Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film.

GRIEF Poem: LISTENING, by Katherine Aguilar

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.

ROMANCE Poem: The Greatest Love Poem Attempt, by Christopher Lopez

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

ROMANCE Poem: Where Dreams Sit and They Soak, by Kewayne Wadley

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.

ODE Poem: We Are All Immigrants, by Karla Freeman

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

ENVIRONMENTAL Poem: From a Florida Constituent, by Sienna Alpert

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

POLITICAL Poem: Love Letter, by Phillip Zapkin

Dear you,

Five beers in
with Soco shots to match,
and you stumble
to the dive bar
karaoke machine
to sing “Strokin’,”
heedless of key or rhythm
for the seventh week in a row.

A transwoman
defending immigrants in court,
and your wife worries
the target on your back couldn’t be bigger,
but you keep writing
articles, press releases,
posts on social media,
writing anywhere to tell people
about human beings
demonized for political gain,
for political games.

The first three souffles
fall in the oven,
with each one
so too falls part of your confidence,
but nevertheless,
you persist,
and nothing
has been as delicious
as the fourth souffle,
standing proud
and triumphant
as you pull it from the oven.

Green hair dye
and magic marker sign
run in the rain
as you stand beside College Avenue
still protesting everything wrong with the world
as car horns voice their
anger or agreement.

Yarn dances across
the end of
your crochet hook
turning a ball of wool
into curtains for a new house,
this stitch experimental,
the first time you’ve tried it,
and with each completed row
you hold out
the ever-growing panel
before a judicial eye
making sure
it meets standards.

Resisting the urge
to call your child every day
and ask if they’ve seen
the news
only heightens your anxiety.
You know they’ve paused watching news,
Because it’s hard enough
being trans in
America
today
without doom scrolling
or binge watching.

I return to poetry
after fifteen years
after a lifetime
because I demand
that the world be beautiful
and I demand of myself
that I do what I can
to make it so.

Dear you,
this poem is
my love letter to you.

ODE Poem: “Good Ol’ Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet”, by Taylor Palomares

Have you ever wondered who made your clothes?
Where they come from, how they get to the store?
At the good ol’ swap meet you can find imposter designers from all over the world.
Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet was my sister and I’s playground.
It was a tradition in our family to visit at least once a month,
almost weekly during the summer.
Mom and Dad would sip their Micheladas from enormous cups
my hands couldn’t even wrap around.
I remember the beer line always being long,
watching the Cover Band of the night to pass time.
When I say the good ol’ Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet,
I mean the Santa Fe Springs Swap meet.
If you’re from L.A. the Santee Alley
and swap meets are embedded within our culture.
You can find anything from delectable desserts,
down to designer handbags.
La señoras will say it’s designer,
but the natives know.
You see,
swap meets mean something to us.
It’s where families gather, memories are made.
Meals and items are purchased at such a low value.
Memories that can never be replaced
remain without a price tag.
That
is what makes the
Good Ol’ Sante Fe Springs Swap Meet
so good to our families.