Author: Marcelle Newbold

Hardened Clarity

Danny Fantom

In the hands of desperation
crystals are transaction pieces
for a mystical barter, between
our spirits and Our Gods/Ancestors/Selves

Rose Quartz to love myself once more,
as I once did long ago in a threadbare memory,
Angelite to pretend I was pure, untainted,
by smog and existential despair,
Volcanic Rock to protect myself from the
demons I flirt with in inexorable pitch black

I collect them like credit, at first pleading, earnest
ceremonies and rituals, devoted
to their secrets, their powers, their cures

Then patient, grim, anxious, I demand from them
things I have no true ability to give, nor did they,
the sum of all my hopes, delusions, crashing
into the shining, popular illusion of comfort

Shattered, I lock them away, the sensation of
nostalgia bundled in orange silk, patiently waiting,
abundantly forgiving even choked by
shadows and frankincense

I pull them out one day and lay them all out,
arranged by type, shape, richness of memory,
and realize their true power comes from me

Danny Fantom

Equestria

Sarah Beck Mather

In the eyes of your surfaces
The cartoon pink collection
I see my face –
On the periphery
Dropped in puddles.
When he read the story to me,
I dreamt of twinkling lights
Eyes shaped like oranges
Honied surfaces
Sparkling beams.
As his hand held mine,
I looked at the Smokey light
Beaming from crystal –
Jagged edges, (split)
Hard corners
But soft lines
And felt at
Home (for a day).

Sarah Beck Mather

The American Style

Jesse Breite

When color comes through
the windows—red, green, blue,
the picture pieced together
is always a shattered scene.

Even revived, cathedral glass
is never quite healed by the light.
But this—no brittle crazy glass,
this—the brushless milky opalescent

plating of Louis C. Tiffany
who knew, unlike his father,
that the only jewel was
light breaking through light,

that glass could be the paint,
that it could feather, ripple,
flash with every dimension
of distance: Louis Comfort

who knew the Hudson River,
heeded Ruskin’s call to return,
brought back the Golden Age
with pursed lips on colorless faces,

made his name a brand—his brand
a promise that we would never
be alone in steepled buildings
of cherrywood and Gothic stone.

Jesse Breite