Bio: Timothy Davis is an aspiring writer and poet (aren’t we all?) pursuing a degree in Digital Communications from Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA. He is from the central PA region, and has been writing poetry ever since middle school. He is currently in the process of sending both poetry and fiction to various magazines and continues to hone his craft.

Winter

It must’ve been winter
Because I could smell the ice on your breath,
The Jameson on the park bench,
The only way to keep warm.

It must’ve been winter
Because I could hear that vacant silence,
The lack of bird song,
The tightening of vocal cords.
Sore throats, too hard to express

Anything but contempt for this winter
It must’ve been winter
Because I could feel the sweat
Freezing so tenderly on my forehead
Like icicle kisses
Dripping slow

It, in fact, was winter
Frozen days on the calendar
Melt this day, please,
Place it on the bed, dripping wet,
So that we are drenched in the time we could’ve had.
Place it so carefully that I can’t feel
All the time that’s gone by.

Spring

It must’ve been spring
I heard the first fireflies
Buzz by my ear
I stood waiting for leaves
To burst into green stars
Pointing to the new growth

It must’ve been spring
When the rain came,
Silver sky unzipped,
Decompressed into
Such steady release,
Constant and fierce

It must’ve been spring
When I saw you standing
On the corner holding
Our dreams in your hands
Like the first seeds
Planted in Eden.

We are a flower that
Refuses to bloom
Despite all the
Rain and fertilizer and sun
Never unfolding its delicate
Pedals into the vulnerability
Of nature
Of the new spring.

Wait, all men who play sports are idiots? Cameron Conaway thought we were past that.

I’m calling out Defense Attorney Francis Lawrence based on his recent comments regarding the murder trial going on in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A quick recap: University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely V is facing first-degree murder and five other charges for the May 2010 death of his ex-girlfriend, University of Virginia women’s lacrosse player, Yeardley Love.

I lived in Charlottesville when this alleged murder happened and I’ve been following the case for about 21 months now. While I fully understand that Lawrence’s job is to prove George Huguely’s innocence, I believe he’s doing so in a way that stereotypes all players of lacrosse, all players of sport, and by insinuation all men who participate in and/or define themselves through said activities.

Lawrence is smart to pair the case that Huguely didn’t commit the murder with a backup plan that would reduce the sentence if Huguely were indeed found to have killed Yeardly. But his argument seems to be that Huguely is too much of an idiot to have committed an act of violence that took even the slightest bit of rational thought, that dismisses the mental side entirely while answering yes to Could he have repeatedly smashed her head into a wall until she died?

… and this means he’s carrying his bucket of arguments across the crumbling bridge of a male stereotype that continues to permeate our culture and make it difficult to have a conversation about men and manhood.

Click here to read the full article on the Good Men Project.

- Photo AP

Cameron Conaway discovers the important intersection of masculinity and fatherhood while at a malaria research unit and refugee camp in Thailand.

The sounds of various languages took the shape of fog and swirled through the air in front of me. Burmese was maroon, Thai was blue, Karen was yellow and the various accents of English were green. They merged and melted and drifted upward but always maintained their integrity, their separate selves.

Click here to read the full article on the Good Men Project.

We, Like Matchsticks

A new year’s eve of bile and loathing,
to end a week of false remorse
and crown a winter vitriolic.
Too many cigarettes need smoking
and too much liver goes unscathed.
Cradle me, you futile bitch,
Let’s learn to live and frown together.
Curl up with me; despise with me,
let’s surrender to our sickness
and rue the world, apart and cold.
Spring will come and life will flourish-
our planet cast adrift the sun.
We will wither and come to ashes
and all things splendorous will come.

The Tall Grass

I will find you in the tall grass,
as the chopper whips it into a furious sea
and the smoke scatters under the rotor blades.
Underneath that swollen setting sun I will find you playing dead.
Praying that I pass you over.
The machine noise will drown out the sound of the chambering round
but you will know that I’m there.
I’ll cast a shadow.

 

Born in Uppsala, Sweden, 29 years ago, John-Anders Magnusson was exposed at an early age to the ravages of the written word. Though perhaps not always fiery and passionate in his literary endeavors, sometimes it seems that words and will come together amicably. As a child he was struck in the head with a rock and promptly came to grasp the subtleties of human communication.

When it comes to the healthy male, Cameron Conaway writes, we need to realize there’s a lot more than just bulging biceps.

Conversations on contemporary gender roles often involve our beloved caveman. As cavemen, it is said, society needed men to be physically strong because there were physical threats. But no longer. Humans have risen to the top of the food chain….

Then the conversation veers in one of two directions, ever-embracing the black or white, the either/or, the groupings of two that we are comfortable forcing ideas and answers into:

(1)    …and is this why women are becoming more successful.

(2)    …and this is why men are finished.

For starters, the conversation assumes that the external experience – an animal chasing us down – is all that matters. This assumption cripples or minimizes several realities:

CLICK HERE to read the full article on the GoodMenProject.com.

—Photo watchsmart/Flickr

Many athletes start their day off with a cup of yogurt. While this can be good, it’s often not as good as many think. Not all yogurts are created equal. Let’s explore why.

For starters, food demand in developed countries is based more on taste than necessity. Whereas people in rural or less developed places in the world may receive only a few options and even then only of the dietary staples – white rice, for example – developed countries have a wide variety of choices due to economic and transportation factors and are therefore able to stock foods based purely on taste demand. When we consider that the average buyer will likely choose the sweeter, more colorful, more advertised and easier items than athletes seeking the best possible foods to fuel themselves for their careers, it’s easy to see why even the selection of yogurt can be a tricky one.

Growing Up

by Matthew Bassein

i was the quiet kid
He was the loud mouth
i had a stutter, and a lisp
He always spoke eloquently

i hated him
He loved me
i always fought with him
He was bigger, he would win

i thought he was better than me
He thought so too
i wanted to be like him, i wanted to be better than him
He didn’t care. It killed me

I wasn’t a kid the last time we had a fight
He didn’t know that

He was angry, he always was
I said mean things that I could never take back
He punched me in the face
I tackled him to the ground

He slammed his fists into anything he could
I took my time
He made sure he left reminders swelled under my skin
I grabbed his neck and locked my arm across his throat

he couldn’t breathe
I felt his elbow in my gut, his fingernails digging into my skin
he wanted to scream, rasps came out
I didn’t care.

“Like Hemingway, Conaway’s descriptions of fighting benefit from his poetic and pugilistic discipline: taut, sharp, rhythmic. They are also honest.

“…Caged is an intelligent, brave, intimate memoir, one that rebuts many falsehoods about writers and fighters, minds and bodies. Nietzsche’s motto is alive and well in Conaway’s hands (and fists): ‘Become what you are.’”