Category: Poetry Festival

Read Poem: Grand Central Station by Sandra Fernandez

Honestly, it’s not the same anymore, so I stopped going, she said as she took another sip of her tamarindo.

What do you mean? he asked her.

Gabriela ripped off a chunk of pupusa, crammed it into her mouth and swallowed.

It’s like… that feeling you get when you go to city walk or the mall. You’re surrounded by restaurants, stores & brightly lit bars. That Latin cultura vibe is basically gone… AND to top it all off there’s only one frutero left… you know that big stand en medio del Grand Central that was also a small marketa? They’re like one of the last latinx owned businesses there now. It just makes me feel some typa way, she explained.

Gentrification is spreading everywhere in LA. People are getting kicked out of their businesses & their homes, it’s fucked up. It’s like colonization all over again, the brown, black & poor just get erased from their neighborhoods & their lands like they never existed there at all. It’s become a fad too, he replied.

It’s really sad. Just makes me not want to visit anymore. It’s not at all like what I remember as a child. The whole thing just seems superficial.

They ate their last bites, paid & walked out of the restaurant towards Normandie Avenue.

Read Poem: THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME by Magdalena Munro

Why did Dorothy’s
slippers become a
fiery red?

They were always
silver

like strands of
tinsel billowing from
the beaks of blackbirds
in formation,

lifting up into a
caulked grey zone
above the outstretched
hands of dreamy
caravans,

streaking starspilled
skies ebbing and flowing
like the heaving chest
of God in a righteous
slumber.

Wake up –

I pass an estate
sale and am pulled
toward the buzzing
hum of a concealed
magnet.

Propped on draped
tables are trinkets,
battered books,
woolly coats,
and a leathery
parade of
clutchless
purses.

I finger the engraved
pewter of a baby spoon
and imagine the faraway
giggle of a peachy toddler
beyond the musty hallway
where strangers pick through
pieces from a departed one.

We carry her seeds into
vaulted spaces smelling
of citron and spruce.

Clutching the spoon,
I toss my dirty hiking
boots and slip into a
speck of silver.

Read Poem: She Has Touched My Heart by David P Carroll

Listen to the sound of
Our hearts beating my love Feel our forever love
Butterflies flying above
Whenever we’re apart

Listen to the sound of your heart.

You’re forever in my beating heart sweetheart
In times when I’m sad lonely
I think about you the one
Who’s touched my heart
It’s you who brightens my day’s
Every day, every night I smile thinking about you forever in my heart your the one who has truly touched my heart.

Read Poem: Be Balanced by Olwyn Williams

Be playful.
Be bold, brave and balanced,
So you can float to new heights
Above the tree’s canopy to see your fears made small
Against the expanse of the full forest tall,
Trees reaching, competing,
Breathing , releasing.

Be comfortable.
Find the edges of your comfort
So you can gently nudge them out,
Coax them into stretching
Until they encompass the world wide
and all the skies.

Be relaxed and supported.
Float, don’t swim.
Trust that you are
Just where you need to be.
Be filthy footed and wet with sweat
Don’t prune yourself just for appearance sake
nor anybody’s random order.
Be grounded, like a tree,
Though mobile like a breeze.

Be as wild or as quiet as you need to be .
Be what you feel and do as you please.
Be at ease in the your skin, be at peace in your mind,
Let your soul to fly where it will at night
When in bed you lie.
Heed your dreams, my sweet, for so much they do reveal
And let your fears go, as you swing from branch to branch
Until they are lost
and far out of sight.

Read Poem: TIDES by Stephanie Annis

The world is hard, cold, and dark.
The light fights with the night.

Sun, moon, and stars we see from afar.

The distance makes them small.
Sometimes, they look like they could fall.

Mystery is mystical.
Intriguing, uniquely full.

What is with this night?
I’m itching for a fight.

Maybe it’s just the tides.
They can create great divides.

Magic from the gods.
Secrets that make us odd.

Truth in all we see.
Truth in you and me.

Read Poem: Love story of differences by Varun Khullar

She left me for my failures

I left her for my success

She gave me the way to escape my ego

I gained my solace

But the fate laughed

In return she was pierced with hatred and sadness of my traits

Our story was incredible, fascinating, mesmerising

But was awarded us with parting our feelings

Read Poem: Showering When You Have Depression by B

the girls, flocked together like a gaggle of geese, turned towards me as one and seemed to sneer with their eyes, the way some smile with theirs.

i simply looked back, and wished my body would disintegrate into little dust mites and disperse into the air vents

i kept asking myself that day, that week, why people kept looking at me.
might have been the smell

Read Poem: Intentions and a Poem by Aicha Yassin

Today I will just speak to you
about the sound of the water falling,
and of the yellow, dry cattails
that break under my footstep
when I’m sitting down
to see the sun
setting.

Tomorrow I will tell you
of the swallows soaring
in the sky, to which i raise my gaze
abandoning the pen that
writes the poem of today,
making it a yesterday.

and yesterday I have already written
you a poem:
it’s pinned next to the door
so you won’t forget to smell the jasmine
while walking out to the world.