Dawson Powell is a psychology major at William Woods University. Outside of his writing endeavors, Dawson enjoys conducting research and has been accepted to such conferences as the International Conference for Linguistics in the Behavioral and Social Sciences as well as the Missouri Academy of Science for his study on narcissism and the contingencies of self-worth.

Dystopia

As if a child tugging on the arm of its mother
The wind violently ruffles its feathers,
Beginning to be played with.
It’s still there, with archaic eyes frozen in a mist.
The bird has been dead for a week now.
I can recall news reels of destroyed buildings
And shattered streets in the Middle East
As I glare at the birds broken body.
Its crimson outline resembling a child in Iraq
Or, possibly, the woman police found yesterday in New York.
I can smell the garbage of third world countries
As the bird slowly decomposes in the summer heat.
The stench, toxic to the senses,
Overwhelms the eyes, making them water.
Ever cry for something you didn’t care about?
Splintered, my windshield resembles
The window of a house robbed last week.
The bird, even in death, violently
Clutches to my windshield wipers.
I can’t bring myself to touch it.
It lingers as I do nothing.

Brainstorming

Withered words, frail and dainty, forge the shape
Of a decrepit grandmother, her faded green blanket draping across
Her shriveled back. She was some family's unfortunate loss.
Emerging through blackened out words more shadows escape.
The coarse page gazes intently, keeping me insight
With its eyes bitter, criticizing, and cold.
“You can do much better,” I’m harshly told
As my thoughts return to what I should write.
A grass stained soccer ball bounces within the page
While blue lines flat line, the victims of a war the author will wage.
From my shadow that falls on the blank, glistening notebook
A daughter may become a mother while her father dies.
Or a potential antagonist, finally confronted, will spin a web of lies.
A poem writes itself while impatiently waiting for a reader to look.
A poem writes itself while impatiently waiting for the author to catch up.