2026 New York City Poetry Festival Set
[Part of the poem pair series “Heaven and Hell.”)
Born into the Garden of Eden
Lush and Green
Taste the forbidden fruit
Of Eve’s tree.
Temptation and lust,
Overcome with greed,
Concrete jungles
Built from petrol dollar money.
Constant extraction,
Endless consumption
Resource exploitation.
Paradise paved over with
an 8am forecast of snow,
followed by an afternoon of 80 degrees
before tornadoes and
thunderstorms next week.
Bombs rattle the Earth
As the sky cries out for relief.
But how will I talk about time
Without your rivers
Or the unknown
Without your oceans?
Twisting and turning like rivers,
Tossing and turning in bed
Moving like water,
taking the shape
of wherever I am.
Reflecting the light
Of sunrise at dawn
The horizon and sea
Our bodies in love
The illusion of separation
Us becoming One.
We are all living Earth
Faces raised from crest
Born from stardust
Skin shining like the moon
Or kissed by the sun
A nose sculpted by the mountains
A crown grown from savannah plains
Bodies sculpted from
the Earth’s Darkest clay.
America’s 250th birthday,
Pluto return in Capricorn
A nation dead and reborn
Moon in Scorpio Woman,
X-Axis of Love, Future Hendrix
In the Age of Aquarius.
The Universe experiencing itself
Energy, Source
Focus, Flow
Allah, Kabbalah,
Shakti, Buddha
Tawhid, Oneness, Divine Timing
Different names for the same thing.
Understanding the Creator
Through its creation
Seeking clues on a poet
In the riddles of a poem.
Roots take hold
And branches reach out
Up to Heaven
Like veins into skin.
In blood soaked soil
Flowers still bloom,
After battles lost
And wars won.
Through the concrete
Roses still grow.
Shout Out, Tupac
But when in New York
It’s a Biggie Boogie Wonderland
On the East Coast
Steppin over puddles of rain
It’s a big storm
But still, I overcome.
Mother Nature’s wrath unleashing
tornadoes paving your path.
All things in balance
Do no harm, take no shit.
Untamed Femininity,
Community, The ‘I’ in Unity
Give you my two cents
But get back 50
Chasing immortality
Through poetry.
Return to nature
Sink my body into the grass
My corpse becoming soil
Before I come back to life
again.
