Author: poetryfest

Move, keep moving, there is no stillness here
My city, my London, runs only in sixth gear

There are tubes to cram into
And buses to hop onto
There are taxis to shout at
And always people to shove through

I dream of the Parisians
Arriving to work at ten
With their three-hour lunches
And strolls along the seine

They have no limits to their leisure
Movement is luxury, never a chore
The Parisians move with pleasure
But the Londoners move with force

They say that London is limitless, a city bursting with dreams
Yet why does nobody stop? Why does nobody seem to breathe?
Why is nobody ever available?
Why are meetings booked weeks in advance?
The limits are here in this writing
London doesn’t give humans a chance

As I’m sweeping along a tube platform,
My heart racing and sweat in the air
I remember this is all for no reason
And the limits of London stand there

I was born in a hush of dew and light,
Where bees hummed secrets in dawn’s quiet flight.
My petals once caught sun like wine,
And danced with wind in patterns divine.

But the boots came, thousands, bold.
They marched with thunder, fire, and cold.
The soil split, cried out in dread,
Roots like mine tangled with the dead.

Smoke stitched gray across the skies,
Ash fell soft as lullabies.
A crater bloomed where daisies lay
And poppies, once red, have gone all gray.

I drank from puddles laced with lead,
My sisters wilted, dreaming dead.
The rain now burns. The worms have fled.
The trees wear shrapnel leaves instead.

Yet still I rise on slender spine,
A foolish flame, a fragile sign.
I bloom in spite, not unaware
A whispered grief perfumed in air.

Would you plant me where bombs once fell?
Would you breathe me in, my warning smell?
For I have seen the cost of men
And I will never dance again.

I go forth into the world
A smooth sharp sheathed
Bladed edge
I’m the counterpart to the teetering in my life
The equilibrium to my own personal truth
M y life is what I say it is
I manifest the environment that lives in my mind
My choosing
The absence of choice
Remains my choosing
Iv lived grown played and died in the garden of disguise
Iv even fallen for my own reflection
Masked and cloaked
The make believe me
I pivot from that plastic mold of who you want me to be
I kick off my shoes
And pound my heels into the ground
I sing with the mother
The sister
The sun
I radiate light
I magnetize movement
And I will set aflame
Iv recently been reshown my power
I will not be giving it away
I choose not to cower but harness the fire
In our lives
The hope
The dream
The timing
Can all be seen through my minds eye
I reckon the awakening
The window to my mind painted and sealed shut
Raises its weary eyes
Heavy from eternal sleepless dreams
The riot of sensory slam through my soul
The knowing and the spirit collide
Within this body Iv never been so sure was mine
I’ll never again just see twice
Upon seeing with eyes open thrice

Time fractures
in the ancient sting of a needle,
where blood becomes a game
to free the fallen self.

I am the echo of a lost yesterday,
the vanishing breath of today,
the unborn pulse of a tomorrow
that will never arrive.

Death dances
in the final stupor—
a trembling hush
where even memory
refuses to breathe.

Life flickers
in a haze of forgetting,
a kiss blooming
inside oblivion’s dark bloom.

And then—
from this broken script,
a child is born.

She lives the rhythm
of her mother’s pulse:
through the bruises,
through the blurs,
through the silenced claim of death.

She carries the syringe
like an heirloom
and dreams
in the language
of scars.

Two sketchers scratch their pencils
In an otherwise empty room
They fire off a cannon
But I can’t hear the boom

Oh, you look so radiant
Like polished cobblestone
In seal and silver gradients
And ashen monochrome

Gray like asphalt, the road you take
Gray like a blizzard’s last snowflake
Gray like pigeons in the air
Gray like my grief, gray like my despair

You’re moondust in my fingers
And you still smell like smoke
My eyes fog, and I tear up
My misery’s evoked

Gray like stairs that rise to heaven
Gray like two thirds rounding to point seven
Gray like elephants and their tusks
Gray as you’re reduced to dust

Dull pencils tracing graphite
In the outline of a tomb
They fire off a cannon
Now I can hear the boom

Blue / blue / his face was blue / he wasn’t breathing / screaming / mom was screaming / 911 / 911 / someone call 911/ hello what’s your emergency / my father isn’t breathing / do you know how to do cpr / no / okay press on his chest / count with me / 1 2 3 4 / 1 2 3 4 / 1 2 3 4 / 1 2 3 4 / he was still blue / why wasn’t he breathing / so pale / so blue / lifeless / dead / dead / dead / ambulance is here / it’ll be okay / my heart is in my throat / he can’t die / he can’t die / what would I do without him / he’s my whole world / dead / dead / paramedic sprays something up his nose / narcan / it’s narcan / oh no / oh no / did he relapse / he starts breathing / where did he get the drugs / why would he do this to me / he’ll always be a recovering addict / he won’t be able to outrun the blue man forever / blue man / blue man / I’ll still love him forever though / he’s my whole world / I’m nothing without him / blue / blue / my world is blue

I did not account for
the complication of dreams. I
want to be truthful to
you, which of course means
to the self. There is
a part of me that
knows that the still-sleeping-before-coffee self
is the self. but the
day-self is relentless and convincing.
The alone-self is the self,
I know. I know there
is no truth, just well
spoken logic. Just powerpoints and
sample products: the simple power
of holding a model of a
velvet hummingbird in our hands.

New Delhi 3 wheelers
lean maniacal turns
on raging roadways

Krishna, Vishnu, Hanuman
Rama and Shiva dolls
lean off flimsy mirrors

preposterous horns
blare a maddening drone
lurching plastic Gods a whiplash pleasure

drenched in sweat and smog
jousting open air taxis give way to
a polished Bentley oozing a heaven unimaginable

Tuk Tut drivers
however notice
something more impressive

on the luxurious dashboard
wiggles a large Ganesha doll
divining one golden transport.

Paper: perfect.
White paper, crisp paper.
I, Pretty paper palace purged of imperfection.

Paper: flawless.
Sharp paper, clean paper.
I, Clean cut canvas of creativity.

Paper: held.
Held?
Slipping…

Paper: lost.
Flying paper, tumbling paper.
I, Soaring, swooping, shredding, screaming.

Paper: fallen.
Dirty paper, crumpled paper.
I, Caked with crust and covered in cuts.

Paper: ugly.
Muddy paper, grubby paper.
I, Hideous, homeless, haggled.
Help?

Paper: found.
Picked up paper, moving paper.
Little girl giggles, grabs. Going. Gone.

Paper: embarrassed.
Yucky paper, ripped paper.
I, To be tossed to terror and—
Wait.
I, Taped with girl’s twinkling smiles of potential?

Paper: healing.
Broken paper, learning paper.
I, Watching worlds whisper new words of meaning.

Paper: growing.
Drawn paper, coloured paper.
I, Scribbled with sensations of silly stardust.

Paper: magnificent.
Blooming paper, bursting paper.
I, Broken yet beautiful, different yet divine.
I, Nameless novel. Not nothing nor ever nothing.
Original paper, proud paper.
I, Paper: perfectly imperfect

I think I wish you
were a canker sore on my
tongue; sweet and stinging.