Elizabeth Padillo Olesen Poems

From Kenya to Tanzania,
from Mozambique to
many more corners in Africa
and Asia, you spread your beauty
...

They run away from bombs
and deafening sounds
They flee from gas poison
that suffocates their lungs.
...

In silence I move beyond myself
from the prison of chaos and worries
I listen to the pulse of my heart
and the breathing through my nose.
...

On an empty bench
stands the stillness
the absence of those
who used to sit down
...

The morning sun goes down
and the moon appears in the sky
as mother prepares bed for her child.
The birds find branches of trees
...

It abducts the human heart
to the dungeon where
dragons stretch their tongues of fire
to kill and burn what others have built and owned.
...

When nights are cold
when my sobbing blends
with silence in darkness,
I wish for a star to twinkle,
...

Lord, deliver me
from fantasies of self grandeur
that seek to elevate myself
as the center of my own existence,
...

There are letters and words
with punctuation marks
and pauses to be read.
With his pen,
...