Poetry — Zev Torres

Zev Torres is a writer and spoken word performer whose poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications including Otherwise Engaged, My Father Taught Me, Flora Fiction, Poetry Quarterly, Kitchen Sink Magazine, The Poet Magazine, Three Rooms Press’ Maintenant 15, Maintenant 12 and Maintenant 6, The Pine Cone Review, and in Great Weather for Media’s previous anthologies, Escape Wheel, Suitcase of Chrysanthemums, and I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand. Zev’s latest chapbook is entitled Stalactites and Stalagmites (2021). In 2010, Zev founded the Skewered Syntax Poetry and Pub Crawls and, since 2008, has hosted Make Music New York's annual Spoken Word Extravaganza

Something Familiar

Something familiar

Looming off to the side.

There but not really there.

Another one. Another distraction.  

A forehead. That’s it. 

About to connect.  

But the eyes to which it joins 

Do not match 

One is wide and blue 

The other narrow and brown

The cheeks that come into view 

Do not belong

Are too pale too smooth. 

The lips thin chapped misshapen. 

Then it —

The image of a stranger’s face —

Something familiar but unknown,

Recedes and rolls away. 

The Disquieting Sky

We prayed,

We tithed,

We consecrated our hearts and souls,

Yet still,

Time warps,

Light bends,

And the clouds bleed

Dolorous runes.

When will we accept that

It is not my fault or yours 

We cannot escape the intentions of

The disquieting sky,

That its portent will 

Find us,

Loom over us, 

Taunt us,

No matter where we hide.

Master of Extremes

you 

are the 

m  a s t e r 

of extremes,

a suicide hitman,

a lover who destroys,

a sweet-talking interrogator.

you heal wounds with blame,

crush hearts w i t h m e r c y,

sooth tortured souls with 

whispered threats,

cry yourself 

to sleep

because

no one 

ever 

returns

your

calls.

Aberration 

If only you had heard accolades in the silence,

Found contentment in the stillness,

Convinced yourself that a moment’s pleasure

Is neither an aberration, 

Nor evidence of 

Your malevolent nature.

If only you had,   

Before doubt and despair conspired 

To bind you with fatigue,

Drain the remnants of your vitality,

Drag you along twisting rutted paths,

Through an oppressive wasteland,

Into the core of a barren wilderness,

Then launch you beyond the temporal perimeter,

Far past the reach of those of us who will never stop

Wondering, caring, or calling your name.