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.

NATURE Poem: Dancing in the Rain, by Michelle Murray

When I was young
My mother used to say
Don’t play in the rain
Feet splashing
In puddles deep
Scattering water all around
Droplets of color
Like a mini-rainbow
Would be found
Pants and boots
Brown from the muddy water
Catching raindrops
From the sky
On my tongue
Mouth open wide
Oh, how I miss those days
Dancing in the Rain
So, I say
Go ahead
Get your raincoat and boots
On a rainy day
And go
Dancing in the rain.

ELEGY Poem: Lost, by Emma Wells

A thin tether
links us;
we are whispers of breath
lost in the breeze;
a muted love
shrouded in shade;
a rare butterfly found in darkness,
floundered, flightless,
leadened by torn wings.

Deepest ocean
locks our secret;
a coin spinning
in the omniscient hand of a demigod:
once struck alive by sunlight
but it burnt too brightly
scorching fingertips,
keenly dropped
as too blatant a mirror
reflecting spoken honesty
into fathomless ink,
dissolving through time,
its chiselled sea-salt truth.

Sometimes, becoming rarer,
I glimpse its turning sheen
whilst its gilded sides
reach for flimsy heaven
yearning to be held,
seen, understood, gifted as it is;
a true marvel of love,
layered in bewitching folds;
its obsidian velvet
coats bedrock,
blanketing the world to sleep
with a false, nocturnal face
painted shut
by brushstrokes
of webbed sadness.

RHYME Poem: My Sister, Still, by Nas Jolaade

When they named my sister a mistake,
the ceiling groaned, the floor seemed to quake.
Silence thickened—an iron weight,
heavier than bread our mother kneads with fate.
She lingered half-in, half-out of the door,
her palms clutching cloth as if sewing her core.
No wall replied, though walls can tell,
how sorrow gathers where shadows dwell.

Then came a voice, sharp, glacial, clean:
“At least the portion is now foreseen.”
But I, who had swallowed the hush of years,
rose with a tongue carved out of tears:
“My sister is still my sister!” I cried,
“Blood is not debt that can be denied.
Family is no ledger to balance or cross,
nor love so brittle it fractures at loss.

My sister is still my sister, whole—
blood is no ink to erase a soul.
Though the world may spit ‘bastard’ in scorn,
I claim her kin, as the night claims morn.
For love, though broken, refused, misread,
still lingers fierce in the marrow’s stead.
Deep in the bone where the root-lines stay,
truth keeps vigil; it will not fray.”

RHYME Poem: Soul:, by Taylor May

I feel like I’m losing my sight
Can I stare in your eyes
And kiss you all night
Don’t look at the time
Just give me your mind
Cause I’m losing mine
Just give me your lips
And baby don’t trip
Cause
I feel like I’m losing my sight
Can I stare in your eyes
And kiss you all night
Don’t look at the time
Just give me your mind
Cause I’m losing mine
Just give me your lips
And baby don’t trip
You have my soul feeling weightless
And is this love that I’m tasting?
You make it so painless
So I wanna make it oh I wanna make it
With you
Cause
You have my soul feeling weightless
And is this love that I’m tasting?
You make it so painless
Oh so painless and
I feel like I’m losing my sight
Can I stare in your eyes
And kiss you all night
Don’t look at the time
Just give me your mind
Cause I’m losing mine
Just give me your lips
And baby don’t trip
Cause
I feel like I’m losing my sight
Can I stare in your eyes
And kiss you all night
Don’t look at the time
Just give me your mind
Cause I’m losing mine
Just give me your lips
And baby don’t trip

POLITICAL Poem: Object of Desire, by Nicholas Zgraggen

Longing for me in secrecy,
Like something out of a playboy magazine
The male gaze onto me,
Hidden out of fear.

Placated, by virtue to your father’s obedience

A fantasy to be his perfect son
Ruined by late night engagements–
That we’ll never speak of.

I see the way you stare at me in public
I watch the way you adjust yourself
Chained at the waist like a self imposed chastity belt
Torture chamber, party of one

Behind closed doors I am beholden
To someone different
Intimate and soft.
Your voice falling short–-
Choking on the words—

“I love you”

TRAGIC Poem: Eastern Delicacies, by Mady Eason

Konnichiwas, eyes taped back, surveyed by scum.
Barbed onrushes pilgrimage like an extracurricular,
repeating with a cruel grin–no, where are you really from?

Sticky heat intervenes attention–a fly in molasses,
sparse foliage the only available asylum. Queues snake and
twine–promises of cool drinks root feet to pavement.

Administrations bludgeon elders, turn backs as they scatter like a crumb.
Aunty and unc phone home, ominous foresight–an acumen aims for the jugular
Konnichiwas, eyes taped back, surveyed by scum.

Stalls burst with Eastern delicacies–crunchy, sickening sweet
tanghulu offset by sharp, spicy cheese-dogs, chewy
bao buns topped with fresh greens and reds of chili oils.

Death, rape, kidnapping concealed within lands of saccharum,
destructive symphonies detain sobs and laments, weepings on the regular,
repeating with a cruel grin–no, where are you really from?

Chatters, squeals, cheers mingle throughout impenetrable
crowds, as if stuck within a terrarium. Girlfriend’s palms adhere to
distracted boyfriends, oily skewered meat drips down fingers.

Whiteness glorified, God extolled by eyewitnesses of a shaman’s succumb
to deprivation, isolation, locals trammeled from their vernacular–
Konnichiwas, eyes taped back, surveyed by scum.

A taste of home–savory soy flavored pancit backed by dense pork lumpia.
Rich, chocolatey Vietnamese coffee that energizes attendees–
Where do you see yourself ? Where are you among these words?

Silk, porcelain, meditation, matcha, boba-tea, cotton become
group projects with only foreign invaders acknowledged as spectacular,
repeating with a cruel grin–no, where are you really from?

Artists, jewelers, and seamstresses display their wares within the
frigid building, enticed shoppers desperate to find a reprieve
lounge together, exchange of discourse fills the vast room.

Mercenary vultures disguised as men endlessly circle the ornate chrysanthemum,
inscribe slurs and innuendos and accusations and non particular
Konnichiwas, eyes taped back, surveyed by scum
repeating with a cruel grin–no, where are you really from?

Thai performers display strength, physique, and discipline.
Children giggle, mimic their own performance across the clovers and dandelions.
Returns to cheeseburgers, french fries, and to-go cups dripping with bright reds and
dark browns of chocolate coated strawberries clutched in sweaty hands

TRAGIC Poem: The Call of the Faithful, by Gail Epps

There is no known tone like the sound of grief
when bellowed through the fleshy baritone pipes
of a loyal Golden Retriever at the very moment that he realizes
that the always loving hand of his human mother is no longer in
his reach.
That sound, that pitch, so primal, booming and intended to
summon the ancients to get busy and start shaking the deepest
ground and highest peaks to
ignite a stampede to shake the Earth off it’s axis
and return to him his mother
and her particular frequency of love.

Goldens were genetically engineered over time
to be the most faithful, smart, loyal and deeply loving
companions in their relationships with humans.
However, they were not programmed to process grief.
Sweet Sam short circuited and
emitted a tone intended to wake the dead
but instead
his eyes filled with salty pools.

Yes, dogs cry too
when they lose the scent
and there is no relief
from that one particular
Frequency of grief.