Author: poetryfest

Today, I thought
the sky looked like
nothing so much as
the inside of my
thighs, clouds like
stretch marks ribboning
thin and wavering
grooves across evenings
I’d forgotten could be so blue.

A genetic predisposition.
My skin running like
cheap nylons,
fissures so gradual
I’m shocked to encounter
them and a little
surprised to find
the banded skin
inside the rifts
is as soft
as clouds.

Sometimes I like to think
that the stars watch us, too.
They look down in awe
at the pockets of light we’ve created
along every city street—
as if to say,
“We hope you see us, too.”
I like to imagine
the stars staring in wonder
at the dark expanse of a rural night.
They make constellations
out of each and every porch light.
Sometimes I like to think
that they yearn to be closer to us, too.

I woke up
looked into the mirror
and my youth was gone.
But there wasn’t a single
laughter line in sight.
Just a smooth canvas,
with empty
m
e
m
o
r
i
e
s

The Felon President
Chomps down cow flesh

With cheese and fries.
His penis throbs for virgins.

He commands an army
Built on hate and power.

Staffers demand
Destruction and blood.

His tanks grind asphalt
Rolling past

The White House.
This proves he’s special,

An old boy
Planning retaliation

Against rivals
Crowding the Earth.

I. Sterile Field

The bodies don’t speak,
but they suggest.

Each morning,
I unwrap their silence
like a gift no one wants,
toe tag, chest split,
drain what dreams remain.

They smell of cooled iron,
of memory.
One still wore lipstick.
One still wept
from ducts that shouldn’t function.

I reach into cavities
with gloved grace,
plucking organs
like rosary beads.

Behind the mask,
I hum
not melody,
but rhythm,
to keep time
from folding inward.

They say we are sterile.
But the bodies remember.
They always do.
They follow home
on the undersides of fingernails,
in the breath I exhale
into my sleeping wife’s mouth.

II. Tupperware and Tendons

Dinner is overcooked,
chicken, dry,
sliced too neatly.
I stare at the cut
like it might twitch.

My wife says
her elbow hurts.
I imagine an incision
along the medial line,
just a peek
at what screams beneath.

The fridge hums
like a morgue drawer.
I reach for silverware
and touch only clamps.
My wife blinks.
She smells faintly
of antiseptic.

I clean the counter
in concentric circles.
A ritual.
A ward.

In the kitchen window,
my reflection is gowned,
gloved,
face shielded.

Behind me,
the hallway pulses,
soft light,
a tray of tools,
another case
to open.

III. Autopsy of a Living Room

The carpet is too red.
Too textured.
I kneel
and test for viscosity.

In the lamplight,
my coffee table reveals
its inner anatomy,
bone beneath varnish,
capillaries of splintered wood.

My wife lies on the couch,
half-asleep,
head tilted
at the perfect angle
of a post-mortem cranial block.

She doesn’t stir
when I whisper,
“Y-incision.”

There is a click.
The ceiling fan spins.
I don’t remember turning it on.
Its rhythm matches
a saw I haven’t used
since Tuesday.

Somewhere in the walls,
fluid moves,
not through pipes,
through veins.

I lay back on the floor.
The house breathes in.
So do I.

And finally,
we share a pulse

Planted as saplings
stretching and growing
into tall dark-green trees
ranged along contours
of mountains and hills.
Rooted in nourishing
rich brown earth.
Watered by brooks.
Lines of communication
spanning from roots
and fungal networks.
Safe.

Then chainsaws.
Cutting deep into bark.
Felling. Stripping.
Diesel and death
stinking clean air.
Betrayed by those
who planted
and nurtured.
Cut down for profit.
A jay flies over
the devastation
seeking its home.

He won his election
through lies and deception.
And it soon became known, across the nation,
that all he had claimed was a fabrication.
A web of lies he had woven,
to forge the career he had chosen.
He said he just wished to do his job,
but was hounded by the whole press mob.
He was no rogue, he wasn’t a clown,
and it was the liberal media that was doing him down.
He became a joke, a figure of fun,
his career unravelled, and he was undone.
He then stepped down, he did claim,
to fight for his honor and clear his name.
But with his reputation sunk so low,
his only option was to go.
Though those he did dupe and deceive
were all too happy to see him leave.
He said his opponents had been spiteful and unfair,
and he had merely embellished his resume, here and there.
It was tough to be in the news spotlight,
every day, and every night,
to be constantly doorstepped by the fourth estate,
and asked to set the record straight.
His career was a ruse and a con, on such an epic scale,
that now he’s ended up in jail.
Was it worth it, George, to win your election,
by such chicanery and deception?
To have your name dragged through the mud,
and to be seen as a grifter, and a dud?
To lose, would have been better by a mile,
than to win in such a wretched style.

There seems to be a disconnect in what we deem reality
The truth about our origins being forgotten, it seems
Like we don’t understand the reason for existing
Like we don’t comprehend this paradox in which we’re living

Do they even want to see or understand the meaning?
Why do they get angry when everything that I am saying relies simply on thinking?
Isn’t that what they wanted me to do?
Didn’t they teach me that in school?

It’s thanks to them that I see right from wrong, right?
It’s thanks to all their lessons that I see when it’s a genocide
‘Never again!’, they kept saying with so much pride
They named my school after a man who failed at homicide

They taught me about her diary
but not about her family’s history
And now they are literally trying to convince me
that truth is not what my own eyes can see

They gaslight and they name-call, while they justify another bomb
Do they really believe we don’t see that that is wrong?
They’ve always stood so ‘high and mighty’, defended by their lying media army
pushing all this propaganda and narratives that are so harming
Thinking they’ll just keep brainwashing everyone

But somehow I perceive that we are not standing for this much longer
Somehow I believe we see collectively that only the truth will make us stronger
When our souls shout loud enough
their narratives vaporise and turn into a cloud of dust

They taught us all of this
They said to fight and to resist
regimes of oppression
and proprietors of mass-destrustion

They taught us right from wrong
So what the fuck is going on?

I take the grainy water
dip a furtive hand in the low tide
and kiss the sign, sulphur rising
I watch the tangle of motorway turn
as a mobile above her riverbed

kneel, penitent daughter returning
forgive us our trespasses on the tip of my tongue
shame my voice and its betrayal
the forest encroaching
on this bright communion ground

to contain holy sound, I write myself breathing
I write the path we found
lost on the hillside
did we look towards heaven?

I write myself out of this place
I write home, write stillness
between the line breaks
my god, is this where I’m rooted?

Your roots are deep
They beckon me
Pulling me towards you

You and the earth collide
Leaving cracks at the surface
Ditches and rivets I cross
As I journey
Unable to ignore your call

There you are
Moonlight dancing on your leaves
I stand in awe
Next to you I feel so small

Your bark is thick
Impenetrable
Your branches spread wide
Sturdy
Able to hold my weight

I climb your fortress of limbs
‘Til I’m safe within
Looking out
Looking up
The stars are bright
I enjoy the world from your sight

I want more
I want to explore your every part
I travel deeper
From branches to twigs
Until you break
And I fall

I’m bruised and you are broken
I promise to never push your limits again
I make myself a place
A home
I lie at your base

I water your roots
And one day you bloom
Beautiful buds all over you

Months later they turn into fruit
And feed my soul
Sweet to the taste
But then they turn
Rotting once they are inside

After many nights at your feet
I now know it’s time to leave
Your siren song still sings
Still pulls at me

In your shadow I have spent too long
It’s time that I move on
I’m a traveler you see
It seems this world
Doesn’t have a place for me