Shanan Ballam
Logan City
Poet Laureate
Project
Welcome to A Celebration of Cache Valley Voices, Shanan's Logan City Poet Laureate Project! All the following poems were written by current or former Cache Valley residents and include poems by community members, Utah State University undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty.
If you are a current or former Cache Valley resident and would like to have your poem considered for publication on this site, please e-mail Shanan at shanan.ballam@gmail.com
Hush
by Aaron Timm
Before the fist opened a mouth
the door was just a door.
After the fight the door screamed,
it’s black mouth waiting for me.
I usually pinch my eyes shut.
Run up the last three stairs,
pass the open mouth
softly
close my door,
which is still just a door.
Today I force myself to face it.
The fist left long sharp teeth
I push my hand inside
feel a splinter fang catch my sleeve
my fist reaches the smooth wood throat.
Pulling back
I leave blood behind.
Aaron Timm started writing and sharing her poetry in 2009. She is married to the locally famous poet Isaac Timm. Aaron is proud to be a member and unofficial secretary for the awesome poetry critique group Union of Table Scraps. She is a fierce advocate for blind people and a huge believer that all blind people should learn braille. She lives in Logan where she is happily owned by two cats who are named after poets.
Shade
by Isaac Timm
Sometimes even the most tattered ghost
longs to be seen, hoping to haunt more than the
edge of the eye. To be of greater consistency
than a dust-devil, a bleached gate creaking.
I questioned when I allowed this, this slow fade to
phantom. I raged, threw flatware, stacked chairs,
wrote cryptic messages on fogged glass. I
blamed you, for looking through me thought if I
could just bounce an aged beer can down the
rutted road, or whispered “see me,” like a warm
July breeze, that you’d stop mid stride and take
my hand of cobwebs.
But I reduced myself, hungered for something to
fill me as if I were a balloon. I didn’t know I could
grow skin, create red roots of veins, carve my own
bones from stone. And though the whole rebirth
left me scarred, flinching raw skin, I was solid.
Now worth a glance, a nod, but why should I crawl
in your shade, when I now have legs to run.
Intervention, but we don't call it by it's name
by Asher Blakely
We call it, I'm worried about you
It's been three days since I saw you
Eat more than a handful of cashews
We call it, you haven't returned
My several phone calls and I don't
Know if you're even alive out there
We call it, you're cocooned
in your nest of blankets
And I miss the shape of your face
We call it, famine
Or feast-- you've squirreled
Away your money and can no longer live
We call it, binge
And purge-- I am so tired
Of always holding your fragility
We call it, I cannot control
You like this, and it makes us
Both more than a little uncomfortable
We call it, you used to hurt
Me but the wound is still
weeping and that may never change
We call it, tough love
And you've done nothing
To staunch the bleeding
We call it, you stabbed
Me in the back, but we're pretending
To smile for the cameras anyway
We call it, moving
On because standing
In this hurt isn't progress
We call it, I forgive
You for breaking me open and
Rearranging the beating heart of me
The best of them
by Aaron Timm
Born to dust
Knee deep in snow covered
Greasewood
You stood
Swallowed chalky alkaline dust
Shouted at the sky when
Left bloody, again
You walked home
To chaos and
Quiet
To all the fucking
Shouting silences
You did this
Grew up alone
Made yourself a man
A good fucking man
Who loved with a heart so bruised
It hurt to breathe
You rose out of the desert
Called home
Checked in
Sent condolences
And congratulations
Always
Never receiving any in return
Your family
Wore you like a shadow
Alone you taught yourself
To shine
You are a light in the window
To me
You are a blanket
Of stars
Shutting out the dark.
Alberta
by Marcy Gross
The last time I saw you
you were gasping for your
last breath
the oxygen tube up your nose
doing no good
your eyes
were black
and sinking in
your mouth
open
you said nothing
to me as I told you
I love you, good bye
but I know
you really meant to
I know you heard me
yesterday she told you
hang on until Marcy gets
back to say good bye
and you did
20 minutes after
I left your side
you were
pronounced gone
8:02 am I found
out at 8:15 am
didn’t see you again
until almost 9:00 am
uncovered your body
so frail, skin see-through
I could
see your bones
your hips turned
even more
than before
so crippled yet
so at peace
the way you lay
reminds me of
“ancient wing”
a famous fossil
of a bird
his wings spread
as if he were to
take off
just like you
always waiting
to fly
This One is About Moths
by Isaac Timm
fluttering in the hands
like tiny hearts
leaving grey dust
slick on the palms
why do they leave
the protection of night
beating tiny wings
against glass
seeking the bare light bulb
that will burn their legs off
they open their grey hearts
to fire, delicate lace
jumping to red flare—
to be so hungry
for warmth that we’d
destroy ourselves
what can be learned
from their tiny deaths
little hearts— opening
Isaac Timm lives in Logan with his wife fellow poet Aaron Timm. He began writing poetry in 2009. He has shared his poetry at Helicon West, and was a featured reader. Isaac graduated from Utah State University in 2014; he holds Bachelor’s Degrees in History and English Creative Writing. His poems have been published in The Helicon West 10 year Anthology (2016). Isaac was born and raised in the Western desert of Utah, which influences many of his poems.
Reva
by Marcy Gross
The other day
someone put plaster
on her lungs
now it’s beginning to ache
it burns she cries
can’t someone take it off
that girl I don’t know
who she was
opened me up and
smeared that white brittle plaster
all over my lungs
the left one mostly
then she sewed me back up
Why? Why?
Marcy Gross was Shanan Ballam’s sister. She died on July 8, 2023 of complications from Addison’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis. Marcy was a long-time resident of Cache Valley and she went to Utah State University. She worked as a CNA which is where many of these poems come from. Marcy was fond of tattoos, and the ones she chose to decorate her body told the world who she was. Family was crucial to her. The names of her beloved sons, Jeremiah and Jayden, had prominent places, as did the name of her younger brother Dylan who died in 2013.
Little Debbie
by Aaron Timm
I used to hide food
not “real” food
snacks
I would take the last
Cosmic brownie
from the box
tuck it
behind
salsa, sour cream and butter
I would think about it
all day
in the hot quiet
after school
it would be there
waiting
or, not.
Now I hide
a plan
behind
dishes, laundry, feeding the cats
I tuck
pills
not “real” pills
just the thought
crushed in orange juice
bitter on bitter
as I watch
Frank N Furter sing
“I’m going home”
one last time
before I sleep
I hope to dream of the moon
of blue glow on snow
of walking naked
a ghost feeling
no chill
I think about it
all day
it will be there
waiting
or not.
Alberta
by Marcy Gross
Last Thursday
I told the nurse
you were sick
unresponsive
to my usual singing
every morning
I would sing to you
but that day
your eyes remained shut
not the usual
bright eyed
so happy to see me
Alberta
by Marcy Gross
They took you away
in an ambulance today
the nurse in her panic
told me hurry get her ready
they’re coming
before I knew it
they were there
6 men in uniform
all asking me questions
what’s this? what’s that?
so confused overwhelmed
from the excitement
after my shift
I stood in the parking lot
letting my car warm
sucked down 2 cigarettes
in 5 minutes
and wondered
if I will ever
see you again
Untitled
by Marcy Gross
My brain is swimming in my skull
I can hear it splashing
Like a fish trying to find oxygen
A light breeze flew over just right
To electrify me from head to toe
The trees
by Marcy Gross
The trees speak to me at night
I hear them screaming in pain
As they rub against one another
Now I am a tree
Sudden back pain
Shooting pain due to nerve root
Compression
What disease do they have that
Makes them scream out when
The cold wind moves
Their limbs
Archive
Death & Dying Along I-15
by Asher Blakely
We chug along the middle lane. Trapped
inside the quiet of a broken radio. He stretches,
carefully, foot scraping through cans littering the floor
that I’d meant to clean them before leaving.
His leg aches all the time now, nerve damage
from a domestic violence incident with his late-father.
The doctors say PT should help, but it doesn't.
So he aches, mostly in silence, because his family
prize that kind of tongue-biting. They believe
if you can’t see it, it isn’t real
if you ignore a thing, it never happened
if you pretend everything is okay, it is fine
even, or especially, when that silence could kill you.
The road slows to a crawl though it’s barely noon.
No AC, so we crack the windows, letting in the stink of baked
pavement and diesel along with the dry breeze.
I turn, briefly, to see his grimacing face. He hates
the long drive. He plucks the sticky fabric
against his chest, and I too feel as though
I am swimming in my own sweat.
“I’m sorry," I say. “Thanks again for coming with me.”
His hand touches my shoulder. I can hear his smile
when he says he was happy to do it. He misses the days
before his body betrayed him. When he could drive himself.
We talk of the places he used to go and the hikes he used to take.
(Death & Dying along I-15 continued)
We talk about the failure of relationships and the fuzzy boundaries
of our own. We were friends for years before last summer
when my husband got them both shit-faced and naked
before we tumbled laughing into bed.
We talk about his cats. The Athena and Coun that went missing last year
Who he still looks for in every shadow. Set who died in the winter
whose body he kept in a bag in the freezer until the ground grew soft.
TV and Artemis who he cremated and buried beneath his favorite tree,
up the hill at the back of the property his mother
means to sell sometime this year.
He says, “when my time comes,
I want to be cremated and laid
to rest alongside my babies.”
I am filled with words I cannot say,
so I reach for him. Tangling our fingers
as the silence stretches between us.
Asher Blakely (he/they) is a polyamorous, trans masculine person living in Utah with his husband of 16 years and their two amazing teenage children. Asher is a confessional style poet, who uses poetry to explore the demons of his past life in the hopes that his words will help others facing the same traumas to not feel so alone. Asher is a self-professed smut addict and reads gay romances to unwind and keep sane.