Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film.

POETRY Reading: BETRAYAL, by Jen Rowan

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

Years of betrayal
26 years to be exact
Holidays, vacations, children
Since the day they met

A long time coming
Waiting for the other shoe to drop
It didn’t hurt any less
Or make it easier to stop

On their family vacation
Cheating with him as she slept in their bed
Destruction was eminent
She slept in oblivion of the devastation that loomed

She felt completely hopeless
Worry about her children set in
Would they think less of her, would they judge
Without him she knew she would be better for them

Anger and rage
Sadness and loss
Change and growth
Forgiveness and peace

Forgiving was not for him
She deserved to be free
Enough time was wasted
She was beginning to see

JR

POETRY MOVIE: Psalm of deconstuction, by Cameron Crawford

Performed by Val Cole

Visual Design by Adam Bilyea

Produced by Matthew Toffolo

—–

POEM:

Psalm of deconstruction

By Cameron Crawford

Psalm of deconstruction

A poem about grief, anger, and questioning.

Why the fuck is one so evil left to roam?

We read all about his darkness in the tome.

Why wait until the end to finish him,

When he takes everything from them?

You condemn us with sin,

By the time we even begin.

Send your only Son to save the day,

Now all I see is slow decay.

You can’t look at sin, though you have done it yourself.

Remember the children in Egypt?

The order came from God himself.

I can’t stand the suffering I see in others,

And don’t get me started about my own mother.

Is this some sick game?

I find you to blame.

I’ve turned my back on your scripture,

You’ll be fine with me out of the picture.

Did you create the beauty in the land I see?

Is your presence absent, or not to be?

How am I to bend the knee,

When evil and pain are all I see?

NATURE Poem: DON’T WANNA BE THE UNHAPPY COUPLE, by Doll

Neither one of us like when we fuss and fight
We aren’t that type
We wanna build and be okay
Just have to get over the obstacles first that’s in our way
We haven’t been as good as we wanted to lately
We’re a team
Just blowing off some steam
I wanna make it through and so do you
Don’t wanna be this unhappy couple
Miserable
Not talking to each other
Acknowledging one another
Don’t wanna have miscommunication
Rather sit down and talk it out
Things may make us upset
But then in the end
It’s some things we say that we regret

NATURE Poem: Fern Dust Snail, by Christina Gabsa

Born a
snail
with no
shell.
Learning
to protect myself
with chemical
mist.
Blue blood
of electric
and sky pulses
as I move
with my own
path.
Solitary with
no family
I move across the
concrete
wall that
has been dusted
in pollen.
The stencil of
fern becomes
my garden
as I realize
the beauty
is in the travel.
And the travel
is in my
snail wiggle
smiling need.

ELEGY Poem: Night After Night, by Vienna Hayes

Brother of mine,
I fly to you on thread wings.
Speak now with hands to chin,
clasped shut.
Waiting.
Racing against the sun.

Brother of mine,
You speak only in constellations,
Night After Night.
And although I am no astrologer
I’ll decipher the sky,
searching for your reply.

Brother of mine,
each day when the sun wakes
and the stars fade away,
I wrench the last few from my eyes.
Keeping them safe in my pillowcase.

Brother of mine,
I write to you on rainy days
with cigarette ash.
Lungs filled with pennies,
coughing copper luck.
Mapping your face in nicotine-stained clouds.

Brother of mine
You write with whispering worms
fuelled by formaldehyde.
Phantom madness escaping your cotton tied tongue,
Binding ears to earth
Nails thick with dirt
I burrow.
O’ Brother, I burrow,
Night after Night.

DRUGS Poem: Snap, by Darcey Youngman

I could feel love slipping, as your hand didn’t find mine.
I wore your favourite dress.
Low cut, see through.
You scrolled through your phone,
Reading funny tweets.
Everything was blurry, but you.
You were always the focus.

You told me you never got jealous,
You’ve never been that way.
I was hanging out with my friends,
And you’d turn to me and say

“They really love you, don’t they?”

You ate in a taught way,
You ate like you put on clothes.
Step by step, carefully, clean.
You watched me eat like a critic,
I dropped three sizes in six months.

You were indulging, until indulgence turned into addiction.
I asked you to stop, slow down,
Stop wasn’t in your dictionary,
Neither was No,
Cheeks swollen, fainting spells, scratch marks all down my leg,
I lost you, you ran and disappeared, coming back with
Bulged eyes, and a predatory interest.

I snapped.

I hear stories of you now, stories that make me realise
That you had an illness that I couldn’t cure.
I was happy, and that annoyed you, you hated it, hated that I
Was happy.

I hope one day you snap,
And realise,
You should be happy too.

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE Poem: ANARCHY IN MY HEAD, by Iyanuoluwa Fesobi

I can’t write
Nothing feels right
Can’t tell left from right
Don’t know if I’ll be alright
I see no light
Even when it’s bright
My head feels light
And I’m a sorry sight
The only thing I feel is fright
The only thing I see is night
Never been one to need a knight
But this rite of passage feels so tight

On my soul is a blight
No one knows my plight
Thoughts are floating like a kite
My mind is the white night
I’ve lost my might to fight
I’m falling from a dangerous height
In my soul is a turmoil not so slight.
If you measured my thoughts in bytes,
A terabyte would be the smallest to cite
So where’s the grim reaper and his skythe?
Come, smight me! let me see the light
Cus I’ve given my widow’s mite.

WAR Poem: Polish Shawl, by Lana Eileen

Listen now to the soundless exodus of snow, the brash belly-call of the European raven, the cemetery of minutes in the wake of a ticking hand, the Rynek Główny breathing through a thousand lungs, the market of hanging fabric and soft grease, the inheritance of change from hand to hand as I buy a floral shawl; the shawl is thin and verdigris, daubed with painted flowers, useless for the cold, or for cold like this: the air is made of ghosts, of gelid fingers invisible and desperate, desperate to touch every glimpse of exposed skin.

Dream-walking in Arcadia, I cleave from every instinct, the city holographic and parallel to this vision, headphones in my ears, reality guttering and flickering out, the Polish shawl an invisibility cloak, the buildings creatures of lumbering fantasy, the faces of strangers like arcane emissaries. The dream blooms, but reality snakes in. Now there are soldiers here, here in this fantasia of a city, this romance I fell for, with the festooned draft horses, the snow, the thirteenth-century architecture, the Polish lettering — my adopted home is shaking and curling like paper exposed to a flame.

I watch the soldiers walking together. I see one, in the ochre spill of evening, talking to a civilian. I notice an American flag on his sleeve — other soldiers have the Polish flag, red on white, blood on skin. The border is a two-hour drive from here, and Kraków is filling up with refugees. I see them in Galeria Krakowska with their luggage, faces inscrutable; I feel the atmosphere warp in real time. There is heaviness now, pooling in the street like thawed ice. People are dying. The restaurants scratch out the word ‘Russian’ from their menus; Ukrainian flags appear in windows. I want arms as big as the ocean, big enough to hold the displaced, to hold the rising dark, to hold the rage, to hold the death, to hold the wild-eyed swell. My small arms and gloved hands hold nothing, just a shawl, a souvenir, something tourists buy at the market, a token, kitsch and flimsy. Ból trwa bez końca. The snow continues to fall.