All the love,

MC

There's still water 
left at the bottom 
of the kettle 
in the kitchen. 
Once boiled,
twice poured. 
A half-inch of water 
left to sit and stag. 
Believe it or not,
this is the last 
good water 
for miles. 
When the dam breaks,
the flood water 
will lead and blood, 
and mud--radioactive 
river fish, scales caught
on river-sticks,
no safe passage.
Nothing potable, 
nothing golden, 
nothing stays. 
No good water 
to be seen
for miles.
The bucket in 
the backyard gone
long full & now
mosquito-twinged.
Savannah will have 
her baby
in the spring. 
It's too early
to tell yet, but 
Savannah thinks 
it's going to be a girl. 
It's too early 
to tell yet, but 
I think she's
carrying the Messiah. 
When Savannah's 
water breaks,
we'll know for sure. 
That will be 
the last 
good water 
for years.

You can watch my Stack video here: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AyHivXfbQ/

It's also on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DU6CXRREYHA/?igsh=bWRiMHZ0eGlsb3M2

A little behind the scenes secret: I got to look at the movies a little bit before they started rolling to scope out some picks. I love Dune & David Lynch (rest easy), super excited about Fight Club & Chuck Palahniuk, and YES I stand by the fact that Prince of Egypt is terrifying.

Give it a watch! Let me know what your favorite movie is. Sound off in the comments if you've seen The Scooby Doo Project.

The workshop will consist of a short introduction, and then 2hrs and 45min of writing your heart out. Every 15 minutes the prompt switches and we will go on a journey together through a roller coaster of themes centered on what it means to be human.

How to register:

Option 1: Email me at mconwaypoetry@gmail.com with a receipt of a donation of any amount to The Immigration Advocates Network https://www.immigrationadvocates.org/donate/ or your preferred organization fighting for access to legal aid. GoFundMes and other mutual aid donations are also welcome! Follow @smittenkittenmn on Instagram stories for regular GoFundMe shares.

Option 2: Venmo me any amount @melissa-conway-10 and I’ll distribute the funds. I would prefer direct donations to organizations to avoid extra fees, but I completely understand that this may be an easier option for people! Put your email address in the comment field so I can send you the Zoom link.

—Twin Cities-area residents, email me to register for free.

Shoutout to the fantastic Becca Klaver for putting together this structure for registration, and connecting with me on this! (If you’re not familiar, Becca Klaver is a talented writer and an activist for all things good!)

Please feel free to share!

Details: 3 Hour Write-A-Thon to raise money for legal aid!

(Feel free to pop in and out as needed)

Monday, February 9th

6pm - 9pm CT

This will be held virtually on Zoom

New Year's Eve
The comings & goings, leaves shed & falling, 
floating, down down down & snow soft, snow white 
only muddied along the rockied shores, the edges of the roads, 
yellow porch lights leading uphill like lighthouse keeping. 

The pushings & pullings, thawing earth & dripping, 
moving, across a ways away & branches bare, 
barren & proud, does the monarch mourn the caterpillar of it all? 
Does he mourn legs aplenty, the inching by inch, the grounding,
does he still worship holy milkweed at altars long gone? 

The tides themselves carry an answer, salt on the tongue--
            it hurts to leave the shore, but the ocean needs the ebbing, 
                      it hurts to metamorphosis, but to be needs the becoming.         

Share

Thanks for reading, and thank you so much to everyone who has joined me on this roller coaster we called 2025! I have nothing witty to say, just that I love you dearly and I hope you’ll stick around <3

If you have any suggestions for songs to add, drop them in the comments. I'm always looking for That Great New Sound.

PLAYLIST HERE

Down the Mortar and Pestle followed by Up the Mortar and Pestle

Down the Mortar and Pestle
In order to salt the sea, 
you must first know 
                      the grinding stone–

the Great Blue Heron rounds out estuaries, 
winging on air,
       powdering down, 
rigid        pacing            
moving in time 
     with the     moon moving   moon beaming    
    tractor white   
                     and glittered 
across placid lake epilimnion            warming on the tongue 
    for just a layered strait–
                 the ocean lives    so    far      away 
from the hunter’s ignition, 
      gun shot steel      catastrophizing 
at the apex back 
        down to earth. 

Up the Mortar and Pestle
In order to hold the night sky on your tongue, 
you must first keep yourself 
                     from swallowing stars–

the Sunbird drinks up 
     nectar from camellia sinensis
patience lives     between the tongue 
           and the teeth, 
wreathed in enamel--layered 
      and bloodless; if I can’t clean my teeth 
with a gentle hand 
and time to give, 
            then what hope is there for me?

I make a cup of tea 
to keep me company, 
                                     sit beside me 
on the wooded kitchen table 
              and we cool off together.

I Heard Your Voice
in the garden, so I follo
wed it down      through 
the hosta and toma
to vines, spring turned
            summer, I saw    your tones
flicker ing over 
treetops before drift
ing down to land there–
among the mud 
and      thicket.

You were only lost 
to     me    for just 
a moment– 
             I saw you die in the winter.

Your body turn
ed from strong and 
oxen to 
paper swanning, 
             feathers leeched 
out from  under  neath
your   skin–
snow fell into down
            pillow ing   outside 
the wind
ows of your 
hospice room.

I heard your voice
in the garden, alive 
once more, so I follow
ed it down 
            the rabbit’s 
holding to bury with the buried 
and wait 
          for yo        ur return– 
I wait here in 
the guarden among 
your songing 
and feather-nest, know
ing you will 
come back for me 
one day 
  soon,        and I await 
your flight home– 
                      humming soft
ly to your tune
until the next
frost
ing.

Growing/Dying by The Backseat Lovers is my current #2 favorite sing-along-in-the-car-with-the-windows-down song. It’s simple but always stuck in my head and I couldn’t agree more that it would be nice to know why. Should I be growing? Do I need to be doing that intentionally? There are ups and downs and growings and dyings and how do I move forward and Why does the wall insist I have my back against it?

Not a Good Woman by the endlessly talented Emerson Woolfe & The Wishbones is my #1 favorite sing-along-in-the-car-with-the-windows-down song. Under the skin of someone else is where my blood runs clean is insane and such a powerhouse line. SO good!! The entire album is a killer, I’m a new fan but a huge fan.

A poem inspired by The Garden by Joe DeVito coming soon. If I make it through the year without getting the entire song tattooed on my body, it will be a miracle. I have nothing to say except if you’re going to pick ONE song to listen to from this playlist make it this one.

Jeffrey Lewis is always a good time, Exactly What Nobody Wanted is my all-time favorite of his, see: You were throwing off sparks of pure power
Sending signals from a mystery tower
You didn't bother making sure it would sink in
It was a different way of workin' and thinkin'
Really wild and completely expressive
So creative and intense and obsessive
You were practically completely beyond it
And you were exactly just what nobody wanted

All of these songs are great, if you have a favorite let me know I love to talk about music.

LINK: https://www.last.fm/user/Mellyn_/playlists/14439798

My long-time favorite writing exercise is taking a lyric / line / title from a song, making it the title or beginning of a piece, and writing something either as a "response" or connect it to what's been on my mind. I wrote this sitting outside my father’s room, waiting for the medical team to bring him back from his biopsy. This July I took the time to organize and edit this today. This poem is the latter. Enjoy!

The Doom Fantastic
If denial is the river
       flowing down the halls
 of my father's hospice room, 
     then I am skipping stones, swimming 
laps all night until I am brave enough 
   to drown myself in it.                 I am caught 
in the shadows 
       pressed by sunlight against
                    hospital bed.      
When the light 
                    touches me, 
                              it freezes me 
                                                quick. 
If the grief 
is real 
and present
in the room,
than I do not 
have to be. 

I am the shadow behind the eyes–
I am the soft padding 
         of his nurse's practical footwear, 
coming down the hall, holding 
                                               morphine 
and a promise.           I am curled 
                 up hiding on the couch 
that will later fold out 
        to be my bed,        holding a plush dog. 
I haven't clung to the inanimate like this 
   since I was a child.          I am the terror,
no, I am what was
        lost in the eclipse of it,
                          I know 
that if I can make myself 
                    so infinitely small, 
                                              time will slow.  
If I can keep the light of morning 
off my skin,              then this night 
             will always be the night before 
and never the morning of. 
                  I can disappear 
into the ether 
                 with this moment in hand,
I can make my escape like a thief in the night, 
If I can make myself            so quiet I turn ghost, 
then none of this is in the tangible-sphere. 

Then no one is dying, 
everyone’s father              and his father 
and all of their mothers, too,         will live forever 
                  and maybe even all 
            of their children 
                              and all of those children’s friends. 
Right now everyone 
who is alive             is still living, 
               and I know that won’t be absolute 
       once the next second 
                                         ticks over. 
I am the dark edge 
                of the hands ringing the clock, 
                                   bending it still. 
If I can molasses             my thoughts 
so 
slowly 
that 
the 
next 
one 
never 
springs, 
           then this moment          will never 
                                                            end, 
so this moment              will never end.  
The light touches me 
         and I freeze quick. 
                       I cannot move 
and if I do not                     ever move,
then I will never go           anywhere else, 
then I can be here                                       forever. 
I am caught
                in the Doom 
                                   Fantastic and I don't want 
                                                                           to leave.
This is the last good place. 
            If I close my eyes against the sun,
    then I will never          see sunlight            again 
    then this night                will never end. 
I know it now, 
           he will die     
                                in the morning.

Everything is not gone, 
but everything transmogrified
inside the pinnacle and spit out,
the death knell sounded, split sky 
into with and without, 
clear ozone and the rain, 
the before and the after,
now everything baby blue and green 
and strange. 

Everything is not gone,
but everything moved,
everything picked up, packed out 
and shifted, everything sold,
everything cleaned and measured 
and determined to rust. 
Music won't sound. Food 
won't chew, the cows won't come home 
to moo or mourn or wait. 

Everything is not gone, 
but everything transmuted 
into light, packed boxes 
in the driveway, kitchen cabinet
full of ritual and cure-all, 
snake oil and the venom. 

Everything is not gone, 
but everything left. 
toothbrush 
toothpaste
hair comb
coffee creamer 
T-shirt
sneakers
notepad
TV tray 
money clip 
cigar cutter
change jar
work pants
dirty dishes
in the sink
deodorant
baseball cards
birthday cards
wrapping paper
jar of sugar
kitchen table
socks
lungs
ears
chin
hands
heart
veins
teeth.

I like women

with religious undertones,

all faith no martyrdom–

always a lesson.

The mother of an alchemist,

ink blazed across her knuckles,

fingers holy and changed.



I like women with fangs

and buzz cuts, strange

in their power, all-knowing

in their homes of rosemary,

women who sunshine

and rave stark against the madness,

dipped in revelry.



I like women who only date

necromancers, reviving roadkill

up and down the highway–

the wolf.

the deer.

the dog.



I like women who spark

and broadsword,

women who talon too long,

who ache around the edges,

who laugh so hard

the earth can’t help but crumble

beneath their feet.

the hummingbird’s nest - gabrielle hope

United Health - Jesse Welles

Wasted on the Senate Floor - Emperor X

Always - Indigo De Souza

sever the blight - hemlocke springs

Listen here: Playlist on last.fm

It was the blood that carried cancer to the heart,
the heart and the blood,
the blood and then the heart, and then
the body turned punctured,
the tube gone red,
the bullet-silver scalpel,
the straw full of gravity.

It was the architecture of the body,
sprawling network of ladder,
the pathway, the doctor building a window
to the outside world, framed by hand,
the cave-in then flushing lines,
a boost every 4 hours, somewhere a nurse 
telling another nurse which Kroger
had a better deal on Red Bull, and the clock
had gone panic, that was the lighthouse
blinking back from the shoreline.

It was the cellphone, the gateway
soaked in saline and free Wi-Fi,
texting out Room 4018 over and over
and over again like flagging down an airplane,
all neon and reflective and desperate 
to be a beacon.

It was the helicopter, and him zipped up
to his chin to keep warm during the flight,
morse code flatlining out to a steady hmmm,
a questioning rapture, no uncertainty,
the babbling brooks of IV bags 
all singing in tandem, too loud to sleep, 
but then came the silence and that was worse, 
it was enough to make the sky burst apart.

Raise your arm, that’s the heart resetting.
Raise your arm, that’s the heart over-encumbered.
Raise your arm, that’s the heart all cornered and matador.
Raise your arm, that’s the heart and the blood, the blood
and all of that which was once a heart.

I teach a workshop titled “Writing the Mixtape” that focuses on experimenting with styles that the participants like and, more importantly, styles they hate. It’s all trial & error & surprise. I encourage any writers and non-writers reading this to write poetry about / inspired by / in conversation with one of these songs. I’ll be sharing mine soon!

Track List.

Canada - Emperor X

Intersection - Modern Baseball

Maggot - Dazey and the Scouts

Orange Juice - Noah Kahan

Lanterns - The Microphones

Spotify Link:

he is the rodeo before the bullhorns,
all cowboy cavalier attitude,
indestructible and impermeable—he fights
on his feet
or not at all.

the sky tap-tap-taps
against the window panes
of his room—hunting,
beckoning him outward,
he asks the doctors
to close the blinds. Heaven
is looking a little
too close these days.

he is the rodeo and the bullhorns,
the muleta and the spectator,
the body and the sky.

I was invited to be a guest on “Scribble” after a fellow poet recommended me for the show. Don Wooten reached out via email labeled “repeat request” and referenced a previous email, which was surprising since this was the first time I was hearing from him.

I told Don I wasn’t asked previously, but I would be delighted to come on the show. At this time, I’d been teaching youth workshops and doing local readings regularly, but hadn’t headlined or been the “name on the poster” yet. I had one book out that was on shelves at a couple local bookstores, but was technically out of print. I wasn’t typically a name that gets thrown around.

Don sent back this explanation.

“

”

To Don’s relief, I chose some poems without any “fuck”s or allusions to nipples.

This episode includes a discussion on practice, habits, original poems, and me saying “mhm” so often that I had a personal crisis after listening.

Listen Here

Poems:

To Mulch

A Bad Omen

Technophobia

Outside the recording studio before heading inside

Mel here, I’m the owner and co-founder of Recycled Valentine Press. I'll be sharing poems, thoughts, artwork, and zines from myself and the contributors at the Press. I make monthly & seasonal playlists of songs by friends (when you guys actually release your music) and artists I admire. You’ll get early access, behind the scenes looks at new Zines from Recycled Valentine Press, and paid subscribers will get a free copy of every zine that comes out.

Subscribe now

Our goals

I’ve been writing and drawing my whole life, and I’m lucky enough to have found a community of creators in the Quad Cities. The past few years, I’ve met more writers and artists ~from beyond~ thanks to the internet (shoutout the internet) and want to celebrate that community. I focus creative culture and spread the word about all my favorite artists that are still looking for their audiences. Everything digital (meaning no copies of zines or snail mail) is free to subscribers, and we want to keep it that way!

I hope you stick around :) Thanks for checking us out