Author: poetryfest

Casket enclosed and pitch-sharp nothingness,
Hearing from every living being’s breath.
The ones close to home and ones far away,
All coming as my bright light faded away.
Sad music that played, and tears that mourn,
Had none of them arguing, any more.
Instead of yelling and screams, some of which last,
There is only mourning with all men in black.
Sensing the presence of a loved one nearby,
Vibrations of sound softer than a butterfly,
A speech was made through awful whines,
And memories went back in time.
Delusions were lived and bodies revived,
More speeches also arrived.
And when the music stopped, the tears slowly faded,
My casket remained closed, and I was unaided.

I am the lucky one. The streets here
don’t crack beneath the sky doesn’t
burn with fire, and I walk unscarred
while they stay, buried in the dust of
a land that won’t let them go. I live
for them. For the children who play
with shattered glass, for the mothers
whose eyes are too tired to cry. I live
for the lives they can’t have, the life
stolen from them with every breath
they take.

They ask if I’m safe. I say
yes, but the word feels
hollow, like something
stolen from their mouths.
How can I be safe, when
they are still there,
holding onto hope
beneath skies that never
forget what it means to
suffer?

I take their names with me
a prayer on my lips.
I carry their lives, their
dreams, their breath,
across the distance. And
I will live for all of us,
even when I don’t know
how to carry this weight.

I call my mother, her voice trembling
on the line. She tells me I should be
careful, that I shouldn’t talk about it
too much, that it’s not my fight, not
with my passport, not with my
privilege. “Don’t make waves,” she
says,

“Don’t risk what you have.”

But how do I stay quiet,
when the blood of the land
is my own?
How do I stay silent, when
I think of the families just
like mine, just like us, torn
apart by borders, by
bombs, by history’s
weight?

How can I be safe, when their
faces fill my thoughts, when I
imagine their children playing in
the rubble, instead of in the
fields that I used to play in? How
do I not speak, when all I can
think of is that this could have
been us that it could have been
my family left in the dust of a
forgotten world?

I carry their voices, and
sometimes, I hear my
mother’s too, warning me to
protect myself, but her love
feels small, shrinking in the
shadow of a world that won’t
let go of its grief.

I will carry their weight, I will
carry their stories, even if it
means I can never rest.
Because what is safety when
you live with the fear that you
might be next?

n the corner of the museum’s foggy hall,

Mannequins stood on display surrounded by caution tape
three mannequin heads peeking down the hall, their faces twisted,
eyes blank yet watchful, frightfully captivating,
Each smile was a grim echo of something forgotten.

Do you see us? they whisper,
The secrets we hold, the stories untold,
those who dared to gaze too long,
now part of our eerie collection.

Once, they flourished on a grand display,
where glamour masked dark ambitions,
but now they linger in the shadows,
a siren’s call to the curious and brave.

One evening, a wanderer approached,
drawn by the heads’ haunting gaze,
What lies beneath those forced smiles?
Their stares daunting, I could feel their souls.

Unfazed, the wanderer reached their hand out. To feel the skin-like material on their faces.

The heads shook. a chilling gasp,
Stay with us, dear friend,
and let us show you our world.

In an instant, the air grew thick,
and the wanderer felt their skin start to crawl,
as the heads twisted into wicked grins,
eyes gleaming with a hunger for souls.

You wanted to see, didn’t you? they sang,
Now you’re one of us, a figure in our play,
lost among the whispers of those before,
a new face in our cursed image.

With a final shiver, the room fell still,
the heads stood silent, now even more alive,
waiting for the next curious soul,
to step closer and join their eerie collection on display.

14,000 soldiers
March through the city gate,
even though
25,000
had left over
10 months ago.

The cries of the people,
happy for their safe return
can be heard all over the city.
Generals on horseback and in chariots,
banners and treasures shown in military display.

The king and the bishop
await the parade in the city’s center.
A blessing and thanks are to be given,
to those who made a return home.

Soldiers,
boys in their teens as well as the men,
limping,
bloody and wounded,
trudging through the streets.
relieved to be home.

The horrors they witnessed,
the gore and the bloodshed.
They watched as their
friends, brothers, fathers, uncles
got slaughtered in front of them.
For what reason?

To gain another region
in the name of their
King.
The lives sacrificed,
they hope were not in vain.
Their wartime sorrows
for they left the dead behind.
Gone but definitely not
forgotten.

The images from the battlefield,
engraved in their memories.
The cries of the dying,
both their own countrymen and the enemy.
The sounds resonating in their ears.

What was it all truly for?
Why must their king be so greedy?
Why was the king so willing
to sacrifice the lives of his people?
Why did the young men have to die?
Why did anyone have to die?

The king rejoices in their victory,
not knowing the true price that was paid.
The bishop says it was God
that helped them win,
yet the soldiers say
God had nothing
to do with it.
The generals bask in the glory.
High on top horses, they take
full credit for the
triumph.

The parade ends.
The festivities begin
feasts and parties throughout
the city. Women dancing
in the streets.
Whores fast at work,
the tired men happy for attention.
Bonfires light up
almost every corner.
The sweet sound
of music is heard
all around the city.

The people rejoice,
not knowing
the pain and
the horrors
that occurred.
The king’s banquet,
alive and elaborate,
flaunting
“his”
victory.
He hosts all of
his council and the
top generals,
none of whom know
the lives that were lost.
They only toast to
triumph of the
army.

The people celebrate
for the war is over.
The men are back home
with their families.
Yet, still in their minds
are those who did not
return.

Over 25,000 left,
but only 14,000
made the journey home.
Here’s to the men who lost their lives:
the 11,000 souls.

“Praise the Mutilated World” -Adam Zagajewski

Who decides what is mutilation
And who gets to praise it?

And should I smile as the only one left behind?

I’ve seen the pimpling of skyscrapers,
jutting unnaturally from a flattened landscape.
Offices on offices on
rooftop bars,
Sparkling high enough to ignore
folks,
skittering like angry ants around
tents pitched on sidewalks
I’ve seen eyes trained forward
or downward
or upward but,
never at each other and
speaking when spoken to
treated like a
lapse of sanity.

I’ve seen
houses turned haunted,
schools emptied of children,
crumbling streets filled with rusting mechanical nightmares,
weeds weaved into empty sidewalks,
and roots breaking up slabs into gravel.

I’ve seen the endless sprawl of urban blight.
The mass exodus of, first, the whites,
And, then, those who could pretend to afford it.

I’ve seen cookie cutter homes
shaped into the image of domestic bliss.
I’ve seen forests leveled for
new homes every fifteen years,
running from violence as it spreads like a sickness;
a plague of Black and poor slowly seeping into sterilized communities;
wrought iron and Jim Crow not enough to dam the flow,
but damn do those HOAs try.

I’ve seen neighborhoods turned cemeteries,
my front yard turned grave and
my driveway tombstone.

I’ve seen
blood dripping down the storm drain
And warm and cooling bodies laying on my street.

I see a for rent sign where my neighbor used to stay.
I see a for sale sign where my neighbor used to stay.
I see a charred skeleton where my neighbor used to stay.
I see a concrete slab where my neighbor’s neighbor used to stay.
I don’t see my neighbors.

I’ve seen a city rot beneath my hands and my feet.

Is it mutilation if this is all I have ever known
And will the praise stop the bleeding?

If I were dying,
I’d sit at the Thanksgiving dinner table wearing a giant turkey headdress,
And we’d have a woodcarving of my face at 18
(The age I want to be as an angel)
Hanging over the bay windows.
Every one of my Christmas gifts would be a slip of paper
Stating what each relative would get in the will,
And the ones who glanced over at me with bloodthirsty eyes
Would get nothing.
We’d have a piñata in my image
And we’d fill it with pig guts,
And we’d hit it with a baseball bat called Cancer
Till our baby cousins got all gory,
And when they cried out to their mother.
She’d wipe blood out of their eyes and say
That’s death for you,
Darling.
My death would be graphic and gruesome like that,
And I’d draw it out like the eighth Harry Potter movie.
The franchise didn’t need eight movies to tell their story.
I didn’t need 80 years to tell mine.
My Grandpa, though,
Has been dying for five years
(His cancer started kindergarten this fall)
And I’ve never once heard him mention it.
Instead, we talk about my grades
And what I’ll eat on my study abroad,
And we don’t mention the very real chance
That the day I board that plane
Might be the last time I ever see him.

We spend a lot more time talking about the start of my life than the end of his.
I suppose that’s his Christmas gift to me.

All my bloody carnivals serve nothing but my gory sense of humor;
When my kids sprinkle my ashes across Lake Minnetonka,
Their smiles will matter a lot more than mine.

Troubled soul, come to me now,
let me lead the way, take you
away from your suffering.
I promise you bliss, freedom.
Take my hand now,
let me set you free.

But I’m not done yet,
I have so much I need
to see and do.
So many dreams to chase.
Death, must you tempt me so?

Dreams in time will fade away,
your mortal life is limited.
Your time is nearly through.
I’ll take away the chains
that bind you so painfully down.
Don’t resist me, just let go.
I’ve got you.

But what about the people I love?
Friends and family.
The pain I’ll leave behind?
Would you take me so cruelly
from them?
Death, your promises are so cold,
Please don’t make me go.

Dear troubled soul,
do not cry now.
Please, take my hand.
You have to embrace the end.
With me, you’re safe.
Death is free, death means peace.
Life is just a lie.

She comes to me now, in recent dreams
as real as she ever was
Young, possible as a new day
Tall and pretty, the smell of innocence on her like wild clover

Before acceleration on a wet road
In the wondering time of her shy smile
The way her hair curled in her face
The way her arms curved around her books

It is the burning southern summer, always
Or maybe in between late spring showers
The black t-shirt tucked in
Me, dancing out a joke for a half-smile prize

In the dreams, she says nothing
sometimes grins in that pouting way, to hide her braces
But we share our moments as we did before,
Quiet, walking home in love with the sunshine

know you’re there
breath hot on my neck
you smell like meat
bitter sweaty meat
like
rotting gangrene
and boiling pork belly skin
gagging when you come too close
throat swelling
squeezing
why do you follow?
why do you gnash your teeth
and cower?
standing guard at the door
barking
spit flying
when I go to leave?
every move draws blood
from your teeth
nipping at my hands and feet

Daddy said the only thing to do
with rabid animals like you
is a bullet
to the head

When I opened my eyes
this morning
I smiled
at my dog’s wet nose
and fluffy butt
curled up next to me.
It wasn’t until
I got out of bed
and finished my cup of coffee
that I realized
today was
the
first
day
I opened my eyes
and didn’t expect
him
to be there
laying next to me.