Author: poetryfest

In the fading light, I find my place,
A life full of colors, love, and grace.
Moments like whispers, dancing so free,
Echoes of laughter, sweet memories of me.

I think of the years, the good and the bad,
Times of joy and moments that made me sad.
I’ve walked through valleys, climbed mountains so high,
Sipped from life’s cup, watched time slip by.

Sometimes I regret, like shadows at night,
But every mistake taught me to fight.
In each hard lesson, I found my own way,
A story woven from choices each day.

I’ve loved and I’ve lost, felt the sting of goodbye,
But the warmth of your hands, oh, how time does fly!
The smell of fresh rain, the rustle of trees,
The laughter of children, the soft evening breeze.

My dear wife, my partner through all the years,
Your love has been my strength, drying my tears.
I remember when we danced in the rain,
Laughing together, forgetting our pain.

And to my daughter, with dreams shining bright,
You’re the joy in my heart, my beautiful light.
I think of the days we built castles of sand,
Your giggles and smiles, always close at hand.

And my son, my brave heart, my pride and my joy,
Your laughter and spirit, my sweet little boy.
I think of the nights we read stories so near,
The wonder in your eyes, so precious and dear.

As I reflect, the Vishnu Purana speaks,
Of the struggles in life and the pain that it peaks.
Not like millions of spiders, but a weight on my chest,
A journey of the soul, searching for rest.

Life ties us close to the edge of our end,
But in every heartbeat, I find a good friend.
So here I lie, feeling the weight of my days,
In the quiet of dusk, in the soft evening rays.

I’ll hold every heartbeat, each breath that I take,
For life was a dance, and my spirit won’t break.
Fear not for the silence that soon will be mine,
For in my heart, I know, we’ll always be fine.

I am Hindu, and I truly believe,
In a world beyond this, where we will not grieve.
A century whispers, “We shall meet again,”
In love and in light, where no sorrow remains.

Gray, like her blue veins
is the sea
in which she tries to drown.

Or would have tried
if this were one of her nine lives.
And since it is not,
she has no choice
but to sit by grottos, to sit and sit
and to cut apples into a ceramic bowl.

Some time ago, the bowl read
“you are my star”
and a little star
with tiny legs was depicted on it.

And some time ago, it wasn’t a bowl either
but a small flower vase.

When the flower vase broke and the flowers died
she glued the shards into a bowl
in which now lay pieces of apple.

She places a piece into her mouth
and throw another always into the waves
that knocked against the rocks of the grotto.

Sharing the apple with the sea, she says:
“Keep them for me, in case I come back.”

The old shopkeeper from hometown died
Read the message from the hometown group
Another news from the group filled
With lots of birthdays and deaths
Hometown which is just a distant memory
The old man and his shop
just a wisp of that distant memory
Yet , still there is an agonizing pain
For some reason unknown

Maybe, it’s the faint familiarity
With the dead old man and his shop
where you went for like a 1000 times
during the time which is now a nostalgia
Or, Maybe it’s the pain from fear
of losing things that remind you of the good old days,
The very thing you find solace in times of need
The fear of loss of nostalgia
along With the people and the Town

Scanning for a spot,
listening to Jhené Aiko,
I stroll behind
the bathers.
The beach is
packed with bodies
and their bags,
towels, umbrellas.

Finally, a free space.

I unroll my towel
and sit
on the light gray stones.
I pull the AirPods from
my ears and
drop them
into their magnetic case.
The lapping sea,
people splashing, squealing.
Incomprehensible Croatian
conversation.

Four Policija appear, wearing
black uniforms.
A woman leads them to
the orange umbrella
a few feet to my right and I realize
why this space was free.

The shape
of a person
under a white sheet,
two toes up.
One of the Policija
kneels, pulls
back the sheet.
A pale, swollen
belly. Alfred Hitchcock’s face.
A sour stink. I look away.

A blonde woman with
a flat, tanned stomach
sits watching.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Yeah he died.”

The Policija are
for some reason
peeling off the man’s trunks.
I glimpse a wrinkled pelvis
and can’t
look anymore.
“Are you okay?” She asks me.
“Yeah.”

I stuff my towel in my bag
and start walking
back down the beach
passing cafes,
threading between
people angled toward the scene.

The bathers are still
bobbing
and frolicking in the sea.

Haunted by dreams, deep in despair
I can feel your presence, why are you there?
The fires are burning; the stench fills the air
Of fuel and flesh, there’s death everywhere.

We hover above, looking for life.
The uplifting wind cuts through like a knife.
The living they stagger; they fill the debris
The hell we had given them, they seek to be free.

Arms wave in the air, for them it is done
They only seek shelter, relief from the sun.
They fought for a tyrant, some food, and some money
But where was it now? Isn’t life funny?

But not all are forlorn; not all are defeated
The fight lingers on, the wrongs are repeated.
One shoots to the sky, some others they follow
A shot hits inside, the sound of it hollow.

An order comes back to shoot, return fire
To bring death to life, to add to the pyre.
But one thought, it nags, must all have to die?
The order redoubles, bring death from the sky.

How long will it linger, the day we played God
We chose life and took life with barely a nod.
And now we are haunted and deep in despair
Our thoughts are unspoken, in need of repair.

I’m getting drunk again in your memory.
Sitting alone on the edge of my bed
It’s fucking killing me.
Losing you just doesn’t feel real to me.
Maybe I just won’t let myself accept reality.
Either way,
You’re still not here with me.
Whiskey never tasted so much like water.
I guess I just got used to being your daughter.
I never thought you’d be the one
that I would have to lose.
I can’t accept the fact that
I never even got to say goodbye to you.
It’s been a year since the accident
And I still get chills when I think about how fast it went.
I guess I just really fucking miss you both.
I wish I could spend just 1 more day with you.
There’s so much that I would say to you.
I don’t know how to find closure.
‘Cause I still can’t understand
how your lives are just over.
It’s not fair.
There’s been too many nights
When your voice was all I needed to hear.
Somehow I’m still not used to not having you there.
You always made me feel like I was good enough.
Always reassuring me
that I was worth being loved.
Now that your gone,
I feel hopeless again.
And I can’t stand to look at my little sister now
‘Cause I hate to see her pain.
It feels like sadness is just the theme
that this family became.
You held us all together.
You made sure that if any of us ever fell
It wouldn’t be for long.
I don’t know how you did it,
But everyone’s so distant since you’ve been gone.
I miss you everyday
And I don’t think it’s ever gonna stop hurting.
Because I had so much left to say
And you didn’t know how important it was to me.
I hate myself for letting my feelings cloud my heart.
I should’ve told you that I forgave you
It shouldn’t have been so hard.
It kills me inside to think
that you might not have realized
how much you meant to me
Because I was too stubborn to look you in the eyes
when you apologized to me.
But I’m so fucking sorry.
You took me in when I was 16
And you always made me feel like I finally had a family.
I loved you more than I ever let you know.
I wish I could’ve had the chance to say it to you.
Now you’re gone and I’ve never felt
so distant from the world before.
I don’t know if you can hear me;
But if you can,
This is my apology for everything
that I never told you I was grateful for.
I just hope you both knew
that your lives were so important.
I just miss you.

She was a whisper carried by the breeze,
A secret that brought me to my knees,
A beauty that the dark could not contain,
A porcelain doll with a crimson stain.

She moved among the blooms so fair,
A field of flowers, unaware,
That shadows crept with silent feet,
Where dark and light would someday meet.

Her lips, like roses freshly bloomed,
A touch of red in twilight’s gloom.
She plucked the flowers, her gentle hands,
Creating beauty where she stands.

Her touch, met the petals there,
Each one a dream, a tender, silent prayer.
But then, a thorn, cruel, hidden blade,
Drew blood from her skin, her purity frayed.

The crimson flowed, a river of sin,
As she brought her finger to lips so thin.
The blood, it stained those lips so fair,
A kiss from death, but did she care?

And in the shadows, I did stay,
My hunger grew as night took day.
Secrets hid in the gathering gloom,
As my desire bloomed, a poisonous plume.

She touched the blood with lips so red,
And with every drop, my hunger fed.
A fevered dream that clouded my mind,
A craving that left reason behind.

The field was her stage, where innocence played,
But in my mind, her purity decayed.
She was a flower, soft, tender, and true,
And I was the thorn, that in darkness grew.

The night thickened, a blanket of dread,
As I watched her, thoughts twisting in my head.
There’s a thin line between love and hate,
Between desire and a darker fate.

The boundary blurred, twisted, entwined,
Between the lover’s heart and the killer’s mind.
She was my light, my sweet, deadly muse,
Yet in her beauty, my sanity I’d lose.

She never knew I walked behind,
A ghost within her restless mind.
I lingered where her thoughts would stray,
A friend she’d lose along the way.

Did she feel my gaze, my burning need?
Did she sense the darkness, my sinful creed?
She was a dream where innocence lay,
Yet the beast inside began to prey.

But oh, the line, it grew so thin,
Between my love and deadly sin.
I followed her with every breath,
A dance of life, a waltz with death.

Her beauty, pure, it held me tight,
Yet in my heart, a dark delight.
For in the corners of her eye,
She saw me, yet she passed me by.

She was the dawn, and I the dusk,
Her innocence, my soul’s dry husk.
But love, it twisted in my veins,
A love that soon would turn to chains.

I followed close, as night grew deep,
Her breathing slow, she fell asleep.
The blossoms bowed where shadows spread,
As moonlight danced around her bed.

Was it love, or was it more?
A shadow that devoured the light I bore?
There I remained, where storms were born,
A love once pure, now bitter and worn.

She woke to see my shadowed face,
Her eyes, like stars, began to trace
The fear, the love, the darkened truth,
The end of innocence, the end of youth.

My hands, they trembled at her side,
I traced her form, where innocence died,
And in that moment, pure and wild,
I saw the devil in a child.

I whispered softly in her ear,
“My love, my life, my darkest fear.”
She smiled, a knowing, twisted thing,
A joy that made my cold heart sing.

For in that moment, she was mine,
Her blood, her breath, her lips divine.
We danced beneath the midnight sky,
Two souls bound, yet doomed to die.

Where darkness wraps and shadows grieve,
The night harbors what we both believe.
For love and hate, they intertwine,
A fate that’s neither yours nor mine.

And in the field where flowers bloom,
Where innocence met darkened doom,
Her laughter haunts the winds that sigh,
A love that never said goodbye.

For in love, there’s a darkness that lies in wait,
A hidden desire, a sinister fate.
And as I watched her, the lines blurred and bent,
Between the passion of love, and the torment of intent.

Tara Veljković

When the light turned around
Naught a sound then
As the walks across the floor
Moved along
And the sounds then
And the eyes turn about

“I don’t believe god is after me, if he were, the first strike would have been enough” – Roy Sullivan, a park ranger who was struck by lightning seven separate times. He took his own life after the seventh strike due to crippling loneliness”

Least expected, seizure or symphony?
spark,
Turn and touch my cheek.
She danced yellow, like a thousand fireflies.
The lightning says:
“My heart skips beats when you’re with me.”
If this were a bell curve I’d be dead last.
We were
secret lovers at the ranch near Heaven’s gate.
Near because I was never allowed
into His kingdom, for my wings were not yet real
She fell from the sky
seven times
like wedding vows
I stood on burnt wings like Icarus, if he were unlucky.
She was real, abrasive and shocking.
She was perfect
and I was
by lightning, loved.
Hips brushing past one another, friction between clouds.
My cries echoed like thunder, the sun
rarely shone
on the crux of my nose where my eyebrow ended,
or the lines
going down my back
like a painting of her.
The only “she” closest to me now is the static from the cumulonimbus.
Alas, the thunderclap could not take me.
So I’m taking matters into my own hands.
A shame,
I will never find a greater love than the apoplexy left by her kiss.

Was all the darkness worth it?
Shreds of light burn pupils as they stain the beauty.
The little corpse brought to now is silent.
Lifeless thought cannot withstand the tragedy of being.
Its puny body is angelic and sweet,
Lying still with eyes closed with smile spread.
How could something so new suffer so much,
In such short time.
Finding beauty is a weakness,
And where is God now that the beauty is dead