Jeremy C Kester

3 poems

“Cut Away”

Life is a blade
Cutting
Carving
Slicing at the soul
An opportunity
To bring what
Isn’t wanted
To be taken
Away
By blade
Making better
Humanity
Within a single
Being
If we let
The knife cut
Like the skilled
Chef
Preparing a meal
For whatever
Is to come

“Mud”

Keep showing up to the field
To fight a foe I cannot best
Face flattened in mud and sweat
I can only think but to give up
As I push myself back up to stand
Again I try and find my foe victorious
Again I try and succumb to failure
Yet again I will try
It doesn’t matter the losses stacked
Endless humiliating failures
To give up will mean the end
Of dreams I cannot let go
Again I try even if failure stays
Again I try
Again I try

“Swipe”

What is the value here
Of this device
Of this divisiveness
It helps create
Connection by disconnection
A tool too easy
To lose ourselves
Reality gone with a swipe
Fix after fix
Right as it wears off
More pixels to go against
Dreams to attend to
Goals to work towards
Instead our eyes absorb
Into a world void
Of meaning or purpose
Giving our soul away
For the opportunity of a swipe

Photo and words copyright © 2025 by Jeremy C Kester – all rights reserved.
Note: this is also cross-posted to Poetically Unlicensed on Substack.

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