CENTO on Letting Go

I age like a rock, not a rocking chair. 

They say we bring it on ourselves, 

One by one the words leave you, even this one. 

 

Enough of the will to go on, and not go on, or how. 

I have no voice. 

I am filled with listening.  

 

I unzip the lake, walk into what I am. 

The hastily assembled angel watches, 

Measuring the darkness between men. Dust and Dusk enter. 

 

Thrush melodies tumbled forth  

Like butterflies. They flap and fight over the lavender and spring yellow. 

It reminds me of my own survival, 

 

Where instead of oxygen there is silence, 

 Questions silent in my mouth, 

Chrysalis hanging on the bough of this night. 

 

My back to the ground, I kicked. 

 The whole stary sky goes black. 

I love every planet. 

 

I hear the cosmos swinging, 

And that saying  the Darwinian logic: 

“Perhaps it is true?” I realized everything around me I could do

 

CENTO on Letting Go (with original poems and authors)

I age like a rock, not a rocking chair. 

They say we bring it on ourselves, 

One by one the words leave you, even this one. 

 

Enough of the will to go on, and not go on, or how. 

I have no voice. 

I am filled with listening.  

 

I unzip the lake, walk into what I am. 

The hastily assembled angel watches, 

Measuring the darkness between men. Dust and Dusk enter. 

 

Thrush melodies tumbled forth  

Like butterflies. They flap and fight over the lavender and spring yellow. 

It reminds me of my own survival, 

 

Where instead of oxygen there is silence, 

 Questions silent in my mouth, 

Chrysalis hanging on the bough of this night. 

 

My back to the ground, I kicked. 

 The whole stary sky goes black. 

I love every planet. 

 

I hear the cosmos swinging, 

And that saying  the Darwinian logic: 

“Perhaps it is true?” I realized everything around me I could do

 

 

The Smiling Understanding, Stanley Moss

Naji, 14. Philadelphia, Rita Dove 

Overnight, John Yau 

 

 The End of Poetry, Ada Limon 

Stone Love, Louise Erdrich 

There is Only You, Lupe Mendez 

 

Lake-Loop, Natalie Diaz 

he Hastily Assembled Angel on Care and Vitality, Shane McCrae

Not Forgiven, John Sibley Williams  

 

Interstate Highway System, Adam O. Davis

They Ran and Flew From You, Chandra Feldman 

Red Wine Spills, L Ash Williams

 

On the Deaths of Friends, Billy Collins

Wheelchair, Yusef Komunyakaa

For Black Children at the End of the World, and the Beginning, Roger Reeves  

Ode to the Boy Who Jumped Me, Monica Sok

Elegy With Table saw & Cobwebs, Patrick Phillips

Love, Alex Dimitrov 

 

Some Call it God, Jabari Asim 

Before the Riot, Kwame Dawes 

Marfa, Texas, Victoria Chan