What I Don't See by Connor Kaplan

 

What I Don’t See By Connor Kaplan

The golden coast and all of it beauty.

Miles of coastline that change every

 time you turn the corner on a cliff wall.

Perfect, soft sand cascading on the beach.

The green hills dancing to the song of breezes.

Where it is always sunny even when it rains.

People who have it all. People with white smiles.

A place where artists, actors, and music

makers can go to and become a star.

What is a star anyways? A light ball?

The creator of life and destruction?

The object that commands us to wake up?

One of billions upon trillions?

This is what the people see their eyes.

What I see is different, I see the truth.

The beaches covered in trash and seaweed.

Beaches with rocks and driftwood creating

a dangerous but awesome place to surf.

The white sands littered with birds and people

all fighting for a spot to relax on.

The city has a brown cloud over it,

created by the millions of cars

forever driving in circles just to

do the bidding of their masters wishes.

The hills are only green to the wealthy,

everywhere else the brush is yellow,

causing fires that eat away at the

cities skin. The winters are just as harsh.

The oceans breath sweeps through the great valley

like a hurricane over Florida.

It does not rain often but when it does  

the streets flood carrying the land with it.

The rest is a desert with sand made of

 concrete, metal, and nutrientless  dirt.

The people are hard working are not

famous like the world believes we are.

This is what I see through the smog and lies.

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What Did You See?

BY FANNY HOWE

For Peter S.

I saw the shrouds of prisoners

like baptismal gowns

buried outside the cemetery.

On the canvas frills exhaled

singed wool and cardboard.

The angels arrived as lace.

Took notes, then stuck. Awful residue

from a small cut.

                                 •

The veil has been ripped from the skin

where it was burned in.

The skin is the veil, the baby-material,

imprinted on, as if

one dropped the handkerchief

and it was one’s wrist.

The cuff is frightening.  

Stuffed onto oil.

Water-stains might fence its ghost in.

                                 •

“The barbed wire complex”

I understand.  

Winged and flattened

at the same time, poor things!

Some leftover specters of blood.

Remember Blake’s figures like columns

with heads

looking around for God?

When events are not as random

as they seem.

                                 •

The article of clothing

is only half there, it’s not full,

but when it falls forward, it is.

Terrible emptiness of the spread

neckline and little sleeve.

Half-cooked squares.

Was this religious fire

and is this where it passed?

Maybe they are floating on water

of paint, pool-sized,

blue and ridged like foam.

You would have to fly

to see them flat as a map.

The rib and hem. Rained on

for eons. Noah’s children’s

floating forms.

                                 •

Angels die?

It’s a frightening-miracle

because here they are.

The Upper God

has let them drop

like centuries into space.

And I recognize them!