Author: poetryfest

We’re all going a little crazy
Slowly, day after day after day
The new vocabulary: quarantine,
Isolate, PPE, social distancing
Daily Death Count
Rumors of vicious variants
Covid 19 – SARS

It brings out the best in us
And the worst
Our strength and our weakness
Our true metal, whatever that is

I’m not sure anymore, if its internal or eternal
My dialog, my words are my companions
How do you rebuild the invisible?
Safe is an illusion
we sacrifice so much to be safe
our sanity

Is this mother nature’s culling?
Big questions to ponder in quiet isolation
Was this just a dress rehearsal?
Will we ever be safe again?
Will the pandemic ever really end?

I hope you lay down your yoke of pride, and of shame.
I’m praying that you think of your own family and of
every other family sitting in front of history. I hope you
walk to the polls in your blue shoes, tapping out a song
that calls to your neighbors and children and service
workers and teachers. I hope you take hands with all the
mail deliverers and clerks and secretaries and I hope you
drag your bank and your hospital with you down the polls.
I hope you think of little kids out there, translating for their
parents as the results roll across us in waves. I hope you think
of the crickets in your yard. And every single bird you’ve
heard sing. As well as the scummy dogs on the streets and
spiders spinning webs in unknown corners. I hope you breathe
like a tiger, blow out a fire with your tongue. Twist some
fingers around the pen and draw a future that has room for
another after it. I hope you forgive yourself. I hope you change
your mind. I hope you think of your children or best friend’s
kids, or the kids you see on the bus every day to work. I hope
you think of cities full of women and fear. I hope you think
of the moon. I hope you feel grateful, and astonished, and I
hope you lay down your yoke and your blinds too. I hope you
read the news, and I hope you imagine yourself in other colored
shoes. I hope you feel moved. I hope you watch with tears and
tell everyone you know. I hope this doesn’t break you. I hope
you think of the boys who play basketball on your street, or the
cats that howl like pup coyotes in the city darkness. And I hope
you think of jellyfish squirming in cloudy water, and baby elephants
speaking like gods. I hope you care. Above all, I hope you care. I
hope you did your research and I hope you’re thinking about the
future every day. I hope the whispers coming off the lips of angry
women haunt you. I hope you think of the wolves of isle royale. I
hope you think of the men stuck on the moon. I hope you think of
the cost of frozen peas. And I hope you think of the artists. I hope
you love flowers. And I hope you love them enough to keep them
blooming. I hope you bring your heart with you when you vote. I
hope you write your name in the dank soil and your mama’s blood.
I hope you lay down your yoke of fear and guilt. I hope your
ancestors watch you as the paper is counted. I hope you think
of little girls with eating disorders, and tall ambitions. I hope you
think of little girls with coily hair, and tall ambitions. I hope you
think of little girls drinking their medications with tall ambitions.
I hope you think of little girls waking up cold with tall ambitions.
I hope you think of little girls with babies on hips and tall
ambitions. I hope you think of little girls who are actually tall
mountains, anchoring a family without dock to rest in. I hope
you think of mountains. I hope you circle the well and toss in
pennies. I hope you lick off your selfishness and throw off the
reins. I hope you lay down your yoke. And instead welcome
the runny yellow yolk and let it spell out survival. And I hope
you think of sick kids, and hopeless kids, and underprivileged
kids, and orphaned kids, and those kids in Palestine buried under
war. I hope you think of eagles. Real eagles. Swooping to catch
prey and feed the young. Real eagles that nest within your industry.
Shot down by capitalism. I hope you think of poor moms, working
fathers, single parents, the mentally ill, and I hope you think of
the plague. Which one? I don’t know. I hope you think of your
hatred of violence and I hope your eyes are unclouded. I hope
you sink into the river and return with honest passion. I hope you
think of your mom. I hope you think of snow. Of cottontails. Of
stars. Of Audre Lorde. Of the academics. Of justice. I hope you
think of your communities. I hope you think of the ocean. Of
metapopulations and meteors and metros and metaphors and
the absolute metaphysical. I hope you think of schools, of
white pines and yews. You should think of a mother’s grief, of
kids with weapons in hand. Handed guns like candy, handed
bombs like goodnight kisses. I hope you think of kindness, of
women who rub each other’s backs as they break down watching
the blue screen turn red. Of parents who don’t tell their children
until morning. I hope you cross all your t’s like women crossing
state borders to save themselves, and dot the i’s like blotting up
tears from the page, and spell it out big across corporations and
industries that use the body like a gear, puppet, expendable
resource. Spell it out big and clear, and slip it in the ballot box.
I hope you know your existence is a political movement. I hope
you know that’s not enough. I hope you dream of meadows and
lace and anger and beauty and ghosts and lovers and insects
and daughters—I hope you think before the election. I hope
you feel.

Do we run faster to not be adults
to not raise a toast
and let the children
share our second-smoke
give to receive
more flattery
to assault beauty
critique politics and curse the protestors
to not feast
throw a glass and blame the waitress
lose weight and order lobsters
to enjoy flashlights
pose on the velvet carpets and laugh
like an olympus god
to stay seated
pound the table and say

I Stay Neutral
to disperse teargas faster than fireworks
and celebrate
because it’s their story
and lift a finger to scroll away, tilting to the left
Bask in the sun, and have another round of applause.

On bright nights the sun displays four colors.
White is the tents punctured.
Black is eyes pretend to shut but never shut.
Red is a tree of hands behind the politico.
Green is the symbolic peace calling from next spring.
In the tortured, desired, promised and razed land—the sun also rises but the powder
blocks it.

somewhere in my travels i had taken the wrong turn
i can’t inform my path to there for i have yet to learn
i don’t know how it happened, how hell i stumbled into
journey aside, i found the devil’s lair without a clue

amidst flames i met a woman – a kind old soul in life
her piety led me to ask–what guide’s the devil’s knife?
she replied, i thought i stayed devout to faith when living
when i passed god revealed my sins, and he was not forgiving

i’ve agonized for centuries, unable to escape the facts
i have murdered many in my time–34 to be exact
when i could have born a child but i chose a different path
god had tracked one cardinal sin for every year that passed

it started when i was in poverty and could have born 5 kids
they were not conceived; they were murdered before they lived
when 3 ate at my table i could have birthed 10 more
i did not so those 3 would thrive – with god this struck a chord

when i was nearing 45, due to danger i removed a child
i chose to save my own life, but choosing is not god’s style
i decided to live a mother to 3 than leave a motherless 4
i did not foresee this decision was one that my god would abhor

this is why i was struck down into this infernal realm
i have murdered more than 30 souls–for that i burn in hell
but even now the devil knows i’d repeat every choice
despite what god revealed to me, i would do it for my boys

mark my words she stood there in agony looking proud
i had to turn away from her since she would not back down
i sometimes wonder what brought me there to the depths of hell
if only just to meet a woman and bring back her story to tell

Today,
Lesser men sang a song of worship
and genuflected like syphilitic nymphs
to the ascension of a lesser god,
The Fetid Cow of Greed
crowned with the ferns
of the Order
rising with the storm clouds
of a broken nation’s ignorance
to clap thunder
and cast flames
on truthtellers
strangers
and the starving
so the White Church could scream, “hallelujah!”

but We do not burn!

Pay for your hunger
Pay for a roof over your head
Pay for your life

Year after year
The price tag for basic rights
Keeps increasing

Pay for your transport
Pay for the cold
Pay for your life

Healthcare is expensive, life is expensive
When you can’t afford it – die
What happens if you can’t afford that, too?

Pay for your pain
Pay for having a disease
Pay for your life

Cost of living: unforgiving
You are Capitalism’s villain
Pay with your life

– After “Final Portrait of Charles and Holly Wright” Photographed by Holly Wright

My pillow is forever furrowed by worry,
so it folds under wild hair.

His lie flat, tufts of hair to
sweat beads on his forehead.

His elbows carve holes into the quilted comforter covering a clean set of sheets,
belt remains clenched to torso and blue ink pen engraves his chest.

My hands pursed together, I let my fingernails prod the blue veins of my hands,
my necklace neatly arranged under my day clothing.

Creased leather work shoes meet the end of our bed.
Heeled ankles cross and remain in bliss above the flowered quilt.

Our bed, our lives,
our sleepless nights, our pencil skirt and pleated pants.

Bread and circuses—
the stage they’ve set for us,
where the crowds are fed,
and the spectacle blinds our trust.

We’re all victims of random circumstance,
born into battles we never chose.
But when we rise to fight for change,
they rewrite our story,
ruin our names,
turning our heroes into foes.

Bread and circuses,
a feast for the eyes,
while the hands that feed us
dangle our lives like lies.

Like clowns on a stage,
we throw pies at each other—
faces full of filling,
blinding you and me.
The ringmaster made them all with deception—
delicious, but sugar-free.

Distractions sweet,
so we never see—
the chains that bind us,
the price of being free.

They’ll make us dance,
they’ll make us cheer,
while they steal what we hold dear.
And in the silence of our screams,
they offer bread,
and sell us dreams.

American humanity has spoken
their votes a napalm venom
spat mercilessly at their own wives
and daughters
we will not forget your cruelties
even when you beg
for forgiveness
the women and the marginalized
you claimed to love, cherish, protect
will not hear you
over the roar of our blackest inevitability