Author: poetryfest

I saunter to the muddy mosaic floor
shroud as an unshod swan, with
this skin-crawling prenotion that
will become divulge at the sore
sight of dawn

my plucked and gutted corpse
that will rest at that vile heart
with a radiant warmth to
conjure those craving critters
for my inky river

while the crimson moon’s ascent
from the evergreen sea, where
the shadowy-suited friend
stands at a bloody X

with a frivolous smile
to welcome my new beginning
that could only happen with the
end of my masquerade

Existence,
eternal or not,
does it ever stop?
Sometimes,

I can’t wait to get to that part.
You wanna go to heaven?
Of course! But
do you wanna die?

Kinda,
life’s nice on occasion,
but mostly, it sux here,
doesn’t it?

It’s too much
and it turns my brain to mush
like I or we weren’t designed
for this type of world.

Makes me wanna press pause on life.
Like, let me just log out real quick.
Turn it off, then turn it back on in a bit.
That’s why I like sleep.

It’s like micro dosing death.

A brief reprieve.
A release amidst the chaos.
A rest from the grind.
A respite from the world.

Until it happens for good,
and then who knows?

Hopefully permanent peace.
A prize at the end of the pain.
So heaven better exist.
If not, what’s the point of this?

Dear gerald ford i love you forever and your wife too and there’s a lot of people who die everyday and i’m sad about it and i am going to think about you and visit your presidential library and there’s a lot of presidential libraries too and i will visit all of them too and i going to visit your grave too and i will visit exhibits too and i am going to deliver a speech too to every autism event too and i have autism and im i hope i can meet you when i die and i will be buried not next to you but in seal cove next to my mom and dad and my brother coby too.

On the banks of the Ardoch Burn,
in the shadow of Doune,
a thick-pelted otter lollops
up and over lichen-coated igneous
left dry in the cleugh.

I marvel at its slinky deftness,
its effortless, oily movement among the stones,
its back flexing to match the riffles,
lippering astride its hop-dive-curl-stretch–
lovely syncopation in walnut brown.
Then, finally, in mid hop-curl,
it is gone.

My father has made it halfway down
the slope that leads to the water’s edge.
From there, I take his hand
and help brace his body,
so fragile now I barely feel
its weight against my arm.

Together, we reach level ground and pause.
We talk about the grey heron
we see wading in the river,
silent and precise in its quest for perch.
I tell him of the otter,
long and sleek and blink-swift.

My father says little–
A manifestation of his condition,
his neurologist tells me.
But I suspect he is thinking
about the otter with envy
as I offer my arm for ascension.

You in your green dress,
the one that perfectly matched your eyes.
How it fell away from your shoulders,
exposing the gentle rise and fall of your spine.

When I close my eyes I’m in that old cabin.
I can smell the sweet pine and honeysuckle,
musky sheets and lake drenched towels.

The breeze from the open windows, always made its way to you-
to dance freely within your hair,
like some kind of magic.

Sweat trickling down your face,
hugging your dimpled cheek before rejoining the earth.
When I dream it takes me back to that melancholic place.

To the days of long,
belly-deep exhales.
Sunrise to sunset,
with you,
I was home.

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.