Author: poetryfest

I’m tormented day and night
By your beauty,
Your absence echoes silence.

Is this love or lust?
For stare in your direction
Makes me want to commit
The sins of the flesh.
How the line blurs
Between love and lust
When desire burns so brightly.

All I know is the world lacks colour
When you are not around,
Music loses it appeal,
And your absence in my life
Has carved a void in my soul.

But, my primal urges
To explore your body
As though it is an uncharted territory
Still linger.

So hypnotic,
Your voice is like that of Orpheus,
My heart melted in your melodic voice.
Your smile mimics the warmth of the sun,
So endearing.

I’m like odysseus
Lost at sea,
Trying to get back to you, my safe haven.
Love keeps me afloat
In this accursed word.

no.
the tree you saw in spring had green saplings,
and a nest slowly being constructed by a robin.

in the summer,
the color of her eggs will be a blue that you’ll never see perfectly imitated in your life.
and a yellow butterfly breaks out of its cradle
and shakes its wet wings for the first time.

in the autumn,
a family of squirrels races through the branches.

but in the winter,
the winds are fierce,
the air cold,
and the tree falls—
muffled by the blanket of snow.
and it doesn’t make a sound.

and worms make home in the bark
and bugs and critters and all things with too many legs squeeze their way underneath.
loving the dark and damp.
roots will squeeze till the empty tomb bursts with new sustenance.
they will raise their hands up to the sky and climb
even farther than their father did before them.

And you will return
and see a red butterfly
and think it is the same.

When I was a little man,
with eyes so bright and wide,
I’d gaze upon the panes, where
God did frolic and abide. Each star
a spark of wonder, each stain a
divine throne, Where gargoyles
watched…our slumbers, … our gu-
ardians made of stone. And the
arches of the heavens, they’d
whisper tales of yore, Where
angels danced amongst the
hanged heads and doors. Just outside grounded men and their
mechanical wraiths. Dreamed, and toiled, while draining my childlike
faith. But as seasons turned, the gold to rust, The skies to ash, the tales
to dust. Where once I saw the foot prints in the sand. Now lay a jungle
where the angels have been damned. The heavens grew hollow, the
stars grew dim, My soul no longer felt their sacred hymns. But my hun
-ger could not be ignored, For the answers that my heart once
adored. Creatures, beasts and leather freaks were welco
-med in. With dissections with dirty scalpels, boards,
and pins. Even we can’t raise the dead. But science will keep them in our stead.
I miss the days when beasts did talk. When faith was more than hopes of livestock. Where giants fell and fairies could fly. And when the angels would never lie. Before we enslaved his holy hymns, And bent them back like his son’s limbs. Back when we could wonder. Before our insightful blunder. Our faiths so wrongly squandered.
I chased his ghost through our hanging tree’s swaddle. Only to find my spirit’s salvation in a bottle. Greet the beasts with amber laced flame filled waste, leave the creatures chained, to be basted in the oily paste of the leather freaks’ faces and debodied waists. A child’s taste underscored by that sweet childlike faith chased down by the oh so intimate warm embrace of Smirnoff’s aftertaste.

A Late Night Drive

Thick fog blocks the night
Menacing lights float above—
Drive on cautiously

—-

Silent Grief

The willow drips tears
People recall precious times—
The dead laid to rest

—-

Forgotten

Large unblinking eyes
Warm wool coat covered in dust—
The doll sat alone

—-

A Tight Deadline

Half drunk tea grows cold
Frantic eyes jump through pages—
I finish the book

—-

Fever

My breathing is coarse
Heat is pounding in my head—
I have a fever

—-

Say things like:
you only live once.
Take sub-lingual supplements.
Stay in child’s pose.
Have a laugh with the boys.

Go on.
Buy the damn car.
Buy the damn dishwasher.
The one with facial recognition.

And while you’re at it—
go see the girls.
Buy the girls.
Buy their whole village.
Fuck them.
Seriously.
Literally.
Go nuclear.

Pursue your dreams.
YOLO.

Hold your breath.
Hyperventilate.
Reach altered states.
These United States.

Find Jesus.
Or Buddha.
Better yet—
find crude oil.
Drill.
Thoroughly.
For lucrative measure.

Say things like:
“In my day.”
As though it isn’t.

Let ancient tar harden thick in your stomach.
Take the ulcers.
The spasms.
Like A Man.
Enjoy the blisters.
The dry heaves.
Let those cells replicate, ladies!
Shoutout to stress-induced alopecia.
Applause for arrhythmias.
Tickle your tonsils
with grandpappy’s gun.

Say things like:
I tried my best.
It’s true after all.
Shut everything down
with this One Simple Trick.

They say the new health guy
has a worm in his brain.

Uh Oh!

Can we please keep politics out of this?
And brains?

Can we just skip the childhood stuff
and get to The Now?

Are we there yet?
Have we reached Nirvana?
Does it come
with **free shipping?

In the corner by the window near the dusty dirty wall I’m sitting drinking while I’m looking at the
pictures in the hall the sun is shining streaming sifting through the musty dusty air and so I close my eyes to redness when it gets too bright to stare at every posing people picture with their sickly smiling face and looking photo happy perfect though that never was the case I still can see their lifeless faces through my slinty squinty eyes they keep on smiling grinning beaming with their biding hiding lies

So if a picture is a person and a person isn’t me then tell me why are they all staring out at something they can’t see they must be mutant monster people hiding death behind their smile they’re far away they’re here to get me they’ll be back in just a while

In the corner by the window bottle’s empty I am done I close my eyes but I still see them why am I the
only one

When I was a child, I must have been the boy who cried wolf. Maybe I cried wolf and no one believed me or maybe there were wolves in my yard every day. But who cries wolf when the wolf lives in the house? Predators of all varieties lurk and slither about amongst us. Some may disguise themselves in grandparents’ clothes but mostly they hide in plain sight. Here, we mostly tolerate predators. Predators are in the constabulary and government and religious institutions and corporations alike. This is why I know, when the boy or girl cries nazi or rapist or murderer or thief or human trafficker or evil, most won’t believe or even care. The world may glance up for a moment, but then life will continue.

My autistic sense of justice conspires with my autistic joy to liberate a howl that can no longer be contained inside this puzzle-piece-shaped box. Now when I’m most overwhelmed, I get the largest balloon I can find (24” to 36” is best for bear hugs–hugs that would injure any pet, family member or lover) and execute what balloon enthusiasts call a blow-to-pop. The rage, fear, anger and sadness must go somewhere, so with each breath out I imagine inflating that balloon with all my pain, my negative emotions, my trauma and my tension, releasing it all at once with explosive surprise and equally explosive relief. Crying for catharsis is standard.

When we no longer have mass shootings or untested rape kits or armed force used on peaceful
protestors or predator presidents or missing client lists or corporations that are individuals or kids
in cages or black sites or rights that are suggestions or war or terrorism or genocide or famine;
not until the return of integrity and leadership and freedom and journalism and an educated and
informed populus and tolerance and decency, then and only then can we ask of any human child
upon this earth: have you seen a wolf today? Yes, I saw a wolf today. For me, autism means
saying I see wolves even after being raised by wolves.

No.
I hope I didn’t wake you up.
It’s three AM and I’m watching the door
the ill shade of orange on the bricks
–no, it’s brown
–why’d you say orange? you stupid–
I’m being watched from the tower
through a lens
I look at the sky every time I step outside
sun stings my eyes
three new pills
one old one, it’s natural
the door swings open, there’s sick on my fingers
days of blue light and white faces
the heat makes me remember, the treks
from my car, fighting
sweat on my hairline
I am unclean by the end of the day, every day
can’t wash off the stains
the second life haunts me in my dreams
so I don’t sleep
the night brings more questions than answers
silence is running from me
fat against my bones, it pulls
sick again
trees make a cave for me to safely be a troll
the goats on tv
where are the rest of the bars?
I dream of iron jailrooms
and there’s bourbon behind
a bottle in your bag
may I be inside? please
spirits
cardboard bags don’t fit under the lid
three days away
thirty if I run, and I would
cut my knees instead
please, the heat!
I thought I got away, I can never
get away
from the beating
from the drumming
inhale, exhale, inhale, stop
drinking
water for hunger
hands on my legs
they haven’t left for three years
my thighs grew into your palms
pulled by the roots, crawling back
the creeping child
hand after hand towards her mother
–I hate your mother
–not like I love you
my mother lives inside me
she’s the one who calls your name
the seed of a fruit reaches out from the soil
no poison, no drugs
suck the poison from my wounds
but there’s no blood
please, my throat is tired
the knife against my hip plays its role
cuts perfectly
metal swells in the heat
as I am always reminded
and the stone on my torso keeps pressing
so far I can hide it as my chest
–you have such a nice figure
–you have a woman’s body now
–please, can I–
peach pits meant to be sucked bare
–I keep thinking about this
imprisoned by gluttony, my own
hands reaching out
crashing like waves
no more seagulls anymore
because the bread is gone
I have squeezed his hand numb
because your bruises blued my fingers
my goodbyes are all monologues.
Goodnight.

I’m a dead man walking, but somehow new and improved
I released the guilt, and now paths have been renewed
I’m burning in the sunlight, but I know soon I’ll be alright
A dead man in the summer heat, ready to uncover the next source to defeat
My baggy eyes can handle any sight, as long as I try, I know I’ll be alright
Slow and steady steps, with pauses to reconnect
A dead man in the hot sun, no longer afraid and no longer on the run
Burning up, feeling alone but know that I’m not, with hundreds of memories unlocked
Let it burn, let it yearn, let every page turn
One step forward, two steps back?
Not a problem, I’m still on the right path
My feet and skin sink into the sand, looking around knowing I’m not the only dead man

Always look on the bright side of life
— Monte Python

Some philosopher-poets labor to create
the sacred from the secular, hallow the physical,
reinvent the sublime, pursue the spiritual.
The interim report is not especially optimistic,
as the theorists disagree about the statistics.

Theologians and scholars can debate how cultures
shape their myths and gods, and why cause
and effect underlie all the laws
of biology and physics, but human discoveries
and social protocols are merely dreamers’ reveries.

Perhaps instead we need humor and farce to look
“on the bright side of things,” comedy
and laughter as the cure for all malady;
Charlie Chaplin to comfort the economically oppressed,
cheer up the homeless masses of the Greatly Depressed.

Or maybe it’s music we need to reach across divisions,
accompany dinner by candlelight, calm the savage
beast, dance away sadness, an old language
understood by every culture, creating new friends
and old lovers; music that all hostility transcends.