We go to a Halloween party,
you dressed as a panda,
me dressed as a panda
researcher.
The party is awful.
The toasted raviolis
are just wet umbrellas
full of meat.
All the zombie celebrities
remind me that death
is close at hand.
Death is in the closet.
Death shouting
out the window.
I want to leave,
but you don’t.
Then there is a loud noise
in the attic.
You go into the kitchen.
I lower the ladder.
I ascend.
My heart is beating
so fast I think it might be
a wolf racing through a glen.
On the last stair,
I step up and peer
into the blackness.
Behind a beam,
the panda sprawls
just as expected.
He scratches the wall,
drags himself along the ground.
I take out my notepad,
and begin furiously scribbling.
Down in the kitchen,
I can hear you flirting
with other partygoers.
I know it will hurt
to lose you, but
I have a higher calling now.
I can hear my parent’s
disappointed voices.
They spill into the air
around the panda den.
They dwindle in the distance
until they are one
melodious hum.

Image courtesy of George Lu.

The post Panda Party appeared first on Big Lucks.

When the expression of desire

is new,

we make the same mistakes

a candidate makes.

We listen to them

over and over.

It’s a

clever therapy;

it’s a

tangible,

objective fairness.

The lawn mower

is a violent

omnivore;

my son says grass

for the first time.

Image courtesy of sorbus.

The post Mistakes, by Chris Tonelli appeared first on Big Lucks.

The Future

You Are an Island

Image courtesy of Dirk Duckhorn.

The post 2 Poems by Mathias Svalina appeared first on Big Lucks.

and if one is running, all objects
appear blurry. I do not understand
how I see some movements of your face,

and not others. I know
in each flinch, you are telling me
something. I have forgotten what to ask

because now there is nothing but
questions. In an ocean, I can’t see
the drops of water and also,

not the salt. Once you described
my temperament as salty, and not
in a kind way. Similarly,

my nose is longer than yours
and I never knew to feel bad
about it. For I was born innocent

and stayed that way until only
recently. So I define innocence
in my own way and refuse to listen

to people who pay no attention
to how I like to be spoken to. I learned
to be demanding from the Lord, who asks

a lot of me. If I disappoint him, it is only
because at night, I’m too tired. It is at night
that the Lord wants my courage,

and he brings his creations to my door
to test me. I send them away
with words, but often I fear

that they will send me away
and live in my house where it’s warmer,
since the human home is the envy

of creation. We use our homes to advertise
our blessings. Yet creation does not feel blessed
and someone told me that’s our fault.

Image courtesy of itchys.

The post “We Have No Instincts, Only Legs To Run On,” by Hannah Gamble appeared first on Big Lucks.

We’ll get a pair of those half-heart necklaces so every ask n’ point reminds us we are one glued duo. We’ll send real letters like our grandparents did, handwritten in smart cursive curls. We’ll extend cell plans and chat through favorite shows like a commentary track just for each other. We’ll get our braces off on the same day, chew whole packs of gum. We’ll nab some serious studs but tell each other everything. Double-date at a roadside diner exactly halfway between our homes. Cry on shoulders when our boys fail us. We’ll room together at State, cover the walls floor-to-ceiling with incense posters of pop dweebs gone wry. See how beer feels. Be those funny cute girls everybody’s got an eye on. We’ll have a secret code for hot boys in passing. A secret dog named Freshman Fifteen we’ll have to hide in the rafters during inspection. Follow some jam band one summer, grooving on lawns, refusing drugs usually. Get tattoos that only spell something when we stand together. I’ll be maid of honor in your wedding and you’ll be co-maid with my sister but only cause she’d disown me if I didn’t let her. We’ll start a store selling just what we like. We’ll name our firstborn daughters after one another, and if our husbands don’t like it, tough. Lifespans being what they are, we’ll be there for each other when our men have passed, and all the friends who come to visit our assisted living condo will be dazzled by what fun we still have together. We’ll be the kind of besties who make outsiders wonder if they’ve ever known true friendship, but we won’t even notice how sad it makes them and they won’t bring it up because you and I will be so caught up in the fun, us marveling at how not-good it never was.

The post “Best Friends Should Be Together,” by Gabe Durham appeared first on Big Lucks.

Poets should get back to saying crazy shit
All of the time
I am sick of academics or businesspeople telling poets
What we should do
A poet is a scientist
To favor poetry
Or science
In that both relate to Buddhism
However, both are things that melt
A purple haze or dawn
What sunken in
Always a shifting mood,
But it’s true, I love you guys and gals
Of the wood and word
Let’s say whatever it is we please
We don’t have to defend anything
It is our God-given right to declaim
No, let me start again
It is our universal law to speak
Not an actuary to measure how thin
The arguments of our verse
To say we make a treatise in language, no
No we go on living and living and living on
That’s beautiful, and poems are, too
Poems and shells
These little nothings I pick them up
All the livelong day
They are the signposts of comfort possible
To smooth the jagged edges
Of this worried traveler
That’s what poems should do
And that’s what poets actually do
Damn light
Always going on in my face
I just want a poem to speak of
So I go on and on
Into the night
And the townspeople, they say to you
That they may have seen
A monster
But no no I was only the dawn

The post “What poets should do,” by Dorothea Lasky appeared first on Big Lucks.

My father finds your pictures of the rabbits going at it absolutely breathtaking. The dog, relieved, licks himself clean. Meanwhile, a woman who is not my mother whispers my French-ass name with a Polish accent. Reading the braided scars on her neck, she can’t seem to get the sound of kicked stools out of her head. Gówno happens, I should know, but even it should not happen in such a concentrated manner. What can you do about the fences, she asks me, but I can’t answer. Instead, I ask her if she has ever played Tetris before–it’s all the same, really, fitting one body on top of another until the whole pile bursts into smoke. Where she’s from, they don’t differentiate bodies, use metaphor. How like you, to still be here, to be still thinking of the rabbits.

 
Pic courtesy of pageinfinity

The post To the Animal Activist who “Liberated” our Backyard Last Night appeared first on Big Lucks.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so
materialistic & then I think, well,
that would be depressing.
Because nice things are nice
& I like them, crunching them up
in my hands & rubbing them
on my cheeks & even biting them
a little, sometimes. Just at the edges.

It’s not like I’m an evil sheikh
rolling in money or anything.
Or Kim Kardashian.
Kim Kardashian would probably have
twenty asses if she could, just for the joy
of owning twenty asses. I totally
understand that joy but I want you to know
that I don’t need the joy
on that scale. I just need good-quality
sheets & in-style jeans & cute teapots
that will fill me when I look at them.
Just let me have my little red teapot
of joy. I promise I won’t let anyone
toss it into a landfill when I’ve used
up all its shininess. I swear it.

Image courtesy of Eva Rinaldi.

The post Twenty Asses appeared first on Big Lucks.

Where are you tonight, my personal party?
You’re like a can of beer shining behind a waterfall.
Shadows, harder than the buildings

they emanate from, lean on your tits.
Only the weight of your clothing
is keeping you in this world.

I swear: when you leave me alone,
every part of my body
is having its own nightmare.

But the night can become mystical
if you ask it to. Might you like
a mystical night?

When you see the stars
and everything, do you think
how important we are?

Image: courtesy of Tal Bright

The post Shade appeared first on Big Lucks.

I spend my free time
being creepy to bike messengers.
I spend my free time
writing poems about
being creepy to bike messengers.

My bike was stolen last week
I need to date— maybe Frank—
to snag some wheels,
learn how to dreadlock my hair.

When I can’t find dreams
I climb onto my roof,
listen to someone else read poems
in a voice I want to speak.

If I could purchase second-hand skin
I would leave that Tracy to pay the rent,
float a boat to a Costa Rica
and survive on fruit and sunshine.

Image courtesy of Graham Coreil-Allen

The post A Poem to Pass appeared first on Big Lucks.