Author: poetryfest

I laugh,
though it is time for mourning.
The sound system has been on
since this morning,
but I cannot trust either of my staff,
at least not the new member,
to remember to play the songs.
I tell him to play Bach’s cello suite.
Not that one – the second one, in D minor.
I tell him to play it at a low decibel level,
to soothe, not disturb the guests.
He does not know anything.
He does not know that the microphones
are in the flowers, and in the lampshades
that dull the yellow lamps on the oak side tables
next to the blue upholstered armchairs
from 1982, and above the drop ceiling in the
overflow room, where the critical conversations are held
(but never in the box – too risky).
The unaccompanied cello elicits a tear,
because I had three friends who shared
my enthusiasm for Yo-Yo Ma,
but we have recently had a kind of falling out,
and I do not know what I will do without
the dentist, the jeweler and the attorney.

pick up the rock, throw. it lands.
do i remember how to play this childish game? once i did,
when my time was taken up with floral skirts, double dutch,
laughter, hair red as a sunburn wearing

a braided floral crown. white petals
falling, a delicate halo. now, i am hesitant. no longer
sun kissed and smiling, making wishes with dandelion puffs,
pulling petals off—he loves me, he loves me not.

he never will. i want to scream.
i always laughed too loud.
can i tell you a secret?
i pretend now,
laughing loud so you think i’m happy.
i’d rather be screaming while running barefoot in the grass

again. heat crawls up my face, eyes of strangers
prickles my skin. i hop on one foot. land on each number,
jump over my rock. turn around. return to the beginning.

I think I finally understand why people paint the world they see.
I think I finally understand why writers write,
why poets rhyme,
and why preachers preach to those who pray.
I think I finally understand why the hurt turn to the healers,
and why the healed never turn back.

It is faith.
It is hope.
It is about finding beauty in the world around me.

Admiring the sun and the sky,
the sand and the sea,
I appreciate the way the current increases in intensity,
as if it has tales worth telling under the glistening stars.
With sandy feet and soggy hair,
wrapped in towels and waiting to be transported
to a kingdom where seashells crown the shore,
where the tide writes letters in foamy script,
and sunlight spills like liquid gold upon the sand.
The mountain of water conveys myths and sagas
that would shock ancient scribes and Greek mythologists alike.
I want to paint a picture that shows the way the sand makes time drift slow,
how the sea silences worries and provides music for the soul,
and how the shells remind me of the beauty of the ocean.

I want to capture the way sunsets hold memories,
the colors preserving events of years past,
and show how the waves encapsulate time.
The sand hides the truth,
while the sky shows endless possibilities.

I finally understand why people paint the earth meeting the endless sky,
or the way the sun smiles down on those who lounge.

If only I could paint the laughter that drifts as lightly as the breeze.
If only a painting could capture everything.

If only.

First I see you shine
catch my eye in the light
right up dancing just so
aglow from this
perspective – you’re mine
seeing past and through
the sticky parts
a glaring bright
flame we might be.

I see you up side
down in the corners. Your lips
stick together like glue
A mighty yet
wet blur softens the angle
illuminated angels
gleam and you mean
the truth, now in
my eye you’re gone.

The deaths felt so long ago,
and still, just yesterday.
And I know it lurks
around the next corner.

I look around at us — left behind —
carrying sorrow,
bags of memories,
untouched potential you had.

The potential you poured into us,
like warmth feeding wild things.
The possibility of happiness, adventures, laughter,
as if you wouldn’t wish those upon us still.

We grieve you, as we always will.
It’s harder to live for the light you left behind
than to mourn its absence.

We attempt vigils, parties, prayers —
things that don’t quite and never will fill
what you left.

Still, together,
a mass of mourning
is better than the loneliness of grief.

I keep the other livings in my mind
as much as the memories passed.
I tell them I’m thinking of them.
I write for them.
I believe some of them do the same.

And though I cannot end our pain,
Nor unpack our animosity from what has passed,
I can bring flowers to your grave.
I can light candles by your ashes.
I can check in on your loved ones.
And in those small, flickering acts,
we promise each other
to carry what you gave us
as far as we can.

I tell a man
I can grow a mustache thicker than he

We equate femininity with
hysteria of the uterus

Blood trickling down fleshy female thighs
Perforating gory clothes and sheets and toilet rimmed bowls

But deep deep inside of me
My bones
decompose
From the inside out
And I can’t pronounce the name
of the illness destroying me

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small face of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.” – Elie Weisel

In the silence much is said
For God to witness countless dead

When truth was needed to speak aloud
We held our tongues as silent crowd

Not a fall of snow showered night
But rain of ashes from spirits flight

No defiant words were spoke
As children burned to blackish smoke

What remains are words unsaid
For in the silence…our souls have fled.

************************************

History is a clock
That ticks in time
Where past is future
In moments that ryhme

Make sure you know what that boy has hidden
beneath the folds of a torn white sleeve.
Is it the stump remaining from an amputated arm
or the lethal charge handed-off by an older brother?

Always know the nature of smudge-faced boys
before entering the village with your loaded M-16.
Keep a map with escape routes tucked in your jacket.
Fill your pockets with gumdrops and bars of milk chocolate.

These boys with their—possibly—missing arms
will hold you accountable for the United Nations resolution,
every promise made by the unanimous assembly.
Even those oaths you were never intended to uphold.

Boys have their ways of keeping you to your word.
They know the implications of the footnotes and the fine print.
Despite all your best efforts and all your ammunition,
boys tend to become precisely who they were raised to be.

So keep your eyes on the twelve-year-old approaching your position.
Look at both hands. Watch where he places them.
Wait to see what objects are hidden behind white fabric.
And never tell a soul about the candy

dipped in poison.

Her mother, she imagined,
had died at noon
with the curtains torn open
with the sun bright
in this room with no shadows.

Her baby sister, beside her
In a blanket on the kitchen table
in front of her
was squalling with life;
she had been told to
stay, to talk to the baby,
to sing to the baby,
to learn to love this baby,
a stranger who committed
murder in that well-lit bedroom
with the sun bright
with the curtains torn open,

in the room with no shadows
where their mother
was crying herself to death.

might have dug
the humor in naming

an insect after
Lady Gaga—

Nicaraguan
treehoppers

two horns jutting
from the shoulders

wack fashion sense
vibrant singers—

would have instantly
unpacked metaphoric

relationships between
stealing another’s cukes

and colonialism,
or recognized that

urban heat islands
and currency exchanges

lead back to capitalism,
after all, both cut

from the same vapid cloth,
the invariable vegetation

of vaccine hesitancy
and gospel truths.

Leoš might have hooked
up with a Moravian Fraulein

just to luxuriate on folktales
based on a bulldog

named Crowbar that barfed
cold turkey from daily jaunts

with its owner to some Brno
tavern, warm beer as stackable

as silver, the inebriated
wit seated down counter

as indivisible and untidy
as an odd integer peering

into a timepiece, and
wizened barflies dreaming

aloud about a future
a century hence

with insects whose children
slowly ransack ash trees

along the boulevard,
newcomers to the game.