Peop Papers

by Mohammed Azme Khirallah

The world is being cruel to us. Why? Everyone uses us to do different things, and they don’t have a clue about the way we feel when they throw us in the garbage. Inessential! Yes we feel inessential. These people don’t know that every time they throw us in the garbage and run out of me; they go and kill our mothers. They destroy where we came from. There is no word that can describe the way we feel because this world made us forget how to feel, enjoy our life and be happy.  In contrast, a few people are trying to help where we came from and reuse us for good. They usually collect me and my siblings and gather us in one place and reproduce us and sell us to people. We don’t mind this type treatment as long as our relatives and mothers are safe. We love to help people since we were invented, but they also need to know that where we came from is more important than their business.

Wall

I stand there
watching,
listening in silence,
separating space
into worlds
while being part of them.
I may have a portal
that leads out of a space
into another,
or allow eyes to wander
out of my bounding presence
to what's beyond.
I can display whatever is hung on me.
Sometimes, in some places, I am transparent.

Keychain

Despite most of my days

spent in darkness,

people open up to me.

I live with my brothers and sisters.

We keep each other company.

With our pierced eyes,

we bare our teeth

and turn again toward darkness.

Write Something that Begins with My...

Write a poem or a story about a person. Each line should begin with My...

My Brother

by Ahmad Alony

My brother always ends up changing his mind whenever I am winning in an argument.

My brother and I love to spar in boxing, and he always floors me. My mother never finds out.

My brother is a year older than me, and he is still in high school.

My brother loves the automotive field, and plans on building his muscle car.

My brother and I love to cruise around the city with his Honda MR-V, whilst enjoying our favorite fruit cocktail.

My brother and I always end up playing a Call of Duty session together as soon as we both come home from school.

My brother and I love to play Memory Lane by NAS in the car whenever we are hyper.

My brother and I hate talking about politics because it always ends up turning into a verbal fight.

My brother and I have completely different tastes in clothing, he prefers black-everything, and I prefer Jeans and colorful tops.

My brother always copies me by running to the kitchen to make himself the same exact sandwich that he sees me eating.

My brother has sudden mood swings in the morning because he doesn’t sleep enough the night before.

My brother eats 3 fast food meals per week and never gains weight.

My brother always smells dishes that are new to him.

My brother likes to grow his hair to the point where his ears are not visible.

My brother got arrested once for fleeing the police with his car.

My brother and I shared an epiphany after watching the film Inception together.

What Have You Lost / Found

Write about what you have lost OR write about what you have found.

I lost my job at a bookstore.

I lost my job at a bookstore.

My boss thought I had taken money from the register.

I lost the address of my Big Blue Marble pen-pal in Malaysia.

I had written to her for many years,

And then not written to her for many years.

I lost many friends in the same way:

Aaron from Ridgewood Court,

Eric from the dorms at San Francisco State,

India from Oregon,

Michelle from Headlines.

I am lucky that I haven’t lost their names yet.

I have lost some of those.

I lost my prescription Ray-Bans with the red frames.

Someone took them out of my 1993 Honda Accord,

Which Angela had forgotten to lock.

I lost the chopsticks she bought me in the year of the sheep.

I told my son I lost the flags he had collected,

But I had thrown them away.

Write an Alphabet or "First Time" Story / Poem

Write a poem or a story in which each line begins with a letter of the alphabet. OR write a poem or story that describes the first time you did something. Try to capture all of your senses.

by Louis-A Thomas.

Among the stars in heaven,
Beautiful planets were born.
Colorful and shiny even.
Darkness is very stubborn,

Ephemeral entity of the night.
Fearless spirit there,
Gaze at the wonderful light.
Hovering the sun’s fair,

Incredible sight!

Junipers of the sky,
Knights of the empress,
Lovely? I can’t deny.

Milky Way shows her velvet dress. 

Neon dust fill this empty space,
Obscure, limitless, and cold.
Peace rules the place,
Quarrels are only for the bold.
Ravishing the mighty and eternal,
Sound galaxy of providence,
The “premium” solar system,
Unique,  glitters in silence.
Venus is the brightest planet above all.

What a marvelous show, when
X-rays from the  mother Sun,

Yellow or blue, every now and then

Zooms on the young planets awoken.

We hadn’t eaten yet.

by Bob Marcacci

We hadn’t eaten yet.

There was a problem at the airport,

All noise and lines.

Angela stayed in San Francisco.

Vito and I left without her.

Vito cried

When he realized she wasn’t going with us.

I cried

Explaining it to him in a way

A four-year-old could understand.

It was hard to understand at forty.

We held hands

When we landed in Doha,

The first time we saw land in Doha.

My ears popped.

Vito turned to me.

He asked if everyone lived in sand houses.

“They’re all brown,” he said looking out the window.

I said, “I don’t know.”

We didn’t know

How hot it was in July.

We were finally here.

by Mohamed Zehni Khairullah

Alphabetical order story

Baked and made like a delicious muffin

Crusted with chocolate caramel and peanut

Dried on the sun and it is ready

Eaten by a chubby kid starving the death

Factoring an equation was the way he chopped it

Gathered his stuff and went outside

Hot weather made his lips dry

“I loved the muffin” that’s what he said

Jelly strawberry jam was placed in a sandwich

Killed it with one bite and it is gone

Lemonade was his dream now

Moon light appeared and still walking outside

Narrator to tell him a story was hard to find

Opened a heavy bag and suddenly found

Pond with fishes and ducks

Quarter past 10 was the time

Rested for a bit and then continued his journey

Stuttered for a bit and did not speak a word

Turtles started to appear from that pure pond

Umbrella was carried by it

Vibration action led his body to shake

Wallet fell down and got lost

X-ray vision used to find the wallet

Yawning and almost fell a sleep

Zipo lighter helped him find his way

Write a Found Love Poem / Story

Write a poem or story about love using the words from a book in the library.

It has been said

that it is a net,

a cultivated plant,

a habit,

most remarkable

concept,

an engraved motif.

But, It could be

curiosity,

anticipation,

a heart beat

a thousand excuses 

to linger, talk

a religion.

Words taken from the book Number by Midhat Gazalé.

primitive roots
relatively prime little circles
relationships
in other words
residue sequence beads
preceded by x
in Arabic
may satisfy expression

in light
of an uninterrupted fragment
you eventually reach
a point God made
exhaustion of an infinite
knotted rope

Mornings. Nights?
Days. Years.
Nothing changed.
Everything changed.

I do not know myself.

I have no energy
to pluck the cactus
out of the ground.
Plant seeds.

Grow anything
unprickly,
that swings in the breeze,
wilts without water.

He liked cactus.

Now that he's gone
into an eternal somewhere,
I like watering them.
Drowning them.