Kells Norman

Issue One, Student

Blackbird’s Sonnet 

Oh how beautiful, the crow will fly far.

Its slick black wings outstretched into the fire.

The feathers will turn to ash. This is war. 

I cannot be inspired without desire

living with knowledge of this evil. Wearing

myself down thinking someone will care

that this world is cruel. It is despairing

to know nothing will change. How do you fair?

There have been too many days that I cried

for what has been lost. They tell me to run.

Hang from the rafters commit emotional suicide.

Ignore the tragedies stare at the sun.

Life is bliss if you let the light blind you

but it is brutal if you do not stay true.


Another Georgia Spring

The weather is atrocious

a mix of winter and summer.

As the rain brings in a cold front,

I am dreading another March like last

when the days drag on. The pain

lasts longer and longer without

the same intoxicants that kept me warm.

What storm will this year bring? Perhaps,

a slow death before the trees have had

time to breathe life into new leaves.

The sky still tinted gray; A dreariness

slipping to earth. Slipping into the void

that you are. A nothingness left

to wander the streets like an 19th

century poltergeist looking for home

and calling out for the lover you lost

to the war. What does this life have in store?

Certainly not the Calabasas dreams

that are only bought with parents’ money

or friends standing in your high beams.

You’re just high again pleading for an end

to your grandiose imagination and

self-fulling temptations.

About Kells Norman
Kels Norman is an army veteran from Moultrie, Georgia. I am currently pursuing my MFA in creative writing at Western Colorado University and was previously published in the nighthawk review.