Author: poetryfest

The time here is over, and the time for the great unknown begins.
Alas, the soul may never die.
It lives in the heart of those who remember.
Those who smell your cologne when walking through the street,
Those who see you in a stranger passing by,
Those who keep your picture up in their house,
Those who remember the good and the bad times together,
Those who are reminded of your nature through others,
Those who would ask what you would do when they need help,
And by those who hold their grief close to their heart.
Allah yerhamo

(In the Aftermath of PK’s Suicide)
By Lorie Adair

We snow maids
are idle angels terrified
to plumb the depths
of icy woe.

Suburban wives with sapphire eyes
thick with wax, and smiles
of startled artifice,
we are but shadows on the lawn,
roosters savaging along a distance
no lover can repair.

In therapy, we drone
I shall be well again dreaming
someday it will ring true.

For now, we lie
in bleached valleys
of waste and shame,
so many fractured mirrors,
and aborted stars.

We awoke.

The first drops
Were mistaken for tears,
But as more crashed down, yellow and bubbling,
They ate through the stone of our beloved’s rest,
Bones refusing degradation peeked through
The blinds of this day; We saw
its jaw barely clinging to solidity,
Nestled below chewed vertebrae thrashed
beneath a pillow of rat fur—
An eyeless skull transfixed on the surface
left in an inaudible scream. I can still hear it.

What yearly remaining reverences were now barely stems,
In a week dead like the remembered,
thirst clutching its snipped roots. I recall the In-memoriams ripped
from the ground melting against
a purpling, tritone sky.

There is no gravestone anymore,
Only disturbed earth.

Children wandered to pay respects for what lay buried:
Their name a forgotten
cicada song
echoing
in the bleeding chambers of the forest;
They do not know why they came;
they don’t know why they’ve stopped—

Once, the rain hung thick like a promise:
Wisps of cloud broke, but they never fell—

Before the downpour
our mothers and fathers crafted
brick from sticks and hope, A house a firm home for their children
and children’s children, Telling cirrus
stories of dreams by candle light—
They believed the clouds would pass, that there was
Still life beneath the corpse shade
casting blackness on vibrant reds and blues.

On the other side of the world, it’d begun to rain;
It was an endless supercell for
those who saw beyond the clouds—
They knew better—

The freshly dead floated by in the flood,
Carrying stone stories in their chests, dead air shouting
in static mumble,
Each syllable an exposed femur coated in hard ice,
Freezing, melting and freezing again—
Crafting a titan hidden beneath the water,
Dead and unburied,
Sinking unsinkable ships,
Another new, uncaring god.

Gathered in our homes,
We saw the unlaid brick
in the yard, a wheelbarrow of concrete
now stone—we waited too long to build anything
Strong enough to hold us.

I began to tremble as the ground below shifts,
Beneath my feet, I tasted the ruin.

We awoke.

The silence heavier than any nightmare
the walls around us cave in—
There never was a dream—
This waterlogged grave
merely held the facsimile of
a long dead memory
too broken to recognize,
A name falsified called “hope.”

The clouds burst open like a fresh scab,
The wound spilling out a reckoning.

A lot changed in a moment; nothing is the same.
The hush in my room is a scream,
I closed my eyes to a fractured dream.
Dreams and peace have long been gone,
I sleep for hours to seek someone.

A lot changed in a moment, nothing is the same,
afterall, I am just a pawn in the greys,
drifting lost in endless maze,
step by step but never free,
a silent piece- forgotten me.

Peace and happiness- ghosts in air,
standing afar with sinister stare.
They smile cold and I call them close,
I give a hand that never reach,
they whisper truths they never preach.

“You’re not the same,” they softly say,
I smile—was I ever, anyway?

It profits us little
to spill no blood at all
amid night birds of envy
and our
pervading desires.

By the end of each daylight
we are all as guilty as the serpent
lying in wait for its prize
no matter what.

Patience bears us little more—
perhaps a bit of virtue.

The virtue is gained
yes

but the people
want dramas and blood:

the child held for ransom
under the wicked burn
of the world.

II.

I too adore violence; and,
when I had shaved my head completely
and those of
a few men who emerged
curiously from their cells

I perused the odd stack of books
(which sat like rapturous treasure
on the wobbly library cart).

They lead me to Ezra Pound
and then dreamily to Ku-to-en.
Stately crows on my window ledge
block out a winter sun.
They bow their heads in sorrow.

My sentence for loving you

too strongly

is 161 days, 161 nights:

time enough to read these books

time enough to cry

They say that if you write it down,
it stops hurting.
So here I am,
sending words,
I know you’ll never read,
hoping they’ll leave my mind,
if only for a moment.

The truth is—
I’m obsessed with you.
Every hour, every minute,
every day.
I’m constantly thinking about you.
I wonder what it’s like
to hold you,
to kiss you,
to hear your laugh
not as a distant echo,
but as a warmth against my skin.

Do you ever think of me?
Even for a single second
On a busy week?
I long for the days
when I used to see you,
when we talked about anything—
everything.
Even though it felt wrong,
it felt so good
to have your counterfeit attention.
Was I only a joke to you?
Did you lose interest,
find someone new—
someone easier to love?
Should I do the same?

But how am I supposed to find
someone better than you?
When you’re everything
I ever dreamed of—
and more.

Maybe I’m a fool,
begging for a single glance
that may never come
I know we’d never work,
know you’d choose someone
simpler—
someone who doesn’t feel
like she’s cursed
with thoughts of you.
Someone who isn ́t me,
never me.

I try not to compare,
but I’ve never had a crush
so strong
it feels like a magnetic field,
pulling me back to you,
again
and again
like gravity to a world
I can never call home.
Now that I know you exist,
how can I love
anyone else?
You’ve cursed me
I’m damned
It feels like I’ll never stop
thinking about you

The worst part is—
you might never know.
Never know
how happy I wanted
to make you.

Maybe I’ll tell you someday,
when my heart
no longer beats
for you.
But I’m sure
you’ll find someone better—
everyone else does.

Still, I’ve never felt this strong
for anyone before.
I’m sorry
you’ll never know.
But I can’t help but wonder—
what if?

Upon these waning mountaintops I felt
the loss of you for the first time. Every
notion staggers below with dull, opulent
eyes flowing over the gravel and sands.

In each direction there remains what once
was, and still is, completely unfazed
by your removal from this Earth. Can I
truly accept your absence when nothing

around me has changed? Such resonant
feelings waver inside, it’s impossible
that no amount wouldn’t escape and affect
my surroundings. Those encompassed

in the journey look on with smiling teeth
and joyous cries, enraptured by the natural
world. Absolutely nothing echos what
you’ve done, and where you now sit;

hopelessly, I expect something tangible
to acknowledge my great sadness. With
no outstretched hand, I feel nothing
for the wonders that yesterday compelled me.

The looming colored mountains once
possessing heavenly oppression appear
as if a minor wind could topple them. The
aging ruins of an empire ingrained in this

Earth no longer feel essential; tattered
bricks strewn about during the onset
of a conquering. Lifelessness overwhelms
my sight and all I take in. Dead and vapid

is the world around me as it continues
to tread through layers of unaffected
time; beating no pulse and breaking
your memory, moment after moment.

The only extension I sense is heat,
radiating through our thinning air,
sternly holding me to the
ground with little room to breathe.

Always have I hesitated in the
warmth of the sun, now it appears
as cruel and detestable. Never more
have I craved the stillness of

a January Winter. How unfair that
you had to leave in Winter, while
I’m forced to endure the Summer.
I wish for the numbing cold to

overtake and force my thoughts to
cease, if only for a fleeting second.
In great timeless uncertainty, I
would forgo what compels me now,

and feel your absence for what it
must be… Perhaps I’m overly selfish,
concerned with my meager place,
while those nearest to you feel a

shared intensity hardly fathomable.
They must embrace your lifeless
presence, that inarguable truth making
up the whole of your death. Here,

I can only picture you abstractly.
I’m unable to make out your face
and shape. How you remain presently
I cannot know. To me, you once were,

and now, you are not. You’ll be missing,
the only consolation being the words
of those who knew you as I couldn’t.
I must accept them as concrete.

However, I will never truly know

you came to me in a dream last night
like you had never left.
i knew the instant i saw you.
i held you tightly in my arms,
taking in everything about you.
not as if you had slipped from my memory
but because it had been so long
since the image i had of you
was one with you living and breathing.
and suddenly i forgot i was dreaming–
you and i were together like old times.
the past had been rewritten
to form the reality i once wished for.
in an instant my eyes opened,
greeted by rays of light and silence–
the morning mocked me with its likeness
to the day you took your last breath.
and i stayed there, just as i did before,
knowing that every day after,
i would awaken to a life without you.

Despite hunting
the balm of hymn or mantra,
I’ve yet to grasp the prayer
for the death of an idea.
There is no altar.
Nowhere to lay my flowers down
as tears fall from my mind’s eye
into the ocean of all I’d dreamed.

There is no sacred place for mourning
this picture of a life. Made fiction by
reality (or, my sorry choices).
Still, I ache for all I had imagined for myself.
The silver edge of possibility
worn down, made dull
by sand in my hourglass.

– Grieving Expectations

A secret system
A hidden way of life
someone out there is finding
finding out what the world is about
finding the answers
someone out there is searching…
on a cold winter night
1000 years ago
a knight stood guard at a castle
with a grey mist
came snow
the knight fell asleep
he became feverish
and soon he woke
his body burning
no feeling left in his fingers or feet
he jumped at the sight of a blue jay
And the green spring trees
he had slept
like a hibernating bear
through all of winter
when he walked through the streets
he knew something felt off
the whole town had left him
in the spirit of frost
as he walked out the castle
he glanced over his shoulder
there was a dark soul behind him
The knight turned and swung
but the soul was lost
it didn’t even jump, it was the spirit of frost…
the knight left the castle
and the spirit
is still told to be near.,
the spirit is here
today
learning the ways of the modern world
but as time ages
the spirit fades
his soul becomes more and more lost
his dark shadow fades
and he becomes tired
he knows the answers
he’s been here all along
but the more our world fights
the more he fades
all he has
are his old ways
the way we find the answers
is if everyone fights together
when that knight ran 1000 years ago
he ran from the answers and the spirits below
The answers were in that castle long ago
people came around to see the spirits show,
he sang and wept and spoke aloud
“Everyone has a place”
“You just need to make yours”
The spirits are all around with answers and sounds
some are the wind, and when you hear it howl
they are speaking and screaming
even though it might sound calm or creepy
the wind has the answers to our worlds legacy.
When you hear a fire roar and light with woosh
Spirit burny has awakened
you’ve started his journey
He crackles and roars
rages out loud
these are the answers
flying around
each ember
is a world that someone created
each ember is an answer
as the fire dies out
it fills with answers
answers to our worlds legacy.
When you hear the spit of water from your sinks spout
thats spirit Liqo coming out she makes herself known everyday
billions of people use her day by day
when her rush is heard her answers are spouted
she has the least
she has shared the most
she has made a legacy.
The knight from 1000 years ago
lost frost in the warm spring glow
ever winter
when the cold snow falls
hes there
at the beginning of spring when the frost builds on the grass
hes there
When the cold creeps into the night
he’s there
when you get a frosty chill down your spine
frost is there…