Author: poetryfest

I couldn’t imagine
my dad
saying the things
Trump said
about his own daughter.

Not about her body,
not with that smirk,
not on national television,
like it was
a compliment.

My father
taught me how to ride a bike,
not how to shrink under a man’s gaze.
He called me curious,
not curvy.
He said you can be anything,
not if she weren’t my daughter…

Trump said that.
To Howard Stern.
On The View.
To the world.

He never flinched.
Never apologized.

My dad never
looked at me
like property,
never spoke of me
like prize.
Never lingered in the mirror
of my reflection.

I hear what Trump says
about Ivanka—
and I flinch
like it’s my name
in his mouth.

We’re not the same person
every thought in his head isn’t mine
but different
there is evil in his
depths, some evil that is not mine but so foreign to ears
and his
and is him and he varies
he’s multiple paintings in multiple moods he is a room
he has designed himself.
Like me, he is an engineer. Though
a better one
he has carved his corner now he sits, he is a baby bubbling in his own bath
he knows this
place
better than I, he watches me, trembling
carve.

The wind comes and the apple sees its chance.
It pulls and tugs, heaves and ho’s,
But the stem is yet supple, green with promise.
The wind dies down, the tree chuckles, and the apple sags.
Next time.

The child comes, a little girl, the mother watching from afar.
As they climb looking for the reddest, most luscious fruit of all
The apple slicks itself back, bares its widest smile.
But just as the ingénue stretches out in its direction,
They are called back to safety, to warm, welcoming arms.
The tree snickers, the apple sighs.
Next time.

The fox comes by, chasing its next meal
That has scurried to shelter within the tree’s hollow.
Defeated, the canine looks upward, and the apple starts.
It stretches down, Adam and Eve be damned.
But the tree holds fast and the fox proves the more divine,
It shakes itself and scampers away.
The tree smirks, and the apple wails.
Next time.

The season passes, and the apple looks nervously
At the brittle peduncle holding it still.
The tree notices, and for the first time, speaks.

Why do you worry, my child, about where you will fall?
Look there, among the spaces between my roots where you will tumble,
Cushioned by my leaves, shielded by my branches,
Digested by none but the worms
Beneath my soil.

There you will be nourished by the sun I will share with you
The water I will trickle down upon your remains
Until your withered self finally gives way
And your rhizomes intertwine with mine
For the centuries to come.

The apple weeps silently at the tree’s speech,
Gazes with horror and longing at its promised land of rebirth,
And this time

I wandered far through sea and storm,
No steady voice, no hand-kept warm,
But found you near so soft, so true,
A whisper soft the wild winds blew.

Your voice, like midnight’s gentle rain,
A slow, low, healing refrain,
And in its sound, I find relief
Words that could soften any grief.

You smell of pine, of earth and sky,
A scent that holds when nights run dry,
A scent I chase through dream and day,
That does not leave, nor fade away.

I am the storm, untamed, unbound,
Wild winds that howl without a sound.
You are the pine, firm and wise,
Standing tall beneath these skies.

You said you’d support, come storm or sun,
No matter what I’ve said or done
That if I called, if I should plead,
You’d be the one my heart would heed.

I fear, I fade, I flee, I break.
I speak in spirals, drowning ache,
But still I find you, still, you wait,
Unshaken by my shifting state.

You are not ink I’d write anew,
Nor tale I’d twist to make it true
You are the page, the song, the muse,
The one I feel called to choose.

So let them speak of space and time,
Of stars that burn, of fate and sign…
But all I want, through dusk and dew,
Is just one world
One path
With you.

By Linda Boxall

canvas stretched. my eyes –
(moistened, mirrored), like an out of
service city bus.
red neon and a
set of concrete steps into
a basement lounge

a boar’s head on the
wall. someone placed a hat on him.
there’s dust on the teeth.
what was it like in
Japan? here are Bashō’s musings,
here is his heart –

etched into the stones
that are here now, still and then
breathing. now humming.
when he slept here what
wild duck startled him awake? what
cold chill called his name?

Minneapolis,
my hands are in my pockets, a
cold curl of breath –
I still don’t know your
name. the Mississippi River
at night. all empty

save bright eyes shining
from dark alleyways. Bashō!
cracking knuckles, gone.
put your teeth in me,
wild dog of winter’s awful night!
jet lagged by morning.

and what do I have?
dry hands that sting like breaking
ice beneath your feet,
and a cold look back.
the skyline standing completely
still. hands to the sky!

The last time I saw Jasper was probably a year ago,
walking down Smith street. Maybe two years.
Supreme windbreaker and joint in hand, smoldering
with sixteen year old city kid swag.

I hated Jasper, my best friend.
Every weekend that belonged to Dad belonged
to Jasper too. On some phone somewhere
there are videos of us performing in a living room,
bedecked in Nina bangles and belts.

There’s a life out there, where Nina and Dad didn’t break up.
Maybe there’s even one where it wouldn’t
have driven them both insane.
Nights could have been wooden,
bricked and dimly lit.
Countertops surrounded with

Jasper, Jasper,
Jasper. It’s an empty word now,
in an epigraph for a life that isn’t mine,
I hate you, I’m glad we’re friends,
I hate you, we’re family.

Promises are memories and memories are
broken. He was younger, six to twelve. Maybe
the bloody noses and torn out hairs mean nothing to him. Maybe
he thinks of me as a recurring dream he had as a kid, a familiar face
that requires a wave walking down Smith street.

An opinionated woman
They say it like a curse
The bitter taste of the lies

Lighting up every room she walks in
Her voice glows like starlight
The sound of an angel dipped in honey
Impossible to ignore

Jealousy watching her
But her beauty never bruises
As her heart shines brighter than the sun

But no one sees her when she’s alone
Undoing the weight of every word
Strong doesn’t mean unbroken
Even stars can be unheard

An evil for an evil is decrease
Of goodly substance as the night comes on;
All evil is the fracturing of peace –
A blood black spear to pierce the heart of dawn.

When God arose and spoke upon the hill
The words were like the bright, alchemic stone,
To transmute hardened heart with golden will:
The rule descending from the truest throne.

The hands are always working in their time;
The tongue can’t help but carry forth the soul:
From inwardness the world becomes sublime,
Or darkened waters rise to flood the whole.

A creature formed to reason, mind kissed being
All day and night flows from the lamp lit seeing.

I count straw to pass time, long then short.
Each with pumpkin-microfibers;
the sting retains a thin skin on my fingers,
your eyes scanning my scalp.

The windows, open, like how you left
them, head out as a dog in a hot-box car.
I watch behind my eyes, a film reel of faces
and a kaleidoscope of you.

I knew you like I knew the door frame notches,
where we would place the knife—
nearly grazing a few precious hairs I know count too—
the height of your last and the blade’s sudden stillness.

Familiar fumes in the air placate me;
the stiff odor of tractor engines seeming to waft
down a river of dirt, bloodhounding your old boot tracks.
The wind carries itself.

Mud reflecting my face, connected
by a string of droplets, hanging like crystal beads
on a friendship bracelet, suspends salt and blends
with the zephyr, swirling up to heaven.