Author: poetryfest

i love you.
your orange hues amaze me.
Please. Don’t die.

i adore you.
God blessed you with speckles
of white in the rim of your wings.
Please. Don’t go.

Even though I laid eyes on you
for a mere second,
I was hypnotized by your beauty.
All butterflies are unique —
but you, darling, stand out amongst them all.

There will never be another like you.

Which is why
I would even beg to God,
who decides to give and take away,
to keep you for a little longer.
The ones who haven’t been born
need to see how beautiful you are.

So please…
I love you.
I adore you.
Please. Don’t die.

Please. Don’t go.

— Leslie Rwigyema

Oh Attic love,
painted shadow,
born by adder and asphodel meadows
To the ghettos of the damned.
On a white, fated train,
you slipped away slowly
in veil and lace
– one eye on the tracks ahead
You danced the night before
and I swore to follow.

The path winds further within the maw,
diamonds pulsing on iron walls
are entrenched and numbered stars
that fade.
I wander forward,
bound by gnashing and gnawing,
swallowed by the crash of boots,
the weight of screams,
drawing toward I spiral
down
forward,
down and forward,
down

until stripped of thought
and thin of song
but still

one note lingers.

The grave king,
stoic knave of a forgotten choir
awaits on throne of smoke and ash.
Yet I must pluck these barbed strings,
tinny wires, and sing
but dead echoes cry:
liar, liar
in these halls of fear and fire.

One, still of some reality,
sees beauty, oh the pomegranate tomb that is Persephone,
where love once bloomed.
She finds truth among the unsung notes.

The song, a sacred plea.
To stir the heart of Persephone.
And when her cold assent has set you free
I lead you back, Eurydice

Now ambrosian beauty, trails behind
As brass bullets sweat from the bulwark walls,
follow me through broken glass
dreams, past the banks of Lethe, from the
bony grasp of the Cypress tree, we will
dance and flee
me from you,
you, my Eurydice.

Out through torrid gates of death,
open now as the waking eyes of Cerberus
yawn below. Love taken once, twice,
now, saved from vitriolic fate.
All my love can not turn back to see
the beauty, fair, of Eurydice.

Oh, sweet resistance undone!
Look,
look upon the love that tears my soul,
breaking from the borders of the abyss.
Behold, the one I’ve missed,
departing still from vile snaking corridors.
But as I turn, she fades
forever departing from me.
Oh

impassioned woe besieges me
yet senses fashion less beauty
when assaulted by ashen passing
and all my words wilt.
With all my heart I plead to be
a second more, Eurydice.

I am a ghost,
now born more
in that furnace where
bodies of dust
rain like sand in time.
This is the world
where Helicon is hell
and my verse
lines up one by one
and falls to gunfire,
where lives are interned
in the urns of inferno,
Where I,
seek to free myself
now,
from Eurydice

Below lies the Eulogy of a Caterpillar:

If death be every human’s right, then be diligent
In your attempt to die making a difference. Be steadfast
In your right to kick and fight out of
That cocoon that holds you so. Inevitably,
We must all make the choice to suffocate
In silence or soar. To breathe the airs of freedom
We have never been. To soar the winds
Of the butterfly we all aspire to be…

My apologies- that is not the end of this ode.

You see, freedom for one is not
Transformation for all. And still
That melody of Sweet King Martin rings
True: Either we all win, or none of us do.
To see the emergence of one who was
Just like you is true transfiguration.

This truth approached me when I witnessed
The power of a picture. I saw a butterfly
Wading next to a cocoon anticipating the next
Awakening; to witness another breathe.
To perceive the death of a caterpillar.
Beholding the thriller of becoming a butterfly.

Therefore, to the caterpillars I say, “Words from hurting
Humans don’t have the authority to cocoon your purpose
So long as you allow wounds to turn into wings.”
And to every butterfly, I cry out: “Fight
To fly, but never do so alone.
Build a world that’s home for butterflies to roam
With the freedom from jealousy of another’s color.”
These were my final words as I bid my shell goodbye.

From yours truly, a baby butterfly.

The beauty that you hold is effortless.
Like wind cushioning a falling snowflake,
or perhaps like a piece of cake.
Marie Antoinette would have said
“Let the starving folk feast upon the spread!”
The helpings that we take are generous.

In your eyes, a mystery is swimming
through dense fog and storm-cloud gray castle walls.
In between the beating heart calls
a hunger, having been repressed.
Invite the piercing teeth upon my flesh
‘til the unknown emptiness is brimming.

Catch soft lips on jagged edges, the sweet
song of your name ringing from anxious breath
arriving at a little death.
A force of life, a gentle smile
soothing calloused memories, all the while
dripping silver and gold from crown to feet.

Crimson blooming in the veins, and flooding
capillaries with stardust, enamored
are those with a pulse that hammers
on their sleeve. Wearing love the way
mothers dawn pearls and perfume, a bouquet
of blush and coveted future budding.

selfishness is paradise
in this or any previous life
to please oneself the act sublime
to be oneself alone divine
to get one’s own more than one’s due
and most of all – not think of you

I smell like exhaust after a drive around the lake in the Beetle.
Red. 1975.
You hold my hand and I crave a drink and your lips
Even if you sometimes bite when you kiss.
I find God in Hesperidiums and how they’re pre-sliced. I hand you a wedge as a
prayer; “I love you. Please eat well.”
When I share an orange with you – an orange the size of my hand –
Believe me, darling,
I am finding God.
I am finding worship in grapefruits and confession in limes.
The peel I line up on the kitchen counter is my scripture and darling I am devoted.

Look at the pink sky while you drive and I’ll sit on my hands.
The hands I use to pick Hesperidiums.
The hands I use to peel Hesperidiums.
The hands I use to find God in Hesperidium.
So believe me, darling,
When we kiss and you bite a bit and I taste citrus,
I will be at peace.

I open the door
stumble back in time
a scent peculiar yet familiar
tickles my nose
dusty
oily
sweet and sharp

There are one too many shades
of gray and turquoise, I pick up
a jade-shade pebble and raise
a wall, a fortress

I gather my rocks with a drop of paint on top
and glue it on a paper heart, then mom
saves it in a drawer and I forget

too many instances did I let my paint brush slip
abandoned this colorful canvas blossoming in
imagination, but where did that brush go now

This hour is bittersweet
I smell the chatter and laughter
the soft song of turpentine
the jumbled click clack of oil paint cans
the messy hums of
tangerine
cobalt
fuchsia

the back of my head tingles ever so
faintly

My thighs are a pillow for your heavy mind
to empty out the day. My thighs ripple
as your head presses against my mountain
of flesh big enough for you to caress.
But you used to tell me how you wish they could fit
within your grip without any spillage.
My thighs will never fit into your pocket to exchange
them for see-through skin my mother never made.

They compliment each other when they touch
like the warmth of a candlelight bath in the winter.
Craters envelop the outer edges like the moon’s surface;
uneven terrain of cobblestones that only I know how to navigate.
But I used to hold bruises trying to beat them to fit
into my grip. I hated that I couldn’t shrink them down
to piano wire, and as I sat at the piano, they pressed
against the bench as my flesh overflowed along the ends.

But they keep me from falling during gusts of wind
running towards me like a car losing its control.
I won’t apologize for how they take up your space
nor how they kiss each other as I walk, standing completely erect.
A birthmark dimples loudly like the smiles I own
that smell of caramel swirling along the edge of my hips.
I run my hand along my inner thighs, feeling the muscles I built accentuate,
the delicate creases of stretched out flesh reminding me of endurance.

You’re sitting on the hood of your candy painted car as the grease left on your hands touches up your hair. Sometimes when I’m with you, I miss the way you made me feel. The way I wish Christmas would stay magical. It’s nothing to do with a man in a suit—it’s just that I have had a mental illness since I turned 14.

I can’t hear what you’re saying. The fibers in my bones are deteriorating. Uncut tape. Pink all containing boxes. A piece of thread, hanging. I wish I could melt my hands into your flesh and give you the rest of me.

You’re staring at me now. I guess I should mention, I’m not in love with you, but the sky is very beautiful tonight.

When we met, you told me I was pretty. I hope in the next one I will be pretty. At least a little prettier than what I am right now. I think I am falling in love with the world. This world. Right here, on the top of this hill, because I can feel how heavy the oxygen is in my lungs, and I want to die like this.

You ask me, what I’m thinking. I think, if there’s an end too being, I hope to be human.

You say, I’m waiting for something that isn’t coming. I say, Christians wait their whole life to be disappointed.

I look over at your face. It’s a face I used to love. Whatever we are right now, I miss the way we were. Now we’re here touching the heat of the sun, you get in your car, you ask me to join, and I seatbelt my heart in the backseat, and tell you, your smile could freeze time. You ask me to get in the car. I tell you I’m going for a swim.

As I jump off the ledge my skin hits the concrete beneath me, I feel my atoms float back into the sky. I hope they float around like this for a while, like soft cotton sheets on shaved skin. Until I find you again, hold onto me.

Breeding pigs
Breeding piglets grew fast
Lean meat fat
Breeding pigs raised clean
South African, Landrace, Large White
Boars Crossed Large White sows.
Free from defects
Efficient animals, minimal back fat,
Reduced feed consumption
Exemplary Boar
Live weight 90 kg in 140 days,
backfat 15 mm
2.99 kg of feed
Gain 1 kg growth
30 to 90 kilograms Live Weight.
Kill, Eat, and Pollute.