Author: poetryfest

I found it. Memories flooded back, splashed over me in waves, as the Old Ones promised.
I found it in the cellar. Stumbled upon my precious gray coat. Stashed in his double-locked oaken chest stowed there. My skin, long lost and now found. Found yesterday, when the fisherman left behind his skeleton keys. Bolted off to carouse at the pub. Forgot keys that always clanged from a leather cord wound round his waist.

The fisherman stole my skin years ago. He stalked shorelines with other ruffians. Louts tall as they were broad. Terrifying men armed with harpoons. Clubs. Chains. Men the Old
Ones warned of, deep beneath the sea.

Been seven years since he captured me. I was reckless then. Laughed away the Old Ones after cavorting in waves. I lolled on shore, naked and pale. A pillow of coarse curls fanned beneath my head. I dozed. In human form.
“Well, well. What treasure washed ashore?”

The fisherman caught me unawares. He loomed over me, blocked out the midday sun. I scrambled for my skin. He was quicker. He tucked my pelt under a massive arm. Gripped my wee webbed hand. Hauled me to his shack like wreckage. Forced me be his wife.
Gobsmacked by my unearthly beauty, so he claimed. As if that’s enough to right a wrong.

Straightaway, villagers set to whispering. His big-bosomed mother elbowed fishwives aside. Rose on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.
“Better tae keep selkie ways oot o’ her memory.”

Seafaring chums tapped leaky noses between puffs of smoke and chugs of brown drink.
They hissed advice.
“Best tae lock the skin away. Hide her coat? Steal her memories.”
“Aye! Lest yer selkie remember wild ways. Escape ye where waters are black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat.”

I glared at fisherfolk with fathomless eyes. No one gave a care for what I wanted. Nor wondered why I bolted each day to the shore. Nor fretted for loves I’d left behind. My seal husband. A mammoth bull, both gentle and ferocious. Our silver-spotted pups, enchanted all. I turned away, for I’d grant fisherfolk no satisfaction. They’d not spy seven salt tears escaped from my eyes.

The sea gives, and the sea takes. One fine thing it’s given me is patience. Patience over seven long years, trapped between Earth and Sea. Belonging to neither. Haunting both. The magic in me is old. Old as the sea. Magic spoken in a tongue ancient as time.

The fisherman’s at sea today. Out in a rickety boat.
I hurl ancient words across the waves:
You’ve no right to pluck a wild creature from the sea.
To keep it for yourself.

Hurl words to terrify him:
The sea gives, and the sea takes.
You took me from the sea. I’ll give the sea a bit of you in return.
Your boat’s drain plug.
The plug you kept latched with your skeleton keys.
So you’d never forget it.
I plucked it away with wee webbed hands.

I hurl the plug into the waves, dive in the opposite direction. The Old Ones trumpet a welcome home. My seal husband and daughters surround me with sleek heads. They bark in joy. Nearly enough to right a wrong.

when I come in October
thick fogs like scarves wrapped around
the Palace
of Culture and Science,
its slender neck
so deserving of
great honours of the first cold days.

I am in awe
as I brew my coffee in the morning,
open the window to gaze down upon the street –
its matutinal splendour.

I love the concrete,
how it graces the city cruelly.
Why does it rain so?
& blur my vision?

Now puddles look like pools of blood.
And my bedsheets! Marooned.
I could smell it – I’m sure –
if my nostrils weren’t bleeding too.

Are you awake? I know it’s early, but
my heart is heavy.
The beauty of things tires me
winds rushing through the gorge of Soviet buildings.

I can’t handle it
or thinking to myself as you sleep.

I am lonely
in ways you don’t understand.

My soul is not of a Greek goddess,
but if it was,
her name would stay unknown

no attributes, no voice.
Mistress of the world,
or essence.
Maybe Sea Foam,
in her most dense form.

I’ll remember you when “Somebody Else” cycles on the playlist’s shuffle,
when I prepare that asparagus and blue cheese dish with no trouble

I’ll remember you when there are lollipop lamb chops on the menu,
when someone talks about the latest UFC Fight Night venue

I’ll remember you when friends recall their wildest tequila nights,
when an acoustic version hits just right

I’ll remember you when I spot a kayak strapped to a pickup truck on the highway,
when I follow up with the phrase “They’re ready for a great day”

I’ll remember you when my friends adopt an English springer spaniel,
when I set sail out on the Halifax channel

When I do [remember] I think about how life is unjust,
How in the end we all rust

I’ll remember how you were gone too soon,
but this is what you chose to do.

I should end this poem here too,
but I’m so damn mad at you.

I don’t want to remember,
I don’t want this pain.

We were exes – long since decayed,
fated to never speak again anyway.

I don’t feel right to miss
mourn
moralize
muse

that much is true

but when I do,
I’ll remember you.

January is the cruellest month, this year, fucking
the population out of greed, mixing
politics with lust, and obsession with young girls.
I see a lion eating its young, and butterflies sleeping on a log in a river.
I see Gary Snyder masturbating in a forest, and he’s writing a poem about his orgasm.
I see a waterhole with clothes on the rocks beside it, and hear people shuffling, water splashing.

Outside of the forest, I see tourists taking pictures of brutalist architecture
and somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains, trees are being burnt to build a
Dollar Tree.

And I see a cyber truck parked next to Watauga River
and I see Richard Siken getting off in that river he said he
threw his sadness in.

And I see a high speed police chase on a highway
but someone is on the edge of the railing about to jump off
And I see the
And I see the
And I see the
And I see the
And I see the
And I touch myself to get away from it
And I feel the

And I feel every thing all the fucking time.
And I’m a good human nature case for Gary Snyder to write about
Maybe he can write a poem about bathing me.

And I’m a good major-depressive
hyper-sexual male case for Richard Siken to write about
Maybe he can write about me having sex while
I bleed

And everyone’s hungry
even the good men are

And everyone’s hungry
even the good men are
And everyone’s hungry
even the good men are
And everyone’s hungry
even the good men are
And everyone’s hungry
are there good men anymore
And everyone’s hungry
And everyone’s hungry
And everyone’s hungry.
And everyone’s hungry. help me.

for my Step-Father

Spanky’s Pizza was ground zero.
Three fishbowl margaritas in,
my mom, my grandma, and my stepdad Tom
looked like extras from The Walking Dead: Tequila Edition.

Their limbs were spaghetti.
Their words were soup.
Grandma mistook a potted plant for a small child.
Tom, eyes crossed and heroic,
handed me the keys.

I was thirteen.
Barely five feet tall.
Absolutely zero business operating a motor vehicle
on a major Texas freeway.

But Tom had been training me.
Gravel lots. Stick shifts.
“Ease off the clutch like you’re sneaking past a sleeping bear,”
he told me,
like Yoda with a hangover and a need for speed.

So I got in.
The Datsun 200SX—silver, cranky,
and shaped like it had unresolved issues with the 1980s.
I turned the key. It coughed.
I shifted. It groaned.
We understood each other.

First gear. Stall.
Try again. Catch it. Go.
Merge onto the freeway
with a car full of humans
who were technically still conscious
but spiritually horizontal.

Grandma tried to sing “Free Bird”
but got distracted by a passing billboard.
Mom hung her head out the window
and gave the asphalt her soul.

Tom navigated like a pirate with a head injury.
“Exit in… two miles? Or half a mile?
Is that a Taco Bell or a hallucination?”

I drove like my middle school reputation was on the line.

Every gear shift, a triumph.
Every honk from another driver, a badge of courage.
The Datsun roared. I grinned.
Houston didn’t deserve me.

We made it home.
Tom gave me a thumbs-up
and then fell asleep face-first in the grass.
Mom and Grandma threw up in stereo—
one on the lawn, one in the flower bed.

And I,
thirteen and undefeated,
parked that car smoother than a valet at a country club,
walked inside,
and finished my pre-algebra like the legend I had become.
Barn Raising
for my father

In late afternoon
A shadow falls
Fred parks his yellow VW bus at the shed
Mops his brow
Calls inside
What’s for dinner?

Whistles to his Lab Elmer
And gives him a treat to chew.
Wipes his work boots at the stoop.
Pushes the massive brass handle
Which slips out of the one ragged screw holding it in.

The kitchen is warm and inviting
With hand me down linens and chipped China
A cracked mug from that Red Sox game.

Janice stands by the stove
Singing a random tune
Dum de de dum dum de de Dee

How my best girl he asks
Feeling better she answers
Those darn pills. They sap my energy.

Too much to expect them to work instantly, my dear.

He extracts a Heineken from the fridge
And disappears into the dark hall.

“You know you almost died out there,” he said to me.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” my reply.
For you can choose to believe in death
Or not.
Either way it’s laced with fear
Until you realize that
We were never actually born.

But always were.

Emanating, radiant beings of light
Sparkling, shining, luminous.
Infinity itself
For just one speck of a second,
We plea
Or are pleaded with
To take the plunge
Into form.

Nothing changes when we go back home
We were already there, we never left.
Tho perhaps we became a bit
Raveled up
In the story of form
The flowing, the fulfilling, the flavours.
And we forgot that all along

We’ve been tucked into our sacred bed
With those we hold dear.
We never left them, only forgot what they looked like!
And now I see your deep, wild godly eyes again.
And oh, I am home. Precious, holy, beyond words
Or form.

“You know you almost died out there,” he said to me.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” my reply.
For you can choose to believe in death
Or not.
Either way it’s laced with fear
Until you realize that
We were never actually born.

Four years I have been here now.
Every single day, washing away like sand in the sea.
Every day, we wish for change—
for comfort,
for once to be seen,
to be cherished like human beings.
But here we are, caged like animals.

Four years I have been here now.
Every single day, blowing away like dust in the wind.
We stand in line,
waiting for our thirst to be quenched,
for just enough to survive.
Sometimes it feels like we might waste away,
at the mercy of those who give,
who might spare a drop of kindness.
And still, we are caged like animals.

Four years I have been here now.
Every single day, I am a star lost in the crowd.
Packed together with no space to breathe.
Maybe we are not stars.
Maybe we are only shadows in a cage.
So many eyes, but none that truly see.

Some are sad.
Some are angry.
Some are tired.
None are happy.
And still, every day is the same.
So much that it all blends together—
our lack of water,
our lack of food,
our lack of shelter,
our lack of joy.

Four years I have been here now.
Every single day, hoping for a change.
I know it will come.
But for now, I survive.
To one day greet that change with open arms

A misty figure appears, how curious.
For it appears beneath the tabletop.
I make sure, look under the surface once again.
And yes, truly, there it sits, having chased away the shadow.

I glance around, no one else seems to have noticed,
no one else has thought to look under the table.
After all, there’s already enough to see on the table:
– Glasses, filled
– Plates, filled
– Cigarette packs, half-filled
– Hands, intertwined
– Flower vases, displaced
– Notebooks, untouched

I peek down again.
And it’s still there, clinging tightly to the table leg.
Poor little thing, has it perhaps lost its mother?
Glasses clink and bump. It flinches.

I look at the others at the table and ask for a napkin.
They hand me one.

I reach under the table, trying to gather the little thing.
It moves, and the table begins to shake.

“Hey, careful down there,” someone says to me.
With a red head I explain,
“Yes, yes. I just wanted to pick up an olive.”

Then I stare at it, straight into those tiny black eyes.
It stares back, defiant.
I slowly extend the hand holding the napkin.
It hisses at me, and startled, I bump my head on the tabletop.

And the table shakes.
And the half-empty glasses fall.
And the half-full plates fall.
And the empty cigarette packs fall.
And the hands dart for the glasses.
And the displaced flower vases fall.
And the untouched notebooks fall.

Every Sunday,
Visit to Pap’s.
Mandatory.
No excuses.
Even as a boy,
I know where we would find you
Every Sunday,
Squatting on his your legged footstool watching the Pirates
Lose another game
OR
At the head of the kitchen table.
Either location,
An ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon
And an ashtray, overflowing with butts
Always within arm’s reach.
Every Sunday
After we leave your house, Pap,
My mother tells me how
(When she is a girl),
You come home, more often than not.
Drunk.
Then your mother
(Who lived next door)
Would chase you with a broom, screaming.
Every Sunday,
2
You proclaim.
“You should be a football player.”
And that’s wrong.
Even as a child, I am built like a linebacker
Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested
(Just like you).
“You should be a football player.”
I do not want to.
I am not like other boys.
I don’t like to get dirty.
Or sweaty.
Or knocked down.
No rough-housing for me.
One day (before his NFL dream for me dies)
Pap says, “Let’s go see a man about a horse.”
Can I believe my ears? Pap is buying me a pony!
But we do not end up seeing a horse.
Or at a farm.
Or a stable.
No, it’s his favorite watering hole where
(As my mother would say, “He drank our lives away.”)
There, you hoist me up onto a bar stool
(A stool so high, my feet do not touch any of the foot reasts)
And orders me a soda and a bag of chips.
Then he goes to the corner to chat with his cronies, while I—
A child sitting on a bar stool, sips the coldest soda I have ever tasted,
(And addicts me to a lifetime of drinking in bars with men.)
Every Sunday.
3
“You should be a football player.”
Finally, when I find the courage to say
NO.
I prefer to write, to draw, to read.
Then you nickname me…
“The Professor.”
Never as a compliment.
Always as a sneer
“The Professor.”
An accusation..
Something to bring shame.
Somehow, then, you know my secret.
You know my shame
Long before I know it has a name.
Every Sunday.
“The Professor.”
Eager for your praise.
Your acceptance,
I bring you my newspaper clippings.
Proud of my accomplishments.
An art show.
An essay contest.
You have clipping, too, retrieved from his wallet.
Folded, yellowed, brittle with age.
Arrests.
Drunk and disorderly.
Public intoxication.
And the strange thing is…
You are as proud of these “accomplishments” as I am of mine.

Now that I am even older than you were when the cirrhosis and cigarettes
Took you,
I see we are more alike than I care to admit.
Tonight.
As I slowly sink into the amber cesspool of this bottle,
I realize we ease our pain with alcohol.
You with Pabst; Me with bourbon.
We both chain smoke.
But you pinch the butt of your unfiltered Pall Mall between your thumb and index finger—
Both stained orange with nicotine.
I hold my Gauloise between my index and middle fingers
The way I’d seen Better Davis did in all her films,
Except maybe Jezebel.
I hate that I am like you.
I hate that you made me feel worthless
Not good enough.
Not man enough.
And this is what you taught me.
This is what I learned.
Every Sunday.