Author: poetryfest

Towering over me, blue petals cascading.
Eyes open, hands outstretched,
reaching for their hands
Sunkissed in death’s garden,
as their roots burrow
Beneath the ground, all around me.

A soft touch to the skin,
Like the gentle kiss of rain
Gracing me with its presence
As their eyes stare into my soul.

Convulsions grip me
As the poison embraces me
Sweeping me off my feet
With a slight buckle in the knees
As it sets fire to my nerves
The heat welcome as my mind races
Heart pumping,
blood jumping,
pulse leaping
As your venom entrances me.

Yet I lay against your sky blue petals,
Over and over again
As my mind is
haunted by your spirit.

My dear delphinium,
If your toxins are my only opportunity
At feeling your love for me,
Allow your petals to become my cemetery

The porcelain cup
fallen to the floor
and shattered there
—my clumsiness.

Sudden noise and scattered
shards. She was never one
for such gestures.

Her hands always
at the quiet task; her voice
in the silence.

I find the broom
and dustpan, sweep
my painted concrete floor.

It’s quiet work for a while.

You look into my eyes, do you see me?
Or do you see what you want to see?
I share with you,
I open my mind and heart to you,
Yet you hear nothing.
It is as if you do not hear or see me.
You are lost in yourself.
Your body is there, but you are a shell of who you used to be.
When I see you,
I see emptiness and grieve for you,
for you do not hear
or want to hear what it is or what you hear.
You are empty with the idea that you are right
And all others are wrong.
The day will come when you want to see
and hear me.
But then I will already be gone.

The heart has locked for years,
with people passing through life like the wind.
A simple hello, you
change the tide and turn the key,
with listening,
What a valuable item
missing in lives,
Hearing,
Every word you didn’t remember,
Still, you listened.
It was the value you stopped to listen to.
Which turned my heart, dear friend.
I had never realized my heart had been so locked
until I heard you had left this life,
To begin a new journey in heaven,
Replacing you, dear friend, will be a journey,
For you were a true treasure.
I celebrate your new journey.

People say love is complicated, but that’s not true
It’s pretty simple when I’m with you
Even when our skies are grey
Your smile can turn them blue

Why do you rush to put your make-up on
Don’t cover up your flaws, that’s the beauty of who you are
It doesn’t matter since we both blush
When we feel each other’s touch

Even when I speak your name, I get nervous
I know there’s no such thing as perfect,
But if it were a prize, you’d deserve it
This Love might take forever, but the wait is worth it

I’m lost in your eyes, they’re a maze with no end
One look and you could make Lucfier fall in love with God again
It’s hard to think you’re real and not pretend
But it’s harder to believe we weren’t more than just friends

Cause you’re gone right now
And I’m stressin’ and can’t relax
Your love is a drug, and I need to relapse
I’m way too stuck on the past, she can see that
I hope someday you’ll be back

Hopefully, you’ll be right in front of me
I could really use your time and company

Love is blind but can see
Love’s a mess but also sweet
Love’s a truth that can get really ugly

Love is lost, but I hope it finds me

There is no particular sound
that rustles through the trees,
different from the music
we listen to.
different than the sounds
our hearts are used to.
Your hands grab and hold me
like I have somewhere
better to be,
fingers interwoven
against the middle
of my back,
like tiny branches,
like this is where you
planned to be,
settling deeper
into my chest.

I press my lips to your forehead,
a place filled with dark honey
surrounded by mahogany oak,
where dreams sit and they soak
until they are sticky and ripe.

I kiss you like
the night has no end,
like your bones have endless marrow,
like there isn’t another you.
Your arms are still.
Your lips say nothing.
There is no particular sound
that rustles through the trees,
no different than how
my heartbeat
thumps against yours.

May my love’s laughter
echo in the halls of God —
let angels envy.

Cold afloat
Down the remedies
I dream of you again
I know I am asleep
I hate you less in my dreams
Sometimes I forgive you
And sometimes I miss you
I know I want to curse you
So I do under my breath
I hope you suffer insomnia
I hope you never sleep
Under heavy eyes
I carry your stupid pain
Curse you a thousand years
For cursing me first

written after the Syrian crisis

It doesn’t matter where we go
Or even where we stay,
We are all immigrants

Some leave home
To arrive as immigrants
Some stay in place
But feel displaced

Who is Turkish these days?
Who is American?
What is a Londoner?

i visit Ellis Island where my grandparents landed
Today In Krakow, Berlin, New York survivors remember

Immigrants run from oppression
Aim for freedom
Some make it
Others don’t

Who are these displaced people?
Who will receive them?
Who will listen?
Let alone who will welcome them?

What am I supposed to do?
Does anything I do matter?
Exhaustion overwhelms while babies cry

Are you listening God?
Are you there?
Kindly pick up the fucking phone
I am calling you!

So many deaths
of ideas,
hopes,
futile whispers trying to be heard

Come now, my friends,
How bad does it have to get
To wake up compassion

Drugged we walk the streets
Drugged we sit and wait for something unknowable to happen

I read Allan Kaprow’s essays on the blurring of art and life
Can poems and still lives heal us
One artist, one storyteller, one poet at a time
Put their souls on the page, the stage, the canvas

Create a minute,
A breath to a quiet the mind

A space, a place,
to be
present to the heart beat

I remember visiting the Everglades when I was six
And knowing it was special
I remember taking a course on Florida wildlife
And knowing there was nothing quite like it
I don’t like Florida, but I miss it, I miss what it used to be

My mom would take me to see what was left of Old Florida
Teaching me about our natives
People and plants
Making sure I knew which were invasive,
Retelling stories of when she was my age
Seeing alligators and manatees
While we sat in the fields of my papa’s nursery
Riding on the dirt road back home

Now, almost two decades later
It’s hard for me to call Florida my home
When its officials are killing it
My land is not a prison,
But they’re making it one

One way in
One way out

When I go to the beach
There are 3-story-mansions built on top of
Sand dunes, a king on his throne in Mar-a-Lago
Guarded by school buses
Afraid of being shot, but not by cops

They sit behind their guarded gate, guns in hand
Glad to know the violent people are gone
Tucked away in the wetlands
In a building that will drown them
Come the first hurricane of the season