Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film.

POETRY Reading: ABANDON LOVE, by Joanne Rowe

Performed by Allison Kampf

POEM:

So rich man you think you’re gonna survive?
Leaving the rest of us to die.
Buy your ticket to outer space,
watch the rest of us spinning in space.
You measure time by your own insignificant place

Mother Earth is starting to wake
We can feel her moving – Under our feet
Dancing but nobody is watching

She is screaming in the whirlpools of abandon love,
Drowning in the pools of blood,
Crying in the dirty rain,
In the clamour of the wind and rain,
how many lives have fallen?

We have rend her garments –
Emptying out her oceans
leaving her in disgrace,
and just plain destroyed this place.

With our lust for power and greed to have ever more,
Lies and deceit riding on the backs of the poor,
leaving them to eat dirt while
using our abandoned pets as live bait.

Oh all for the good life,
for we are gonna have a good time.
No one’s manning spaceship earth
to busy fighting and dying
while we are spinning out of control.

Oh sweet love divine
where do we go from here
oh sweet love divine
where do we go from here.
You seem to have abandon this place

For why complain –
we are riding on the crest of sensation,
oh for we all have a good life,
oh sweet love divine

Gaia is opening up the book of change
bringing forth massive amounts of
anger, sadness and despair
For we have abandoned her
Now chaos sets the order of the day.

And when the morning sun has risen –
I will walk outside this world of dust
Watching
Mother Earth shed
her garment of expression,
awakening the deep strata of my soul
and sets it dancing with my shadow wondering,
where we will go from here?

After the tears – a gentle rain falls
One can sense a presence
to a life’s sustaining ocean
of a love that is freely given,
not bound to any one person or thing

Asking mankind to wear a coat of compassion
To hold on to what is good, —- All you need is love
For All Life!

POETRY Reading: A LAST LOOK BEFORE LEAVING, by David Cook .

Performed by Allison Kampf

POEM:

Suddenly she hadn’t the heart to quarrel.
‘He’s faithless and won’t change’
and with that thought was freed.
After he had gone out, she packed
and put her suitcase by the door.
A last look before leaving.
The rug chosen together in Istanbul,
chess set lovingly given him.
‘Three years and nothing.’

She walked towards the traffic and hailed a taxi,
in her raised hand the black queen.

POETRY Reading: Aren’t you tired of NYC?, by Marcela B

Performed by Allison Kampf

POEM

Many of us arrived in NYC with one luggage and a heart full of dreams.
When you are in New York city, you get psyched with its energy and immediately you start to ask why?

At the beginning you don’t know if it is because the astonishing architecture that intertwine the ” old” and the ” new”.
You don’t know if it is because the modern skyscrapers or because all the last century buildings with their emergency exit facades showing off.
You just feel it.

You don’t know if it is because the Broadway lights that makes you feel you’re in a non-stop, never ending party.
Or if it’s because the beauty of the Central Park that makes you feel you’re somewhere else for a moment.
You just feel it.

You don’t know if it is because this idea that you can be anywhere in less than 30 min by subway. Ah….the subway, this old, dirty, democratic and now first time disinfected system that carries the entire city from the homeless to the rich, from ordinaries to the celebrities.
You just feel it.

You don’t know if it’s because the bike lanes and citi bikes that makes you feel the wind in your face, the sun on your skin.
You just feel it.

You don’t know if it is because it feels you’re inside a movie set… is it fantasy? is it reality? Maybe both.

After sometime in New York, sooner or later you may realize the magic of this city actually does not rely on the outside.
The magic, the true magic, rely on the inside.

NY is tough, not everyone can make it here. It can be overwhelming.
You don’t know if it’s because the high rental fees and limited space.
Or if its because this city requires too much from you – NY always raises the bar.
From work, to restaurants, entertainment, to the possibilities… a wealth of possibilities.
You just feel it.

This constant and exhausting idea of #empirestateofmind that moves everything and everyone above and beyond.
You just feel it.

Now in middle of a pandemic anyone could think why stay in New York, why just not fly somewhere else, escape far away from this madness?

Well, New York never adapts to your desires, never adjust to your dreams, nor compromise. This city will punch you in your face more than you can possibly sustain, over and over again.

In the end, we are NY tough.
We know that we will fall not just once but many times, but we will rise stronger again.
We know that if we can make it here we can make it anywhere. We take this statement by heart.
We know this city has our back, for the best and the worst.

Today I can tell I am and always will be in love with this city, even tough every winter I may think otherwise, even tough I am living in the eye of the hurricane right now. The resilience found here cannot be found anywhere else.
You just feel it

It’s a privilege to call NYC home.
It’s a blessing to be surrounded for all the inspiring and spectacular minds that feed NYC’s veins and make us all addicted to be here, thus we persist.
We just feel it.

From Ash: Taming the Phoenix, by Abdullah Kinan

Performed by Allison Kampf

POEM:

“Look up at the night sky and count the stars until daybreak; my love for life now exceeds both the number of stars and the time it would take.

To traverse the horizon and navigate the seas, or brave the desert’s barren passages with ease; nothing is an impossible feat.

My love for life is power, empowering, serene. It motivates me to strive for the impossible- it motivates me to fly over obstacles.

I will crash through glass ceilings until the shattered mirrors falling over me reflect my yearning for the parts of myself that I’ve lost along my journey.

I yearn for the parts of me that drifted away like dust particles intercepting the rays of light that peer through the window at sunrise- perhaps those parts of me prevented me from inner peace.

Perhaps you’ll find those parts of me and I’ll find you- perhaps all hardship is a tool that we can utilize to hammer these lessons into our beings.

Perhaps some lessons are harder to penetrate- so never quiver or quake at the sight of the path towards the next mountain after you’ve just climbed to the first peak, because, verily, with every hardship there is ease.”

POETRY Reading: Random Forests, by Mark Tiegs

Performed by Allison Kampf

POEM:

we are in the random forests
we are. leo. adele. Ho[4][5] and Amit and German [6] in order (Fujitsu now)
we are random forests
we are decision trees. tree bagging (Main article: Bootstrap aggregating)
predictions for unseen samples x’ can be made by averaging the predictions
from all the individual regression trees onx’
we are from bagging to random forests
we are in the 7000 oaks
we are documenta 7 (joseph beuys)
we are 7000 oaks
we are the basalt stones pointing to the oaks
predictions for unseen situ (situationist international (not regression trees))
we are from random forests to 7000 oaks

POETRY Reading: The Keening Curlew, by Bill Mumford

Performed by Allison Kampf

POEM:

Hail, blown by Artic Maritime wind
Stings. Westmorland whitens, all sound freezes.
I take shelter in a silent lime kiln
Stone cold. No fire here, all warmth has been mined.
Pulled my dog close- wary with unease
Numbed. Quiet, waiting as the cold seeps in.

Steam of light cuts through an icy veil
Glimpses of a silhouette, then the lament
As a curlew keens his incantation.
His lovelorn song tells such a sad tale
Memories of moors filled with enchantment-
His thoughts turn- for hope and expectation.

They say: birth chimes bring the sick belief
Moment of joy in a landscape of grief

POETRY Reading: The Outskirts of Psychosis, by Divinia Reynolds

Performed by Allison Kampf

The Outskirts of Psychosis
By Divinia Reynolds

Upon the outskirts of the psychosis
They swirl up high, then swim subconscious, low:
Thoughts mill around like robust vivid fish,
But who can tell where each of them will go?

Man thinks: It’s strange- this thing we call ‘Today’.
Just as he meets the fork upon the road.
Ahead is traffic on its noiseless way
And trucks adrift like minds with heavy loads.

Like otherworldly dim decoration,
Like thoughts he can’t ever recall again,
Life fades like he’s just missed the occasion,
In alien worlds like this on hidden plains.

Remembering his escort, Man now talks
With less assurance than his first babbles
And as the two pursue this aching walk
His brother is perplexed by his mumbles

Man’s.Telling. Him
The. Bus. Numbers
Are. Written. Wrong
They’re. Back. To. Front
A. Different. Language…
They’re. All. Wrong

…He. Doesn’t. Understand.

MAN FEELS IT’S JUST IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE-
IT’S AGONY AND SOMETHING’S GOT TO GIVE.

For now, there’s so much Man can’t comprehend
Of One who waits to catch him when he falls.
He’s crumbling deep inside- he can’t pretend
And sensing he’s about to lose it all
But not that all’s restored by just one Friend:
Man’s eye can’t see nor Man’s ear hear His Call

This is a moment that together Man
And his new Friend in time come to transcend.
Yes, God can save a searching, crashing Man
Just when he feels he’s reached the very end.
The only thing I ask is that the actor/narrator notes the intention of the rhythm and punctuation and if the person producing the video decides the image of a person is shown saying the words of the poem, that the person looks at the camera as appropriate.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS IMPERFECT, by Boris Glikman

It is the middle of a sunny summer day
I am running down the stairs
quickly and excitedly, with my neighbours following me.

We all want to see the Sun
It just fell down in the front yard
I saw it coming down like an overripe cantaloupe,
staining the sky with sticky, succulent golden juices.

There it is,
lying on the ground,
a giant orange, trampling the grass it landed on,
squirting its warm essence all over our bodies.

The neighbourhood dogs are running around,
barking at this strange visitor.

I approach it warily. I touch it.
It is warm and beautiful,
glistening in the mid-noon light.

I remember well the feelings of amazement, incredulity,
inexplicable joy overwhelming me
and the comical expressions of confusion
on the faces
of my neighbours.

9/11 Attacks, by Janelle Barker

The day began like any other r
The sun rose, scattering to work,
Settling into their day, with a smirk.
8.46am thousands of lives, would change,
North Twin Tower was hit by a plane,
People thought, NO, that’s insane.
News came to those, yes it was true,
Some knew and others didn’t have a clue.
Terror attacks was announced
Disbelief from civilians, on the ground.
9.03am, no, not again
The South Tower was hit, oh Amen.
Survivors running for their lives,
Passing the dead, that, they did dread.
Parts of bodies everywhere,
We had no time, to stop to care.
We had to get out, as fast as we could,
Everyone knew, that was understood.

People jumping from the towers,
Things happened in minutes,
Which seem liked hours.
Flights hijacked, 93,77 and 175
All the passengers, tried their best
To stay alive.
Life that day, was out of control,
When the buildings were demolished
It left, a great big hole.
90 countries, lost loved ones,
Firefighters, military
And police,
are many of the rescue Workers,
that now rest in peace.
Estimated up to 19,000
In the towers upon attack,
So hard to believe
That this maybe fact.
Years later, people still dying,
To the families, related this
Is terrifying.
Exposed toxins from ground zero,
Pregnancy losses, cancers
No one can find answers.
A memorial was made
For all to see,
A reminder of life,
No one would disagree.
Pay your respect, for those we lost,
And say a prayer,
For no extra cost.
This moment in history,
the world will remember,
Let’s come together,
United we stand,
Hand in hand,
Let’s show the world what we can withstand