July Staff Poetry Collection
For the month of July, we wanted to honor the amazing poets we have on our Velvet Fields staff. Thank you all for sharing your amazing work with us and the world.
Poetry by Simona Filiposka:
“My grandma”
Her voice feels as gentle
as the waves of the ocean
and as steady
as a 100-year-old tree in autumn
with lots of leaves fallen down
in a sea of colors,
from yellow to red and brown.
You can see the scars of the tree
in its broken branches,
and if you touch its crust,
you can feel
the storms and winds it has passed.
But under the tree
in its shadows,
millions of kids and people
have found their comfort
and so have I.
Her hands are just like the tree crust,
with wrinkles
that speak about how giving she is
and how much love she holds
for the people and the world.
Her voice when she tells me
that choosing kindness
is always the answer
and it always will be
is like a mantra
that my heart has remembered
and will hold on to
forever.
When she speaks to me,
I can see the pain behind her eyes
and the wisdom of her soul.
She's the light
that will keep on leading me home.
And her heart...
I could use all the words
in all the languages
and all the poetry collections,
and I still wouldn't find
a word to describe
how big her heart is.
I could say it's as big as the universe
and the universe is endlessly huge
just like her love,
but I'm not sure if that would fit.
I'm only sure
her love will stay
even after the universe is gone.
“Coup de foudre”*
The lightning struck
straight into my heart
and now my body is on fire-
full of electricity.
The spiraling atoms of my being
have lost their state of neutrality,
now it’s all about the electrons.
But even they
are leaving their orbits
and I have become
the definition of chaos.
I’m burning faster now,
but not alone.
And if you too loved
how our hearts exploded
into tiny pieces
and came together
like a puzzle,
then I think I can say
at least for a moment
we were happy.
Maybe that moment
was all that mattered.
But if we wanted forever,
we should’ve known better
than to make the treehouse
our home.
We should’ve chosen
a nice house
on a quiet street
like everyone else does.
Because life is about security,
or is it?
*Coup de foudre-thunderbolt (French, literal translation), idiomatic expression of love at first sight
Poetry by Dani Ayala:
"proletariat"
i knew capitalism like the back of my hand
the gaze, the trance, the eyes, the wannabes, the wannadon’ts, everything.
from its birth to rise to fall to fall to fall again.
the catastrophe because how else do you
describe gentrification without using a million metaphors
i knew capitalism like the back of my hand as if it’s birth was not white supremacy and of nazareth instead.
i knew capitalism like the back of my hand because one day i’m going to be jeff bezos and shame anyone who is just trying to afford a roof.
i knew capitalism.
since birth, since that bill they gave our parents for bringing light to the world,
since the second i fed off the industry, the pretty, the ugly, the all of it,
the second i forgot i’m okay and not a peasant
just here, figuring it out with my hand in the gutter and the other one a fist.
Poetry by Eleanor Colligan:
"I Know Now"
for my roommates
Some days,
my mind is captured
and my marrow is the stuff
of bird bones,
and all I feel is
flattened on
unforgiving concrete.
But
there are
other times
I feel buoyed
by the love I feel from others
in the most concrete
sense.
In seeing their name
flash across the same
blue hued screen
that gives me nausea otherwise.
In the concrete way that
they fed me
physically
when I couldn’t make myself
move ‘cause my limbs were made
of concrete .
There are many ways
to show love,
and I’ve been shown it
the way the sun
caresses the eye’s iris
and illuminates
every speckle and dash.
Yes,
I know what it is
to be loved
and that has made
all the difference.
"Lend Me Your Ears"
To be a poet is to be a thief:
a merciless hunter of words to describe palpable anger, sadness, and grief.
A burglar of hushed conversations and the hissing of words unsaid,
all to tame the hungry roaring in their head.
To be a poet is to possess a hammerhead heart:
a heart that slams against walls and treats sleeping as an art.
It seeks to rid itself of the raw, pure pain hardened to black pearl,
pleading and pushing it out with vines in its pulsing arteries, begging to unfurl.
To be a poet is to be a liar:
to create beauty from things that are not beautiful, to cast reservations on fire.
A spinner of half-truths, pure and dainty as spider silk,
that dazzle and amaze naked eyes, no matter their ilk.
To be a poet is to be incomplete: to find meaning in the husks of words that litter the streets.
To root through memory waste bins and feelings long past,
a hoarder of thoughts that wish to be laid to rest at last.
To be a poet is to have lungs made of stone:
encasing the desire to puncture the world in search of her bone.
To not stay silent in the midst of the oppressive night,
to be loud and alive, and kindle mortality’s light.
"Niagara Falls"
And I understand why people went
down,
down
and over the
edge
or under entirely
just for a chance,
not to tame it.
Impossible,
no,
just to be a part of
the consuming chaos.
A priori tug
joins the ducks and seagulls
in their fearless
acceptance.
watch,
watch
how the wing of the moth
lights like paper.
Poetry by andrea korompis:
"Death"
I never understood
Why some people like to think
That death is something to be scared of;
Cold, dark, and black.
Death is a place
Where your worries cease to exist.
You have not known
Such a peaceful sleep.
In truth, death is not sadness nor decay;
Death is bright.
Death is the light at the end of the tunnel.
Death is your grandmother’s smile,
Greeting you, welcoming you into her hands.
Death is your long-lost childhood pet,
Waiting for you at the pearly gates.
Death is where your lost memories come to claim you,
All the things you’ve left behind.
Death can be a rebirth,
A new beginning.