Author: poetryfest

To the tune of Yesterday-With apologies to Paul McCartney

Yoga pants
I spend half my life in yoga pants
don’t do yoga, I don’t even dance
oh, I just live in yoga pants

Wintertime
cold outside but I don’t have to freeze
Used to garden in my dungarees
but yoga pants have set me free

Yoga pants
at the wash –I give a lonesome glance
in my robe it’s just an awkward stance
waiting for my yoga pants

My best years ahead
I have thrown out all my jeans
no more
zips and snaps
I’ve made peace with my ice cream

Ring the bell
friends at the door and I just have to tell
all the glories of my circumstance
oh I believe in yoga pants

i have a pain in my heart
this throbbing ache
when i see your face
or hear your name

within a moment
my insides collapse
my ears can feel it rain
out pours my eyes
my breath unsustained

your red hair orange feigned
you wobble and i watch deraigned
i pray for you in my arms
my love
i would make it go away
i know G-d has you
oh special one
please bring them home today.

After Ed Sheeran’s Bad Habits

Every morning on the ground, I see you can’t say no
Every time the sun goes down, you dig a great big hole
In your radish paradise, my garden dreams implode
And each night my veggies pay the toll

My bad rabbits eat my peas; my carrots for stew
Conversations with the neighbours: you go there too
Glaring at my healthy grass, wishing that it would do
Running out of crops to lose, or use, or view

My bad rabbits lead to tunnels under the gate
And I wish I could control all the places they stray
I keep looking for a cage that they cannot escape
Nothing that they can undo, mine through, on cue
My bad rabbits they can chew

Ooh
My bad rabbits they can chew
Ooh
My bad rabbits they can chew

Every good intention ends when the munching starts
You don’t have good manners but you’re clearly very smart
One day you’ll eat something bright
that makes your world go dark
You only know how to go too far

My bad rabbits gonna scoff their way to the grave
Eating random stuff is dumb but they think it’s brave
They are never gonna last if they don’t behave
Try to fix their hutch with screws, kung fu, and glue

My bad rabbits need to stick to clover and hay
Gonna eat the ferns or swan plants one of these days
If they ever think the buttercups are a buffet
There’ll be nothing left to do, renew, bad news
My bad rabbits are confused

Ooh
My bad rabbits are confused
Ooh

They went the wrong way round
Munched ivy from the ground

My bad rabbits ate some bad stuff, now I’m alone
Their migration was a danger; they didn’t know
Wonder if I’ll get some new ones; I probably won’t
Now my garden dreams can bloom anew, it’s true

My bad rabbits’ eyes were wider than their poor tums
All the garden stuff they stole was probably yum
They were looking for escape, now their end has come
I feel bad I let them chew – it’s true; I knew.
My bad rabbits met their doom

Ooh
My bad rabbits met their doom
Ooh
My bad rabbits met their doom

Brightness, the sun hath given thee
And joyous the flowers, for brightness thee returns
For all beside thee – and all thou wilt forgive
Thereby yesterday beest gone, and for tomorrow, we yearn

Our fleeting youth, we must cherish
And times of young, the mighty hath given
Waste not our time – these days we mustn’t diminish
for the wrongs done and yet to be done, all to be forgiven

Lo! Present time, young still these years,
And thither, waiting our arrival, our final rest…
No! ‘Tis beyond us –
‘Tis now we live best!

And hence, we chase the sun
Thereby yesterday beest gone,
So at which hour the ashes flare upon the red embers
Beside thee, the days thou wilt remember

Can I accept my death?
It was a question that worried me recently.

When I was in elementary school
I realized that I would die someday.
It was when I heard that
the sun and the earth each have a life span.
My teacher said，
the earth and the universe are not eternal，
even though we exist here at this moment now.
My sight, the future, and the world
turned dark, all at once.
As soon as I came home from school，
( It was a Saturday afternoon )
I made a great fuss about it to my parents,
but I got only a paltry reaction from them;
they found my worries simply amusing.

How can other people pass the days in ordinary ways，
nevertheless knowing the earth will certainly collapse?
As one child in the solar system,
I felt a vague kind of anxiety
that goes nowhere, I remember—
It might be the anxiety
of living as a human being.

Human beings are known to be social creatures, but
the family is such a fragile relationship among people.
I realized that being over twenty-five years old.
I have passed the age when my mother bore me.
What is family?
—an unstable form bounded by the chance of
coming across each other.
Sometimes, it is an accident;
I don’t know why, after some time，
it becomes a laughing matter.
It is quite amazing.

We continue to lose.
At the same time，
we continue to gain a lot.
That destiny intends for us.
And then we realize that
—we keep fighting as a form of life
beyond the border in which we living.

Time continues to exist.
Endless construction and dismantling are repeated
while time transforms.
The form it is firmly tied to
by our states of existence

She was queen of pitter patter
Queen of hugs and all that matters
Of grocery carts and dying eggs
Of picture frames and hide-n-seek games

Queen of tummy aches and tired laughter
Pushing swings and running after
Of stretch marks and elasticity
She was queen of domesticity

She labored two jobs to fill the coffers
She was queen of loose change and too few dollars
Of torn window screens and leaky faucets
Surreptitiously the subject of neighborhood gossip

Queen of running late and early hours
Sleepless nights and imaginary powers
To retrieve wayward dreams from beyond
With a simple wave of her magic wand

She dreamed of high heels and short black dresses
Yet returned each day to ungodly messes
For she was queen of unsung songs
Queen of all that could go wrong

Once she dreamed of white gowns and throwing rice
Yet being alone so long she never learned to play nice
So she politely declined his offer of a ring
For what it’s worth she dreamed of being king

Presumably,
If you stand right in the center of it you can hear
everything
of everything that’s ever been said,
and
presumably
The springs make your brain ring,
Like the chapels,
intended for marriage and god,
and
presumably
there are five homes,
and on the deeds of each one of them
is love and trust written out
in analog,
And
presumably
There are dogs and people
just like anywhere else,
but if you are from there
you can remember every one
who was ever born
before it happened.

U shore is 1 funny
N*****!
Remember that one joke you tole
‘bout the time they let your kind
into the city park? Remember how you
was so excited to swim & how you jumped
from the high dive only
to see whitey had drained the pool?
U shore is 1 funny
N*****!

U shore is 1 funny
N*****!
Remember how you named your book
N*****!
so that one day (you knew it too)
Whitey would understand and feel bad?
That was funny even if it wasn’t
ha ha funny, it was funny
in another way.
U shore is 1 funny
N*****!

U shore is 1 funny
N*****!
Funny in a strange way kinda funny
giving up on a career as a comic
to fight for civil rights full time
cause writing a check wasn’t enuf.
What kinda man gives up $
to do the right thing?
U shore is 1 funny
N*****!

I saw you cross the road,
Unaware of the sight to behold.
I was in my cab ride,
And you were on the other side.
White shirt and headphones on,
Complexities were all long gone.
I looked at you for a while,
And then I saw you smile.
You looked up at me,
And caught me off guard.
I wanted to flee so desperately,
But you walked away without any regard.