Author: poetryfest

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.

Each privilege granted
To those who deserve
To experience such rewards;
To those who are good
And those who are holy

But for me,
Whom I assumed to be good
And holy in my own way,
In my own eyes–
I am given a white rose

I never understood
Why he had handed me such a gift
It made no sense
For a man late to his meeting
To assign me a flower

Who are you,
Accepting the bare bones
Only adorned
With small specks of remaining meat,
To give good people flowers?

How have you nourished
Such beauty?
Jupiter’s water?
Or the treasured liquid of misery
That you have chosen to rule?

You are a liar!
There was no good within this rose
Only disease-ridden pollen
And a blackened
Abyss

I challenge your existence
I refuse your beliefs
I deny the person you are
Hidden under your skin
I pluck your petals

I hate you
I despise you
Everything you stand for
You are worthless to me
I pluck your petals

I suppose that if I lie to myself
And offer you the thoroughly damaged flower
With the chewed stem
Will you accept it once more?
I pluck your petals

My tears flood my lungs
I am strangled
I am drowning
Do your job, damn you!
I pluck your petals

I hate you
I love you
You break me
I hate me
I accept you

There is no more.
Nothing but a stem remains
With teeth marks
In the soft, fuzzy, green flesh
Your petals strewn across the floor

Life is the thin screen
I am outdoors in the sunlight
I forgot the sun had existed
And I forgot that air could be crisp and clean
Your petals dry upon the floor

You are beautiful
I feel you around me
Your dried petals laced along my skin
White upon white they vanish
Becoming scars and scabs

I drown within you,
Your beauty,
Your misery,

Grief.

The moss appeared on my skin two days ago
I had heard of the moss, seen it on others
Mostly in movies
A few young people
Mostly I saw it on old people
The moss was so dark, so grown in
It was part of any elder’s skin
When I saw the moss on me
I jumped in the shower
Ran the water so hot
In hopes the moss would fall off of my skin
But instead I wiped away the foggy mirror
Looked at my puffy eyes and moss shoulders
I didn’t look like me, not the me that I know
And others could tell too
All the virgin shoulders and their sympathetic eyes

Yesterday the moss grew quick
It outlines my body like depression glow
The worst part about it is
Sometimes I forget the moss is there
I laugh or dance or watch shitty TV
And sometimes it’s like I’ll never have to
live with it

The moss and me, we’re trying to be friends
As much as you can be
With anything that breaks your heart
Or anything
That makes you feel like a total drama queen
I know everyone’s moss grows differently
Everyone treats it differently
Some let it free and others
Act as if the moss is poisonous
They clip it or engulf themselves in flames
trying to burn it away
Not me and my moss, no way
Sometimes it’s a blanket and a movie reel
of our memories together
Sometimes it’s as prickly as a cactus
Needles point out of skin and I warn people
to stay away
Like I’m something sharp, dangerous
Because that’s how it feels
Somehow the moss is both soft and painful
Damaging and bursting with love

I’m not moss-covered yet, more in moss limbo
Waiting for it to swallow me whole
And when it does, and it will soon
I hope time will grow flowers
In all of my crevices
I hope I will turn towards the sky
And think of her

I know you in proximity
To the past and in the distance
You’re still all around me
No, really, in the present
You’re in the cafe down the street
In the stories our friends tell me
You’re no longer a force I can reach

I played a futile game
One that only the desperate try
Once I’d extended my hand as far as it would go, I waited
But you never reached my way

I didn’t say anything
Because in that moment, it was heard
The clearest answer you could muster
And you never said a word.

I could’ve called to you in that moment
Or in one thereafter
I never fashioned myself a quitter
But there was nothing left to say
No words would fix the broken dreams already splayed

I drowned them in the silence
In a place not far away
It had to be slaughtered
Ignore the temptation to drift for longer
The price of my dignity could not be outweighed

We’ll never truly live in tandem
At least not in the same way
Life will go on
But that closeness is gone
And replaced by an indifference of sorts
I’ll never again try to walk your way

I won’t pretend I wasn’t bitter
There’s still a trace of it on this page
I’ll do my best to let it rest
One day, the proximity will simply fade