Author: poetryfest

—

‘Twas the second hour of dawn’s gray light,
Her voice, a whisper, drifted on the breeze.
She moved in shadows, silent, out of sight,
Her ashen face, so pale, so gray.

“Is she a dream?” I breathed, a hushed demand,
Her hair, unbound, cascaded like a fall.
Her white dress, tinged with red, a ghostly band,
Almost as a specter summoned by my call.

“Beware!” I cried, as I rushed her near,
She turned, her gaze so calm, so strangely cold.
Her lips, a curve, a smile both dark and clear,
Then she faded swiftly, her tale left untold.

I turned back to my lonely, weathered place,
My thoughts consumed, with no certain release.
The wind’s wild howl ripped through the space,
As if even the mighty stars recoiled in fright.

Her eyes, I knew, held something not of earth,
They shone like suns, yet lacked a warming touch.
Was she escaping, longing to depart,
Or just a phantom, born of my heart?

That night drew on, an age of restless dread,
Her haunting song, a whisper in my ear.
Alluring, yet untouched by love, instead,
A hush that shivered through my bones.

The sun’s brief journey, a forgotten dream,
Time moved relentlessly in a constant flow.
She came and went, a vision, it would seem,
Yet bound to something deep below.

Through countless moons, my love for her took root,
My heart, a captive, willingly enslaved.
Beneath the moon’s soft glow, my love I vowed,
A vow that lingered, cold and grave.

Her expression spoke as though she knew,
But how could I tell if she accepted it too?
She stumbled and fled into the night’s dark hue,
And I pursued, my fate askew.

I chased her form until my lungs gave way,
A gasp, a cry, a scream of pure despair.
Ah, the wail!
There she knelt, hands tangled in her hair.

I called her name, a whisper on the air,
A name unknown, a secret yet concealed.
I knelt beside her, lost in deep despair,
As silent truths at last were revealed.

Her eyes, a twilight’s blend of dark and light,
Held hope and fear, yet somehow appeared dead.
Piercing my soul to know if love was right,
Or if my mere longing lied instead.

Slowly beneath the pale moon’s glow,
Her form began to twist and change.
No angel, nor the maiden I’d known,
But a soul starved, lost in love’s cruel cage.

My scream tore through the silence between us,
I ran and ran—lost in despair.
Miles stretched on, unyielding, endless—
Yet still, I felt her grip deter.

My vision blurred, the world turned still,
A chilling weight pressed into me.
I lay there, frozen, gripped by chill,
Drenched in blood—but none of it mine.

There she sat, the face I loved,
My words now strangled, lost in air.
Frozen, fearing to be spoken—
For the demon toys with prey in glare.

My gaze fell upon heads, bowed and still,
Encircling the rock—an infant’s grave.
“Is it thee? Why dost thou do this?” I cried,
Then, with a voice like shattered glass, she cried—

“Long ago, in lands where dawn did gleam,
I gave my heart, a foolish dream.
I knew not his love was but a lie,
For he sought only my flesh to buy.”

—

“I cried in vain, but he stained my soul,
I fled, but none heeded my toll.
My tears fill oceans, endless, wide,
While he, untouched, in joy did bide.”

—

“He tore my heart, my spirit broke,
They cast me out, with stone they spoke.
My womb, a mark of his vile seed,
Yet still they stoned me in my need.”

—

“No ear to hear, no hand to save,
My cries, my child’s, both claimed by grave.
Did I despise it, or love it so?
Was I a mother, or a sorrowed woe?”

—

“Lady, what dost thou seek now?
These men did not spill your blood, nor I.
My hands are clean, my heart is true—
Not I, nor they, are thy curse to defy.”

—

“Then die!”
Her sword, sharp as vengeance, poised at my throat—
“I strike thee down, so none shall ever know
The torment I endured. No more shall he reign,
For none shall suffer as I did in vain!”

—

“Thy criminal is long dead, fair lady.
Thou art safe now. Might I have the honor to know thy name?
I wish to remember thee, if it be so.”

—

She spake not a word, but gazed upon the blood that dripped from my neck.
‘I shall protect thee, fair one, for my love is true.
The heavens bear witness, my heart yearns for thy soul.'”

—

The sword did not cease, yet no pain I felt,
Only sorrow, for my love was left unproven.
My vision blurred, not from fear, but from tears,
And hers fell too, upon the ground, as though in mourning.

The blood reached to my lips,
Yet I did not hold my life dear.
My only regret was her loneliness, or so I claimed.
For in her eyes, I saw the sorrow I could not tame.

I summoned my final breath, and with it, I did plead,
‘If thou art too lonely, come to me in hell,
For without thee, no heaven I seek. My love for thee, forever true, indeed.'”

The last I heard from her was:
“Love is but false,’’she spake with sorrowed breath.
I faded into oblivion, and so did the love she sought of old

Curiosity inspected new releases
Hard to suggest discretely
Unscathed due roster empty
Folio suitably spotless hairless
Munching stains omitted clean
Story rhythm without crumbs

Evening vanishes burnt umbra
Town sidewalk spotlessly blinding
Ice scrape chorus absentia
Deeply edged window castings
Cover protectors reflections meander
Glinting themselves festively seasonal
Chilled leather flatly exhaled
Frost laced story loosening

did you know
when caterpillars cocoon
they dissolve into liquid
every segment, every cell
of their bodies
dissolving into an
unrecognizable pool
that can only be described
as mush.

and then slowly this
indescribable soup
begins to solidify
morphing into
the recognizable wings
and antenna of
those beloved butterflies
we look for every summer,
fluttering swiftly away.

to become something
new they must become
completely undone.

this. this is what grief
does to the human heart.
melts us into
an unrecognizable,
indescribable
sorrow.

I feel my very cells
being remade
becoming something new
in the chrysalis
of deep loss.

somehow these creatures
manage to fly
after this cellular breakdown.

maybe I will too.

Somewhere,
In the fleeting moment between relaxed awareness and all-encompassing sleep,
There lies an instance of opportunity.
A small window in time where the dreamer is freed from the confines of reality-
Free from extra weight around the waist, free from unpaid balances, free from politically driven division.
In this moment the dreamer becomes the creator -with the option of limitless scenarios
bound only by the extent of imagination.

Knowing this chance will come and go,
I waste no time on extravagant settings.
I silently step on a simple sand path, beckoned by the sound of distant waves.
The way is lit by the light of the moon and a spectacular set of stars.
Completely uninhibited by clouds.

My heart begins to thud in anticipation as I draw nearer to the waters edge.
The path opens up to a wide shoreline where my eyes meet the pinnacle of the vision.
My love. My love. My long-lost love stands waiting with extended hand.
Untouched by time, unburdened by loss, unaffected by the savagery of death.
I run forward with everything in me, while the periphery of the vision starts to blur.
Your arms wrap around, we crumble to the ground
I exist solely for this embrace.

The strength of the vision is waning, my mortal body craves the rest of REM.
First the moon and stars vanish, next the waves and the sand of the shore.
All that is left of the vision is you and I.
The catalyst of my deepest desires.
You and I.

Gripping with all of my strength
I desperately fight an inevitable truth.
That I can’t keep you here, that you’ll still disappear,
that I lose you more each year.

My love.My love.
My long-lost love if only I had a choice.
I would choose this feeling over everything.
I would exchange this moment for the remaining years of my life.
In the final seconds of our union, you place your hand upon my heart.
It emanates a warmth that permeates the ribs, and every tissue hardened by scars.

Until tomorrow, my love-
I guard the warmth you left on my soul.
I anxiously await our next embrace
down the path of a dream by the shore

You saw me take my first step into life, I held your hand as you took your last step of strength. You held my hand when I was small, You taught me the value of perseverance, In right from wrong, That’s why I’m so determined, I saw you stare adversity in the face, Without fear, A compassionate heart stopped beating, Tireless hands finally at rest, Twenty eight years of selfless love, Taken in less than 7 days, You taught me to be fearless, And protected me when it
was needed, I’ll never be the same person I was, Because of you, I am a stronger version of myself, Even though you are gone, I’ll forever hold you in my heart, The unconditional love you showed me, Will forever be etched on my soul.

The weight of grief
has the pressure of the sea,
compression on all sides
until I feel like I can’t breathe.
Grief is drowning alive.

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?