Union Weekly ASI - California State University, Long Beach

It's okay if you didn't know it

Times are tough. We’ve got to prioritize things here. Poetry? Get rid of that. What kind of jerk can afford to be creative in this economy? That was a trick question. You can! Right here! Much as a mother might cherish and comfort a sad, ugly, child, the Literature page welcomes your written work with open, loving arms. Featured below are poems by three student writers who stand as living proof that art isn’t quite dead and that it’s at least still twitching a little bit. Follow their lead and send in your creative writing.

ALSO NOTE: Poets roaming this desolate earth in search of like-minded people should be aware of a newly-sanctioned campus group, HipPoetics.

Illustration by Katy Parker

LOVE STORY

By Jessica Meisels

This is a love story.

It involves a girl, a serious case of writer’s block,

and a magical place called Yogurtland.

There was once upon a time,

when I decided this should rhyme.

It’s a tale about a girl,

who can’t think of a word, so let’s go with whirl.

She was eager and open-eyed,

for LA took her by surprise.

Gyms people actually use and Hollywood sets,

but there was someplace she had not been yet.

She had come to find true romance,

yet still nothing had made her heart dance.

She’d met boys and seen the clubs,

had Jack in the Box, but it was no home pub.

Then suddenly, out the corn’ of her eye,

YOGURTLAND, the locals had cried!

She ran in, and by golly they were right,

so THIS was the love she had been looking for her whole life!

Mint tea, cinnamon, French Vanilla and cream!

And then there were the toppings, which had yet to be seen!

Chocolate and mango and cookies galore!

How come no one had showed her before?!

So she raised up her spoon and devoured a taste

and made sure that not one drop went to waste!

The abundance of flavours swirled, soothed and sang,

it was a likened to a sweet culinary gangbang.

And so it became, in this wondrous new land,

the girl had decided to make a firm stand.

To devote her life to great tastes, love and laughter,

and so, she and Yogurtland, lived happily ever after.

This is a love story.

It involves a girl, a serious case of writer’s block,

and a magical place called Yogurtland.

There was once upon a time,

when I decided this should rhyme.

It’s a tale about a girl,

who can’t think of a word, so let’s go with whirl.

She was eager and open-eyed,

for LA took her by surprise.

Gyms people actually use and Hollywood sets,

but there was someplace she had not been yet.

She had come to find true romance,

yet still nothing had made her heart dance.

She’d met boys and seen the clubs,

had Jack in the Box, but it was no home pub.

Then suddenly, out the corn’ of her eye,

YOGURTLAND, the locals had cried!

She ran in, and by golly they were right,

so THIS was the love she had been looking for her whole life!

Mint tea, cinnamon, French Vanilla and cream!

And then there were the toppings, which had yet to be seen!

Chocolate and mango and cookies galore!

How come no one had showed her before?!

So she raised up her spoon and devoured a taste

and made sure that not one drop went to waste!

The abundance of flavours swirled, soothed and sang,

it was a likened to a sweet culinary gangbang.

And so it became, in this wondrous new land,

the girl had decided to make a firm stand.

To devote her life to great tastes, love and laughter,

and so, she and Yogurtland, lived happily ever after.

SOWING

By Steve Bessette

Sitting with psychology,

reading with Steinbeck,

gathering and treading the remains of my existence,

the pressed organics of my being,

the whispering doubts and cautions of my self.

I sit and heed the union of fields,

the crops growing between toes push upward,

straining and straggling, sideways and longways.

I capture no hearts, no smiles,

I see contentment resting on the horizon.

My eyes hurt from staring.

I see effervescent spots

where things once were,

where love once captured,

where the warmth of my insides

exuded through the crackled follicles of

my bland scrutinized orifice.

I see and I bleed.

Too bloody to stand.

I’ll lie here under the golden wheat

and see which crop I grow into.

“AM I TOO SMELLY?”

By Nicole Street

The back of my middle-aged right hand

presses into the curve of his underarm

resting, warm, safe

he asks, “Am I too smelly?”

I breathe in, facing him

just inches from the source

of his natural scent

We are both sleepy

my left hand feeling the rise and fall

of the day in his chest

while the rhythmic pounding of his heart

slows to a calmer pace

I think about his beautiful day of living

I think also about the dead

returned in flag draped boxes

and the uniforms arriving home

laundered and neatly pressed

I read once how a woman buried

her face in one such uniform

expecting to be refilled

with the scent of her fallen soldier

and felt betrayed

I snuggle closer

attempting to weave his essence, this hour

into my memory

How, then, should I answer

when he asks,

“Am I too smelly?”