Joy Magi writes: "I live in downtown Santa Cruz, California where I am privy to an entire spectrum of lifestyles and realities. Santa Cruz has a large wealthy population coexisting with a large homeless/traveler population. The first poem pertains to that aspect of living here, and the second I wrote while studying outdoors at UC Santa Cruz, a campus of forest coexisting with ocean. The last five poems pertain in most part to my experience as I neared graduation from UC Santa Cruz and prepared for the prospect of creating a 'legitimate' existence."
Rain
Are you cooling the ground we
walk on?
These subtleties of nature
thorns twisting
with meticulous care
all done for you and me and
(that guy over there?)
some people are
lying naked, warm
in bed
others watch another
rainy day turn to
bitterness, in this
a cold night
that is the way
things
are
so don't complain
when we scurry about,
behind your back
for hurried answers
to eternal
questions
What is this fog blanket creeping
Pass the time
Proudly breeding a nation of
strange people talking at me
this is not the end of it
I'm thinking of heading
upon us?
My hair before my face
screaming crows
their vaguely human laughing
surrounds me
This shiny stone
a reminder
of the million year sea
up here in the dirt and trees
the clouds are being
sucked up into the
dangerously blue sky
I write to you from where I
Live.
Inkling
behind you
(no time for watching
stars)
blitz
whole days
and tell them
to meet you
in paintings
where no one
can find the introvert,
where
unclear messages
both conceal and
reveal shadows
of
you
University
hopeless (romantic) individuals
How is that any
better than leaving
our fate, passed out
in the faltering hands
of Grandpa Congressmen?
With too many faces showing need,
it is easier to wrap up
what's already in place
with newer, prettier paper
than to make something new.
On the bus
I looked backwards, toward downtown,
toward the ocean,
and was
actually looking ahead
while heading up to campus
heading up to leave
and the whole world was
momentarily at my back
for the last time
Picture frames
People talking backwards to
take the mileage off
freedom from sanity
yes
sacred.
Pass on
to the ocean
to spend the rest of my life
so I won't have to appease
these gods any longer
I can finally please
me
You bring me closer
and move further away
swiftly
reaping
sugarcane as you
pass on
All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway2001. All rights are reserved. See main Journal page for copyright information.
Authors and poets submitting original materials to this journal retain all rights to their original work, except those rights specifically assigned in writing to Solo Publications including the right to publish the submitted work in The Central California Poetry Journal. The poems on this page are copyrighted by the author. Copyright © Joy Magi.
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