Author: poetryfest

What do you do with a broken clock?
Throwing it away is killing time.
And I’ve had enough of that
No matter what I do, time is always moving forward.

Is it TikTok or tick and tock
Can you talk with your broken clock?
Maybe it will listen
If we burst its bubble.

Can I live with this broken clock
Residing rent free on my mantlepiece
I give it a glance and I disagree
But it never looks at me

How would Dali see my broken clock
Let it melt and reform above the flames
Swirling all the colors into gray
Floating into the smoke away.

Even with my broken clock
I can find just two agreements
And must remember
Even broken
This clock is correct
Twice a day.

I suffered.
They suffered.

I broke.
I broke them.

I gave life.
I took life.

With every drop of blood
that lit my eyes,
my soul was purified.

Minutes remained
before they would claim me.
I had chosen
to be caught.

The people
beyond these prison bars
are weary,
so very weary.

The time has come
to step into my kingdom.

Now, and forever ;
Death wins.

My bag tucked under my arm, eyes on my feet,
I gripped my palms, dug my nails to distract my pain as I strode towards my apartment.
It looked like I had a purpose,
but I was just fighting time.
I passed the hallway and greeted my neighbours with a terse but polite smile.
I adjusted the crinkle in my smile
to mask the tears boiling in my chest, threatening to spill.
The short hallway suddenly seemed a mile long.
A single bedroom of 24 metre square, with one bed and toilet- student room.
It had all I required at that moment,
privacy and a mirror.

I barely made it three steps—I could have just walked five anyway, it is a small room—
and collapsed to the floor.
Tears poured freely, uncontrollably,
as one hand clutched the arm of a chair and the other searched the ground for balance.
I sobbed until my lungs ached, until breath itself felt impossible.

With my face inches from the floor,
tears gathered into a trembling puddle.
My warm breath bounced back against my skin,

I wrapped my arms around myself,
tight, desperate—trying to replicate a warm embrace.
Someone’s, anyone’s
I rocked back and forth,
a rhythm as old as grief.

When the sobs dulled into hiccups,
I lifted my eyes.
There, in the mirror,
my reflection swam behind glass—distorted, exhausted.
The dim, warm light cast shadows beneath my eyes,
deepening the bruises life had left behind.

Then I saw it:
a hand in the mirror,
softly wiping tears from my cheeks, catching the snot without shame.
It moved without judgment, without pause.
From cheek to chest and back again,
like clockwork.

And I watched—
just as I have for the past twenty years—
as that hand made space for my sorrow,
and stayed.

It was my hand. My own strength, my own support.
I brushed away my tears, again and again,
propping myself up with hands that never gave up.
As I gazed into the mirror, wiping away yet another wave of tears,
I saw my reflection—not just a face, but a companion.
I imagined splitting myself in two,
and the version in the glass reached for me.
It consoled me, tried to mend what it never broke.
It quieted the storm inside me,
talked me down when I wanted to leave everything behind.

I owe my life to that reflection,
to the hands in the mirror that kept lifting me.
I owe it everything—for twenty years of wiping tears
no one else ever saw

I watched cancer
chew my neighbor
like a stray dog
worrying a lone bone.
It stripped him hollow,
left him light as dust.

When he could work,
he carried fruit,
tore flowers by the root
for the yards he served.
Now my grief grows rough,
callused where his hand once passed a peach.

Near death,
he cried of heat.
I fanned him,
as if I could keep hell out
as if the wind in my wrist
could scare off the dark.
But grief has no mercy,
only lessons,
and I keep learning
this is not about m

Friends come and friends go
But you remain my constant
Faithful, loyal, foe.

you used to whisper to me
in stoop slang and bachata basslines,
kiss my cheek with corner store breath –
hot beef patties, papitas, a dollar Arizona.

you’d walk me past block parties
where the speakers cracked from joy,
and the aunties sang louder than the music.

your hands were rough –
but they knew my curves,
my story,
my roots.

but now,
your voice got quieter.
real estate signs stutter
where murals used to speak.

you wear button-ups now — ironed crisp,
smell like rosemary and rent hikes.
your laugh don’t echo
off bricks no more.
it gets lost
somewhere between the wine bar
and that dog park
you said wasn’t for us,
but now you walk through like you forgot.

when did you stop calling me “mami”?
start saying “ma’am”?
when did you trade timbs for toms,
cafecito for cold brew,
“you good?”
for
“you’re trespassing”?

i loved you when you were loud,
when you cursed and prayed in the same breath,
when your shoes had scuffs
and your hair still smelled like shea butter and sweat.
now you slicked it back — forgetful.
i see you in Whole Foods windows
with your new girls —
their yoga mats, their green juices,
their way of looking at me
like i don’t belong
in the place that built me.

you changed, Harlem,
and not in the way lovers grow —
but in the way dreams get flipped for profit.

still,
i walk your blocks like a jilted bride,
tracing memories
where laundromats used to hum
and grandma’s gospel broke morning silence.

you once held me
like a secret.
now
you just walk by.

Aug 18 2025, by HL Tsui

I am wind and you are fire.
Together we come to form a pyre
A blazing tower
Whom knows no height.
Perhaps a sun, who lights even the night.
Under such an infallible power,
Always remember:
I am wind,
And you are fire.

Together we are a cleansing flame,
Cleansing each other of unbeknownst pain.

Now our worlds,
Pure, light, and free,
I, gust, may now sow new breathing seeds.
In these seeds sprout about new power
That is the power
Of the great lily flowers.
A source of joy,
A source of food,
A source of power,
And all that’s good.

A lily bestowed upon you,
Blooming,
Time passes,
She droops then wilts,
You step in,
Fire,
Destroy and renew.

Thus, the cycle begins again,
Wind and fire return to spin,
Breathing life into motion,
I’ll always remember us as fire and wind.

I am wind and you are fire,
Myself unto you,
Yourself unto me.
Our thoughts, our hearts, let us dance and be free.
Free to be you,
Free to be me.

In these whirling winds of blazing fire,
It is about you, and never ‘bout me.

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.