Author: poetryfest

Listening together I feel so all alone
It’s as if you are in a world of your own
The music is playing. The words they are saying. Go right past us…none of its staying with us its still just me just you. Not one but two alone together

I don’t know what to do
I reached for you. Danced with you
Then once again I lost you
To the music? To the rhymes?
To the beats that take you back in time?

I want to be what’s on your mind
I bide my time.
The music is playing the words they are saying go right past us…none of it staying
Its just me. Just you not one but two

Listening to music alone together

You don’t have to be perfect to be good.
You don’t have to be sinless to seek absolution.
You can be a sinner and still find faith.

Redemption is a concept because of transgression.
Ying is to Yang like sin is a drag to belief.
But, salvation is an outcome because of faith.

So maybe reward transcends this world.
So maybe triumph is a position beyond the mortal.
So if Jesus was humble, maybe we all can be good.

the yogacara speak
of a form of consciousness

where all the seeds
of past deeds
are deposited.

one by one these seeds
come to fruition
simultaneously

creating a person
and a private world.

a universe of closet sized cinemas
each occupied by a single person

eternally viewing a different film.

everything is of the nature of consciousness

the product of one’s own projections.

ignorance and suffering
believe the yogacara
result from feeling
the movie to be real.

Long have I searched through old things
And new things and torn things
And used things
And things of the flesh
And the sky and air
And humble beasts
And rulers of everything
And nothing in between

Where kisses lie on fabric
And passion rises out of concrete
And hate is washed in the blood
And love speaks in flowers and new seasons

And the moment when we say “ecstasy”
And submit to believe what we once did not
That all things can be beautiful
And ugly
And lost
And found
At once

That a day can mean nothing
And everything

That a hand can hold the world
And the sea
And emptiness

At once

Life can be beautiful if you let it

The ecstasy of the moment is when
You stop asking what it is
And let it bloom

The air is warm on the walk today
Scents of freshly blooming flowers
Trees and plants with colours of all sorts
Trail is well used by people and animals alike
It is hard to see though through half closed eyes
Each step laboured by pains
Every breath feels harder to take
Slowly and with great effort another step is taken
You see someone enjoying the park
On the inside MS is tearing me apart.

“A tree which has lost its head will never recover it again,
and will survive only as a monument of the ignorance
and folly of its tormentor.” ― George William Curtis

I remember when the first men came
Taking what they needed from the forest
Vestiges of a balance long extinct.

I remember when the next men came
Viscid sap and cracked branches
Etching their names into my memory.

I remember when those men came back
Hatchets in the hands that once held penknives
Actions practiced and deliberate.

I remember as they stripped me
The cold taste of Copper Naphthenate
The blistering heat of the sawblade.

I remember being split and splintered
Joints locked with iron spikes
Paralyzed and beaten on the cracked earth.

I remember every wail of warning
Creaking with each step that met me
Begging any end to the destruction.

I remember as my admonitions were ignored
As the cities sank, and the fields burned.
You should have listened to the trees.

Drifting on the bluish oceanic water
Crowning yourself as the world’s only godly father
Legalising your visions philosophy as so much smarter
Leaving the innocent open for the monstrous Leviatan
Incredibly stormy waves will destroy your secret work, adulter

Walking on the earth as on the glittering water
You are nothing more but a bitter little evil, virus-rumor starter
Taking your destructive and Wicked lies more than farther
Twisting mathematical evidence you became the world’s scientific slanderer
Hades will turn you over to his underworld’s fiery wanderer

Drowning in the depths of deadly icy, worldly water
Dying in your own deception, the lies you used to gather
How could you do this to your own sister and brother?
Could you not have shared the truth in love rather?
But you desired to follow Lucifer’s attempts to go higher
Now, for eternity drowned in your watery grave as a lost purgatory fighter

Remember the time when we were swimming together in the water
Our molecules waited millions of years to combine in this way
It took millions of attempts for us to find each other
We swam together in the swarm
Sometimes at the front, at the back, on the top, or at the bottom

Remember the time when we wanted to go ashore together
It took millions of attempts for us to be able to breathe together
We shared life in different ways and drifted with continents

Remember the many attempts to walk upright
It took millions of lives for us to be able to walk together

Remember the time when we wanted to be bigger and stronger
We crowned our willful heads
And conquered the most remote corners of the world
How many times have we lost our peoples because our heads lost their way?

Remember the time when our unity between good and evil fell apart
We attacked each other and did not recognize ourselves
We had to wage countless wars to find peace
You have fought for your values, too
We took each other’s lives out
Of fear of losing our own

Remember the age of Enlightenment – when we became mature
How many attempts did it take for us to share the crown?
How many cruel mistakes did we endure so we could trust each other?
How long did we have to wait until everyone could adopt their own nature?
How many lives did it take until we could love each other?
And swim peacefully together – in the sea of man
Sometimes at the front, at the back, on the top or at the bottom

Your genes remember all of this
If the right spirit leads them

The temp’rature’s higher
The bigger the fire
A planet-wide fryer, no beer–
We’re nearing the tip-over year.
We’re nearing the tip-over year.

The countdown began so many long years ago,
Years being years, it seemed to go slow.
Yet now we’re all here, just a few years to go:
We’re nearing the tip-over year.

The temp’rature’s higher
The bigger the fire.
We’re down to the wire, it’s clear:
We’re nearing the tip-over year.
We’re nearing the tip-over year.

We’re not yet lock-stepped to an iron-clad fate,
It almost is, but it isn’t too late.
‘Til the birds and the bees disappear,
we’re nearing the tip-over year.

You must understand
There’s no time, no debate,
Change the world now,
The future won’t wait.
The future is already here–

The temp’rature’s higher
The bigger the fire,
Wake the town crier,
Wake the town crier,
Wake the town crier—
We’re nearing the tip-over year
(nearing the tip-over–)
nearing the tip-over
nearing the tip-over year.

One thing we agree on
Like it’s up there in neon,
We’re nearing the tip-over year.

w/m c. 2022: Matt Levin

He left me a voice message that we had survived a shooting.
His voice was shaky, nervous, maybe excited to be alive, or ashamed.
He said there was a shooting the night after we left, on the same street,
south of Philadelphia.
He said it could have been us, the two of us, holding hands,
I told him I guess god liked us this time
And only this time
Like so many other times, I had said the same thing.
He said my mom would have died of this sorrow,
And I said I don’t have a mom
But I have died of her grief once.
And the good thing about dying is that you don’t die anymore.