Poetry By Kristen D. Scott | American Modern poet

Kristen D. Scott

Children of the Crater

for Gaza

The sea hums lullabies in a language of salt,
but the children no longer sleep.
Their dreams were shattered at dawn,
tucked beneath rubble,
beside broken crayons and prayer beads.

A mother weeps without sound—
her grief carved deep like a fault line,
her hands still shaped to hold
the infant she can no longer touch.

In Gaza, the stars flicker behind smoke,
not because the night is romantic,
but because the sky forgets
what peace looks like.

Each alley a grave.
Each rooftop a warning.
The olive trees burn,
their roots gasping in dust
where grandfathers once told stories
of resistance, of harvest,
of a Palestine whole and breathing.

But breathing is a privilege now.
Air rationed between ash and shrapnel,
hope stitched with scarcity,
love hidden in the eyes
that dare to look up.

And still—
a kite rises.
A child dares to run,
barefoot over concrete wounds,
carrying a prayer in colors
the world has learned to scroll past.

This poem is not enough.
But silence is worse.

Let it be a match
in the wind,
a whisper that survives the siege.

At Pelican Cove

          (For Sam)

The sound of muscular waves
overwhelms playing children, ergs merge
with seagull huoh-huoh-huoh’s, moonstone
gatherers, and anxious parents.

On the boardwalk, your eyes spy a slender
blonde, ever an aficionado of female body language.
 
I am jealous, but then your eyes alight on her cranky
toddler. In an instant, you net a toddler and mother,
hands, eyes, and throaty Midwest voice.
Ah, my Lebanese Sinbad with loose, khaki, cargos!
Families, seagulls, and crashing waves unify
for your performance… entranced

 

I couldn’t wait for bed, to ride that moment, shout,

he is mine!

And you were …

 

for the turn of a screw

a setting of sun

a strum of oud,

a dervish whirl…

 

for as long as you could be anyone’s,

even children, crashing wave, gull, toddler, and mother.

Traveling the Pine Barrens

September Sunday, we drove through the Pine Barrens
New Jersey seemed like a rustic mining town on the other side
of the world. Steam rifted off hillsides of frost,
 sun-licked porticos into the icy banks
 
We followed side roads as they twisted like Colorado’s Gold Camp Road,
cutting through Rocky Mountain tunnels from Bear Creek to Cripple
Creek. I even caught a Redheaded Woodpecker knocking on a Pine,
His head so strange, like a rooster’s comb. I imagined a loud cock-a-doodle-doo
 
Was I here before, mixing the terrains? Or did the frosted
windshield swooshing the fog takes me out of my head and into
him –
     him…
parting my hair from my eyes, tucking it behind my left ear. We drove too,
in a small space of time.
 
Two men. They did have the same eyes. Yes, but different
hands –
         hands....
One of his jammed inside rust, cowhide gloves, piloting the turns,  
the other in my naked palm, tracing fingers, flicking nails
our breath clouding the glass, like delicate spider webs
in between crisp autumn Aspen leaves.
 
The other side of this road leads to Jersey Shore, a seaside rendezvous,
and a weekend laughing at his stupid jokes, sipping his tawdry-unfortunate port.
Two men, two merge in empty hallways to somewhere else,
and two very different women.
 
under a lone surviving Elm and newly sown sweet
corn, Pancho rests, speaking broken Española
the southern Colorado field, his barrio.
 
Pancho calls my father Ye’s instead of Les.
like tortilla or llama. My dad doesn’t seem to mind,
even though he complains.
 
Pancho tosses a stray mutt a spicy chicharrón 
thrown from a brown paper bag, his belly shakes
when the dog howls for more. “Ye’s la mirada” my dad nods
His head pulls his Allis-Chalmers cap over his big blues,
wanting to nap, but grins.
 
Pancho’s cousin says he is illegal, he sends money
to his wife, Theresa, in Old Mexico, and has one son
who farms in Fresno. Later, Dad says, “Pancho’s gone
back to Chihuahua,” “lazy bastard.”A bit of worry
deepens his eyes. My brother says,
 
“Pancho’s been deported,” “deportado.”
Since Pancho’s capture, we play outside in the evenings
My mother throws a potato at my dad, grazing his bald head.
“You’re smoking too much; the kids cannot breathe.”
My father tells her, “Pancho’s son Pedro
left Mexico because the water and air are dirty.”
 
My mom does not hear him; he plants a big one on her
and calls her “hot-lips,” labios calientes. My mom comes up for air,
says, he will die of cancer if he doesn’t stop smoking. 15 years later, he does.
 
My father again takes his siesta, tosses hot Vienna sausages to the stray
he now calls “Cisco.” There are no homemade chicharron. Cisco whines.
Together, they stretch under the Elm with Pancho
lost – my father and the stray, both American mutts, close their eyes
under the resting afternoon las sombra.

Kristen D. Scott (USA) – Former Editor in Chief of KNOT

Kristen D. Scott is a seven-time nominee of the Pushcart Prize in poetry for work from 2022 and six poems from her 2014 collection Opiate. She is an award-winning essayist for her work on Federico Garcia Lorca and his books the Divan del Tamarit, Poet of the Deep Song, and essay, “The Duende.” She has published in several anthologies, newspapers, and ezines, including two front covers from Nacional Newspaper in Albania, Atunis Journal, the San Diego Poetry Annuals, Nomos Review, Perigee, and Alesbuyia. She has published two poetry collections from Garden Oak Press, Liaisons (2012) and Opiate (2014). She has been translated into Arabic, Albanian, Türçe, French, and Italian. Scott is currently the Editor-In-Chief, founder, and web designer of KNOT Magazine, she is originally American, but has lived in Turkiye for several years.'