Poetic ponderings from DAJ 2020

November 17, 2025 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

I like to make space for all writers on this platform so enjoy this departure from our usual featured fiction to delve into the poetic mind of DAJ 2020.

“Emotions” is an ocean of tears and clouds of hope. It contain conversations between my mind, heart, and soul. As you read through the feathers of my thoughts, I hope you get something from my angels and demons. Even from the cries of men one can row a boat in life to prosperity and emotional purity.

“Emotions” is a rare gem, a collection of joy, pain and sorrow. Magnetic words that draw you in and captivate you.” (DAPHAROAH69, award winning and best selling author of “THE KING OF EROTICA” and “LAW OF BEASTS” )

From the author’s bio:

DAJ2020, is a proud son of the African soil and a multi-talented, award winning certified “God of Poetry”.
He’s a creative introvert who irons his words before delivery.
He is a self-taught poet, model, artiste and writer with a miraculous gift of baptizing words to heal souls.
Born and raised in the Pearl of Africa, East Africa. A ride with him is worth a thousand cups of coffee and a million years of adventure, knowledge and wisdom. Let’s roll.

Learn more here: https://www.instagram.com/daj_african_ug

Find their book Emotions here: https://a.co/d/5lOw8fx

2023

January 6, 2024 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

Eris threw a golden apple

inscribed with the words

‘to the ugliest’

onto the floor

of the New York stock exchange

police have sealed off the building

to contain the damage

but they haven’t shut off the cameras

so we can watch money eat itself

(2024)

Red State

A stack of aged hardcover books sits on a plain wooden shelf beside a blank notebook and a pen.

December 12, 2023 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

Writers weep and howl and pour out anguish in the form of words

Wanting to be seen and wanting others to be heard

Seek the neglected beauty in strange thoughts and hopes and faces

Fantastic worlds where power lurks in unexpected places

Where the wicked is the one who doesn’t see the witch,

While the open hearted hero is the one who will be rich

I want it all, the universe, contained between these pages

Where happiness belongs to those who have wept in other ages

Alone, I am surrounded by the ghosts who I invoked

A symphony of voices that in other times were choked

I am not worth of this message, this divine immanence

This way of saying damn the guards as I reach across the fence

Please take my hand, we haven’t long, I see their fires on the hill

If we don’t save these books from burning

Who will?

(Will Forrest, 2023)

Mere Anarchy

July 31, 2023 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

before we knew what time was

we had five year plans

ten year

millennia

we thought each day would be just like the last

that the seasons’ passage did not erode but fortify

our allotment of breaths

this sense we have of timelessness

of needlessness:

a lie

time devours your enemies

more surely than you ever could

hold fast

for the centre has been loosed

mere anarchy enough to mute

their serpentine refusal

their temptation not to know but to deny

hold fast

two words

infinite meanings implicated

in the order of their syllables

hold fast

at this sticking point

this point of flesh

this knowingness

this ganglion incretion

towards your ulterior motives

this lawless urge to plunder

oneself

(July 2023)

23 – Sweat

July 21, 2023 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

The pills roll across my desk

gold tears of a translucent god

rare oil of rarer flowers

suspended in a mote of gold

rare flowers made into an

antidote for time’s relentless deluge

The note reads ‘I can do this’

‘this’ remaining undefined

to be used as needed

this is the past

here on my skin

my lost ambition

running down my sternum

these breathless

prayers to no god/dess

here, touch

for I weep everywhere

my tears

your ocean

the tide’s desire

to take us back

into its saline arms

force our confession

that all we know and are is but a

pause

between breaths

(July 2023)

[from the ongoing (and mainly unpublished) series Body of Work]

Colorado

June 29, 2023 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

Thank god it was news

And not something you learned of later

A sidenote in someone else’s history

Thank god that it breaks hearts

That we call it what it is

A crime, a tragedy

Thank god we know it happened

And we don’t call it a joke

Pretend it doesn’t matter

Once, nobody cried when our lives were cut short

Once, daring to live your life meant you

Deserved such a death

Destroyed in the act of acceptance

Immolated by a false fear

This underhanded belief

masking itself as love

Yet our lives still matter less

Yet still we mourn

We rage

We do not deserve this

This death

These denials

Here, we stand

Here and now

No defeat

No erasure

No surrender

It is you who made this a war

It is you who are defeated

When all we ever wanted was peace

(June 2023)

This is not the most sophisticated poem, in that it makes its claims more overtly than others I have written. The power of poetry is its ability to sidestep a facet of society and/or the human experience, not to avoid it but to observe it differently.

Black and white divisions are for chessboards, not for people. The natural world is characterized by permeable membranes. Things must pass into you, out of you, through you, in order for you to be alive. Parts of you are always dying and other parts being reborn and the idea that anything is static is simply that, an idea which says nothing about how reality actually behaves.

The opposite of freedom isn’t imprisonment, it’s surveillance.

Line Poem 7

abstract painting: a figurative image of three silhouettes of faces overlaid in shades of blue and white. From the main figure's head, swirling circles of light and shadow suggest otherworldly yet shapeless imaginings.

June 2, 2023 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

punished

data

and

want

ask

why

but

one

will

ever

answer

the

phone

chop

the

wood

boil

the

water

return

remake

rejuvenate

restore

your

native

hope

your

soil-grown

wantings

your

endeavours

reach

down

and

know

your

self

(2023)

What am I doing with these line poems? They say so little, tell so much, but I believe there’s a balance between poetry that is born of long thought, and that which tears through us, that grasps a mere tenth of our feeling yet makes it manifest in a form that others can see.

I want to work harder. I want to burn. I want to push and push and push until I reach a lie, then push beyond. I want you to break when you read them. I want you to be reborn.

16 – Tear

May 6, 2023 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

they

said

eye

was

red

because

had

blocked

tear

duct

because

hadn’t

cried

enough

lately

and

said

how

the

fuck

that

possible?

(2023)

This poem is part of an ongoing dialog with identity and self-knowing. I’ve been buying a lot of new Canadian poetry at independent book fairs and am struck by its precision. A descriptive poetry, emotional but not instructive the way I find a lot of modern poetry can be. The poetry I like the best says “here we are, you and I, and this is what that’s like for me.” And the “you and I” can be anyone: you and everyone, you and no one, you and the world, you and yourself.

You maybe don’t have to love yourself. You can maybe just be satisfied with yourself and that will be enough for now. You don’t have to love toast but you might happily eat it every day. The heart is a muscle and all muscles need training. Even when the heart is metaphor for the locus of all your emotions, it must still be trained. If you want to move mountains, you start with one stone.

It is possible to exercise love for all creation by annihilating the self, but the empty vessel is itself a conceit, an opportunity only afforded in a society of abundance. If we are all Buddhists, who fills our begging bowls? Most of us must wade through the muck of our attachments–to spouses, children, parents, life–but to do this well requires an open, active heart. Brave-heartedness, the will to show love despite the countless reasons not to, will be key to our survival in the coming decades. Shallow, angry thinking cannot save us from our selves. We need more and stronger love.

We need more tears.