Author: poetryfest

We burrow into horror, digging
for some hollow hope
beneath certain absurdity
of open-ended scope.

Words like dirt fall empty,
sounding fear of what will be:

“It wasn’t what I wanted
but it wasn’t up to me.”

– Rising voices weighted down
by sudden self-awareness

(Somewhere, someone whispers
some sacred oath of fairness.)

After soil turns to ashes
where nothing bright can live,
Will historians remember how we tried?

Will they forgive?

The marsh finally slumps under
a thin cover of ice, dropping broken
wedges down its muddy sides
as the tide draws back in on itself.

Warm on the couch by the stove
I look out at the birds edgily feeding
in the cold. The silo is low. I know.
They know. My wish to write a poem

before filling it is their mid-winter panic.
As they dash back and forth from hinged
platform to tree limb, I sip coffee, mull over
the juvenile hawk of late summer, how he whined

and wailed from the treetops in the heat—
big feathered baby complaining about
the disgrace of this state, no one to rip flesh
and drop it into his gaping, yellow beak.

So irate he torpedoes, slams his feet against
the bell shield of the birdfeeder, as if he
believes his tantrum will deliver fresh meat
to him. As if he could just bully their system

into submission, so chickadees, titmice,
and two species of woodpeckers and finches
would simply drop for him, drop their lives,
their business of survival, in devotion

even to their own demise, for him.
Once, twice, (three times?) he dives, crashes
down, bell and feeder clank under his talons,
swing wildly off center in reaction. Each time,

he pumps back up to the top branch of the stately
white pine, rants, whines how unfair, how rigged
and depraved this land is. On this winter day,
my words and the birds’ feeder spent—

their fast-beating hearts will freeze if I don’t rise,
fill the silo, seed some warmth, tender
some lift to their weary wings.

Stone statues wept as lawless groups
of misled rebels, Trump’s recruits,
blatantly trashed our Capitol,
killed for a cause political-
culpability? Trump disputes.

Truth crushed by neo-Nazi boots,
as Trump decides to NOT send troops.
His actions are tyrannical.
Stone statues wept.

Enemies from within salute
a flag of Klan and disrepute.
Order must be sustainable,
the “Big Lie” not acceptable.
We must do more than just rebuke.
Stone statues wept.

Presidential elections are stressful
For families and friends alike
This past election was especially dreadful
I wanted to go on a people strike

I avoided talking with anyone
I was afraid to ask who they voted
I didn’t want to know their position
For fear my heart would be wounded

The next day was a somber one
When I woke and checked my phone
The reports of who would be in office warned
Of mass deportations; of families torn

He declared a “magnificent victory”
and the “Greatest political movement of all time”
But adding to my growing misery
The man has committed crimes

Take a moment, and let it sink in
We’ll have a criminal for our doyen
I don’t know how to put a positive spin
On the outcome, the people have spoken

Our new leader will be taking power
He’s bringing his rich white cronies
To change our system and wholly conquer
They’ll serve him, they’re his lackeys

And what if he won’t release his power
At the end of the four-year term
I’ll have to pack my bags and scour
For a home on the other side of the berm

Or rather, across the ocean I’ll move
Out of the country I’ll flee
To find myself a better groove
Where democracy is key

We the People
of misogyny and prejudice,
racism and hate,
in order to form a divisive union,
establish injustice, ensure longevity
of tyrants, provide constant upheaval
of common norms, promote general
distaste among members of international
communities, foster the darkness of retribution,
instill lies as a foundation for policy,
and secure infamy for ourselves and our progeny,
do abstain from and disdain this fractured
Constitution of the United States of Disaster.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I hide from him in the weeping of the rain;
I fear him at the shrinking of tides;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

Originally written by Edna St. Vincent Millay, revisited by a survivor ninety years later.

Seasoned jilting from the pelvic bone
of a much younger woman,
wondering what truth loving naked might bring to the surface—
whether the human form is just a mirage
of silk roads and maps for those ports of mongrel stars
and never-ending sailors,
who fish to dig for gold in places
that become a condiment for all that lives and is alive.

Perhaps he lives to become one of them too,
for his eyes are a true tell of the boy king
that appears in all his poems,
haunted by silhouettes made of gunpowder.

But how can a man who was once brave enough to become a soldier
slip out of his own crown jewels?
How does he watch true diamonds
get cut to pieces by helicopters?
How does he die before he can truly live?

Wake up, dear king,
before the crown jewels have fallen,
before the blood diamonds are expertly cut and refined
back to the Congo,
where the women will again wear them—
this time as a reminder of everything you have lost.

wear what ever you wish to wear
but should you mess with those who cross dress
the courts will not fail to put you in jail
You needn’t be honest or kind or any of the other virtues you’ll find.
There is no place for such shit in the new white American mind

the only rumpus is the moral compass
Jesus loves you, you know he loves you
for what ever you do in a man style shoe.

Jesus tells us hells hottest ghetto is reserved for a man in a stiletto

drag is something we never do in public view
if we love the lord, no matter how bored

Your mascara will run and that spandex will stink
when you are crying, stuck there, frying in the clink

even a dress for the sake of sarcasm
is seen by the lord as a sad mental spasm
it is something completely abhorred

You can dance a congo line, that’s fine

make a Chinese dragon with its tail waggin

all swaddled in a play
of pink paper machete

but put on a dress and veil and you’ll go to jail

You can dress like satan
take it to the max
be a guy in a sheet, add a torch
you hates blacks

but put on a dress snd a veil and you can go to jail

in what now? a dozen states?
put on sequins and you temp the faits

t’s just crazy what the conservatives are creating
they don’t even care about the nations credit rating

but same sex dating
god forbid
keep it hid

throw democracy over the fence
nothing there to recompense
mortgage fraud
not the least bit odd

but should you digress
to a mess in a dress?

The right wing grins
Jesus didn’t die for those kind of sins

put that Lemay on public display
and you better have family connections
that can nudge the right judge
to give you leave to find new directions

community service
therapy and all

otherwise

you’ll be the bell of the holding cell
wondering who to call

Propped under the Tree of Dreams
I am finally free.
Staunch ideas of intelligence & intuition
are ever changing; ’667’ I exclaim!
Blood unshed tears uncrown
War and Peace are finally clear.
There are no time for scruples
I do and I done
9’s all around me; I can finally Rebirth.

717
The tree is not vociferous, nor does
It beg me to follow Gematria.
‘The number Of a Man’
Was never my favorite
598^ taunts me she hurts.
It feels the manliness I have
Just manifests into lascivious gaze
upon flesh no matter
My eyes are wide shut.

Yet standing in the Heath and Bracken
In the arms of her shade,
Her embrace sprinkled with dashes
Of heaven they splatter
My face.
Cradled I feel the touch of my mother
My sister my brother my vices my sins and
Flesh transforms into flesh
Breast transforms into flesh
Heart transforms into Seraphim
and the Heavens 1414 and the smell
of wood chips resting patiently on concrete
beneath the Swing-Set
And the rough bark of Locust Trees
That I rest my unlabored back on
Where I find two seconds of relief
222

Got in a bit of trouble
A few years back.
It cost me very dearly.

Grew up in a Godly home
Never missed a service
Or a summer church camp.
My parents’ faith it was,
Not mine.

A rough crowd lured me away
A little at a time.
Innocent enough it began,
Weed and beer and wine
Peer pressure,
Rebellious risks,
Euphoric ecstasy.
Acceptance
Enchanted me,
Enticed me,
Enslaved me.

My parents saw the spiral
Down and away.
Refusing to fund,
My “wicked ways”,
I took to taking
First from them,
Then malicious marauding.

My friends turned out to be
No friends to me
More addictive drugs
Then abandoned
They left me scott-free.

Addiction clouded
My mind
My judgement
My determined
Destructive
Decisions.

Then…
On a torrential night of rain
The station attendant held at gun point.
With cash-filled bag
I backed away.
A sudden dash
A trigger pulled
A bullet blast.
Shot in the head,
I left him for dead.
I panicked,
Dropping gun,
The cash
And fled
To my car—my dad’s car.

With pounding heart,
I heard the car doors slam.
Uniforms approached my house.
Held my breath
For what seemed like years,
Waiting for my bedroom
Door to crash.

My mother shrieked.
To the window
I dashed
To watch my father led away
Cuffed
In a policeman’s grasp.

“You’ve got the wrong man in there,”
I said to the sergeant at the desk.
His eyes filled with tears.
“I wish I had a son
Who loved me as much
As you must love your dad,
But son, you can’t take
The rap for your old man.”

“NO!
Wait! You don’t understand.
I DID IT!
My father is
INNOCENT!”
I created such a fuss,
They brought my dad to hear my pleas.
“The boy is LYING!
Now take me back if you please.”

Destroyed,
When I heard the judge delcare,
“Guilty of murder
Death in the electric chair!”

I went to visit
Once only.
Two hours
Before he was to die.
His head was shaved
Two hours
Before he was to die.
He looked so different
Two hours
Before he was to die.
He looked at me
Two hours
Before he was to die
And only love was in his eyes.
Two hours before
He was to die.

“Dad, why didn’t you just tell
Them it was me?”
Silence…
My God he hates me
I cried and cried.
Then his foot
Tap, tap—tap, tap
Clink, clink, rattle, rattle, clink
Went his shackled chains
Then…his voice…
Soft…
Full of love…
Nothing but love,
“Because I wanted you to know
How it felt to have someone die for you.
Now, my dear, dear son,
Live
Like
It!”