Author: poetryfest

Her last smile, by Mustofa Munir

when the clock of civilization has lost its sense of time
she perceived the world without knowing its malicious darkness,
a lonely young girl died many times
before her death when
she was gang-raped by some beastly men,
suffered many days and months,
she delivered one day a baby girl,
that day on her baby’s little hand
no crescent moon had reached,
no star dropped from the sky,
no one tolled a bell from the distant cathedral,
no song was in the air, no artful flute was blown,
the girl cast her unseeing look at the society
that mocked her, betrayed her!
she smiled at her baby, the God smiled too,
her rhythmic heart blended with a harmony
that brought a perpetual benediction in
an ambience of elysian quietness!
without any anguish her mind was in a festival,
there she heard a hymn with deep allusion
she was longing for,
tears rolled down her cheeks,
she closed her eyes!

–Mustofa Munir

BEST FRIEND, by Debbie Fersht

A child puts her doll to bed. Tell me a story, says the doll. You always say that, says the girl. Tell me a story, the doll repeats. Go to sleep you two, says her father from the light underneath the bedroom door. You’re my best friend, whispers the girl to the doll, hugging it as she falls asleep. The doll grows bigger from all this love, its feet hanging off the edge of the bed. You must stop growing, says the girl, so we can stay friends. I want a glass of water, says the doll. Lights off you two says her father. The doll gets up early, eager to get to work. I’m hungry, says the doll upon arriving home. Let’s play a game, says the girl. I want to go to bed, says the doll. Exhausted from the day’s events, the doll turns off the bedroom light and quickly falls asleep. The girl lies awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. Stop that, says the girl to the doll’s looming shadow on the ceiling, covering her best friend’s body with her favourite yellow blanket. A short struggle ensues. Go to sleep, says the girl. You always say that, gasps the doll.

Read by Val Cole

TENDER LOVING MOMENTS, by Colin Guest

To feel your tender body touching mine
Is a sweet feeling that is simply divine
I love the touch of your arms around me
It makes me feel happy I want all to see
Our tender love is both strong and true
With our never feeling down and blue
Just to hold your hand in mine so tight
Makes everything in my life feel right
When we kiss your lips feel like wine
The feeling from this is quite divine
Just walking along with you, my love
It makes me know there is someone above
No one could ever love me as you do
Whenever I’m with you, I am never blue
We were made for each other, that’s for sure
And I know I will love you forever more

THE CALL OF PAN

© 2015

Barbara Grace Lake

I heard a piping in the wood –

Haunting, calling me

To follow if I dare.

I heard it in the dawn

As misty sunlight gently touches

Tips of trees when first aroused

And leaves are freshest.

Mounds of grassy thickets

Crunch beneath my feet

From laden dew.

Was it a melody I heard?

Or did my ears transform

The play of rushing wind

Through forest harps

Into a psychic sense of sound?

There, again, elusive,

Drifting music almost heard

Above a dancing springlet

Leaping briefly, sparkling

In a shaft of stabbing sun.

There, half seen beyond the trees

Disguised by by gloom and mist,

A presence in the mossy coolness

Of a hidden forest alcove,

An impression of a shadowed form –

Tricks of patterned light and solitude

Upon an urban sense

Unguarded and disarmed?

Or bounding figure, demigod,

Seductive, beckoning?

I followed only to the glade

Emptied of all sense and sound

But that bewitching flute.

Inhibited, afraid of life and love,

The siren pipes insistently

Awakened rhythmic chords.

The man/beast dances, arms caress,

His music quickens, throbs

With every pulsing beat

Responding, yielding, ohhh –

And he was gone.

The silence palpable, pulled down the night.

I cried in lonely grief

Not knowing if I cried

For loss of innocence.

And in the day’s new warmth

I stumbled from the woods

Into the arms of future love.

I simply told a worried face

“I lost my way.”

I’ve often felt his presence

Though his fluting calls me not.

Now are my children grown

And theirs are of an age to question,

Hesitate, take fearful, longing steps.

Beware the pipes of Pan

For on that pathway deep within the wood,

So perilously strange,

The bud will open to return

Unharmed – but not unchanged

Delayed Death
Hurry up! Come sharp !
The sun is ready to rise up.
Flowers in the garden have taken dew bath and wait for blooming!
Drowsy stars can’t keep their eyes open any more !
Birds are restless in nests for swimming in the barren sky .
Ripples of rivers are awfully eager to caress sun rays !
Flippant wind rests helplessly for tidal waves to kiss the thirsty shores .
Tired night birds rub their sleepy eyes in despair !
Hens are ready to sing the psalm to greet morning anew !
Why the night makes delay to depart – a serious law – break in the nature’s school !
At long last the bashful night dies behind the glowing wall of the day !
She was making courtship with the sleeping Earth!

The storm was unexpected
New Yorkers swept inside by snow.
In 4B a woman bathes her lover
careful not to wet his broken hand.
The Egyptian newlyweds
living in the building’s only studio
give their dream children names
underneath a tent of bedsheets.
Twin sisters, designers in Versace mules
play spin-the-bottle
on their penthouse terrace
with models from Milan.
Alone in her garden apartment
a Venezuelan widow
listens to vinyl records
she once danced to
with her husband.
And outside, on the street,
as the snow unfurls around them
like a ream of white velvet
let loose,
a girl in a scarf
the color of blood red calla lilies
says ‘yes’
to a proposal of marriage
while riding on the turned up handlebars
of her lover’s rusty Schwinn.

MARY EASTHAM
Website: http://www.rp-author.com/MKE
Twitter.com/WordActress

Polaris
and the Southern Cross
and Venus in the western sky
who call the star
who leads our way
along the path
and do they weep
oh should they weep

and do they weep
our lapse to see
the careless sham
our travesty
the world on fire
the price of lies
and do they fear
oh should they fear

and do they fear
the end of rhyme
for such as we
who’ve squandered time
who’ve wasted green
and left disgrace
and do they chide
oh should they chide

Bridge:
cityscapes
that choke on life
neon gases
the new darkness

Polaris
and the Southern Cross
and Venus in the western sky
who call the star
who cries alone
his laughing owl
and do they weep
and do they weep

Bellow the station, your arch stands
as neon vitral as I left it, I bet
Marking your place
Your best friend on your right
Your lover on your left

You would give me your food anytime
I would give you my tobacco every time,
I guess
For you to give me my tobacco,
every time, I guess
I don’t guess

It’s a shame, I was willing

Will always look for you, though
You fuck like a bandit
You’re incredibly true

Yesterday I…
Yesterday I…
Gave up my life again
like
(night fall off)
like
every night
(last night)
I thought I was sorry
I wish I was sorry
So I say, and
Trust me
Trust me
Imbibe my truth
Become
Become
Yesterday I
Did terrible things
I can’t remember
but can sense
I told stories
I can’t remember

But can taste

My taste of
Terrible things
Crawling
Up my head
My head my head
My head