ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Madeleine Corley is a poet by internal monologue. Some of her favorite things include acrostics, the word “nefarious,” and her roommate’s dog. She serves as the Poetry Editor at Barren Magazine. Her work has been featured in DARK MARROW, Moonchild Magazine, The Hellebore, and others.
Poets Resist
Edited by Kanika Lawton
June 30, 2019
Edited by Kanika Lawton
June 30, 2019
life sentence
I start each sentence like I’m guaranteed
another. They keep lamenting last summer
and I believe them even through this rain
I don’t mind it this island will never stay
warm the second paragraph following a description of
The Great Barrier Reef: scientists are doing everything they can to
stop the bleaching I look at my teeth in the mirror
shining bright dead coral pressed together they scream
silent pass like a billboard shouting hell on
the highway I wonder how much tar they’d find
once they juice me of my smiles — enough to fell
an ocean ? But this winter was so much colder so you can’t
say it’s warming I too have argued with air so in my next
life I’ll come back as phytoplankton but next time with mouth and next
time with hand shovels and next time with matches
I stoke with my vowels and my words boil
to exclamation point and my consonants leech
from newly beached lime and you realize hope is
not enough to breathe
“Life Sentence” was my processing of someone saying they didn’t mind the warmer weather if it meant better summers in Ireland (where I’m currently living). I wrote this as a response and a reminder to myself that hope can not fix our current predicament. Phytoplankton makes a lot of oxygen for the planet — the conversation between speaker and dismisser plays on the idea that oxygen grows fire and therefore world burning. So the more we talk and don’t act, the closer we are to flames.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
