My Heart Of Shells -Thomas Fattoruso

Although this may only be the start

I give to you this shell heart

In the hope that we never ever part

And our love remains forever true

 

I’ve made for you special this heart of shells

Touched with a sprinkle of my blood cells

Symbolizing how much my love swells

Whenever I get close to you

 

The star in the middle is the tie that binds

My heart and your heart and both our minds

You are an amazingly unbelievable  find

My breaths I now breathe for you

 

I hope I can live up to all that you need

And all you may want me to be

From this day forth you are all I see

My promise is to always be true

 

And if our love should ever have to end

And our hearts are not strong enough to mend

Remember the day on which I send

My heart of shells to you

 

So today I give you my shell heart

To show you how I feel right from the start

In the hope that we never ever part

And our love remains forever true

 

Thomas Fattoruso – I’ve been a Cure fan since 1987. I’ve gone through a couple of periods in my life of writing poetry. One particular poem I have written was inspired by an image of the shell heart in the Bloodflowers cd booklet. At the time Bloodflowers cane out I was living in Puerto Rico, where I used to walk the beach every morning and collect shells. I had a huge collection of really nice shells. After I moved back to  New York in 2001, I started writing poetry again in 2003. I was working on this love poem…and I noticed the shell heart in the Bloodflowers booklet…and I was like ‘yes that’s it…so I decided to combine my love of shells with a l(new) love for a woman

 

The Cure – Ian McLachlan

Is an injection that numbs,

how flat your voice on the line,

and skin so white a corpse haunts

Carfax, walks the University Parks.

Is it to tame you, this viscous weight,

a throb of wings in the chest? Is it medicine?

Invalid among friends, stoop there

with plastic glass of beer in your black 501s

and black t-shirt. Injection that summons

the outsider, tithes for a god of distances.

Wish to hand, track titles a prognosis

in John’s neat biro. Open, Cut, Apart …

is it the cure?

 

Ian McLachlan – Ian’s favourite Cure song is Disintegration. Or maybe A Letter to Elise. Or maybe Cut Here. His satirical pamphlet Confronting the Danger of Art, which he co-authored with artist Phil Cooper, is available from Sidekick Books. He tweets and instagrams @ianjmclachlan.

An Optimistic View Of Fall -Ann Wan-lih Chang

Different colour

you wear

on Mascara.

Woke me up at Dawn,

with yellowish dew

Buzz of seasonal mourning

Here it comes,

drawing near and intimate

 

Ann Wan-Lih Chang – I was born on 1968 in Taipei and now live in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.  I completed my Master’s degree and PhD. in Irish literature in Northern Ireland, U.K. My interest is listening to Cure music, singing, drinking and cooking.  I am currently working as an assistant professor of English at Shih-chien university in Taiwan.

(Untitled) – Carolina Velasquez

Every night I see you, you will always look like a mess, a beautiful mess..

Why is it difficult to love you?

Why can’t you be here?

Your memory hurts but loving you hurts more.

I can remember the day you left,

You, you wanted to feel free but I wasn’t ready…

Love can be toxic, break you until the last breath

But it can be marvelous and comfortable.

Playing our songs, will make your essence stay

The essence of young and innocent love…

And that’s all I need.

 

Carolina Valasquez – My name is Itzia Carolina Velásquez Ramírez and I’m 16 years old, I was born and raised in México, Puebla.Since I was a kid, The Cure was part of my favourite music, I never was a “normal kid” and while I was growing and joining the puberty, they were by my side in every step I did.They also helped me through really difficult times and I couldn’t be thankful enough.The poem I tried to do, it’s inspired in my favorites songs “Just Like Heaven”, “Pictures of You” and “Mint Car” because they were part in my first relationship and they have a lot of meaning to me.Making this, I hope I can show the love and gratitude to The Cure because they are an incredible band and it’s not easy to stay 40 years together.

All Those Days Inbetween – Emma Lee

Yesterday I found your mixtape

it was always there with

the tracks labelled in

your chaotic, inked scrawl.

 

Press play, take me

back to those days:

life a blank page,

young enough to find

ourselves, old enough

to change our world.

How many of us

saw our dreams through?

 

You were all anxious chaos

and I was painfully shy,

but we dreamed, wrote, drew.

About to become adults,

so much we

never knew.

 

Yesterday, I played your tape.

You’re now distant in time

and place. How much became true?

Did you keep your dreams alive?

 

I put the tape

back on the shelf.

Life’s page covered

with words, with work.

I’m not in touch,

can’t see how yours

turned out. I trust

life’s still in tune.

 

And if life is rooted

in childhood, we knew alone,

the ache of dreaming,

how music links people.

So little

we knew.

The Cure

 

Emma Lee – Emma Lee’s most recent collection is “Ghosts in the Desert” (IDP, 2015), she co-edited “Over Land, Over Sea: poems for those seeking refuge” (Five Leaves, 2015), reviews for The High Window Journal, The Journal, London Grip and Sabotage Reviews and blogs at http://emmalee1.wordpress.com