Author: poetryfest

The women lie.
The women lie here.
The women lie here and there.
The women lie here and there, the men laugh at their losses,
Letting go of their weighted chests,
Letting loose their tainted words—
An attempt to deceive the lying women.

Scattered. Shattered. Still, the women awaken and lie
Below the homes they do not own,
Below the children they did not birth,
Below the society that hates them.
They lie.
The sins spill from their tongues,
Until their mouths run dry and

The women are silent.

So, the men try.
The men try tricks
To sew their sickly smiles on to branded frowns.
The men try tricks
To tempt the sweet sting of feminine freedom
The women will never have.
Peace. So the women lie?

Not here. Not there. Everywhere.
The women lie.
The women need to lie—
To survive. To guide.
Their poor daughters in a world that despises them.
So they cry and they lie and they die wishing
For words of honesty.

Words of honesty.
The truth. The facts.
That the difference between the words
“woman” and “man” are just the wo-ken,
People who awoke,
People who wake up
And perceive that a human is a human.

A man is no more a human
Than a woman is.
And the women need not lie
To themselves or their sisters that they are any less
Than, or that their autonomy is not theirs,
But owned by some “superior” being.
The women need.

The women do not need.
The women do not need anyone.
The women just need themselves—
To speak their minds and unwind their tied tongues
From the lies that have blazed
Their beautiful brains,
And peacefully lie.

The women lie.
The women lie upon.
The women lie upon the past.
Lie upon the past until their future is clear,
Caressing their daughter’s daughter,
Until she stands.

In pauper’s field, no flowers lie,
on our graves of chosen number.
How different is grief from public outcry?
There is no comforting answer.

Is God or the state our true gatekeeper?
Both took away our chance to say goodbye.
But which one silently buried us here,
in a pauper’s field, where no flowers lie?

They abandoned the need to notify,
to strangers in the newspaper.
Unknown to our families, that nearby,
were our graves of chosen number.

Death that is silenced is now a murder
of virtue, bureaucrats can’t justify.
Tell the news crew to ask the coroner,
“how different is grief from public outcry?”

We lived as people, but they say we die,
as “state’s property,” marked by the dollar.
When justice calls, and you apologize,
we will not give a comforting answer.

The cosmos measures the truth that matters.
Heaven’s busses may run late, but still ride,
a path for those whose hearts will remember.
History must hear our raucous reply
from pauper’s field, and so we try.

Grind—grind—marching to the same refrain,
The wheel will never stop.

Hands on belts, hands on screens,
Eyes on numbers, dim-lit dreams.
Grind—grind—back and forth, the endless chain,
The grind devours all.

Factory floors and checkout lanes,
Endless emails, subway trains.
Push the buttons, pull the levers,
Sweat-soaked collars, broken feathers.
Grind—grind—churning through the days in vain,
The clock is always hungry.

Bosses laugh in glass-front towers,
Counting up the stolen hours.
Bills to pay, no time to eat,
Debt’s a shackle round your feet.
Grind—grind—stuck beneath the grinding strain,
Chains you’ll never see.

Dream of rest, dream of ease,
Dream of days you’d dare to seize.
But dreams dissolve like morning dew—
The grind has always ground down you.

Grind—grind—trapped within the system’s chain,
No mercy for the poor.

I used to believe in many things
As I got older, I began to learn
Things I used to believe in
Will not be the same
People won’t be the same
I used to believe in an “ever after.”
I used to believe when you said “you loved me”
My world used to stop
You made me weak
I used to believe “somebody loved me”
Now I’m not listening to the same song
I am beginning to not believe in your truths
How April never came
How it will never come
I believed I thought love existed
Love had no boundaries
Love meant you understood me
And I understand you
I don’t know what I believe in anymore
I used to hold on for one more day
There’s a lot of pain in believing a fairy tale
A fairy tale that never existed
No more wishing on a shooting star
No more luck
Just me not believing in our ever after
The more I write
The more I feel the tears drop from my face
My heart used to beat
And say “your name”
I still hear your voice
I used to believe in a lot of things
Love isn’t one of the things
I will never understand
Nor will I believe in anymore

Hey,

It’s probably my fault. Mostly yours,come to think of it. Still seems a little weird because there was no boiling point for me. No moment of blind rage that feeds the fire of rash decisions and harsh words. It was just a momentary revelation: why am I doing this? I already felt that the willing joy of loving you now feels like a chore. Like I had to love you because it elevated my own sense of self-worth; I am a good person because I love someone. But what’s the point of adding extra chores to one’s life? What started out as a symphony morphed into a chaotic cacophony that left
every nerve in my Being frayed and raw. Simply put; you get on my nerves. The little quirks like clicking the end of a pen against your chin as you poured over a Sudoku puzzle, the faint sigh every time you stood up from a chair, the gallons of creamer you added to your coffee. All of those things that raised you up in my mind to be one of the greatest creatures on Earth now makes me want to burn the damn house down.

It wasn’t always like that, of course. New relationships always come packaged brightly with a pretty little bow on them. Then we start to reveal the things not mentioned in the brochures of our past. The eccentricities are actually neurotic tendencies that festered in the invisible baggage we both brought on this journey. But as the bags slowly unpack themselves we find the question of, “Is this something I can live with?”, popping up more and more.

I have a lot for which to be grateful. You helped me with my writing and finding my voice. You helped me with my fears of confrontation (which aren’t going so well, hence, this letter). And while I have advanced in writing, the voice I’ve found seems to only say, ‘I hate the idea of us.’ I guess in a way, this is my Declaration of Independence. I hope it sparks no war. Just two people moving things out of a house at separate times to avoid speaking. You can have the lamps and coffee table. You can also take the shower curtain. Leave me the bookshelf and the framed tickets from the Ben Folds concert. That was our second date. It was at an outdoor venue and I remember you taking my hoodie from the backseat and putting it on. I’m gonna need that hoodie back, too. Anyway, that’s all I have.

Being a writer, I thought it would be easier this way. No confrontation (still not ready for that) and no awkward banter. God bless the written word. It gives us a chance to say what we really feel and the reader can’t interrupt or argue with it. They are a captive audience whose responses are only heard by the walls of an empty home and maybe the cat. I hated that cat, by the way. Well, stay safe and I wish you all the best. The cat, however, can burn in Hell.

~ Me

For George Popovic

She threw her mind onto the ground, sculpted it into sticks, circles, and a smile, partially gold, halted it with super glue, nails, and a hammer, and stuck her empty eye inside to find her calendar flipped to March 9, 2020, as she was 5’2 with an eyebrow slit, uneven side bangs, and an ancient backpack. She just stood in the sun and wrapped herself around the purity in front of the door with the 400 hugs in need of a recharge as though the damage of forgiven neglect was in the storm over the purity’s navy cap and puffy vest, adjacent to all the beating hearts that the 75 hugs haven’t helped pump. He knows she’d rather take her unspoken pride and delight to the 3rd floor nook where all the scents of stated dignity and bliss sleep comfortably as pillows, and she’ll keep her finger pointed toward sitting by the phone, hearing three words that she sat on, turning her physical numbness into emotional. He was under her bed, in her window blinds, and lying on the swings, slide, and monkey bars to say a personal good night, so the voice on the phone was wrong, and he knew she felt 42 kinds of guilt, so he went and left an alarm to watch the sunrise and notice his face woven through the lines of yellow, pink, and purple. She could be liked, disliked, hated, or loved, and she could be a child in need of a bit of family with contradicting DNA, but the reality was that she was 33% unaware, 33% disorganized, 33% puberty,
and 1% George Popovic.

listen long
to the rustling
of reality
you weave
with every thought
and automatic
into static
insects will appear
to spread and eat
cosmic teeth
consciousness consumed
smoke them out
with mindlessness
and choke upon the fog
plug your ears
avert your eyes
insects thrive
hiding
biding time
until you
sleep
dream
drift
and finally
join the noise

I didn’t bury you in the ground when I could
Now I bury you over – and – over – again metaphorical funerals inside me.
My stone heart
a headstone
where I can visit
you in
my guilt.

“Born too late”; a dole of words.
For a pitman? Chowk the adit.
Tommy varney lost his head,
nipped between tub and a rock face –
a collapse of facial bone.
Did dadding lend him breath on tick?
Moneyed said he wasn’t worth
pittance, and spent him happily.
Tough old get, and toughness pays
dearly; many more paid in crepe –
who will decide your Bloodworth?
They lost control, and called it dead;
there’s no Stephenson at bank.
He hewed my face, and faces break,
but I ken him, ower late.

No matter how dark the night,
The Moon always shines.

There’s so much to stare at, to ponder, to care about in this world yet I always find myself lost in
the woods of:

Your hair, like the carefree wheat
Under the summer breeze,
In waves of golden grace,
Dances with such ease.

I am fascinated by the sky. It has this unspoken sense of dressing itself with clouds and borrowed
colors. It compels my soul to search deeper. I never could figure out what exactly is the sky. It’s
never the same. And such are my feelings when I search:

Your soul, like the sky,
Ever-changing, ever vast,
Each moment a new cloud,
Rises in her heart steadfast.

October is a unique month. We all welcome the idea of a winter at this time. There’s the last
hustle of summer, the first kiss of cold, the last long light, the first long night, the last drop of
rain, the first chill of the snow, and the last bit of my sorrow dies to the first of:

Your smiles, like the evening,
A twilight’s soft embrace,
Making way for night stars,
In the beauty of your face.

To write poetry “stillness” is essential. Your soul sits still waiting for the divine oars to touch and
stir the calm of your imagination. So, every time I write poetry your memories stir the:

The stillness of ordinary experience,
Which in you, finds its sublime calm.
In your love, I find the world,
A soothing, healing balm.

Thus, I say again, proud and brave, to you, love’s purest light:

No matter how dark the night,
The Moon always shines.

Yours lovingly,
Your eternal dreamer