Author: poetryfest

Poem from Foreshadow: Book One of the Saga of the Dragon Born by Cynthia Clay

Bunny in Boots

Go and chase a flapping Worm,
Fetch a drink from a boagie well,
A gift accept from Bunny in Boots,
At the grace of dawn,
On the dewy lawn,
And you will always come to harm.

Clapping Chant, by Tristabé-airta, age five, entered in the Book of Correct Prophecies

“King’s temper hot,
King’s temper cold,
King’s temper kills the tot.
Six years old.
Some mind the hot,
Some mind the cold,
Some mind the sword-souled tot,
Six years old.
Run from the hot,
Hide from the cold,
Fight for the sword-souled tot,
Six years old.

Beyond the hills where moonlight sleeps,
A forest hums in whispered keeps.
Its trees are woven, dark and deep,
With secrets lost in tangled sleep.

The silver roots drink ancient sighs,
The branches stretch to painted skies.
The winds that curl through hollow bones
Sing songs of kings on fallen thrones.

A river glows with shifting light,
It carries echoes through the night.
Of lovers lost and tales untold,
Of whispered spells and buried gold.

The fireflies weave runes in air,
A guardian owl, with knowing stare,
Watches wanderers who dare to tread
Where time is but a silken thread.

For those who enter, heed this plea—
The Forest steals what once was free.
Your name will fade like mist at dawn,
And you will stay when time moves on.

There’s a war beyond the veil, where fire stains the sky,
God’s voice, a storm of fury — a roar, a battle cry.
Not for crowns or stolen thrones, nor for land or gold,
But for the souls of mortals — a war both dark and old.
It rages in the silence, unseen by sleeping eyes,
A clash of light and shadow, where truth and treason rise.
The earth may seem unshaken, the air so calm and still,
But beneath the surface trembles the weight of Heaven’s will.

Satan still works in secret, shaping Hylics from the clay,
Empty shells of hollow flesh, like puppets on display.
Some bear demon spirits, with smiles like broken glass,
Others shift their faces, letting falsehoods come to pass.
They slither through the cities, their words a poisoned breath,
Shapeshifters cloaked in beauty, yet they reek of silent death.
Their purpose is corruption, to darken every mind,
To cut the cord to heaven and leave the truth behind.

They blur the lines of real and fake, of wrong and what is right,
They dance in gold and silver robes, while hiding from the light.
Their eyes are empty mirrors, cold as winter’s air,
Reflecting back the void inside, a gaze of dark despair.
They build their kingdoms out of lies, a castle made of sand,
And whisper secrets to the lost with blood upon their hands.
Each Hylic is a weapon, a hollow, soulless pawn,
Sent to blind the world to God before the breaking dawn.

But the light won’t bow, the flame won’t break,
For every Hylic born in hate,
God sends an Aeon, fierce and bright,
A blade of fire, forged in light.
The Aeons walk in silence, yet their presence shakes the ground,
Angelic souls in mortal flesh, where holy flames are bound.
Though veiled by human bodies, their spirits burn inside,
A secret war within their hearts, where heaven’s hopes reside.

It was decided they carry ancient wisdom, a spark that never fades,

A silent army marching on, with swords the Father made.
For every lie the Hylic speaks, an Aeon sings a truth,
A voice that cuts through shadow’s veil and shatters dark abuse.
They move like ghosts of morning’s light, unseen but ever near,
Breaking chains the demons forge, and casting out all fear.
Their blood is fire, their breath is flame, their purpose bold and clear,
To guard the souls of sleeping men and whisper God is here.

Though Hylics appear through shadowed halls,
And curse the heavens as night falls,
The Aeons rise, unbound, untamed,
With burning hearts and souls unchained.
The battle rages, fierce and long,
A war of silence, sharp and strong.
The serpent coils, the lion roars,
As the angels pound on Hell’s doors.

So when yours feels cold and lost,
And hope seems frozen under frost,
Remember, Aeons walk beside,
With unseen wings and holy pride.
The war is silent, yet it sings,
Of broken chains and fallen kings.
And though the Hylics rule the sites,
God’s truth ignites and never dies.

after Cloud Atlas

…on a different galaxy, underneath
the veil of a different sky, a marathon
of rotating moons, a daybreak swatch
of suns, colors spanning from blood
orange to lime green, but familiarities
are not lost to you even in this new life.
The deserts of roaming snarlax remind
you of the cattle drives in your first life
as a cowhand working in the open Montana
range, the soft wind rustling between your
hair, riding horseback in the spirit of flock
and pasture. You still catch the breeze here
like a firefly of feelings, hoping you can
encase this memory in a mason jar of
consciousness, but it fleets with every
old life gave and every new life made.
Your favorite lonely shore is the
black tar sand and naturally olive
green waters, here on Ethonia: The
Planet of Black Lagoons, it reminds you
of a film with partly the same name
the same lover you seem to run into
in every new life. The same one who
ran barefoot through the lakefront
silt and pebble, to let you know
you’re not alone. Whether she was a
98-year-old teahouse proprietor
& you, a 100-year-old sherpa in Nepal
Whether she was a Mother Swan
& you a dashing drake in a Scottish loch
Whether she was a tentacle-lipped Terrangian
& you a tentacle-eared Kerrchangian on
the underwater exoplanet: Xelophant
in your most recent life, you were
stockers at a supply house on a colony
in Mars, and now in this new life
as you gather your snarlax, herd them
into a corral of laser-lined karaguey steel,
you can see her in the distance calling you
by a different name, from a different voice
adorning a different face, but you know who
she is, she knows who you are, and that’s all
you both need to know for the sky to transform
into a mistletoe veneer, for a routine afternoon
to be a holiday, and for you to kiss beneath
the heavens of a brand-new world

(After Ani Liu’s speculation on a future where some of us might embark on a one-way trip to space)

We need not speculate—
Seven days ago, when I was launched, untrained,
from the universe we built for each other,
you left behind two unwashed shirts in my closet.

I took one to bed, dreaming of orbits we will never complete,
mapping the gravitational fields where you once lay.

The other, a thinning atmosphere
against the vacuum of forgetting,
I wear into the world
until your scent burns on re-entry.

Every day, a light-year into space between us.

*Inspired by the art installation “Olfactory Time Capsule for Earthly Memories” by Ani Liu,
part of the exhibition Space City: Art in the Age of Artemis

i fear

those who see
only
my pain

see
only
their own

to look at me
and assume
i am drowning
in my darkness

not
reveling
in it

is a misconception

a missed opportunity

to learn
how to do
the same

Purple sunlight glittered upon a windswept plain.
Our green scaled hero stood and heard an animal scream in pain.
The hero’s ears pricked forward, and they took a leaping stride,
To discover their faithful steed writhing upon its side.
The hero cast a glance upon the vast, rolling landscape
As they sat next to their steed and stroked firmly its nape.
With a swift movement, the hero drew from their sheaf a knife
And plunged it into their steed to take the steed’s dear life.
A single golden tear rolled down the hero’s face.
The hero dropped their head and thought some silent words of grace.

In the Starlace Vaults where futures hum,
my life spins in algorithmic silk,
every path I might’ve walked,
rendered in glass-coated thread.

I danced alone
on the edge of a dying star,
sending light poems
to forgotten satellites.

They called me “the Whisper Architect”
because I built symphonies
from gravitational echoes.
I never touched another soul,
but the stars wept with me nightly.

And now I stand in the chamber
where the soul must choose,
one path to burn into being.
All others dissolve
into data mist,
ungrieved.

They ask me which I’ll keep.
The mother? The martyr? The monk?

No.
I choose the version
that loved the void
and made it sing.

Hidden away from
The prying eyes
Of our monstrous
Companions,
In a secret garden
Where black roses grow,
Fairladies
Bathe naked
In babbling brooks
Without the threat
Of being violated.

Curiosity
Is welcomed here.
There is no
Forbidden fruit-
No consequence for hunger.
The daughters of Eve,
We willingly drink the poison.

Linking our pinkies
We burst out in song,
And high in the apricot trees,
A dove joins in.

36- 26 -36
My measurements were an hour glass shape
Before children
After children
Before menopause
Before breast cancer

Doctors scooped out cancer like ice cream
a triple scoop, a banana split of tissue
until I was left with divots
valleys or hollows haunting me in the mirror after my shower
a river of angry red stitches surrounding the bottom,
u-shaped moat or the demented smile of a clown

My body is an amorphous shape
not quite a rectangle, not a pear or apple
too small in places that were too big
too big in places that were so small
the hour glass only measures time
grains of sand run faster than liquid through a sieve