Poetry Submission from B. Hannon

Brigid Hannon is a writer from Buffalo, NY. Her poetry and short fiction have been featured in various online journals including the San Antonio Review, Ghost City Press Review, Soft Cartel, and Queen Mob’s Teahouse. Her first collection of poetry, A Lovely Wreckage, is now available on Amazon.

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Ozone

It’s a million degrees
because climate change is real
and I am sweating salt and water
over half-dead old men
who think they know better
than well trained scientists
and me
who did a project on it in 11th grade.
Thank you, Mr. Willis Carrier,
for your ghostly breeze that cools my skin
but kills my electric bill
further contributing to my own
carbon footprint.
A catch 22 just to stay cool and I
take my heat-induced anger and
point it at politicians who won’t fix my planet.
I could fry an egg on the sidewalk or
brew some tea in the car but
instead I bitch and moan because we’re powerless,
really.
I can recycle my cans and
conserve my gas and
ditch plastic straws but
if we don’t do it together,
we won’t do it at all.

Agony, Indifference, Forgiveness

Agony
like the pain in my side-
it is a thorn that stabs me and
sends me reeling.
A prick of blood and I feel faint,
as my world evaporates.
I reach out-nothing.

Indifference,
on most days,
it is nothing
not even a pebble in my shoe
but then, unbidden,
arrival,
as I feel my muscles tighten
and bones ache
desperate and pleading for release
from these shackles I’m bound in.

Forgiveness
of sins so varied,
I pride myself on my strength
in times like these
but fall to pieces
like my heart
when attacked with these thorns.
My blood runs rivers red
and I bathe in its crimson waves,
a slave to a memory I can’t erase.

The Last Time

It feels like
the last time I
took pen to paper,
I was brainstorming a book
feverishly in a midnight rush-
thirty days to pen an opus.
I was scrawling ink over page and
twisting my brain up in my plot lines
and word webs,
clinging
to time restraints
and caffeine binges.
It got me thinking about
the last time I
took pen to paper,
I was scribbling a poem for no one.
One day,
I took it out to play,
typed it up,
showed it sun.
One August morning
with an October breeze,
my little poem burst forth
to the world wide web and
it reminded me
of the last time I
took pen to paper,
I was writing letters and
practicing my perfect cursive,
ignoring my usual scrawl
for impressive handwriting
my teachers would have appreciated-
those letters,
long with loneliness,
more silly scribbles
from selfish small self and
it brings to mind
the last time I-
The last time I…
The last time I.

A History of Writing

Once I tried to write a book
but reality got in the way and made me a
plagiarizer
so I figured I would keep my characters
for later but
then they all died in my head.
One was shot down while another killed himself
and two more had heart attacks
waiting to be put into prose but
I gave up because I was scared
that no one would buy what I was selling.
When I was nine, I wrote my first story and
my mother told me I deserved the Newberry which
is a lot to put on a kid
but she’s my mother so she must be right.
When I was fourteen, I wrote a poem
and the world tipped on its axis because
I could churn those out like a factory line,
yet chapter four always eluded me.
Later I was bit by that bug and
poems gave way to scripts as I typed words
into the mouths of speechless characters and
I felt like God creating the universe.
Still I struggled,
not feeling safe in these heaps of verbiage.
I remember being young and remembered for my words
but now no one knows me and I
hide myself behind these dark drapes.
Trying to find the light again,
I crack my office window,
letting sunlight play on the gold wallpaper
and breath fresh air into my lungs.
I try to type a sonnet for you but fail
for you are too beautiful
and my words are too dull.

Poverty Line

Once, when we were poor,
we had no lights and no heat and
a cheap two bedroom where
both sides of the tracks were wrong.
We ate rice and canned chicken and
watched Friends in the garage,
where the power lived.
At night, it was cold, and you snuggled me close,
promised tomorrow would be better.
And we were happy.

Once, when we were poor,
we were homeless the morning of my 33rd birthday.
For the first time I didn’t know
where I would lay my head,
but you, my survivor, my provider,
my superman saved the day again.
You found us a place to be,
and that night I lay in your arms and
thanked God for a crappy motel room
on a dark highway, and you…
and we were happy.

Once, when we were poor,
the lights were off again and we
sat and talked by candlelight about
how someday we will win the lottery or
I will publish my book or
you will find the right job.
We will never lose the light again.
We will never have to hide it from the children,
never have to lie to avoid
telling them we can’t afford whatever
new notion crosses their minds.
We dream of days when
we can give them everything they dream of-
we dream of days when
we can say to them
once, when we were poor…

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