Author: poetryfest

Sometimes I hate you, Anxiety.
You’re intrusive,
in the way,
too loud.
Protector? Yes.
But kind? No.

But maybe it’s not just me.
We poets
walk around
with open hearts—
raw.
Vulnerable? Yes.
But powerless? Never.

Over the verdant hills we roll,
and down a path I only feign to stroll.
You reach for my hand
an act I find too grand.

My intentions I’ve not made clear,
but calling them weeds was fatal, my dear.
Yellow dots flood the view,
where rot gives way to birth anew.

A dollop of butter perched on top
a decadent smear no slight can stop.
All blanketed in orpiment dread,
you claimed my tastes were always misled.

brightness spreads a cloud of germs
bloated corpse infested by worms.
But let us be clear, you are the one mistaken.
My determination remains resolute and unshaken.

Out here, it’s just us, alone.
I’ve chosen your modest burial stone.
I hear them whisper, Where did Leo go?
I’ll be the only damned soul to know.

Dandelions are no blight
I wrap this cord ever so tight.

brightness spreads a cloud of germs
bloated corpse infested by worms.
But let us be clear, you are the one mistaken.
My preference is resolute and unshaken

a hand searches
my unrecognized face
as glue

new creases—
above brow, a crevasse
of floating courage

each texture waxes
and wanes a
moon story—

fraught beams lift beyond
and fall below
tidal currents of skin

testament flesh

wearing evidence
of grief’s illumination
gently pulling wake
through love’s shadow

The construct of our time
Only love is on the mind
A fearful path that shrouds my kind
Leaves a loner tears to cry

Tensions rise as stars do shine
A blackened fog he lies upended
Of woeful blows tends to be untended
Under the blink of nights resigned

“Why me?” He asks within a dream
A pointless line his much do seem
All he wills, a chance to keep her
For he’s a dreamer, not our seeker

Poorer men lose their prime
No playful fun, no rule of thumb
By their design
And how it made their life so benign

What made a fool, a fool to them?
A learning curve when they were ten
Taught mock and jeer they now so fear
An unfair system, an unfair victim

Troubled by the lights surmised
Not a glow that he must hide
With now a flicker he sees her eyes
But are they her’s or those he tried
To throw away, to feel just fine
Obscure a gaze that once was high
Becomes an object, to him a crime

A whirlwind spectre that drove him blind
Meant that she would not be mine
A feeling cruel, yet not demise
For birds still fly, so you do not
Bunkered in the ground, you may just rot
Though, peer out,
Why not say “Hi”

He was never
Coming back
She could accept that
Now

The fights, the love
The joy
Despair
Had gone their final round

She let the calm
Flow over her
Unable yet
To miss

No mental checks
Of what he’d do
Her thoughts began
To drift

Who was she
Before him?
She never really
Knew

What was she
Without him?
She could learn that
Too

So much she never
Noticed
Living
As she had

She vowed to become
Mindful
To think and act
And plan

A sense of wellness
Filled her heart
Her life would now
Be good

And with a smile
She would begin
By cleaning up
The blood.

Nature Poems
July 2, 2025

Lightning Strikes Back
Lightning shows color.
Kick ass thunder makes me small.
I feel light-headed.

Nature Takes Its Course
The branches on crack.
Twigs ain’t got nothin’ to last.
Fog sits and wonders.

Pennypack Creek
Throwing stones against
Big boulders just to watch them
Shatter into peace.

The ocean didn’t ask
why I came crying.
It just opened—
wide and salt-skinned—
and let me break.

No permission needed.
No diagnosis to explain.
Just waves
rushing in
like they already knew
what I had lost.

I stood there,
ankles buried in grief,
hands full of
nothing
but the ache of what never came.

The seagulls didn’t pity me.
The sun didn’t pretend
to fix what was broken.
They just stayed—
present,
still,
true.

I whispered names
I was never allowed to say out loud.
Let the tide
carry them somewhere soft.
Somewhere holy.

This is what the earth does—
it holds us
without needing a reason.
And still,
we call ourselves barren
instead of beginning.

But I have bloomed here.
In salt.
In silence.
In the soft rhythm
of being
alive anyway.

of the one room country
shack is ajar
something prevents
it from closing
all the way
it is the corpse
of an elderly man
flies congregate

END

Born broken,
forced into braces,
they said I didn’t walk right.

I move too fast
for greedy fingers.

Tip toeing through the garden —
or was it through life?

One year,
two?

I lost count of
the sunsets.

Rising light filters through east windows.
I can’t help but think of

You.

Your fingers weren’t greedy
but I ran anyway.

Wet grass hits my feet
and I’m on my toes again.