Poetry View
By Sam Pierstorff
The Modesto Artists Movement brought another electrifying night of poetry to LoFi Labs in downtown Modesto this October with a “horror”-themed haiku battle and open mic event with bongo and piano beats. These poems dug deep, creating a sense of empathy and connection through shared fears, anxieties, and beautiful narratives.
This month’s open mic award went to Patricia Housh for her powerful and evocative poem, Those Words, which captivated the audience with its emotional depth and delivery. Meanwhile, the haiku battle saw Traci Bookman rise above the competition, even besting her prolific poet husband. It was a night to remember, where art, fear, and empathy collided in the most unexpected ways, leaving the audience both thrilled, inspired, and more connected then ever.
Traci Bookman, October “Horror” Haiku Champion
A house of horrors
All the guests are wearing white
Party at Diddys
Time to vote again
What will happen if he wins
I see dead people
Bank account low
Too old to be a h*e
Maybe only fans
Write Night is coming up on the 2nd Wednesday at LoFi Labs at 14th and J. This is a great way to begin to write, and anything is good. Just get it down on paper. Class usually fills up so sign up at Eventbright to get a place and get ready to create golden phrase and thoughtful prose. www.eventbrite.com/e/write-night-registration-939852432927
Patricia Housh
This poem has adult content and language and is available online at ModestoView.com
Those Words
My grandfather used to say,
“A man can build a thousand bridges, and people still won’t call him
an engineer, but if these people found out that he
sucked just one cock, they would call him a faggot for life.”
Those words
once had a great presence inside my mind. My mother
repetitiously recited that perverse proverb as I fumble-stumbled
awkwardly into puberty.
Those words
confused the hell out of me. Despite my mother knowing who and what
I am, I remained ignorant— too immature and too underdeveloped
to detect what lied dormant within, still not-yet ready to wake up.
Those words
transformed themselves into a demented and perilous prayer that struck
my soul as if each syllable was a poisonous dart, leaving me
paralyzed and completely stuck.
Those words
contaminated my soul with terror. Inside my adolescent brain,
there was nothing more ominous than the threat of permanent shunning
or indefinite ostracism. The very notion of reaching a point of no return—
experiencing the impossibility of not being able to retreat back into the
warmth of acceptance and anonymity, not being able to go back to what is
familiar, not being able to ever be a good person, no matter how diligent and
heartfelt my acts of atonement could ever be— quickly petrified me into submission.
Those words
fueled my fury as I grew and realized that I was cursed and doomed to fail,
becoming increasingly aware of my natural and primal desires and drives
as well as the absolute futility in my being able to ignore them.
Those words
killed my spirit when I was 16, and my mom found a letter in my backpack,
written by my forbidden lover. She told me that my life would never be the same
over and over again as she beat me, but the impact from her fists were mere blips
on my trauma radar compared to…
Those words
Those words
Those words
fractured me with guilt, believing that I was forever-dammed because
I committed social murder-suicide, taking me and my family out
with one sinful transgression.
Those words
filled me with self-hatred as I deliberately repressed my truth in favor
of a fake-plastic-toxic-exhausted version of myself, continuously searching
for any possible way to become callous and numb from my perpetual pain-on pain-on-pain.
Those words
began losing their power when I was ready to drop the false pretenses
and take the mask off my face. I began cleaning up my own mess
and started figuring out how to solve the puzzle of who I am and
where do I want to go from here, actively working to fill in
the various voids with the necessary components.
Those words
have nothing to do with me now. Absent of any kind of mental
or emotional fodder, oozing with the decrepit stench of decay,
bloated with obsolete rhetoric, having the freshness
of a rotting carcass alongside an abandoned road, forgotten
and no longer accessed by anything that choses to be alive.
Patricia Housh
09/30/24
