Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film.

RHYME Poem: Invictus, by Matt Cooper

The dusty thrift store on west Central Street.
Is where I bought the typewriter your elegy
Was written on—A gray Smith-Corona.
I feigned that Hemingway and Pamplona—

Were things I understood as you shivered.
Yourself to the heavens you delivered.
The blue marble, the road, the page not ready
For you and your soul scared so unsteady.

I drove up to see your Gran-Gran in Montana—
Listened to her smile’s Savannah
Try to shed the light on wherever you went—
Now your birthday’s just how we weep for Lent.

The long tentacle of the man of war
Jellyfish, or the thorn of Lion’s Mar—
You’re one of these now my very best friend
Even to the typewriter’s busted, buried end.

RHYME Poem: The Last Days of L.A., by Noah Dunn

I wrote myself a poem today —
much to my disgust — in hopes
to offer something else than shape or meaning,
like, perhaps, a word
with weight and sizzle-crack:
a bridge of lightning bright enough for aping
those between those motes of light
that I have always found to look like you.

Like you: all sprawled beneath the vine-hung sky
in Grand Hope Park. Like you: with runny
nose and bloody knee,
the t-rex on your t-shirt announcing
how you thought about extinction
as you fell toward the dirt
in geologic time,
or you:

with clever, busy hands
encircling dandelion hair
into a sheaf
like the treasures off the threshing-floor
to better press your cheek
against the snot.

HAIKU Poems by Dora Zelig

Surrender

I push and you pull
Your end of rope is lengthy
When I crash, you win

The Self-loather

“Someone” that cuts deep
Weaves in and out of the day
Tripping confidence

Cultish

He, who seeks the lie
Has no trace of real conscience
I will bring you down

You’re Mine

Another fight now
Crystal pieces adorn floors
We all want a break

Mush, attempted

Believe it baby
We will never be marshland
Open fields only