Author: poetryfest

She lay on the slab,
White sheets hitched up like a skirt,
One red eye, pink as the morning,
Interlocked with mine as I
wiped the pus from her petticoat.
When I asked why she was naked,
Chest bare, chest broken- he said
‘The dead have a funny way of flirting.’

I averted my gaze as
I plunged my fingers into her chest,
Rooted around in ruby until I found it-
With her beaten heart in my hands I wondered,
How carelessly others had held it before me.
Spotted with black like mold,
It shivered at my touch
But the valves seemed to speak to me,
Spurting blood in morse code.

They whispered stories of cold lovers,
Ones that nipped at her like frost,
Carved out her insides like a pomegranate.
A forced spreading of seeds.
Some were kind but aloof, some were violent
But every time she sliced her heart into strips
And tied tourniquets around their wounds.
She said she would do it all again,

It was easy as breath,
Compared to the man she met after death.

She murmured his name
Soft as a splinter,
raised her hand
And pointed a finger.

I felt her spirit on my shoulder,
Let her enter through my palm,
We lunged towards him with
A fury you cannot embalm.

They may not believe me but that doesn’t matter.
That’s how I ended up with two cadavers.

Sunrise,
Hope is a fried egg
Doused in butter and salt
Coffee scouring away the fog
Be still

Quarters from couch cushions,
dimes from junk drawers—
three gallons in Tommy’s rusted wagon,
odometer dead at 180,000.

Saturday nights, six bodies
crammed into that Buick,
dirt roads snaking through tobacco,
Tommy driving blind on acid.
“Helps me see the curves,” he’d say.

I claimed the back,
flat against worn carpet,
Kentucky sky wheeling overhead—
kaleidoscope god shaking stars
through holes in black paper.

Lynda curled beside me,
Herbal Essence and rebellion
in her hair, both of us
watching darkness roll past
like traveling through space.

Eight-track drifting back:
stolen Zeppelin, Floyd,
wind through open windows
mixing with distant cattle,
everything connected—

music, movement, chemical fire
coursing through blood,
the road breathing
beneath spinning wheels.

§

Route 62, past Morrison’s place:
transmission dies
near the tobacco barn.
Tommy turns the key
to silence.

“That’s that.”

We gather our remnants:
jackets, wallet, and
half-empty Mad Dog,
and abandon the Buick
like a stripped carcass.

Two miles home on foot,
footsteps synchronized,
still high enough
to find magic in asphalt,
still young enough

to believe the real journey
happens inside our heads
where stars keep spinning,
music never stops,
and tomorrow remains

uncharted territory.

On a brown-black table lies a tiny box of happiness
Not in itself, the box was far too cynical, but
In the act of doing what was told by the
Chafing mind of a wistful little girl
In her little warren of grey, but
Apace! apace! one and one
One more and another;
Assure that happy
Is the key, one
And another;
Prest-o!

I saw you take my brother
That time I was too young
You came then for mother
And your eyes sang me a song

How to bring you back my love?
On my sister tied a knot
Then I saw you right above
But you took her with no word

My father drank the poison
And he fell swift to the floor
While he cried with abandon
I awaited at the door.

But the neighbors came instead
And with them some nice old men
With good mood I went ahead
And of my lust sang A-MEN!

Now in the gallows I wait
Content I’ll see you again
I know we’ll go on a date
You will know my feelings then

A wretched stench in the village square
Dozens dead without a prayer
Bloody Bill and Johnny Reb
Heed the beast to keep them fed
Those deceased from left to right
What on earth this fateful plight

Trains ablaze down the track
Rhyme then reason fade to black
More blood to shed tomorrow nigh
Widows’ curse to scream then cry
Sons and daughters kneel to pray
Covered in red our blue and gray

I am not living.
I am not crying.
I am breaking.
Folding into the hollow of my ribs where hope was once kept.
Now gone like the leaves off the trees.
My joy has left without a sound.
My heart is beating, but I can no longer feel it.
My mind feels empty and yet so full.
I bury my face into my hands, so worn and calloused.
So I don’t have to see the world that keeps moving on without me.
Have I sat here for minutes?
Hours?
Days?
I don’t move.
Not because I don’t want to.
But because I’m trapped in a body that keeps breathing.
Even when I wish it wouldn’t anymore.
How much can a soul take before it just disappears?
The chair beneath me groans like it feels the same pain I do.
Like it’s held too many people just like me.
People who have used their last words and now sit in rooms of silence.
My shoulders ache like they carry something unseen.
And grief curls up in my chest so tightly I can feel it slowly breaking through the surface of my
skin.
I want it to end.
Not my life.
But the hurting.
But my pain is loyal.
It knows me by name.
It comes back to me every night when I try to sleep.
Curling up where my rejoicing used to lie.
I can no longer feel my pain.
I wish I could scream.
Get up.
Break something.
Curse God himself.
But instead, I am stuck sitting in this chair.
The clock ticks silently, like a sorrowful song made just for me.
I am slowly unraveling, and that is the worst hell of all.
Because in hell, you can scream and plead, as the flames lick at your feet.
But instead…
I sit here.
Hopeless.
Burning alive, yet not making a sound.
On the edge of eternity.

This poem is inspired by the painting “At Eternity’s Gate” by Vincent Van Gogh. I tried to
capture the sheer grief and hopelessness of the man sitting in the chair. The painting was made
during the time Vincent was admitted to a psychiatric ward and battling his mental health. So I
wanted to respectfully honor that by making a poem inspired by this artist.

Somewhere in the dream,
there was a life.
Somewhere in real realm,
there was a knife.

A wonderland I was in,
full of thunders I cried in.
A mystery land i was in,
full of traps i fell in.

A star I was glazing,
went out of energy to shine.
The star so bright,
couldn’t see enemies in foresight.

A sea I used to sail in,
full of highs even the ocean feared.
Betrayal lead to the drought,
I sank in the sea I used to sail in.

“I willingly suspend myself
eternally between heaven and earth,
accepting neither earthly comfort
nor expecting mercy from the underworld.”

If God abandons me,
it must be after I’ve abandoned myself

All functions derive back into constants
Eventually
Someone created the Cartesian coordinates
The same person also wondered
how to recognize dreams while dreaming

So would the wise ones enlighten me?
All truth remained silent
Alarmingly, Exquisitely
A kaleidoscope emerges
If Integration is repeated, endlessly
When “I think” encounters “I suffer,”
the Cartesian plane
Collapses into a Möbius strip of pain

Examining my tears
Notes from post-apocalypse anthropologists:
“Summer, 2025, AD,
a carbon-based mother reconstructed
a grief-particle collider
during self-rescue procedures
The dark matter it released
still warps this universe”

The Geometrical Elements of
Loss Analysis

If God redeems me
it must be after
I’ve redeemed myself already

Another election, another sigh
We say we’re hopeful, but we wonder why
Every four years, we cross our hearts
And hand the country over in parts

The forty-seventh will take the stage
In a country boiling with quiet rage
Half of us cheering, half afraid
All of us tired of the games they’ve played

Will he listen or just speak
Will he show strength, or prove he’s weak
Will he care for those unheard
Or drown us all in pretty words

We’ve seen the promises, seen them break
Watched leaders give more than they take
But maybe this one finds a way
To mean what he says and stay that way

I don’t need perfect, I just want real
Someone who leads and knows how we feel
Someone who sees the mess we’re in
And doesn’t just smile and call it a win

The next four years will tell the tale
Of whether we rise or whether we fail
But no matter what comes, we’re still here
Holding our country, holding our fear

So here’s to the one who’s stepping in
To the weight, the noise, the hope, the spin
We’re watching, we’re waiting, we’ve seen before
But we still want to believe in something more