Category: poetry

Read Poetry: ONE, by Destiny Premo

From the beginning into now,
We felt something more,
When a feeling turns to passion,
Nothing is like it was before.

A unity blessed by the universe,
As now the stars aline.
From that day forward, side by side,
Your hand intertwined with mine.

We are but only one breath,
Our hearts beat as one.
Facing the darkness together,
Brighter than the sun.

So walk with me, my love,
There’s no need to fuss,
Life is the journey we share,
The world belongs to us.

Love will see us through,
Love will always defend.
When it comes to our love,
There will be no end.

Our spirits conformed to one,
we have been set free.
The world we leave behind,
Cannot match our eternity.

Read Poetry: Passing, by Paul O’Donnell

So much is broken
I despair
he says passing out from lack of air
It was no more than a passing dream to think
the passing of a law could mean passing through the past
The inciting incident, the protagonist’s resolve to repair
ignorance fear and anger living side by side in liminal space stretched.
Searching for the prophylactic fountain to wash away despair
Farfetched
But passing laws passed through the fragile membrane made of the
dreams of gilded fossils giving
no more than a passing glance
with few words passing between them.
How could it not be broken?
Only the words Black Lives Matter, matter
No forgiveness can be asked. Forgiving is an act of power bestowed
granted by the weak with feelings of remorse
Atone is at and one
there the difference lies.
© pod

Read Poem: The Road Not Taken, by Stuti Saxena Singh

Poem inspired by true event of my life..

#Best#Road#Not#Opted…

Once upon a time,
there stand by,
excruciating rhyme.
My body,soul and mind,
were in grief stage,
Oh!!divine…
Out of all available,
scenarios and situations,
What to elect? and Why?
created a whole lot perplextion.
Past summers were the days,
Mid of March, April and May(s).
Mind got stucked,
Hands got cuffed,
Legs got freezed,
Gravity of emotions for ,
severly ill”Mother”,
Over …
Duty of 6month,
old kid “Mother”,
got seized.
Poignant were those days,
Pendulum like oscillations,
for doctors opinions ,
were our ways.
Trail taken gave satisfaction,
reflected with optimistic dispersion.
Leaning on my word,
Mom admitted in native hospital.
My dialogue with doctors,
were utterly digital .
As days crawled by,
Mom’s health began to scatter,
Flicker of faith began to falter.
Nephrologist said kidneys,
will gradually recover.
Cardiologist said,her heart,
needs artificial pacemaker.
Off all the unfortunate
Cardiac events,
alternate dyalsis,and
life support supplements,
Got shifted twice out of ventilator,
She survived as a real warrior.
Interimly a sign of relief.
Thought “The Road Taken”,
was full of boomy leaf.
But negligence of medic staff,
flex the situation intense grief.
“Aspiration”,”overlooked”,
was main cause in brief .
Recklessness was at ledge,
As… if…
Inhumanity was at pledge.
Simultaneous Pacemaker Insertion,
aided lately by bronchoscopic examination was conducted.
Seems like hopeful recovery of maa was completely abducted.
Elevated bacterial infection in blood
due to aspiration was dotted.
“Oh!!!! What do I say dear custodians”,
Pacemaker implanted is also not working.
“Gone in comma” was the last quoted.
“Oh well!! Still we can refer her to
higher center of your choice!!”
was forcibly suggested …
Why ????Oh!!!Good Lord,
Well experienced cardiologists
were not consulted..
Oh in painful grief, I shouted,
Why???? treatment in native
place was selected.
Why?? Oh Lord !!!
The road selected turned
so devastated.
Loosing you Oh Maa!!
Was this fate,,,
really destinated??
or
Was this the outlay of,
“so called divine ”
heedless inhumane,
dexterity trusted ??
Embraced with grievous infelicity,
I shriked…
Lost my strength forever,
As of erroneous path Opted….

Read Poem: Moonlight in Great Neck, by Sarah Rundqvist

I can’t stop

thinking about the moonlight

the night you kissed me

outside of that random bar

in Great Neck

you turned my whole world upside down

right way up

forbidden love has a way of tasting

sweeter than it should

I glanced up

at the clock

at the train station

knowing their arms

were already moving me

further away from you

until you were just gone

and you became

a distant memory

I sometimes recall

in the moonlight

I bought my first watch

a Bulova

like the one at that train station

where we became lovers

in love

every time with a kiss

picking me up

sending me off

and their arms are still taking me somewhere

my heart will send you a postcard once I get there

I hope we are both smiling

when we arrive

The Seaside, by Antony Schelts

“The yawning mighty ocean tired from its task,
Inhaling yoghurt pots and indisposable memories,
Exhaling it’s sodium polystyrene. Cafés dishing up plastic fish on plates of mercury.

Souvenirs of bygone happiness, soaked in flavoured ice. Arcades of candied rock and buzzing machines.
It spits and piers echoed by screaming children.

Pavements gritted with shoes filled with sand,
Streets pounded by the nuclear families holding secrets. Melting castles under the beating sun. Coated by the tide of oil.”

Thinking up castles, by Roxanne Arvizu

I can clean my room!
There is so much to do!
Like put away my skates
I better tie my shoes!

Sometimes on rainy days
I hide under covers
Pretending that its bed time
Praying no one discovers!

Me under and over, on top
in a ball
Just dreaming away
and feeling so tall

In a magical land
with fairies and friends
playings games with such fun
I hope it never ends!

I see that you’re cleaning
and I can help too!
almost finished with a tea party
with kittens that mew!

I am big now
My room I can clean!
Just a little longer here..
I do love to dream?

Thinking up castles
and kites on a string
ladybugs dancing
fairies with wings

apples and cherries
on trees galore
butterflies, flowers
ponies and more

A cottage so perfect
that everything rings
the staircase has windows
to gardens that sing

So happy with glee
in such pure delight
the fireflies dance
a ballet every night

knowing, believing
Everything is my friend
from the moon to the stars
to the great river bend

I want to clean my room
I promise I do
But there is a farm and a barn
and ranch maybe two?

Where the cows
love to tell a story they do!
to me, and the monkeys,
and four kangaroos

There is a garden of flowers
filled with books that I’ve read
What fun! All of these places
that dance in my head

in this garden
with flowers
plus more
I dream up more dreams
where i’m doing my my chores!

I look up at the sky
and dream dreams
all day
of what I will become?
the instruments I’ll play

On top of mountain,
Then a boat that I row
My thoughts are so BIG
like a giant rainbow!

Then out from the covers
Rarrr! I am brave!
like a lion well rested
I emerge from my cave!

I’m ready to help Mommy!
what can I do?
Mommy understands
because she loves me SO much
and I love her too.

DOLL, by Kirsten Warner

I forage for her, the doll of my disappointment

a spray of brittle twigs
a faggot of fallen fronds
crusty sticks with lesions of lichen

crouched over, calling up my ancient sister.

Then it is only a matter of seeing and she takes shape.

A forked branch and spindly legs start running,
over-wide arm-span
shock of invisible fingers
guts hanging out
circulation unspooled
half a skirt of flax flowers,
all bundled together
leaving a strong stick where her head will go.

Overnight she stands sentinel,
my doll of disappointment,
through my sleepless 4 AM and discarded novels.
My insides agitate like giant kelp in a blowhole.
Somewhere a strange crying
but each time I get up the whimpering stops.

In the morning the pillow is wet.
I’m flimsy yet my ache weighs heavy on the bathroom scales.
I count my losses in the vanity’s distorting mirror.
It feels like something died. Like I never had a chance.

I craft her head from crumpled cellophane
and glinting, spooky transparency,
attach a savage halo
consider lengths of yarn the violent red of secobarbital
but she’s done. I nurse the day

while she fossicks in the underneaths
grubbing out contagion,
cursing humbug and sideshow
drowning out the comfort of friends
muttering spells to turn my gaze away
daubing herself with horse manure
full of grass seed that will eventually sprout green.

Twinkie, by John Choe

What happens to a dream deferred?

Maybe it doesn’t dry up,
Like a raisin after all.

But ferments,
Like a pot of kimchi.
Maybe it sizzles,
Like a hot pan of bulgogi.

Does a dream deferred explode,
like a Samsung phone
Or last forever like a Twinkie?
Yellow on the surface and white inside, right?
A ching-chong chink painted with artificial colors,
like a metaphor for racism itself:
sponge cake injected with homegrown xenophobia
that never expires.

Didn’t you call me a Twinkie,
while you planted a funhouse mirror in front of me,
casting white guys in yellow face,
buck teeth, taped eyelids,
a sibilant Asian accent.
Is this what you see in me?
Maybe we can pull the white out of whitewash,
And pour in yellow to add more color.
I want to be the hero
In the next Indiana Jones,
hear my voice narrate like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas.

America didn’t you teach me to be myself,
And then make fun of me for being different?

Maybe we have enough Buddhas and Gandhis,
And not enough Genghis Khans.
Did I just say we need more leaders
who sip blood for breakfast?
Do I need to have a weapon in my hand,
need people to fear my spite to get some attention?
Will the textbooks teach you who I really am then?

Does a dream deferred cut like a surgeon following
dotted black lines on a teenager’s face?

To create a perfect double eyelid,
or an Angelina Jolie nose?
Tell me The Face Shop,
do natural Korean features not sell enough
skincare routines for you?

Since apparently I’m so good at math,
let me explain an equation I learned growing up:
Stereotypes + self doubt = prejudice,
the square root of which is irrational fear.
Now, multiply that by systemic discrimination
and you get y over x to the power of racism.
But this equation is unbalanced.
Some of these variables don’t cross-cancel out.
America, we have a problem.
America, we have a problem,
and it’s bigger than a multi-polynomial,
more complex than E equals Mc squared.
America, we have a problem,
and you can’t find the answers in the back of the textbook.

My mother always told me “ 아들, you have to fight your own fight
before anyone will care to help you”
So let me pull out my Samurai sword,
I am not your Chink,
I am not your Jackie Chan,
I am not your math homework answer key,

And I am not a Twinkie.

Let me tell you who I am,
I am a dreamer who sleeps on many great ideas,
I am a Korean who makes friends as easy as 3 min 3 step ramen,
I am East,
And I am West,
I choose to not trade my heritage for
scan, copy, command + P, clone models on billboards.

America, you have force-fed me pills to keep me asleep
From my dreams through this land,
But my alarm just went off,
no snooze.

it is morning, and I can smell the homemade sweet sikhye from my bed,

I am ready to wake up

Loving amidst the tragedy around, by Shruti Singh

I got covered everything in between the blanket and my favourite bedsheet.
Those journals that got tons of words,
Of separation and attachment
And love and war.
So every night in bed,
I wipe my tears off my face,
That had been settled there all day long,
Smudging my mascara,
And turning my eyes
Into a dragon’s fire breath.
They have many beauty and tragedies,
To gaze upon
But end up looking at your still picture.
You caught my attention everytime,
I was looking for peace outside
Or for ways to start revolution
To bring change in the world,
As if you were the soul
With all those beauty and
Tragedies at the same time.
I find my heart bringing love words for you
From all the corners where they were kept
Safe for long time,
But it brings a feeling of guilt too,
It isn’t of loving you,
But instead accepting my love
At the time, when people all around
Are losing their life, their loved one’s life,
I pity on myself,
Of getting love birds sing to me,
And longing to read Shakespearan romance
When all around the world
Manto’s words are flying.
No, don’t confuse it with a love poem.
I want to write about them,
Whose lips are dried without food
And water for so many days, that
Now they don’t even mind eating
Meat that isn’t meant for them.
But see my lines are too into
Your lip colour,
That they don’t find the metaphor
For those pale, abandoned
And trembling lips.
These poem long for
Every line of your hand,
That they don’t accept it
When I write about those tiny hands
That were playing
With the corpse of her dead mother,
Unaware that she won’t wake up
From the bed she is in now,
Maybe she has find her peace
Amidst all the chaos,
But left her child alone
In this scroching heat,
Not of the weather, but of people’s heart.
A love revolution isn’t the only
The poets are meant to bring, right !
But see my poem crave for love
And its tragedy, so much so,
That even the burning world
Can’t stop my pen from writing you.
Because if not in reality, at least
In imaginations and poems,
You are with me looking at the miseries
Crying together,
You, for the world and I for you,
But no, this isn’t a love poem,
Instead a poem of
Loving with tragedies around…

ALL-STAR DESIRE, by Franco D’Alessandro

As a high school football player, I wanted to die

Every day;

Not kill myself…

Just die

A lot.

End it all. Be a hero. Not a queer-o.

As a high school football player, I was an

All-Star;

I wanted to love among those stars,

Not tread the earth among the constant fear;

I never knew the courage it took to wake up each day,

To not let the world know of the small explosions

That pulsed through my soul -the longings

For that unspoken unspeakable moment when

Everything is to be told

and he’s holding me.

At 17, the more I grew, the stronger I became

The less alive I felt

I was a faint fire in those wild, frozen ephebic woods

Waiting and wanting to warm anyone;

Comforted by only the warm whisper of coulds

I would do so much, I wanted

To do so much more,

But my self-imposed exile was an outstretched hand

To no man’s land.

Then I read A Streetcar Named Desire

And somehow saw myself in some way in Blanche

I didn’t want to kill myself.

The first boy I ever kissed did that –

the day after he lovingly set my lips afire.

Yes; Love… all at once and much too completely *

I just wanted more and more

-I was an expanding galaxy of want-

My only need, desire

I wanted more- than Blanche, and Brick, and Chance, and Lady…

I fell impossibly in love with a college boy named Nick,

And chased him for two years living on hope and maybe.

When I was a high school football player

I wanted

More to hide than be seen;

And I wanted more to be dead than alive;

But then I learned that

death is the opposite of desire, *

And I wanted so much more than to just survive,

To be so much more than just alive;

I wanted…SO MUCH….

I wanted

To be someone’s fire

I wanted

More and more and more

To be desired.

*lines spoken by Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire