I wasn't  made with
an ambidextrous
spirit.  No, nor skilled
in simultaneously
gripping and letting go--
not trained, since
childhood, to do that
which my heart resists.

It's hard to hold on.

And when my chest
rattled like a
diamond snake--
and I was uncertain
of what was at stake.

I learned:
I am the bull's eye.
I am the stop sign.
I am the excuse
for his violence--
I am the story nobody
wants to hear or
change.

I am no longer me

but only that
gun shot
right here
to my middle.

By:  Evelyn Augusto. 2017

And you filled your mouth
with me, coated your words
with the savory flavor of us,  
then wore your tongue smooth  
against the stone of my pleasure.

And you taught our bodies
their purpose too,
drove the meaning of love
deep inside me until we both

understood the difference

between the rhythm
of our hearts beating...
and their singing.

By: Evelyn Augusto
2017

Excuse me, I can't hear you--
your gun is speaking louder  
than you do and yes,
you scare me, it isn't how
it ought to be--we are more
like each other than you can see.

I can't hear you
I can't hear you
your gun is speaking
louder than you do
and yes, it saddens me
because all I see--is a woman who
doesn't know who she could be.

I can't hear you
I can't hear you
your gun is speaking louder
speaking louder

There's no more you.

Written by Evelyn Augusto for Guns Don't Save People Poets Do.  October 21, 2017

“Give up trying to do anything.  
                      nothing works works.”  
                From a note written by
                     Scott Allen Ostrem

If only you came to buy
another cell phone, a pen and
note card, some crayons &
paper.  Anything.  Anything
that would give you a voice.

If only you bought the
fixings for a satisfying supper,
or a gift for a lost lover.
Anything. Anything to help
you express your distress.

Anything to free your
words from the prison of
your maddness, anything
to melt your frozen tongue,
anything to return your
manhood,  other than that gun!

Anything.  Anything.   If only . . .

By:  Evelyn Augusto
For GUNS DON'T SAVE PEOPLE POETS DO 2017

“Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroke its sum, You did not come….”  
                                    Thomas Hardy            


I stole a jelly jar
of wishbones
once from a dead man—
they sang like a rattle,
those ten conjoined
clavicles, and I spent
the day dreamily
shaking them
like a cup of dice—

wondering
if I could harvest hope;
wondering if
one day
you would return;
wondering if
un-granted wishes
arrived like
a still-born?

I buried the forked
bones in the yard.

Late night and the bed sheet is a noose
and I haven’t slept since November
and I toss and turn in the grey hum of grief--counting votes like sheep
and the nightmare won’t let go of me
and I don’t know who to trust
cause even the un-trustworthy don’t
know who they are
or recognize themselves in each other
and I like fewer and fewer people
in this rural town
and my PTSD is back
and I can attest to that.  

And I think:  This is how those folks in Dallas felt the day evil grew legs and walked along
Elm Street.

And what weighs more:  A hundred votes or a hundred bullets?

And you ruined my America and,
no…I won’t forgive you.                      

By:  evelyn augusto                               November 15th 2016

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.