JOY

06. 03. 2022.


Disorder 
by Joy Division randomly 
plays on my mix, 
as I stare out of the window 
at my mum’s house - 
cracking open a beer, 
whilst the sun outside  
sets on the city 
and another week dissolves.

Footage of war and brutality, 
plays on mute through the TV. 

I think back to the years 
I spent in Spain 
and a Ukrainian girl 
in my Spanish class. 

She was cute and we met 
for coffee and broken Spanish 
several times, before she 
eventually returned to Ukraine. 

But I think of her now, 
with no way of knowing how 
she is and I pray she’s okay - 
as I stare back outside,  
at the sky and birds - 
thinking of the bombs dropping
elsewhere and how it looks so 
unfairly beautiful
and peaceful here, for now. 

Eye (‘I’) Trouble

The nurse trainee administered numbing drops to my left eye only. Three days earlier, I had seen black letters of the Hebrew alphabet outlined in fire in the sky. The room where I now writhed in the exam chair was uncomfortably warm. As the doctor bent over me, I thought I heard him use the vague but sinister phrase “tattooed mind.” An object is never so closely attached to its name that another can’t be found for it. For example, dad. He tried to kill himself three times – well, four if you count the time he fell asleep smoking in bed and woke up with the world in flames. 

HOLD THE MAYO

Life
is a death sentence
written
in the stars
sandwiched
between
eternity and yesterday
on whole wheat.


Previously published by Rat's Ass Review

Wheelman


This run is my swan song, after tonight this smugglings gonna  stop, every headlight in my rearview mirror, looks like it’s a cop, all these kilos in back, they’re weighing heavy on my mind, I can’t get busted, Lord knows I’m too old to do anymore time.

I sleep with one eye open, I keep the other on my gun, I’m the only friend I’ve got, and I’m not sure, he’s one I can trust, you think it’s easy money, it costs far more than it’s worth, profit made from broken lives, blood stained and cursed.

I run on stolen luck and unanswered prayers, no guarantees in this business, my only insurance is some criminal’s word. Everyone with an  alias, my real name I’ve forgot, lost my wife and my  family, and too many friends to count.

Don’t judge this life of mine, don’t put your blame on me, I'm only a Wheelman, Supplying you, you and you with what you need.

A POEM ON THE BEAK OF A BIRD
I am a lonely tree inhabited by birds-
who have learnt to enjoy their songs.
they sing because this is the life they’ve come to know.
I am by a trench & my body is stealing; 
I melt once in a while so I can embrace a new shade & shape.
Tonight, the moon is seated on my balcony. she watches how I struggle to tally the pictures of my life.
I have also learnt to count the stars 
in cumulative frequencies, say the mean is; [summation of stars] by [the wishes in my heart].
I’m wrestling for words to slash this voyage into syllables.
Once in a while, I empty my mind into a pail by the booth.
Today I fade like a leaf fleeing its twig
I grope like one stranded amid a crowd in a strange city; it is part of life.
Getting lost is another way to know a place.
How does a dead man discern the parole of the earth if he has not learned to inhabit the grave?
The longer the ground knows your body, the refiner your bones become.
I heard a poem in my dream
I lay a sheet of paper on my bed & breathed on it; a bird jumps out & sits on my shoulder. & I become a poem on the beak of that bird.

Crippling Fear

My fears are not a car crash
As in they don't come, attack me, and take me by surprise like it did to the a school girl of
Hiroshima on 9th August 1945. 
It's not like a blinding light that puts a blind on my existence's door 
My fears are like waves 
And I am like a dead body on a sea shore
With fish like eyes that seem to have no life
But it cannot close so it takes in all of its share of dread without a semblance of choice. 
The waves wash over me. I just lay indifferent, accepting the inevitable drowning and
resurrection 
Like an unholy baptism in death
Again and again
To end up with a new life. 
I hate circles

with lady macbeth

something                                                                                                       
like a
salty spit
stays in your
mouth
regardless
of swallows:
some uranium
half-lifed
out of bloody
comprehension.
something
sub rosa,
a clue or maybe
a potent source
of fuel
too thick
for burning.
and
that’s the
problem
always
unburdening
itself
heavily
on our ears,
no one believes
a glaring lesion
that
won’t go away. and
in ad hoc night,
you hail a cab
in the 
street
without a trace
of sanity,
without an end
to the sax’s solo,
without one
pathetic pill
to 
at least
make the echoes
softer.
and now,
unable to understand anything old
or hear anything new,
still listening for music
in the sidewalk rain, you are
a hair’s breadth
away
from a simple tragedy.

//Unearthly//

It often happened at dinner
              the whistling, then came the blast
          followed by an expulsion of breath and knowing
      that i have been spared _
but only just

while somewhere, amid cries
               and choking clouds of smokes, there
                       was a scrambling, a barehanded digging
          of pulling out debris, what remained of a sister, a brother
                                                      a grandmother

i wasn't at all surprised
       when father said _
   fate is what is beyond man's control
        in every book, everyone has a chapter, we are
are mere words in pages 

of reincarnated scripts
            we come back again
                                   we are mere characters 
entertaining God
                                       but then I wonder
          
if God was smiling
             or sobbing when our
           breaths was rinsed by death
while we entertain

Queen of Pentacles
 
Forty dollars:
a moderate sum
for front-row seats
to the latest debacle.
 
She bought you with
a couple gin and tonics
and a plate of flesh.
 
Two thousand miles:
a trip you’ll never take
again, because
 
eventually you’d need
to work for love.
 
Your colleague complained 
that you were lazy, left 
tasks for him to do.
 
I can’t clean up
your soiled bathroom,
the moldy shower curtain
hanging upside down to dry,
 
or the fan that 
runs for hours 
to hide all traces of your habits.
 
Your blinds pulled down,
your phone shut off
and never charged.
 
So much I was unwilling
to witness: even as I
rode your bicycle
with its flattened tires
 
and was struck 
by a random motorist
a few blocks from your home.
 
How I wish
I had loved anyone else,
even a stranger in a bar,
 
or someone from the internet
wearing a cowboy hat,
looking for an honest woman.
 
At least I would know
where I stood. But you
slip like rain through crevices,
find the lowest ground,
 
as I swim in 
your leaden puddles,
searching for sky.