Core: Dance Poems Vol. III

No longer accepting submissions.

Publishing Date: Approximately Late August 2021—hopefully!

by Ava Long, age 10

Dancing to the Groove

Dancing feels so good.

I would dance if only I could.

Sometimes when I’m sleeping,

I dance in my dreaming.

If everyone danced

in a conga line to the sunset,

the whole spinning world

would never forget it.

My body starts to move.

I get into the groove.

My body starts to move.

I get into the groove.

It’s true I like to listen

to Frozen II in the car.

I look out of my window

and I wish upon a star.

When I’m dancing to the music,

it’s like I'm swimming in the air.

I feel moonbeams on my skin,

and the wind blowing in my hair.

My body starts to move.

I get into the groove.

My body starts to move.

I get into the groove.

by Henry Long

Confessions of a Levitation Artist

With the slightest of intention,

I begin to rise, defying gravity—

unaided, without visible agency.

A swimmer of interiors,

gently floating higher,

until my back is bobbing

in the warmer upper currents,

like a three-day helium balloon

against the living room ceiling.

This is my secret:

I can levitate at will.

I am a Levitation Artist.

Ever since I was a child,

it was just something I could do.

I was born to be a zephyr rider—

dancing in slow motion,

lithe as a solitary autumn leaf,

surrendering to the gradual

updrafts of indoor airs.

A hovering surveyor over all I see, drifting

in a tranquil pool of under-astronomies

and the tops of dusty bookcases.

A human dirigible,

moving room to room,

up and down stairwells,

gliding under thresholds,

carefully avoiding ceiling fans,

supported in all ways

by unseen forces.

And after I’ve had my time afloat,

I return effortlessly, upright on my feet.

Someday, I will take my art

of ascension outside, and rise

like a lilting dandelion seed

adrift on the breeze,

unfixed above the trees

in my mastership.

I will rise and rise—

past the sunrise,

beyond the moon, behind the stars.

And I will keep on going

in a glorious rapture,

on the wings of the risen avatars.

But for now, I am content

inspecting spiders

at the ceiling’s edge,

blowing softly at the

swaying cobwebs,

fluttering moth-like,

lazily aloft.

This is my confession:

I am a Levitation Artist.

I am an Optimistic Romantic Nihilist.

Born to be

an airborne explorer

of domestic mysteries,

dreams, and memories,

supported always

by the unseen.

I am currently formatting the inside of the anthology, and then editing and copyediting submitted & public domain poems.

Photo by Paul Gilmore

Ballerina Camila Cattani

Model Ballerina Camila Cattani
email: cattanicamila1@gmail.com
Instagram: @camiballerin

Edited by me for the front & back cover