Author: poetryfest

It’s Crystal Clear, Wingless Dreamer 2023

You are always falling in and out
of my mortal existence
Only appearing late at night
like a ghost
but you won’t come near
What kind of Demon are you?
If you are a Demon at all?
Have you come to haunt me
or hurt me?
I can’t feel the absence of heat
like with other phantoms of the night
who have stopped by
on their way to something
bigger and better than this mortal life
Life is only the beginning
my intuition has lead me to believe
There is the smell of rotting meat
it is choking me, I cough, I sputter
Your red eyes squint toward me in the dark
Those red circles narrow, beckon me to follow
Hypnotized, I am lead out of my warm bed
and into the cold
and unforgiving winter night
Outside, I stumble down a slippery slope
Sliding into the soggy marsh below
I need to reach you
I cannot turn back now
Please slow down
I am losing my slippers
to the hungry Earth
I realize only now that I’m ravenous, too
It is an overwhelming yearning I have never known
Only now can I see your intentions
for this late night trip to the winter marsh
I will be the one
who is chewed
and spit back out

He is sure he is right and that God’s evangelical might
Is on his side.
His ignorance is invincible; his puffed-up pride:
Utterly predictable.
What causes such a man to be so incurious?
So fragile and yet so furious?
He who cannot read Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic
Dares to wield his Bible against all perceived heretics.
What a mangled man of mischief!
What a misery-loving mammal!
He strains his water for gnats but swallows an entire camel.

Docile , malleable thoughts
Stir in the fog
Taking shape
from their sculptor

Gasping at the sight
Of self determination

They fear complete dissolution
As their foundation
Crumbles
Under new supervision

Endings are often beginnings
For opposing sides

A Death of external influence
A birth of autonomy
Thus the cycle continues
Accepting one’s own soul
With no imposed limitations

Odyssey spent his life
pleasing the Greek gods,
slaughtering all their demons—
just for them to mock,
like the bride beside the bridesmaid, grace completely ignored
So when he stepped out of place,
they threw him with disgrace,
warning people not to associate,
A kintsukuroi left to admire the broken.

One error he made,
now forced to lie
in the bed
he accidentally made—
a crown of thorns perched for his own soul.

All it took was one mistake
for them to turn their face,
cold as the weeping angels that forget to breathe .

The noble make holy claims:
help others
before you meet the same fate—
but what if your hands are bound in unseen chains?

This they do not see.

Blinded by the stage lights,
taking the other actors’ rights—
each spotlight a supernova,
burning colour from the skin.

The audience’s praises—
fake applause—
like rain on a desolated earth,
hollow and slipping through fingers.

But what if there is no audience at all?

When giving parts of yourself away,
the fog begins to fade—
like the morning mist retreating darkness so it is never seen.
What is left behind?

Nothing but a disguise,
nothing but a disguise, an old cloak caught on thorns.

On stage, the soliloquy begins;
through the audience,
there is not a single skin,
only empty seats wedged within the silence.

Odyssey looks upon the stars and weeps—
if only they knew
how he used to leap,
like a wild flame dancing in the night.

Could he have overseen
how, in the end,
nothing he would be?
A ghost trapped between curtains,
forgotten where the lights seems to be.

The stage closes upon you—
until you realize
nobody was at the end with you.

You were stuck in this performance
for too long—

understand
how you were so wrong.

The audience may applaud
until they find a new actor
to adore.

You are the façade—
a hollow statue
who took it too far.

For a fortnight I have listened with labored breath
To the unsynchronized cadence of mucus-infused coughs.
dreaded tears swarm in my eyes as the coarse plastic of my gloves brushes across palms
emanating sweat
And my fingers quiver grievously as I caress awry, dandruff-ridden hair

I withheld my deluge of sorrow
Even as our earth crumbled in the face of viral governance
And our disease-consumed world splintered normality

whilst humankind plummeted headfirst
I deemed her invincible

Until your misfortuned downfall
Calmness evaporates from my mind
When her tarnished arms cradle the syringe
And her lips mindlessly inhale undesirable remedies

I am nothing a castaway on this parasitical land of horrors and debludgery
But sanctimoniously I pray,
Day after woeful day
For the dark, spindle fibers of fatality to unravel from my mothers fate,
And for He to free her from this pool of eternal suffering.

From the suffocating halo of perilous, uncharted waters
She, whose DNA is adorned with the blossoming petals of love
May she find salvation
And the Lord guide her to Heaven

As her strength falters
Among troubled waters
May her eternal soul awaken with the birth of a new dawn.

a friend of a friend walks into the room —
stained green couches that have seen
far
far
too much —
and there is a dropping of his shoulders,
for a sorrow he will never feel coiling
in his stomach and chest.

the next day, my mattress pulls me down
as if preparing to drag me
six feet under.

I despise the man who has done this to me
to my sisters
to my classmate who has metal in her body
to my brother who changed his name.

there is a grief that lasts beyond 24 hours
or 100 days
and has no charisma in it.

while the man mocks, face contorted,
and detracts and jeers and swings,
one of us is poring over the paper remnants
of white walls and coughing fits.
another’s feet have gone raw,
pacing,
wondering
if he will ever, ever
see Tia Sofia again.
and another has returned to Europe —
the Land of Opportunity —
to evade the gripping feeling
in their throat.

we have found out that, indeed,
the pen is mightier than the sword.
one stroke,
one signature,
one man,
will be the death of us all.

I have known the feeling
of linking arms,
skin against skin with
no romance.
only the innate desire to survive.
and we have felt oneness
through the crying,
the throat-killing shouting,
and the desperate shaking.
for that, we know we are blessed
by some alleged God.

we collectively imagine something better.
we wish we didn’t have to.

Little boys in the basement,
getting up to old tricks
for the first time in their lives —
mischief passed down through mantras:
“boys will be boys.”

Small girls with plastic kitchen sets,
motherly instincts cooked too young.
Taught to care for others
before their own lives have begun.

Children playing in the dirt,
rambunctious nature takes hold.
Mother Earth cares not for gender —
if only society were so bold.

Middle school mustaches,
croaks in their throats.
Teasing the girls in their grade
while preening like showboats.

Young girls shrinking in their skin,
the moment they’re seen.
School rules changing
as playmates turn mean.

Teenagers are talking now,
noticing the world’s too late.
Caretakers by conditioning,
in a world fueled by hate.

Young men stay silent,
masking what’s true.
Taught that strong means quiet —
and it’ll kill them too.

Young women get louder,
their anger well deserved.
Realizing they were raised to serve —
to husbands, to jobs, to kids unheard.

And the new generation stands lost,
aware but unsure what to do.
Repeating a cycle of damage
as if the next batch of children
will fix what was passed to you.

We shoulda known in ‘63 when they killed the President.

We shoulda known in ‘68 when they killed his brother and the King.

We shoulda known in ’70 when they sent thousands to death in ‘Nam.

We shoulda known in ‘80 when they killed John and sucked the heart out of the City.

We shoulda known in ‘03 when Baby Bush destroyed Baghdad and made his buddy Cheney even richer.

We shoulda known America was on its deathbed.

And now there’s a heartless bully in the White House to finish the job.

Our Nero plays golf while millions live in want and fear. (But there are so many people…what is a few million more or less, anyway?)

And the natural world….? Fuck the children. Who cares where they will play?

Lincoln looks out from his memorial, surrounded by his potent and compassionate words engraved on its walls.

He looks over the Washington Monument, to the Capitol building in dismay. They killed him, too.

The faded, fragile originals of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are still on display under glass in the National Archives. (They might as well burn
them.)

Oh America, my country ‘tis of thee, what have you become?

Black lives don’t matter anymore. What do the Blacks want anyway? They got a museum on the Mall!

And the native peoples…Broken treaties, broken treaties, broken treaties….Those dumbasses believed all of the lies!!! They are just museum pieces now in the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall.

Might as well put ‘em all in the Natural History Museum–such interesting specimens of life they are!

And we, what about us?

Like insects we are: all we need is cars and our phones.

Who needs people when you have cars and the internet?

Who needs to think?

We shoulda known.

They place a halo upon my head
Where my sinful thoughts lie
Praise my heart
In which they rest
Their heavy burden of faith inside

I fight seven wars with myself
To be defeated in them all
I lose control of my
tainted soul
Use my name in vain
When my halo cracks and falls

So it goes
I was made
From and for men
But I refuse
His garden
I crack my ribs
And descend

To hell where I belong
Because if I touch her
If I love her
I’ll have
Loved the devil
All along

I smile as
My halo shatters
As my wings burn
As I transform
As I turn
And everyone’s
Perfect angel
Is finally gone

i dreamt i sat by your grave
one last time before i left the state
for Colorado—or someplace like that.

i spoke with your ghost
about The Moldy Peaches in your car
but mostly
i just thought about the jokes
i didn’t get back then and how

i never saw flowers grow from a
bullet wound until i met you