Author: Kay Kestner

---

To Hold the Stone 

by Kay Kestner:

To Hold the Stone 

This is your last desperate 
grasp for something you 
know will never let you sleep. 
And I can see now, it has 
always been within your reach. 

The cursing, howling, broken 
one – your jewel was the  
stone in your shoe, that  
ache in every step, a pain 
you could not forget.  

You’re reaching for it now, 
unwrapping the bandages –  
the way it made you bleed 
and blister, sore as hell’s  
own fire can burn you.  But  
you are scar-less.  Use this. 
It is your foundation, road, 
and home.  It is everything 
you’ve lost, and all you 
chance to gain.  It is  
your stone, so precious 
never can it be bought or 
sold.  It is your own. 
Reach and hold. 

© Written April 12, 1999 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your Daily Dose of #Poetry:

---

Casually 

by Kay Kestner:

Casually 

he drops the notice on the wind. 

Too many debts, 
who needs electric? 

Just as he starts dinner 
they cut the news off 
and kill the microwave. 

He pulls out a slice of bread, 
sits by the window and thinks 

they’ll never shut off the sun. 

But, he knows, in the back of 
his sedated mind, science is 
casually trying to find a 
way to turn out the sun. 

The cure for skin cancer. 
That’s what they’ll say. 


© Written April 10, 2000 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your Daily Dose of #Poetry:

---

Leaving the Station 

by Kay Kestner:

Leaving the Station 

“Why are we waiting?,” 
she asked gently at the station. 
A small woman, sitting in 
a line of future passengers 
had just asked a brave question. 
All of them, with tickets in 
hand, had set departure times, 
and fairly accurate schedules 
of arrivals at specific unpleasant 
destinations.  Staring at her  
computer printout of where she 
was headed and when she could  
expect to get there she asked  
again, “Why are we waiting?” 
And added, “None of these trains 
are going where we want to go.” 
A few of those near her nodded 
in silent acceptance, but everyone 
continued to just sit there.  Waiting. 
She looked one last time at the clock  
on the wall.  “I’m late.  I have to 
leave.”  Then, stood up and walked 
out of the train station, away from 
the tracks that went in the wrong 
direction. 

© Written March 31, 2000 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

Nationwide Protests – April 5th, 2025
Click Here to find a rally near you.

Do SOMETHING before we lose EVERYTHING

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your Daily Dose of #Poetry:

---

A Novel Photographer 

by Kay Kestner:

A Novel Photographer 

The aperture whispers 
stories only he can hear. 

With a click, he writes a novel 
that with a glance 
we instantly understand. 


© Written March 30, 2015 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

Nationwide Protests – April 5th, 2025
Click Here to find a rally near you.

Do SOMETHING before we lose EVERYTHING

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your Daily Dose of #Poetry:

---

When the First Friend Dies 

by Kay Kestner:

When the First Friend Dies 

We stepped into the dim space, mid-afternoon,  
eyes pinned to sunlight burned by stained-glass 
abstracts of resurrection. 

It was only by accident. 
Never would we have asked for that moment. 

Our words were lost in the doorway,  
the entrance and exit of all we were and would be. 
We were made instant orphans.  And friends.   
We no longer had the right to be children. 

Death was a destination that took a lifetime to reach,  
or so we believed.  But we were sixteen. 

And so was she. 

We approached her slowly,  
drifting down the aisle as if each of us 
were a virgin bride about to marry the Devil.   
We did not wear white. 

Closer to the wooden box made for her, 
we felt no nearer.  She was the weight we carried.   
On our backs were the dreams of the dead,  
the future of a friend, that, from then on,  
we would only refer to in past tense. 

We stood like a shadow at her side. 

With her flesh the color of a kind ghost,  
she laid in a stillness none of us could possess. 

Where was her breath? 

There was an innocence in all 
the questions we dared not ask. 

We each, in turn, touched her, 
leaving in the cedar coffin  
a piece of who we were. 

Together we turned away as one shadow 
creeping slowly to the back of a church  
that we had never attended before. 

We stared more than we listened, 
and it was only her father’s words 
we heard. 

“So much is left undone.   
We must do what she taught us to do.   
We must live and love to live.” 

His words were twilight to us. 

There was much work  
we would have to do  
in that long night. 


© Written March 12, 2000 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your Daily Dose of #Poetry:

---

History’s Tangle 

by Kay Kestner:

History’s Tangle 

Entwined in history’s books often
left unread, we try to untangle 
a myth from a lie, pulling 
on one at a time.  Often just 
trying to get a finger far enough 
into the loop, hoping to shake 
something loose, knowing we  
might pull the knot tighter.  Trying 
anyway.  Uncertainty.  Centuries 
twisted into some future rage. 
Somewhere in the middle we 
pull out the string that holds the 
pain, and then only the thread
of truth remains. 


© Written March, 1996 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

Nationwide Protests – April 5th, 2025
Click Here to find a rally near you.

Do SOMETHING before we lose EVERYTHING

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your Daily Dose of #Poetry:

---

Keeping Ashes 

by Kay Kestner:

Keeping Ashes 

Believe in the light of this fire, 

fed with our own blood.  We scarred 
ourselves into the sun, wanting 
to be people we were not 
meant to be. 

Take the ashes from the charred 
timbers of our dreams.  Carry 
them with you always. 

And remember 

even if they choose to call  
it failure, we were all 
in it together, and that 
is all that matters.  


© Written March 26, 2000 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

Nationwide Protests – April 5th, 2025
Click Here to find a rally near you.

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your daily dose of poetry:

---

Suicide And Cookies

by Kay Kestner:

Suicide And Cookies 

I bring him suicide and cookies 
at the library of course. 

Tucked away in the quiet reading room 
I find him fighting his usual war 
attacking virgin paper  
making it bleed black veins  
of blood that no one  
but me seems to want to read. 

I hand him a book called First Words 
a collection of the earliest writings 
of contemporary famous authors. 
“It’ll make you want to die,” I whisper 
“when you find out  
that what they wrote  
when they were twelve 
is better than anything  
you’ve ever written.” 

It’s an ugly book that looks 
like it weighs more  
than the concrete boot  
of a drowning man.   

He does not open it 
only eyes it a moment 
then pushes it aside. 

He looks up at me empty. 

“And I made cookies.” 
I tell him with a smile 
a little too loud for the room. 
I open the lid  
on a festive Christmas tin  
in what is now late spring. 
“Chocolate chocolate chip.” 


© March 8, 2015 – Kay (Ann) Kestner
Previously Published in Love & Ensuing Madness, Rat’s Ass Review

---

Do Something for Democracy

Nationwide Protests – April 5th, 2025
Visit https://handsoff2025.com/ to find a rally near you.

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your daily dose of poetry:

---

If Only

by Kay Kestner:

If Only 

Often, it is said, 
we are of those among the shadows,  
day-born creatures traveling 
in the darkness. 

But that cannot be us. 
We are not momentary, 
moody. 

We are fixed in this night. 
Shadows move too quick for us.   
We do not run along with them  
like the dial of a clock,  
like the men that trot  
with umbrellas through  
the rain, carefully avoiding 
the collected puddles. 

Instead, we sit in the blank darkness,  
stationary at the bottom  
of a flooded city. 

If only there were shadows here,  
we would chase them. 


© August 26, 1999 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

Nationwide Protests – April 5th, 2025
Visit https://handsoff2025.com/ to find a rally near you.

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

---

Subscribe today to get your daily dose of poetry:

---

Desert Madness 

by Kay Kestner:

Desert Madness 

I could touch the center of madness inside 
until the silence washed away the fears 
of long-forgotten dreams and all the 
mysteries that plagued me in words of  
useless sermons and tear-broken speech. 
Shaking hands with my disguise of calm  
satisfied delight–my lies–blanket  
fiction to hide the trembling wings of  
a colored cricket soul tangled in a desert 
tumbleweed with dreams of green– 

Oh, the madness beneath the sun, 
fire and then fly– 
touching madness inside. 

© January 1996 – Kay Kestner

---

Do Something for Democracy

Nationwide Protests – April 5th, 2025
Visit https://handsoff2025.com/ to find a rally near you.

The resources on the Do Something for Democracy page give you ways you can take action. Find what fits your comfort level. No one can do it all, but we all can do a little something.

Given the rapid changes to our government in the United States, it’s vitally important for us to speak up. Silence and apathy will only embolden a leader who serves his own agenda – an agenda that undermines democracy both within the US and around the world.

Every small act adds up when we all “do something.” Even if it’s just making one call, once a week to one of your representatives – that adds up!

---

Subscribe today to get your daily dose of poetry: