Author: poetryfest

Death came swift at sea
We lost our ship did we
The Focke-Wulf bombed us
Enemy Action … sunk us

It circled our ship at dusk
With only a machine gun
Our defense … the bastard Hun
Shattered my bridge with cannon fire

My first mate died at my side
… then its calculated run
It flung at us, a hungry cat at mouse
I rung up speed … turned my ship …

THIS IS IT BOYS!

From a distance we saw it come, fast
and furious, the drop … the deed was done
We had braved the North Atlantic Run
We the brave had lost.

Five hundred pounds the bomb it was
Plunged at us and hit
A horrid flash, the noise
The smoke … it exploded amidships.

This our purgatory on earth
The devil is our friend, the hissing
of a thousand vipers, the escape of steam
Abandon Ship! Abandon Ship!

My stockers climbed the steep stairs
Up from the engine room ablaze
Leaving the dead behind in hell. Scalded
soaked in oil, into the icy sea they plunged

One last message to the world
before spark’s electricity fades
“CQ… CQ …. Come Quick!”
We sink … all is lost …”

Then the lowering of the boats, we race to
scramble down off our ship. One last time
We leave our lives behind
From now its borrowed time.

Then the final show, the ship we loved
The naked keel, modesty gone
Our ship … proud Cynthia slipped
into the sea … her bow dived steep.

The evil plane done flew away
to kill another day … the Hun had Won!
We had braved the North Atlantic Run
We the brave had lost.

Then silence, the sea wrapped around us.
… it hide us from the sun.
Our long ordeal had now begun
We drifted countless days on days.

The hours passed, the long nights,
The cold, the anguish, the dieing
All brave men … the stench of oil,
Burnt flesh and gore … the cry mother I am to die.

The fact that I am here
to tell my solemn story
meant you had come in time
and saved me from me glory

The Hun hangs around my neck
like some dead albatross.
Let me sail another day,
give me another ship

Once again I’ll brave the North Atlantic Run
Give me the tools and I shall finish the job
No bastard Hun will kill me off
If not for myself … then old England

But he is from the West, and I
Hail proudly from the East.
He’ll gladly lunch on sandwiches,
But I’d have rice at least.

He’s always hot, I’m always cold
‘Cause nature made us so
He likes the sun, I like the shade,
Yet where I go he’ll go.

Shoes don’t belong inside my house
They stay just by the door
His shoes barge in through all the rooms
And live on every floor.

My elders would have cast me off
If they’d been here to see
Me go inside a room with him
Unchaperoned, for tea.

The women cook where I come from
As was the grand design,
He does the cooking all the time
And yet the world is fine.

But he is from the West, and I
Hail proudly from the East.
I sometimes lunch on sandwiches
And he’ll have rice at least.

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and in the water (Pablo Neruda)

I float on my back toward an island
of small brush, sand, kudzu,
I trust the warm water and you to bring me
back to our beginnings,
the sweet chords of summer,
and the diamond lights more precious
than a bucket full of promises
from people filled with contradictions,
and if I close my eyes,
I can remember the magnetic north,
the reception of strangers in good company
and the natural lines of your smile.

Shadows inch their way toward a time
when we pretend to sleep,
like friends who drift away
and then return when the air fills
with honeysuckle, roses, and star jasmine,
even when I forget the specifics of
where and when the glow first burned,
I know your fire broke the spell of
a thousand years of silence.

I close my eyes to better float
away from voices on shore
complaining about children,
the price of eggs and how
money changes everything,
and with your hands, a gesture of trust,
you guide my shoulders through water lilies
and floating dogwood petals.

And I try to sort out my own contradictions
like coal and diamonds,
the sign of the cross,
or a vow of silence,
and every unspoken message
bends across water
like the court and spark of a dance,
the feel of a hug after a month apart,
and the tender play of light on water.

Afloat on our backs in a limestone quarry
we stare into the deafening silence
of stars where the past reflects
an uncertain future
and the chemistry of water
holds the memory
of you and me.

I want to melt into the earth
Be the water dripping through your hands
Whispering in your brow
Touching the sky on the horizon

I want to be the blade of grass
Dancing every worship to the wind

I want bees to nestle
Themselves within me
The mistletoe young lovers
Kiss themselves under

I want to be

I want to greet every morning
The first to see the clouds
I want the sun to beat at my back
And wake up every curve

I want the sky to rain down
And frost to whistle and crack and scrape
And hold every inch of the earth

The first time I saw the arch of your back
I had proof the earth was round

She was a church –
I was ‘always late to’
Breakfast in bed
French-toasted-ain’t-no-challah-back-girl
And strawberry wine
This was also an altar
Lazy Sundays and
Cold pressed on ice
Bare feet on wintered marble
We were the only heat in our house.

I’ll recognize you in every lifetime, love.
I’m the finder, you’re you.
You’re the spark, I’m kerosene and dreams.
You’re my firecracker heart
Sleepy eyed with moon dust and stars
Freckle faced and fireflies lead me to you
On every journey you choose to go on
I want to give you smile lines and laugh lines
I celebrate every paradiddle of your heart
You forget yourself?
We go find you.
You’re in music and melody and rhapsody and jazz
You’re in the long pause of the argument where you’re
right
You’re in that cuppa cuppa coffee all night
You’re carnival season, babe.
Blue lightning and Mardi Gras Magic.
I’m just here catching shoes
Waiting on you.

Sometimes I wish that,
I were born a dog,
the breed wouldn’t matter.
I just feel like I would be
treated better by humans.

Dogs are mistreated by people,
but so are other people,
and most often
it’s done at the hand
of so-called loved ones,
or caregivers.

The difference being:
If you’re a dog,
and are beaten,
tortured,
and mentally abused,
when you become defensive,
and bark,
someone might understand,
and try to love you back to life,
at very least you might find yourself
being euthanized,
and the pain would end.

But not when you’re human.
You will be persecuted when you
advocate for yourself.
People will use your justified
emotional responses against you,
so they can continue their neglect.

Neglect is a form of abuse,
and silence is complicity.
One thing is for certain,
you can count on both,
from the human race.
But understanding,
and real love?
That’s something
You won’t get
unless you’re
a dog.

You appeared with a relentless barrage
of meows one Monday, hungry, all fur
and bone peering out from yellow-green eyes.
Your black coat is dusted with flecks of gray,
white, orange on the tiny bridge of your
nose. You love to climb, to perch on my chest,
to play with any object—computer
cords, my necklace, my dangly earrings. You
wrap your slender length around my fragile
desk decor. I am twenty-seven weeks
pregnant with my first child, unsure of my
new role as a mother. With you sleeping
draped across my neck, my daughter kicking
at my ribs, tides of affection surge with-
in me for small, capricious creatures.

After David Cronenberg

You once told me a story about debris—about the gunmetal in your heart
—the full-throttle top-down drive and the only girl you ever loved

steering the machine with her hands trapped between your thighs
as you prayed to some titanium god for octane, or surrender,

or for a crack of lightning to fracture your spine to tell you that
you are alive—riding on the wings of a vanishing dream—

you told me you were tattooed with rust, with cures—showed me
the chrome bones bolted into you—and as I stood on the corner

of Virgil and Burns with the sun now crumbled behind my back
—I heard the noise of your blood running through the engine—

the metal veins—the drumming—the burning turn scraping
the red paint while the seams in your body snapped one-by-one

as you confessed: this is what I’m made of.
All I could do was watch you crash—

watch the drumming of your naked heart through the broken glass
—smoke rising to the song of silent birds, my swollen eyes

assembling what was left of you.

Watch me peel the rind for you with bloodied fingernails
Citrus infused with crimson, dribbling down licked wrists
Piercing papery skin and pretending it’s flesh–
Promise me you’ll hold my hair back as seeds
s
p
i
l
l
from my mouth
And collect the pulp with shaking hands for tomorrow’s brunch
That you’ll be late for

Dew weighty in the morning air,
trees sparkle from the overnight deluge,
lit up like Christmas in dawn’s light.
A mirth of chuckling water sparks in the overhanging leaves,
convincesN shadow and sun to freckle the ground
above the cascade.
tiny arrows point upward where the water runs against
blades of rock
splitting and joining like zippered garments,
ripping apart warp and weft,
a veil of silk and rock and water,
in passionate wedlock
I think of snakes shedding skin
and dusk falling on plowed fields,
ridges and canyons of soil
waiting for the storm.

I ate sloppy seconds for breakfast: fresh golden pancakes halved, then again, melted chocolate crisps, blueberries with the gently whipped cream on top, everybody gets a slice, locks like honey, obvious apples glistened in my eye, starved and ravenous, her temptation relief to unbearable travesty, when it’s gone, what’s left but give it all away, uncontrolled reach for anything, blind want and desperation, deadly combination, truck beds encircled, shine high beams on beer pong tables past midnight, country music
anthems, hillbilly delight, not to miss my only opportunity, to know what it’s like, every bright red fruit that flashed in front of my eye I grabbed like money fell out of the sky, boy I felt alive, conspicuous butterflies, ecstatic desire held me within a wonderful dream, don’t earthquake me, so I reached to ensure this igloo’d globe
wouldn’t expose me, each reach lengthened it seemed, dirt I swept like a gold rush, held it tight, firmly believed everyone else had bigger piles, one goal, to have as much as I could hold, no matter the strike to my soul, I’ll settle because that’s my self-belief, desolation around me, the future is now, no guarantee, forever hold bright
red fruit, only to realize the apple never had a shine, but the second I broke free, dropped like a disease, maybe there’s something else for me, then, the sky didn’t seem so bloody, wiped clean free of the blush I never knew I could erase, while everyone else continued the chase.