"Coming to Your City"

Sky lit
flash

distant shake
thunder bombs

you know
what's happening

odds are
you'll be deaf or dead

trees already filling
birds on every branch

city graffiti
soon blood wet

basements and tunnels
hopeful safety spots

metallic whistling
now overhead

everyone
praying

even by those that don't
believe.

Uncultured

 

A static screen sky

Takes pot shots at our sanity

Tires burn on the horizon—

Its only make believe I know

This construct of words and images.

Bad noise and bile

Back and forth the blame bounces back

Inevitably to your doorstep.

the endless question of why
 
the darkness
surrounds you
 
all alone
 
just the quiet
and your thoughts
 
suicidal
 
sociopathic
 
desperation
 
desolation
 
the endless
question of
why
 
the one question
your father never
could answer
 
the endless desire
to never be like him
 
and it's a subtle glance
into the mirror and you
can clearly see all the
evil you desperately
wanted to avoid
 
you refused to see
him before he died
 
your remaining years
will show you what
you missed

DIORAMA OF DEAD PEOPLE.

I have lived long with dead people
Like colours of cloud

White?
No, dead people.

How did you live with them
Too happy or not living, perhaps both

Why stay with them
I was not alive, anything could have pitied me.

Do you think you're alive now
I don't think I can talk about that.

Why did you leave them
They once, when so small,
Pushed me into mud and ruined my face.

Do you know how they are now
When the river dries,the land becomes road again.

Do you miss them
See, the falling of a leaf is worst than it's death.

Insomnia

Too many sleepless nights
to count—
the dark circles under your
eyes become like
craters over time
which sucks cause
you’re no junky anymore
but you sure as hell
look like one
and in those awfully
slow hours of the nights
you rummage
through childhood memories
just to test
your memory’s span

and don’t let anyone
tell you they remember
as far back as four years old—
there’s no way of knowing
for sure
unless a parent puts a date
to your memory
but then again
parents lie all the time.

I mean you remember your first kiss
but you don’t really know
how young you were exactly
unless it happened in your teenage years
or even later on—
all you remember is her
chewing gum and spitting it
sideways in a vulgar way
before clasping her mouth
against your mouth
and how you thought
you were in love
right there and then.

The first fight
and the taste of blood
like a mouthful of
liquid rust on your tongue

the dog you killed
with negligence
and how fast a corpse
becomes stiff

the brain matter
you came across
on a street someone
was shot dead on
and how you almost
scooped it up
thinking it was mince for cooking
back then in a time
of civil war in a white
third world country

your dead father’s face
who was always absent
and who can now
only be visited upon
in retrospect

you browse your memories
almost teary-eyed
30 years old now
sitting by the window
unwillingly admitting to yourself
that the absence of a father
and a long string of bad stepfathers
might have something to do
with how fucked up you are

realizing for the first time
amongst other things
that a ticking clock
can sound deafening
when you’re alone

there’s no way in hell
you won’t be humbled by life
and if it hasn’t happened yet for you
it will happen soon enough

Knitted Warmth

Part of the story lands in gaps
Somedays, a whirlwind
Of silhouettes
Mischievous, a creative zeal.
Unbuttoning the core
Is a spinning wheel
Onion like, wearing frames in
Layers.

The humidity feeds
the sea fogged town
The night bugs keep
Twinkling
The sound feels warm
A finicky sensation
Buzzing each nerve
In unison-
A familiar nocturnal path.

There is no way to escape
What is my very own
I cannot just turn away
From looking
My mirror self, she keeps
The night window open.

When I keep my
Pawn in the game alive
I know it is small
But it pierces my own.
After closing the buttons one make
A warm embrace
Within, with my core
The inner furnishings longing
To look within
The mirror, a playful tapestry.

My hooded gaze
Needs a warm coat
The finished product is
A knitted muffler
Each intricate day
That
We jump out of the pawn
And at midnight
Look tomorrow's sun
Within our knitted warmth.

Second Thoughts

I see the bug on the floor.
First impulse is to step on it,
Crush the vile creature.
Then, second thoughts of
Rebirth and reincarnation.
Could this actually be the
New life form of a friend?
A relative?  My mother?
Or, on the other hand,
Maybe it’s the asshole bully
From my youth, or, ahem,
Mrs Robinson, my second
Grade teacher who gave
Me Hell every school day.
I think she dented the back
Of my head with multiple
Backhands with the ruler.
Could be that crazy neighbor
Who stole and ate my dog,
Worms and all, last summer.
“Damn you!”  I cried as I
Heavy-boot smashed the
Wretched living entity.
“Damn you all to Hell!”
But wait…could this be
My old drinking buddy
From Minneapolis?
“Brother Bain is that you?
Sorry, Jerry.  Damn, your
Guts are all over the place.”

Bulgarians


are a bunch of

idiots

assholes

and faggots

and you can call me

a homophobe

if you want to

I’ve been called worse

my childhood lasted

less

than the life

of a yellow daffodil

when the cold

suddenly returned

so do anything

you want

it’s already been done


fuck you.

RAW HIGHWAY
for Ravi

I’ve been walking inexact dimensions, expanding towards
odiferous sunsets, bedazzled by the contours of skin and sin
driving my bones towards shadowed balconies since time
was invented.

This morning you asked me if I believe in God?
Me, an old mammal daddy, spouting whale song and bullshit
between bites of egg and gulps of black coffee.
Yes Rav, I believe the divine intelligences are just like you
and me. They have no idea what they’re doing and they too
are consumed with joy and terror.

We are cursed prophets inhabited by maps of Vietnam..
The word sighs an ancient shadow, breathes the flesh and
bone of first love. Fish tracks on our breath. The scent of
roses drained blue by time.

My love rocks you in the luminous arms of the sea.
Be bedazzled son, wear rainbows in your hair. We dance
to the eternal rhythms of life-death-mystery-love-terror.
Heirs to dolphin joy.

In a circle

At times, I try to cling to acuity
But there comes motions through thoughts,
Beating the love of adagio out of me, and a calamari,
For the obscure things are yet to be enmeshed.

Life is a dead metaphor; not ready for a cathartic canvas.
I am always seeing birds perching incessantly,
On bits of dried grass to make their tattered nests.
Everyone writes about grief,
Grief too is a cliché that haven’t halt salivating,
Like a mucus on the tongues of mothers,
As well as children, lovers, birds, counties; everything.

Everyone has a blue sky above their heads.
Termites never stopped their pinching on sand,
Purposely to make a magnificent hill for themselves.

Human races helter-skelter after more than you can list,
Glasses, bricks and lands to project a house.
Isn’t life overused?

Everyday, the moon reinstates itself with the sun,
To extract another scene to be called a day.
Animals reproduces to oblige hungry stomachs,
Time fades as that old, slack and wrinkled fabric.

Grandma dies, father comes home drunk, Mother cries,
We re-paint the same grief everyday.
Shedding tears for pains that has catapulted our lives,
Hmm… the circular geometry it seizes us to stretch.

We bade good-byes, singing dirges too often
And had become a body for the dirges too.