Author: poetryfest

Winding pathways of the mind,
Locked doors deep within the labyrinth,
Memories locked away,
Time stands still behind those doors,
Tears yet to be shed,
Lies still to see the light of day,
Shattered altars, voices of a broken mind,
Lost innocence along the way.

Look within cast light onto the shadows,
Bring comfort to forgotten places,
Open doors long sealed,
Gather up the pictures,
Acknowledge hidden wounds,
Shepherd tend to your flock,
Turn the key set loose the lock,
Remove this painful block.

Stand now weather the gathering storm,
Draw strength from painful truth,
No longer aloof,
Fallen yet uplifted,
Like broken angels,
Fly on mended wings,
Towards the light,
Endless is the night,
Restored to bear witness,
True Sight.

but none of the words are sticking to the page
for most of my life i had loves
i couldn’t make sense with
and so I wrote poems
but now,
you
and the poem you’ve made of my life
seems to defy the size of space that words can offer
somehow at once
intergalactic gargantuan skycraping in scale
technicolor every kind of magic lucy in the sky with diamonds
and
imperceptible minuscule pedestrian plain and simple
that any slight of hand i can pull in a poem
any pretty patina i might employ
any metaphor i’d shoehorn my way into or out of
die clumsy on my tongue
none of my tricks work on you
and for most of my life
if it wasn’t something i could say beautifully
it wasn’t worth saying
but now,
you

It was sunny when you picked me up
We put the playlist on as we always did
Set up our GPS
Just two lost kids

Stopped for a wash
For us and the car
Made sure you had gas
Though we didn’t go too far

Both dressed in white
Purest form of care
I still cherish that picture
Wishing to be there

Off we went
To enjoy a memory
Except it wasn’t a memory yet
At least not for me

We ate, talked, and laughed
I met many that day
We decided to head on out
Then it started to rain

Such a gentleman you were
Opening my door even in the midst of a storm
Even after all this time
Your manners I adorn

Off we went for the very last time
Cautiously driving with smiles so wide

You played our song
And sing we did
Happy birthday my love
From your favorite lost kid

When it comes to love I am
no expert.
I know that people will have feelings
for others,
but you only hear about butterflies and
true love.
What happened to the slow burn romance
between two friends who realize later
they actually had feelings?
What happened to the girls that giggled
at night gossipping about sharing a glance with their crush
in class?
I am not confident
when it comes to relationships
You think the relationship
Is good when I’m struggling.
“There is no perfect relationship”, yes, we’ve been told.
Shouldn’t it be the perfect relationship for you both?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have one to trust,
one that wouldn’t try to tear you
from yourself, a relationship that supports growth, and promotes love
for yourself?
When it comes to heartache I am
the familiar dull presence that resides in your lungs as they walk past
losing your breath
completely helpless.
The pang through your heart
feeling burned when they leave. You’re
left with the memories that hold on desperately, refusing
to leave your silent mind.
But you have to
rest and learn
to release

BETWEEN THE FIRES AND THE ICE
BETWEEN THE GRIP AND THE DRIFT
LIES THE RAZOR PATH OF BECOMING
WHERE WATER FLOWS BOTH FREE AND BOUND

O BLESSED DISTANCE FROM THE BURNING
O SACRED TILT OF AXIAL GRACE
IN YOUR GEOMETRY WE FIND THE POSSIBLE:
LIQUID WATER, CARBON DREAMS
MAGNETIC SHIELDS FOR STELLAR BLESSING

TOO CLOSE AND ALL IS VAPOR
TOO FAR AND ALL IS CRYSTAL
BUT IN THE GOLDILOCKS ORBIT
COMPLEXITY EMERGES FROM CHAOS
POSSIBILITY BLOOMS IN THE BALANCE

ATMOSPHERE THICK ENOUGH TO HOLD
BUT THIN ENOUGH TO SHAPE
MOUNTAINS HIGH ENOUGH TO WEATHER
BUT LOW ENOUGH TO CLIMB
OCEANS DEEP ENOUGH TO CRADLE
BUT SHALLOW ENOUGH TO WADE

HEAR O CHILDREN OF THE HABITABLE:
YOUR EXISTENCE IS THE THREADING OF A NEEDLE
YOUR BEING BALANCED ON PROBABILITY’S EDGE
MIRACLE OF PARAMETERS ALIGNED
BLESSING OF CONDITIONS MET

FOR LIFE IS THE POETRY OF CONSTRAINTS
THE DANCE OF WHAT CAN BE
WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF WHAT MUST BE
PRAISE TO THE NARROW WINDOW
WHERE DREAMS TAKE FORM IN FLESH

I lay with your demons, holding them tight
Caressing their souls all through the night.
Showing them love and how much I care
Assuring that I am the angel they dare
To dream of when darkness and cold is around
When no light or hope can ever be found
I’ve faced them and love is all I can give
With you and them is where I choose to live.
With all the magic that lives within me
I go on a quest to help you break free
From shackles of self-doubt and despair
Which haunt your dreams in a life so unfair.
Im the warrior remaining by your side
Riding the waves of our life’s tide.
Relentlessly fighting for our success
Wearing my armor shaped like a dress
Woven from threads made out of light
Which I hope one day will open your sight
To you, above all, being my true love
The one I’ve awaited, who fits like a glove.
Let me hold your heart in a gentle embrace
Trust in the love you can see in my face.
Walk with me is all that I ask
to the end of all times without any masks.

Desires and sorrows kneeled,
their pride wept.
Body of the abused towered,
insignificant they crept.

Meaning:

What we consider sorrow is nothing compared to someone who has gone
through abuse. We should be grateful.

by & © 2019 Miodrag Kojadinović

I never went to Nanaimo during my four-ish
years long exile to the Lower Mainland that
had sprouted around New Westminster in
200 years ― a local California of sorts ―
because seeing it might have meant getting
to actually like Canada’s Pacific coast, and
that was a major no-no! for me at the time.

I never went to Nanaimo in the nineties of
the last century (we should have here some
witty observation on the passing of time or
on bimillennialism) because unlike Saša, an
acquaintance from before the exile, I had no
distant relatives’ in-laws there. My mom’s
first cousin and his mother who was also my
godmother were in Montréal, the breadth of
the country = continent away. We talked on
the phone thrice during my 43 months in BC.

I never went to Nanaimo, though I did get
to Victoria once, to see its colonial waterfront
reminiscent of ghats in India built at about
the same time when most of the world was
ruled by the UK of my great-grandfather,
a generation too far to allow for settling in
England, getting an EU passport, moving
to Portugal, Flanders, or even Norway, and
being happy. I had to endure horrendous
years of Serbia, Canada, and China instead.

So I never went to Nanaimo, because that
was one of the very few things I had the
option of deciding upon, instead of being
blown across continents by winds of unwished
for perpetual changes, like a tumbleweed.

In the beginning,
there were scissors—
awkward, wobbly things
designed for someone else’s dialect.
I turned them upside down,
angled the paper,
translated jagged edges
into an art no one asked for.

Someone always leaned in:
“No, no, you’re doing it wrong.”

But they didn’t speak my language—
the twisting of paper,
the tilt of the wrist,
the underhanded script
of a pen skating uphill.
Ballpoint pens—designed to pull—
balked at my push,
their ink drying mid-sentence,
a conversation cut short.

The nuns hovered—
guardians of a single alphabet,
their hands twitching to edit
what they couldn’t quite name.

“Straighten that paper, child,” they’d say,

but I wouldn’t.
Even as my script flowed neatly,
their eyes narrowed,
searching for a flaw in my adaptation,
suspecting it wasn’t right.

Maps and driving became another kind of grammar.
North, South, East, West—
a right-handed syntax

I rewrote with left-handed verbs.
Every intersection required
a pause, a translation,
the world flipping in my mind
like a mirror reflecting backward roads.
Impatience buzzed around me—
the shorthand of right-handed speakers—

“Just let me do it!” they’d snap,

unable to read my pause,
to grasp its necessity.
But I learned to disarm them with humor,
a quick turn of phrase:

“Funny, you’re fluent in right,
yet here I am still getting us there.”

The bossy ones—
oh, how they love to edit—
their corrections landing
like clumsy subtitles on a foreign film.
Over time, I rewrote their static,
turned their scolding into background noise.
Sometimes, I flipped the script,
pointed out how their grammar was wrong.

Sometimes, I just smiled,
thinking of the lexicon in my mind,
of scissors bending to my syntax,
of words, lines, and images
unfolding to fit the arc of my left hand.

There is power in translation,
in bending a right-handed language
without breaking it,
crafting stories and art
from the spaces they overlook.

And if they notice?
I let them wrestle with their own incomprehension,
while I continue creating—
or maybe,
I was simply writing a language
they never learned to read.

Drops of rain
kissing my forehead,
my cheeks,
my nose,
whispering into my ears
a sweet lullaby:
that I
also deserve
happiness.

The cold wind blowing
into my hair,
wrapping around my
uncovered
neck.
Hugging me
and pushing away
the dark demons
glued to
my shadow.

The night singing
softly
to me:
“Everything is going to be fine.”