Author: poetryfest

“I promised you, haven’t I? I have promised that I would cherish you,
Treasure you,
Endear you,
Prize you,
Value you above all,
Forever and forevermore.”

The confessional box is suffocating
with the sticky heat of late summer

As she confesses her sins to the silence
ugly like bloody scraps of meat
she waits for the priest’s absolution

Even though she knows –
nothing can cleanse the stain on her soul.

She feels tainted, impure, and broken
this is what they tell her
in that sanctified place.

That she
is the embodiment of all things wicked—
the devil with an angel’s face.

She hates her hands
for what they crave to touch

despises her mind for its insatiable desires
curses her blood for its passionate fire.

Sitting in the pews, back straight
picking at her cracked nails
as The Lord gazes down from his place on the altar
so high, so holy, so divine
even as the crows picked at his entrails

and his gaze burns because she knows
she is spoiled

Rotten and wrong for the thoughts
that coil around her mind like a serpent

She knows
that looking at another girl’s soft skin is a sin

They tell her she’s destined for hell
where she belongs
and no, the lord will not save her

Because Jesus loves you
but you don’t want to be saved

Your swarm of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches
That you raised generations of
That you keep in a box
In your room by the bed
Sits behind the bookcase, in the darkness
You pull it out to show me
Proud mama
You put your hand in the box
letting one crawl up your arm
“I think this one is the queen” you say.
She is the size of a small mouse
She looks like Joe’s Apartment
She looks like Edward Gorey illustrating Kafka
You look down lovingly and then up at me
Quizzically, flirtatious
You offer me your hand
For the queen to crawl onto
It’s really not so bad
She walks with these slow deliberate little steps
That remind me of the Seven dwarves
Determined, dignified, almost regal
As if she know she’s a queen
She waves her antennas at me in what seems like a curtsy
I catch you looking at me
like this is all a test
To see if i am cool enough for you
I look down at the black insect face
It’s almost cute
Somehow she has a warm personality
This cockroach queen marching gingerly around my arm
Sometimes you look them in the eyes and just know
like with dogs
Although you have been talking about murdering dogs all day
In a cutesy way
“You are an extraordinary woman”
I say as we sit together
Looking over the pond at sunset
Hand in hand
Like a couple of real assholes

I sit beside the brook upon the bank,
and laugh away my time in counts of three.
Looking up, I speak a prayer to thank
Our Heaven’s light for looking after me.
My eyes return now to the riverside;
I gaze upon the water flowing through.
Eternity and now are all I find
To fill this lonely heart, which thinks of you.
Five years have past upon this fatal life,
Reminding me of what we once did share.
An ecstasy of neverending strife
was ours alone: to fight is still to care.
But now ‘tis clear that this is mine to know:
To new love I will dance and let you go.

From the pit of mice, I looked above
To see a bird, was it a dove?
It had black wings, freedom endures
So far away, and yet so close

I reach out, the bird may notice
She does, and sits nearby for this
For this is an execution, a murder of hope
Hope screams out, but only a croak

“Help me bird, I need thee now!”
The birds head, dips in a bow
“I am confused, so far away I fly”
Hope clings on, for it must try

Too late fool, you have perished
But the birds beauty, I always cherished
The last sight that I see, is the Raven flying away from me
Happy, free and flying, that is what you must be

I never loved you but I loved being seen. Your eyes follow me as I dance. Your ears bend to any whim. Your mouth is mine to use where I please. You were perfect. I wish there was an audience of you. Hundreds of you all to watch and clap, but now all the seats are empty. You left and I miss your applause. Kisses from strangers are no sweeter. You all taste the same to me. I don’t care who I kiss as long as they don’t pull away. But you pulled away. You left. I’ll be lonely till I find someone new. Standing on a dark stage waiting for my que. Wish you hadn’t left. I think I liked you.

Japan, by way of Charleston, SC
Is deliciousness.
Beef, red and expectant, hot
Sinking into a bed of welcoming
Broth, silken sheets of flavor rumpled
With a stir.
The legs and fingers of tangled noodles
Soft and clinging, the cloying dampness of
Being separate longing to become
Inevitably joined,
One.
Kisses of green onion, bright,
Verdant, new.
A tongued taste of togarashi sweat
Gathered between breasts, slicking the backs
Of bent knees.
Tendriled hair, seaweed against the pillows,
Laced through a fist
Taught with passion.
The seeping yolk of orgasm
Flooding,
Flushing,
Fleeting.
Full.
Japan, by way of Charleston SC.
It isn’t love,
Simply udon.
Japan, by way of Charleston SC

-L.Mueller

Within coffee hearts, your name I trace
Grasping the world in an embrace
Your heart the desire
A holy place
My heart
Withering
But in solace
Love dispersed in every nook
A touch of you that’s all it took

When the ocean deceived my sight and its choppy canvas
convinced me it would stretch until the end of the earth
it was the end of you

I listlessly stumbled across an empty peninsula
sheeps grazed, flowers fulfilled a beautiful duty
an early-generation phone
pressed against a soaked cheek
presently articulating what
previously was inarticulate
my voice, a whisper over
Maoiri legends and Remutaka Mountains
guarding the grief of
a child, an adult child

this was my time
this was my time to,
over forty-seven minutes
and a three-hundred-dollar long-distance bill,
speak from an uninterrupted heart
sixteen hours behind me, a phone
was propped on a pillow near your ear

I could not pronounce where I was
it did not matter as
you could not pronounce
where you were either
I knew that Christmas morning, something felt different
I knew that wind over the bay, something felt colder
the longer I spoke,
the linger of last words, this
mortal monologue
resting on the day ahead
of the past and the passing

thrashes
and gasps, I imagine
as the low sun shines over the shell station
through the golden pool
where pink elephants circle the bee
like sharks, like a sacrificial circus
and I speak softly to the bee:
we all go sometime

The bee in my Belgian

flails
and flaps its dampened wings
and throws its exoskeleton against the glass
rippling the light on the ale
all before I recall my body
unwrap the napkin, the silverware
and dip the tips of the tines of my fork in
the golden pool

The bee in my Belgian

staggers
up the silver slide having swallowed
half its weight and beating its wings dry
It crawls to my hand and launches
sweeping low over the patio
I return my gaze to the placid golden pool
and take a gulp—
but I couldn’t save you