three am and Other Poems

By Hannah Kulick

three am

it’s three am 
&
stale coffee runs through our hands. 
we own the night. 

it’s the stars as seen from a truck bed
in a yellow-grass valley, the rain 
as it leaves dark beads on foggy glass, the wind
as it shrieks, 
lifting branches, rustling greens. 

sleeping forms coat the invisible earth
as if floatin over an empty plane
of chill. dead in their silence, their blindness,
ignorant to all that is. 
 
but we grasp palms tight
&
i can feel my heartbeat
pounding through both of us,
drowning out both of us; we hold on –
the dying to the driftwood –
for it’s the only thing that feels real
the only thing that we can feel -
our only respite from this constant plague 
of shade,
of dark,
of night.

Light and Snakes

Oh! How fleeting the length of light!
A mere moment before darkness spreads its thick coat,
So sudden, it’s not oft’ noticed before it’s gone.

For the old snake keeps twisting forward
With its emerald scales, fangs of stone,
Stopping for no brazen quip or groan.

And we all bow down,
Lest we become another victim, 
Left to lie forgotten on the rigs.

All the while, light is shifting,
And though we be not blind to its patterns,
We have no care to see them,
And thus, it spins.

The View from that Window

The sun is a smile 
Dipped-in-gold beams, chasing 
Souls to catch eyes
And trap them in patterns
Of electric blue spots.

Dull clouds
Of dry rain
Envelop the sky –
That looming being above –
But life still hits the roof.

Behind that pleasant way,
Heat waves leave in wake,
Storms litter stands,
And in midst of the ball,
Thunder bellows; beings die.

Raspberries and Rum

They say the center of our galaxy 
tastes like rum
and raspberries.

I want to taste it one day.
Inhale
that intoxicating drink.

To bite off pieces,
devouring their sweet, drugged
rush.

To unstrap my core from this fatal orb,
to go up, up, up
past

the eggplant waves,
the malefic shards,
the navy wash,
through the silent nothing.

Until I reach
the central radius of dust,
raspberries and rum,

golden rouge rose.
So far, I will go
if only to brush
these colorless lips of mine
against raspberries and rum.
Even if only for a glimpse
of a moment, I shall feast.

The point where 
nothing lives,
there,
I would feast,
if only.

whispers of midnight

midnight hands held at dark
a whisper, a brush of touch
soft skin under the pure moon

hidden in sweatshirts
cool air biting exposed eyes
breaths in tune to the same melody

lips part, as if to speak
close again – there is only silence
silence, and the faint whistle of calm through the trees

a legacy, interwoven with the stars
epiphany - her gleaming guarded face 
calligraphy the story of the heart

the pier

winter moonlight soaks
voices of a crowded beach -
melodic nightmare!

Hannah Kulick is a student currently living in Michigan. She is an emerging writer with no previously published works. When not writing, you can find her sipping a steamy cup of green tea and listening to classical music.