Author: poetryfest

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Needing you still, I come when I can,
this time to the labyrinth
to share this circular path.

There’s no one on the trail today
as I make my way
a shroud of fog settles in.

These trees were strangers
stark with winter their bare limbs
bearing a striking silhouette; pilgrims bent in prayer.

But now I know them well—
a weeping cherry, a slouching yew;
three graceful cedars standing tall.

Weather has erased the names from their plaques, but there remains:
In memory of; In memory of; In loving memory of
a beloved husband; now six years gone.

Listen. The cedars whisper vespers
as I make my way around the outer edge;
the bricks are slick with moss and sound beneath my feet.

When I pass again, a rotting bench where no one sits and
through the trees, a flicker of neon yellow; hulking husks—
empty school buses, lined and waiting in a vacant lot.

I tell you; it’s still as a graveyard—
the enduring quiet of this liminal place.
Alpha and Omega.

At the still point, I pause to rest;
everything slows, quiets even more, but
nothing stops; nothing ebbs my ache for you.

Still needing you, I come when I can;
again and again, back to this labyrinth.
Look. I am the yearning woman circling this path.

Reading by Val Cole

POEM:

I find myself back at 3240
Where we used to sit at the back table,

Close to the bathroom in case we need
A hit of nicotine or a visit with mary.

They replaced the wooden tables
With cold marble, erasing

Our initials we carved
Into these tables on all those weekends

Spent with cake pops and comics
We never ended up reading.

I’m back at 3240
And they changed the parking lot

We aimlessly walked around
under strained street lights.

The gas station has a new generation
of fiends who might go through the

same as us. Yet nothing is
the same here anymore.

Kids don’t walk here anymore,
Nor do they rome what was once

An aimless field of washed out
White parking lines

Nothing is the same, because we aren’t kids
anymore. We’re not sixteen

So you’re not here
And here I find myself, back at 3240

Tick, tap, tick, tap, tick, tap…,
What is that I hear,
…Tap, tick, tap, tick, tap, tick.

People eyeing me for no reason,
To feel implemented is an atrocity,
A passion had forgotten my presence.

Do I belong to their world,
Can they see how dispirited I am,
Or is it they see me as a menace?

What do they know about interaction,
One stares right in front to bring me life,
Pearl would always look at me gently.

Pearl is my only friend,
Does not leave or judge,
Couldn’t think of harsh labeling.

Pearl knows me well,
With one deep cave into nowhere,
A place of nowhere is my own comfort.

It’s me and Pearl, chair and chair, residual and love,
Kiss, kiss, kiss,
Pearl still loves me.

Tick, tap, tick, tap, tick, tap…,
Paranoia follows me everywhere,
…Tap, tick, tap, tick, tap, tick.

No contact of any person,
They see me as a muddle,
Rather than see me as considerate.

Men want to mishandle me with feeling,
Women want to avoid me in hurting pleasure,
I can only bear with nothing.

Affection is a momentum,
If they knew what it means about concerning,
I know they can’t feel what Pearl could give.

Pearl allows me to feel her,
The way she is smooth,
How calm when glistening.

Pearl’s grip is heavy,
But protective of me,
Being important as a fond.

It’s me and Pearl, chair and chair, residual and love,
Kiss, kiss, kiss,
Pearl still loves me.

Tick, tap, tick, tap, tick, tap…,
I can’t stand that sound,
…Tap, tick, tap, tick, tap, tick.

Why are they looking at me,
Am I an enemy,
Have I lost my balance.

Tick, tap, tick, tap, tick, tap…,
Is there any sanction for me,
…Tap, tick, tap, tick, tap, tick.

Please tell me, is no one helping me,
I’m not a dangerous man,
I’m confused why I live.

Tap, tick, tap, tick, tap, tick…,
Grieving… I can’t breathe,
…Tick, tap, tick, tap, tick, tap.

I love you, I don’t want to be alone,
You are my heart and my brain,
Shining for my choices of will.

Pearl do you hear me,
Why are you not responding,
Speak to me, SPEAK TO ME!

TAP, TICK, TICK, TAP, TAP, TAP…,
TICK, TAP, TAP, TAP, TICK, TICK…,
TAP, TAP, TICK, TAP, TICK, TAP!!!

…It’s me and Pearl… chair and table… residual and fate,
KISS,
Pearl has left me.

I don’t know how to behave at a funeral.

Dad cuddled, played, joked, laughed,
loved us with a ferocity I thought was forever.
And then he packed a bag full of camo and
guns and we waited with baited breath
for him to come back

for him to come back
angry and bitter

with us, the world, organized religion,
with how normal society didn’t allow him to
carry a gun at all times for “protection” as
he taught middle schoolers instead of
commanded troops with no free will.

(Though he yelled in his sleep over and over
until mom laughed it off enough to respond.)

No, he would never keep ammunition in the
house, our house, our Home, he told mom
over and over until she believed him despite
what her heart had to say and how we
all knew better because we
knew him.

National Geographic printed an article about
Emotional Abuse
when I was eleven and I loved the shit out of that magazine,
yet I handed over this one copy to my mom
because that was him and she
dismissed

Me in the cold, phone in hand with no one else
Home but him and I as he lay unmoving yet aware,
painfully aware as we both were,
until the ambulance arrived and they asked
me about medications I didn’t know and
stole my mitten and
he disappeared
but left the mounds of snow to be taken care of.

In our dreams, he walks and it was all a
ploy to get more help, more kindness, more
from us all until we collapse from exhaustion;
our bodies too worn out from the fighting
and the caretaking to remember how to
breathe and want.

Watch a movie with me, he repeats each night
though he knows it’s nearly midnight and I want/
need
time to myself without debating my
nonexistent future or if mom hates him but
I sit in the chair and watch the beginning of something
we’ll never finish.

Lies pile high like the medical supplies in the mail
until he slips, slides, nose dives, and truth
rears its ugly head and the nurse hands me tissues in her office
while he plans his escape and lies and
lies
like he did at the bottom of the driveway and I still don’t know
the medications to help.

The aid got a ramp put on her house a year before we knew.
He wants to know why I don’t answer his calls.
“What’s Tori’s problem with me” replaced mom’s hatred/
future plans/money/movies/care/compassion/
fatherliness.
Because we only matter to each other when under the same roof.

I don’t know how to behave at a funeral,
yet I attended a new one every time he opened his mouth.

They planted trees for “future generations”
beside a factory
that coughs smoke into the same air
those generations will breathe.

They printed posters about unity
in the same building
where meetings decide
which neighborhoods get nothing.

They painted a mural of justice
on the courthouse wall,
so people don’t notice
the cases that never make it inside.

They built a monument for peace
on the same street
where the police broke a boy’s arm.
The ribbon cutting made the news.
The broken arm didn’t.

And they’ll tell the story years from now,
pointing to the trees, the posters, the mural, the
monument; proof, they’ll say,
that they cared.
But no one will remember
the silence that swallowed everything else.
For Future Generations

– Ivanna Muñoz

a sphere of curiosities spun and slingshotting around the sun
really fast and a year at the same time slow
where invisible lines dictate who’s right and who’s wrong
at any given moment on any given election cycle, everywhere.
curious sphere, on fire, flooding, blowing hard, frozen
yet mostly wet, little men with big guns, all grown up
with remote control cars, traded them for remote control planes
trained in kamikaze taking aim at someone never to be known.
ender’s game in the sky, while in the street people too convinced that
all uniforms are bad, attack them doing their jobs because, a.c.a.b.
fuck the police, mothers of three and fathers of two who want to make
the streets safer for their kin, abused attempting a once honest living.

everybody right and everybody wrong and religion is disappeared
but reborn in anti-religion and party lines and say one thing
political and your entire bible of belief can be predicted by chatgpt
and somehow deceived that any of our opinions are unique–
if both my neighbours are my enemy, will we ever live in peace?

The birds in your hair,
miracles in your bosom,
You amaze me so.
-my love

To be loved, adored,
to be written on his tongue
like a melody.
-to be loved

Imagination is Everything.
It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.
-Albert Einstein

He is lonely, hopelessly harsh–
a late summer’s bright afternoon dismal in his eyes
as he drifts through L.A.,
driving his scarred Mustang convertible quick and slow.

Haunted by visceral gestures still intact,
he trembles; their palpable parallels
had swelled and emerged into waves,
breaking inside their own turbulent ocean.
Not for everyone is this torrid love,
enchanted by poets and composers.

This persistent survivor deftly conjures up
a genuine memory from his ethereal pocketful–
importing his lady’s smile from raw dreams;
a last touch of her delicate neck he can still feel.

Music springs from the radio; persistent sensuous blues
transcending the void, arching his heart.
“The remedy for what ails you,” he laughs sarcastically.

As early evening is overcome by desolate darkness,
the lock to the front door clinks its opening sounds.

She is at least home;
saturated with scornful self pity,
she only notices herself.

Trailing accessories–their mirth, camaraderie,
his lips leaning in to loosen hers,
the blue green swirl and a pinpoint of
yellow daisies in his eyes staring
helplessly through her–flash,
before falling here,
a time-worn diatribe,
and there as rancid vehemence.

Their years together no longer shelter
the disconcerting whispers of denied truths.
She saunters toward a good-night,
oblivious, hardened to all the ravaged promises.

The sounds of placid running water
resonate behind the usual closed doors.
A cough or two silences talk;
and the night settles ominously
around their tortuous familiarity.

Together they are worlds and adventures apart;
conscious sadness heightened
by love’s erosion.
Its easiness is a simple motion away.

The obscure darkness of their elusive happiness
covers them like a tomb; nothing is peaceful
like the promise of death before dawn.

She comes home
too many times later,
still dazed, dragging herself;
her pitchfork troubles have revealed
too many fatalities for her soul to bear.
The house is dark with a vacant loss.
Stale perfume from discarded battles
hangs shamefully as she confronts
a different emptiness.

A fixed startled fear debilitates her scream;
it touches down a gnats-breath away,
exploding in fireworks,
encircling the distant bathroom–
thoughts of life already abandoned–
his only body gone dead.

I don’t understand why?
You was my guy.
Did she even have to try?
Was she easier on the eye?

Six years down the drain.
It hurts so bad i can’t explain.
What did you have to gain?
Now I’m stuck with the pain.

I can’t look at you the same.
Do you even know her last name?
Have you no shame?
Our love must’ve been a game.

I took every beating,
but, I can’t handle the cheating.
All the screaming,
Guess that it had no meaning.

Now I’m stuck with the heartbreak,
That you helped make.
It’s almost more than I can take.
I didn’t know your love was fake.

Days go by slow and hollow
Seasons change but I don’t
I remain the same
Quiet and unmoved
Bored of the same old same
Wavering oak roots
Strong but trapped
Grand but feeling small
Never steady and never stubborn
Just the same old same
Uncertain truths yet so predictable
Rain comes and goes as it does
Forever months to follow
Under the same unsteady sky
But every day the same old same

– MaHo Pita