Author: poetryfest

I’d like to be something written.
Not necessarily a text…
but something written…
you know what I mean, don’t you?

I’d like to be something written,
which is why I’ve given up writing written things.

I can feel it, I’m no longer the youngest
or the cleverest of them all.
I can no longer surpass my father.
I’m no longer a child who writes lovely poems.

Now I can only make up nonsense,
because something happened between me as a child and now.

I don’t want to grow old, I just want to grow up.
I’m not 18 any more.
I should have said no from the start.
I shouldn’t have given myself away.
But something happened between me as a child and now.

And now it’s too late.
I let it happen in silence,
I kept quiet in front of my parents,
I healed from things I didn’t tell my mother.

And now I’m left with words to read,
of course, but only lines to write.
We don’t deserve letters any more, I think.
Or maybe we’ve simply become the latter…
who can’t write or express ourselves in anything other than lines.

Something happened between me as a child and now.
Something… immense has happened.
And now I think that everything written is inhuman…
or too human.

I’d like to be something written, you know?
And you… yes, you.
All of you who write and write…
for all of you who would so much like to be a poem at least once.

I have love to give you.

You rat!

You swine!

You ripped through the tenements in Wuhan
You ran through Mount Royal and Fifth Avenue
As if you had a right to invade
Then you paused in Lynn Valley and later Northwood
Crept in to the unsuspecting, ill-prepared, already-dying
and squeezed the last breaths from their old bodies.
You fiend!

You beast!

You circle the herd in Edmundston,
stalking the weakest
and most vulnerable

You prowl around the GTA like a roaring lion
Seeking whom you can devour.

You hover in the air, landing everywhere.
You scurry along fingertips and jump on to open lips.
You infest, twist, spear, replicate and adhere.

You despicable piece of crap!

Spray, wipe, wash, scrub, rinse, wash some more.

Mask your mouth.

Cover your nose.

Shield your eyes.

No classes, no work, no parties,
No bars, no restaurants, no cafes,
No daycares, no gyms, no casinos,
No concerts, no plays, no symphony,
No sports, no bowling, no bingo,
No meetings, no groups, no church,
No vacations, no camps, no conferences.

Cancelled, closed, postponed
terminated, suspended, delayed, and shutdown.

Be afraid!

Be alert!

Be careful!

Stay safe!

Don’t touch me.
Don’t breathe on me.
Talk to me from the end of the driveway.

Give me daily briefings, on TV and radio,
By email, Twitter and Facebook.
Blast me with the horrific, the incomprehensible and the devastating.

You bloodthirsty devil
Licking your chops.
Slurping the hatred and the sorrow,
Scheming for tomorrow.

YouTube channels broadcast
Children, families, cities,
Regions, nations and continents
Singing ‘The Blessing’ together on Zoom

Virtual meetings bring healing into isolated homes.
Parents teach children while working remotely.
Business owners care for their employees.
Churches drop traditions and share concerns.
Families reunite from long distances apart.

The world shrinks.
We see each other differently.
Rich, poor, famous, unknown
Standing on equal ground.

Icons of sport, entertainment and industry
no longer have the power to command our attention
to the exclusion of the people in our lives.

You detestable demon, we reject you.
We choose love
You slithering snake, we refuse to hate.
We choose love
You inhuman creature, we spurn your invitation.
We choose love

We choose to love our planet.
We choose to love our cities.
We choose to love our families.
We choose to love each other.
We choose Love.

We sat so still no one knew that I was beginning to come unglued
I thought I should reach down to tie her shoe
I stole a kiss from her cheek she caught a teardrop sipped a drink
It froze in a place until she let her hair down
We view the flowers growing outside each one was different in the light
The one that touched me deep within was the one I knew
My voice rose over the café din, “I think I love you!” “Is this where love begins?”
The door flew open her dress danced upon the wind
My love, my honey, you’re so fine she kissed my lips it tasted like wine
I closed my eyes like a window with pulled blinds
Left behind my sense of self, she pulled a book back off the shelf
The words led me back with a vague clue
What would you say if I could say what it is that you want me to say?
She laughed for a moment thought to herself you’ll do
Hands fasted we held each other tight
Walked out the door into the bustling street
Out here something means something somehow
It was a stroll but I wasn’t alone the company was good this much I know
We went upstairs to the place I called home
Took off her coat kicked off her shoes
I glanced at the paper for the daily news
I sat on the coach placed the phone off the hook
Love is tender Love is sublime hold me forever while we still got time
Never forget that I am yours you are mine

There in the lifeless time
When the sunshine could remain
Some form then
As the clouds might remain
In the breeze

God took a wand
Dipped it into the life-giving liquid
And breathed this foam into
A giant bubble.
Surface tension growing and stretching
Clusters of bubbles forming within.
Stochastic processes
Vacuum fluctuations
Or genius planning?
It swelled and stretched
And undulated and dilated
Until it snapped
Scattering its contents forth,
Multiverses now nestled in hills and valleys
Of time and space
Twisting back upon themselves
Energies swirling ever faster.
Creating duplications of us!
Identical people, other people
Exactly like us down to the last cell!
Physical and mental copies
Thinking our thoughts
Moving in our bodies
Thinking they are us!
Living parallel existences
In parallel universes.
And thinking that they are us!
The multiverse
Really, waves in space.
Infinitely large
Replicating fractals
With more of us here
And more of us there.
The birth of our universe
Might have been less significant than we thought
Or much greater than we ever imagined.
All of our versions
In different manifestations,
Sometimes feeling alone and lonely,
Sometimes connected and loved.
Never imagining the possibilities
Of the bubble,
The multiverse,
The parallel me, us, we, and even you!
We ask ourselves now
(speaking, thinking simultaneously and not knowing it
yet truth prevails because it is)
Are we are part of a bigger … bath?
What about my “others”?
Would she (or they) be me
Or is she (or they) distinctly the same and different
At the same time?
Do I take myself seriously
When I know that I’m out there
Succeeding, perhaps, even as I fail here?
Is there a version of me that will survive
Whatever I do?
Is immortality out there
In the cradle of dreams and promises?
Did God create each of us
Reflecting, wobbling, floating, bobbing
Encased in iridescence—or not?
Heaven, a kingdom of magical orbs
Fragile, surviving, protected
Reflecting souls that are not dispensable
That are as unique as snowflakes?
The creator sighs, smiles, and …
Dips the wand once more.

You have no spirit you have no warmth
When you’ve heard the lock on the door
Listen to what your sorrows are
Tell me is it you that leads me from dying, rage and fiercest grief
Be alert the snakes lie at your feet
Is there any other who suffers so hard a fate?
And since you know these walls and binding chains
Of this cold prison hide me in its depths

You are blind you are desperate
When you walk down trails pathless
Listen to what your sorrows are
Tell me is it you that leads me stumbling
Thru these streets filled with restless dreams
My eyes frowning at the sun when the morning comes
Is there any way to escape these laws of destiny?
And since you are walking between night
And dawn of day it is here you shall remain

You have no insight you have no reflection
You’ve heard the shadows call
Listen to what your sorrows are
Tell me is it you that leads me from suffering and dismay
Know that we all fall
Are there any words not so tired to do any good?
And since you’ve given me the answer
Take what is left for yourself

There the eyes shine moonless
And stare in space
While the whites singe
And the sun sets on dusk

in the middle of the night,
I ask myself questions
that are really games:
would I have taken your last name
if we’d gotten married?
how many books would you have written
by now?
now knowing what I do,
would I have shown up in that bar?

If your intentions are pure
I’m seeking a friend for the end of the world…
you were a personals ad in a newspaper
when neither were very popular anymore
and I wasn’t sure how you’d know who I was
but there you were
the only subtle leather jacket in the bar

I wanted a name like yours
Jacob Grace
like a comic book character
a name that sounded like
something beautiful
in language I don’t speak

you had so many notebooks
you could have built a world
on a parallel plane
and in some ways, you did
you craved authenticity
vitality
you wanted to go to Graceland
to see your own name on signs all over Memphis

the way you became mine
was immediate and total
that first night in the bar
you started calling me Trixie
instead of Beatrice
like it had always been my name
like there were things about me
that only you could see
you wrote music
and I made jewelry

and we talked about how much we hated L.A.
you bought me records and said you’d take me to Memphis
so we could disappear into the south
like characters in an Edward Eggleston print

you told me you liked the way your name looked with mine
and I wrote them superimposed onto each other
inextricable

so we packed up our life
so we could go to Graceland
so we could be the adventure
we’d come together to be
and I should have been more careful
I should have looked for the harbingers
I should have wound myself around you
the way I entangled the letters of our names

when we left the send-off dinner
the sky was a whole galaxy
and the ocean was the same temperature as the air
you said you wanted to live in this moment
if your intentions are pure…
you dove into the water
and your skin glowed blue under the moon
a piscine imp in the waves that crashed over your head
I am seeking a friend for the end of the world
for a moment you were beautiful
and then gone
and I waited for your head to break the surface
and the seconds sucked the air from my lungs
like a vacuum
a friend for the end of the world
for the end of the world
I started screaming
I kept waiting
for the end of the world
it’s the end of the world

the funeral was unbearable
I wore a designer suit that I hated
and went back to the barren apartment
where you were more gone
than I could have ever imagined
and it felt like my whole self
had leaked out through my cracked-open chest
but we were already packed
so I left the only home that we would ever have

I traveled southeast
and the air conditioner died
a few states in
so I rolled down the windows
and let the wind sand down my grit
and when I started seeing the signs for Graceland on the highway
I laughed and sobbed at the same time
I kept driving toward Memphis
and I wish you could’ve seen it
because there you were
on signs all over the city
just like you said you would be

They say,
I should have been stronger —
like bones aren’t meant to break
under the weight of a stranger’s hands.

Like I wasn’t already fighting to hold on
while he took pieces of me,
one by one,
until the mirror became a place
I could no longer stand to look.

They say,
you’re slipping now,
falling too far —
as if I chose this hollowing,
as if my hunger for escape
was some kind of betrayal
to a world that stood still
while he did what he did.

But my body remembers
in ways they refuse to see—
the way control slips through your fingers
when your worth is rewritten
by someone else’s violence,
when food feels like the only thing
you can refuse.

And still, they turn their backs,
turn my story into questions
about what I didn’t do,
as if survival has rules
I should have known.

They never ask about the nights
spent unravelling in silence,
about the ways I fought
to keep breathing when breathing
was the hardest thing to do.

Instead, they blame the fall,
the aftermath, the ways I cope—
ignore the wreckage
that still lingers in the corners,
pretend they didn’t hear
the sound of me breaking
the moment he entered the room.

She’s standing there,
an ivory pearl of beauty,
turning the girls green with envy.

But it just isn’t fair…
What’s supposed to be tears of joy
are reflections of a lifetime that’s been destroyed.

The thousand yard stare
ignites an eternal flame,
an ember that can’t be tamed.

She could’ve sworn he cared,
thought his promises were real,
and their future was ideal.

Their first kiss was a dare,
then the years flew by in a haze.
Reality said goodbye to the high school days.

I thought it was rare,
the sacred touch between them,
until their future was condemned.

Everyone was there,
waiting…
waiting…
waiting…
Regretting a little bit of everything.

A devastating affair
unraveled like lightning
what took a decade of designing.

Under the glare,
perfection falters
as rain falls onto an empty altar.