Featured Poets

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Featured Poets

Paul Teodori

Chicago, Illinois

I was born in Chicago on May 7, 1967. My whole family, which at the time included my Mom and Dad, two sisters, one brother and myself, moved to Italy in 1970. My Mom died that year and that event had a deep effect on the kind of person that I would become later on in life. In my teens I experimented heavily with drugs and by the time I was 17, which is when my family moved back to Chicago, I was a drug addict. My drug use affected every area of my life, including my motivation, my creativity, my desire to succeed in school, all these were taken away from me except for my love of literature. At that time I read many horror stories and I particularly liked Edgar Allan Poe. Then at the age of 21 I became a Christian and that began to change my life for the better. As I grew physically and mentally healthier my desire for the things of life returned and so did my creativity. I feel that I have been gifted with a certain insight and a certain way of looking at life that is unique.

3rd Shift

Silence and darkness

Silence, silence, silence.

I take the earplugs out.

And the sounds come rushing in:

The neighbor's air conditioner;

The kids playing somewhere in the street outside;

My wife moving around in the kitchen.

Darkness, darkness, darkness.

I take the sleeping mask off

And the room comes into view:

My wife's multicolored clothes in the closet;

The brown dresser in the corner;

The red curtains over the windows.

Like a man gasping for air,

Upon awakening,

I immediately take the earplugs out of my ears

And take the sleeping mask off my eyes.

But the night is approaching quickly,

And the city will soon be asleep.

And once again I will be plunged into

Silence and darkness.

A HISTORY OF ONE MAN'S IMAGINATION

There was a time when a few words

from a page in a book

Would lift you up,

And, having punctured reality's thin veil,

You would soar up high

To fantastical places in fantastical realms.

Later, under the control of that dark passion, lust

You were led to forbidden places,

And in those shadowy realms

Were made to do unmentionable things.

Later still, boosted by the power of drugs,

You would often shoot upward like a rocket,

And, having escaped reality's gravitational pull,

Were left to wander aimlessly in neon skies.

But when the high became a low

You would come plummeting down from those dizzying heights.

Down, down, down you came

Until, one dark day you found yourself bound and shackled

In the hands of ghouls: depression and despair.

That's when your thoughts turned morbid.

You began to imagine you and your master dead.

And, when there seemed to be no more places left for you to go,

The son of God saved your master's soul.

In time you began to soar again,

Aided by those two blessings: forgiveness and peace.

And today, far from impeding your progress,

The constraints of knowledge, wisdom and conscience,

Have been helping you attain wondrous new heights.

It is a true paradox,

That being thus fettered,

You should reach these glorious new heights.