how it goes when someone talks

too much for your taste (coffee, sir?). There’s lots of work to

do today. There’s money to be had and even more easily lost

like a sensible child to the pursuit of higher learning after

high school. Time is really something, isn’t it? Death is

entirely something different, but I don’t believe in dying

in the sense that I haven’t done it yet, so I’m unsure if I can.

I’m rather incompetent when it comes to handling important

matters and a de facto doctorate in the trivial; I’m always

the trial and I’m always the error. If ever I’ve felt content,

maybe even happy, it was a glitch. And then it was gone.

————————————–

Cortney Lamar Charleston called us from Jersey City, NJ.

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brilliant elixer

fuck me up

fuck me dead

why does

academia

hate me

i’m ready to

sacrifice

my body

to a career

something

boring like

teaching teenagers

why romeo and

juliet did or

didn’t die make my

grandparents proud

of me again

i pour this

into my glass and

pour my glass into

the bathtub full of

rejection letters that

call me ‘jessica’

instead of

jessie

this is the year

of being normal

let’s get married and

request fuzzy bath towels

let’s get married and

i’ll wear the white dress

and makeup

and smile

for 12 hours until

my teeth fall out

or my chin

rots academia

what did i ever

do to you would

i not make you

proud either

are you scared

of me am i

not worthy enough

to pay you to

rub me raw

kill me deader

than i already am

academia all i want

to do is

walk down your

pathways and

smell your

million dollar

flowers i am not

so full that i cannot

hunger i am not

so tired that i

cannot stay up

for two years

straight

in this scenario

you are my grandparents

and you are proud

of me and i am

sitting at the piano

with straight white

teeth and slender

fingers men can be

proud of and i never

get too drunk and i

always stay

in this line in

this scenario

we never fuck

up we never

drink

the sun on accident

we never forget

to turn faucets

off magical

drinkable liquid

elixer

you promised me

more than this

————————————–

jessie knoles called us from Bellingham, WA.

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I was on my back that morning

standing still & running

half-turned, fetal &

spread eagle

& curled up

along the edge

of the hospital bed

and the doctor says

“It’s time,”

& I already know because

it has always been

time, time to push & she

is explaining to me

how to push, how to

undulate you from my body

& as she explains

I bring my chin to my chest

even though my chin was already

there & had never been there

& never would be

just like you were already there

& had never been

& never would not be there

because I already knew & know how to push

& so I push & was pushing because

I’d always been pushing

& you appeared

blue and be-limbed

because I push you there

right there, little boy, into the world

& onto my abdomen

right where you’d forever

never been before

and after amen.

————————————–

Laura Davis called us from San Francisco, CA.

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Our hosts Logen Cure and I.S. Jones review their favs from our Winter 2018 issue!

(Get caught up on Winter 2018 here: soundcloud.com/voicemailpoems/sets/voicemail-poems-fall-2017)

This installment features poems by:

Kirwyn Sutherland

https://soundcloud.com/voicemailpoems/taunts-to-the-klan-by-kirwyn-sutherland

zach blackwood

https://soundcloud.com/voicemailpoems/whelp-after-aziza-barnes-by-zach-blackwood

Sam Rush

https://soundcloud.com/voicemailpoems/sonnet-for-trans-lifeline-february-2017-by-sam-rush

Music by TrueKey. (@truekey).

>> The deadline to submit to our Summer Issue is June 1st:

http://voicemailpoems.org/call

>> Help us made more of these by supporting us on Patreon!

http://patreon.com/voicemailpoems

>> Review us on iTunes:

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