Author: poetryfest

1. Pine needles sprinkled down like confetti.
2. -prom closed with reflective confetti.
3. Scattered rocks that shine [ motor oil.]
4. -black out/black liquid, everyone has different prom nights.
5. [deafening. ] Windshield vaporized.
6. -Can glass be confetti?
7. Antlers disappear into the door [ velvet versus sheet metal.]
8. -Bambi?
9. [yelling. ] Dad calls
10. -what the hell happened?
11. [stuck. ] Satin dress braided around the accelerator.
12. -what day of the week is it?
13. Blue and red stars blinking.
14. -have you been drinking?
15. no
16. [crimson. ] Shaded stains around uneven pupils.
17. -is it okay?
18. Fawn fur draped against bent angles [ metal versus nature.]
19. [static .] young adult female
20. [broken .] single vehicle accident
21. -is the deer okay? [silence .]

DROWNING

In the depth of my shattered soul I am lost, alone and cold The voices whispering in my head, saying things I cannot hold

They tell me I am unworthy, unwanted, and used They whisper of endings, of life no longer pursued

I try to silence them, but they only grow louder with each passing day I feel myself falling deeper into the dark abyss of my brain, my pain, my shame I am drowning in the sea of despair, and there’s no lifeboat in sight

I reach out for help, for someone to hold me tight But nobody’s there, no helping hand in sight Just whispers in the dark, saying it’s all in my mind They tell me to keep quiet, to put on a smile

I wear a mask of happiness, to hide the hurt within I laugh and joke, to pretend that I am fine But deep inside I am shattered, broken beyond belief The weight of the world on my shoulders, I can scarcely breathe

I yearn for comfort, for a kind, gentle touch To be held and told that I am enough But the whispers still whisper, growing stronger each day They remind me that I am alone, in this darkness to stay

I try to drown out the voices with music and sound To distract myself from the painful, aching pound But they continue to whisper, like a never ending song

They speak of solitude, of emptiness and wrong

I feel like I’m fading, disappearing from sight The world becomes blurry, the colors all turn white The voices sing to me, telling me it’s just my fate That I was destined to be alone, in this world of hate

I yearn for comfort, for a kind, gentle touch To be held and told that I am enough But the whispers still whisper, growing stronger each day They remind me that I am alone, in this darkness to stay

I try to drown out the voices with music and sound To distract myself from the painful, aching pound But they continue to whisper, like a never ending song

They speak of solitude, of emptiness and wrong

I feel like I’m fading, disappearing from sight The world becomes blurry, the colors all turn white The voices sing to me, telling me it’s just my fate That I was destined to be alone, in this world of hate

And so, in the face of this endless night,

I give up the fight.

The voices win, the depression takes flight,

And I surrender to the endless night.

“Goodbye to all, hope you had your fun,

Watching me squirm, cry and break undone.

The world can keep on turning, without me in sight,

As I drown in this void, this endless night.”

In a crater surrounded by death a young man
pulls the pin on his grenade
and presses it to his ear –

elsewhere, some older men throw their weight around.

Down a street in Tripoli runs the blood
of a bright eyed teenager
shot by one of Libya’s brave liberators –

elsewhere, a prime minister makes a speech.

At the Yemen-Saudi border
some crimes are suppressed
and the corpses continue to pile high –

elsewhere, a prince makes a new acquisition.

Everywhere and elsewhere –
everywhere there are cries
and elsewhere voices cry out.

In Beirut some stray shrapnel
leaves a child who is deeply cherished
permanently disfigured –

elsewhere, journalists talk of precision strikes.

In a neighbourhood in South Lebanon
(in what was a neighbourhood in South Lebanon)
a young woman holds her young son
(a young woman holds what was her young son)
to her broken heart, and screams –

elsewhere, a mass murderer makes a phone call.

In a bar in the city centre
a man with a miserable income tells a co-worker
that the UN is a shining beacon –

in New York, a mass murderer makes a speech.

Here, some fuckers try to convince us
that their enemies are our enemies –

elsewhere, those fuckers kill people like us.

Joseph Stalin,
The Man of Steel,
Living in the moment,
Texting during the ballet.

Tchaikovsky glances over to see
The Red Russian, drinking a Moscow Mule.
Devising plans in such a novel fashion.
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky weep from the tragedy,
Perverted enough that even Nabokov squirms.
Everyone closes their eyes, trying to enjoy the song.

It has been years since the Cold War.
Americans standing at the edge of the world.
The devil with orange hair in a red tie,
Tweeting a manifesto that mesmerizes many.

During this nuclear winter,
I stand with you under the moon.
Hungry and cold next to a fire,
Missing the revolution

England in 1819– Shelley

The Gropenführer, ill-begotten would-be king
of bankrupt lies, whose deranged dregs still flow
through state news, racist filth a foul spring
of golden bull; whose bleating fawns don’t know
nor care for law, nor peace, nor public pain, and cling
to cuts that tax the frail; toady Senators who bow
to wealth alone, our health an untilled field;
police who should protect but too much prey
on weakness, cover up their shields and wield
a misused military might to slay
their own, with propaganda Bibles sealed–
all these, to bind the king with chains, we need repealed,
and pray election day may be our may
day may day may day may day may day

taking this bath
I’m reminded of a time
we’d steal our showers
from the cowards
writing county fines.
as if water were a margin
that could just as easily
be mined.
we’d pick the roaches
out of the cheerios
and pestered the Presbyterians
for their out-of-date canned meat.
but the worst of it:
we were born into a time
when modern science
taught the government
how to dig a well and steal
the water from under our feet
then turn around and
sell it back to us for a fee;
fine us when we took a wrench
to the pipes in our own yard
so, we could drink and shower with
the water under our feet.
that’s how poverty works;
it compounds onto itself.
they’ll fine a man with no money
and send him to jail
when he defaults,
because a man who can’t
buy back his own water
is no man at all.

The morning yesterday was hotter, the birds louder
agitated by the sun coming closer to the endless lines of the blue sky
the sea blue in short supply to cool a persistent dove stomping on the roof
no longer at peace.
Raging against the iron, no doubt burning
its feet a darker colour, blood boiling
the bird coos and croaks, the sound unpleasant.
The scant trees brush against the still air, all but silent.
Everything burns around me, the spinach green on fire
the dove yells, but I cannot move.
Pain of divine presence engulfs the body and picks at the brain
every morning, constantly, in the sweltering heat.
I cannot help the damned grey dove, I cannot help myself.
If only I had wings.
So, I watch intently, desperately, as the bird falls off the roof
engulfed in red embers, excruciating pain seared in its eyes.
Belatedly, I notice a shade of sapphire blue on the left wing
before everything turns to ashes.
A blue-spotted wood dove that the skies could not pardon,
and everything burns.

Don’t get me wrong, it matters greatly
who wins this election, but my God calls me
to love my neighbor, even those who hurt
the ones they should love enough to fight for.
When the drowning wonder if God does not hear their cries,
they should ask instead why we have not responded to them
except to mail our condolences. They’ll crawl to shore,
our paper prayers crumbled and washed away. They’ll know
of nothing in their hands but will remember
every scorch of salt down their throats. When they stand,
they’ll show no mercy
because they cannot know what they were never taught.
They learned from our polite smiles
that kindness diminishes your spine
so the real players can pick away your vertebrae
till the Jenga tower falls.
They’ll rage, undo, and change the game
but never rebuild as they seek
to burn the wood in our hands.

Don’t get me wrong, it matters greatly
who wins this election, but my God tells me
that everyone is my neighbor and to love them
As if they were my own flesh.
We can’t keep shipping them off-brand bandages
after we give the knife to the ones who slice their skin.
We should love them so much we bleed, tell them:
grab our clothes,
grab our hair,
grab our bones,
and we will pull you from the water.

the instrument he grips looks fit to cave
or simply disappear. hands blotchy /
destined to economise his strength (only) to leave
(only) debris here —

the bruise is built from cross-hatch —
eyes blank as he looks up, save for black
eights upon the paleness once.

as if magic, too —
the floor has turned
to dust.

and suddenly the music sailing over
must have been imagined / (because)
the craft he cradled carefully was
never made to return / the kindness
of a man who wished to retain

the tenderness
inside, despite.

Even in the heart of the city,
house crammed next to house,
there are visitations, unexpected
at times, otherwise a regular visit
as of a neighbor or friend dropping by.
Raccoon, opossum, once a lone fox
hunted the backyard, the woodpile
nursing a new brood of rabbits.
And the stray cats, one once captured,
ear clipped, neutered, given the requisite shots
by the local animal shelter; she shies away,
looks in the patio door to see
if anyone will put out some food.
It is the lesson of St. Francis,
the lesson of loaves and fishes,
the Samaritan’s responsibility.
Down the street, the Salvation Army
aids the distressed, but no shelter.
Men walk the streets, some in contemplation,
some in repetitive prayer, others, perhaps,
revisiting their lives, each step a turn
into the past. They walk the same streets,
the same time each day, stop at a corner,
look both ways but don’t see,
as others don’t see, men as invisible as ghosts.
In the backyard, someone new
forages for food.