Author: poetryfest

If you invite me in, I will come.
I follow you, lured by the promise of coffee.
The scent of it fills my nose,
Earthy, nutty, and sweet.
I watch you work, grinding coffee beans,
brewing the drinks,
and pouring milk into mugs.
I take it and it is hot in my hands.
I blow on it to cool it,
watching the surface of the liquid shiver under my breath.
I take a tentative taste,
and the bold, tangy blend explodes across my senses.
There is no sweetness,
yet I savor it to the last sip,
knowing that I won’t taste this blend again.
This isn’t a coffee I’d drink every morning,
and I have that at home already.
As sweet as what you gave me tastes,
I know I’ll regret it if I accept another cup.

Imposing series of three iron gates
Like a labyrinth of lost hope
At the entrance to
The Luther Luckett Correctional Complex
On this perfect spring day
I’m not sure if the gates,
Like the burgers at White Castle
Were designed to keep people in or out.

Assigned to go to the prison,
To interview an alleged car thief
For an insurance claim I was handling,
I was searched like a bag at the border,
I had no guns,
I had no knives,
I had no drugs,
Only my pen and legal pad
Which I wasn’t even sure was legal,
In this place where nothing is.

I was led to poorly lit concrete room,
With steel tables and benches
And wondered to myself,
If I was the one who would be questioned.
The prisoner was led in,
In an orange jump suit
He was probably happier to see,
The prison guard at 4 am bed check
Then he was to see me.

I wasn’t a cop,
I wasn’t a snitch,
I just wanted to know,
If he took the damn car.
It turns out that I didn’t need,
My pen or legal note pad
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you,” he said.
He pled the Fifth,
And it was a short conversation,
Which made no sense to me,
The claim was a civil matter,
Not a criminal one.
Like a fly in a sticky strip,
He was already in the place,
He was trying to avoid.

I left quietly through,
The series of iron gates
That opened and closed,
And moved traffic more efficiently,
Than the McAlpine Locks on the Ohio River
Moves barge traffic.

It is part of America
That, like the euthanization room
At the animal shelter,
No one wants to see.
As I exited the iron gates
I wondered if I had died,
I pondered my eternal fate,
As I studied the opening gate
Clicking like a roller coaster
At King’s Island,
Try as I might,
I didn’t see any pearls

I did not ask you to build me this way
I did not ask to come back from the grave
My brain has thoughts that my tongue cannot say
I do not like this second life you gave
The only reason that you worked this trick
Was to sate your own curiosity
A doctor who works with the dead is sick
No miracle – just an atrocity
I’m not my own, I’m just your science pet
A wonder you can display for the crowd
You don’t consider my wishes, not one!
I’d like the chance to be my own asset
Yet I am branded “monster “ not allowed
To be myself. I am not anyone.

I know what I should feel
But my eyes are dry and dusty
And the sunset is surreal
I swear I’m not a psychopath
I swear that I can feel
I picture you a monster
That’s what you ought to be
But monsters don’t hold hands
Monsters don’t cry and flee
You’re better off not human
You’re better off apathetic
I’m better off weeping and screaming
I’m better off pathetic.

too many
to count

these books
practically endless
sea of blankness
neither discovered
nor excited

nowadays
many
turn away
too much responsibility
for even
one
sentence

justifiable
only by
the inability
to create
which
everyone can do

it’s the fear of
standing out
in a field
during a lightning storm
a spotlight
from the gods

the fear of
standing out
on a high wire
above
the streets
of people everywhere

the fear of
standing out
on stage
shutters
open
close
flash of
bulbs

isolated
yet surrounded

surrounded by
need of assurance
without judgement
surrounded by
expectations
no failures

surrounded by
self-doubt
lack of drive

it is
on you
to do it

so most
leave
pages
blank

no one dares make a mark

they wish they could

but one
braver
will do it
they say

without sympathy
to themselves
they ignore
their capabilities

when the
writer
artist
poet
architect
scientist
teacher
trash man
comes along
they will
put the spotlight on

they will give you
the unicycle

they will give you
the metal pole

they will give you
everything they
are scared to have

and then
will wait
for your failure
to confirm
their fears

but

if you challenge
their expectations

if you challenge
their gods
of submission

if you challenge
the fear
the balancing
the weight
the blindness
the fall
and
you rise
above it all

then you will
succeed
when
all cower
you will
fill the pages
they leave behind

you will create a story
they wish they could

and then
you
can tell them to pound sand

When I knew you last,
we were Japanese
and I loved you.
I saw your face for the first time
on our wedding day.

In this life, it is cold and damp and April.
I am transported back in time
through a portal as ordinary as a red Mazda
to when your arms were new to me
(they’re still new to me)
and your kisses hypnotized me
(they still hypnotize me).

One day in the back of a library,
you leaned over me,
plucked a strand from my life,
replaced it changed.

You read to me from your last book of poems
called my town “Pleasantville”.
Was it a curse or an incantation?
Ever since this place has been black and white.
I have been wandering the streets
trying to find something bright,
a poppy, a playground ball, a traffic light.
I get distracted by the sound
of something clanging in an alleyway,
by crumpled newspaper skittering
past on a dry wind, making a sound
something like wheezing.

I would give you my breath
but I keep getting lost trying to find you.

The morning orb melted soft and pink in
the dead dry grass of our slushie footsteps-
just in time for the grand finale. His
breath ate the air like old tobacco as
the doe took her last breaths. He said, ‘aim for
its breast, hook your finger on the lever,
and pull’-
but what should I do if the lead bursts through
the other side of her intestinal
tract, and I flinch at the barrel’s violent sight
with force like Icarus’s golden end.
{….}
She lay bleary eyed, wheezing the
cruel air by rusted nostrils. still, grief runs
through my chest as dad drags graveyards past our
front porch onto gambrel hooks. while some parts
decay in industrial trash plastic-
a tragedy with no end to all, but
him and his god-like duplicitousness. as
such, those conquering camoed hands clicked the
safety off grandpa’s rifle, and took her
pain after five minutes of us sitting
and watching- a gift for us all.

I got his name
but the Bulge took everything else.

And scant memories remain:
a black-and-white photo of him
perched on the black rocks of a Maine seashore,
shirtless, smiling, with a sister on each side,
and a colorized photo of him
sitting tall in a classic green MG roadster
that he surely drove.

And then, the one sepia photo
that you scribbled in turquoise ink,
“Billy + his pals
his girl I guess
1944”
him in a GI beige uniform
wearing a near adult grin,
perhaps the day he left,
perhaps a day he visited,
years after Grandpa wrote those newspaper letters
urging our country to enter the war,
imploring our armies to stop the genocide,
years of reading his European Jews massacred.

And how proud Grandpa was,
his son will now serve,
drafted in January of his senior year,
still time to make a difference,
still time to aid the Allies,
still time to save Jews,
no thoughts of making that ultimate…

And the boasting, endless at each meal,
Bill this in training camp,
Bill that with salt tablets,
Bill this in the 106th,
Bill that in the 427th,
rereading a letter, perhaps from England,
to help with the passing of days to months.

And on one winter’s Sabbath night,
Grandpa’s third wife,
no longer willing to hear any more,
blurted out the name and savage words
over flickering candles,

“Bill, Bill, Bill, that’s all we talk about.
I just wish he was dead!”

And the next day,
there was a knock at the door,
a government green car outside,
two soldiers and a chaplain
handed over a one-page letter
with words and a signature that fail to comfort.

And after the thaw of the Battle’s second day,
the body and flag appeared.
the only son was gone.
the sibling you idolized was gone.

And the legacy of war’s pain would remain and fester.
a new battle began to give him honor
as the justice of unchallenged embellishments fought
the injustice of those who forget.

And Memorial Day weekend 2006,
you shared with me
how your father passed in red sorrow
because a school superintendent refused to bend a rule,
to issue the posthumous diploma
that could have been a salve
on the laceration of eleven months, not twelve in service,
as if he had a son who could have made that choice.

And right then, I wanted to do this one thing,
to be a hero wearing his name, to honor him.
it was my turn to write letters,
62 years after Bill would have graduated.

And the principal of today,
having served twice in a desert,
joined in the mission, also wrote letters.

And the next month, all was ready:
a proclamation from the governor,
a proclamation from the mayor,
a framed diploma to be presented
during the regular graduation ceremony,
a special listing in the program,
a paragraph in the Hartford Courant.

And I handed this tribute to you
and your words still haunt me,
“Eh, I would rather have him.”
and the papers were pushed to the side.
and those were your last words.

And mine to you were,
“It’s OK if you want to join
your father and brother.
I know they are waiting for you.”
and you left in 20 seconds.

In your absence, for all these absences
there is this holiday for wounds that never heal.