poetry – Page 39 – Poétique

Chastise Me

Knock knock bang bang
We come clanging at your gate
Said the imperial voices
Every astronomical element
Standing at your corners
Unsure if yet to open the door to see

The more that we dug in
The closer we got to the core
It was like saying it’s not you
He didn’t like you because you are
Gentle avid and kind

Several castigates moved into
An empty room to decide the eerie fate
Of what was once an alarmingly
Charming fellow who had been
Bent over a knee or two and upbraided

Tiny drops of water with mirror like
Reflections told the story he couldn’t see
In his obsidian balled future
What to behold the light and dark
In one glance was to be also
Awake and asleep simultaneously

Though there was no excuse for the walls
Or the invisible prison bars that
Castrated the milky fogged portal in a
Breathing space around him
There was also an answer to why
He could feel it peeling away
At his spirit euphemistically speaking in tongues

If they want what you have
But they don’t understand what it is
No one will be able to confiscate it
However certain devices to stretch
The origin out of you might appear

All the solutions for salutary guidance
Hovered overhead while the eclipse
Of his karmic gifts rattled the sky
Like ancient maracas from a colonial
Africa that held the key to forbearing
A doorway to a path that persisted
Not to continue to create contention
By walking towards the obvious
Fateful intersections of demise
Dressed in colorful garlands attracting
Footsteps towards the imperceptible plank
Instead to scatter mythological roses
On the ground in the opposite direction

So he turned around

Imaginare

In love with the imaginary
Making the most love to anybody
I don’t even know…
I could swelter you with
Hot momentary pulsating
Delicious majestic lust
No harbor for hate
To dock our boats in

Standing in the traffic of a busy sidewalk
I plaster myself against the concrete wall
Behind me stands a bigger building
For stowing people away when they need
Rest and rejuvenation in their condos
Hardly affordable these days
What a lifestyle planted next to the water
People walking around barefoot
With sand on the bottoms of their feet
You could journey from here and achieve
That shoreline destination with ease

All the accents traveling around his head
Korean and Chinese spoken in the same
Breath from breakfast to sock shops
Fiery red hair passes by like an emblem
Something should be signaling his legs
To follow that embered light but he doesn’t know
Them at all and it isn’t his neighbor
But to make acquaintances would be nice

The fallen limbs from two days of rain
Are reminiscent of the unused well of
Love that’s been swallowed whole
Useless arms unclaimed and flailessly
Hanging around wanting to be useful
Like the branch that smacked down against
Raw concrete was to its tree prior

So many new faces and no one to
Be concerned about meeting who he
Hasn’t yet nor seen; no facial recognition
The ground is sloped and the air
Is calm here stands a quiet moment in a big
City this is a treasure like the fantasy
Hunt that keeps dragging his eyes
Into the cars from across the street
Enamourer to the unknown aphrodisia

Returner

I am the harbinger
For those around me I seek the message
To return with what happens outside
Of the village we live in Mon Dieu,
Je suis vieux, je commence à être aigri !
Says the man who cannot stay up
Past midnight or wakes up with
A dehydrated tongue and warm brain
Will he be lenient with himself he asks?
A debt of treason to behold yourself
On the shadows of your heart
Without the clever memory
Of recalling that we are not only
Our thoughts from today
We are also our memories of tomorrow
I woke up yesterday believing
There was one way to do things
But today feels like the body is
Vibrating at a different frequency
How are we surviving and in what color?

Curiously displaced he pushed his way
Out of the sadness and nothingness
Into the reason for continuing on
Without the pressure of something
Coming up behind him
Was it an echo effect of a past lover
Of the silhouette of some other
Emotion that was hanging in the air
From time spent in old bars
That had seen the life of writers like
Kerouac and Ginsberg?
If their ghosts were keeping him company
There was no need to disinvite them
Some say it was only the sun casting
Shadows on his back before the return

Resistance

Stubborn body obstinate soul
What happens when we don’t
Want to budge are we resisting
Or listening to our best selves
Frozen feet no need to meet
Someone in a rendezvous
If the destination doesn’t appeal
What’s the point of showing up
For bad dough when there’s
Delicious bread to be had
In some other place on some
Other occasion in the listless abyss

Phones ringing should be unplugged
Or at least turned down so that the
Sound isn’t trying to bait us over and out
Who’s calling? I don’t remember
Making a phone date or even
Giving out my number huh?
Someone has it but when did they get it?
Funny how they always find you…

One might think the goal was isolation
When really the concept is a peaceful moment
He wasn’t trying to get away from humanity
Only to break free from the reality
That there was nowhere to go where
Someone wasn’t anymore
That’s what they said without saying
Anything at all and the tender thing was
Always waiting for the best one
Even though there was no regard for
His feelings before or after
We didn’t have to drag it out thankfully
The right one comes along when it does
Something about letting sleeping dogs lie

Junkyard Heart

People maurading through the streets
Every dance floor in the city
Has seen his feet seagulls cry
In morning light and ferris wheels
Are tempting stories of making out

We aren’t going anywhere
But we aren’t children anymore
The water is only one hundred
Feet away and the dream of
Remembering how to kiss a stranger
Is an easy one to stake

In the tree there were so many birds
Small and large tiny ones too
I was chasing insects up the bark
To feed them all when I noticed
That their size was comparable to
Some of the smallest fledglings
At first I was nervous that
The bugs might score but then
I witnessed the birds enjoying one bite
After the other they were winning!
Had it never occurred to me
However that everyone needs to eat?

The wharf was kind of perfect on
Mornings like these observing
All the wildlife filling up their gullets
With a cool drink of rainwater
While nothing stopped the harbor,
Ever pressing courageous sensitivity
Was showing up at every corner of his heart
Starting from the north point

There was evidence of a struggle inside
But the gentleman driving the vessel
Hadn’t quite given up on the want for
And desire to abridge his destiny in love
When his brain came to it was
A waking life of friendly misbehaving
That enticed a little memory of adventure
Something he never quite gave up on
But somehow lost sight of in his masonry
To build a safe home inside his heart

Ducks

He was forgetting because
Change was pretty stupid
After finding the formula
And being perpetually bad at math

No one stopped to ask him
How things were coming along
Everything looked so put together
Peering in from the outside
There was no need to wonder
If it was working just how he did it

Maintaining a smile while
Keeping the peace he had
Perfected his ability to find reverie
Stepping around, not beyond bounds
As well careful not to mince words

No more questions to others
About how people end up so guarded
Now that he was older the reason
Made presently obvious
Yawning was even a pleasure

He could see the grass crawling
Up in between the cracks of the sidewalk
It felt like nature was winning
In some way though the human intrusion
Was grossly apparent

No lobbying for amnesty
Just a brush on a canvas
Chatter from any bird
A duck’s quackery
Could answer his call
In the lifelike pond he faired

Morocco

Tenaciously pulling at the heart
You can hear the echoes of
An unresolved clash
And then the all encompassing
Hammer comes down
Like a steel blanket
Over his head

When the rules start changing
The arrow seems strategically pointed
Always at him even though the intention
Is for everyone it feels very personal
But the boundaries are for everyone

The art of ignoring is a daily practice
Breathe in, breathe out, ignore
Don’t do this, don’t do that, ignore

It’s like there’s a timeline ticking
Just as the months of the seasons
Go round and someone realizes
We haven’t issued any new warrants
In awhile or we haven’t exercised
Our rights to relay innocuous notices
For quite some time let’s annoy them

Meanwhile the neighborhood is
Actually getting worse and the trash
Keeps accumulating but the focus
Hangs on policies and procedures

His intentions turned to assume that none of it
Was for him though the best thing to do
Always seemed to comply that’s why
Writing it out and licking a stamp
Behaved in such a necessary manner

Not like living in Morocco where
Almost no one cared about what he was doing
How to be living, just that you are
How to be breathing, just that you are
Here in America we are free to live
Under someone else’s tirade
Under someone else’s laws
Understanding all the rules
More threatening paperwork

It’s a brigade on the way to ignore
If we wait long enough
Something else will clamber

The pushback is to exist

Absence

We search for meaning in words
The tongue touches the ground
He thinks he understands
Human emotion

Many winds pass into
His mind like answers
To questions he has
Been too afraid to ask

Salt tastes bitter
If the wrong ingredient persists
No one controls the
Rapidity of the equator

Sensory overload is
Fuzzy like the bellies of monkeys

Strings

You use your heart to decide
Not the argumentative brain
My heart math says the most
Meaningful color is blue but
Even mavi is empty if the
Interpretation leaves a blank space
On the vertical line
We’re sliding down
All the way into the
Definition of gravity rock bottom

Lights dangling half broken bulbs

What clarity lives on an
Open counter where the drinks are
Being served but not enjoyed
More questions than answers
I smile at the catechism

Interrogatory harmonium
We wish for light years to become
One trip to the corner market

This will be the last time
Maybe the change is the price we pay

Roadtrip

Everyone has to be awake
In a unique way in traffic
A collective consciousness of
Being aware as an orchestra might be

I noticed the little red trees
Sparingly they were positioned on the
Background of a hill that reminded
Me of a roadtrip I took once
But the weather was not the same

I’m sorry that I couldn’t stand your heat
In many ways we were perfectly suited
Such a familiar face I can almost see
You everywhere like some anti dismal
Gesture of a once treasured canvas
Awww, suppose we always ache
For the sweet natured side!

It wasn’t like I’d never heard a woman yell before
More so the act was something I was
Trying to escape or run away from
I’m not sure that I intended to completely
Isolating myself from you; but my body
Always knew there was no guard
From a woman who screamed like that
Tantrums for adults one could say

In the resistance the push back was
A bit more like attempting to sing
Something I’d been practicing as a soloist
To a woman who was truly unable to
Appreciate my identity so the voice
actually fell flat and she mocked me
A bit by not staying to share her opinion

Really trying to do your best is
A bit like purposefully failing yourself
Without actually knowing that you
Might have been better off with
A performance that was worth
Much less in your mind
A note I wrote down permanently
On the inside for safekeeping

A little of this and a little of that
Built up overtime and though I
Felt resistant to the storm at times
I had only myself to keep me warm
Or take the brunt of dissolution

What a beautiful shame to be
Surrounded by such adversity and
To also misunderstand its love
I always said thunderbolts and lightning
Were better for the theater of heaven
And dramatic bitching so much
More divine to take in on a silver screen

Even though she was on edge
Until we got home;
Car rides weren’t completely unbearable
But they sure did leave a mark