Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
evelyn augusto Apr 2019
Tonight, you cling to my nakedness
with the perfect gratitude of a nearly
drowned man.   And I think:  

I am the shore he has washed up on.
And I ask:  Who is really the one saved?

So much doesn’t matter.
There are no questions about where
you have been or where we will go.

There is only now.  

There is only your cheek pressed
against the inside of my thigh,
the feeling of your skin becoming my
skin, the sound of you drawing me in
as you inhale the sweet, spicy heat of me that rises up from a dark,
warm place you want to return to.

And there are these hands.
Hands that you have given a purpose.
Hands that have read the electric petition of your body and understood.

These are the hands that will not lie to you.  These are the hands that you will return to.

By:  Evelyn Augusto
#poetsout @evelynaugusto2012
evelyn augusto Jan 2018
“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."                  
                                 William Shakespeare              

              

They know time is the greatest
of thieves,  stealing their
oneness until she no longer
recognizes herself in his face
and he no longer remembers
her voice as music,
her steps as a dance.

When he was a boy…
he loved as a boy--
believing she created his universe.
Now as a man, he in turn, is her
sun and moon and stars.

So much depends on the landscape
of a life, so much of what
we get. . .  we give.

By:  Evelyn Augusto
evelyn augusto Jan 2018
they make my husband feel
like a man and help him bond with our sons.  

I don't like them or how he
describes the way they feel in his hand:  "Better than a ***",  I heard him confide to his pal, Joey...

but something has to protect  us.  I mean it's our right to be on guard.  
It's our right.

My husband spends all his
time with his guns:  cleaning them,
polishing the barrels, studying their details.  And talking...talking about
his gun rights, about his next NRA meeting or  what happened at the last or that he can't believe how
good the right gun in his hand feels.  

I don't like guns...they made me                   disappear.


By: Evelyn Augusto
evelyn augusto Dec 2017
I knew all along
you were the rail spike,
I was the sleeper

and in my old life
I was deader
than dead anyway...

so I jumped.

Jumped from the platform--
of my mediocre existence
     to risk the tracks

I didn't trip on to them,
carelessly,  like
some might think

no

I flashed my stoplight
green eyes in consent,
gave the 3rd rail a nod,

perched myself right
over the vibrating steel
and waited

I knew without knowing
what I was doing

its primordial
older than the cave itself

this  instinct to follow
certain men anywhere.
  Dec 2017 evelyn augusto
kas
this is how it happens
it's the last day the temperature will be
above thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit
until February
you're not looking at the date
it's just the end of November
the middle of the night in the middle of a road
at the end of November
the hum of this small town hurts your ears
you're stuck in a dream where everything you see
turns into a weapon
this is how it happens
you knocked back sharp, amber liquid
to make this place feel a little more okay
and it only worked halfway
no matter how soft the edges are
you bruise your hips when you
run into them in the dark
you're ******* on your fourth cigarette when
a police officer pulls over and asks
how you're doing today
in the too-bright white of the headlights
the sick taste of Red Stag sticks to
the roof of your mouth
the mouth that you're moving into a smile
the mouth exhaling plumes of smoke at the ground
you're okay
"i'm okay."
you don't tell him what you're really doing
you're really taking all of your
thoughts about stopping your pulse for a walk
you don't tell him you've been
chasing ambulances all night long
please, officer don't leave me alone, you don't say
he tells you to have a good night and drives away
and this is how it happens
the moon smiles at you with every single one
of its tiny, sharp teeth
nobody but your cat finds you in that bathtub
nobody but your cat watches you rise from red water
watches it drip drip drip
from every chasm carved in your left arm
nobody but your cat saw the soft animal of your soul
shiver from the cold that day
it's the first day the temperature
dropped below
thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit inside your chest
based on true events
evelyn augusto Dec 2017
I Don't Like Guns...But

they make my husband feel
like a man and help him bond
with our sons.  

I don't like them or how he
describes the way they feel in
his hand:  "Better than a ***",  
I heard him confide to his pal, Joey...

but something has to protect  us.  
I mean it's our right to be on guard.  
It's our right.

My husband spends all his
time with his guns:  cleaning them,
polishing the barrels, studying their
details.  And talking...talking about
his gun rights, about his next NRA
meeting or  what happened at the
last or that he can't believe how
good the right gun in his hand feels.  

I don't like guns...they made me                   disappear.


Written for GUNS DON'T SAVE PEOPLE POETS DO:  DUELING WITH WORDS TO STOP GUN VIOLENCE. ..a Facebook group
evelyn augusto Dec 2017
In this summer light, your face startles
Much like the sudden unveiling
Of Baroque Oil On Canvas

Your face becomes illuminated
Like an entire Universe
And I will study the threshold

Of your mouth, admiring its clear brightness
(Chiaro)...before moving up
To consider the invitation

Of your eyes, reclining into
Their obscure mellow darkness
(Oscuro)...and soon I will  recall

The arrangement of light and shade.
That is you. Forever reliving
What you have revealed to me:

Your hunger is my pleasure, your words
My truth, your song, my delight, and you,
(Chiaroscuro)...

By:  Evelyn Augusto
Next page