Bad Poetry Night in Hackland!

Hello Hack Fans!
Here it is - as promised. The No-Talent Hacks take a swing at pretend teenage poetry!
Keep in mind the youngest member of the Hacks is 27.
(Bonus points to whomever guesses which one of us is 27!!)
(Pete - you don’t count, you know the answer. Thanks for playing though!)

Sunshine and Light
By Matt

Why does school have to be so crass?
My entire life ruled by the hall pass.

Across the street the slackers smoke
I envy them their lives without care

My parents are always in my hair
I’m just not good enough
Does anyone here care?

My soul is ripped.
My mind a waste.

Why’d you leave?
I hate you



Grounded
By Marcy

No one listens to me
It's like I'm not even here
A voice in the dark
Faceless
Formless
Sound from everywhere
So loud it becomes nothing
Background noise
I am static
I am wind
I am the grinding screech of a dot matrix printer
Annoying
Repetitive
Obsolete
And they tune me out
Nothing I say is important
So I hide in the dark
Soundless
Barely breathing
And I scream



SOUL SQUISHER
By Dave

Crippled cockroach climbing
warily, gingerly, erratically
up the basement wall
hanging on with
furious insectoid desperation shrieking
I am more than vermin
I am life
I am your soul
Suddenly it topples
dead as a dead bug
How do I pay it due tribute?
Choking back a sob
I squish my soul



Angst
By Allison

No one understands
the dark
I'm here alone
without him

I felt the fear
of losing
I tried to fight
it won

Now my life
gray, torn
No one understands
I'm trapped

There is time
now for
breaking free from
the dark



Title: Combustible
By Bryan

The universe has swallowed me
wallowing in the haze
Shut me out don't let me in
shout at me my name
Am I girl? not yet a woman
Mother of the cosmos, speak
I will hear you and come
the class bell rings but I wait
to hear you speak once more
Shut them out don't let them in
My mind is yours, my womb is mine
The universe spits me back out



A snippet from a love poem
By Kris

"Watch me and take it
as I extend my love.
I'll only give it once."



The meeting
By Matt

You said meet behind the bleachers
I was there for hours
You never came
My tears were fertilizer

You were my idol
For you I'd do anything
Did it make feel good,
Your little prank?

My dreams were crushed
Life is over

I hope you enjoy the flowers



You Know What You've Done
By Dave

You've put it all behind you.
Such a luxury.
Such effrontery.



Breakup Haiku
By Marcy

Back of the school bus
Track meet races on outside
I cry tears alone


Waring souls
By Marcy

Who will win the long battle
Chuck Norris or Screech
Only Pete can tell

Honoring the voice, celebrating the sacred space

By Allison


Saturday morning and the sky is crying, sheets of icy rain are bursting out of the gray. I sit snug in front of the fire, contemplating Marcy’s post, missing Don and thinking about voice and expression, art and literature. Don, by the way, (the hack without a picture – my bad) is working in the rain to create the sacred space for us to honor the voice.

When he leaves, he says, “write.”

There is so much I must not do: Worry about what must be done, stress over piles of work sitting on my desk in the newsroom or censor the wild voice that informs the writing. Censor her and she’ll rear her ugly head and roar, leaving fragments of drivel on the page.

Where does she come from, that voice? She is the one who says things I would never say out loud. She frightens others – she frightens me sometimes with the things she says. That’s what I like about her.
She’s the mystical, magical unconscious and she’s like driving from one place to another and wondering how you got there. She’s like mining for gold.

I will spend much of the day immersed in the letters of Virginia Woolf. The Bloomsbury group – Leonard and Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Lytton Strachey, Virginia and Clive Bell – they honored the art and the voice. They communed in their sacred space and made their passion, their art, the focal point of their lives. Minds, bodies, souls. They said, “This expression matters.” They said, “This is what we are called to do.”

The studied and critiqued literature, wrote and reviewed and celebrated. Through the madness and the pennilessness, they persevered for the art – for the voice. Don and I envision our sacred space much the same – our hack group, though lighthearted, honors our expression by honoring the voice.

Dishonor her and she falls silent.