Blazon exercise-a list poem for the beloved

Jacob Partlow

A Lover’s Note

Her eyes are as blue as the deep sea

As green as the fauna

As warm as a hot cup of tea

And as eager as the approaching dawn

Her smile is as white as snow

As brilliant as the stars above

As subtle as the ground below

And as pure as a dove

Her hair is as dark as the moonless sky

As fluent as waterfall

As short as a second gone by

And as delicate as a china doll

Her skin is as pale as the moon

Her lips are as red as wine

Her posture straight as a clock’s hand at noon

And her heart beats as if it were mine

Mandeep Chahal

It begins with

her hands,

ivory fixtures carved by Michelangelo himself

suspended by distant oceanic veins, like roadways home.

the lines on her knuckles, permanent and weary from the repetition of movement

her fingers themselves, like souls that trace her stubborn hair as she

summons her very own existence

It begins with her hands but it is really

her skin,

the porcelain chamber that catches filtered light

soft, and untouched

delicate, but sure, a sari wrapping and holding her together

her neck, a pedestal

holding this face, enveloped and surround by

the cascade that is her hair

catching the light

and reflecting the gold of the sun

high, up on her cheekbones, are constellations of freckles,

a mythology yet to be discovered

if only Orion and Dorado had been there to see the making of

this face

her eyes, like nothing else in this world

the shore of a place far from here

that carries heavy sapphire stones

across the banks of the whites and

into her soul

this face, enveloped and surround by

the cascade that is her hair

catching the light

and reflecting the gold of the sun

I would often like to rest beneath her eyes

and trace her petal lips

before they fall and met my hands,

her hands.

it begins with her hands

but I find myself assured it's her all.

Stephanie Martin

His toes are hairy, like an animal’s.

His feet are large, much like a clown’s.

His legs resemble a supermodel’s: long, too thin

(Except his have hair).

His hips are angular – they jut out like the coffee table that surprises you in the dark.

His stomach is a flat, hard expanse, like cardboard or glass.

So is his chest.

His shoulders house arms as long as tree branches.

His head sits on his neck, just like everyone else’s.

His lips, his cheeks share the color of the rest of him

coffee overwrought with too much cream.

His nose protrudes, like a fairytale witch’s.

His eyes, his hair, the color of dirty rainwater.

However, all things combined make for something much like the saying “greater than the

sum of its parts”. And the parts, and the sum, I am lucky to call mine.

Sadhna Samantarai

He caught me with his gently pressing tongue of steel dipped in poison

His tongue of saintly curses and sweetly tainted lies

He caught me with the cipher of his mind, of sensible rationality,

A mind that finds and defines beyond all confinement

He caught me with his warm freshly-scented blanketing arms of comfort

He caught me with his flexing stonewall arms of passion

He caught me in his soft, worn from labor and soap hands,

His smooth as the spotted pebble at the bottom of the creek hands,

His callused bear paw hands

He caught me with his spices and honey voice,

His bass to my treble voice,

His voice of war drums and charming peace offerings

He caught me with his sea-deep eyes,

His green with the forever-ness of an endless field of evergreens eyes,

His puppy dog trusting eyes

He caught me in the bars of his caging lashes

He caught me with the passing breeze from his showcase racehorse legs

He caught me on the tall shoulders of a sycamore tree,

On the broad shoulders of a battered castle,

On the bursting shoulders of giants forced into dollhouses

He caught me in the flowing rivers that spiderweb his wrists,

In the scar that runs its vertical track three inches down his left eyebrow

He caught me in the sprinkles of freckles that liven his boyish face with joy

He caught me in the blades of grass that form each brow into a solemn manly arch

He caught me in the rise and fall of the tides of his back

He caught me in the comforting curve of his neck of grandmother’s hips

He caught me with a chest of a wide mother tree trunk, withered yet fierce after hundreds of years

He caught me in the intricate labyrinth of his untidy raven hair

He caught me snared in the rose’s thorns scattered on his cheeks and chin

He caught me in the dark chocolate warmth of his sculpted body

He caught me in the devilish smirk dancing on his angel’s lips

He caught me in his angel’s lips

He caught me in his lips

He caught me

Kelley Paugh

My beloved reptile, Blues Traveler

Your fingers borrowed a frayed section of spider web as their base

And grafted on gnarled chicken claws for finger tips

The space between your eyes is a child’s slide off your nose

The same eyes that are olives removed of their pimentos

And are split into two hemispheres by the slit of a cat’s eye

You have nostrils that are the holes poked into a microwaved potato

And are also caves nestled in the peak of Half Dome Mountain

Your skin is of a baby with jaundice

Haphazardly spattered by black ink

Your age is a redwood tree 1,000 years in diameter

With many years left to grow

Your elbows are ball bearings textured with rust

Attached to the weathered handles of boat oars

The bumps on your flesh are bubble wrap

But also sprinkles on an ice cream cone

With scales that are ridges in clay

Your stomach is the soft, white belly of a harp seal

With your innards visible through x-ray

Your tail is a malformed sausage

Or even a finger with a tumor in the middle

Either way, your tail is a plump fruit advertising ripeness

Bridged to the body by a fallen log

Your movement is a snake swimming upriver
A worm perpetually wriggling into a tight hole

Your mouth is the mouth of a pink oyster shell

Hiding a tongue of stretched salt water taffy

Your ears are shallow roadway tunnels through a skull

Emptier than my feelings could ever be for you

Your head is a lumpy heart-shaped rock found on the beach

That some may argue whether it is actually heart-shaped or not once found

You are a leopard of the desert

Faster than the sunrise that colors your exterior.