Author: poetryfest

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.

Hello crabgrass we said in eighteen forty-nine,
come feed our cows, horses, oxen.

Each plant sprawling hundreds of branches
and every summer,
gifting the land
one hundred fifty thousand seeds.

Manna grits some folks called you,
prolific seeds harvested, cooked
porridge to feed the whole family
before other grains
put you in shadow, demoted
you to pesky weed.

Generous, sturdy, you sneer
at fussy lawn growers’ every effort.

Why can’t they admire your skill,
your ability to root between
rocks, roots, paving stones.
Even the smallest rootlets
left behind by hoe,
trowel, poison,
rise to the next season.

Baby wants Blue Velvet
To write in bruises, bruiseblue running uncoordinated in vain
Down veins called baby, baby it aches like a solid wedged in in
The blood blue velvet morning moving slow gasping coffee so as to
Numb the shake from sleep. Baby wants Blue
Anchor into concrete for shoes in reality blues
Color graded northwestern pale vampiric in the evergreens with
Sky so close falling heavy rain permeated cloud
Baby wants
Blue morning holding making something
More than the moment not melancholic and too
Good for too long not melancholic yet but a lapse
In blue moments between the blue baby
Wants blue
Velvet
Soft disgrace to hold, comfortable, there is nothing worse.
Baby wants Red Velvet
To cancel counteract fire inside of my bruise like
A joy, she thinks holding strong flame for a burn where
Everything’s smooth and bubbleover the roughskin, roughskin red
Velvet baby needs her to hold so there is a light there
Is always proof of a light in the scorch
The very burn, light
The very velvet, her proof baby wants
Proof there is something and it hurts but it’s light. Fire never will bruise burning never will
Bruise, baby wants bruise, Blue Velvet boy back crazy brained and
Bruised until the robins come
In dreams
Neat girls
Lynch ladies scorching on the stainglass
Martyrs disproving this blue velvet wanting this blue velvet morning this velveteen mourning.

seasoned
branches hang
like heavy arms
adorned with emerald icicles
pinecone fingertips
paint palettes of coniferous decadence
with needlepoint brushes,
waxy and thick with wonder,
gnarled strokes smeared dark green
across autumn’s bluest sky.

layers of limbs drip with tiny emerald brooms
prepared to silently sweep across the shoulders of people passing by
scratching strained necks
and collecting human meanderings like acorns
our wondering turns to seed, folded into sacred pockets of darkness
gently tucked into the tend heart of a trunk obscured
by broad boughs of pine

this majestic tower
all bark and needles,
all sap and squirrels
sways in shifting light
whispering wisdom into the wind
free for all
who choose to hear.

In the 80s, through the 90s
Never ending school days
Time grew long
You walked into the classroom like a light striking into the dark
Teacher told me to sit next to you
I heard my heart pace fast
A friendship began to brew
In moments of success, we laugh, celebrate
In times of failure, we cry, lessons shared
A shoulder for support, a hand to hold
The early morning meet, the late night chat
Secrets shared, stories told
Only you and me
Fluttered heart and tears shed
Trust hears this silent song
We found a place where we belong