Author: poetryfest

In this breath, I find the whole
A world contained, a story told
Sunlight’s touch on autumn’s air
Golden dust and quiet care

I breathe it in, each sight and sound
This fleeting joy the earth has found
No rush ahead, no glance behind
Just here, just now, a quiet mind

Leaves drift down in whispered grace
Not future’s pull, nor past’s embrace
A single beat, a fleeting thrill
The world stands still, and I am filled

Make it clear what its about. Dont use A,B rhyme scheme

Oh thunder road
the distance between then and now,
there and home
I light a candle and pray
for my old friends
for the sweet bird of desire
to sit next to my loneliness
How many years was I a slave?
looking for a tower
to try my wings
to fall nowhere
I wanted to be a slave to love
but I was a slave to revenge and worry
and so many things
that my childish fingers grasped
and would not let go
What did I worship instead?
What was the worth of all my dreams before now?
I do not remember at all

April 1, 1946
Hilo, Hawaii

It was the natural thing to do,
send the whole class
to play on the beach.

Where else could you enjoy recess
on the shore but the Aloha state?
Reflective Popsicle green waves topped

with whipped cream, every child’s fantasy.
Even the tide a dream, drawing itself
out like a final breath,

span of warm, tan sand reaching halfway
across the world. Teacher smiled,
permed hair breeze-dancing.

How pleased she was for noticing
how the expansive shoreline beckoned
that morning. Come, it whispered.

One glance out the window,
spontaneous alternative
from fenced playground.

Shouts. Beach balls. Tag. Globs
of wet sand lobbed to make the girls squeal,
laughter so much brighter on the beach.

Joy reached the heavens. Bare toes and
tiny arches etched delicate motif
of life, Zen of impermanence

that was supposed to erase
their footprints, not scoop them up
and swallow them.

The cries
of careening gulls were all that
remained.

Drowning slowly, absent from any from Sun-kiss
Locked in the abyss
Hope as equally absent as l
No energy left to fight
Is that wrong? What is right?
Knowing that death will set me free
Love is what grounds me
Dreams are no longer in sight
Love is all that holds me tight
Death is not losing
because life is not a fight
It is not confusing
Relayed empathy will transcend life to new heights
By: DT Dubs
!PANIC!
The pain has ripened
My chest has fully tightened
Please, god, be done soon

By: DT Dubs

I met her
By the waves

Her dark hair flowed like seaweed in the tides
Her eyes reflected sunlight, glittering like the pearls
And her lips, a light shade of pink, a coral reef
Her smile was the sun, giving life to all

If she was the fish, swimming in the deep
I was a fisherman, throwing all my bait to catch her
If she was the jewel, resting on sand
I was a pirate, searching the entire ocean to find her

Then, we parted
Under the waves

Her hair tangling and blinding our sight
Eyes no longer full of light
Her lips going pale as a coral bleaching
While her smile tried to reach me, one last time
We sunk to the bottom
Like a treasure box
To never be seen again

In Pankong’s cradle, where waters gleam with azure grace,
White sands meet the solemn peaks, a sanctuary for the dreamer’s
embrace.
Nagami, the city of sun, murmurs in lilac hues,
Shalimar graces the scene, a tranquil muse that soothes.

The valley, a canvas adorned with nature’s sublime art,
Ephemeral lives of birds, yearning for celestial depart.
Shattered wings, denied the dance in freedom’s boundless air,
Silent cries echo, an anthem of longing and despair.

Harbingers hushed, forecasting fates yet to unfold,
Harmukh witnesses love, a narrative of stories bold.
Apple trees tenderly embrace, a shepherd’s pastoral grace,
Playing a flute in the symphony of the Kashmiri space.

Petrichor lingers, the scent of rain a poignant theme,
Solitude and beauty, the valley’s melancholic refrain.
A homecoming to joy, amidst nature’s profound felicity,
In tranquil retreat, serenity finds eternal affinity.

Dreams here whisper of tranquility’s tender grace,
Kashmir, my love, where hope finds its sacred place.
Through sleepless nights, lullabies unfold,
Echoing with guns and bullets, tales left untold.

Awakening to scenes of political strife,
Children dream amid the turbulence of life.
Cries for peace resonate in the moonlit streams,
Mothers seek melodies, amidst shattered dreams.

The delicacy of my valley, a timeless tether,
Binding us in shadows, enduring the political weather.
Kashmir, my love, a poignant political song,
Enduring, resilient, where struggles and strength belong.

Late again…what’s the consequence?
Why should they get to take up space in my day?
It’s theft of those minutes that I spent waiting.
I am literally wasting my life.
I can’t focus on the coffee.
There’s no joy in lemon and poppyseeds.
It’s just the tick-tock of my internal clock, counting the seconds until I die.
Why don’t they think it’s rude?
Why don’t they obsess?
I hear my pulse in my ears.
How long have I been clinching?
As I release, I hear the squeak of my teeth coming undone from their union.
It’s not them; it’s me again.
There is no movement to miss.
There is no wash of jet fuel, my face to offend.
There’s just coffee, lemon poppyseed, and gentle jazz. The din enters my new open ears again.
Just then, I am jarred from my trance by the focus-tested ding.
It’s a pleasant tone. “There in five. Running behind.”
There is no consequence.
My anxiety is a response
to a condition that no longer exists.
There is no one to tell me that I am a bag of shit.
There is no conference with a man who makes more money than I can imagine.
There’s just an anticipated conference between friends.
There’s no consequence for lateness.
Taking up space is no matter at all.
Nothing matters.
How many of my best friends died,
not knowing that there was a place and a time,
where there is no fine, no minefield, and no consequence for being late or taking up space?

Army of darkness, they wander the realm to find me, Sniffing and snivelling versions of me, Distorted and angry and disfigured in ways a horror would be, they are s. Telling the cursed and sour air in the hopes to find me hiding in my hole, my safe space but I’m running our of time,

I’ve held them back many a time, many a year but the pressure increases with every second of the clock, I know once they find me I will be lost forever, they will force me to harm myself, to forget the ones I love or whoever, encourage me to end something I have spent years building upon.

I don’t want to feel empty and unloved, feared, scared or disgraced because I know I will be missed I have more than the this world has to offer, and the next and the next, it’s overwhelming feeling the pressure And the panic of being so close to edge it’s something I spend many a moments in dread.

As I’m interrupted I come round unphased and alert, I shake my head to alert my fizzing eyes to centre on the moment. I heard. “are you listening!? “

“sorry I was day dreaming “ to be honest I was day screaming so loud inside because my own fears are pushing me, they will find me and I don’t want to give this up I k ow I want it but my mind and body are against me, my wife and children depend on me to be the rock, the voice of reason, the key family figure to give it up would be cruel, dreadful
without a thought or reason, why would I? I’m happy they see my smile but on the inside I’m crying I’m screaming the monsters run wild I feel the urge to protect myself and the family but giving up would do nicely had I not thought of the guilt that is stowed upon me, how could I do that to the family who loves. Me, oh well on I have to battle, feeling
Lone, the hardship, the will to survive weakens but I have to push in for everyone that looks to me, it would be nice to sleep and not have to wake, here I go again onto another day, and the next and the next.

Could he sketch the bruised hollows under my eyes,
The way the world leans heavy, like a black curtain drawn too close?
Could he map the topography of my pain,
Of a history bound to skin, dark as the sediment
Gathered at low tide where corals gleam like hounds’ teeth,
Jagged and edged, eager for love that’s always too sharp?

I met him when he wanted to be Malcolm,
But his heart was too sweet, beating in the rhythm of the talking drum,
As if swallowing the Red Sea, trying to cleanse white grits from his gums.
But evolution made prey of him,
Eyes wide, almost on the side of his head, like cattle—
Like prey, forever adapting to survive a gaze that makes him whole yet stripped,
That lingers too long, forcing his softness to harden,
A ght waged on the quiet battleeld of Black skin.

Could he write of that split-second ache
When I catch his gaze?
Would he let that ink ood the page, spreading warm like mist in a hot shower,
Let it trace the mole on my lip, a constellation he worships,
Soft armor he leans against, feeling the expanse of something divine?
Could his words carry the weight, more than his hands ever could,
A dam of love deep enough to make room for every jagged corner of us?
Or would he stop at the surface, afraid to drown in the depths he has yet to conquer?

When I leave, would his veins empty?
Would he crumble like parched earth stripped of its sun,
A soul grown thin without the warmth it once held?
If I gave him the pen, the endless pages,
Would he write until his hands trembled,
Filling each line with the love and reverence he sees in me,
With the resilience of reef and the reverence of tide,
Where love blooms unbound, an open wound healed by the ink of his words?

In the middle of the night, between the peace of sunset and the war of dawn,
I met him there, his face marked with acne scars and gems of unspoken dreams,
His hands—cracked yet tender—anointing my skin like sacrament,
Leaving prints that whisper, “I see you, in all the places you hide.”
Would his words mirror that? Would he let love spill from the bottle,
A pool that never recedes, lling our silences with the truth of who we are?
For in each line he pens, there is a promise unfurling, a love owering,
Soft as moonlight, raw as reef, an endless verse in love without end.

I met him when he wanted to be Malcolm,
But his heart was too sweet, beating in the rhythm of the talking drum,
As if swallowing the Red Sea, trying to cleanse white grits from his gums.
But evolution made prey of him,
Eyes wide, almost on the side of his head, like cattle—
Like prey, forever adapting to survive a gaze that makes him whole yet stripped,
That lingers too long, forcing his softness to harden,
A ght waged on the quiet battleeld of Black skin.

Could he write of that split-second ache
When I catch his gaze?

Would he let that ink ood the page, spreading warm like mist in a hot shower,
Let it trace the mole on my lip, a constellation he worships,
Soft armor he leans against, feeling the expanse of something divine?
Could his words carry the weight, more than his hands ever could,
A dam of love deep enough to make room for every jagged corner of us?
Or would he stop at the surface, afraid to drown in the depths he has yet to conquer?

When I leave, would his veins empty?
Would he crumble like parched earth stripped of its sun,
A soul grown thin without the warmth it once held?
If I gave him the pen, the endless pages,
Would he write until his hands trembled,
Filling each line with the love and reverence he sees in me,