May 2024 - Featured Artist - Michael Linehan

About the Artist -

Mike Linehan is a writer and educator from southern New Hampshire. Since 2011, he has performed poetry at local open mics and has since become a passionate member of the community. In that time, Linehan has self-published two poetry collections: What We Deserve in 2015, and The Porch Light in 2023. In 2018, he was a part of the Mill City Slam team from Lowell, Massachusetts, and competed in the National Poetry Slam in Chicago. As of 2023, Linehan has joined the staff and organizers of Slam Free or Die based out of Manchester, New Hampshire. When he’s not writing or speaking in front of a microphone, he likes engaging in Netflix binges, promising himself that he’ll practice guitar every week (he won’t) and he’ll work on that ever-growing pile of story ideas (don’t rush him, he’ll get to them…eventually). In the classroom, he likes striking up conversations with students, working tirelessly to convince them that literature and poetry are, in fact, cool.

Additional Works -

Mike’s Millennial Falcon podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts)

Featured Poems -

Numbers Game Education

it’s everyone’s favorite time of year again / when teachers groan in chorus with their classes / put carefully planned lessons on the shelf / and set aside precious class time / for the latest standardized testing / which is about as fun / as gargling rusty razor blades / or playing hopscotch through a minefield

there is talk of diagnostics / of “learning targets” and “success criteria” / which they want us to display every day / so that students can see / the real-world applications of what they learn / and I want to stick my head into a woodchipper / because we know that these kids / don’t really care about any of this / and more importantly / it seems like the district cares more about / federal funding and school ranking / than the immeasurable dark matter / that swirls in the universes / contained in these kids’ ribcages

I just want to teach English / read some goddamn literature / push my kids to write kickass poetry / and be awed by the revelation / that the stories they make by simply / waking up every fucking day / are worthy of being shared / no matter who is paying attention 

I understand that some data must be collected / to know which students need assistance / but honestly / I care more about helping them / dust off their voice boxes / with clues from the stories we discover / like lost temples and treasures / or like new stars in the cosmos / I want them to find solace / in the characters that come to life in their minds / I live to see that curiosity / alight in their eyes like fireflies / to see them build whole worlds out of words / and realize along the way / how all our lives connect / like rivers into oceans / and holding out their hands to help another

my teaching is more akin / to spirituality than science / more magic than mechanics / what happens in every classroom / is a sort of alchemy / not merely of knowledge / but of students’ character tempered as steel / and adorned as cathedrals / as we the teachers also / remind ourselves of how much / we still have to learn

my students are not products on an assembly line / cannot be marked as “profitable” or “defective” / these stories and lessons / cannot be neatly labeled / for easier classification / what I do in this classroom / cannot be broken down / into binaries and algorithms / of what a functioning husk / of a human should operate like 

I will not disassemble my students / like gears in a clock / to make damn sure / that they meet factory standards / I will not lay them out on the coroner’s table / and perform an amateur autopsy / to shove my gloved hands inside / just to see how dead they have become / I do not measure my students / with the cold calculus of “success criteria” / I weigh their hearts on scales crafted / out of Empathy and Imagination / and their worth cannot be quantified / into progress reports / because they are more / than numbers on a scoreboard / or unsolved figures on a spreadsheet 

I am fighting with all my fire / my arms full of books and journals / but feel more like a meager slingshot / against a Goliath that insists that it knows best / catches my students’ spirits / like bass on fishing hooks / pulls their fearsome hearts / beating fiercely out of their hopeful chests / and it calls this carnage

“education”

Punk Rock Jesus

Inspired by "White Jesus" (Jesse Parent) and "Punk Rock John" (Neil Hilborn)

Punk Rock Jesus was born in the gutter, parents running from 

a land that turned into four-alarm fire behind them. 

Never felt shame about this, only a desire like tongues of flame 

to make safe space for others on the run from whitewashed teeth.

Mary lost him in the store once, found him cussing out a manager hitting 

on teenage cashiers, mother had to drag him away writhing like a viper. 

From that day on, he wasn’t afraid to spit truth to power.

Spent his teenage years going to dive bars and basements shows, 

drinking in that sweet dissonance like holy spirit. 

He was not a violent man but wasn’t shy about stepping into the pit 

with underdog gospel in his throat.

Punk Rock Jesus liked to read, but none of the books he was told to, 

enjoyed tales and verses that undermined authority 

stabbing like a spear in the side, so he became a thorn in theirs. 

One time, he spotted a churchyard barbeque, parishioners 

laughing and gorging on their feast, while the homeless 

huddled by the black iron gates. 

He would not stand for this: he marched into that sea of hypocrites, 

filled his arms with as much as he could carry, gave them all 

a piece of his holy mind, and shared his spoils

 with those beggars by the front steps. 

He got a restraining order against him for that one, 

but his path never faltered afterward.

Punk Rock Jesus wasn’t always the loudest in the room, 

but everyone was welcome at his table. 

Didn’t give a shit about the size of your home, who you shared 

your bed with, what gender you crowned yourself with, 

only that you had fire and passion in your mouth and your hands. 

He also knew that no one was perfect, and he wasn’t afraid 

to knock the teeth out of some self-righteous Pharisee, 

but he’d use his words before his fists, believing that the church 

of punk rock was the River Jordan of rebirth cutting through the distortion. 

Revolutions don’t start with miracles: they begin with dirty hands and 

crooked souls swinging at the foundation and repairing it stone by stone.

And then Punk Rock Jesus got jumped by some bootlicking 

dime-store fascists with patriotism in their teeth, 

beat him into a bloody Messiah while the cops around 

the corner sneered and did nothing. 

They hung him from a rusted fire escape like a withered fig, 

his broken flesh a reminder of what happens to those 

who question the earth we’ve built our cities on. 

Never did catch the fuckers: all we could do was pour one out 

for that beautiful bastard and memorialize him 

in sweat and scream and double-bass baptism.

Now the times they are a-changin’: the sinners are having 

a Renaissance, hailed as forward thinkers, and the Pharisees 

have gone about making revisions, which is to say they fancy 

themselves graverobbers and amateur morticians. 

Exhumed the corpse of Punk Rock Jesus, power-washed 

his locks into auburn palatability, scrubbed the ink and color 

from his skin till he was white as a lamb, tore off his leather 

and studs to wrap him in three-piece suit respectability. 

They shined his teeth into a politician’s grin, filled his mouth 

with rewritten history and polluted proverbs, assuring 

the new generations that they were never the villains, 

that they are righteous messiahs while they slide 

skeletons out of the flash bulb spotlight.

But we know this slick song and dance all too well, this American 

necromancy of stuffing corrupt gospel into the throats of our heroes, 

making Pontius Pilate of their bodies like so much puppetry. 

And despite their smear campaign, double-edged apology and 

persecution slithering off the same forked tongue, we remember 

the glory of Punk Rock Jesus and we can still hear the words 

of his mosh pit sermons: gather ‘round, you dirty hands and 

crooked souls, let us swing at this foundation 

and baptize it anew.

Recovery Catholic

Hi, my name is Mike, 

and I am a recovering Catholic. 

Already I can hear the knowing chuckles, 

see the head nods around the room: 

been there, done that, spat into that 

golden chalice and flipped the bird 

on my way out those holy doors.

It would be easy to say fuck you, 

to write you off as a chapter 

of lost time and late bloom, 

to simply name you 

a cathedral-shaped maw, 

a mouth of jagged spires 

and judgment.

I’ve got faults that linger like stigmata: 

tearfully telling my Wiccan friend

that he was going to hell; 

holding friends up as saviors and then 

crucifying them when they faltered; 

repeating love the sinner/hate the sin 

as self-hypnosis of conditional compassion; 

shoving any sexual desire into a 

shameful shoebox beneath my bed; 

devoting myself to a Stockholm religion, 

developing broken sinner syndrome, 

thinking that every breath, every motion, 

was both sacred and sacrilege; 

consuming a communion of guilt, 

sticking in my throat so that all I could 

utter were disclaimers and apologies.

It would be easy to say I hate you, 

to simply measure you in the barbed wire 

I’ve pulled from my own mouth, but that 

would sound dishonest on my bloody tongue. 

I remember how the world darkened 

and twisted after my uncle’s death, 

and there was where I found rebirth, 

in newfound friends and faith, 

sitting on second hand couches, 

laughter echoing out into the night. 

I kept “Footprints” in my wallet 

for the longest time, believing that 

my god walked beside me always.

I still cross myself every time 

I climb into my car, and on my lowest days, 

I find my lips forming into prayers though 

I’m not sure I believe in them anymore. 

And I cannot deny that, beneath the shadow 

of dogma and whitewashed politics, 

there still walks a man who died 

in defiance of Pharisees that twist his name 

into dog-whistles for a flock of wolves.

I pick from the rebuilding of my bones, 

searching for words to describe you, 

and all I can say is that you 

are a chapter that happened. 

I am torn between being content 

in mere carbon existence and longing 

for my faith lost somewhere behind me. 

I still have so much unlearning ahead, 

but I have started to dust off the tomes 

of my own blood-and-bone scripture.

I do not know what remains of the god 

I once knew, only that love and belief 

can exist in a place of gnashing teeth.

If the divine still exists somewhere out there, 

I will find it with my own brand of faith 

shining into the dark.

I am both apostle and gospel, 

and I will write myself holy 

with my own forward motion. 

Scarred but still singing, 

mending meaning out of broken, 

I will continue on and find that 

church of kindred spirits, 

perhaps realizing in the end 

that I carried it within myself 

all along.