Stuart Canton Hosts / OPEN MIC
Brandon Lule is an student at Sacramento State University pursuing an MA in Creative Writing. He is also the design editor for the Calaveras Station Arts & Literary Journal. When asked by his fifth grade teacher if he wanted to grow up to write he answered something vaguely affirmative. Now he knows there is nothing else he would do with his life.
Deserve
Collared Shirt with a coke in hand
talking to T’s
Front lawn seance
conjuring spirits of the little kids
the bounce house boxers and pinata pickers
still problems
not yet the parents
Never mentions school but wears it
kneading the can in hand
crinkle
and calls
one wrong word
Tight T with beer in hand
propped up by a collared shirt
Dead grass hell
Conjuring the spirit of the bigger kid
the bounce house burster and pinata puncher
The problem
parent
Never schooled and wears it
needing a can in hand
crinkle
and catches
one wrong word
Hector Maldonado was born and mostly raised in Sacramento but has spent some of my life in Mexico. He didn’t learn English until he was 5 and it’s still a struggle to understand or to articulate big words, but no matter how bad he was at understanding English one thing he loves to do is write. He feels like “when I write, I’m a different person.” He joined this competition because he wanted to see what his writing skills were as his dream is to write a book. After this poem competition, he is now reading more books just so he can get an idea of how to start.
Demolition walls
By: Hector Maldonado
My foundation is stable, yet I may fall under within seconds. I’m moving so fast, but I still feel like I’m standing in the same spot. The center of gravity is nowhere to be found and I don’t know where the ground is. I’m floating and I’m sinking all at the same time. I’m
surrounded by transparent walls with no shades of color whatsoever, and even so, I still don’t know what’s on the other side. I look around and I can’t find an exit, I don’t know how long I’ve been here and yet I don’t want to leave. This feeling, this space, is so beautiful; words will never tell the secrets this place hides. It’s like as if I entered into a portal where reality and fantasy meet as one and I watch earth on the sidelines. Time does not exist here, because when you feel like it’s been hours, in reality it has been only a couple of seconds. Right when comfort comes into play and I touch these exotic walls, the space that keeps me in place gets tighter and smaller. All of a sudden everything is closing in on me; I’m losing focus, I’m no longer stable,
what’s happening? I close my eyes and black is all I see, there’s no longer air, I can’t breathe, suffocation is all I feel, I have no foundation, I have lost myself, I lost my portal, I sadly,…. fell off my board. As the waves push me to shore, all I can do is just stare at my horizon into the abyss and think, “oh ocean, how much I love you.”
