I placed 2nd---Fairfield University Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Poetry Contest

I've been left speechless. The announcement for the 2013-2014 Fairfield University Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Poetry Contest were just made a few minutes ago, and yours truly placed SECOND!!!!

Paper

Has my voice grown weak because of my trepidation
Do you question why my feet tremble on the gravel path
Should I speak honestly about twisting my woolen scarf tighter
Do gusts of doubt descend Enders Island
Are they consuming me
Why in silence was I distancing myself
Have words simply failed me causing me to outcast myself
Can others see my inner voice
Is it loud, is it clear
Why do I wonder how I ended here
Can you perceive the deeper meaning of my spoken words
Are they ripped from my sputtering heart
Does the pain of the artist's soul seem apparent
Who relates to the yearning of my spirit
Can you try

Could I speak of childhood pain, of never fitting in or knowing even why
Do your eyes comprehend what I need to say
Is it too much for you to know my father made paper so I could be a writer
Is it asking to little for you to see that AIDS has been a genocide in my life
Is is apparent my mother was a dropout inspiring my adoration to read
Do my words even matter as I march into my passion
Or is all that you see is my incredible sense of fashion
Are you hearing me as I really am

Or do none of those things even matter
Have they shaped the man you see before you
Or has my life consumed and disabled me
Do these circumstances become my stories
Or can they be inspirations for characters
Do I begin to see I am rewriting my personal story
Am I becoming my own creation
Have I finally taken pen in hand

I am so afraid to speak
Should I not fear exposing my truth
Have I spoke of the world as I had seen it, as I feel it to my bone
Should you know my world as your own
Is that the goal of a writer
Have I finally claimed my own voice

Poetry

 

We tread a very delicate line, amid foolishness and adoration. 

But my sweetheart, love is love, is it not? 

We are told that we are sinful, unclean, and shameful. 

But, what of those people who hurl us aside? 

They who turn their backs on us,

Treat us with emotionless murmurs. 

They have nothing to give to us but their impersonal scorching stares;

Like we are a blade directly into their hearts and their faith.

We are the citizens in the hammering rainwater

Who dare to prance, laugh and smile

Although the world seems completely against us

We are different, unique, and the beautiful

We are the strong who stand against the name-calling, against the pain

Love is love and yes there is hope

Because we dared to love in the first place

Poetry: Attraction

This poem is from my Honor's Thesis Project, which is a Creative Nonfiction Narrative about gays and the Holocaust.  Within the text of my thesis I am trying something new--for me anyway-- working in poetry into the main body of the text to help develop the main character who wants to be nothing more than a writer. 

This particular poem comes from a chapter in the "book" where the main character, Christoph  meets a young man that he finds attractive... hope you enjoy

                        Are you like me,

                        Therefore the hours gleam 

                        If I were to say to you

                        You are a dwelling where strawberries

                        Sweep through your name  

                        As if budding shrubs remind me  

                        Of some spring of water so cool, so clear

                        Twilight rain embraces your leaves

                        Which are stirred by a dainty wind  

                        It is where you transpire in verdant moonlight  

                        You are the lily, the aster, the white trillium

                        Even the viburnum, by all merits mine

                        The frosty star in the pasture sky,

                        The snowstorm still arriving

                        From its earthward voyage, here there is  

                        No snow but I dreamt the snow was you,

                        You come to be my night

                        You take on the dimensions of sleep,

                        The silhouette of sleep becomes you

                        In those dreams you fall from the sky

                        With numerous blossoms

                        Poetries spill from your mouth

                        In waves, your lips taste like the sea,

                        But the seas have flown away

                        Because of loving you, home is nowhere

                        Therefore you are my shelter

                        The song of any Eden we can mention

Auschwitz (poetry)

     This poem was just written a few weeks back and will be included in my Honor's Thesis which is Creative Nonfiction and hopefully when finished in December will be published.  

My we never forget

 

Europe's outcasts viciously sleep

Begging God for their souls

What a horrendous thing - to wake the following day

Realizing freedom is now transported away

Into ghettos they walk in a communal custody

They lied

In the coldness, Auschwitz’s mouth is opening wide.

Is there a God in Heaven

If so show us your great authority!

Why must we plunge into abyss

Of a concentration camp

To be rendered our souls

By Auschwitz’s great might

They are interred - day and night.

Oh, Auschwitz, Auschwitz, Your devastation is so wide -

The unknowing drove in, ignorant of what's inside.

Run ...Run for your very lives!

You've been brought to The Executioner- and few survive.

It is easy to swallow these us whole -

Effectively you murder body and soul

Directly from the trains - rushed through your doors...

As Ghettos are cleared, you’re straining for more.

Auschwitz you seem hidden away

As your soil turns red with blood

Is there anyone to stop you

Something must be done

Or there will remain not one.

Auschwitz chimneys bursting with the wafting burn

Human remains gusting in the air are churned

Swirling dead who inhabit thoughts of remembrance

Abandoned in our vacant painful trance

Dug pits hidden beyond the eyes of God

Auschwitz endures only if no one sees

Covered over by Them,

So that no one would envision this place

To hide what was done –

What of us remains is barely a trace.

The demonic Nazis smile,

Trying to attract and hypnotize.

It is not so hard to mislead the trusting masses

Could God really be giving these us up to die?

Guiltless weeping eyes having to say “Good bye"

We think it's ended

 "...it is resolved, it is over”

We want to believe they screamed their last cries

Listen carefully, and you will hear the vibration,

Of Auschwitz’s faint heartbeat, beneath the soil

In our weakness we call

The criminals ‘Them” and “They”

Are our souls so distinctive and fearless

That we'd have arose and stood in the way?

"Bound No'th Blues" by Langston Hughes

  Since yesterday I posted a poetry piece my Countee Cullen I thought it only fair that I also post one from Langston Hughes who is "rumored" to have been gay as well.                     

 

                        “Bound No’th Blues”

                        Goin’ down the road, Lawd,

                        Goin’ down the road.

                        Down the road, Lawd,

                        Way, way down the road.

                        Got to find somebody

                        To help me carry this load.

                        Road’s in front o’ me,

                        Nothin’ to do but walk.

                        Road’s in front of me,

                        Walk…an’ walk…an’ walk.

                        I’d like to meet a good friend

                        To come along an’ talk.

                        Hates to be lonely,

                        Lawd, I hates to be sad.

                        Says I hates to be lonely,

                        Hates to be lonely an’ sad,

                        But ever friend you finds seems

                        Like they try to do you bad.

                        Road, road, road, O!

                        Road, road…road…road, road!

                        Road, road, road, O!

                        On the no’thern road.

                        These Mississippi towns ain’t

                        Fit fer a hoppin’ toad