Author: poetryfest

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,

lonely autumn night –
filled with her tender embrace
never ending dream

***

a bouquet for her –
the roses’ scent discovers
never spoken words

***

places of childhood –
our eyes filled with the color
of forget-me-nots

***

so cold all around –
in the fog of deep autumn
the warmth of your hand

Marek Kozubek

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.

Brisk is my first thought
I stand facing the mountain
A beautiful place

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

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

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?