Author: poetryfest

I get sick of myself
Sick of
My overthinking,
my madness,
My mind is like a car without brakes.
You’re the cure,
Which I take in small doses.
I admire you,
Your patience
Your love
Your tranquility.
The serenity that comes when you hold me tightly, with my head on your chest, while my tears
streaming down my red, puffy cheeks.
You’re the remedy for my madness.
It’s no longer me against the world; it’s us.
Us against the world that’s going up in flames.

You’re the one that I want, but—
Don’t say but.

But she’s the one that I need.
Oh.

A simultaneous push and pull.
An interior darkness sweeps.

I find myself beside myself;
a voice that’s not my own begs:

“Then say it’s over.”
It will never be over.

“Say it’s over,” the beggar demands.
I’ll think of you in five, ten, and fifty years.

“Say it’s over,” the beggar implores.
Fine. It’s over.

The beggar comes back inside of me.
She is dead.

Joanne Koenig Coste, 1940-2022
“I am seeking, I am not lost. I am forgetful, I am not gone.”

cobblestones, shells, fishbones, pearls, ambergris
images of a sea appearing, disappearing in a sieve,
Whose place is this? Where am I? My name seems lost
he says: Who are those people sitting there? He looks
at her in progressively learned helplessness―

As one left behind, the caravan far ahead, camel
bells heard on more, blistered feet on scalding desert
sands, she lifts him with ice-cold hands of care.
―Reminiscent waves weave oblivion, but trusting
swollen memories, steering slippery lanes

he moves on―maps saved in remote safes identify
getaways, houses appear, which one to knock, no door
bell rings, paint-peeled tracks are gone, staring
back are blanks: walking down the stairs, his anxious
hands turn pages of chronicles, lines thinning fast,

fading inks plant smudges on sweaty palms. How
was morning? ―a long pause―I had breakfast.
How was your afternoon? ―a long pause― I had lunch.
What else did you do? ―a long pause―afternoon ended.
Confined in cupped hands, the brook in spherical

sounds of catch & let go, rusty orange waters receding
in tunnels, the flow swallowing recalls―there’s no pull
back―fists knuckling for help, fiber-thin flickers glow
― he looks at his son and says: he is my dad; I love him.
Assured, perhaps someone is listening, he articulates―

All the world’s a stage. And all the men and women, merely
players. Is it a poem, a prayer, or a book title, and who
wrote it? The soliloquy continues: 4 times 4 equals 8. No,
no, it is 16; how strange that 16 or 61 is the same as
1991, digits somersault, words fox jump, in staccatos

aging cuckoo clock filters the usual sunset; not long ago
perhaps yesterday, maybe today― maybe― maybe
Grandma baking pies; air sniffs cinnamon, sliced apples
stir appetite, headlines on black and white TV stream―
Neil Armstrong is landing on the moon,

a winding road, angry birds are hitting a town
in a thriller, carnivorous creepers cling around palm
trees, lone survivor shivers on a shipwrecked beach―
Is this the end of my world? Mama! Where are you?
My evening is cold and dark and scary.

In swishing tugs of rowing forth in swirls, the mind,
a bunch of dandelions in the green eye of a storm: hope
held in lion-toothed leaves, in forgetfulness, footnotes tug
in her gentle touch and lips pressed on the forehead mean
sleep. Good night, my dear, the familiar quilt

―his head on her arms: light switching off, lavender scent
sinking into pillows, that intimacy of being loved, vestiges
stay. Back then, the roads they drove, speed helping trees rustle
tunes, those tears in her eyes when he said, I Love You―
His smile, a rainbow then―Now―an epitaph, grief, and loss.

What causes war?
Do not this question you ignore
Is it for lasting peace,
Or has someone greedy had you deceived…?
—For a selfish purpose

War—Nation and nation
Have forces stationed
Against each other,
And a brother kills brother
—A sad man’s celebration

Should we really trust—
Gentlest lies told to us
Before God and his divine law,
Can we justify killings in war?
—But someone’s ambitions…
Peace is divine
Loving enemy is wisdom’s sign
Wisest act—’Avoid war’
Wrote Sun Tzu—In the ‘Art of War’
—Bible: ‘Thou shall not kill’

Look at earnings of peace
Love, celebrations, and pursuits are ease
So many things to excel at;
Futile is the act of combat…!
—Be wise

A million swords fall from the sky
Your love shields death a million times
Your love is strong
Yet gentle and kind
You are the helmet I wear
You keep me focused and prepared
You are my chest plate
You protect my heart from evil and pain
You are that immaculate sword
That inspires my achievement and growth
You are that bow-and-arrow
That fortifies my life
You are my spear
We plunge forward with no fear
You are the armor that keeps me sane
Through these battles, we must face
Victory with you is always achieved
You are all I ever need

1. Knowing unconditional, sincere and selfless, love is actually a super power that you can lean on eternally.

2. Having someone who truly, deeply, instinctively understands you is like seeing bigfoot twice. Take pictures! Celebrate, appreciate, document and cherish it!

3. We’re never alone, even and especially, when it seriously seems like it. We always belong.

4. Grief evolves, just as we do.

5. When a heart breaks so emphatically, it doesn’t have to harden or recede into some sort of haunted
basement, guarded by a creepy, cryptic, cyanide breathing dragon shaped like the person you used to be,
before. Don’t get me wrong; sometimes that’s part of the journey. But, it can, also, if we’re brave and
willing, break a heart wide open, and broaden it quite beautifully. You can see, feel and emanate levels of
tenderness for humanity that you didn’t know existed; it doesn’t have to be all about uncharted territories of pain, but you do have to actively, effortfully choose positivity (more than once or twice).

6. The songs that get stuck in our heads are almost never a coincidence. Most “coincidences” aren’t coincidences.

7. Someone who loves you, like the love mentioned in #1, will never stop trying to connect with you, even
and especially after their “death”. Their physical body might “die”, but their consciousness expands,
profoundly. Talk to them, write to them, think about your lost loved one(s), and know they’re there. Ask
them to prove it, with specifics, then be present and patient.

8. Singing, dancing, laughing, meditating, anything that raises your frequency, can help you connect with your loved one(s) in spirit. Don’t just protect your peace, create and care for your joy, with ferocity.

9. It’s so true that people who heal from deep, soul-shifting types of loss have a particular type of spark about them. They’re brave; they live fully; they vibrate at a higher frequency. They have the most noticeably
bright, true compassion and splendor.

10. Grief can also be a gift, if you’re able to trudge through it and allow it to keep changing you.

I’ve known many things
I’ve known many people
Wrapped in stories of many histories
Absorbed in the next best text
I’m on the hunt for knowledge I already possess

Every time, however,
When I step into the life of another
I learn something new
I learn from the eyes of others
Bring out parts of me I didn’t know I had
Teach me what to do with all these words
Living like I’ve never done this before
Because time with you
Is like my first day of something brand new

I imagine our bodies entwine
like vines seeking sun, our passions intertwine

fingertips trace constellations on fevered skin
in this celestial dance, two bodies align

whispered sighs float on heated breath
pulsing, a rhythm divine

sheets caress as we explore each other’s terrain
in your arms, I’m intoxicated by this fine wine

hands explore curves and planes with reverence,
a trail of pleasure’s design

in this sacred space, we lose ourselves completely
becoming one, crossing every boundary line

this dream, our sacred poem, speaks of love’s sensual delight
where passion and tenderness seamlessly combine.

Although you hold my hand, and gently wipe my tears, your criticism is my destruction; and your words are my worst fears.

You tell me that you love me and that you hate to see me cry. Yet you yell and call me names, and make my confidence die.

You say that I’m the problem, and I believe every bitter word. I scream and cry and shout, just wanting to be heard.

After years and years of fighting, my hatred for you grows, but you make me feel so selfish, as I’m writing all my woes.

I realize that you’re broken, that you truly are trying your best. But your best isn’t enough, not when you’re supposed to build me up instead of tear me down. Sure you make me smile, but you also make me frown.

But what I hate most of all, is I see your traits in me. Your temper, your judgmental nature, and the way you always disagree. The way you slowly shop, your hair, and your need to be right. I see all of it inside me, and it floods me with pure spite.

I don’t know how to feel. You do a lot for me, you love me, and you truly wish the best. But then you turn around and scream and call me names, and make me constantly stressed. Sure you don’t physically beat me….. not enough to be abuse. But you mess with my emotions, and you turn my head against me. I hear your voice nonstop, drowning all my confidence, making me second guess, telling me I need to change, and that it’s all my fault. Thanks to you I trust no one, and my heart is locked away in a vault.

I know you try your best, but your best isn’t enough. I know you can’t help it, that you’re broken, that you’re damaged. I know that you have trauma too, wounds that haven’t been bandaged. But I still don’t forgive you. Maybe one day I will. But until then, you are no mother of mine, you are simply Jill.

**Important!** My mothers name is Jill
Commented [1]: For context, my mothers
name is Jill.

After the painting “Miami Eden” by Jason Aponte

I know your dialect –
heavy heat, restless green,
the hush before the thunder
when everything holds its breath,
the wild is always in season –
a Möbius strip of sun and storm,
highways spooling between sawgrass
shimmer of canal water,
where desire and danger root deep.

The wild is not only what was born here
but what arrived, uninvited,
roots seeking the same sun,
scales glinting in the same blue light.
We inherit the aftermath:
python’s silent hunger,
air potato’s spiral,
the echo of peacocks in neighborhoods
where the only native song is memory.

I know this land by the ache of its heat,
longing grows in the shadow of banyans,
how the heart swells with each green pulse
of something not meant to be here –
python muscle tighten around memory,
iguanas flick prehistoric tails
across seawalls and sidewalks,
feral hogs root up the old stories,
tegu tongues taste the eggs of hope.

Your green climbs my bones,
the python’s slow coil,
the iguana’s flicker in the hibiscus,
invasive, yes-
but I want you, my love, to take root,
to press your hunger into my soil
until I bloom with you,
tangled, lush,
dangerous.

I walk the sawgrass edge,
my heart a comma between longing and loss –
the ache of what’s vanishing,
the thrill of what survives.
I pray to believe in renewal,
in the way fire lilies bloom after the burn,
but some things do not return.

We are always driving, always arriving
at the edge of what we cannot control:
the wild slips in through open windows,
seeds of want carried on the wind,
the pet we could not keep,
the garden that outgrew its fence.

What grows within us is not always native.
Something invasive takes hold –
a vine, a hunger, a secret wish –
and we name it only after
it has flowered, after it has choked
a native song from the air.

The wet heat under my skin,
South Florida’s wild pulse –
I taste you in the thick air,
salt and sugar on my tongue,
your hands a fever,
your breath a storm that never breaks.

Still, there is beauty in our chaos:
the riot of color, the flash of scales,
the way the world remakes itself
despite our best intentions.
We are exiled and at home,
a comma in the sentence of this place,
breathing in the wet heat,
learning the dialect of survival.

Listen to the wild –
not just the birds we know,
but the ones that have learned
to sing new songs in our trees.
Let us walk the exhibit of landscape,
each step a pledge to notice,
to name, to begin again.

Let me be your native wild,
be the vine that climbs me,
your lips the rain that slicks my skin,
your body the thunder that shakes my roots.
We are not meant to be contained-
our want, a species unlisted,
thriving in the forbidden places,
making the Everglades blush
with the memory of our touch.

Every story here
is a story of longing –
for roots, for belonging,
for a place to bloom
without harm.

Let us become the caretakers
of what remains,
writing our own story
between the drainage ditch and the stars,
where the wild waits,
where the wild remembers.

May we learn to listen
to the hush between storms,
to stories coiled in the grass,
to the warning in the wind.
Let us become caretakers,
not just witnesses –
writing a new stanza
where the wild is not lost,
but fiercely, tenderly,
protected.

I want you like the Everglades wants rain,
hungry, flooding, wild and without apology.
I ache for you invasive,
roots uncoiling in the dark.

Map me
like a new territory,
I want your mouth to name me
in the language of sweat and nectar,
to let the wild in you
find the wild in me,
and together,
to make this place
ours.

I’m the python in your garden,
slipping beneath your skin,
tongue flicking secrets,
pressing my wild into your native.
I want to taste the salt-slick of your shoulder,
devour your sighs,
make your legs arch like mangroves in storm surge.

Let me vine up your thighs
flowers opening only for your touch –
petals sticky, fragrant, dripping with want.
I want to tangle you in my wild,
leave you gasping,
your name is a forbidden species on my lips.

Let my mouth be the storm that drowns you,
my hands the roots that hold you firm,
my tongue the fire to your fields.
I want to flood you,
overrun you,
leave you trembling,
your body a new river mapped by my desire.

Let’s make the gods jealous-
let them watch as I take you,
again and again,
until the only thing native here
is my name in your moan,
the way we ruin each other
beautifully,
wildly,
without end.