how many poems are written about
love and hate
living life and welcoming death
happiness and sadness
the fearful and fearless
sanity and madness?

how many poems are written about
darkness and light
the sun and the moon
the stars and the galaxy
the universe and our planet?

how many poems are written about
the trees and the rivers
the mountains and the valleys
the animals and sea creatures
the oceans and the land
the sky and the clouds
nature and everything it provides?

how many poems are written about
anxiety and depression
suicide and living life to the fullest
music and silence
philosophy and art
incarceration and liberation
coffee and tea
***** and drugs
war and peace
politics and religion
*** and celibacy
******* and addiction
and those who use it
for recreation and those who
believe it’s an abomination?

how people are drunk?
drunk on alcohol
drunk on love
drunk on books
drunk on ideas
drunk with magic
happening all around them

how many poems does it take
to sing?

how many words do you need to
piece together to end this poem?

as many as it takes
until everything is
swallowed into the
abyss of nothing

Night, that cheating wife
of the Sun pulls on
her black *******

the ones with a thong
and glittering sequins
that stll lets the moon shine
singing his silent love song

until dawn comes around
and she slides off her dark
stockings from each leg

slowly one by one
before her husband awakes
and asks her to break
him a golden egg

for breakfast, over easy
my sweet woman
and let the yolk run.

I can't forget what never happened,
With false memories of you.
I wish to forget the events that did
The ones that haunt me still.
The ribbons and bows of preparations,
The unbridled joy of celebrations;
The returning  from varied vacations,
The last corner turn onto our street.
The Sunday meals with family,
Grandkids bouncing on our knees
While I sit content by you.
Afternoons with books and tea,
Steeped in a ****** mystery.
The silent walks beneath our galaxy;
Entwined and wrapped watching t.v.,
The quiet evenings burning fires,
The passion of our own desires.
Or just laying awake while you sleep.
I placed the whats in the who, where, when;
Recalling shadows of future events,
That won't be happening again.

I don’t like tuna fish.

I don't like it the way
I don't  like
men who study
little girls

I don't like it the way
I don't like
bullies
and
rich people
who won't share
or poor
people who are
cruel to
their own kind
because they have
to put their
pain somewhere.

I don’t like tuna fish
because my mother
told me, "eat it--
it's good for you" the way
she insisted I accept
the rest of
her distasteful
lies.

I dont like how the taste
of canned tuna finds
its way back into
my mouth long
after its been swallowed  
and **** out.

It reminds me of the
unbearable
that I thought I survived--
that I thought I left behind
but didn't.

By:  Evelyn Augusto

Oh! anniversary of loss
I grieve--
like a child-less-mother,
whose breast knows
the phantom itch
of need:  
the pinch of teeth, the
weight of life filling her--
the regret of not savoring
the tug and pull of love
a little longer.

And so our last night
together, for me,
came too soon.  
And now the eleventh
day of every
month passing--
I die a little more to you.