Austin Davis

Austin Davis is a poet and student activist currently studying Creative Writing at ASU. Austin's writing has been widely published in dozens of literary journals and magazines including Pif Magazine, After the Pause, Philosophical Idiot, Soft Cartel, and Collective Unrest. Austin has also been featured in KJZZ’s “Word” podcast, and The East Valley Tribune. Austin’s first two books, “Cloudy Days, Still Nights” and “Second Civil War” were both published by Moran Press in 2018.

Check out his website at austindavispoetry

•

► Austin's microchaps & selected poems are available below.

Origami Microchap	Selected Poem(s)
A Trip Back Home
Click title to download PDF microchap Cover collage by JanK •	A Trip Back Home We’re only 19 - 7 years older than we should be and 7 years younger than we have to be. We don’t draw faces on the river banks anymore but tonight seems like the kind of night where we should race each other to my favorite creek (yes, of course I have a favorite creek) and re-enact The Tale of Despereaux with some pebbles and mud. Let’s write an ode to the tadpoles afraid to grow into their slimy skin and ride our bikes to Steak ‘n Shake. We’ll split a Steakburger and pop and when we’re as bubbly as lightning bugs finding love without swimming in a cheap pool of spilled beer, you’ll look at me as if we could change the world with a well timed joke and I’ll show you the lakehouse on the moon I bought with credit when I was young enough to still see a mirror in screen doors.	Don’t thank me for a perfect night just yet. Don’t kiss me goodbye and call me on your way home. Don’t tell me the night isn’t a cloud for us to lay on and don’t build the next morning from newspaper scraps, sweat stains, and an alarm clock that reminds us that spending money is just spending the time it took to earn that money. Just close your eyes with your back turned to the setting sun. Sit with me in the middle of this green and gold cornfield and pray that our clock has a worse sense of direction than I do. Hold me tighter and tighter as our shadows come to life in a rain puddle of crows, stand up and stretch. That’s when we’ll know it’s another one of those quiet summer nights where we’re the only kids crazy enough to still slow dance in each other’s heartbeat. • Austin Davis © 2019 - Previously published by Bone & Ink Press
A Patch of Roadside
Click title to download PDF microchap Cover collage by Jan Keough - Every microchap may be downloaded for free from this website.	Roadside Wildflowers What matters more than this day, all fields and sky? You can be the DJ and I’ll drive the getaway car. Let’s leave this world to focus on their suits and their politics until the gyre we’ve become prisoners to unwinds and the scent of Arizona pines is all we know. Put your feet in my lap and let your brown hair stream out the open window, piloting our flight. I’ll just sit here and smile, noticing that your hair is the quiet color of earth after the rain It’s such a simple morning in February, one that seems more like spring. Let’s set our phones face down in the grass and listen for the patch of roadside wildflowers whispering their delicate riddles into the wind. With so many distractions, what could really be more important than those blushing pinks and reds, setting fire to the roads of a world that has nearly forgotten whether the moon's a balloon or not? ● Austin Davis © 2018	Adrift My eyes follow an airplane wading in the creek of night as your breathing matches the tempo of my chest. Just two nomads drifting between the stars. ● Austin Davis © 2018

Poets