Author: poetryfest

On the days my mind is not at war,
Grey clouded shadows appear,
Leaving a layer of mist over the field,
The raging battle gives way to the ghost town,
Haunted by faint images and quiet whispers.
I can see the silhouettes of people I knew,
And the outlines of places from my past.
I walk through my childhood home,
But the memories of violence are dulled,
Almost as if none of it was real.
My mother’s voice calls my name,
Soft and faded, and I fight the urge to reply.
My father speaks from the haze,
Desperately telling me he’s sorry,
But I can only give him heavy silence in return.
In my own room, I meet my younger self;
She meets my eyes looking for answers,
But I have none to give, only a lingering glance;
All I can say is this is not her fault, and to wait.
I can’t stay long in the house, so I try to find the door.
I revisit friends I’ve lost over the years,
The pain is there, but under a layer of dust.
I see my favorite places through a cracked lens,
And a piece of my heart aches to stay there.
But the danger of the ghost town is staying,
Staying locked in the pain of the past,
And never finding freedom in the light.
A voice calls me to return to the battlefield,
And my weary heart lives to fight another day.

Remember Shawshank Redemption? Remember that prison,
Ancient edifice of grim stone holding in the horrors. All I remember:
Not getting to finish my bubble gum lollipop. No outside food,
A rule of prison visiting. My uncle was a guest there for some years.
Probably drugs, he would loll in Gramma’s brown leather chair,
Lit cigarette dangling from nerveless fingers, eyes almost closing.
Maybe robbery, yet he broke a credit card trying to open our front door
When he accidentally locked us out of our house.
Prisons, more prisons, then an absolute silence. For years.
Gramma kept praying at the Catholic shrine she kept
In the back bedroom, candles glowing under a picture of him,
Shirtless and relaxing in that brown leather chair.
When he finally began reaching out, he had a wife, newer kids,
A job working on oil rigs, making good money, bought a house.
Living the American dream, maybe even a retirement plan.
Things happen, the rig blew up, the safety device slowing things down,
He was saving a friend and lost almost all of his skin.
Living still, he became a millionaire! Riches, luxury homes,
Bought a few new fingers & toes to replace those lost in the fire.
He became benevolent, buying cars and homes for everyone!
(Not for me, of course, I am the nothing of the family)
Things continue to happen, heroin a relief from painful throbbings,
Nerve endings still raw from the flames. He lasted fifteen years,
Longer than any doctor’s rumblings, before asking (begging)
His son to give him that final relief, to give him that final redemption.

Before we moved to the other side
of town my mother told me that one day
my grandmother would be a cardinal.

Grammy sat on a rocking chair
in our living room, and the sun would rise,
shining a halo around her graying head.
A wicker basket sat beside her chair,
and she would crochet tales for me.

Every woman was meant to be a cardinal,
and one day soon she would join the mothers
and grandmothers of our family’s past.

Grammy could translate the birdsong,
stitch their stories into scarves to warm
chilly mornings that we could wrap
around ourselves like a hug.

Our new house has a bay window, refracting
reminders that the sun still exists behind an empty
rocking chair, a fraying basket with store-
bought blankets. Stretching bare trees
line the backyard, the woodpeckers’ hammering gossip
is senseless and driving. Grammy could understand
them like I never could, never would.

On cold mornings I mummify myself
in crimson scarves, a tourist without a translator.

Even though it’s tedious to count the birds in the sky,
every flash of flapping red tightens my chest,
but it’s never her. My hands aren’t built to crochet
like Grammy could, like my mother does now.

I swaddle in the cold, creaky chair, swaying
side to side, fresh sunlight blinds
my eyes, but my ears detect

an echo of a two-parted whistle. A pale brown bird
sits on the edge of the windowsill,
red-tipped and tailed, and I think that she’s telling me
everything will be alright.

I see
That basket.
The one filled with sympathy cards.
Just sitting there, overflowing, lifeless
While Christmas carols chirp merrily in the background.

I see
The death certificate.
Just black and white tiny print
With faded borders
Nothing special
Except
It was my mom.

With a start and end date
Like a play
Whose time had run its course.
An unworthy narrative
For a life so very valued.

Cardiorespiratory failure.

I have to search for
The time of death.
Even though I was there, and it was
Momentous.
How could I forget?

I have to use the camera on my
Phone
To even read the print.

Something so big.
Reduced.
To something so small.

Wait.
It is left blank.
Because
They didn’t even care.
Like I do.

a name i never spoke
never called to, never truly knew
but i sing to you
as you sang to me,
i move towards you
as you move back

how do we please
a vengeful god
how do we play a song
that has no melody
and no words
just silent gasps

what do i say to you
when you never listen
what do i mean
when i was you
and you were me
little movements of love

how do you keep going
when the person you thought
would always be there,
isn’t?

You raised me to be good, kind, and strong
Now I gotta keep carrying on.
Your words repeat like a song.
To keep carrying on.

You taught me I could do no wrong,
Now that you’re gone
I gotta stay strong
and gotta keep carrying on

You were the place that I belong
What do I do now that you are gone?
You’ve been with me all along,
So, I keep carrying on.

Why do you call me brave?
Why do you call me brave because I survived?
I haven’t many choices.
Do you mean
that:
I should not have?
that:
you could not have?
that:
something about me is different?
that:
you are worried about me?
that:
you are proud of me?
I am not brave.
I am almost nothing at all.

Can this be my plea to the gods who took you so young?
Because I don’t want to rage on into the night
As I have done on the nights before
This black-as-death, moonless one.

I don’t want to console myself with some
God-forsaken belief that there was meaning in any of
The suppurating wounds that held
Your brokenness together.

I don’t want to praise all that you were,
And the rest that I imagined you to be.
I don’t want to liken your demise to a setting sun,
Or some other ridiculous ending, to make meaning

Of a rendered wound that is utterly, brutally senseless.

There is nothing in this cold night sky
But a splattering of white smeary stars,
Not one of them bright enough to pin you to.
You are nowhere in the blackness. You are beyond finding.

And yet, you are in me and over me,
Under me and through me; my aching knows your touch.
Damn you. Leave me alone. Don’t go.
Leave me alone. Don’t go.

Tears fall like the autumn rain,
As I mourn the loss, the pain.
A heart once full, now empty space,
A soul that’s weary, a tired face.

Memories linger, a bittersweet refrain,
Reminding me of joy, of love, of pain.
Longing to turn back time, to undo,
To bring back what’s lost, to renew.

But time keeps moving, relentless and cold,
Leaving me with grief, with a heart that’s old.
I search for solace, for a place to hide,
From the ache within, from the tears I’ve cried.

In darkness, I find a fleeting peace,
A stillness that calms, a world to cease.
But dawn breaks forth, and grief awakes,
And I’m reminded of what my heart still aches.

Yet even in sorrow, there’s a beauty found,
A depth of feeling, a heart that’s profound

“It Hurts” I am weak, to cry
It hurts to remember, to relive the pain
To recall the laughter, the love that remained
It hurts to forget, to let go of the past
To move on, to leave behind what will forever last

It hurts to be strong, to hold back the tears
To pretend that everything’s fine, that there’s no fear
It hurts to be vulnerable, to open up the heart
To risk being hurt again, to play the same part

It hurts, but I’ll face it, I’ll let the pain subside
And maybe someday, I’ll learn to heal and thrive.

Not the sun that rises
But the sun driven by Ra’s chariots.
Not the hand that caresses
But the smiles that follow.
Not the war from the skies
But playing hide-and-seek in the rubble.

When you bury me
And read my eulogy
Beside my grave
Do no try to find me
In the burning facts of biography
But seek me out
In my reactions to it all.
The being you lay to rest
Resided in a series
Of authentic reactions
To events of happenstance history.

If you dream me with the angels
Dream me a writer of fantasies
Borne from a fantasy-less Hamrun.
If you mourn me alongside Mephisto
Mourn an idler reacting to an age
That obsessively curates idleness.
If in your hot tears glimmers radiant love
It is a love born from generations of workers
Who craved families over Communes.

Our souls are no vacuums
They are put together
Like the mosaics of Byzantine Masters
In the cupolas of Ravenna.
We are constructed of our age,
The accident of birth,
The events of our lives,
And the art – my god –
The art that is
Hurled our way!

Hear the old bombs
And we shatter into being.
Feel the choruses of the gilded masses
And Hallelujah we are remade.

If we are mosaics
We are living ones
Pygmallion’s sculpture
Animated by our ways of reacting
As consistent as stars’ dances
As unique to us
As our genetic code.

We are made by our dances
Dances in and around life
Our being as malleable as limestone
But as fixed as pillars.

After reading my eulogy
And drinking the last
Of my Fernet Branca
Go to the nearest river,
Throw a pebble into a stream
And scatter what’s left of me
In the water flowing
Round the pebble
Retracing its solemn course