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.

“What reading does, ultimately, is keep alive the dangerous and exhilarating idea that a life is not a sequence of lived moments, but a destiny…” — Art of Quotation

What reading does, ultimately, is keep alive the dangerous and exhilarating idea that a life is not a sequence of lived moments, but a destiny …the time of reading, the time defined by the author’s language resonating in the self, is not the world’s time, but the soul’s. Sven Bikerts, writer

via “What reading does, ultimately, is keep alive the dangerous and exhilarating idea that a life is not a sequence of lived moments, but a destiny…” — Art of Quotation

about saying goodbye to my grandmother by Lauren Burstein

Instagram: @laurenrachel414

it wasn’t possible.
in DNA, in gestures
you remain.
your dark European years,
now woven, abstract haunts.
saying goodbye is a social construct,
because
my vision of you
experience of you
transcends celestial orbits.
even when you’re lost,
i always find you
in nursery rhymes,
in chicken soup
in my mother’s face.
without a goodbye there is no closure,
but love moves in open space.

Marina Dymchenko Lily In The Darkness, by Marina Dymchenko

A peaceful Lily in the darkness
Was looking up to big bright Moon
Whose light so cold and calm and harmless
Was making Lily almost swoon.

It bathed in it, it awed, admired
Until a random someone asked:
“Are you not even little tired
That with that Moon you’re noticed last?

That no one looks under the feet
When beauty is so high above,
And do you think you really need
To stay down there and wait for love?

The Lily did not frown or fret,
It looked around and softly said:
“I am not here to be compared,
I am not here to fight or please,
My light is there to be shared,
To softly flow in silent peace,
I don’t need anyone to notice
How hard or not it is to grow,

I’m NOT ALONE creating all this,
For it’s Moon’s light that makes me glow.”
The lesson is – we’re all in this together,
And each of us has our path and pace,
We’re meant to thrive, not ask how, why, or whether,
To shine our light in OWN perfect ways.

Ode to the girl with the sunflower tattoo, by Khadija Ajaoud

I saw you once, a long time ago
and felt as we met in our lives elsewhere.
I tried to sing but I stuttered
And could noway pronounce the word liberta
As you like people to pronounce it.

I killed all the airs then and sank
In the sounding of your voice.
I was frightened to explore you,
As well as the thousand little nerves
inside my heart.

You were walking on my stanzas
Soundless just as your plastic bags of tobacco
And i was pretending triteness
Telling you about how picasso met Fernand olivier

We were pure as a soft morning breeze
Floating around.
You and I where we came from?
Are we from the murmuring of the mid-sea swell?
Or the wall where scarlet windows burn?

Or hope or calm
Or wisdom of the East!

The Aura of a Being, by Andrea Irigoyen Paez

Soul that blows
stripping the wishes
from dark corners.
You light up the passions.
From a horizon,
infinite and mysterious.
Only God created you.
Those who swim to you,
they discover
the essence of being.
As the autumn leaves fall,
You’re lighting up the hope.
And when
the eternal winter comes,
You whisper,
look at around you.
Be the aura
of what was once,
lost.

Lyrics While on an Edible on the Plane Back From California, by Siena Facciolo

I’ll go to visit you
In the green fields of my youth
Your skin as soft as flowers
That dot the hillside

My mother she will hold
Your hand until she knows
That you will safely make it
Through her memories

I remember summer treats
Blueberries between my teeth
Raw cane sugar in a little bowl
Whole-oat oatmeal by the window

I can’t recall the sound
Of your voice while we sat around
The dining room table full
Of food we had to share

I loved that magnet on your fridge
Of Jesus on a tie die binge
I’d get him down to his underwear
Then dress him up again

The Siena-colored kitchen floor
the swinging swanging screen porch door
Your many-layered pantry shelves
Your late-life rebellion

I’ll go to visit you
In my mother’s arms at night
Your skin as soft as flowers
Your eyes hold futures bright

Mother Earth Resists, by Lisa Makarchuk

For money, for greed
We’re encouraged to dig
So we fracked
And we hacked
And we burned
We cracked her veneers
Penetrated her shades,
Her shrouds and her veils
Destroyed many valleys
Killed her trees, animals
Birds, and the bees
Excavated and gouged
Piercing her rocky armours
Unfreezing her innards
Tunneling thru her veins
Hollowing out her lodes
Mining her richness
Hidden for eons
Exposing delicate rhythms
As we unearthed and raped
While stalking her body
Destroying her balance.

She stormed in protest
with warnings to change our ways
exposed us to
scorching heat
weather extremes
devastating tornadoes
overwhelming gales.
She turned down her covers
bared lands into deserts
released plagues upon us.
Is it markets or life?
That is our choice.
The tipping point has arrived
Have you chosen your side?