“Email”

Today I checked my email for the first time in a bit,
Oh, an email from the Occidentalist staff – lit!
Contemplating testing my wit,
I don’t know if poetry and I are a good fit.

This contest got me feeling like I’m on the spot,
So I open the link and jot.
Lines tying together like a knot,
Eight lines already, that’s a lot.

Well I guess time flies when you’re having fun,
About to finish when I hardly begun.
Well I guess I’m just about done,
If there’s a winner to this contest – I better have won.

– Leo Whinnery

“Enter the Door to Our Dreams”

Days into moments pass by as we two lay
Entranced by each other
Embers whisper around us
Zealous they dance in celebration
Never will what we have break
Umbilical is the bond between hearts
The door to our dreams awaits
Standing under a fire lit sky

– Helena Thomason

“I Hate Kranch So Much”

Kranch
Ketchup and ranch
Who likes kranch?
No one speaks up

I raise my hand
To speak my mind.
“Kranch” I say, being not so kind
“Kranch is the sound of middle-schoolers in a made up band.”

Kranch.
Kranch is as bad as this poem
The bell rings.

I go to lunch with speed,
To get food, which I need.
I get in line, only to find
Kids with Kranch.

I walk out in disgust
With speed and hate in my blood.
My mind is fueled with rage
Kranch and I
I am tired of this kranch cage.

I sit down in anguish
I relax, with no kranch in sight,
I see my friend take out a dish
Tater tots with kranch, to my fright.

I walk away, trying to escape
Kranch-ridden walls in every which way.
Kranch here, kranch there.
I see pizza, fries, and mac too,
All covered in kranch,
Like a diseased stew.

There is no escape,
Kranch is always there,
There is no peace
Only war.

The fight against kranch,
Is one to be fought.
There are no casualties,
Only victims,
Who joined distraught.

The fight is brutal,
The fight is hard.
And here we are,
In the school yard.

No one speaks,
Yet words were spoken.
Friendships gone and bonds were broken,
The only sounds were the frogs croaking.

There were arguments,
There was pain.
And yet, an agreement was made.

“Kranch is gone, Kranch is no more!” one shouted.
“Without Kranch, the food will make me snore!”
“Kranch makes food nothing like before.”

I heard it all,
It made me snicker.
We just bicker, bicker, bicker.

I spoke out.
Everyone gasped,
The tray with Kranch I went to grasp.
I threw it out,
And got a new.

I set it down
And everyone frowned.
I just left, leaving the crown.

Was it a loss?
Was it a win?
I simply do not know.

I hate kranch.
It is as simple as that.
You may argue,
You may fight.
I simply do not care, which is alright.

Kranch.

– Logan Newcomb