The cashier at Walgreens knows that I will not fill out the customer satisfaction survey but she points to the website on my receipt anyway. And I love that about her. I smile, thank her graciously, and leave, walking through the sliding doors into humidity. The heat reminds me of an Indian woman I saw in the cosmetic aisle. Her hair was thick and frizzy, almost grazing her hips. Her fingertips rested on a box of hair dye. For who? I don’t know. Perhaps herself, perhaps the part of her that never experimented with hair color or piercings or tattoos but she’s finding time for all that now. I look at her more meticulously, taking inventory of her details the way men do when they see a beautiful woman. She is wearing a t-shirt with a band’s name across the chest in bold yellow lettering. Her hips and legs are covered by a flouncy blue skirt with pockets and ruffles. There are burgundy sneakers on her feet. Her clothing reveals an edge, or rather, a texture that her demeanor lacks. I check her arms and neck for tattoos, her ears for piercings but all is bare. I wonder if the tattoo I am looking for is concealed on a brown limb beneath her skirt. I wonder if there are saris hanging in her closet, if she speaks Bengali, if her grandparents live in a flat along the Arabian sea growing herbs on their balcony, still waiting for their children to visit. I wonder what literature she enjoys. I wonder if she likes what the humidity has done to her hair. I wonder if we’d get along. I wonder if she will fill out the customer satisfaction survey, or disregard it like me.
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.
Read Poem: HAPPY POEM, by Bluebell Rizzi
They told me to write a happy poem
Said that my writing makes me sad
And everyone who reads it will feel blue
They told me to write a happy poem
I said, “I do not wish to lie!”
Fake it till you make it, they told me
So should I live a lie?
My poetry is the only thing I have
That is for me; and only me
It wraps me up in a warm hug
Kisses my head
Shows me the light
My sad poems do not mean I am miserable
It’s just that when I’m happy
I lack the words to describe it
They told me to write a happy poem
So they could be happy
But all I could say was:
“I do not wish to lie.”
~ Bluebell Rizzi
Read Poem: An Enchanted Tale, by Crouching Dragon
The daffodils are blooming, their scent it fills the air, the bees are busy buzzing around, the sound is a fanfare.
The dragonflies are darting, dynamic blue and green, all across this part of earth it truly sets a scene.
I gaze towards the woodland, a sight that’s to behold, amazing carpets of purpley blue, cover every mound and fold.
The bluebells are amazing, imagine their delicate ring, the fairies are rejoicing, and I can hear them sing.
Somewhere in the distance, I can vaguely hear, the chuckling of children, and then….walks by a deer.
It’s time for procreation, for animals around, the birds are flirtily singing, oh what a heavenly sound.
I move on to the ocean with sun rays shining down, it looks as if a thousand stars, last night had fallen down.
The children I did mention, but a short time before, are innocently blowing bubbles, on a rock beside the shore.
I see some feisty mermaids, on the horizon in a haze, but what I witness next, puts me into a daze.
Half a dozen bubbles float across my path, and from one of these bubbles, I’m sure I heard a laugh.
And then right there before me, just like a crystal ball, a bubble popped quite suddenly, and out from it did fall.
Two rainbow fairies who then, spread their fairy wings, as they flew back quite flighty, to toadstool fairy rings.
Oh Nature’s so amazing, if you just open your eyes, from unicorns and dragons, to castles in the skies.
With open heart, you can see all this, just lighten up and look, it’s oh so real, not fairytales that you read in a book.
blog is aviewintomyuniverse.wordpress.com
Genres: fairytale, spirituality, nature, hope, happiness
Read Poem: Ativan, by David Antrobus
I might well add
lorazepam to this list.
Please. Let me slip, then sleep.
Decades of congregants
arm-linked with benzos, all
gleaming like cumulative
dreams. I wanna hiss and creep
assembled purple, yet
they’re reds and blues and most
refuse to even meet. Summoned
and huddled below the hills.
Aye, I crawled and hurled in
your clawfoot tub.
Your throat is open; I will bring only kindness.
This. Oh, this. You harvest this…
Never forget the blue-scratch scry of the sky.
You ready yet? You marshalled
flocks and stockpiles. Corralled
a mess of ungulates. Oh. You,
woke and vital, primed to
track and keep on following,
ceaselessly fingering me,
blastocysts and humunculi,
enduring, narcotized, eternally
transgressed. Is this
how each and every goatlike story
dreams-undreams, and trips upon its end,
restless, barely dressed, so endlessly
unblessed?
Read Poem: While The Sun Shine On Me – Lawrence Mathebula.
Look now, who’s going home fully
happy
Celebrating life in the place
of a want-to-be?
I am one among the things;
A star, born was the king.
Not about me always;I talked more
on us,
Written most on love, poetry
and Mannaz
Gave to more or less the souls,
Inspiring was the goal:
To reach thy deeper place;
Bring light, to your dark days
An hour, this and next
Sun’s light show us the west
Days coming and unfold
Every morning, every marigold.
Read Poem: Concho-Pharmacology, by Mara Katcher
where are my pearls
that leave a powder behind?
they come in a plastic clam
with seven opening chambers,
I wash them back with a tide of tap water,
so they settle inside my stomach and make me into
a cushiony clam myself
with tablet pearls within
until they dissolve in me
like sand in the ocean.
Read Poem: Self-Assertion, by Gary Beck
The desperate need
to differentiate oneself
from regular citizens
was once done
by wearing a social garment,
zoot suits, pegged pants,
motorcycle jackets,
disheveled jeans.
Social responsibilities changed.
It was no longer sufficient
to dress differently.
Body art, piercing,
gaudy colored hair
became normal,
to allow conformists
to stand out from the herd.
Read Poem: Journeys of Mortals, by Toyin Sebastien Ajimati
We are born eventually knowing that we will die,
Yet that reality brings fear, faith, infatuation and a mystic that is unmatched in our existence,
From scriptures to sacrifice we are godless to what is to some a God requirement of this universe,
Some try to reverse and stop the inevitable,
By shaping themselves with man made plastics and superficial substances or some try by nourishing
themselves with fruits and vegetables,
Each to his own on this journey of mortal life,
That has demonstrated the best and worst in humanity day and night,
Each breath we all take is our possible last,
No matter how much wealth and domination one has he or she cannot bribe or escape the mortal
hourglass,
At times it seems we take that for granted and do not reflect on others we have witnessed pass,
For they have and continue to remind us that we are not greater than this magnificent earth & universe
that surrounds us,
Because simply we are just precious pieces to something greater that we cannot conquer , outlast or
outclass.
Read Poetry: War Cry, by Megan OKeeffe
Don’t open my door if you aren’t going to close it when you leave
Are you listening to me?
I deserve respect no matter my size or shape, just like everyone else
I am not some object to conquer or kill
Are you listening to me?
The Taliban cannot just board my dusty school bus and fire three shots at me
I am not some object to conquer or kill
You, with your rough whiskers, must face the consequences of what you take
The Taliban cannot just board my dusty school bus and fire three shots at me
You are right to fear that I may know too much, that education is serving me right
You, with your rough whiskers, must face the consequences of what you take
I am learning that a woman is worth more than just how much she can please a man
You are right to fear that I may know too much, that education is serving me right
Do your worst, I will still be standing against you at the end of each day
I am learning that a woman is worth more than just how much she can please a man
My name is Malala, your bullets will not silence me
Do your worst, I will still be standing against you at the end of each day
I deserve respect no matter my size or shape, just like everyone else
My name is Malala, your bullets will not silence me
You cannot just close this door after you open it
Read Poetry: The Fall, by Lucy FitzGerald
A cloud of smoke haunted us
until an empty gale blew it away
A susurrus of dead leaves and poison dioxide
I sat silent
benchside
cess
benchside
sycophants
A ménage à trios of social decay
And while I was breathing
Death’s frozen kiss
they cradled their own disgrace
My company
a cigarette
snug between bones
I drift away
taken up by the death shroud
of mixed Autumn and cyanide
Falling
Until
something sweet
something warm
a candle in the pit
We ran to a campus cubicle
where we lined
lines on Lovecraft
Remnants blow away
with autumnal foliage
As my torments ripple
my eyes open.
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