A Poem: "The Bones of Winter"

It is as if everything dies at once; together in a quiet leave.
The morning after is silent;
All the leaves have fallen- lush branches now skeletal and frail.
The symphony of birds, the whisper of warm winds,
The performance of waltzing trees,
Disappear into a realm of cold forgotten.
A heavy air, a crueler weighty sky
Burdens a now deadened terrain;
A season destroyed to make way for another.
This vale of grief shrouds the earth in sables
Where we will have to wait to be children once again.

A Poem: "Quiet!"

O Sorrow! O Sorrow!
In the night you sigh so deeply,
In solitude you breathe a cold air of sorrow, sorrow.
On the crimson fields, autumn’s undress, you weep; weeping
While no sun shines, shining on your tears tearing-
Tired, cracked cries from a suffering mind.
O who is it that squeals, whose voice forms such wretched wheals?
With sorrow, streaming sorrows, choking themselves with feral cries?
O shameless mass, brooding howler- O preacher of sickening wallows-
Away with you! Desperate despised, demise your sobbing yelps!
O shadow, masked by the loosened night- At dusk your modesty revealed
And no longer may you shout,
Of Sorrow! Sorrow! Sorrow!

A Poem: "The Cellar"

The Cellar
By Jenna Reimer

I cannot sleep in this room, dusky and humid,
Cloud like patterns of mildew smears the ceiling,
Cobwebs homed in corners,
Broken and drooped,
Lolling viciously like sultry vines.
Windows bared closed hindering the outside,
Only slivers of light break in
Hunting for the living.
Smells of mold and dampened sheets,
Dusky air all lodged within this bounded room.
I gasp amongst an infected space,
Soaked and weak in gilded sweat.
Nothing could survive long in here;
Even the floor planks are on their last breath.

The I-95

It was only coffee and cartons of cigarettes
that fueled my dad to his next haul.
My childhood memories are muddled,
saturated with visions I choose to remember;
trucking with him is one of them.
Driving deadly back roads
to avoid the weight scales,
the smell of his Copenhagen chew,
dashboard cleaner, the diesel smoke
rising from chrome stacks,
the pine scented air freshener-
these annoyances to others
were only calming to me.
Proudly sitting in the plush red passenger seat
I would outline the small dessert etching
he engraved himself on the window;
a howling coyote, a desolate wasteland,
an eclipsed moon hidden behind murky clouds.
It was those moments I was completely void
of all thoughts of home.
The paved road was the very thing
that silenced that anticipation of the becoming.
The road ahead merges with the semi’s hood;
a blurred vision of concrete and sky
become all to comforting.
I always felt I was one of them, a trucker.
Never putting out or giving in to nothing,
remaining a lonesome soul just to get by.
I longed for the empty diners
where you get a plastic monkey
hanging off the tip of your drink.
Where everyone you meet has baggage,
waiting to unload onto anyone who’ll listen.
Where, during a brief rest break,
you become best friends
with the man sitting beside you,
knowing every detail of his life
down to the final wishes in his will-
this all reminds yourself others exist.
I was too young to ever understand
where we were headed, or why.
All I knew was the I-95 was long,
and you always had to turn back home.