“I think he’ll be to Rome as is the Osprey to  the fish...."    Shakespeare

And from above the timberline
the pond lay open like a hand
to offer all it had.

And patterns in the silt baked
by the sun, became coarse rope knotted into a net, then draped
along the shore line.

And returning to this place
of the towering pine,
whose reservoir of color
had drained back into the earth,
the air was different with promise.

And I, for once, no longer carried sorrow beneath my arched wing.

And the two, together, at the water’s edge hopeful like children, cast all they were into the trembling water--
needing to gather something into themselves, something other than what they had.

And I ask this:  Were we there for the fish or something more?

By:  Evelyn Augusto

In my sleep I
chew on the
laces of the gloves,

trace the eyelets
with my tongue,
memorize the leather
the way an animal will
lick a wound.  Hour

after hour, while you
dream, I gnaw
and pull,
to work my fists
free.

Betrayal is bone
on bone, is
the long, vacant scream
of the dying, is
what pardons the soul

leaving these words
and this mouth
weapons.

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

The headline of the morning paper
read:  Woman's Life is Taken.
They found no body.
No need for an obituary,
all the details of her story fit
in a two by three inch column.  

They didn't know about you.

And the man reading the paper over
his bowl of oatmeal, for once
would miss count the raisins
that he, for fifty years,
carefully dropped in a pyramid
pattern atop the soupy bowl of grain.
He couldn't imagine what possessed her.
He thought: This is why I never married.
He thought.  This is why
I'm  glad I'm  a man.

He didn't know about you.

And the woman who's eyes filled with
tears that stained her face black,
wished she hadn't bought the paper
for the coupons, wished she
didn't understand exactly
what happened, wished there
was a cure for love.  She thought:  
No body...no heart to donate to science....

She once knew  someone like you.

“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 thaw 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

“Now that you’ve said you love me…”  
                                           BJ  Ward

Let us do nothing together but conjoin,
effortlessly...as theory and method.

Let us lean into each other,
press against each other,
become the other…  wordlessly.

And let our nothingness
become a playground for our need.  

Let our minds roam about
each other’s bodies,
the way our hands and
our mouths cannot.

Let us feel each other’s heat
hear each other’s heart beat—
and let that be enough.

Let our thoughts start
in your head
and finish on my lips.  

Let your strength carry us
and my imaginings  fuel us.

Then let us get out of the way
and do nothing  to stop us.

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.