Poems read on the air, to show form:
I Don’t Believe in God But I’ve Been Brought to My Knees Before (Original)
I sank to my knees
on a mountain top,
when I looked out to see
what must have been the entire world.
My hands stung,
remembering the sharp rock,
but I’ve just begun
feeling the earth beneath me.
Soft lips trace lines around
where cold hands first felt warm skin.
Each kiss moves farther down.
My knees buckled from the heat.
I knelt in front of a canvas
covered in a million brush strokes.
I stared at the lines until they vanished
and I was painted too.
The universe has a lit to say
if you know how to listen.
You can’t learn a language in a day.
Kneeling, I study physics.
I want to put the solar system in a mason jar.
I want the galaxy for a night light above my bed.
I think the lungfish somehow knows the stars.
My soul is godless, I know nothing of worship.
I’ll die quietly, hidden by flowers and tall grass.
I’ll slowly fade away.
No grave. No epitaph.
Nothing at all after very long.
I Don’t Believe in God But I’ve Been Brought to My Knees Before
My hands sting
they remember sharp rock,
but I’ve just begun
to feel the earth carve patterns in my knees.
Soft lips trace lines around
where cold hands first felt warm skin.
Each kiss well beneath my own lips now
my knees buckle from the heat.
I knelt in front of a canvas
covered in a million brush strokes by a genius years before.
The water in my eyes washed away the lines
and I was painted too.
There Once Was A Star Inside of Me (Original)
The sun slips from the sky
into some other sky beyond us
I’m afraid of the dark
but I like the quiet
I like the still air as the earth sleeps
but I can’t see
my own hands in front of my face
my heartbeat is a rhythm
I no longer recognize
it heats my blood
beneath my fevered skin
gravity pulls my inside myself
a supernova
The sun is is ripped from the sky and strung
onto a string around my neck
it’s never dark
but the sun is a fire
so hot that it screams
—the hum of a power line—
times a million times a trillion
ringing in my bones
so loud my ears can’t hear it
as it burns a hole in my chest
gravity pulls me inside the sun
a black hole
The Star Inside of Me
The sun slips from the sky
into another sky, on the other side
as the earth rolls over in bed.
There is no head resting
on my pillow,
my mind is running west, after
the light.
My heart murmurs
its anxieties to me
it heats my blood
as my head spins,
gravity pulls me inside myself.
A supernova.
The sun is is ripped from the sky and slipped
onto a string. Around my neck
to keep the dark out.
But the sun is a fire
that screams at me
—the hum of a power line—
times a million, times a trillion.
It rings in my bones
instead of my ears,
maybe I don’t have ears anymore.
It burns a hole in my chest
until gravity pulls me inside the sun.
It’s a black hole,
a lost light.
Pour Me Another Glass of Last Night (Original)
Bruised blossom
in a blue bouquet.
Liquid love song
in a glass,
in the cracks
of her chapped lips.
Still wet, still
soaked in the taste
of her last sip.
Still drenched
under the waterfall
of the way you whine
when you want to touch her.
Only lace
on her skin.
Lace over velvet
under the tip
of your tongue,
the tips of your fingers.
Each swallow
sways through her
until her glass sits empty
and the chalice is full.
Pour Me Another
Blueberry bouquet
and notes of lavender
that swirl into
a symphony,
liquid love song
in a glass,
in the cracks
of her chapped lips.
Still wet, still
dripping with the taste
of her last sip.
Still drenched
under the waterfall
of the way you whine
when you want
to touch her. Now,
only lace
on her skin. Only
lace over velvet
under the tip
of your tongue,
the tips of your fingers.
Each swallow
sways through her
until her glass sits empty
and the chalice is full.
Twenty Twenty (Original)
worn souls wander
over cobblestone,
the journey continues into january.
rows of rosed
bloomed on my cheeks
when saint valentine said I love you,
but the roses took root
inside of your lungs. each breath
is one million
thorns beneath your chest.
with march came the epidemic.
I looked through a window
and saw you.
not outside, but two-
thousand miles away.
a seashell from you
broke in my suitcase.
we’ll be apart
all of april, social distance
and a sip of
champagne.
Twenty Twenty
worn souls wander
over cobblestone,
the journey continues into january.
rows of roses
bloomed on my cheeks
when saint valentine said I love you,
but the roses took root
inside of your lungs. each breath
is one million
thorns beneath your chest.
with march came the epidemic.
I looked through the screen
on the window
and saw you.
not outside, but two-
thousand miles away.
a seashell from you
broke in my suitcase.
I found fragments
of lazy sundays
and twenty-first
birthdays over
the phone.
we’ll be apart
all of april,
social distance
and a sip of
champagne.
Monarch of Empty Treasures
Put grains of sand on a string
around her neck,
around her wrists.
Call them pearls.
Put coals on a headdress
on bands on her fingers.
Call them diamonds
call her a queen.
Put her words
in the back of the book,
Call them lost gems
call it a graveyard.
The First Time I Saw You Cry
You are more
naked than you have been
before. I want to hold you
but the fire from my heart
found its way to my
fingers, I keep my
hands at my side.
The white-blue glow
of your laptop screen
casts the left side
of your face a weak ghost
and the right side into darkness.
Until you reach through
the universe between us
to touch my hand and burn
your own. Love is
etching itself into your
skin and bones
and you’ve got your own fire
now. I’m more naked
than I’ve been before. You
commit an act of love
so true that it’s violent.
Sophia Penney 