The Dumping Grounds Poetry℠

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thoughts

and the thought has found words

~Robert Frost

April Audio Feature of the Month

NEMO SUM

February Audio Feature of the Month

Rosalynn Diaz

2023

First Audio Feature of the year

Shockie G The Poet

At the end of each show, participants join in the cipher.

It is a verbal purge like no other.

Join us.

Poetry Heals

November

Audio Feature of the Month

Phylisha Villanueva

October

Audio Feature of the Month

Chenelle Martinez

September

Audio Feature of the Month

Jay Rose Ana

August

Audio Feature of the Month

Onyx H20

July

Audio Feature

of the Month

Lorna Wood

“Snow Globe” first appeared in Love, Lifespan Vol 4 (Pure Slush)

June

Audio Feature of the month

Jennifer Nuesi

Play Videos to get a peek at

The Dumping Grounds Open Mic

Powerhouse Poets

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history ~ Plato

Generational Trauma

I don’t know how to fix you.

I have learned how to live around you,

only speaking to you during daylight hours and never pass 5 because that is when the liquor starts to kick in and I know on the other side of that line is sadness and hatred for the life you have lived.

You see,

you have always been 2 types of drunk

sad or angry…

~Emalia

Parachute

by Paula Hayes

This is the time of year when I usually lose you

An accidental brush of your hair,

My fingers reach and yearn

My fingers are feathers falling through the sky

yearning to land near you

The rain sat with us for hours

Sometimes, we don’t talk

Days when we do,

I am able to rest down the empty streets

shadows pass

I don’t have to try and please you

or you

please me

We keep our intentions hidden inside ourselves

Mine keep leaking out

and

spilling over into your eyes

Just another losing day,

as the sun wanes over the ocean’s waves

Another bottle cap tossed in the sand

Delicious,

If I could,

I’d weave a place to nestle my head inside your soft walls

I need a parachute to ease my landing when I fall

If you let me,

creep closer

Paula Hayes is a poet and college English instructor, residing in Memphis, Tennessee.

Petty Poem

To think

I let you swim between sheets perfumed in my scent

To think

I let it slide between thighs that tightly held your delicately woven lies

Placed on me

Beseeched to lick your wounds

while mine festered and grew

beyond my reach

I lost me in you

And for what?

~Emalia

You slithered in and hissed some false words

Lacking spirit

I lowered my frequency to your point of view

Mostly vague

Your tongue held no depth

I swayed between

Who the hell are you?

and

Please stay

It’s been said that us two can never be

I see that you never grew to understand

I was one of the few that really knew you

and still loved you

~Emalia

We accept the love we think we deserve. ~Stephen Chbosky

Dear God

I will continue on

this never ending story

With all its missing pages and broken phrases

I will never fulfill the demands you have placed on me

and still you stand next to me

I am merely what you continue to recreate

and have yet to master

Seeking refuge in the spaces between traumatic births

and continued rebirths

I was told the reaper has been seen stalking my soul

inching its way

turning my flesh from ivory to gray

I am lost in a sea of pain

Feeling my way through darkness and heavy rains

Beneath crumbling stones

Tsunami flows

With each wind blown

I feel more alone

I proclaim my right to make it end

Why keep me in vain

If I have yet to learn

Perhaps,

Setting me free

Is just too good for me

~Emalia

The blood of abuse

From bloodline to name

I trace the bloodline of pain

and within each vein

Lies injections of genetic deterioration

Infusions of damaged lineage

Filled with paths of self-demise

self-loathing and wasted time

My bloodline pumps destruction into my mind

It stakes its claim

ever flowing

consistently pumping

Habitual

Venomous actions

Stifling my own existence

THE DNA

I was bred from a place where men

put their hands in virgin places

Oppressing

I trace the history of bruised faces

Delivered from closed fists

Victimizing

Machismo

Little boys conditioned with misguided anger

and contaminated views of a woman’s worth

I will not take your last name

I will not be yours to claim

I descend from a place where self-medication

Is passed down through DNA alterations

And now

The blood that flowed from every battered beginning

Clotted with each mutilated death

Sealing within my ancestors remains

The reasons why I live this way

The reasons why the cycle never ends

There is no wisdom to be passed

Their screams buried

Their words, sealed in time

~Emalia

If interested in submitting your piece to the

Dumping Grounds Poetry page

please submit piece to

thedumpinggroundspoetry@gmail.com

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