Author: poetryfest

It all starts with a thought that follows a pop
So vivid and appealing like a curious onslaught
Then the person starts grooving out of the block
Views change, make shift, foundations are formed
Weak flame, pledged words, a moth to a bulb
Big talks, fake blogs, witfully involved

Visually lost, embraced the chaos, but that’s not enough
Growth-fully stunned, what’s wish to a cause, gracefully lost
Blinded by love, falling down a slump, to fulfill the duty to the loved ones
Amidst the carnage, the survivor can’t protest
Ravages of wars again and again, without a break
Leaves the person with nothing intact, no sense of sobriety
No realizations, No hope, just pitch black dent
And nothing’s new just plain ol’ Lament

While everything seems to make them upset
Moderating the pain to soothe the backlash
Fell in depravity, now can’t even sleep for a sec
No notion or moderation yet they try to fulfill their conquest
Their whole world is falling apart yet they can’t seem to stop themselves

For all they know is to work and work and work, so inhumane-like self
A glimpse of countless fallen souls, heroes bound for hell,
Enduring storms so cruel, even therapy lost its spell.
What you talk to isn’t even a human anymore but a charred combusted shell
Whose silence screamed for help
For years they endured so much, a salute to their resilient self

Wish someone would have noticed their stutter
Some kind words, a simple compliment, a flutter
Maybe a graceful guide, bucket-full of hopes and a house of surprise for shelter
Maybe a good friend, and a great teacher, for them to not pretend either
To mend the vice of the bitter, cries of the Aether, heart that is cluttered
Before it falls back to the nether

Their cries went in vain yet the voices still refrain
Afraid of losses and faces scorned with disdain
Forcefully smiling throughout the pain
Imminently violent and without restraint
Engulfed in the darkness for the darkness smothers their brain

Vengeful and perplexed without a rest
Their hatred is genuine, perfectly jest
For the cries that went unseen and the angst of mesh
A turmoiled life, A fractured mess

Hope is but a blundered sail
Plethora of monologues, a crumbling rail
Exhausted sighs, eerie gales
A Note Not Worth The Bother
A Ghastly tale

-Asher Graves

I am sorry,
that though I didn’t always know what to give you for birthdays and holidays,
Going in shops, I instantly know if you would’ve liked something now.

Now that there is no way to give it to you.

I am sorry,
that though I didn’t always feel like I knew you very well or was close to you,
My tears now falling make it clear that we were close.

Now that we are separated by a distance never to be traversed.

I am sorry,
that though I didn’t always feel we had much in common, and often disagreed with you,
I see now we did have things in common and, while we disagreed, what does that matter now?

Now that forgiveness or reconciliation are no longer possible.

You had asked me to remember you not in the angelic light the dead are often remembered in, but as the person you were, with flaws, still human.

And I will.
I only wish we had had time if not to be perfect people, to fix some of the flaws in our relationship, grandson to grandmother.

But since perfection does not exist, I must be content with the one we had, with all its flaws.

The imperfect but no less loving is all we have in the end.

And I am glad of even that.

he sends me trees
that yearn
he sends me their bones
thinned as if by the great effort
and their reedy mesh
like capillaries
that want
fog
he sends me trees
whose grounded brokenness
snakes blackly
through needles
that remember
spruce
he sends me a sentinel
tree
the charred figure
invested like a temporary totem
with what (and who) came before
the silhouetted
remains
also imbued with the urging
present
for the few
like him
who might be led
or find themselves
here
he sends me a forest
I might have known
©2024 Lyall Harris

Through weather worn spindles,
light and shadow create a parallel pattern,
awash with sea spray,
as ocean waves bloat,
with off-shore storm,
Rumpled rolling green surface,
blanketed with a crochet foam lattice,
laps the shore.
Happy sunshine in foreground,
obliterates ominous background.

Window couture of late summer storm season,
along southern states:
plain and simple, natural and neutral tones,
boxy squares and rectangles, cover all, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Occasionally a button down, waffle weave aluminum,
drapes slightly sexier and
more expensive.
A temporary fashion statement,
everyone hopes won’t last long.

Roaring and raging, untamed lion,
reminding mere mortals of the powerful sea,
frothing at the mouth,
spitting and spewing anger.
A gradient, gossamer, grey veil masks the horizon,
concealing the unwelcome visitor, forcing his way ashore,
wreaking havoc, plaguing people with anxieties,
as debates over evacuations preoccupy front porch conversations.

To an unassuming tourist who,
traveled for a well-deserved vacation,
balmy breezes are respite,
from demanding summer sun.
Change in air pressure, absence of humidity,
gently coerce the traveler to linger.
Locals, with sea salt skin, know
barometric pressure and wind shift,
bring unwelcome guests.

Sun has set, curfew in effect, plywood protects,
as He threatens to bear down,
on this residential community.
120 mile an hour winds,
thunder lighting, torrential downpour
in the dark of night.
A woman’s voice;
a beam of flashlight frantically trots up and down the sidewalk,
calling for Abby.
“Abby please come home!”
“Abby where are you?”
Her storm arrived early,
drenched, desperate, biting nails,
wiping wet bangs off worried forehead.

The tufted titmouse is far more courageous,
than larger feathered fowl adventurers.
Out from its hiding place, perched on feeder,
husband and wife chirping back and forth,
discourse about tasty seeds.
Plumed cousins hide in shelter as
Millibars drop.

Powerless when electricity is gone;
after storm debris
takes years to clean and heal.
Foliage placed by the curb.
Indomitable spirit, resilient as it appears,
has deep tissue bruises, not easily seen,
which flinch and ache in tropical depression.

Wedged tightly into a crack
between the porch eave and the house
he waits for his dusky cue
and ventures out.

Invisible during the day, with only guano to betray
his hideout.
Not threatened by our plastic owl
nor perturbed by poison –
he has staked his claim.

We lure him to a wooden box
nestled in a nearby tree,
but close enough to reap
the buggy benefits of our yard.

But this nocturnal neighbor
won’t be fooled by new construction,
preferring instead, as we do,
a clapboard classic.

There is magic in being of a place.

A home for rootedness,
and for returning.

My home is the coffee ground leftovers of an ancient glacial lake.
Where fossils become skipping stones
and skipping stones becomes summers.

And enough
stacked between sugar cake autumns
and heady lilac springs
laying dormant
under lake effected winters
become entire lifetimes.

And I could spend mine
slow sipping from backyard fountainheads,
waiting until that special kind of twilight moment for the Waterfowl Flyover,
listening to their great ancestral song.
Calling me back again and again
to my home waters.

The way the night smells sweet,
inviting all the heat of the day to rise from thirsty ground and rest in her boundless starry
arms.
Or when it is cold,
snow-angeled looking up
and how the falling makes you feel like flying.
Nothing but sky and snow and the silent sound it all makes.
My home is great lakes
waters lapping at the doorsteps of the people who guide me,
who shape me.

My home –
this great northern country
who taught me
to love and honor Nature
for the absolute force that She is.
With seasons that crash and demand us sit back and watch –
whether we had other plans or not.

Oh, how I love the hidden waterfalls
and fantasy greens,
the magnificent seaways
and the lakes that feel like oceans.

How from the Ontario bottom
to the very Adirondack tip top of my heart,

I am of this place.

And it carries me,
no matter where I go.

As the cluster-flowered Iceberg Floribunda roses, with a yellow eye unjaundiced of health contained in the pistil, with smooth alabaster and white petals languaged in the content of heavenly sleep, shaped as Africa’s diamonds, hymn tranquilite praise to the rancied and misty shade of Nature within its holiday shrub; as the ruby majesty of the Marlena roses, with green and leavy ivies under its stems, flows as currency of the salt washes in the Atlantic beneath the world’s blow of troubulous airs; as the likes of mossy green weeping willows complement the content in discontent of each creeping thing that would to enjoy this albany of a garden, above is only sky, teal and turquoise blue in its impressions, without any to rage as Achilles and die off a Hector, no war on terrors other than the battling cumulonimbus clouds and modern wright flyers disrupting the meditative scene. No Medeas redunding and shouting argument to fleece-ridden Jasons; no Medusas out to stone an uncultured boy; no Apollos are out for a Daphne; only the soul laughter-loving Venus within the spirits, as Cupid arrows his loving quivers for all to admire
the one rose, of one rose, of one rose, and all the other meditative roses making the first and final appearance among the buds burst for Springtime –and lo! he bows love to mine bosom to the helianthus salicifolius, the willowing autumn-gold sunflower with love in its brown pupil; they ask How do you do? though really they try to mouth the words I love you in their flowery dialogue, clumped together in their perennial. And there, another: helianthus annuss, the common and divine sunflower, with each brethren containing a wide-eye of Horus, attracting the ancient honeymakers to visit its museum of love and exchange their stingy nature for an ounce of happiness. The winds are unpolluted nosegays, and smell as an innocent virgin laughing her way off to a sunset; and along this scene’s background, a neptune of assorted blueness sculpture the setting with reflexive niceties in the clear skin of the waves, and permits lowly vessels to enjoy their ship along the coast and draft. Along the way, the American flag waves with the wind; but here, in the agrostis tenuis ornamental green floor and grasses of these poetic gardens, Damon and Pythias enjoy assorted pasttimes; under the unbeiged summer house Pyramus requits his Thisbe; and by the oxydendrum arboreum, the tree called of the lily vallies, near a formal bed of magentas, strawberry-petals, and other yellow-scaled tulips surrounded by the grand orchestra of whitèd daisies, there is no quintessential figure of genius, a one of heavenly spite, perverting the fortune of these times, nor figure of Strepsiades deconstructing the clouds for a vortex, but only that of sons and fathers, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters alike picnicking and sharing lunchables to the wondrous visage of the gardens –with flowers, flowers, and the more delights of the senses caressing the futile encumbrance away of this scene.

You sit at a table in the dark
as your first cup of

morning coffee brews,
reading on your phone

about the various ways
various bees survive winter.

Those that don’t hibernate
or migrate, like carpenter bees,

devote themselves to their future eggs.

Male honey bees
are removed from the hive

until they’re needed again come spring.
Envelopes of wildflower seeds

you bought online
wait there in the kitchen junk drawer

of your new house,
wait for the ground to thaw.

Brian Beatty is the author of five small press poetry collections and a spoken-word album. Beatty’s writing has appeared in Appalachian Journal, BULL, Conduit, Cowboy Jamboree, CutBank, Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Floyd County Moonshine, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, ONE ART, The Quarterly, Rattle, Seventeen and The Southern Review.

dandelions burst
wiggled in the wind
settled on the eyes of a black bear
blindfolded by stardust
he stood up surprised
sniffed at the future
goosebumps settled as he stumbled
through riverine jungles
gobbling honeycombed rumbles
eating salmon crumbles
his mouth full, the great bear
spotted a fish
leaned over and tumbled
black thunder-clouds clapped
HA HA! Vajra!
the bear, insulted, looked up and snarled
releasing a salty salmon hive
of bejeweled bees
that raced up to the waiting embrace
of roiling clouds
as they flew
thunder bolted
lightning slashed
frightened, the bees froze
then hardened over eons
till they twinkled
far below
the Great Bear watched bemused
as the constellation bearing his name
coalesced through time

I’ve never felt so at peace as I do
in the forest, leaves crunching beneath my feet,
shuffling past saplings straining for light
amongst the wiser trees.

Or when I push past the edge
and sink into the clearing,
where shadows stretch long and breezes gust
among the bees
that dance atop wildflowers,
bending to the whims of the wind.

I’ve never felt so rich as when I bask
in midday sun on a boat
that sways with the heartbeat
of a river most unruly,
curling around hayfields,
cutting through hills.

I’ve never felt so sleepy, so content,
as I do in the blue of a holler afternoon,
daylight still burning

on the other side of the mountain.
In these moments, I am whole—
bound to earth, yet drifting free,
a quiet soul among the leaves,
the river’s pulse, the mountain’s breath.
Here, I am as I was meant to be.

Appalachia