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.

GRIEF Poem: Apathy (the Weight of one’s Hand), by Lina Buividavičiūtė

Translated from Lithuanian by Irma Šlekytė. Thank you!

I’ve never seen it raising a revolver, ready for
a slap of betrayal. I`ve never witnessed it tossing soil
on a three-year old’s coffin, caressing an unloved one,
writing
the last letter, holding a hand of the one who’s departing:
So, they say,
I have no right to gather so much heaviness in my elbows
and
forearms. I have no right, they say, to not move my wrist
bones.

I know I have to move these arms for the sake of the
bedridden,
for those marked with age spots, for those who’ve lost
everything,
for those whose limbs were torn off by shrapnel.

Hanging off the edge of the bed, on a frayed bedsheet,
despite
all the scolding; persuading, ultimatums, 1 cannot stroke my
^
^
child’s head –
my hand grows heavy, because, I believe, as soon as I
touch him, the soil
will start pouring onto him.

I fight using different shapes of blackness, with no blood
flowing to the ten
little fingers,
but ifI’m called, if we once again need to stand hand in
hand, I promise you world
my hand,
for a short respite from an unworldly heaviness.

CINQUAIN Poem: We Find Ourselves Gripping at Wolves without Teeth, by Dani Arieli

Often,
we find ourselves
gripping at wolves without
teeth, so that we won’t be rare meat.
Well, my

boyfriend’s
best friend’s classmate
is a fox; of maple
shine, like our Canadian fall,
leaves spread

across
the fermented
sidewalks reaching beneath
the bridge I kissed him on, over
homework;

yes, I
figured there was
anecdotal research
to be had for Shakespearean
playwrights.

But the
fox still had teeth,
and I knew he had yet
to dress up and devour red meat,
at this.

Well, it
was on every
menu, was not this thing?
Always a chef’s favourite, I
recall.

Perhaps
my professor,
the Lammergeier in
dress pants, could explain why rare steak
was so

very
expensive in
the first place? Maybe, just
maybe, he could even try some—
but, oh,

that would
prove to be crude.
Besides, professors ate
marrow of deceased grades, Murnau,
and the

thought of
Nosferatu
dining students—order
of red meat, red wine, a napkin,
and zines!

Well, then,
maybe wolves with
teeth can walk my sister
home from the rock gymnasium,
and then

greet me
at the door, with
my mom glued to her screen,
watching women serving red meat
to mice,

hogs, and
bears, clearly starved
for the chef’s favourite—
just some rare meat, and a fork, please!
Well, it’s

just that
easy to ask.
I promise you, Skeeter,
it isn’t the end of the world if
you just

ask for
a fork, napkins,
maybe some wine, a zine—
if you’re nervous—a pretty grin
for that

oh-so
lovely lady.
Truly, gripping at wolves,
it’s as though we’ve all lost our teeth!
Well, just

know that
many of us
are far too picky to
order the chef’s special today,
the next,

and so
forth. We aren’t
rare meat, but we grip at
wolves without teeth, rare meat, tellies,
and zines

CINQUAIN Poems by Monty Mittleman

BUFFALO RIVER
Three days
paddling cliffsides.
Handfasted by water.
Moonlights opal hue; our maiden
Chuppah.

OUR TIME
First light.
Red winged blackbirds,
blushed Golden Rod, trilling.
Soundlessly breaking the surface:
tail fins.

PORCH SWINGS
See us
fulfilling dreams
of children and growing
old on porch swings, fingertips
touching.

NEW ORLEANS
Sultry
nights, fried chicken,
jazz at the Spotted Cat.
Our Remoulade: flats and your funky
black dress.

NEXT WE MEET
Greetings
at heaven’s gate:
an Adagio. Blue
shades of the Milky Way in
your eyes.