Author: poetryfest

This is it: I’ve finally placed it: the appalling
sadness of those monochrome wartime years.
The football stadium, Albert Hall dimensions of those
cavernous concert halls, regiments and squadrons
solemnly circulating, like black-wax
seventy-eight records, slower than tumbrels.
The droning crooner, the dance-band momentum, kisses
swiftly given, or shyly mused upon.
Last waltz coming up; “Yours.”
Yours; but soon in barracks, canteen and bedroom
never to be so deeply mused upon
or crooned over again.

Poetry bleeds from my soul.

Sunlight burns through me
Erasing stains of Life’s
Dreams in the velvet Air of Time

Time caught in the moment
Evaporates as
Music fills empty bowls of hope
And they overflow with joy while

The sky explodes with color.

Perfect sunsets are poetry and
Sunset is always perfect.
Lovers Surfers Families feel it

The sky is a love bruise and the ocean tonight its balm.

Waves moan rich stories
The subject tonight is Love.

It’s in the air with
The cooling breath of sunset
Every shade of gold

I am so lucky to be here with Hafiz
Bathing in the love-glow
Breathing all flavors of gold.

Wisps of passion peach orange yellow light the sky
And the sky is loving it

Waves roll like a hungry lover
Taking their time.
Rhythms converge at sunset
Day and night are punctuation
The golden orb dips deep inside wet rolling tides and
The sky lights up streaking ecstasy
Paying tribute to wonder, tearing through layers of time
Discovering Love Everywhere.

I am lying inertly,
My limbs thin as paper,
If only the wind could bear them,
Take them far there, where I will not be a character from clay anymore,
Rut, stupid and very naive.
In which world I believed that he could deceive me.
If I just threw myself into the fire, burning, hot,
So pleasant, extremely warm.
Ah, if this warm body poured out,
It washed the trouble, cleaned the soul of memories.
Ah, if this fire burned my memory,
He will seal with the iron seal the gate of stupidity.
I sit in my cave, humiliated, defenseless, died.
In the wild agony
Death is already reaching me so close,
I scream, I cry
I scream “Come here!”
Through the clenched teeth, anger and powerlessness go.
There is almost death here, right there,
Only the door of my body and soul will open and she will enter.
However, she is so stupid or too conceited, seeing me,
She looks with contempt, snorts at me
on my inert body,
She looks and shouting in my eye “I won’t come”
And laughter she spreads cruel,
Horrible as child’s squeak.
So sweet that I would like to give myself up,
Just like a coward to escape.
To dismiss my suffering and not be.
So as not to last in this cruelty,
to not live than live painfully

Years ago, when I was so much younger.
Life seemed to me to be an easy thing.
To wake and eat and play,
Then snuggle back in bed.
And I was happy all those days,
When I was just a child.

Then I left school and things got complicated.
No longer could I only wake and play.
Though I still felt the same,
I couldn’t play those games.
And people told me all the time,
That I was not a child.

It wasn’t long till love came to control me.
A pretty girl with raven eyes and hair.
And not long after that,
A family of my own.
A boy and girl were here to raise,
And I was now a man.

My life has changed, of that there’s no denying.
My children laugh playing games I used to play.
And as I sit and watch,
Those memories they return.
Of how I felt so long ago,
When I was just a child.

Is it wrong to long for one’s lost childhood?
A Peter Pan, I guess I wish to be.
But I know in my heart,
That I shall never be,
The little boy of long ago,
For I am not a child.

Each year my children grow a little older.
Their child-like features fade each passing year.
I hope I leave for them,
Happy memories that never fade.
And they can smile remembering,
When they were just a child.

(April 2021)

I find that I cry

Mainly with one eye..

The right one.

“More eager, perhaps?”,

My judgemental mind snaps.

Why not “more honest and brave,

Free of purpose, just like a wave?”

The left one always takes

Heaps of time till it breaks.

It’s hard to let go.

Lined up like soldiers in a row

Across lush shadows on the road

Houses are bathed in pure white gold.

I can clearly see that

As I sit here with my eyes shut.

A man walks determined and fast

Breaking the silence. He too has passed.

Two cars drive-by, in touch with the ground

Sending in the air ripples of sound.

As each goes by, it makes more and more sense

To sit quietly still, like birds on a fence.

Prelude

My mother waddled around the kitchen
cleaning and cooking,
And not interacting with the four little ones
crying, kicking, running, throwing.

She kept her eyes on the clock.
10:00 was nap time –
theirs, and hers.

On this day,
May 19, 1959,
Mom opted to forgo the much-needed nap
in favor of starting a fresh novel.

To mentally escape this penitentiary
was more important than sleep.
She was excited to start a new story,
but truth be told, ANY book would do.

The first squeeze came
as she set the boys into their own little prisons,
with bars preventing their escape.
On that particular day, three of the four fell asleep,
as the one cried and shook his cage.

I kicked a few times,
interrupting the flow of the story she was engrossed in.
I then felt another squeeze, followed by many more,
each getting more taunt.

The Beginning

Just before my journey to the outside,
I suddenly felt rather woozy.
maybe from the heavy medication the doctor gave to my mom.

I, of course, woke up for the intense and bumpy ride
through a dark tunnel,
like toothpaste being squeezed from the tube,
I was briskly pulled out into the blaring white room.

Whisked away, cleaned, wrapped,
and set in a plastic box,
I laid alongside a dozen others
under the fluorescent lights.

It was a full day before I met my mom.
She smiled as she held me, but quickly needed to nap.
Someone took me from her arms, fed me,
and returned me to my bin.

The next five days followed the same pattern
of seeing my mom for a few moments
and being touched only for feedings and cleanings.

On the seventh day, my mother introduced me to my father.
I recognized his face from him looking through the large window,
checking out the baby-laced containers.

As my mother walked into the house,
four wild animals ran by, laughing and poking.
My mother held me tight and shooshed them away.
Siblings… a feral creature.

I sensed my mother’s exhaustion and
instinctively wanted to be easy
for her.
When I was hungry, I would have to wait
until my mom thought it was time to feed me.
When wet, I learned to silence my complaints.

Even in the first days of life on the outside,
I understood that I was the fair-haired child,
somehow set apart from the pack of wolves.

Similar to my Tupperware days,
I spent lots of time alone
but noted the feeling of being loved,
The mantra that was sung from the village,
“Finally – a girl!”

Childhood

I was always a bit of an outsider,
both at home and at school.
I kept to myself as the nuns kept the classes in order.
I just remember the feeling of being shuffled here and there,
and being two steps behind,
both socially and academically.

One of the pack was held back in first grade.
Actually, several had to repeat a grade.
To my chagrin, this left me with one kin in my class
and another in the grade above me.

A memory;
At my father’s staff Christmas party.
My father announced
that his daughter could sing a carol.

Being shy by nature,
I walked slowly to the microphone.
Of course, one brother ran up to join me,
He could not bear the bright spotlight
to be shown on me alone.

I quietly sang,
As my brother loudly fumbled through the words.
The large crowd laughed and clapped
As my brother ran off.
I walked back to my mother’s side
where I burst into tears.

Practicing cheerleading moves
By myself,
I froze
as a ridiculing wolf walked by.

The neighborhood flourished
with Irish Catholic children.
With an ice-skating rink, tetherball court,
and a plethora of group games,
I was the last to be picked for baseball.

Late Bloomer

I took my sweet time
strolling out of the fog of childhood.
The arts beckoned me
to join in something outside of my fantasy world.
Once I went to a porn movie
Twice I got drunk
Vomit drunk,
Never – did I smoke pot.

Amour

I met my soulmate unexpectedly.
Civilized, generous, funny, and sweet,
He was the antithesis of my brothers.

Through laughter, tears,
break-ups, and a long-distance relationship,
we eventually made our way to the altar.

And then, one by one,
we filled up the back seats of the minivan with little ones.

House Times Four

My parents offered to help with the downpayment,
Until they saw the house and, more to the point,
the neighborhood we chose.

This house was not just a home, it was part of a village.
It housed artists and anarchists
As well as the multi-generationally poor.
Trisha, a ballerina
Mel and MaryAnn
Formerly called, Father Mel and Sister MaryAnn,
Although she never was a nun,
and their adopted interracial children.
Michael, a drummer, and Rachel – an artist.
We met each week in the basement of the neighborhood church
For a potluck meal,
And several times a year we held a talent show
Where the old German neighbor and our Japanese exchange student each sang in his first
tongue.

Painting walls, sewing curtains, planting fruit trees, raising chickens, and birthing babies.
Life was full.

We drove across the country to our second house.
Cheaply built with no character.
in a subdivision, rather than a village.

Two years later we moved again
Five miles out of town, a 500 feet elevation gain,
Mountain lake camping, sled riding, hockey games, bonfires,
Now our neighbors were the deer, bears, and mountain lions.

I moved to my current Victorian town house
Without my husband,
And with my kids –
Only part-time.

Triple Ds: Decline, Divorce, Death

He was always fearful of the month.
February meant depression.

Until the A and B days started
A Days = depression
B Days = mania

My inclination – learned from my mother,
was to be stoic, to live with problems,
to ignore.
The signs were everywhere,
I tied on my blinders.

The threads to the beautiful tapestry
unraveled quickly.
Dramatically,
Traumatically.

One day
I opened my eyes to my new life.
My beloved and I
reached out to each other
and touched.
Retouched.

Soon came the unexplained bruising, the doctor’s visits, the funeral,
as if 6 months were painted with one stroke.

Addendum

Last month I traveled south with my new partner.
This experience will be an addendum.

The major chapters were written, edited, and re-imagined,
with a copyright date – the first edition propagated.

My long-term memories were already formed.
I welcome the new…
The short-term.

What is jealousy
Do jealousy define life
Is jealousy a dangerous tool to manifest
Jealousy can turn the best into the worst
Jealousy so toxic it could make the heart of a wealthy soul
Turn tainted
She a nightmare can make you lose yourself in the ways of others life
Jealousy can turn people into beautiful lairs
Jealousy can turn your world upside down to the point of no return
Do we as humans can determine between happiness and jealousy
She causes people to lose faith from time to time
She only an illusion but will society ever realize her distractions
She is an easy habit to pick up but hard to shake like an addition
She can turn the pure into dirt that’s hard to get up
Jealousy jealousy jealousy
Please go away because your intentions is never right
Jealousy you are a trickster you cause many souls since the beginning of time.

I’m Fine, Really by Inger Tudor
I’m fine, really
Just ignore the frayed edges of my emotions
Never mind the shadows dusting the contours of my cheeks

There’s nothing to see in the red-rimmed eyes staring distantly off
I told you, I’m fine
Despite stifled sounds of sobbing
Silences held too long as I retreat inside scattered thoughts

Fail to return even a single phone call
I‘m doing okay
Though sleep hides as if it’s been tagged
Or blankets me with a weight I cannot escape
As dreams toss me about to throw me on the shores of waking
Taunting me with whispers of what they may have held

I promise you, I’m good
Even as I wade through cement
Each step a Sisyphean slog through a swamp of uncertainty
Questioning the why of how I push forward

Don’t worry about me
There is no hint of darkness creeping over my shoulder
Haze of unconsciousness inching closer
Winding itself around me
Wrapping me in an irresistible womb of blackness

Seriously, I’m alright
As interest in this thing here slackens
Longing for that over there fades away
Joy becomes a distant memory echoing faintly

No need for you to worry
Though I retreat to my room with each return home
Welcoming the isolation as solace from the day
The safety of my solitary sanctuary
Pretending not to hear soft knocks at my door

Thank you for your concern,
But really, I don’t need it–
Just my daily routine, I’m used to it.
But if for some reason you don’t see me tomorrow,
Remember, I said I was fine.

Even the rains can do nothing to you if you are numb inside.
Have you ever kissed the earth
Stared at the lake at night or at the golden waters of the lily pond at noon
There is poetry in silence.
Sometimes it’s good not to let words ruin that.

By- Chandrani Banerjee