Category: Uncategorized

Read Poem: WALKING ON THE BEACH, by Jacueline Mead

Have you ever gone walking on the beach?

Shoes slipped off, sand covering your feet
Just you walking, on a big empty space.
The wind blowing in your face.
You pull your coat around you tight;
to brace against the cold.
Arms across your body, you fold
Waves crashing on the shore
Yet you find peace and tranquillity, even with the waves loud roar
You walk and walk, losing track of time
Recharging your soul, body and mind.
How is it possible to find such peace?
When all around you is noise.
Yet the wind in your face, the crash of the waves, brings you such joy.
I love walking on the beach, shoes slipped off, sand covering your feet
Coat pulled up around your face, the Beach becomes my happy place.
(c) Jacueline Mead 2020Image

Read Poem: Haunt, by Tyler R. Martin

Abandon me
Please won’t you phantom?
Apparition don’t appear.
Abandon me
Please dark ether,
You fill my nights
With fear

Leave me
Sorrowful specter,
Haunt my floor
No more,
The way you smirk
and giggle
Shakes me
To my core

You’re unwanted
Wicked wraith,
Please incorporate
Elsewhere,
Cease the seizure
Of my family,
For that I can not
Bare

Poetry Reading: Bad Company, by Jason Yearick

Performed by Carina Cojeen

Words are
falling,
tumbling, to
the ground
enjambments
spilling down
railways
without
a sound-
poets, are
whimpering,
writers,
simpering,
readers
wrestling
words
roughly,
regretting
this word
squall
realizing-
this poet,
has
abused
them
all.

—

Producer/Director: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com

Festival Moderators: Matthew Toffolo, Rachel Elder

Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne

Editors: Kimberly Villarruel, Ryan Haines, John Johnson

Festival Directors: Rachel Elder, Natasha Levy

Camera Operators: Ryan Haines, Temitope Akinterinwa, Efren Zapata, Zack Arch

Poetry Reading: AS MY OWN BREATH , by David Dephy

Performed by Carina Cojeen

After centuries of living with nothing, but my love to you, friends,

I found myself surrounded by the luxury of feelings and I am safe

now, I am alive, I am breathing again, but where were you, my friends,

when I was broken? I am calm now, but where were you my friends

when the emptiness encircled me and I was afraid? Where are the friends

when I need them most? I was yearning for knowledge, but from this

day on, I don’t want to know a thing except for, will I be able or not

to love you again, friends. Maybe everything and maybe nothing that I

have given or maybe not given away will ever be really as mine, as my

own breath? Hello friends, I found you after centuries of living with nothing

but my expectations — our life is what our expectations are. I thank you all.

David Dephy

January 2, 2020

—

Producer/Director: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com

Festival Moderators: Matthew Toffolo, Rachel Elder

Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne

Editors: Kimberly Villarruel, Ryan Haines, John Johnson

Festival Directors: Rachel Elder, Natasha Levy

Camera Operators: Ryan Haines, Temitope Akinterinwa, Efren Zapata, Zack Arch

Read Poem: When I’ll meet him, by Damini Mudholkar

When I’ll meet him,
My heart will beat 100 times faster
Like getting close to a rollercoaster.

That time will froze too,
In this world like, it was made
Only for me and you.

And then I’ll hear it.
My breath in and out,
Eyes wide and shout.

The rush of adrenaline,
when I’ll approach you as mine
Rest assured.

https://tuleshwari.wordpress.com/2019/11/25/when-ill-meet-him/

Read Poem: A look on the bright side, by Tyler R. Martin

Empty atoms, in empty atmosphere
Compose dark clouds over head.
Empty coffee mugs catch rain drops from above,
Clouds empty out like bitter hearts now void love.

There is emptiness in every single soul,
Empty actions, empty goals.
There is emptiness in the illusion of control,
Empty husks in hollowed holes.

Empty waves of skyborne static strike
Motionless, trembling Maple trees below,
Empty fires billow upward, smoke and burn,
As hollow husks blacken smolder and churn.

Empty friendships and empty lover’s words,
Seas of fractured empty hearts.
Empty holy books and porous works of art,
Empty efforts, failing starts.

Poetry Reading: Gifts, by Zeki Majed

I have become the enemy of time,
as arrows march and leave behind.
It’s cruel to love and throw aside,
but the hope, the silence, that’s the crime.

I wait for God to show me signs.
The grip on my soul is death and tight.
I loved so much and lost my mind,
how tragic to love, when love’s just mine.

To be left with questions, wondering why.
To be left with faith, is to live while you die.
For true love, it waits and it lies,
to nobody but you, that it will be alright.

For we, the long forgotten empty souls,
always there when they call.
Although it’s cold, down below,
I’d freeze to death so she is warm.

We the puppets and they our masters,
leave us begging high, for time to run much faster.
For they moved on, but we slaves to answers,
and it’s hard to walk right on, when you wrote them books, but you’re a chapter.

After, I have faded into dark,
I ask this world with all my heart.

Keep her smiling and keep her calm,
make sure she is sheltered from the storm.
Even when they drained us and we are gone,
my love will live forever, it will go right on.

Read Poem: EVERYTHING…., by Andrew McG

Andrew McG
Twitter: @SpeakEasyMcG

…..That is what I miss about you

Just a lifetime too few
Just a smile left in the past
This is for our very last
“I Love You”
This is for our future tomorrow
This is for the utterly too few
“I’m Sorry’s”
May Mother Mary
hold you in her arms and whisper
her words of wisdom
Because you whispered them to me
When you held me in your arms
“Where there is a Will, there is a Way”
For every jab and every hook.
For every Polaroid we ever shook.
For every passed away yesterday
For every present that you were here
This is for the life we have loved
This is for the death we have shared

Read Poem: Flow!, by Laye Da Writer

Yeah you may think this another go round

I mean I cant say it’s different

We just can’t seem to shake the commitment

No wonder the tree is trembling on shaky ground

Would you walk away unphased if in these shoes

Someone in the others’ place might create a spot in the empty hole

So of course, they’ll sit back waiting like a troll

And then the ship sails off on the path of the cruise

Who are we to hold one who wishes to leave

Why even bother

What’s there to gain

Who even benefits

Where would it go

When would the genuineness play out

How in the hell would I be able to live with myself

Guess we would just have to see the trick come down it’s sleeve

All of this may sound boggled

Yes I know just a tad

Bare with me it’s not that bad

Not all of us navigate through the bulls**t goggled

Meaning we have to sift through and through

Then maybe on the other side is a way waiting

And they say play the field while you’re dating

Unfortunately there are things hidden, it’s true

But that’s half the battle

Don’t run from the humble

Yeah you’ll get some grumble

Sometime we really need that hard rattle

Usually these things paint a picture but the image is lost