Book Festival

You don't know me

But you think you do

You get others to agree

But none of you have a clue

Who are you to sit back and judge

When you don't know what I've been through

And not notice that you have a grudge

And your perceptions are a bit askew

You don't know me

But you think you do

You get others to agree

But none of you have a clue

Who are you to judge me?

You are so quick to hate

And too blind to see

It's time to set the record straight

You don't know me

But you think you do

You get others to agree

But none of you have a clue

You don't know my sorrow

Some of you don't care

I mask it with feelings borrowed

I learned in a prayer

You're too quick to speculate

Spreading lies of hate

But I've cried myself to sleep

But hold onto my dream

You don't know me

But you think you do

You get others to agree

But none of you have a clue

Tell yourself whatever you will

But don't be fooled

You don't know me

And you never ever will

Lost Soul

By Norah Senftleber

We've been great friends for a very long time.

You just don't see how you are hurting me.

You cheat and lie, you've changed, you aren't as kind.

You're mostly hurting youself, can't you see?

You don't tell me the truth, as a friend should.

Am I the only one who seems to care?

You don't understand you're up to no good,

but please realize I will always be there.

I will try to point you towards the right way,

for I choose to see past your bad mistake.

If you want to stop I'm here everyday,

just breathe and listen, that's all it will take.

Please be a good person and a good friend,

I will try to support you 'till the end.

Last night the wind was stale and

the moon was full and

I left my sneakers on the kitchen floor.

I sunk into the full moon and hid there.

The fireflies blinked at me in astonishment

and I chewed on my feelings toward them.

As if I had been one to wait them out.

I danced far back into my mind.

further than was necessary.

to escape the glare of

an insignificant insect.

You think you have conquered the world with your plows, 

With your axes and tractors and cities and cows,

Your bulldozers, dynamite, steel, and concrete.

We don't bother to laugh. What care we for your feats?

We are the granite-born, shrouders of bone.

There was a time when the Earth was our own.

We towered, lordly, o'er the damp plot

Where your single-celled ancestors wriggled and fought.

You who eat flesh of those who eat those 

Who grow in the long-dead; you who suppose 

That to live one must kill; you who reap, shoot, and stalk;

Hear this, mortivores: we eat water and rock. 

Let turnips and corn be bred to your taste

And planted in rows. We will not be debased.

There was a time when the Earth was our own;

We are the granite-born, shrouders of bone.

From outer space

The world

Looks

Peaceful

With all its beautiful

Blues and

Greens

But then

You enter this world you thought would be

Peaceful

And around you

You see

War

Hate

Poverty

And people turning on each other

But you also see

Love

Happiness

Friendship

And people helping each other

So

Is the new world you have come into

A

Sad world

Or a

Happy world

What should you think

What do you think

That maybe

It’s a little bit of

Both

You think you have conquered the world with your steel and concrete, with your skyscrapers and guns, with your airplanes and bulldozers.

We do not bother to laugh.

We are the granite-born and the shroud of bones. In the Old Time, we alone rose up from the puddles; we were the first creators of height. We towered lordly over your microscopic ancestors.

We fill the Earth's shadows.

You who eat the flesh of those who eat those who grow in the rotted loam of still others, hear this: we eat only dampness. We live on dampness and bare rock, on dampness and bark, on dampness and concrete. 

We will live in caves, but never in pots. Let corn and beans be bred to your taste and planted in rows; we grow in the shadows.

We are the granite-born and the shroud of bones.

(Hey folks! I haven't been writing much at all recently, mainly because a slightly less metaphorical version of this poem has been happening to me. I'm hoping to get back in the game. Nonetheless, I'm rusty, and would really, really like some healthy feedback for this piece before it's sent off to the Book Festival contest. Help please! Thanks. -R)

you know her well— she is

the face of liberation

the muse of green regeneration

she is the lover, the drifter, the confirmation,

carries on her back the ponderings and restless wanderings of generations

she is escape, is life, is miracle

she is salvation

is the sweetest damnation

despite her corners she is spherical because she never

begins; she dances to her own vibrations

rises to every provocation

she is yours

they killed her—

put a bullet in her brain band and an axe in her neck

and told you to look away.

put an axe in her throat and a bullet in her head and told you

not to worry.

said, this is what you wanted.

this is what you asked for and it was.

she was creation.

she was— sensation.

was the common thread between warring nations; she was

immensity, was intensity, was contemplation

an entity of inspiration and exploration, she was

an invitation

you killed her—

you suppose you were trying to snuff her out

had a few fights— a perfectly legitimate conflict of interest,  Read more »

They said it was "impossible."

"Unrealistic."

"A nice idea."

No wish flys

to the other side of the earth.

Pennies sink

to the bottom of the wishing well.

Copper is meant for molding.

For exact change,

Being left in your pocket.

And dropped on the side walk.

They watched as you asked for people's pennies,

and filled your jar with the rust.

More and more jars until you had enough to stretch to the moon.

House of cards,

School of pennies,

It made no difference to them.

Because they had "logic" and it was all the same.

And now,

as you stand among children enlightened by your persistence,

the difference is more than evident.

You built them hope.

They who told you "no",

Wave from the bottom of the wishing well.

Sunken with no belief, and no spirit to flout them.

Because they are not copper.

They are realists,

Who expect nothing more than "maybe".

With this pen,

with this hand,

I once wrote monsters.

I wrote with the fatal spikes on their tails.

Truth clung to their backs,

so I wrote with the beastly lies on their tongues.

The blood of them stained the letters, the paper.

Seared through the fibers, into the table.

I disowned them once they were mine.

Now they breath fire in the trash can.

Burning through words that can't contain them.

Like pulsing magma in a paper cup.

If I could go back

to my second life

and bring back the love

I would.

If I was able to stand up for myself

my brother

and my sister

I would. Read more »

The sound of bells run as I touch each key
Jingling delighted
I feel my fingers melt
Becoming the music within
The melody flows from each note played
Morphing into a song

This is the beginning for every soul
The youth washing over you

And then I can't stop
I have been sucked into the piano completely
Only instead of hopelessness
I feel happiness
Continuing blissfully
To make the room melt with me

And then it’s just the piano
Sitting in the room
Alone
But the music continues to play
And never stops playing
For I never tire
And neither does the piano

Chiseled into my skin
Like a tattoo upon birth
Imprinted as a crescent moon
Along my right shoulder
It comes from science and genetics
Read more »

Our commonalities brought us to be
two of the same, but two who saw differently.
Our genesis was upon the first moon
that led us to follow the same tune.
Memories and emotions unraveled and unwrapped
Read more »

Uncertainty stains
your Judas kiss.

Our dispatch,
of the matter fictitious.

The past dispute
led to bemusement.

Any rapture we had removed.

What was once
a stone slab of marble,
unbreakable and untouchable

is now a filigree feather;
its disposition to breech

If words could speak the soul’s secrets

And decode my heart’s convoluted beats,

There would be nothing easier than my love.

My love is no longer than a barb; nor shorter than a shiv,

But still it pricks punctures in the condemned air above.

It is like learning to breathe molasses; momentary sweetness Read more »

In earnest I await
our stardust kiss.
Inconspicuous in night's air
with unspoiled lips that beckon
to dapple mine.

Flesh meets flesh,
fire and ice none the less.
This dazzling contradiction;
being abreast but ubiquitous.

Twice satiated
but twice hunger remains,
Together we keep
embraced in the quintessence
of new love.

he sees the shades in a rainbow
in multiples of three
face tipped skyward
he’s stepping closer to the bandstand
with his arms spread wide
he’s jumping
swaying
to submerse himself in the music

he’s not alone 
here
though he usually is

the woman playing the upright bass is 
glaring at him
wondering how his
babysitters 
could allow him to become so out of control
how they could permit him to
bellow-shout
so close to the music 

but he’s beaming
the thirty-year-old man
glances back at his peers
some in wheelchairs
some drooling on their shirts
he’s beaming at them
and some are clapping for him

he’s not alone
not here
where his group has lunch on Tuesdays when it’s sunny
he’s not alone here

an older woman 
who has a badge on a lanyard
that says something along the lines of
“I’m in charge of these people”
or
“I care when no one else does”
stands and leaves the group of middle-aged men and women
to take the hands of the dancing man

and in front of god
in front of the glaring woman on the upright bass
and all the people spread across the green on this sunny Tuesday
she takes the hands of the dancing man and
she sways with him
face tipped skyward
she’s smiling so widely
laughing
with him
because he’s not alone
not here

My heart has hands. Long, slender red fingers poking out from the center of my chest, grabbing, grasping other people’s vascular tissue and refusing to let go. My hands are predators. They’re always hungry. I use their fingertips to stroke the inside of some lover’s arm. They’re extra fingernails to bite. When I’m angry, I dig those stubs of nails into my palms; I have four fists: two for each type of beating. When I’m lonely, they can hold themselves.

Every day when I walk home I scan the sidewalk for signs of life. Bottlecaps, discarded gum, acorns, even bits of gravel—things that move when I kick them, proof of existence. Walking is falling, and catching myself again and again on every bended knee. When I’m not falling I’m floating, I can see into third-story windows, watch people type or kiss or brush their hair.

So, to clarify: I am going to submit this, I think, to the Write Action contest. Any feedback and editing stuff would be absolutely fantastic. Thanks, y'all!

Also, this is a combination of "because you are/not" and "& i am".

& i am trying to capture that

in/de/fin/a/ble

rhythm that surrounds your

airspace in words, but iambic

pentameter is somehow too

rigid because you, my dear,

are not

half-right

friday-night

hookups and you haven't got that

maybe-never

heartstring-severing glance,

& i am searching for the words to describe the

cool-blue-

forest-green-

neither-here-nor-

there colour of your sea-

glass eyes, but somehow i can't

decide how to explain

infinity wrapped around

black, and

i can see the half-rhymes

floating behind your

retinas and i can't help but

wonder if i look like poetry to

you

& i am still waiting for the

song that tells you that i

love you, but the notes are always just a

breath out of reach and my lungs are

opening into my

gut and i can't hold the

air anymore, because you are not

flame or

fire or

blame or

desire; you are just that

one person who will always be

here.

Oliver,

If I could write in words, I would.  Rather, I write in pictures and in emotions, in dances and music---never words.  There have been so many notes to express what I might feel---notes in music that ravel themselves around the staff; there have been so many pictures---paint drops amalgamating into tacit words.  Yet, you---you are a writer.  I see you in class, two seats ahead, buried between the binding of your notebook.  I never know what you write.  Sometimes I wonder if what you write is what I paint---if they would ever live together in blissful harmony.  

I remember what it felt to be motherly.  I’d like to say that with you, I had this maternal instinct---out there to protect you from the world.  Little did I notice that it was the opposite---that within your safe walls, my hasty actions seemed justified.  Yet, you never lingered upon the fact that I was a girl, unlike other neighborhood boys.  You were indifferent to my shorts and tee-shirts and waterfall hair.  

  Read more »

We are dreamers.

Running, running, running.

Barefoot.

No longer hiding behind acceptable hair.

We are tangled.

Messy. Loud.

Nobody can hear us.

We are alone in our fantasy.

Holding lightning in a jar.

In a night ment for sleep.

We dream with our eyes open.

With our voices.

With our speeding legs.

Legs that are as white as Freedom.

The room in the barn where my teacher and I drill scales always strikes me as bare and cell-like. The decrepit ivory walls form a casket, jerking your attention to the exact middle of the room where there are some disfigured chairs from different parts of the building. A scrutiny of the rough walls reveals scuff marks and chipping paint near an oily clock and a mirror. The shrill tick grinds at my ears, seeming faster than normal, but it is not nearly as off-putting as the hulking missile the mirror is reflecting. It is a black effigy, straining at its bottom and slack at its top. A number of slick harnesses and shiny zippers augment its disturbing reflection. The effigy’s ashen-colored accomplice lies on the dark gold floor, head resting on a diminutive rubbish bin. The bin is putrid, smelling of decomposing bananas and other rotten fruit. There is also the muffled buzz of fruit flies near the bin, though none are visible. Perhaps I am confusing it with the drone of the fluorescent light fusing with the harsh clock; I am not sharp in the fetid air, which leaves my mouth as dry as the gritty ceiling. The ceiling, like the walls, is shedding its paint. There are thin gray streaks on the ceiling and powder on the floor, both from the fallen plaster. The powder plugs the black punctures in the floor, and the effect is similar to the leftovers of a darts match that used a drill lathered in liquid chalk. Stepping on one of these punctures produces a bleached nebula around your foot that smells of ammonia. Read more »

She was leaving.

The world was raining.

It would be wet for months.

I tried to say something.

Something to stop her.

From leaving me.

Leaving us here. Wet.

But she was sick.

She needed to get away.

Out-run this... thing.

I knew she would be back.

Bringing the light back with her.

And she would hold me in her tired arms.

She would be strong again.

But now she was weak,

And I was even more so.

Because I never actually said the words.
 

If wings were to sprout in my dreams

cloak me in a feathery shadow,

I would let go of the ground and fly toward the missing moon. 

I would soar through other stars,

enlightened with the rays of a satellite.

Then an illusion of the unknown would pass me on its last flight home.

And then I would realize,

That I want to breath in the lucent memories that I left behind.

I need silver air of once upon my soul, to fill my lungs with color.

To inspire the thoughts that gave me wings.

And as I would have realized this,

I would have fallen,

in a crooked line,

toward the warped earth that no girl can grow hope from. 

It was a cold world warmed effortlessly by the artful of footsteps that led me here.

Abstract seconds shifted to impersonate reality.

A dichotomy in the heart of fire.

And in the fire in my heart.

The silence of the sunlight echos off the sandy din in my mind.

A place in existance named after what I thought only a possibility.

Lineir enerergy comprised into a heartbeat the color of one day.

It caught my attention and led me forward.

I stumbled after it as it danced simply over unlived life.

As I heard my own voice singing to me.

Cornering me

until I didn't move, not daring to disrupt its frigil energy.

And then there I stood.

The world had stoped spinning.

I forgot it ever had.

I willingly let myself slip from my soul

and gave in to the silent beauty that stood there, waiting to overthrow me.

The rays of sunlight cradled my breath in invisable arms.

A freeze frame cadence in a windless desert.

Golden silk fluttering towards the mirage of a horizen.

Among us walk the thinkers. The ones who hide behind their thoughts. Who see the world through eyes tinted with imagination, and experience it from the inside out. Those thinkers who drown their voices in color and refuse to be changed. The children of the sunrise. The ones who filter vision, until it is alive with thoughts and words. The carefree ones who live in the world, watching in amazement from the sidelines. As we watch the worlds beauty dance through their transparent eyes, because it glows brighter to the ones who can see it.