Author: poetryfest

You shake my hand
Then she does,
Her warm hands are unfamiliar
Yours are cold and too much so,
I knew them because you made sure I did.
Through the cotton of my shirt to the thickness of my dancing pants,
My feet drew art on the carpet that you wiped clean with one strike,
One too tender touch you were not asked for.

I don’t know you like family.
Even as you encroach and penetrate,
Ducking your head under my grandmother’s door
Taking sips out of my sweet aunty’s cup,
Your smiles and pleasantries slap me with how casual they seem and
All but the guilty look in your eye
Wrings the truth of your torment out of my reality,
I cling to the memory of my fat ring turned
So that the bulk is in my shaking palm as I itched to hurt you for what you did,
A palm with no fingers, no function, no precision,
Nothing to hold and make my twitches action,
No-one to hit you as hard as you deserved.

Does she know who you are?
Does she know what you are?
She smiles at me, unaware that her homemaker
Destroyed my safety in mine.
I wish I could have sent a message
Through the brown etching in my palms
Past the encryption on my fingerprints
Through the chipped nail polish to the depths of what makes us women,
That she should grab herself
And run.

Pain isn’t gentle it carves with a blade,
rips through the quiet like thunder delayed.
It stains the floor where the dream once stood,
turns gold into rust, turns joy into wood.

But from splinters, the sculpture begins to rise,
born not of peace, but of sleepless skies.
The canvas cracks, but it still takes form,
a masterpiece molded from every storm.

Brushes dipped in nights that bled,
lines that shake with words unsaid.
Each verse, a bruise dressed up in rhyme,
each chorus, a wound still counting time.

What broke became a beat, a stroke,
an echo pulled from when silence spoke.
No hand creates without the quake,
no art is born without the break.

Clay remembers every press,
marble holds the heaviness.
Colors scream before they shine.
pain is the ink inside the line.

Not every fire is meant to burn,
some were lit so light could learn.
Creation crawls from aching dust,
not from love, but from broken trust.

See how the sorrow shapes the sound,
how beauties built from battleground.
The melody moans, the palette weeps,
truth only grows where memory sleeps.

No name, no face, no single scar,
just thunder sculpted into art.
And when the weeping finally ceased,
the wreckage hummed a kind of peace.

So let the page remember pain,
let brushstrokes mimic acid rain.
From chaos came this final part,
what hurt the most still made the art.

In owned reverie, how the spirit moves …
How it bodes, to what it knows,
How she thinks on her feet without even moving –
through the sweetgrass over my door to enable me somehow.

Bones beneath the flesh, framing this body, caging my soul,
Between open windows.

How the heart-shaped leaf groove bites my coffee table,
Decorative, at each quaff, like a map of life.

Cedar forests barricade me against bad juju, voodoo hags, the enticing tongues,
Secures me a spot, one tiny dot, nowhere inside the teak-tree grove,
Counters the approaching death,
How it hews my enmities, and slow ravaging distractions.

Dissipated smokes in my Yrgacheffe distil my thoughts
Crouch me low, I hear a prayer moan slow.
Rain on skin, beats the chivalry I fought

I duck myself, mawkish, and rest my feet.
In the corner, at an end to sauntering, indeed.
Deboned of flesh, stepped outside the shadow
An after-hours damp waft off the mercado

How it brings to my soul a clarity long sought.

Women are turning into monsters
And it’s fashionable

We love long red claws
The sultry color of blood
The color has become sensual
We call it prettier things, of course
“Cranberry, sunburnt”

We darken our eyes
Smudge them on purpose
To mimic the stains of ferocious tears
We mimic pain
But we call it prettier things, of course
“Eyeliner, eyeshadow”

We dress up for attention
We aspire to invoke strong feeling
All dark colors and moody accessorizing
We call these prettier things, of course
“Feminine gaze, femme fatal, black swan beauty”

Call us extreme, call us monsters
We’ll become it
We’ll scare you in being it
But we’ll call it prettier things, of course
“Feminism, Fashion, Confidence”

ANGEL the ANGLERFISH swims toward the ocean surface.)

ANGEL the ANGLERFISH:

They say I’ve got a face only a mother could love, but if that’s true, where is she?
Mom? Is that you?
Ha! Just kidding.
It’s just another rock approached from an awkward angle.
Might be surprised how often I do that—come at things all wrong.
A bit ironic, don’t you think?
An anglerfish who never quite understands the angle.
Always expecting the best from others, only to be met with disappointment time and time
again.
Always lured in by something bright.
A smile. A laugh.
Only to be rejected because of my own grin.

Ocean’s a scary place. But it’s easier to survive if you have teeth.
It’s crazy how many times I’ve been used by others to deflect the unwanted attention of
an overeager suitor. A deranged ex. A predator.
Used like some kind of guard dog. A friend with no benefits.
Ocean’s a scary place. A lonely place.
Especially if you have teeth.

Mom…
Do my fangs jut just like hers?
How would I know? We’ve never met.
She laid her clutch of eggs and ran.
Ocean’s a scary place. Why try to navigate it while being weighed down by family?
My siblings and I hatched in darkness.
Were swallowed up by it, or by things lurking in it that are far worse.
For all I know, I’m the only one still swimming.
Does that make me the strongest? Or the luckiest?
Because I certainly don’t feel lucky.
To live in shadows. To be a shadow to happier fish.

Tell me, when do I get to be somebody’s light?
Not just a silly, deceptive trick.
But truly.
When can I be what helps someone to see the world at its best?
With a face like this, would the world ever care to show me its best?
Do I belong in the dark, with the unseemly and grotesque?

Ocean’s a scary place. Things even eerier than I am call it home.
Take, for example, who—what—I encountered today.
At first, all I heard was a chuckle. Sounded like it could be from a new friend.
I followed the laughter. Discovered its source.
A fissure in the seafloor, glowing red, pulsing warm. Ripped open by last night’s quake.
Tectonics have been busy lately.

Ocean’s a scary place. The giggling—it came from within the gleaming tear.
It came from a face more jarring than my own.
A massive, blanched face, attached to something larger than a whale.
Something impossible. Something trapped but almost free.
Not a friend. Absolutely not a friend.
Though, it pretended to be one.

“Hiya,” it said from between crimson lips. “How nice of ya to say hello!”
But I didn’t say hello. I didn’t say a word.
“Fun’s almost here,” the thing said. “Circus has come to town! There’ll be lotsa lights.
Lotsa cheer.”
And then it cackled. A horrible sound. Not friendly in the least.
Sure, I’ve heard of a clownfish, but this… This was a monster fish.
Rotten fish. Nightmare fish.
Not even a fish.
“Want a balloon?” it asked, reaching out to me with a claw.

I swam away as fast as I could, wanting nothing of what it offered.
But “balloon” gave me an idea.
Don’t know why I’d never thought of it before.
Up.
I could go up.
I should go up.
Up, up, up!
Ocean’s a scary place. But maybe less scary up there.

Should’ve tried this a long time ago.
But that’s the thing about darkness.
Once it gets its hooks in you, it never wants to let you leave.
It fills you so completely, you forget anything else exists.
But now I’m looking up.
I’m swimming up.
Moving on up.
Up, up, up!
Changing my perspective. Trying a different angle.

Trying to see Mom.
Untethered. Without anchors.
Duties fulfilled, wanting something other than a lifetime enveloped in gloom.
She’s light, heaviness discarded beneath her.
Lifting higher and higher.
Maybe she’s up this way, where I haven’t ever looked.
She’s out of the black. She’s a part of the blue.

And, now, so am I.
No longer a shadow.
Finally, shining. Rising.
Giggling.
Part of the blue.

But there’s also green. Yellow. Orange. Pink. Violet.
A vibrant palette. A circus to escape and explore.
Ocean’s a scary place.
But there’s beauty here, too.

End of monologue.

The words do not reach me in the last pew.
The preaching is as sonorous and unknowable
as the Latin intoned for centuries to illiterates.
I would guide my behavior on what is said
but can grasp only fragments of phrases.
Does the failing of my hearing or listening
leave me vulnerable to sinning in ignorance,
or could I be saved by spiritual resonance?
My pew has the trappings of Limbo.

This monologue is from my full-length play entitled Clarissa Buys The Flowers Herself, which is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. In it, Clarissa remembers and laments the 1918 Pandemic.

CLARISSA

How did he kill himself? Why did he do it? (writes in journal) Death is defiance? Death is an attempt to communicate? Is there an embrace in death?

SHE parts the curtain and notices an old woman in a nearby window. THEY stare at one another for many beats. THEY both put a hand up to the glass as if to connect.

What is this fervent insistence to move forward as if nothing ever happened? How can everyone forget about all the illness, death, and destruction? Where is the human regard for everything we lost? I never met you, young man, but we’re so much alike. Fear no more the heat o’ the sun / Nor the furious winter’s rages / Thou thy worldly task has done / Home art gone, and taken thy wages / No exociser harm thee! / Nor no witchcraft charm thee / Nothing ill come near thee / Quiet consummation have / And renowned be thy grave. (pause) Four exact rhymes and one slant rhyme. Is life just one epic contradiction? (pacing) What is it about tonight that makes me question everything? Who am I to be the wife to an upper-class man? Why did I chase social success? I compromised my passion and my soul when I married Richard. (wiping away tears)
That young man preserved his soul by choosing death. I must come to terms with my life. I must come to terms with who I am today … pale … thin … weak … tired … I’ll come to terms with all of this and endure. I am Mrs. Richard Dalloway. Maybe life isn’t something to be celebrated. Maybe it’s something to be endured.

Copyright © J.M, DiPasquale

A reception’s start,
Who could have known it would tear apart?
That last day,
To hold your hand,
To steal one more smile,
To embrace you, not just for a while.

A photograph remains,
Us, by the table,
Your eyes, a silent plea.
Did you have to leave so suddenly?
Not your choice,
I know, you’d never condone.

Later that day,
No one had a say.
My biggest regret,
Leaving early, only to be called, you had passed away.

I cried, I sobbed,
I was falling apart.
The anguish,
The pain,
The strain of it all.
If I stand, I’ll fall.

Blindsided, robbed, torn,
Broken, ripped apart.
How can I restart?
Grief smacks me, this very hour, leaving me sour,
Oh, what a blight.
Always in my mind, but out of sight.
The hurt, the torment like no other,
My heart hollow, she is gone

The water will sting your eyes at first—
I wish I would’ve said.
The chlorine will stain your youth,
Strip away the layers of childhood,
And bury you in your thoughts at night,
When sleep taunts your tired eyes.

It will be challenging,
I would’ve warned—
But you’ll make friends
Who understand the fragility
Two breathless minutes hold.

They’ll share your tears when you cry in anguish,
Because nothing is ever good enough.

You’ll hate it sometimes,
I would’ve cautioned—
Are you ready to give up peace?

The rush of cold water
That once soothed your mind
Will now enrage your indecision,
And spark constant conversation
With those piercing thoughts of doubt.

Years ago, I would’ve cried
When my hand scraped the plastic dividers,
And my eyes mistook the walls for space.

But I was molded from chemicals,
A stopwatch, and brisk mornings
Spent in a chilled pool, moving in clockwise circles,
Monotonously pounding the water’s edge
With arms slowly dying,
Desire crying out.

No sleep for those with heavy shoulders,
Weight pressed down by memories of the past.

A past
I wrote a story about once

About the heartbreak of childhood ending
And the truth that learned things can’t be unlearned,
As easily as they spring new life

When ingrained within a thought.
But I changed the ending,
Never read the story again—

Because you said I was being unrealistic.
Still, the water flows onward,
Carrying all the words I never said
straight into the ocean.

Voice over by Val Cole

Editor & Visual Design by Adam Bilyea

Produced by Matthew Toffolo

POEM:

A special place is where I sit,
A seat made just for me.
A seat I earned, but never wanted,
While quietly mourning what should be

I take my place in the chair,
It cannot possibly be meant for me.
I sense the eyes of onlookers
While I feel nothing, but grief

They feel something different,
As if they lost a prize.
They fume in the backseat they earned,
While I slump down in mine.

I would give up my seat if I could
I would happily take any other.
But this seat is something I earned
Through the love of another

Now her casket lay closed in front of me
And my phone buzzes in my bag
The salt of my tears sting my lips
As I look to my right and see the face of a sister she once had

Those behind me wonder who I am
And wonder how I earned my spot
Not many sit front row at a funeral
And I’ll tell ya, it takes a lot

So please, don’t waste your time
Pretending to know the dead
Because my best friend is in there
And I know she would be seeing red

Because if you look to the screen above,
You’ll see photos of her with me
For I earned my seat,
You got yours for free

A special place is where I sit
A seat made just for me
Because to sit in the front row,
Means you have a front row ticket for Grief