Author: poetryfest

Voice Over: Val Cole

VIsual Design: Steve Rizzo

Produced by Matthew Toffolo

POEM:

Holy water smells like fresh herbs
or maybe it was the older women in the back pews
with the flower laced hats, and rosemary scented skin.
Skin so thin, the stained glass saints
stained the paper thin veins.
I didn’t like church much as a child
it reminded me of death,
and I didn’t like heaven much,
eternity sounded too endless for any curiosity to live there.
And what about the tigers?
Would I see tigers in heaven?
I heard a poem once about a tiger
who lived in a forest
ate belladonna
flossed his teeth with wolfsbane
taunted death in a game of catch and release.
And if God made the tiger
tigers must somehow be immortal too.
The young priest swung a golden thurible
past the elderly ladies in the back pews,
chanting over the burning ash of frankincense.
His monotone throat bass commenced a parade
and the downpour of eternal happiness
(without the promise of death)
marched in my mind.
What is eternity anyways to a child?
A perpetual summer dipped in delicious fields of technicolor tiger lillies.
I want to stay where lavender dies
in a place tigers are natural born killers
licking their cubs with chunks of meat between their God made teeth,
where in the back pews childhood philosophies dissolve in colors of glass saints.

When, in good time, a thoughtful person reflects,
There can be no subject to confound us like sex.
Which had one singular apparent intention,
But wound up with more than one can mention.

We begin misconstruing the endless inferences,
That day we realize the apparent differences.
Then comes lengthy lists of shall’s and shant’s,
Based on who wears the dresses, who the pants.

He has one kind of pink thing, she quite another.
So that one must become Dad, one become Mother.
The mechanics of which no decent person dares speak,
But the results of the silence are decidedly bleak.

Men in black declare what they say some god thinks,
Separating us to protect us from all our instincts.
Consequences the gods have so very carefully defined,
From stark insanity, hairy palms, and then going blind.

Then are the many diseases our best remedies defy,
AIDS and Claps and Cancers, and let’s not be shy.
In a matter of time you could be pushing up daisies.
And most concerning of all, there might even be babies.

Then more challenging sex things we learn of these days.
Called Lesbians, and Bi’s and Trannies and Gays.
There is no easy way to tell by the looks on their faces,
Some declare they put their pink things in all the wrong places.

Now determined politicians act decisively,
With statutes to dictate where each one must pee.
With justifications that seem surprising to some,
Insisting Jesus was a virgin just like his Mum.

Yet remains this truth they are forever regretting,
All that was begot came from a lot of begetting.

All the hotels
you’ve lived in,
scanned into,
slept in.

One where your mom couldn’t help
but eat the sixteen-dollar chocolate bar,
and how
you had to run, you ran!
To the store to find its twin.
Because things in the hotel aren’t really yours.
Only they are
until the bill comes,
stamping your time with a price.

All these hotels,
with their brown couch, brown carpet, brown curtains,
morph into one
forgotten home, home?
Only,
a different you within them.

One where you lost your
vongole pasta (oh how wonderful you were!)
in the marbled toilet
Woosh, Woosh!
Vowing to never eat it again,
you really never did.

One where between the beds,
one queen and your twin,
you dropped your phone—
spending late nights texting,
or swiping through pictures,
eager to show the world back home
what you did.
What did you do?

At night,
when your parents orchestrated
their melodious rumble
and only the flashlight in your phone remained,
you could feel
the shape of your head.
Hugged by
a cloud that lost its fluff,
never again would it mold—
this well
this perfectly
this familiarly

A plaza bustling with life and energy,
The stands are selling overpriced knockoff toys,
A parade washes by of Conquistadors and high schoolers throwing out candy.
The road slowly fills with horse feces crushed by the floats going by.
The washers clean it away.

The field piles with hundreds of people,
Children with tacky rainbow light swords run by
A giant is propped up, a lifeless husk
Spirits gather around the giant as a dancer approaches
The crowd all cheers for one thing,
Burn him.

We walk across the ditch in search of adventure
Through ponds and under bridges we explore a land of wonder
The most fun I’ve ever had
Within a cave we see an elongated bag with something inside
Uncle tells me it’s La Llorona
I believe him.

Silence.
That’s what I miss the most
the constant white noise
of cars and honks of trains.
will never put me to sleep as easily
as hearing a soft breeze or heavy rain
alongside lowing cows and snorting horses

I wish.
Just five minutes of peace

to lie on my bed and not
be bothered
by other’s commuting
and instead be bothered by disgruntled
calves

*Where are you from?
I’m from Oakland + before you make that face that I know so well
I wanna let you know that my life has not been a living hell

*Oh you live in a good neighborhood?
Nah, I live in thee hood
I’m from East Oakland Aye

In The Place, That I Live

Our poetic inspiration was a mix of Thug Passion + Blanco
In 7 days, my theory was to get money against all odds
Whether niggaz picture me rollin or not
Biggest influence was my mom pushing me to keep my grades up
And the method is krazy, the whatttt
Traps they set up for us as kids
No substance at home just substances at home it went a lil sumn like this
Steal some m&m’s from the sto, label us criminals
16’s tried as adults, embedding fear in us, it’s dangerous but Aye

In The Place, That I Live

I’m speaking for the people going through it on a daily basis
When it seems like the world is full of cold places
Keep ya head up, who cares what they said cuz
You can do it and the man will put you through it
But we shall proceed providing what we need in the birthplace of Black Panthers
Although they are converting Oakland into Frisco Hut Jr Aye

In The Place, That I Live

They destroy memories + monuments
Replace them with street signs
*The town’s in decline in due time
Aye

I Don’t Wanna Hear That

It was just the other day
I was drinking orange freezes in the bakery at the lake
Driving down two ways, they now replaced with a bike lane
I feel like I moved far away
I guess nothing stays the same
When the hard R is right around the way
Gentrifer, how much more can you take?
The culture was so lovely Yay. Area

This is what you call Gentrification
I don’t know about yall but I would have rather kept a few other epidemics
They still call it Oakland
But I wanna see the town I grew up in
Nowadays that’s the real pipe dream

On vacation, this white man asked me
*where are you from
Oakland
*He said ahhh okay yall are losing the raiders, your baseball team
We are losing a lot more than that our culture

A man asked me
Where am I from?
I forgot Aye

In The Place, That I Live

Footsteps Imprinted
We Stand On Sand At The Beach
We Too Washed Away

Dry, arid, desert landscape of Mojave
spartan-like, feisty under the relentless sun,
austere rock outcrops, shrubs,
wildflowers under the clear blue sky,
bloom vividly upon a thousand stars in the cover of the night.
A solid trunk of a tree, a poetry
unfurls its branches in a twisted scape
gazing straight upon the starry night,
in deep contemplation of its sparse existence.
Eking out a living of its own,
resilient,
the root seeks water through the fault lines of the desert.
Standing alone in sublime beauty of its harsh climes,
radiating joy to the lone hiker.
In the beauty of a silhouette, it emerges
the Joshua tree of Mojave.

Bio-
Lalit Kumar writes a regular column in ‘India Currents magazine’ sharing his passion for
adventure and travel. He is author of two poetry books, ‘Yosemite of my Heart -Poems of
Adventure in California’ and ‘Years Spent – Exploring Poetry in Adventure, Life and Love’ that
was among Top 3 Selects in Indie Poetry genre by BookLife. http://www.lalitkumaronline.com

I would hide.
Run away from the light.
If I stay in the dark
I won’t see the flame.

I try not to look.
But I can’t stand it anymore.
I creep from the corner
and approach the danger.

I know I will get hurt,
but I don’t quite understand.
It’s warm as I approach.
The feeling of safety grows stronger.

Why was I scared
of the safety of home.
It’s comforting and hopeful.
I get closer.

I relish in the heat.
Let it envelop me.
But it burns.
It’s burning, it’s burning.

I run and run.
Back to the safety
that is the corner of my room.
A blanket, chair and book.

There I will stay.
Afraid of the light
but still missing the warmth,
that feeling of safety.

He screams and she cries.
She got burned too.
I race from the corner
back towards the light.

The light now means danger
and I still feel the pain.
I comfort her then move on
reaching to put the light out.

The warm comforting feeling envelops me
I forget the mission.
But it burns.
It’s burning, it’s burning.

I escape and move away
back to safety.
Enveloping myself in the words of other people.
Forgetting the pain.

I creep upstairs later.
She’s flying towards the flame.
I scream. She stops.
No burning today

Apollo exhales on the colored pane
The air drifts in, red-gold, akin to lead
I bow my head, cast low, as if in shame
Here in this place, so still, where lovers wed

I mumble, voices ring along the pews
I stumble, as if these are verses new
They echo through the room of golden hues
Of which sacred seduction whispers through

The voices lift, my eyes are led to meet
the heaven far above which I now seek
Ethereal, our father’s guidance sweet
Suspended, abse nce paints my future bleak

Like clay forgotten in the sun, I waste
The dust usurps my seat where I once prayed

Dissent, protest penciling
a blank page, like rain
falls, to quell a wildfire’s blaze.