Author: poetryfest

silken grasp shimmer,
bearing the fate of mother,
unfurls one gray pearl.

“What do you want for dinner?”
My grandfather asked me.
Their house warm with the scent of biscuits rising in the oven,
and my grandmother’s chatter.
He looked down on me with a spark in his eye
because he knew he did not need to ask.
“Macaroni and cheese please.”
He laughed in a way that made it easy to picture him young.
“You got it kiddo.”
This was our skit we played at every meal.
Roast in the oven and mashed potatoes whipped in the pan,
but my grandfather couldn’t resist the urge to spoil me
with a special order,
even sometimes for breakfast.
I watched him in the kitchen.
He moved like a bird building its nest,
instinctual.
His hands broad and strong,
softened with time,
the skin a bit slack,
but his fingerprints told a story of work,
of many lives lived,
through pain and pride,
love and loss.
A thick woven web
that stretched all the way to his small kitchen.
He hummed and sang as he put water on to boil.

I sit with him now,
but he searches for me,
through a fog of confusion,
his memories stirred up in his mind,
but he finds me.
“How is your ski resort doing? You bought a ski resort, right?” he asks.
I own a house, near a ski resort,
but I do not correct him.
“Yes, it is going well.” I say, “We are having a great Winter.”
His eyes strain to read my lips and he smiles.

“Good, good.” He pats me on the knee,
his hands jittery in constant tremble.
This morning he thought he missed the school bus.
His mother is in his bedroom, she woke him, he says.
My brother’s room is his now,
filled with figments of his mind,
seeped out into the world.
He looks at me with watery eyes,
because he knows.
“Grampy, what do you want for dinner?”

God, I’m bored right now.
Why can’t I be wealthy;
like a celebrity, but not famous.
Just enough money to do stupid things.
Stupid money.

I’d fly to France for a baguette.
Nothing crazy,
just stupid.
Of course, I’d never do it,
but I’d like the option.

Instead, I have no options.
I could return the kid’s soccer cleats
and go out to dinner,
but then I’d feel awful later,
when she’s the only one
whose mom ate her cleat money.

Responsibility is so boring.
I wish a pterodactyl would land in the yard.
Just long enough for the ring camera
to snap a few pics,
for everyone to call me liar.
But I would know.
And that would be enough.

At least I’m thinking up options.
Impossible ones,
but nonetheless.

You were:
Natural auburn/Freckles/Old Spice
I was:
Sleep deprivation/Trust issues/Eager

Your barbershop haircut and Rolex watch said “privileged”
Your honorary tattoos for your 11 friends who OD’d
Said something else

I sipped a watermelon margarita
That had plenty of tequila
You kept looking at me like you didn’t want to blink.

First kiss I was floored/
Wanted more
Then I thought about it too much/
Worried I’d never have better

I loved that you kissed me hard/
Like you knew only kisses could hold me together/
Like you wanted me to know you meant it
Effortless was/
Being with you/
Was—
Effortless.

“Hmm,” you said,
With a big, stupid grin.
“Tastes like watermelon.”
I giggled. You said,
“I liked it”

When you drove me home
Your cheeks were hurting from smiling
Being with you was effortless/
I feared I could get used to it
I think you did, too
[Didn’t you?]

I saw a nihilist holding a flickering lamp,
The season of failures has begun,
obsessing all the heroes of life
to commit a mass-suicide.

Navy blue colours the darkest of nights,
All babies are deprived of lullabies.
She died every day a little inside,
devoid of living her golden life.

The nests are empty, their dwellers gone.
I lurk on misty earth into oblivion.
No more chains of heaven left;
Sinners and saints are all dead.

Sometimes you breathe, sometimes they.
Weeping stars are shining in vain.
The silence of centuries against my skin,
dust swallows my name.

Lumumba! Lumumba! we shouted across the playground
in all-white Windsor. A joke for a name that rolled off the tongue:
the ignorance of the young.

It must’ve been heard on the news, half-listened to,
something distant in Africa we didn’t care about,
just a funny name to shout.

Photographed in the back of an army lorry, guarded by bored
soldiers that kill without conscience,
this betrayal of Independence.

Murdered in Cold War connivance, just another casualty
of geopolitics: the future of the Congo was dead,
dictatorship and death instead.

You wanted worship, I wanted love – Sadie J. Lang
All you wanted was your manhood sainted;
Anointed by a holy oil, grasped in heaven’s gate.
You wanted love, and I thought that’s what I gave.

Is it now; that dragon, sated?
Have you found the release you’ve long awaited?
In a cave of hallowed souls, you craved it—

But the snake is never charmed by song alone,
so tell me how it feels to turn to stone.
When the pleasure’s gone, you’ll have no home.

When death has come about your loan:
all the time borrowed, and the love you’d been shown,
don’t forget to mention the girl you’d known—

The one you let go; the one you let run!
All of god’s fruits will spoil in the sun,
but my garden’s bloom has just begun.

God’s masterpiece, you let her go,
you let her leave, and now you know:
When life draws cards that say you’ve won,
don’t gamble just to have some fun.

My white kite tail fights
a bloodred, turbulent sky
above a scorched earth

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.