By NATALIE SACKET & Various Authors
Columnist
There was once a time when poets were the lifeblood of culture and literature; yet now, they receive little appreciation. Well, today is the day to change that!
It’s National Poetry Day. So today we are featuring poetic works by various Northwestern students and faculty. They’re poets, and they know it.
(An) Infinite Matter by Katrina Henning
Do you think the universe wishes she was tiny?
Instead of multitudes, it contained
far less. Surely that memory exists.
Can you imagine one day
it woke up like Gregor Samsa and realized
impossible changes, rapid growth.
celestial flesh expanding,
comets shooting across the flesh like
spider veins, black matter cellulite
jiggles. A tired universe.
Here come another ripple
of supernovas
Her scream is lost in the black, swallowing expanse.
Astronomers, physicists, stargazers
all love the universe’s body;
ever changing and constant.
So many gaze upon many folds
sighs real universes have curves.
Big, beautiful universe.
The universe awaits death.
Glass Box by Dalton Imberi
I come home every day and I see her in that glass box.
She knows I’m on the other side peeking in seeing if she’s okay.
I watch as she puts that needle in her arm
I scream, I yell stop.
I scream, I say Claudia stop!
I scream, I yell stop!
I scream, I yell Claudia stop!
Why do you do something like this to me?
Knowing I’m on the other side of this glass box, but yet you don’t stop!
I watch as you put that needle In your arm and that pipe up to your mouth.
I watch as you consume a waterfall of liquor and a mountain sized pile of coke.
But what can I do from the other side of this glass box when I yell stop!
But you don’t listen.
I watch as everyday you waste and fade away.
But I promise you that I will cleanse the corruption from your soul.
But as of now, all I can do, is scream and yell.
Stop.
Half by Dr. Richmond Adams
Doc Willoughby drank in Shinbone, so Feeney told.
A lot, too much, not enough: he remembered.
Said Gettysburg, half a sentence, remember?
Hancock, Meade, Chamberlain, the 20th Maine;
Pickett, Longstreet, Lee, 1 PM on July 3. Drink some more,
Doc.
Boone in Stagecoach. Holliday in Tombstone. Lake in Fairfield.
Mandalet: books and wisdom. Practice for the young, they don’t remember.
Trescott and Henry. The Monster is, was what? Drink some more,
Doc.
Even John’s wall of paper. A sentence, half without mate.
Doc Willoughby drank in Shinbone. Remember Gettysburg?
“Two hundred and fifty amputations in one day.” Sawed, cut, “next” like demons.
The screams never left. Drink some more, Doc. He remembered.
Doc Willoughby drank in Shinbone.
I Want the Woolf’s Best Coat by Patricia Pixler
The psychosis won’t be felt.
So long and my love, dear.
My favorite spot.
I don’t want the ice, but I like this tomb.
Better than marble and needles.
They lobotomize me, dear.
Don’t tell me they won’t.
The voices —
too loud to lie.
The stones twinkle,
diamonds in salvation.
I’m sorry, dear.
One, two, three.
I don’t bother counting.
Our World is Not a Play Thing by Natalie Sacket
I hold the world in my hands
My middle finger on Finland
My palm covers Paris
Nose grazes Greenland
I give the globe a spin &
Hope you don’t get dizzy.
I squint and see you &
I wonder if you see me too.
But you can’t, & my
tears form your oceans.
The flutter of my eyelashes
causes crevices.
My fingerprints are your cities.
Distinctly me, yet I only
see spirals.
I gently set you down.
Don’t roll away.