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.

CINQUAIN Poem: FOR WHEN THE CROWS SING, by Tayyiba Jadoon

For when the crows would sing till dusk,
For when the thread of vows is frayed,
For when our children had met I had thought they were us from another verse,
For when I had birthed my child I had thought my soul had split until it met yours,
For when I had crawled and scrawled and shuffled the sand with my toes,
For when the sky was as dead as your eyes; I had thought, they were at peace at least,
For when I have been wanting to break the silence, say,
Rest, rest, rest, at least

For when the crow wasn’t at our wall anymore,
For when the clocks were hollow; So were arms,
For when our children were splitting the others’ throats,
For when they birthed theirs and splits were splitting more,
For when the sand was rocky; the ground impure like so our hearts,
For when the life was sucked out of your eyes and your pupils stilled,
For when I was silent as your heart hushed and lips paled; your blood rushed cold, and so did mine

For when the war was over and we were both at rest and lost.

DEATH Poem: Clippings, by Camille Moreau

I didn’t notice
the sloped hardwood
of his apartment. It was so gradual
that I couldn’t tell when he started rolling.

Magic microphone that crackles distant goodbyes, please
let me through. All I can hear is the urgency, that finger-ripping
force of time, yanking forward with unexpected aggressivity when I try to reign it in.

What does it matter if it wasn’t covid?
I couldn’t see him.
Neither one of us could move, and that didn’t even bring us closer.

At the bottom of my bag
I still have the bits
of newspaper that he would
cut out and distribute;
today they are detritus,
decaying leaves that I
let rot. I want to
to fill his casket
with these soul-preserving
paper pieces
tomake the bed
softer on his back,
but I’m told
he opted for cremation,
and his clippings
will burn with him

NATURE Poem: ECHOES IN THE WILD, by Lindsay Lauren

The river doesn’t ask permission to carve.
It presses its will, soft but relentless,
wearing stone until it remembers how to yield.
That’s how some connections work—
quiet, enduring, reshaping you when you weren’t looking.
Then there’s the storm,
the kind that splits the sky open like a confession,
throws lightning at the ground just to feel something.
You try to stand still,
but stillness is an impossible language
when you’re tangled in chaos.
The forest grows without apology.
Every branch a declaration, every root a secret.
It holds space for shadow and light,
for things to coexist without needing to reconcile.
This is where you go when the world
feels too sharp, too bright—
where you learn to soften your edges.
And deserts—
they teach you to be still,
to hear the echo of your own breath in the void.
You think it’s barren until you learn
how to listen.
Life is a quiet miracle here,
but you have to look closely.
Mountains don’t move for anyone.
They demand patience,
demand you come to them on their terms.
Every step is an invitation to let go,
to understand that the summit isn’t the point—
it’s the climb that asks who you are.
The ocean doesn’t stay.
It pulls away even as it gives,
makes you love the way it shifts,
never yours, but always there.
Its rhythm reminds you that loss
isn’t an ending—
it’s just another beginning you can’t yet name.
And somewhere in these wild places,
we meet ourselves.
In rivers, storms, forests, deserts,
mountains, oceans—
the truth of relationships lives,
unfolding like the earth,
like the sky,
like everything too big to hold
and too beautiful to leave behind

FREE Verse Poem: Well what were you wearing?, by Hanna Thornton

I was wearing a black turtleneck
Black skinny jeans
And a belt
The only ounce of color he saw
My pink plump adolescent lips
Dry because I wasn’t old enough to care about lipgloss yet
He didn’t hold me down
But he didn’t stop himself
At the sight of my disney themed panties
Purple and white
A great symbolism to innocence
Dropping from my flesh
He was the adult
I shouldn’t have been there
Him, 17, complaining that
My virgin body was too untouched
Even though that’s what drew him in
Wanting to violate, control, manipulate
My mindset
What I thought was okay
He told me he loved me
I was too young to know people lied about things like that
Statutory, Statutory
I salute women who tell their story
Because who’s gonna believe mine?

NATURE Poem: CICADES, by Grace Ilagan Angel

Sycamore branches hang low
and vibrate with a high pitched
rhythmic hum
the songs of summer…

Fresh cut grass
tickling our toes
Stuttering lawn sprinklers
Scatter ribbons of water
Fractured sunlight
splintered rainbows
everywhere

The evening wind toys
with a playground swing
Gypsy moths at the altar
of a flickering street lamp
The jasmine withers,
cutting the night air
with its heady scent

Listen
to the staccato buzzing
rising and falling
into bottomless dark
chasing summers

Of long ago….

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FREE VERSE Poem: The Scepter Shattered By The Spade, by Thomas Cox

Know you not that richest man
Who sits in Babylon
May be the poorest in Jerusalem?
That the struggles for the wealth
Of dust when of this world
Will crumble all the same with time a’ passing

A camel through the needle’s eye
Hear Clement’s word and obey
For the small and great both await you
In Gehenna even still

As Solomon taught to earnestly do
All to which for you is opportune
Of Horace’s deadly warning heed
For you must then not seek that level with the spade