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This is our coach, Brian Omni Dillon. He is one of the most amazing, prolific, talented writers and performers in the spoken word community today. He is a member of the Intangible Collective. He was a member of the 2010 NYC-Urbana  National Poetry team. He is also a very happy drunk. He writes some of the most ordained shit on this Earth. He also has wonderful bone structure. We call him Papa Bear. He has taught his cubs to wield fire very well.

No Gravity

The tenth girl after you is how I found myself saying these things.  It took me two full years to get out from under the weight of you. To find a way to live without wearing ax-shadows like ceremonial necklaces. She reminds me of what it was like to first love you. She smells different. Her hands are smaller. But she catches fire like you did. We are all smoke and wood-pop. Her eyes look like planets, like yours. She makes me feel like gravity is the best liar. She reminds me why I loved you everytime her mouth opens. Every inch of it is a mural in neon. A symphony of paint and torch.

The ninth girl after you is a mother. Like you are now. When she shows me pictures of her son I didn’t flinch and sputter like I do with photos of yours. She and I never named your children. Never argued playfully about how early I could teach them to skate. I never slept inside of her shoulders. It was just wine and tongue. Sloppy, stupid, temporary.

The eighth girl after you is clit-ring, cocaine, bar-fight. She is pornography. She is the part of you that invented itself in our last months. She’s the filthy you. The one desperate to save us in our fourth year sharing a home. Uses her face like a parachute. Her chest is a trampoline. Her mouth is an airbag. She got as much respect in the end as you did.

The seventh girl after you is a decade my senior. Shes a bright light in a mine-shaft. She kisses me like she’d swallowed the still-living wrist of an addict. Like my face is a poppy plant. We are elephants feasting on bush meat to survive a drought.

The sixth girl after you is a totem. An east-river bi-plane on the fourth of july. She wears black like shes seducing the scythe. Always on the way to another funeral. Her body is a comic book. Her skirts are wreaths of flame and her boots are soled in bone. You loved her poetry. So does everyone else.

The fifth girl after you is Egypt thick. She is jeans to the ankles in the bathroom. She is vomit in the bedsheets. She sucks dick like her life depends on it. It does.

The fourth girl after you is an angel. She didn’t mean anything by it. Like you, shes in love now. Shes. Square-peg. Square hole. Like you she wont answer my texts.

The third girl after you is cut from a wall of cedar. Shes prettier than she needs to be and she knows it. She’d only kiss me in a corner and would still slash out the bulb with a switch of black hair. She doesn’t deserve me.

The second girl after you is a panther punched against the wall by the crack of lighting. A white light artery in the midnight’s arm. She is so small and dirty I wear her under a thumbnail. She has the voice of a thousand trees. She’s the brick wall I smashed this vehicle into when you left me. Every bit of friction in our laps was another syllable in a goodbye note. I am the suicide calling the car crash an accident. Im the whiskey breath and the wheel. I am the indent her teeth left in her bottom lip. Im a reason to cut yourself.

The first girl after you was a cake-shaped wound in your thigh. Shes the reason your sons were named incorrectly. The reason they don’t have my hair. The reason I wont be invited to a wedding id just ruin in a spill of bourbon. I do not blame anyone but myself. Your sons are beautiful. They will be great men. Your eyes are still planets. They’ll always be planets. Im a fucking spaceman. No gravity. No gravity. Your eyes are planets. Your sons should be grateful for them.

This is Danny Fox-Moles. We call her DFM at SLAM NYU. DFM are not merely her initials. It’s also her title, such as “Dangerous (on a) Fucking Mic”. DFM is more like a system of believing, not just an incredibly beautiful woman who happens to write the most OHMAHGAWZAJDFASDOFAFJFDGHSODF poetry you’ve ever read/seen performed EVER. She makes us believe that we poets are not bad boyfriend/girlfriends, that Bruce Springstein’s pants are super important, that there is a metaphysical cowboy inside all of us, trying to lasso all of our human parts and make ‘em whole again. 

You Should Fall in Love with a Poet

You should fall in love with a poet.
Go ahead.
Give it a shot.
You don’t have a lot to lose, you see,
because first of all

we’re cheap dates.
We don’t need fine wine, expensive filet mignon,
Tthese things are nice,
but we feast instead on your eyes and your hair
and the way your knock-kneed “hello”
stumbles drunkenly from your lips.

You should fall in love with a poet
because we don’t need a whole lot of room to grow
a blank page
an ink-filled pen and
your skin
happen to be
enough topsoil for our affection.

You should fall in love with a poet
because we’re easy to please.
Most days we’re just glad we made it through in one piece.
loneliness, heartache,
that sandpaper glove you wear when shaking hands with our heart
only makes the writing
that much better.

You should fall in love with a poet
because 
who else is going to notice
the way sunlight cracks from your vocal chords in the morning

and
who else is going to teach you what stars taste like
or take you dancing
through cannon fire

You should fall in love with a poet
because no one else
is ever gonna get close enough
to let you know that your neck
smells so much 
like the gods we wish we believed in

You should fall in love with a poet
because we spend our mornings
studying exactly where you set the dial in your shower
so our arms can learn the temperature
you best like to wrap yourself in at dawn

and you should fall in love with a poet
because we know that lovers
made of part pain
and part hurricane
are the ones worth fighting for

we can see
that those stretch-marks on your skin
are just roadmaps
that led your body
safely back from trauma
and we will never find anything
but beauty 
in that.

You should fall in love with a poet
because we may not be the best at fixing people,
but we sure as hell
try the hardest

because
our hands remember things
that faces forget
so when sadness presses down on you
like the sky in October,
we will trace our fingertips down your spine
raise goose bumps on your skin
and read the Braille of your desire

and
if you are ever confused about your past,
we will breathe hot air
on your window-pane skin
and etch the tomes of your history
all three-thousand four-hundred and sixty-seven volumes of it
into the backs of your eyelids
so that even when your eyes are closed,
you will know who you are.

We will stay up nights
dabbing the sweat from your brow
so your forehead
can un-learn its worry-lines

and we’ll play your teeth
like the keys of a broken piano
you see,
we can still play beautiful music
even with just the sad notes.

You should fall in love with a poet
because we know 
that some things are fragile.
some things beak.
like hearts.

We know love isn’t a punch-line
and we’re not gonna sell you like some cheap joke.

So tell your faith
to tie it’s leapin’ shoes
and let’s go, darlin’.
Fall in love with me.

This is Steph Holmbo. She is a senior in Tisch. She slams harder than anything Denny’s could ever dream of. And so beautifully at that. She is also loved a ridiculous amount. Mostly because she is (a) a BAMF and (b) the most loving/loveable person ever. SLAM NYU is lucky to have her. This is her poetry. It never ceases to be the most honest and soul-reconstructing group of words we’ve ever seen… again and again and again.

Love Desired

modeled after gublernation’s girlfriend wanted

must love spending afternoons with heads asleep on your chest

notes in your jean pockets

trouble

and the sunrise

open to any and all

hair color

movie preferences

athletic abilities

please note if you

play any instrument

like tie dye

have any dance experience

overlook this ad if you would classify yourself as

grumpy

a drug addict

a bro

backwards caps and shoes that are nicer then mine I am wary of but I will attempt to not judge you on your fashion sense

any resemblance to

zach morris

dimitri, anastasia’s kitchen help

or can wear a fedora as well as jason mraz

contact immediately

must tolerate

too many books on the bedside table

peanut butter

toy story silly bands

natural light

for i have always been keen on the sunshine

so i don’t like to close the curtains

and i’m too good at rebuilding walls

so you have to know patience

and if i could wear flannel every day i would

i stare too often

my feet are too small

you will have to kill every spider we come in contact with

i’ve watched garden state too many times

all i’m asking for is

strong, callused hands

honesty

naps for two

a room to rent inside your heart

and i can promise love

until this world crumbles around our tired shoulders