Author: poetryfest

I was born in the untamed keokea of kohala with the flow of fresh water and faces with the north star upon the unknown space and time that let me cry till I was held in warmth of my waimanu mama through the night of moons smile dancing with the stars as I tune myself to mamas heartbeat the drum that lulls me to sleep.

The next day as the sun and ocean greets us with a frothy reach to snatch me as one of its many tax claims. Trying for me the maw of the sea hungry for my fragile day old bones and flesh I sing to reach the valleys where monks dwell in peace. Which reach my tough mama not willing to let me cry in vain she fights with the maw as the sea tries to grasp me within the watery jaws she kicks and flips till she reaches the safe channel with a tear on land and sea on the tee of life’s rebirth saving us both. So keokea could get to know these unknown stones and the shoal that keeps us safe even a forgotten slippery slip of play as keokea sips on knowledge and mamas rich milk for those precious six weeks while we sip the joy of watching keokea evolve and grow to be just as tough as his waimanu surfing mama of the deepest valley. We see the depth of her love willing to send his uncles to coax keokea along and help him as she returned not the norm.

Now keokea has left to go beyond the shoal as I came to see their home this gloomy day after enjoying a swim I saw mama return with a few punks mocking her call for her child even saying – go home this is our beach – so she stood with strength and grace arching back toward them and rolled over to show no fear but love and kept calling. Decoded by this crab I met he said that she is calling for a return of love for all life in the sea the land and in us so she slips back into the depths of darkness still calling so all will know how to shoal love. Even to all those volunteers and humble stones who have a seal of approval by me and my crabby friend.

I wonder if time could stop
So, I can hold your hand one last time
See that smile you gave that didn’t cost a dime
To feel the warmth from your hug
Over and over
That gave me a similar feeling of a clover

Your love will forever be timeless
These days since you been gone have been lifeless
6 years, 72 months, 315 weeks, 2203 days
And it seems time continue to count away
Drifting by day by day
I often wish I could get one more chance just to hear you say my name

Your presence was divine
Even close to wine
I never felt harm by you
Only comfort and safety that bind me to you
Hummingbirds remind me of you
The joy and happiness you brought to life
Now poisoned by the one who took your life

I wonder if time could stop
So, I could see your face one last time
To make those jokes and laugh until the sunrise
I’d still go to war for you even in the afterlife

You’re not here anymore
So I learned to cope
But now I know what love really is
So I could never go broke

If only I could have one last time
One last time with the love of my life
One last time would be alright
One Last Time

It’s thirty below zero as the sun
readies to rise on the dawn of man.

I am on the rig floor,
this subzero ice-covered saw-tooth monster
where I stand like a sacrificial fool
in a gargantuan one-sided struggle
of steel and sinew and oil and blood
ripped down to the bone but unbowed
the metal and mettle in a fusion
where the piercing shards of life flay flesh and fat
clawing away the living veil
until it begins to tease the light beyond its ability to resist
turning the night into the truth of a time before
yawning to consume the soul of all that is edible
not leaving even a scrap
running me down into the bowels
of all of it from where it issues forth
and into the world.

In this place, in this time, the eye never blinks
because the mind never closes.

Auburn eyes
Skin of milk
Hair that twines
Like vines of silk…

Won’t you be
My Valentine?
Won’t you be no one’s
But mine?

Won’t you live
Inside my head
And haunt me
While I lie in bed?

I don’t know
I do not know
I do not know
If you will know

That I’m the one
Who wrote this text
And if you do
Then what comes next?

If you unveil
That I am me
What then becomes
Of us and we?

Will you and I
Become a pair
Or will my hope
Become despair?

It’s hard to know
It’s hard to see
If what’s ahead
Is you and me

But feelings
This intensely tense
Go far beyond
The bounds of sense…

So sense is out,
And logic too,
I will not stop
‘Til me and you

Have elevated
Passed defeat—
Two separate hearts
Within one beat

A sum much greater
Than its parts
A bond that’s born
Where passion starts

I’ll wrap you up
And hold us tight
Until our flame
Consumes the night

And from the ash
Our love will rise
And soar throughout
The cosmic skies

No one can stop
What’s meant to be
No one can stop
Our Destiny

Just me and you
And you and me
Just we and us
And us and we

No one can stop
What we will be—
Together through
Eternity.

I awake from restless sleep
Tired but happy, for I know
She waits for me

The city sleeps
so now we meet
For few others understand the attraction
Maybe they don’t speak her language?
But I can hear her calling me

I arrive at our tryst as the mist
rises off her body
The gentle offshore
undressing her for me
Slowly peeling, silently revealing
The full curves of her shape

We touch, and I shudder
I glide over her skin,
silky, smooth
Glistening in the morning sun
I reach her shoulder and look across
Into her tunnel of love

Spitting, spinning
And in her glassy face I see my own
Grinning.

For all around me rages power and passion
But I can see the calm in her heart
Where there is a space for me,
And soon I am inside her.

Again and again I go, until I am spent
I draw myself from her dripping
Tired but Smiling, I head back towards the world
But as I go, I turn
And gaze across my love once more.
And I know
That she will never leave me

Protected
wrapped
in a warm cocoon of love
by a lifelong lover
time spent delivering on
his marriage pledge
to love in sickness and in health
a love surrendered
full of kindness and respect
I am humbled by his love for you

new memories disappear
old memories beam bright
a repertoire of old tunes sung
echoes of past lives
and distant voices
time plays tricks
words slip out of reach
friendships fade from view
buried deep in sacred ground

you forget immediately
the things that we discuss
thoughts tumbling out of grasp

truths obscured
I walk on eggshells,
dance around subjects

my inner child cries out
come back to me
I swallow unfinished conversations
I gulp back tears

there are moments
fleeting glances
when we catch each others eye
recognition of
roles reversed
shadows of the past appear
you glimpse your mother
in the blink of an eye
life changes
life softly fading

by Lindsey Coulson.

GENRE: Love, Family.

Is there joy, in being?
Or does joy come from a happening
An outside circumstance
The flash of an image
The sweetness of a sound?

There is joy, in being.
The kind that has no source
That just has truth
That is just truth.

Breathe in
Breathe out

Then what is being if not a state
A moment in time
Where the past is irrelevant
The future not relevant
And this moment
Right now
The only thing that is significant.

Breathe in
Breathe out

This right now is what is truly relevant
The only thing that is not irrelevant
The only truth that can matter
The only one that cannot shatter.

Breathe in
Breathe out

Let’s enjoy the joy of being
Right here, breathe in
Right now, breathe out
I am.

There’s a fundamental understanding
Within any art form that you are bearing
The entirety of yourself in your piece;

To throw your organs on the canvas
Or let your veins make music
Or grip the pen so tightly that words ooze out

Like pus from an infected wound
And that this will be cleansing
And the fervor from this endeavor will cauterize

But there are so many nights, too many
It feels like, where my muscles are banshees
Screeching for me to stop Just stop

Because I’m pushing that fire into a tiny lantern
So it can light my way as I raise the pickaxe again
And throw myself into digging deeper and deeper

To the point where I don’t know where the soot ends
And my sweat begins and all I can see is obsidian blackness
That I just want to carve through at some point in this life

I want to find those gems
I think through gritted teeth
As the canary merrily cheeps

I want to blow the dust off emeralds so I can see better
And find a ruby the size of my fist
That pulses with a familiar cadence

So I can open up my chest like a lunchbox
And trade it for my heart: serving it to the earth
For others to find if they decided to mine one day

My heart is both down in that mine
And twinkling, here, on the surface
And I’m still figuring out what that means

As I wash away the grime
And the heat relaxes my muscles
And the canary sings in the corner

Asleep within

Tall grasses in the meadows

I hear no more violin

Just the sweet summer wind

And sounds of dripping sap from the trees

Awake to begin

mellow & let go

Sea shells once on the shore break on the concrete basement floor

mellow at night

letting go is a fright

Sleep within

Sea Shells once on the shore

break on the cold concrete basement floor

I awake Asleep

Tall grasses in meadows

Let go finally echos

I hear no more violin

Now I can begin

And I shall woo the nightingale
For her song is far too sweet –
And lie with her on the shores of moon
Where the waters stroke our feet.

For I long to lie, in longing to die,
In the turning starry sea –
Her piercing silvery song to hear,
And never more to be.

And she longs to sing in the burning sea,
Out of the past to birth—
And fly like the moon from the quivering bow,
And rise out the bending Earth.

And I shall eat the nightingale,
For her form is all too sweet—
Like an arrow rise on her wings of fire,
For my wound is far too deep.

For I long to die in her dark embrace,
On the sands of the crimson sea—
And only her fiery song to hear,
And nevermore to be.

For I have swallowed the nightingale,
So bittersweet her song—
And now she sings within my breast,
For the nights were far too long.