Kendall A. Bell

For the girl with the Golden State in her eyes

This is a knock on the wood
door that keeps you sheltered
from the people that throw away
your kindness. This is the text
message that wipes away doubt.
This is the email to keep you
from spending the night alone
on your bed, as you rock yourself
and cry, wanting to die. This is
the note in the sky saying, "Don't
give up.", the Facebook post
saying, "He's not fucking worth
it." This is me, telling you,
that everything is not bullshit,
that an embrace is more powerful
than a razor.



The monster of Riverside

He writes you letters now, begging
for understanding. It is easy to
repent when he is locked away, unable
to dig into the underworld of underage
girls - laid out like eye candy for
sick minds. You are conflicted. He has
left you swollen, to care for another
mouth. He has been alone with your
daughter. His name, in newspapers and
on the internet. There is no erasing
the sight of handcuffs, the hundreds
of files on his laptop of little girls,
the picture of him standing behind you
in a Scream mask, his hands in the air
behind you while you hold your child.
Images burning your skin, holding you
captive.



Kendall A. Bell's poetry has been most recently published in Melancholy Hyperbole and First Literary Review-East. He was nominated for Sundress Publications' Best of the Net collection in 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013. He is the author of sixteen chapbooks. His current chapbook is "Siberia". He is the founder and co-editor of the online journal Chantarelle's Notebook, publisher/editor of Maverick Duck Press and president of the Quick And Dirty Poets. His chapbooks are available through Maverick Duck Press. He lives in Southern New Jersey.

Comments

  1. JarrodJune 9, 2015 at 2:37 AM

    While introducing myself to a young, new poet named B. Diehl, (only through his few works available and an interview) I happened upon your poetry, and I must say I'm an excitably happy man for it. I've always been dissuaded from what I've considered "granter of negative energy writs," but with the assist of a young poet by the name of Nathan Hassall, who, by the way, recently published his third installment of poetry, and is a Facebook friend, I've mellowed quite a bit, and opened my mind further, and took this "road not taken" to my own poetry. Mr. Bell, reading your poems have pronounced an even more palpable, stronger hope for me, where good poetry is concerned. These two pieces greatly express the sign of our times through your heightened state of mind, in re: of the subject matters. You take me there, and that's poetry. Thank you.

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